Masques s-1 Read online

  Speaking had been a mistake. The dust of the road set her coughing. He stopped, turning his head so he could watch her out of one dark eye.

  When she could talk again she met his gaze and didn’t like the worry in it. She was fine. “You got rooked if you paid very much; any healer worth his fee would have taken care of the ribs and cough, too.”

  Wolf twitched his ears and said in an odd tone, even for him, “He didn’t have enough time to do much. Even if there had been the time, I wouldn’t have trusted him to do more than what was absolutely necessary—he . . . didn’t have the training.”

  Aralorn had an inkling that she should be paying more attention to the way he phrased his explanation, but she was in too much misery between her ribs and her cough to do much more than feel sorry for herself.

  Then she had it. The conviction when she’d first heard his voice after waking alone in the little camp he’d set up. Of course Wolf had gotten her out and fixed her eyes so she could see.

  But Wolf was a human mage. Son of the ae’Magi. And human mages might be okay at some aspects of healing—like putting broken bones together. But no human mage could have dealt with what had been done to her eyes.

  * * *

  Wolf kept to a walk, trying to make the ride as smooth as possible for her. He could discern that she was in a lot of pain by the way her hands shook in his mane when she coughed, but she made light of it when he questioned her. As the day progressed, she leaned wearily against his neck and coughed more often.

  Worse, after that one, brief conversation, she’d quit talking. Aralorn always talked.

  He continued until he could stand it no more, then he called a halt at a likely camping area, far from the main thoroughfares and out of sight of the trail they’d been following. As soon as he stopped, before he could kneel to make things easier, Aralorn slid off him, then kept sliding until her rump hit the ground. She waved off his concern, breathing through her nose, her mouth pinched.

  Wolf regained his human form, then turned his attention to making a cushion of evergreen boughs and covering the result with the blankets, keeping a weather eye on his charge. By the time he finished, Aralorn was on her feet again—though, he thought, not for long.

  “I’m moving like an old woman,” she complained, walking toward the bed he’d made. “All I need is a cane.”

  She let him help her lie down and was asleep, he judged, before her eyes had a chance to close.

  While Aralorn slept, Wolf stood watch.

  * * *

  The night was peaceful, she thought, except for when she was coughing. It got so bad toward the morning that she finally gave up resting and stood up. When she would have reached for the blankets to start folding them, Wolf set her firmly down on the ground with a growl that would have done credit to his wolf form and finished erasing all traces of their presence.

  Dawn’s light had barely begun to show before they were on their way.

  Once she was sitting up rather than lying down, Aralorn’s coughing mercifully eased. It helped that today they were cutting directly through the woods, which were thinned by the higher altitude. There was no trail dust to exacerbate the problem. When her modest herb lore identified some beggersblessing on the side of the road, she made Wolf stop so she could pick a bunch. With a double handful of the leaves stuffed in her pocket and a wad of them under her tongue, she could even look at the day’s journey with some equanimity.

  The narcotic alleviated the pain of her ribs and some of the coughing, although it did make it a little more difficult to stay on Wolf’s back as it interfered with her equilibrium. Several times, only Wolf’s quick footwork kept her from falling off.

  * * *

  Wolf decided that the giggling was something he could do without but found that, on the whole, he preferred it to her silent pain. When they stopped, Wolf took a good look at Aralorn, pale and dark-eyed from the drug she’d been using. She’d refused food, because beggersblessing would make her sick if she ate while under its influence.

  The end result, he judged, was that she was weaker than she’d been when they started that morning. He had not transported them by magic because he was afraid that his father would be able to track them and find where they went. But if they continued at this donkey’s pace, it was even odds whether his father would find them before she got too sick to ride at all.

  He donned his human form once again, with his scars, and after a moment’s thought added the silver mask. It was a difficult spell, and without the mask and scars, he was uneasy. He didn’t need anything distracting him.

  “Wolf?” she asked.

  “We’re taking another way back,” he told her, lifting her into his arms—and took them into the Northlands.

  Transporting people by magic was difficult enough that most mages preferred travel on horseback or coach rather than by magic, even in the spring, when the roads were nothing more than a giant mud puddle. Transporting someone into the Northlands, where human magic had a tendency to go awry, was madness, but he aimed for the cave where he had brought the merchant the day Aralorn had joined them. That would leave them with only one day’s ride to the camp and only a few miles to travel before the ae’Magi’s magic would be hampered if he found out where they had gone.

  Concentrating on the shallow cave, he pulled them to it, but something caught them and jerked them on with enough force to stun Wolf momentarily . . .

  He landed on his knees in darkness on a hard stone floor. His instinctive light spell was too bright, and he had to tone it down.

  He was in the cave that housed his library.

  Warily, he stood up and looked around—with his eyes and his magic. Aside from the irregular oddness that had become a familiar part of working his magic in the Northlands, nothing seemed wrong.

  He laid her on the padded couch and pulled his cloak over her. It would only take him a minute to let Myr know he was back.

  * * *

  In the castle of the Archmage, the ae’Magi sat gently drumming his fingers on the burled wood of his desk. He was not in the best of moods, having tracked an intruder from castle to hold trying to discover who would be foolhardy enough to trespass and powerful enough to get away with it.

  And now he knew who it had been—and what he’d been looking for.

  The room that he occupied was covered in finely woven carpets. Great beveled windows lined the outside wall behind the desk, bathing the room with a warm golden glow. On the opposite wall was a large, ornate fireplace that sat empty in deference to the warmth of late summer. In front of the fireplace, the pretty blond girl who was his newest pet combed her hair and looked at the floor.

  She trembled a bit. A month as his leman had made her sensitive to his mood, which was, he admitted, quite vile at the moment.

  * * *

  Facing the desk was one of the dungeon guards, who held his cap deferentially in his hand. He spoke in the low tones that were correct for addressing someone in a position so much higher than his own. Though he was properly motionless, the ae’Magi could tell that his continued silence was making the man nervous. As it should. As it should.

  Finally, the ae’Magi felt he could control himself enough to speak. “You saw Cain take one of the female prisoners? Several nights ago.”

  “Yes, Lord.” The guardsman relaxed as soon as the ae’Magi spoke. “I remembered him from when he lived here, but I didn’t realize who it was until he’d already gone. Last time I saw him, he were all scarred up, but I ’membered meself when he were a tyke he looked a lot like you, sire.”

  “And why did it take you so long to report this?”

  “You weren’t here, sire.”

  “I see.” The ae’Magi felt uncouth rage coil in his belly. Cain had been here, here. “Which prisoner did he take?”

  As if he had to ask. Dead, she’d told him. Cain was dead. And he’d believed her—so much so that when he found someone sneaking around in his territories, he’d never even considered it might be
Cain.

  “That woman Lord Kisrah brought in, sir.”

  There was a darned patch on the guardsman’s shoulder. It had been so well done that the ae’Magi hadn’t noticed it until he got closer. He would see to it that the guardsmen’s uniforms were inspected and replaced when necessary. No one in his employ should wear a darned uniform.

  This guardsman, the ae’Magi thought, enjoying himself despite his anger, wouldn’t be needing a new uniform ever again. He took his time.

  “Clean up the dust and leave me.”

  Shuddering, the sixteen-year-old silk merchant’s daughter swept the ashes of the guard into the little shovel that was kept near the fireplace. She did a thorough job of it but wasted no time.

  After she had gone, he sat and ran his finger around one of the burls on his desk.

  “I had him,” he said out loud. “I had the bait, and he came—but I lost my chance. I should have felt it, should have known she was something more.” He thought about the woman. What had been so special about her that would attract his son?

  Moodily, he took the stopper off the crystal decanter that sat on a corner of his desk and poured amber wine in a glass. He held it up to the light and swirled the liquid, admiring the fine gold color—the same shade as Cain’s eyes. He tipped the glass and drank it dry, wiping his mouth with his wrist.

  “There are, however, some compensations, my son. I know that you are actively working against me. You cannot remain invisible if you want to move to attack, and I will find you. The woman is the key.”

  He whispered a minor summoning spell and waited only a short time before he was answered by a knock on the door. At his call, the Uriah who had once been a Sianim mercenary entered the study. The mercenaries had made fine Uriah. They were lasting longer than the ones he made from peasants. This one might last years rather than months. The old wizards had done better—theirs were still functioning though they had been created in the Wizard Wars.

  He wished the second half of that book hadn’t been destroyed. He’d been looking for another copy of it for years, but he feared that there were no more.

  “You’re that one who told me that you were familiar with the woman you took from Myr’s campsite?” the ae’Magi asked.

  The Uriah bowed his head in assent.

  “Tell me about her. What is her name? Where do you know her from?”

  Another problem with the Uriah, besides longevity, the ae’Magi had found, was that communication was not all that it could be. Information could only be gotten with detailed questions, and even then a vital fact could be left out. They were good soldiers but not good scouts or spies.

  “Aralorn. I knew her in Sianim,” it replied.

  Sianim. Had his problem spread beyond Reth?

  “What did she do in Sianim?”

  The Uriah shrugged carelessly. “She taught quarterstaff and halfstaff. She did some work for Ren, the Spymaster, I don’t know how much.”

  “She worked as a spy?” The ae’Magi pounced on it.

  “Ren the Mouse doesn’t formalize much. He assigns whoever he thinks will be useful. From the number of her unexplained comings and goings, she worked for him more often than most.”

  “Tell me more about her.”

  “She is good with disguises and with languages. She can blend in anywhere, but I think she used to be Rethian.” The Uriah smiled. “Not much use with a sword.”

  He’d liked her, the ae’Magi thought. The man had liked her. The Uriah was nothing more than a hungry beast, but he remembered what the man had known.

  And then the Uriah said, “Ran around with a damned big wolf. Found him in the Northlands and took him home.”

  “A wolf?” The ae’Magi frowned.

  “Those yellow eyes made everyone jumpy,” the Uriah said.

  The ae’Magi remembered abruptly that he’d recently had another escape from his castle. The girl had been aided by a wolf—or wolf pack—that had killed a handful of the ae’Magi’s Uriah, who had inexplicably gone after it rather than after the girl they’d been ordered to chase.

  He tried to remember what this Aralorn had looked like—surely he’d have noticed if she were as exotic as his Northland beauty.

  “Describe her to me.”

  “She is short and pale-skinned even with a tan. Brown hair, blue-green eyes. Sturdily built. She moves fast.”

  Not her, then, but still . . . green eyes. He’d bought that slave because she had gray-green eyes, shapeshifter eyes. Blue-green, gray-green—two names for the same color.

  “You say she was good with disguises?”

  * * *

  Aralorn was too tired to wake up when the covering was pulled back, letting the cool air sweep over her warm body. She moaned when gentle hands probed her ribs, but felt no urgent need to open her eyes. She heard a soft sound of dismay as her hands were unwrapped. A touch on her forehead sent her back into sleep.

  It was the sound of voices that woke her the second time, a few minutes later, much more alert. The nausea that was the usual companion to beggersblessing use had dissipated.

  She noticed that she was in the library, covered with a brightly colored quilt. A familiar cloak, Wolf’s, lay carelessly tossed over the back of the sofa. Men’s voices were approaching.

  She wondered how she’d slept through the trip to camp—because he’d said that he couldn’t have brought the merchant all the way here.

  She started to sit up, only to realize that the clothing scattered on the floor was what she had been wearing. Hastily, she pulled the blankets up to her neck to protect her dignity just as Myr came around a bookcase.

  “So,” said Myr with a wide smile, “I see that you’re more or less intact after your experience with the ae’Magi’s hospitality. I must say, though, that it will be a long time before I loan you any of my clothes again. I didn’t bring many with me.” The pleasure and relief in his voice was real, and she was surprised and not a little flattered that he cared so much about someone he’d known such a short time.

  Aralorn smiled back at him and started to say something, but noticed that Wolf, who had followed Myr, was focusing intently on her hands. She followed his gaze to where her hands gripped the top of the blanket. Ten healthy nails dug into the cloth. The beggersblessing had left her wits begging, too; she hadn’t even noticed that she didn’t hurt at all.

  Aralorn answered Myr absently. “Yes. Though he wasn’t the best of hosts. I only saw him once or twice the whole time I was there.”

  Myr perched on the end of the sofa near Aralorn’s feet and looked, for once, as young as he was. “And he prides himself on his treatment of guests,” he said with a mournful shake of his head. “It doesn’t even look like he left you any mementoes.”

  “Well,” said Aralorn, looking at her hands again, very conscious of Wolf’s doing the same thing. “You know he did, but I seem to have lost them. The last time I looked, my hands were missing the fingernails.”

  “How is your breathing?” asked Wolf.

  Aralorn took a deep breath. “Fine. Is this your healer’s work?” She wouldn’t have asked, would have assumed that it had been Wolf, but he was looking particularly blank.

  Wolf shook his head. “No, I told you that he was not experienced enough to do more than he did.”

  Wolf glanced at Myr. “I saw a few new people here, are any of them healers?”

  “No,” replied Myr, disgust rich in his voice. “Nor are they hunters, tanners, or cooks. We have six more children, two nobles, and a bard. The only one who is of any help is the bard, who is passably good with his knives. The two nobles sit around watching everyone else work or decide to wander out in the main cave system so that a search party has to be sent after them.”

  “You might try just letting them wander next time,” commented Wolf, whose attention was back on Aralorn’s healed hands.

  Myr smiled. “Now there’s an idea.” Then he sighed. “No, it wouldn’t work. With my luck, they’d run into the dragon and lead
it back here.”

  “Dragon?” asked Aralorn in a startled tone, almost dropping her blanket.

  “Or something that looks an awful lot like one. It’s been seen by two or three of the hunting parties although it hasn’t seen them, yet,” replied Myr.

  Dragons were even more interesting than her healed hands. She remembered something. “That day I went out”—she glanced at Wolf and away again, not wanting to set him off—“I found some tracks. Tracks of something big. It was about six miles away and traveling fast. Where have you sighted it?”

  “East and north, never closer than ten miles. Do you know anything about dragons? Something along the lines of whether or not they eat people would be helpful,” asked Myr in a hopeful tone, sitting down on one arm of the couch. “Some of my people are inclined to panic.”

  “’Fraid not,” she answered. “The only ones that I’ve heard of are in stories. They do eat people in stories, but for some reason, they seem to confine themselves to virgins chained to rocks. Since I haven’t heard of anyplace nearby where there is a steady supply of virgins chained to rocks, I would suppose that it is a safe bet that this one has differing dietary requirements.” She nodded at Wolf. “Why don’t you ask the magical expert around here?”

  Wolf shrugged. “The closest that I’ve ever gotten to one was the one asleep in the cave underneath the ae’Magi’s castle. Since it had been asleep for several centuries, I didn’t learn much. I thought, though, that it was supposed to be the last of its kind—the reason that it was ensorcelled rather than killed.”

  “Well,” said Myr, with a lifted eyebrow, “if this creature isn’t a dragon, then it is closely related.”

  “Wyverns are supposed to resemble dragons,” Aralorn suggested. “Smaller, dumpy dragons.”

  “Wyvern or dragon, I’m not too sure that I’m comfortable with its being so close,” Myr said.

  “Maybe it’ll eat the nobles that are giving you such a bad time,” suggested Aralorn. “You might try chaining them to a rock.”

  She found that she was starting to get tired, so she leaned back against a cushion and closed her eyes. She didn’t sleep but drifted quietly, listening to the other two talk. She found it comforting. There was something she wanted to ask. She sat up abruptly when she remembered what it was.