Dreamspinner by Lynn Kurland Page B

her shoulders. She passed the tall, dark-haired man who had paid for her passage, but he didn’t look at her, and she didn’t attempt further speech with him. One of his hands was resting against the railing, but the other was holding on to the throat of his cloak, as if he didn’t want his hood blowing back and revealing more than it had before.
    She understood and hoped he would take her thanks as payment for his generosity. She supposed that in time she would find her feet steady beneath her, grow accustomed to the freedom she would soon be enjoying, and then she would repay the kindness of both Paien of Allerdale and the stranger before her.
    But first, her own life, which would be much better seen to with a cloak and boots at her disposal. She followed the captain, hoping sincerely that whatever it was he had for her to sew would be something she and her straight seams could manage.

T hree

    R ùnach stood at the railing as Burke’s ship limped into port, three days later than intended. That certainly wasn’t the captain’s fault; the weather had been absolutely terrible. If he hadn’t had such a strong stomach, he might have spent his share of time along with the other passengers, heaving his guts out over the railing. Instead, he had simply found a spot above decks where he was out of the way of most of the weather and passed the time contemplating the irony of sailing not to Bere but to Sgioba as a way to ease his sense of haste. Given how much time the weather had cost them, it would have been quicker to simply sail to Bere, then cross the rest of the island on foot.
    He supposed he could have avoided the whole thing by flying from Lake Cladach, but he had purposely avoided that. He had left his grandfather’s house on his own two feet, because he had wanted to make a point of leaving behind in a very pedestrian fashion all things magical and beautiful. He had no intention of discontinuing the practice now.
    Iteach had walked along behind him obediently for a goodly part of that first night, stood guard over him whilst he slept, then apparently grown bored with it all. Rùnach had lost count of the shapes the beast had taken as he himself had simply continued on his way.
    He had paused just outside Istaur and waited until his horse had resumed his own shape and was paying him a decent bit of attention so he could come to some sort of understanding with him. He had made it clear that he would continue on toward Gobhann via ship and his horse would, well, his horse would do as he bloody well pleased, apparently. Iteach had tossed his head at the suggestion that he change himself into something that might fit into a pocket, replaced his equine self with a remarkably fine-looking hummingbird, then flitted off. Rùnach had honestly had no idea whether or not he would ever see him again.
    He watched idly as seagulls flapped lazily alongside the ship as it slowed, wondering what it would feel like to fly again. He could remember with perfect clarity the last time he’d flown. It had been with his brother, Gille—a notoriously inventive shapechanger—and their flight against the canopy of heaven had lasted well into the wee hours of the morning. He remembered thinking at the time that that sort of flight might not happen again for a bit. It was a sad testament to his arrogance that it had never occurred to him that that flight might not happen again
ever
.
    “Excuse me, sir,” a young voice warbled beside him, “but there is a bird sitting on your larboard side.”
    Rùnach looked to his left and was greeted by the sight of a smirking seagull. He lifted an eyebrow at it and had an ear-piercing call as his reward.
    “Lianaich preserve us,” the lad breathed.
    Rùnach blinked. “Who?”
    “Lianaich,” the lad said, looking at Rùnach as if he had grave doubts about his intelligence. “Guardian of all honest sailors. She was the daughter of Seòladair, the great sea captain who sailed into the mists of