The half hour that followed was painful. They soon exhausted the weather as a topic of conversation. Nora tried to segue into a discussion of weather magic, but Dorneng answered her questions with the blandest of generalities. Either he had no interest in the subject or he did not take hers seriously, or both. What he really wanted to discuss, it gradually became clear, was Nora’s experiences with the Faitoren.
That wouldn’t be so bad, Nora thought, except that Dorneng wouldn’t come out and ask his questions directly. He kept circling around the subject with ponderous tact, which Nora first found funny and then annoying. When he said, “I have heard that the Faitoren lure young women with jewelry,” and looked at her in a searching way, Nora finally sighed with exasperation.
“Look,” she said, spreading the fingers of her left hand, “if you’re so interested in Faitoren jewelry—this is a Faitoren ring.”
Dorneng stared at her hand as though he had never seen a ring before. “Why are you still wearing it?”
“Because I can’t get it off! Aruendiel can’t get it off, Hirizjahkinis can’t—no one can.” Even Hirgus Ext had had a try. “It’s enchanted to my finger. You want some Faitoren magic to study—go right ahead.”
Dorneng looked sincerely happy. “Thank you,” he said warmly, and grabbing Nora’s hand, he bent over it until his eyes were only inches from the ring.
Several minutes passed. Nora stared down at the meandering white part in Dorneng’s rather sticky-looking brown hair. Was it really necessary to hold her hand that tightly? His palm felt so damp she thought the ring might just slide off her finger when he released her.
Dorneng looked up, biting his lip. “Would you like me to try to remove it?”
“Please,” Nora said, with a shrug that she hoped did not convey too eloquently her total lack of any expectation of success.
Dorneng reached into his tunic and pulled out a small, oblong silver object, looking much like the pen that a man in Nora’s world might take from inside his jacket. He rolled the cylinder between his palms with some care, then held it in front of his face. The top portion slowly lengthened, thinning in the process, and bent itself into a hook.
“What is that?” Nora asked.
“It’s called an Eafroinios key,” Dorneng said with some pride. “It’s for removing spells.”
Dorneng got some points for originality: This would be a new way of failing to remove the ring. “Well, no one has tried one of those before.”
“They’re very rare.”
Dorneng leaned forward and tried to hook the ring with the key, with the evident aim of pulling it off Nora’s finger. Immediately it was clear that the hooked end was too narrow. With a little scowl, Dorneng drew the key back and squinted at the bent tip for half a minute, until the metal widened into a shallower curve. Then he went back to the ring. This time, the mouth of the hook slid loosely around the gold band. Dorneng looked up at Nora and smiled hopefully. She gave him a mechanical smile in return, as the tip of the Eafroinios key dug painfully into her skin.
Dorneng tugged on the key, trying to guide the ring over the first joint of Nora’s finger. The ring did not budge. He pulled harder.
“Well,” Nora said. “Nice try.”
“I’m sure this will work, though,” Dorneng said quickly. “This is a—a very powerful tool. Let me try here.” He inserted the hook at another spot on the ring’s curved edge and yanked again, but with no better results. Changing the angle at which he held the key did not help, either. When Dorneng resorted to using the hook as a sort of lever, jamming it through the ring and twisting it as though he could snap the gold band, Nora finally protested.
“That
“It has to work, though,” Dorneng said, looking flushed, with an edge of troubled excitement in his voice. For a moment, she was afraid he might burst into tears.
“I told you, no one has been able to get this damned ring off.” Pulling her hand away, Nora was relieved to see, over Dorneng’s shoulder, Aruendiel’s dark-clad figure slice though the tower wall. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Let me try again,” Dorneng said, snatching for Nora’s hand. She tucked it behind her back.
“Aruendiel,” Nora said loudly, “Dorneng has, very kindly, tried to remove the Faitoren ring for me.”
Aruendiel’s footsteps quickened by a fraction. When he reached them, he looked down at Dorneng for a moment, and then at the hand that Nora was replacing in her lap. The pause before he spoke was just a beat too long to be absolutely polite. “I don’t recall giving you permission to practice magic on Mistress Nora,” he said to Dorneng.
Dorneng began to say something about wishing to be of service to the lady and hoping to repay Lord Aruendiel’s hospitality. A perfectly fine sentiment but Dorneng could not seem to find a way to express it succinctly. “I told him he could,” Nora said abruptly, interrupting. “He has something called an Eafroinios key. He was trying it out.”
Aruendiel’s dark eyebrows angled sharply. To Dorneng, he said: “And where did you get an Eafroinios key?”
Dorneng at first seemed inclined to equivocate, but then said: “From the wizard Kelerus Ruenc. He is selling off his collection.”
“I never heard he had an Eafroinios key.”
“He kept it quiet, mostly. I found out about it by a lucky chance.” An element of boastfulness came back into Dorneng’s voice.
“Anyway, it didn’t work on the ring,” Nora said.
Aruendiel seemed both unsurprised and—Nora thought—somewhat amused at the news of Dorneng’s failure. He sat down with an unhurried air and extended his hand to Dorneng. “Let me see it.” After a second’s hesitation, Dorneng handed him the key. Aruendiel weighed the small silver tool in his hand for a moment, then held it up to inspect the hook that Dorneng had fashioned. He turned it back and forth, looking at it from different angles, and ran an exploratory finger over the curved metal. His face brightened slightly with an expression of pleased concentration.
“It is the real thing,” Aruendiel said. “I congratulate you on your acquisition, Dorneng. There have been many, many false Eafroinios keys circulated. The magician Eafroinios the Fearful finished fewer than a dozen,” he said, glancing at Nora. “Silver has some limited antimagical properties to begin with, and then he literally trained the metal, day and night for years, to intensify those qualities.” Delicately, Aruendiel continued to stroke the hooked end, pausing every so often as though to admire the instrument. “Eafroinios was almost certainly mad. No one else has ever had the patience to replicate his effort. But the amulets he made can counter a wide range of spells. They require some skill to use properly, of course.
“Mistress Nora, your hand, please. The one with the ring.”
Feeling mild curiosity, Nora laid her left hand on the tabletop, fingers fanned, and leaned her chin on her right hand to watch what developed.
Deftly, as easily as he might skewer a piece of meat at dinner, Aruendiel hooked the tip of the Eafroinios key around the ring. The curved tip fit perfectly, pinching the gold band so tightly that hook and ring almost seemed welded together. He gave the key a long, steady pull.
Something was different this time—Nora could tell before the ring slid over the first joint of her finger. Whatever had been holding the ring in place had suddenly, finally let go. Still, she watched the ring bump along the length of her finger with a sense of unreality. It looked like any ordinary gold ring as it came off her fingertip, still held in the grip of the Eafroinios key.
“It’s gone,” she said wonderingly. “It’s
Aruendiel put key and ring carefully on the table and then looked at Nora, his smile lifting like a kite tossed by the wind. He looked happier than solving a difficult magical problem—even succeeding where Dorneng had failed—could account for. “Yes, it’s gone,” he repeated.
Dorneng uttered an uncertain sound, but when she glanced at him, he was beaming. “Good work, my lord!” he said. “Beautiful work!” He clapped Nora awkwardly on the shoulder.
“After all this time,” Nora said. She clenched her hand into a fist, then spread her fingers again, admiring their splendid nakedness. “Thank you—
