Masques (30 page)

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.