Masques

TEN

Aralorn went back to work taking care of the children to give herself something to do since Wolf didn’t need her in the library.

Keeping them entertained was harder than it had been before. There was no place for them to run and play, and they were restless with the Uriah just outside. To distract them, Aralorn taught them the letters of the alphabet and how they fit together to form words. She told stories until she was hoarse.

“So Kai bet the whole troop that he could sneak into camp and steal the pot of coffee on the coals with no one seeing him.” Seated on a bump in the floor, Aralorn checked to make sure that most of the children were listening. “He and Talor were raised in a Trader Clan, just like Stanis. When he was little, he had learned how to be very quiet and to sit still in shadows so no one could see him.

“That night, their commander doubled the guard on the camp and assigned a special guard just to follow Kai around. Two men watched the coffeepot. But despite all of that, the next morning the pot was gone. The guard who was supposed to be following Kai around had actually been following Talor, who looked enough like his twin to be mistaken for him in the dark.” Aralorn smiled at her intent audience. Stories about the twins were always guaranteed attention holders.

“Kai was not only good enough to get the pot, he also painted a white ‘X’ on the back of every one of the guards without their knowing it.”

“I bet Stanis could do that,” said Tobin. “He’s sneaky.” Stanis, with his inability to get lost, was more often to be found running errands than hanging out with people his own age. It gave him even more cachet among his followers.

“Aralorn.” Myr put his hand on her shoulder.

He looked a bit pale. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Wolf. Stanis ran a message to him in the library for me and came running back a few minutes ago. He says there’s something up—I think perhaps you ought to go check.”

The library was engulfed in shadows when she cautiously peered into it, and it felt warmer than usual. The only light came from the crystals in Wolf’s staff, which were glowing a dull orange. Wolf sat in his usual chair, motionless, his face in the shadows. He didn’t move when she came in, that and the scorched smell in the library suggested that the scene wasn’t as ordinary as it looked.

Using her own magic, Aralorn lit the chamber. One of the bookcases was missing. Thoughtfully, Aralorn wandered over to where it had been and scuffed a toe in the ashes that had taken its place. The bookcase next to her burst into flames and was reduced to the same state before she even felt the heat. She winced at the destruction of the irreplaceable books.

“Wolf,” she asked in calculatedly exasperated tones. “Isn’t this hard enough without losing your temper?” She turned to look at him. He wore his mask again.

“I have it, Aralorn,” he murmured softly. “I have the power to do anything.” Another bookcase followed the first two. “Anything.”

Her pulse picked up despite her confidence that he’d never hurt her.

“If I didn’t have so much power,” he said, “I just might be able to do something with it. You see, I found it. I found the spell to remove the ability to use magic from a magician who is misusing his power. I can’t use it. I don’t have the skill or the control, and the spell uses too much raw power. If I tried it, we’d have another glass desert on our hands.” His eyes glittered with the flickering orange light of his staff.

Aralorn went to him and sat on the floor beside him, resting her head against his knees. “If you had less power, there would be no way to take the ae’Magi at all. You would never have been able to free yourself from the binding spells that keep all of the other magicians bound to his will. There would be no one to resist him. Quit tearing yourself into pieces and winning the battle for the ae’Magi. You are who you are. No better certainly, but no worse.”It was quiet for a long time in the library. Aralorn let her light die down and sat in the darkness with Wolf. No more bookcases burned in magic fire. When Wolf’s hand touched her hair, Aralorn knew that it would be all right. This time.

Aralorn trotted up the tunnels at a steady pace, walking now and again when she ran out of breath—which she felt was far too often. Slowly, though, her strength was coming back, and she had to stop less frequently than she had the day before. Morning and night for the past four days, she had run the tunnels from the library to the entrance, trying to rebuild the conditioning that she’d lost. Also, not incidentally, building up her understanding of how to get from one place to another.

Her path was free of people for the most part. The library was quite a distance from the main caves, and most of the campers respected Wolf’s claims that the Old Man of the Mountain wanted to keep them out of the tunnels. Aralorn was of the opinion that Wolf didn’t want to spend his time searching for lost wanderers because she’d seen no sign that the Old Man objected to anyone’s presence. Although the path to the library was carefully marked out and considered part of the occupied caves, in practice it was seldom that anyone besides Aralorn, Wolf, or Stanis went there.

Wolf said that they were waiting for the wrath of the Old Man to fall on them. Myr said that it was Wolf, not the Old Man, that they were frightened of—Myr was probably right.

Only Oras had ignored the ban on the inner caves. Twice. The first time Myr brought him back. The second time Wolf went after him. Wolf wouldn’t tell Aralorn what he’d done, and Oras didn’t volunteer the information, but he’d come back white-faced and had been remarkably subdued ever since.

As she came to the outer caves, Aralorn slowed to a walk. There were too many people around for her to dodge at a faster speed. When she started down the path that led to the entrance, the first thing that she noticed was the sound of her own footsteps. It took her a minute to realize that the reason she could hear them was because the Uriah weren’t howling.

Sure enough, when she reached the entrance, there was no sign of the Uriah. The bonfire Myr had ordered laid near the entrance was still unlit.

She stepped out slowly, moving cautiously in case there were any lying in wait. After so many days in the caves, the sunlight nearly blinded her. The air smelled fresh and pure, without the distinctive odor that accompanied Uriah. Only the smell of burnt grass and other things marred the fragrance of the nearby pine.

It looked as if a ball of fire had been spewed from the cave’s mouth. A wide blackened path in the grass and soil began from the entrance and traveled in a straight line a fair distance before disappearing. Within the blackened area were ten or fifteen bodies of Uriah, burnt down to the bone. There were some that were less singed, but something had chewed on them.

Aralorn followed the blackened path up the mountain and found that the trail abruptly stopped on a wide, flat area. She started back and was several lengths down the slope when she realized that she might be thinking backward. What if the fireball hadn’t come from the cave but had been launched at it? Muttering to herself, she trotted back to where the trail stopped.

Tracking wasn’t her specialty, but it didn’t take her long to find what she sought. When she was looking for them, they were hard to miss—very large, reptilian footprints with marks beside them that could be trailing wings. Just like the ones she’d seen the day she’d been taken by the Uriah.

“Well, Myr,” she said thoughtfully, going back to examine one of the half-eaten corpses. She hadn’t looked too closely before, assuming that the Uriah had just been practicing their usual cannibalism. Upon closer examination, she could tell that something much bigger than a Uriah had been feeding. “I think I know what dragons eat when there aren’t any virgins chained to rocks.”

“Well, then,” said Myr in dry tones after Aralorn related her discovery. The main cave was almost empty. Myr had sent out a party to look for the hunters who’d been missing since just before the Uriah had come, and a second group out to find provisions. He’d sent a few of the remaining people to keep watches from the best lookout stations.

He rubbed his eyes and looked at her. “So what now? We’ve exchanged the Uriah for a dragon. The question that begs is, of course, is this a good thing?”

“The dragon’s quieter and smells better.” Aralorn leaned against the cave wall and watched Myr pace.

“At least we knew something about the Uriah,” Myr complained. “A dragon. There aren’t supposed to be any more dragons.” He broke off when the sounds of ragged cheers echoed into the cave, followed by the missing hunting party and the searchers—all of them looking cold and tired.

When the welcoming was done, Farsi, who’d led the party, told their tale. “We came upon a herd of mountain sheep and got two so we headed back. About halfway here we stumbled upon some tracks, as if an army were wandering around. We followed the trail, and pretty soon we could smell ’em and knew that they were Uriah. Since their path was the same one we were on, it was obvious that the things were coming here.

“Figuring that we were too late to make much difference, we worked our way up the side of the mountain until we could see the Uriah. We couldn’t see the cave, but the way they were swarming around showed that you must have found a way to keep them out. We decided that there was nothing we could do but wait. Our vantage point was far enough away that the chance of the Uriah seeing us wasn’t considerable.”

Farsi cleared his throat. “Late last night—just after the moon had set—I heard a cry like a swan makes, only deeper. I was on watch, and it wasn’t loud enough to wake anyone else up. Something big flew over us, but I couldn’t quite see it. Afterward, I saw a flash of golden fire down here and heard the Uriah step up their noise. Then it quieted down. I woke up a couple others, and we finally decided that we’d best wait until we had light to see what had happened.” He frowned, evidently still unhappy with that decision. “It was just that whatever it was—from the quiet that followed—it had already happened.”

Myr nodded at him. “Sensible and smart to wait until you could see, especially with Uriah running around.”

Farsi looked like someone had pulled a weight off his shoulders. “This morning, it looked like the Uriah had left, so we started home. The reason it took us so long to get here is that there are still a lot of Uriah scattered about. We were dodging two parties of the things, when we almost ran into a third. It’s a good thing that they smell so bad, or we wouldn’t have made it back at all.”

Over the next few days it became obvious that if the Uriah had been held in concert by the will of the ae’Magi, that was no longer true. It didn’t make them any less dangerous individually, but it did make it possible to kill them in small groups.

Wolf, when appealed to, produced a detailed map of the area on sheepskin, which was hung on a wall of the central chamber. Aralorn suspected he’d made it himself, either with magic or by hand, because it was accurate, with very specific landmarks. At Myr’s command, any sightings of Uriah were recorded on the map, giving them a rough idea where the things were.

Each group of hunters had a copy of the map, and if they ran into a group of Uriah, they would lead them to one of the traps Myr had placed in strategic places. The Uriah were slowed enough by the cold of the deepening fall that the humans could outrun them most of the time, especially since they were careful to go out only when it was coldest.

Haris suggested an adaptation of a traditional castle defense and created a tar trap that was one of the most effective of their traps. The easiest way to kill a Uriah was with fire, so pots of tar were hung here and there, kept warm by magic. Ropes were carefully rigged so that they would not easily be tripped by wild animals. When they were pulled, the pots tipped over, and the motion triggered a secondary spell—something Haris cooked up—that set the tar on fire—dousing the Uriah with flaming tar. The spells on the traps were simple enough that everybody, except for Myr, could do them after a little coaching from Wolf and Haris.

Aralorn watched the small group of refugees become a close-knit community, the grumblers fewer. Every evening, they would all sit down and talk. Complaints and suggestions were heard and decided upon by Myr. Looking at the scruffy bunch of peasants (the nobles, by that time, blended right in with the rest) consulting with their equally scruffy king, Aralorn compared it with the Rethian Grand Council that met once a year, and she hid a grin at the contrast.

Having an enemy they could fight—and defeat—put heart in them all. Even Aralorn, who understood that the Uriah were in truth a minor annoyance. Their real enemy, the ae’Magi, was out there somewhere—and he knew where they were. She suspected he was biding his time. The snow wasn’t accumulating yet, but it had become common to see a white coat on the dirt most mornings. A smart general didn’t attack the Northlands in the heart of winter but waited for spring.

Only Wolf was excluded from the camaraderie, by his own choice. He made them nervous, with his macabre voice and silver mask. Once he saw that they were intimidated by him, he went out of his way to make them more so. Sleeping somewhere deep in the caverns and spending most of his waking time in the library, he was seldom with the main body of the camp. Usually, he attended the nightly sessions with everyone else, but he kept his own counsel in the shadows of the caves’ recesses unless Myr asked him a question directly.

Most mornings Aralorn spent entertaining the children. Occasionally, she went out with a hunting party—or alone to exercise Sheen and check the traps. The afternoons she spent in the library with Wolf, keeping him company and reading as many books as she could.

The nights she spent in the library as well, for she was still having nightmares and didn’t want to wake the whole camp. Night after night she woke up screaming, sometimes seeing Talor’s face, alive with all that made him Talor, but consumed with a hunger that was inhuman and wholly Uriah. Other times, it was the ae’Magi’s face that she saw, a face that changed from father’s to son’s.

Wolf didn’t know about her nightmares, as far as she knew. She had no idea where he was sleeping, but it wasn’t the library.

Late in the afternoons, Myr usually joined them, talking quietly with Aralorn while Wolf read through books on rabbit breeding, castle building, and three hundred ways to cook a hedgehog.

After discovering that the spell he’d been looking for wouldn’t work for him, Wolf had continued to look through the old mage’s books in the hopes of discovering a way to manage the spell more crudely. Most spells, he’d told Aralorn, were refined so they required less power. He had all the power he needed, and an earlier version might work for him. If he could find it.

His temper was biting, and he didn’t rein it in for Myr, nor after the first few visits did he bother with his mask. Myr answered Wolf’s sarcasm with cool control—and sometimes a hidden grin of appreciation. Aralorn rather thought that Wolf’s lack of common courtesy was why Myr liked to visit the library. Here he was a fellow conspirator rather than the King of Reth.

“What’s he doing?” asked Myr, setting his torch to sputter on the stone floor, where, with nothing to burn, it would eventually go out.

Instead of reading, Wolf had cleared the table of everything except a collection of clay pots filled with a variety of powders. When Aralorn had gotten there, Wolf had already been grinding various leaves in a mortar.

She waved a lazy hand at Myr, but didn’t take her attention off what Wolf was doing. “He thinks he’s found a way to manage the spell. We’re going to try it outside when he’s finished. No telling what would happen if he worked it in here with all of the grimoires, especially since we don’t know the range of effect.”

She caught Myr’s arm when he would have approached the table closer. “He doesn’t want us any closer than this,” she said.

They both watched, fascinated, though neither she nor Myr could work this kind of magic or probably even understand half of what was going on. Wolf took a small vial from the leather pack on the table. Opening it, he poured a milky liquid into the gray powder mixture, which became red mush and gave off a poof of noxious fumes. He donned his mask and cloak, then, ignoring his audience, he put a lid on the pot and took it and an opaque bottle and strode toward an exit route that would take them directly outside rather than through the lived-in areas, leaving Aralorn and Myr to trail behind.

“Won’t the spell be affected by whatever it is that restricts human magic in the Northlands?” asked Myr in a whisper to Aralorn, but it was Wolf who answered.

“No,” he said. “It is a very simple spell—its complexity has to do with power management. It should work fine here.”

He led them to the old camp in the valley, where they were unlikely to have anyone interrupt them. Aralorn found herself holding the containers while, at Wolf’s direction, Myr paced off circles, each bigger than the last until the dirt looked like an archery target. The ground was muddy with last night’s melted snowfall and held the marks of Myr’s feet well.

Wolf disappeared into the underbrush and reappeared, holding a handful of small stones. He set several of them in each ring Myr had shuffled off, though maybe “set” was the wrong word, because they floated about knee high above the ground.

“This shouldn’t be a particularly powerful spell,” Wolf said. “If I can get it to work, it doesn’t need to be. If he doesn’t know that it’s coming, then he won’t know to block it. All that I need it to do is to throw him off-balance for long enough to turn our battle from magic to more mundane means. Aralorn, stand behind me. It won’t hurt Myr, but I don’t know what this would do to a shapeshifter.”

“If I’m behind you, I can’t see what’s going on,” Aralorn complained. “How about if I stand over by the old fire pit?”

It was well off to the side, a dozen paces away from the target range that Myr had drawn out.

“Fine,” he said. “This should be a straight, line-of-sight spell, with a limited range.”

He sat on the cold ground in the middle of the innermost circle.

“How old is the ae’Magi?” asked Aralorn from the fire pit.

Wolf shrugged gracefully and gave her a half smile. “You aren’t going to kill the ae’Magi the way that Iveress killed his master. His master was ill and near death, kept alive only by magic. As far as I know, the ae’Magi is nowhere near death, unfortunate as that may be—at least not from disease.”

“What are our chances if the spell works as it is supposed to?” asked Myr. “Will you be able to kill him? I’ve seen him fight.”

Wolf shrugged. “If the spell takes him by surprise, then the odds are about even. I used to spar with him often, and sometimes I beat him, sometimes not. This spell gives us a chance, but that’s all it does. If he recognizes the spell, it is easy enough to counter. That would leave us with only magic.”

He looked at Aralorn. “I’ve learned some things about what I can do that he doesn’t know, but even so, he would easily best me that way. Without magic, at least we stand a chance of killing him. Perhaps.” No one, not even Aralorn, could have told how he felt about it from his voice.

Aralorn and Myr watched as he emptied the contents of the bottle into the pot. He counted to ten, then poured the mixture onto the ground in front of him, where it gathered into a glowing pool of violet patterned with inky swirls. Dipping a finger into the pool, he used the liquid to draw several symbols in the air. Compliantly, the purple substance hung in the air as if on an invisible wall. Wolf repeated the procedure with his left hand.

He picked up the pool in both hands. It swayed and oozed, never quite escaping the confines of his hands. He held it up in front of his face, then blew on it gently.

Pain hit Aralorn hard enough to knock her to her knees. She fought to maintain consciousness for a moment, but she never felt herself hit the ground.

When she recovered, she felt the hard strength of Wolf’s thigh underneath her ear.

“I don’t know,” said Wolf, sounding vicious.

She blinked cautiously, and when her head didn’t fall off, she pushed herself up.

“Fine,” she told Wolf. “I’m fine. My fault.”

Sitting up, she could see what had happened. The spell was directional all right, but mostly in a forward and backward kind of direction rather than the direction of a loosed arrow. It had knocked down the floating stones in a wide “V” pattern, with Wolf at the apex. The stones directly to either side of where he’d been sitting were still floating, but every stone more than two feet in front of him was on the ground.

She had been sitting on the edge of the path of the spell, but apparently the fire pit hadn’t been far enough away.

“How long was I out?” she asked, noticing that her ears were buzzing and her balance was off. Even sitting flat on the ground, her upper body wanted to sway.

She was propelled down again with a none-too-gentle hand, as Wolf answered, “Not very.”

“How do you feel?” asked Myr, concern evident in his voice.

“Like the entire mercenary army of Sianim just got through marching over my head.” She closed her eyes and let herself enjoy their concern. She loved sympathy.

“Not too bad, then,” said Myr with evident relief.

“Not horrible, but not fun.” Aralorn decided that her headache had subsided enough she could open her eyes again.

“You need to try some magic,” Wolf said grimly.

She would have whined at him, but the hand on her shoulder was shaking a little. For Wolf’s sake, she called a simple light to her hand, then dismissed it.

“Wolf,” asked Myr, “do you think that the ae’Magi will let you complete the spell? It seemed to take a lot of preparation.”

“I won’t need to,” answered Wolf, relaxing against the wall of Haris’s former kitchen. His thumb ran over her collarbone, then stilled. “With a spell this simple, it’ll be easy enough to re-create the effect.”

His relief was more obvious in the amount of words that he was using to explain himself to Myr. “Once I see the pattern to push the magic into,” he said, “I don’t need the physical parts of the casting anymore. It really is something only a beginning magic-user would have created. Take all of the most common spell components mixed together, add the first five symbols learned in magic, and blow—poof: instant spell. What is really amazing is that it didn’t blow up in the apprentice’s face. It came uncomfortably close to doing that with me.” He tapped Aralorn’s nose in emphasis. “Next time I tell you to get behind me, get behind me.”

“What’s next?” asked Myr.

Wolf took off his mask wearily. In the bright light of the winter sun, Aralorn noticed the strain he’d been under written into the fine lines and dark shadows beneath his golden ambient eyes. “What else? I storm the castle of the ae’Magi and challenge him to a duel. Whereupon he engages me in best Aralorn-story-time fashion. Then either I win, and go down in history as the cruel villain who destroyed the good wizard, his father. Or he wins.” Wolf’s voice was coolly ironic.

“If he wins, what happens?” Aralorn spoke from her prone position and showed no intention of moving. “I mean, what is he trying to do? Why does he want everyone to love him?”

While he answered, Wolf played with a strand of hair that had worked its way out of her braid. “You asked me about that once before. I think I know the answer now.”

Myr sat down beside Wolf. “What? Power?”

“I thought that might be it at first,” Wolf said. “Maybe that was even the correct answer at one time. When I was his apprentice, that seemed to be it. He could link with me and use the power that I gathered for his own spells, much, I believe, in the same manner that he now uses the magic released by the deaths of the children he kills. But there was an incident that scared him.” For Myr’s benefit, Wolf briefly explained his destruction of the tower.

Myr whistled. “That was you? I’d heard a story about that, I’ve forgotten who told me. They said that the tower looked like a candle that someone forgot to blow out. The stone blocks looked like they melted.”

Wolf nodded. “He started to try using control spells on me, after that. I left before he had much success. But what surprised me was that he continued to try and get me back under his control. He’s been looking for me for a long time.”

He looked down at Aralorn. “If all he wanted was to kill me, he could have done that easily enough. Or at least come close. If it were only my power he wanted, then he’s wasted a lot more of it trying to find me than he could ever get from me. I am more powerful than most magicians, but Lord Kisrah is very strong as well, and the ae’Magi never attempted to tap into his magic. The magic that he gets from one of the children he kills is also probably more than he could get from me because my defenses are stronger.”

“Revenge, then?” suggested Myr. “Because he thought that he had you under his control and you escaped?”

“So I thought,” answered Wolf, “but then Aralorn told me that she thought that I was half shapeshifter and that some of the magic that I am using is green magic.”

Myr started. “Are you? That’s why you have so little trouble taking the shape of a wolf. I thought it was unusual.”

Wolf nodded. “Most of the magic that I use is human magic. Since I found out that I could use it, I’ve been trying to work with the green magic. It is bound by much stronger rules than what I’m used to; so, except for shapeshifting, I find it much harder to work. Even so, it might give me an edge over the ae’Magi.”

Wolf paused, then continued, “The question still remains, what does the ae’Magi want from me? He is a Darranian, and the animalism of having sex with a shapeshifter might appeal to him, but I couldn’t conceive that he would raise the resultant offspring as his own. Not until I realized that it might be the green magic that he wanted. Green magic that I didn’t use until I left his control.”

“But why green magic?” asked Myr. “I can’t imagine that he values shapeshifting that highly.”

“Healing,” said Aralorn softly—for the sake of her throbbing heart. Because the idea that Wolf had been leading them toward was terrifying.

Wolf nodded. “Exactly. As you told me, Aralorn, a shapeshifter can heal himself until he is virtually immortal. What I believe the ae’Magi hopes to do is to reestablish the link that he had with me and use green magic to give himself immortality. Until then, he can use standard magic to defeat the problems of aging, but that doesn’t make him young.”

“No point in ruling the world unless you have time to do it in,” offered Myr.

“Yes,” agreed Wolf. “There was another clue as well. Neither of you was particularly well acquainted with the Uriah as they were a few years ago. I was in the ae’Magi’s castle when he created the first of his, using his own spell. The Uriah that I knew then were barely able to function. They could not even understand speech as well as a dog can. Now, from what Aralorn says, he has some that even retain the memories of the person that they once were.”

“The Uriah in the swamplands were created during the Wizard Wars; they are close to being immortal,” commented Aralorn.

Wolf nodded. “They don’t die unless they are killed. If he could get them just a bit more pretty, he’d probably turn himself into one.”

Soberly, Myr said, “I don’t think that he ever intended to turn himself into a Uriah. I’ve known him for a long time, too. There is no way he would turn himself into something that by its very nature is a slave to its need for food—pretty or not. If a Uriah retains most of its personality, then it is possible that it also retains its ability to work magic. What if he wants to kill you, Wolf, and turn you into one of his Uriah, obedient to his command, but just as powerful as you have always been?”

“Oh, isn’t that a lovely thought,” said Aralorn.

Blank-faced, Wolf considered Myr’s comment. “I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll have to make sure that it doesn’t happen, hmm?”

There was a heavy silence, then Aralorn said in a bright tone, “Speaking of Uriah, do you realize what a mess we are going to have to clean up when the ae’Magi is dead and we have several hundred masterless Uriah roaming the countryside? Sianim is going to be making good money off this.

Wolf worked at the spell for days, until he could direct it better, but the force of the spell varied widely. Wolf muttered and finally even went back to mixing the powders, but the spell still wouldn’t stabilize. He told Aralorn he needed to try a few different herbs that might refine the reaction. He didn’t have all that he needed, so he left to do some trading in the south.

The sun was drifting toward evening, turning the peaks of the mountains red. Aralorn shifted contentedly on her rock near the cave entrance. Several days ago someone found a huge patch of berries, and the whole camp had spent the better part of two days harvesting the find. Haris had been adding them into everything and today had managed to cook several pies. Given that the only thing that he had to cook on was a grate over a fire, it was probable that he’d used magic to do it, but no one was complaining.

Licking her fingers clean of the last of the sweet stuff, Aralorn ran an idle gaze up the cliff face and caught something out of the corner of her eye. It was a shadow in the evening sky that was gone almost as soon as she saw it. She got to her feet and backed away from the cliff, trying to figure out just what it was that she saw, calling out an alarm as she did so.

The four or five people who were out milling about doing various chores started for the entrance at a run. Stanis and Tobin were coming up the trail to the valley with a donkey cart laden with firewood. Although they heard the alert, too, they weren’t able to increase their pace much because of the donkey, and they weren’t about to abandon the results of their labors.

Aralorn distractedly glanced at them, then looked back at the cliff, just in time to see the dragon launch itself. If she hadn’t caught the moment of launch, she probably wouldn’t have noticed it because it used magic to change the color of its scales until it blended into the evening sky. Aralorn headed for Stanis and Tobin as fast as she could. Seeing her, they abandoned the donkey and began running themselves. As she neared them, the shadow on the ground told her that the dragon was just overhead. She knocked both boys down in a wrestler’s tackle and felt the razor-sharp claws run almost gently across her back.

The dragon gave a hiss that could have been either disappointment or amusement, and settled for the donkey, which it killed with a casual swipe of its tail. As it ate, it watched idly as Aralorn drove the two boys into the cave and stood guard at the entrance.

Aralorn met its gaze and knew that her sword was pitifully inadequate for the task, even had she been a better swordswoman. She had some hope that the runes that had kept the Uriah at bay would do the same to the dragon, but dragons were supposed to be creatures of magic and fire.

She heard the sounds of running footsteps behind her, then Myr’s exclamation when he saw the dragon. He drew his grandfather’s sword and held it in readiness. Aralorn noted with a touch of amusement that his larger sword looked to be a much more potent barrier than her own.

“How big do you think that thing is?” asked Myr in a whisper.

“Not as big as it looked when it was over top of me, but big enough that I don’t want to fight it,” murmured Aralorn in reply.

The dragon paused in its eating to look over at them and smile, quite an impressive sight—easily as intimidating as Wolf’s.

Myr stiffened. “It understands us.”

Aralorn nodded reluctantly. “Well, if you have to die, I guess a dragon is an impressive way to go; maybe even worth a song or two. Just think, we are the first people to see a dragon in generations.”

“It is beautiful,” said Myr. As if in approval of his comment, a ripple of purple traveled through the blue of the dragon’s scales.

“Watch that color shift,” said Aralorn. “Magic, I think. If it wants to, it can be nearly invisible. Would make it harder to fight.”

“It makes you wonder why there aren’t more dragons, doesn’t it,” commented Myr.

Finished with the donkey, the dragon rose and stretched. No longer completely blue, highlights of various colors danced in its scales. Only its teeth and the claws on its feet and the edges of its wings were an unchanging black. When it was done, it started almost casually toward the cave entrance.

Myr stepped out from the meager protection of the entrance into the fading light, and Aralorn followed his lead. Something about Myr appeared to catch the dragon’s interest: It stopped and whipped its long, swanlike neck straight, shooting the elegant head forward. Brilliant, gem-like eyes glittered green, then gold. Without warning, it opened its mouth and spat flame at Myr with an aim so exact that Aralorn wasn’t even singed although she stood near enough to Myr to reach out and touch him.

Myr, being immune to magic, was untouched (although the same could not be said about his clothes). The hand that held his sword was steady, though his grip was tighter than it needed to be. He was no coward, this King of Reth. Aralorn smiled in grim approval.

The dragon drew its head back, and said, in Rethian that Aralorn felt as much as heard, “Dragon-blessed, this is far from your court. Why do you disturb me here?”

Myr, clothed in little more than the tattered remnants of cloth and leather, somehow managed to look as regal and dignified as the dragon did. “My apologies if we are troubling you. Our quarrel is not with you.”

The dragon made an amused sound. “I hardly thought that it was, princeling.”

“King,” said Aralorn, deciding that the contempt that the dragon was exhibiting could get dangerous.

“What?” said the dragon, its tone softening in a manner designed to send chills up weaker spines.

“He is King of Reth and no princeling.” Aralorn kept her voice even and met the dragon’s look.

It turned back to Myr, and said in an amused tone, “Apologies, lord King. It seems I have given offense.”

Myr inclined his head. “Accepted, dragon. I believe we owe you thanks for driving away the Uriah, sent by my enemy.”

The dragon raised its head with a hiss, and its eyes acquired crimson tones. “Your enemy is the ae’Magi?”

“Yes,” answered Myr with a wariness Aralorn shared.

The dragon stood silently, obviously thinking, then it said, “The debt dragonkind owes your blood is old and weak, even by dragon standards. Long and long ago, a human saved an egg that held a queen, a feat for which we were most grateful, as we were few even then. For this he and his blood were blessed that magic hold no terrors for them. For this deed of the past, I would have left you and your party alone.

“Several hundred years ago, after the manner of my kind, I chose a cave to sleep—waiting for the coming of my mate. I chose a cave deep under the ae’Magi’s castle, where I was unlikely to be discovered. Dragons are magical in a way that no other creature is. We live and breathe magic, and without it, we cannot exist.

“I was awakened by savage pain that drove me out of my cave and into the Northlands. The ae’Magi is twisting magic, binding it to him until there will be nothing left but that which is twisted and dark with the souls of the dead. The castle of the ae’Magi has protections that I cannot cross, and the power that he has over magic is such that if I were to attack him, it is possible that he could control me. That is a risk I cannot take. Except for the egg that lies hidden from all, I am the last of my kind. If I die, there will be no more dragons.” It stretched its wings restlessly.

“King,” it said finally, “your sword is new, but the hilt is older than your kingdom, and token of our pledge to your line. If ever I can aid you, without directly confronting the ae’Magi, plunge the sword into the soil, run your hands over the ruby eyes of the dragon on the hilt, and say my name.”

Aralorn heard nothing but the rushing of the wind as the dragon spoke its name for Myr. Then, in the deepening light of the evening, it reared back on its hind legs and fanned its wings, changing its color to an orange-gold that gave off its own light. Soundlessly, it took flight, disappearing long before it should have been out of sight.

“Beautiful, isn’t he?” Wolf’s familiar hoarse voice emanated from somewhere behind and between Aralorn and Myr. It comforted Aralorn that Myr jumped, too.

The herbs that Wolf brought back did work better. Once he got the spell just as he wanted it, he began working it without the props until he could direct it effortlessly. When he could drop the ensorcelled rocks in any pattern he chose, he spoke to Myr over dinner.

“I have what I need to face the ae’Magi. I will leave tomorrow for his castle.”

“You aren’t going alone,” said Myr. “This is my battle as well. He killed my parents to further his plans. You will need someone at your back.”

Wolf shook his head. “You are too valuable to your people to risk yourself in such a way. If you are killed, then there is no one to rule Reth. If I am killed, your immunity to magic may be the only weapon left against the ae’Magi.”

“Wolf’s right,” agreed Aralorn, “but so is Myr. Wolf, the ae’Magi is not the only thing that you will have to face. He has quite an assortment of pets in the Uriah. They will tire you out before you even reach the ae’Magi.”

Wolf frowned at her. “I know how to avoid most of the monsters. The ae’Magi will see that none of them kill me. Even if he wants me dead, he wants to kill me himself. If there is someone else with me that I have to worry about and guard, they will be more of a liability than an asset. I’ll leave at first light.” He turned on one heel and walked away, leaving the remnants of his dinner behind—without giving anyone a chance to argue further.

Aralorn finished her roll thoughtfully. If he thought she’d give up so easily, he hadn’t been paying attention.

That night, as Aralorn half dozed on the library couch—she couldn’t sleep without the risk of missing Wolf—she heard an unfamiliar woman’s voice speaking from somewhere nearby.

“I’m worried,” the stranger said. “There are too many things that can go wrong with what they’re planning. I wish that they’d paid attention.”

“I did what I could.” Aralorn recognized the voice of the Old Man. He sounded a little petulant.

“It is up to them.” The woman’s soft voice soothed agreeably. “She’s healed him enough that he might be able to carry it off. Can’t you give them a clearer hint, though?”

“No. It isn’t our concern. As long as he leaves you alone, I don’t care what the ae’Magi does.” There was something off about his voice; he sounded more like a child than an adult.

“Of course you do, dear heart.” The woman might have been shaking a finger at him from the tone of her voice. “Who was it that brought that young wolf to shelter here? Who gathered all of the people to hide from the human Archmage’s wrath? It wasn’t I.”

“I’ve interfered too much.” The old shapeshifter’s voice sounded completely rational for the moment. “My time is past. I should have died with you, Lys. It is not right to be a ghost and not be dead. If I tell them what to do, it might cause more harm than good. I fear that I have let you talk me into too much.” There was a pause, then he said in a resigned tone, “Ah well, once more, then. She’s listening, isn’t she?”

“You know me too well, love,” she said. “Yes.”

The Old Man’s next words were so close to Aralorn’s ear that she could feel his breath. “Then daughter of my brother’s line, you must go with him to the ae’Magi’s castle and take what is yours with you.” Aralorn felt a hand on her cheek, then she heard the rush of air that signaled the shapeshifter’s exit.

Once they’d left her, she sat up and waved on the lights. “Hearing voices now?” she said. “It is sad to say, Aralorn, but you have definitely lost whatever touch of sanity you once had. That bodes well for the coming adventure though—only an insane person would go to the ae’Magi’s castle three times. Once was enough, twice was too many, but my little voices tell me that I’m going to make it three.”

She shook her head in mock disgust. Knowing that she wasn’t going to get any more sleep, she got up, strapped on her knives, and began stretching. By the time she had warmed up, she knew how she was going to arrange to accompany Wolf.

Before first light hit the mountainside, she snuck out on four feet, following the tracking spell she’d set into the bottom of his left boot a couple of weeks past. It led her to a small cave Wolf occupied. She had never been in it and was distracted from her intended goal by the opportunity to see a different side to her mysterious magician. He kept a small magelight glowing to keep the room from the total darkness that was natural to the cave. Wolf himself was lying with his back to her on a cot against the far end of the room.

Although it was spartan and immaculate, she could tell by the smell that Wolf had occupied it for a long time—longer than the few months Myr had been hiding in the Northlands. Being a mouse had its advantages.

Fascinated, she wandered around, noticing that for all of its surface plainness, there were touches that showed an appreciation of beauty in small things: A small knob of rock reaching up from the floor was polished to a high gloss. A large clear glass vessel was placed in a secure nook; the tiny fractures that spiderwebbed the glass glittered even in the dim light.

Wolf moved restlessly on the bed. Aralorn waited to make sure that he was still sleeping before she crept into the pack that lay out of place near the entrance, trusting that its position signified that it was something he was going to take with him.

She made a place for herself among the various items and sat very still. She didn’t have to wait long. Although he had announced that he would leave at first light, she wasn’t at all surprised that he was leaving well before that. It had been obvious that neither she nor Myr had been particularly happy with his decision to go and face the ae’Magi alone.

To her relief, he swung the pack up and carried it with him when he departed. She hadn’t quite figured out what she would have done if he’d left it.

She felt the roar of dizziness that signaled the magical leap from one place to another. When the sensation passed, she scrambled for a secure position in which the shuffling contents, which seemed to consist of nothing but hard angular objects, were not as likely to squish her. Even in human form, it seemed that Wolf’s favorite gait was a ground-eating run.

Apparently he had arrived at a point several miles from the castle, as he ran for a long time. Battered and bruised, Aralorn was beginning to wish she’d figured out a better way to accompany him.

When Wolf opened the pack, the first thing that he saw was a bedraggled gray mouse, who looked at him with reproachful eyes, and said, “Would it have hurt to pack something soft, like a shirt or something?”

He should have been surprised. Or angry. He found himself, instead, absurdly grateful.

He picked her up out of the bag and held her at eye level in the palm of his hand. “When one comes along without being invited, one cannot complain about the accommodations.”

“Oh dear,” said the mouse, in a shocked voice. “I hope I am not intruding.”

He took off the silver mask, and sat cross-legged on the ground—careful not to knock her off her perch on the palm of his hand. “I don’t suppose that you would go back, would you? I trust it has occurred to you that it would be very easy for the ae’Magi to use you against me.”

She ran up his arm and poised for an instant on his shoulder.

“Yes,” she replied, cleaning her whiskers, “but it also occurred to me that my wolf was going off alone to kill his father. Granted that he is not the typical father, but—I don’t think this is as easy for you as you’d like everyone to believe.”

She hesitated for a minute before she continued. “I know how he is. How he can twist things until black seems white. His power is frightening, but it is not as dangerous as his ability to manipulate thoughts with words. I was only there for a short time; you were raised by him. It doesn’t seem to me that exposure would make you immune to everyone; the opposite, I think. Perhaps having someone with you might make it easier.”

Wolf was still. He didn’t want to do this alone, but he wanted even less to have her hurt—or worse. Aralorn abruptly jumped to the ground.

“I couldn’t have lived with myself if something happened to you and I was not with you.” She shrugged and twitched her whiskers. “Besides, why should you have all the fun? He will see only a mouse, if he looks.”

He wanted to send her away, not just for her safety, but because he didn’t want her to know what he’d been before, even though he’d done his best to tell her himself. The feelings that she brought out in him were so painful and confusing. It was easier when he had felt nothing, no pain—no guilt. No desire.

His father had taught him how to be that way. When Wolf had understood that he was becoming the monster his father wanted, it had driven him to escape. It was easier when he had cared for nothing, easier when he’d been his father’s pet mage. Much easier.

The desire that he felt to return to what he had left behind terrified him. No one who hadn’t been raised there would understand the addiction of his father’s corruption. Aralorn was right. He needed her to keep him from returning to his old ways, becoming his father’s tool once more. The knowledge that she was watching might be enough to strengthen him.

“Stay,” was all that he said.

Once he’d made his decision, he ignored her. Kneeling, he emptied the contents of the backpack, a motley collection of jars, which he organized in an overtly random fashion. He stripped himself of his clothes and began a ritual of purification, using the water from a nearby stream.

Aralorn watched for a while, but when he started to meditate, she went for a scurry—mice seldom walk. Once out of sight, where she wouldn’t pull his concentration back to her, she shifted into her own form.

She stopped when she had a good view of the castle. It was funny how she always pictured it as black on the outside, the way it had appeared both times she left it. In the sunlight it sparkled a pearly gray, almost white. She could almost visualize the noble knight riding out to face the evil dragon. She hoped in this story the dragon (accompanied by his faithful mouse) would defeat the knight.

She clenched her fingers in the bark of the tree she stood next to and turned her cheek against the rough texture, closing her eyes against the very real possibility that this story would turn out like all the rest—the knight living happily ever after and the dragon slain.

When the shadows lengthened into dusk, Aralorn—once again the mouse—snuck back to where Wolf sat with closed eyes, the last light resting on his clean-shaven unblemished face with loving affection. The sight of his scarless face momentarily distracted her from his nudity.

Aralorn fought the chill that crept over her, knowing that if he looked just then, his all-too-discerning eyes would see her anxiety. It was unsettling to be in love with someone who looked like the face in her nightmares.

Ah well, as her stepmother would have said, at least he was handsome. And his face wasn’t the only beautiful thing about him.

She leapt blithely onto his leg and ascended quickly to his bare shoulder, feeling a slight malicious pleasure when he jerked in surprise. When he turned to glare at her, she kissed him on the nose, then began to clean her forepaws with industry. With a sound that might have been a laugh, he ran a finger lightly up her back, rubbing her fur the wrong way. She bit him—but not too hard.

He smoothed her hair and set her down on the ground so that he could regain his clothing. She noticed that it wasn’t the same outfit he’d taken off. It wasn’t like anything that she’d ever seen him wear. The main color was still black, but it was finely embroidered with silver thread. The shirt was gathered and puffed, hanging down well over his thighs, which was just as well, because the pants were indecently tight, from mouse height anyway. She could see the faint flickering of magic in the fabric and assumed that the clothes he wore were the magician equivalent of armor.

When he was dressed, he put her back on his shoulder and strode out of the clearing like a man who was at last within reach of attaining a much-coveted goal. He talked to her while he walked.

“I thought of confronting him in the castle itself, but it has been the center of so much magic that I really don’t know how this spell would affect it. I suspect that at least some of the construction of the older parts of the building was done purely by magic. Without magic, it could collapse on top of us. I don’t know about you, but I thought it might be interesting to survive long enough to find out just what the ae’Magi’s loyal followers will do to his murderers. That is, if we manage to make it that far.”

“I’d forgotten that aspect of it,” answered Aralorn in the squeaky-soft voice that was the best her mouse form could manage. “Will his spells still be in effect when he dies?”

“Probably not, but people will still remember how they felt. We will remain the villains of this story.” Wolf leapt easily over a small brook.

“Oh good!” she exclaimed, holding on tightly with her forepaws. “I’ve always wanted to be a villain.”

“I am happy to please my lady mouse.”

“Uh, Wolf?” she asked.

“Umm?”

“If we’re not going to the castle, where are we going?”

“Well,” he said, sliding down a steep section of his self-determined path, “when I lived in the castle, he had a habit of going out to meditate every night. He didn’t like to do it in the castle because he said that there were too many conflicting auras—too many people steeped in magic had lived and died there in the past thousand years or so. There is a spot just south of the moat that he used to like to use. If he doesn’t do it tonight, he probably will tomorrow.”

Aralorn sat quietly, thinking of all the things she’d never asked him, might never get a chance to ask. “Wolf?”

“Yes?”

“Has your voice always been the way it is?”

“No.” She thought that was all of the answer that she was going to get until he added, “When I woke up after melting the better part of the tower”—he pointed to one of the graceful spires that arched into the evening sky—“I found that I’d screamed so loud that I damaged my voice. It is very useful when I want to intimidate someone.”

“Wolf,” said Aralorn, setting a paw on his ear since they were on relatively smooth ground, “not to belabor the obvious, but your voice isn’t what intimidates people. It could be the possibility that you might immolate anyone who bothers you.”

“Do you think that might be it?” he inquired with mock interest. “I had wondered. It has been a while since I immolated anyone, after all.”

She laughed and looked at the castle as it rose black against the lighter color of the sky. She had the funny feeling that it was watching them. She knew that it wasn’t so, but she was grateful that she was a mouse all the same, and even more grateful that she was a mouse on Wolf’s shoulders. She leaned lightly against his neck.

She knew that they were near the place Wolf had spoken of from the tension in the muscles she balanced on. A stray wind brought the smell of the moat to cut through the smell of green things growing. It almost disguised another scent that touched her nose.

“Wolf!” Aralorn said in an urgent whisper. “Uriah. Can you smell them?”

He stopped completely, his dark clothes helping him to blend in. His ritual cleansing had left no human scent to betray him, only the sharp/sweet scents of herbs. Even a Uriah couldn’t track in the dark, so unless they had already been seen, they were safe for a moment. Wolf scanned with other senses to find where the Uriah were. It wasn’t hard. He was surprised that they hadn’t run into one before. His father, it seemed, had been busy. There were a lot of the things around, waiting.

Once, he had watched a spider at her web. Fascinated he had tried to see what she thought about, waiting for her prey to become entangled in the airy threads. He got the same feeling from the Uriah. He wondered if he were the victim of this web.

He thought about turning back. If the ae’Magi was aware that he was here, it might be better to return another time. After a brief hesitation, he shrugged and continued on with more caution. The ae’Magi knew his son well enough to know that he would be coming sometime; a surprise appearance would make no difference either way.

Aralorn buried her face in the pathetic shield of Wolf’s shirt, trying to block out the smell. For some reason, the smell of the Uriah was worse than the sounds that they had made outside the cave. Hearing Talor’s voice, seeing his eyes on that grotesque mockery of a human body, had made her want to retch and cry at the same time. It still did.

By the time she’d gained control, Wolf stopped for a second time and set her on the ground, motioning her to hide herself. He hesitated, then shifted into his familiar lupine form before gliding into the clearing.

The ae’Magi sat motionless on the ground, his legs and arms positioned in the classic meditation form. A small fire danced just between Wolf and the magician. The newly risen moon caught the clear features of the Archmage ruthlessly, revealing the remarkable beauty therein. Character was etched in the slight laugh lines around his eyes and the aquiline nose. His eyes opened, their color appearing black in the darkness, but no less extraordinary than in full light. His lips curved a welcoming smile. The warm tones vocalized the sentiment in the expression on the ae’Magi’s face.

“My son,” he said, “you have come home.”