Wolfsbane

SEVEN

Wolf changed back into his four-footed form, then staggered. Aralorn put a hand on his shoulder to steady him, and he leaned against her with a sigh and an apologetic look.

“Sorry,” he said.

“You need food,” she replied, and pulled back the curtain, only to find that not only was the great hall filled with people dining, but every head was turned to her. By the intentness of their gazes, she figured that the guard told them all that she’d brought her uncle to look at the Lyon.

She bowed, and said, “We’ve made some progress, but the Lyon still sleeps.”

She closed the curtain and set her own wards against casual interlopers since Wolf was in no condition to be working magic. By the time she was through, most of the diners had turned their attention back to their plates.

Aralorn snagged a clean trencher from a passing kitchen servant and sat at the nearest table, Wolf collapsing at her feet. She took one of her knives and cut a bit of this and that from the platters arrayed on the table and tossed a large piece of roasted goose breast at Wolf, who caught it easily and ate it with more haste than manners.

She took a hunk of bread from her trencher and put a piece of sliced meat on top of it. This she kept, placing the plate and its remaining contents on the floor for Wolf.

“There she is! I see her.”

A loud voice drew her attention away from her meal as she saw two towheaded children running toward her.

“Aunt Aralorn. Hey, Aunt Aralorn, Father said you would tell us a story if we cornered you.”

Putting their ages roughly at eight and five, Aralorn quickly came up with the identity of “Father.” Falhart was the only one of her brothers old enough to have sired them.

“All right,” she said, hiding her pleasure—as tired as she was, storytelling opportunities were not to be lost. “Tell Falhart you cornered me. I’ll do some tale-telling in front of the fireplace after I’m finished eating.”

The two scurried off in search of their father, and Aralorn finished the last of her bread. Wolf yawned as she picked the empty trencher off the floor and got to her feet.

“Come on, we’ll take this to the kitchen and ...” Her voice trailed off as she saw Irrenna making her way toward her.

It wasn’t Irrenna that made her lose her train of thought, but the man who walked beside her. Flamboyantly clothed in amber and ruby, Lord Kisrah looked more like a court dandy than the holder of age-old power.

It was too soon for Irrenna’s message to have reached him; he must have come for the Lyon’s funeral.

Well, Aralorn thought, if he didn’t know who it was that he met in the ae’Magi’s castle the night Geoffrey died, he will now. Even if he wasn’t involved with her father’s collapse, he was not going to be friendly. If he was responsible for her father’s condition . . . well, she wasn’t always friendly either.

She let none of her worries appear on her face, nor did she allow herself to hesitate as she approached them, dirty trencher in hand.

“You said that you weren’t able to wake him?” asked Irrenna.

Kisrah, Aralorn noted warily, was intent, but not surprised at all at seeing her face in this hall. He had known who she was before coming here. He moved to the top of her suspects.

“That’s right,” said Aralorn. “My uncle agreed to come and look. He didn’t know the spell that holds Father, but he was able to dispose of the baneshade—”

“Baneshade?” Kisrah broke in, frowning.

She nodded. “Apparently the one who did this has a whole arsenal of black arts—”

“Black arts?” he interrupted.

“You must not have looked in on him yet,” she said. “Whoever laid the spell holding the Lyon used black magic. I’m not certain if you’d call the baneshade black magic precisely, but it attacked me the first time I worked magic in the room—the mage must have set it to guard my father. My uncle—my mother’s brother, who is a shapechanger—is the one who identified it and rid us of it as well.”

“My apologies,” Irrenna broke in. “Allow me to present the Lady Aralorn, my husband’s oldest daughter, to you, Lord Kisrah. Aralorn, this is Lord Kisrah, the ae’Magi. He came here as soon as he heard what happened to Henrick.”

“It took me a while to connect Henrick’s daughter with the Sianim mercenary the ae’Magi had me fetch for him,” replied the Archmage, bowing over Aralorn’s hand. “I suppose I had expected someone more like your sisters.”

At her side, Wolf stiffened and stared at Kisrah with an interest that was definitely predatory. She took a firm grip on a handful of fur. She’d never told him of Kisrah’s role in her capture and subsequent torture by the ae’Magi because she’d worried about his reaction.

“How did you make the connection?” asked Irrenna, unaware of the coercive nature of Kisrah’s “fetching” of Aralorn. “She has very little contact with us; she says she is afraid her work will draw us into jeopardy.”

Sadness crept across his features, an odd contrast to the rose-colored wig he wore—like an emerald among a pile of glass jewels. “The council appointed me to investigate Geoffrey’s death even before they called me to assume his role. I looked into the backgrounds of anyone who had anything to do with him in his last days. You”—he directed his speech to Aralorn—“provided me with a particularly odd puzzle and kept the investigation going much longer than it otherwise would have. It was especially difficult until I discovered that the Lyon’s eldest daughter was of shapeshifter blood.” He was almost as good with a significant pause as she herself was. After a moment, he turned back to Irrenna. “It was the Uriah that were his downfall. He was looking for a way to make them less harmful and lost control of the ones he had with him. There was not even a body left.”

“It was an accident, then?” asked Irrenna. “I had heard that it was—though there were all of those rumors about his son.”

“The council declared it an accident,” confirmed Kisrah. “A tragedy for us all.”

Aralorn noted how carefully he avoided saying that he believed the council’s decision that his predecessor’s death had been an accident. Surely he didn’t—he’d been there.

“Would you care to look at my father? Or would you prefer to rest from your travels?” she asked.

Lord Kisrah turned back to her. “Perhaps I will eat first. After that, would you consider accompanying me to your father? I tried to open the wards when I arrived, but I couldn’t get through.”

It had been Kisrah, then, who’d tried the wards. Did he know Wolf’s magic well enough to tell that he’d set the spells? Stinking wards, she thought. If she’d had the sense of a goose, she’d have set them herself in the first place.

“. . . at first it might have been Nevyn’s work, but I know his magic.” He looked at her inquiringly, and Aralorn wondered what she’d missed while she was cursing herself.

“No, not Nevyn’s, nor mine either—my mother’s gift of magic is green magic. I can set wardings, of course, but the baneshade’s presence called for a stronger magic. I did a favor for a wizard once, and he gave me an amulet ...” Wizards were always giving tokens with spells on them, weren’t they? At least in the stories she told they were. At her feet, Wolf moaned softly, so maybe she was wrong.

Kisrah’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “An amulet? How odd. I’ve never heard of a warding set on an amulet. Do you have it with you?”

Yep, I was wrong.

Aralorn shook her head and boldly elaborated on her lie. “It wasn’t that big a favor. The amulet itself was the main component of the spell—so it could only be activated once. I thought the baneshade warranted using it. But my uncle killed the creature, so it’s safer now. I’ll come with you to take them off.”

He stared at her a moment, his pale blue eyes seeming blander than ever. But she had been a spy for ten years; she knew he saw only what she intended him to see. Innocently, she gazed back.

She was lying. He knew she was lying. He wasn’t going to call her on it, though—which made her wonder what he was up to.

“I see,” he said after a moment. “With the baneshade gone, did you look at the spell holding Henrick?”

She nodded. “I’m not an expert, though I can tell black magic. My uncle said that it feels as if there was more than one mage involved in the spelling.”

“Black magic,” he said softly, and she had the impression that it was the real man speaking and not his public face. For an instant, she saw both shame and fear in his eyes. Interesting.

“Why don’t you get some food, Lord Kisrah,” said Irrenna.

“That would be good,” agreed Aralorn. She wanted to give Wolf time to recover a little before they went back to the bier room with Kisrah. “My brother sent a pair of his hellions to force me into telling a story or two, and I gave them my word of honor I would entertain them after I’d eaten.”

Irrenna laughed. “You’ll have to stay for it, Lord Kisrah. Aralorn is a first-rate storyteller.”

“So I have heard,” agreed the mage, smiling.

Aralorn sat cross-legged on the old bench near the fireplace where she’d spent many long winter hours telling stories. The children gathered around were different from the ones she remembered, but there was a large number of her original audience present, too. Falhart sat on the floor with the rest, a couple of toddlers on his lap. Correy leaned against a wall beside Irrenna and Kisrah, who stood with his food so that he could be close enough to hear.

“Now then,” Aralorn said, “what kind of story would you like?”

“Something about the Wizard Wars,” said one of the children instantly.

“Yes,” said Gerem softly, as he approached the group from the shadows. “Tell us a story about the Wizard Wars.”

Startled, Aralorn looked up to meet Gerem’s eyes. They were no more welcoming than they had been earlier that day.

“Tell us,” he continued, taking a seat on the floor and lifting one of the youngsters onto his lap, “the story of the Tear of Hornsmar, who died at the hands of the shapechangers in the mountains just north of here.”

She was going to have to teach her brother some subtlety, but she could work with his suggestion. She needed a long story, to give Wolf as much time to recover as possible. One came to mind as if it had been waiting for her to recognize it.

“A story of the Wizard Wars, then, but the story of the Tear is overtold. I have instead a different tale for you. Listen well, for it contains a warning for your children’s children’s children.”

Having caught their attention, Aralorn took a breath and sought the beginning of her tale. It took her a moment, for it wasn’t one of the ones she told often.

“Long and long ago, a miller’s son was born. At the time, this hardly seemed an auspicious or important event, for as long as there have been millers, they have been having children. It was not even an unusual occurrence for this miller, because he’d had three other sons and a daughter born in a similar fashion—but not a son like this. No one in the village had ever had a son like this.” She saw a few smiles, and the hall quieted.

She continued, punctuating her story with extravagant gestures. “When Tam laughed, the flowers bloomed, and the chairs danced; when he cried, the earth shook, and fires sprang up with disconcerting suddenness. Concerned that the child would set fire to the mill itself and ruin his family, the miller took his problem to the village priest.

“In those days, the old gods still walked the earth, and their priests were able to work miracles at the gods’ discretion, so the miller’s action was probably the wisest one he could have taken.

“And so the boy was raised by the village priest, who became used to the fires and the earthquakes and quite approved of the blooming flowers. The miller was so relieved that when the temple burned down because of a toddler temper tantrum, he didn’t even grumble about paying his share to rebuild it—and he grumbled about everything.

“Now, in those days, there was trouble brewing outside the village. Mages, as you all know, are temperamental at best, and at their worst ...” Aralorn shuddered and was pleased to see several members of her audience shiver in sympathy. At her feet, Wolf made a soft noise that might have been laughter. Kisrah smiled, but in the dim light of the great hall, she couldn’t tell if it was genuine or not.

“Kingdoms then were smaller even than Lambshold, and each and every king had a mage who worked for him. Usually, the most powerful mages worked only for themselves, for none of the small countries could afford to hire them for longer than it took to win a battle or two. The strongest mages of them all were the black mages, who worked magic with blood and death.”

Gerem straightened, and said, “I never knew black magic was more powerful than the rest.”

Aralorn nodded. “With black magic, the sorcerer has only to control the magic released; with other magics, he must gather the power as well. Collecting magic released in death takes nothing out of the mage . . . except a piece of his soul.”

“You sound as if you’ve had personal experience,” said Gerem challengingly.

Aralorn shook her head. “Not I.”

When Gerem looked away from her, she continued the tale. “This balance of power had worked for centuries—until the coming of the great warrior, Fargus, and the discovery of gold in the mountains of Berronay.” She rolled out the names with great ceremony, like the court crier, but added, much less formally, “No one knows, now, where Berronay or its mines were. No one knows much more about Fargus than his name. But it was his deeds that came close to destroying the world. For he ruled Berronay shortly after its rich mines were discovered and before anyone else knew how rich that discovery was. He amassed a great army with the intent of conquering the world—and he hired the fourteen most powerful mages in the world to ensure that he would do so.

“Tam’s village was the smallest of three in the kingdom of Hallenvale—that’s ‘green valley’ in the old tongue. It was located in the lush farmland in the rolling hills just northwest of the Great Swamp.” Aralorn paused, sipping out of a pewter mug of water someone had snagged for her.

“But there isn’t any farmland there,” broke in a tawny-headed girl of ten or eleven summers.

“No,” agreed Aralorn softly, pleased that the child had added to the drama of her story. “Not anymore. There’s just an endless sea of black glass where the farmland used to be.”

She paused and let them think about that for a little while. “As I said, Tam was raised in the small farming village by the priest. When the boy was twelve—the age of apprenticing—he was sent to the king’s wizard for training. By the time he was eighteen, Tam was the most powerful wizard around—except for those using black magic.”

Aralorn surveyed her audience. “There were a lot of black mages, though. Black magic was common then, and most people saw nothing wrong with it.”

“Nothing?” asked Gerem.

“Nothing.” Aralorn nodded. “Most of the mages used the blood and death of animals—if they used human deaths, they kept it quiet. If you kill a pig for eating, its death releases magic. Isn’t it a waste if you take the animal’s hindquarters and throw them in the midden? Why then is it not a waste to leave the magic of its death to dissipate unused?” She waited. “They thought so. But our Tam, you see, was different. He’d been raised by a priest of the springtime goddess—a goddess of life. Out of respect to her, he didn’t sully himself with death.”

Satisfied that she’d given them something to think about, she continued the story. “Fargus, with the wealth of the gold mines of Berronay behind him, bade his mages ease the way for his armies, and he took over land after land. As each new country added to his wealth, he hired more mages. Even the Great Swamp was no barrier to Fargus’s mages, whose powers only grew as the number of the dead and dying mounted.

“Now, Fargus was not the first warlord to conquer others using the power of the black mages. A score of years earlier, the battles between Kenred the Younger and Agenhall the Foolish had raged wildly until the backlash of magic had sunk the whole country of Faen beneath the waves of the sea. A hundred years before that, the ravages of the Tear of Hornsmar destroyed the great forest of Idreth with the magic of his sorceress mistress, Jandrethan.” Aralorn looked up and saw several members of her audience nodding at the familiar names. “But it was Fargus’s war that changed everything.”

“Hallenvale,” she went on, “came at last to Fargus’s notice, and he sent his magic-backed army to fight there. But it was not an easy conquest. The king of Hallenvale was a warrior and strategist without equal—called Firebird for his temperament and the color of his hair. Ah, I see several of you have heard of him. Hallenvale was a prosperous little country, as it had been ruled wisely for generations. The Firebird used his wealth to gather together wizards of his own, including Tam. The small unconquered countries all around, knowing that if Hallenvale fell, their lands would be next, aided him any way they could.

“A battle was fought on the Plains of Torrence. The armies were equally matched: Thirty-two black mages fought for Fargus, a hundred and seven wizards stood beneath the Firebird’s banner—though these were mostly lesser mages.”

She let her voice speed up and drop in pitch as she fed them details of the fight. “. . . Spells were launched and countered until magic permeated the very earth. After three days, a pall hung over the plain, an unnaturally thick fog, a fog so dense they could not see twenty paces through it. To the mages, whichever side they fought upon, the air was so heavy with magic that it took more power to force yet more magic into the area. Fortunately”—she let her tongue linger on the word and call it to her audience’s attention—“there were so many dead and dying on the field that there was power enough to work more and greater magics.

“Tam, his power exhausted, was sent to the top of a nearby hill that he might get a better view of the battlefield. He did so. What he saw sent him galloping for the Firebird’s personal mage, Nastriut.”

“Wasn’t the mage who escaped the sinking of Faen on a boat called Nastriut?” Falhart asked.

She nodded. “The very same. He was an old man by then, and tired from the battle. Tam coaxed him onto a horse and hauled him up to the top of the hill.”

She sipped water and let the suspense build.

“Only a very great mage could have seen what Tam had, but Nastriut was one of the most powerful wizards of his generation. From the vantage point of the hill, Nastriut and Tam could see that the fog that had grown from the first day of the battle was not what either had thought. It was not a spell cast by one of Fargus’s wizards or some side effect of the sheer volume of magic.

“ ‘Just before Faen fell into the sea,’ Tam said, ‘you saw a dark fog engulf the whole island.’

“ ‘There was magic so thick it hurt to breathe,’ said Nastriut. ‘Death, more death, and dreams of the power of blood. From the sea I saw it like a great hungry beast.’ The old man shuddered and swallowed hard. ‘Have you been dreaming of power, Tam? I have. Dreams of the power death brings and the lust that rises through my blood. It promises me youth that has not been my state for a century or more.’

“ ‘If I use black magic,’ whispered Tam, ‘my dreams tell me that I can end all the fighting and go back to my home. Are you saying this thing is in my dreams?’

“ ‘Such dreams we all had before Faen died,’ the old man said. ‘I dreamed that we created this with the taint of death magic, but I had no proof. When this beast killed the island, it was half the size it is now. But it is the same, the same.’ ”

The great hall was deathly quiet, and Aralorn was able to drop her voice to a whisper that echoed—a trick of tone and architecture she’d discovered a long time ago.

“Tam could not have done it, but Nastriut’s reputation was such that Fargus’s mages left the battlefield to help. Over a hundred mages pooled their magic to create a desert of obsidian glass to contain the Dreamer their blood magic had brought into being. Nastriut died in the doing—and he was not alone. The rest of the wizards vowed never to use black magic again upon pain of death. To ensure that this promise was kept, they placed upon themselves a spell that allowed their magic to be controlled by one man—the first ae’Magi, Tam of Hallenvale.”

“A pretty tale to cover the wizards’ stupidity,” said Gerem abruptly. “It was abuse of magic that created the glass desert, not some heroic effort to save the world.”

Aralorn smiled at him. “I only tell the tale as it was told to me. You can judge it true or false if you wish. It won’t change the results.”

“The destruction of a dozen kingdoms,” he said.

“You’ve been listening to your teachers.” Aralorn smiled her approval. “But there were other results as well. The wizards were vulnerable, most of them trained to use magic in a way that was forbidden them. Now the people feared them and killed them wherever they found them. For generations, a mageborn child was killed as soon as it was recognized. Only in Reth or Southwood could wizards find sanctuary.”

Aralorn surveyed her audience, child and adult alike. “If you wonder if this story is true, ask the Archmage what the first words of the wizard’s oath are, the oath every apprentice must make to his master since the ae’Magi was set over the mages at the end of the Wizard Wars.”

“Ab earum satimon,” said Kisrah. He frowned thoughtfully at Aralorn, then translated softly, “To protect our dreams. Where did you hear this story? I have never heard it before. I thought the glass desert was a mistake caused by a clash of magic gone wild and out of control.”

“I told it to her,” said Nevyn, stepping out from a doorway. “It’s an old tale I heard somewhere—though Aralorn has improved upon it.”

Aralorn nodded gravely in acknowledgment of the compliment as she rose from her seat. “I have heard several variations of the story since. Lord Kisrah, you wanted to see my father?”

“One more story, before you go?” asked Falhart. “Something less . . . dark, if you would? I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d rather not spend the night trying to convince my children that there is nothing lurking in the shadows.”

Aralorn glanced down at Wolf, who was lying on his side being patted by small hands, his eyes closed. It was unusually tolerant of him. In his human form, he avoided people’s hands, other than her own, altogether. The wolf was less shy, but she wondered if he was really asleep. If so, a few minutes more could only help him.

She gave Falhart a challenging look. “No more comments about my height?”

He raised his right hand. “I swear.”

She glanced at Kisrah.

“I can wait,” he said.

Aralorn resumed her seat. “All right, let’s see what I can come up with. Hmm. Yes.”

She waited for it to quiet down, then began. “Not so very long ago, and not so far away, there lived a sorcerer’s apprentice named Pudge. As you might expect from his name, he enjoyed nothing so much as a nice soft pudding, except perhaps a piece of cake. He especially liked it when the sorcerer’s cook would try to cover up the fact that his cake had fallen by filling in the hole with sugary frosting this thick.” Aralorn held up two fingers together and watched a smile cross the face of one of Falhart’s brood at the thought of such a delicacy.

“Now, Pudge’s master had several apprentices who teased him about his eating. They might have meant it kindly—but you and I know that doesn’t matter. It got so that Pudge would take whatever sweet he happened to thieve from the kitchen and eat it in secret places where the others wouldn’t find him.

“His favorite was a little cubby he’d found in the library. The passage was so small and insignificant that even if the sorcerer had remembered it, he would never have used it. It was, in fact, so narrow that only a child could squeeze though the long tunnel that led to a comfortably cozy ledge on the side of the sorcerer’s castle several stories above the ground.

“As the months passed, and the cook’s sugary treats took their toll, the passage grew tighter and tighter, until Pudge began to wonder if there wasn’t some kind of shrinking spell laid upon it.

“ ‘Perhaps,’ he thought, ‘perhaps, it once was a normal sort of hall and every day it gets smaller and smaller.’

“It was an idea he found pleasing, though he found no mention of such a spell in any of the books he was allowed to delve into. I might mention here that Pudge was quite an adept little sorcerer in his own right. Had he been of a different temperament, the other apprentices might have truly regretted their teasing.

“One bright and sunny morning, the cook made little cherry tarts, each just large enough to fit into one of Pudge’s hands. Nobody makes a better thief than a boy—just ask the Traders, if you don’t believe me. Nobody, that is, except a sorcerer. Pudge came out of the kitchen with twelve cherry tarts, and he scrambled to the library before the cook realized they were gone.

“He opened the passage and managed to squeeze in, though he had to push the pies, stored in a knapsack he used for such nefarious missions, ahead of him in order to fit. It was really only the thought of the cook’s ire that made him fight and struggle through the passage. The cook was a man after Pudge’s own heart, but he had a terrible temper and was best avoided for a while after a successful raid.

“At last, Pudge was safely through the passage and out on his ledge. He ate eleven of the tarts and shared the twelfth with a few passing birds. Then he decided it was time to go back.” Aralorn paused.

“He couldn’t get back,” said a young boy seated near the back of the group.

“Why not?” asked Aralorn, raising her brows.

“Because he was too big!” chorused a series of voices (some of which were bass or baritone).

Aralorn smiled and nodded. “You’re right, of course. It took several days before Pudge was thin enough to get back through the passage, and by that time, his master was getting really worried. Upon hearing of Pudge’s adventures, the sorcerer taught Pudge a spell or two to help him get out of tight places.” She waited for a moment to let the chuckles die down. “Over the years Pudge grew in both girth and power. You might know him better by his real name—Tenneten the Large, own mage to King Myr, current ruler of Reth.” She stood up briskly and made a shooing motion. “All right, that’s all for the night. Correy, if you could spare a moment?”

Correy approached her, with Kisrah somewhat behind him, as the children shuffled off to their respective parents.

“What did you need?” asked her brother.

“Hmm, well, you know that old vacant cottage where the hermit used to live? In the clearing, not too far from here?”

“The one Hart fell through the roof of when he was pretending he was a dragon?”

Surprised, she nodded. “That was well before your time.”

“Some things become family legends,” he replied. “Besides, the knowledge he gained reroofing the cottage came in useful when Father sent us to build a house for Ridane’s priestess to live in.”

“Ah,” she said, wondering why her father was building houses for the death goddess’s priestess. Guessing why he sent his sons to do it was easier—the Lyon liked to make certain his children knew as many skills as possible. He also liked to keep them humble. “Well, in any case, you need to send someone there to take care of a rather large carcass we left. It might attract some predators, and it’s near some good winter pasture.”

Correy nodded. “I saw that your wolf is missing some hide. Run into a bear?”

Aralorn coughed, glanced at Kisrah, who was listening in, and said, “Something of the sort, yes.” There is nothing more disastrous than allowing your opponents to overestimate your abilities: Killing legendary monsters almost always led to that very thing.

“I’ll see to it,” he said. “Good night, Featherweight.”

She reached way up and managed to ruffle his hair. “Good night, Blue-eyes.”

Correy laughed and kissed her cheek.

“Good night, sir,” he told Kisrah with a friendly nod.

Kisrah waited until Correy had gone. “Blue-eyes?” he asked.

If they’d been friends, she would have laughed; she satisfied herself with lifting an eyebrow instead. “Because they are not, of course.”

He nodded seriously. “Of course. I compliment you on your storytelling.”

She shrugged, rubbing her fingers into the soft fur behind Wolf’s ears. “It’s a hobby of mine to collect odd tales. Some of them have even come in handy a time or two. Come, I’ll take you to the bier room.”

She set off across the great hall, which had largely emptied of people. She didn’t look behind her, but she could hear the rustle of the Archmage’s cloak and the click of Wolf’s nails on the hard floor.

Before they reached the curtain, Kisrah stopped walking. Aralorn stopped and looked at him inquiringly.

“Do you think that the only reason black magic was abandoned was this beast in your story?”

“The Dreamer? I’m not certain that the Dreamer ever existed,” replied Aralorn. “There’s a less dramatic version of the story in which Tam himself creates the Dreamer in order to stop the general use of black magic. I am a green mage, my lord ae’Magi: I don’t need to eat rotten meat to know that it is tainted. Blood magic . . . is as foul-smelling as a raw roast left out for a couple of days in the sun.”

“Ah,” said Kisrah. He frowned at her intently and changed the subject smoothly. “Did you kill the ae’Magi?”

“Geoffrey?” she asked, as if there had been a dozen Archmages killed in the last few years.

“Yes.”

Aralorn folded her arms and leaned against the cold stone wall. Wolf settled at her feet with a sigh, though he kept a steady eye on Kisrah. The Archmage ignored him.

“The Uriah killed Geoffrey,” she said softly. “Poor tormented creatures he, himself, created.” Then she forced herself to relax and continue lightly. “At least that’s what the mercenaries who were hired to clean up the castle reported.”

“He had no trouble controlling them before,” said Kisrah. “I’ve used the spells myself—they were neither difficult nor draining. And, Aralorn, despite what your friend, the wizard who gave you that amulet”—not one of her better stories, she admitted—“told you, Geoffrey didn’t create the Uriah, just summoned them to do his bidding. I think that you have been misled.”

She shrugged. She’d learned her lesson; she didn’t argue with someone who might still be under the influence of the late ae’Magi’s spells.

“You were there that night,” he said. “I saw you.”

“And if I say I killed him,” asked Aralorn in a reasonable tone, “what then? You will kill me as well to even the score?”

“No,” he said hoarsely. “My word of honor that I will not. Nor will I tell anyone else what you say to me. I believe I know who did the killing, but I need . . . I need to be certain.”

Why? she thought to herself. So you can justify the black magic used to hold my father as bait to trap Wolf?

“How could I, a second-rate swordswoman and a third-rate green mage, do such a thing to the ae’Magi?” She indulged herself a bit more than was strictly safe, though she was careful that he would not hear the sarcasm in her voice. “Everyone knows how powerful a sorcerer he was—and a swordsman of the highest ability. Why would I want to kill him? He was the kindest, most tenderhearted—not to mention amusing—sorcerer I have ever met. His death was a great tragedy.”

Second-rate swordswoman, but first-rate actress; Aralorn knew that Kisrah could only hear the sincerity in her voice. It was the sort of addlepated garbage everyone said about the last ae’Magi and meant in its absurd, simplistic whole—thanks to the ae’Magi’s charisma spell, which lingered even now. If she hadn’t accused Geoffrey of creating the Uriah, she thought, she might have persuaded Kisrah of her innocence in the Archmage’s death.

Kisrah frowned at her. “You were there that night. Wielding a mage’s staff ...” He hesitated a bare instant, but obviously decided he might as well push all the way. “Wielding Cain’s staff—it is very distinctive.”

She wouldn’t help him convict Wolf. Aralorn gave Kisrah a puzzled look. “I was there that night, but I don’t recall any staff. I sometimes run messages for the Spymaster. When the Uriah started acting strangely, I left as soon as I could. I’m not a coward, but those things scare me. Look what they did to the ae’Magi.”

Kisrah stared at her; she could almost taste his frustration. “The Uriah captured you for him. He had me translocate you to his castle. What did he want from you?”

Aralorn shrugged and modified her story without a pause. “A misunderstanding, I’m afraid. He thought that I had some knowledge of the whereabouts of King Myr. You remember that was about the time Myr, distraught over his parents’ deaths, left without telling anyone where he had gone. It turns out that King Myr visited a healer, who lives quietly in the mountains near the king’s summer residence.” Without a qualm, she stuck to the official story. If it became widely known that Myr and the ae’Magi were enemies . . . it might confuse a lot of Myr’s followers who were still under the influence of the previous ae’Magi. Perhaps time would solve that—perhaps not. “I actually did know where he was, but was told not to tell anyone—you know how the Spymaster is. The ae’Magi didn’t intend any harm to him, obviously, but orders are orders. The ae’Magi eventually accepted that I couldn’t tell him anything.”

Storytelling did come in handy sometimes, Aralorn reflected. Take a grain of truth and embellish it with nonsense, and it was more believable than what had actually happened. It wasn’t as if she really expected Kisrah to believe her anyway; she just wanted to keep him from deciding what had happened with any certainty.

Wolf whined, and it echoed weirdly in the stone-enclosed corridor. Maybe he was worried about how much storytelling she was doing this night. Probably he was right.

“Shall we go, Lord Kisrah? Or would you like to put me to the question? I’m certain Father has some old thumb-screws around here somewhere.”

The Archmage stared at her as if the intensity of his gaze alone would be enough to pick through the tale she’d woven. His expression was as far removed from the charming man of his public image as Wolf was from a sheep. The pink wig looked like the absurd camouflage it was. He looked very tired, she thought suddenly—as if he had spent more than one sleepless night lately.

“No doubt,” he said tautly, “torture would get another answer out of you, equally plausible and equally false.”

Aralorn smiled pleasantly at him; it wasn’t difficult—few things gave her greater pleasure than frustrating someone else’s attempt to gain information. “No doubt,” she agreed congenially.

“Sometimes,” he said with absolute conviction, “I wish there were a truth spell that really worked. Lead on, then, by all means,” he said with a sigh, abruptly shifting back to the harmless dandy. “I would take a look at this spell that holds your father.”

The guard had returned to his duty.

“Lord Kisrah is here to take a look at Father,” she told him.

“Of course, Lady. Should I remain here, or would you like more privacy?”

Aralorn looked to the Archmage, who shrugged his indifference.

“Stay here,” she said to the guard. “I’d rather not have any curious souls wander in while the ae’Magi is here.”

“Yes, Lady.” The guard smiled.

“The wardings are different,” said Lord Kisrah, examining the curtains.

Aralorn shrugged and dispelled her wards. “It was a onetime warding amulet. These wards are mine.”

He opened the curtain and passed through, murmuring without looking at her. “The wardings were Cain’s work—I know it well. I’ve never heard of talismans of warding.”

She was not so easily won from her chosen story. She merely raised her eyebrow at him. “I had not heard of bane-shades before today. Isn’t it wonderful that we may learn throughout our lifetimes. I assure you that the only ones here when the wardings were drawn were my wolf and I. You have your choice of mages.” She gestured to Wolf, who whined and wagged his tail gently. No human mage could manage to stay in an animal form as long as Wolf had tonight. That Cain ae’Magison was something other than purely human was something his father had kept quiet.

Kisrah spared her a brief glare before continuing into the room. She lit a magelight as she followed him in, but he lit his own as well. Obviously, she thought with amusement, he didn’t trust her. Smart man.

She tugged the curtain shut behind her, stopping just inside the alcove, where she could see the sorcerer without interfering with his magic.

Like Wolf, he placed a hand on her father’s forehead and made a gesture that looked somewhat similar. Watching him closely, Aralorn saw the Archmage’s full lips tighten with some emotion or perhaps just the effort he put into the spell. When he was done, he stepped back for a moment, then began another spell.

At Aralorn’s side, Wolf stiffened and took a swift step forward, crouching slightly. Aralorn felt a swift rush of fear; had she trusted too much to her knowledge of this man?

In spite of her suspicions, she really didn’t believe he would actually harm her father. His reputation aside, Aralorn had access to more rumors than a cat had kittens, and she’d never heard a word to indicate he was dishonorable; and someone had taken great care to keep from harming her father. She knew too much about magic to make the mistake of interrupting Kisrah, but she watched him narrowly and trusted Wolf to stop it if need be.

Whatever the spell the Archmage wrought, Aralorn could tell by the force of the magic gathering at his touch and the beads of sweat on his forehead that it was a powerful one. When he was through, Kisrah leaned against the bier for support.

“Cursed be,” he swore softly, wiping his face with impatience. He turned to Aralorn, “Quickly, tell me the names of the magic-users who live within a day’s ride of here.”

“Human mages?”

“Yes.”

Aralorn pursed her lips but could think of no reason to lie to him. “Nevyn, for one. I think Falhart’s wife Jenna might be a hedgewitch—someone said something like that once—but you’d have to talk to them to be sure. I know she’s the local midwife. Old Anasel retired to a cottage on the big farm over on the bluffs about a league to the south. I believe that he’s senile now. That’s it as far as I know—though there are probably a half dozen hedgewitches.”

Kisrah shook his head. “Wouldn’t be a hedgewitch. Anasel . . . Anasel might have been able to do it. I’ll speak to Lady Irrenna about him. It is certainly not Nevyn. I know his work.”

Aralorn tapped her fingers lightly on her thigh. Hedgewitches aside, Kisrah should have been able to answer the question about wizards for himself. He was, after all, the ae’Magi. All the trained human wizards, except for Wolf, were bound to him.

“Ask Irrenna about other mages as well—she might know something I don’t, but after you do that, you might see if you can contact one of the Spymaster’s wizards in Sianim. Tell them you’re asking for me, and they won’t charge you. If there is another wizard here, Ren will know.”

Kisrah looked startled for a moment at her helpfulness, but he nodded warily. “I’ll do that.”

That night, comfortably ensconced in the bed, Aralorn watched as Wolf, in human form, scrubbed his face with a damp cloth.

“Wolf, what do you know about howlaas?”

He held the cloth and shook his head. “Something less than a story collector like you, I imagine.”

She shrugged. “I was just wondering how long I’ll be listening to the wind.”

“Is it bothering you now?”

“Not as long as I stay away from windows.”

“Give it a few days,” he said finally. “If it doesn’t stop soon, I’ll see what I can find out.”

She nodded. The thought that it might never fade was something she didn’t want to dwell on. She came up with a change of topic.

“What was the second spell Lord Kisrah tried to work?” she asked. “The one you were worried about.”

Wolf shrugged off his shirt and set it aside so he could wash more thoroughly. “I believe it was an attempt to unwork the spell holding your father.”

Admiring the view, she said, “I thought that was what he was doing with his first spell?”

Wolf shook his head. “No. He was checking to make certain your father was still alive.”

She thought about that, frowning. “Why did his second spell bother you?”

He wiped dry and took off his loose-fitting pants. “Because he didn’t examine the spell before he tried to unwork it.”

“Which means?”

“He knew what the spell was already.”

She pulled back the cover from Wolf’s side of the bed and patted it in invitation. “You think that Kisrah cast it?”

He joined her and spent a moment settling in. “Yes. I think that’s exactly what it means.”

“Then why couldn’t he remove it?” she asked, scooting over until her head rested on his shoulder. “And why was he surprised by the baneshade’s presence?”

“I think that another wizard has his hands in the brew. Remember, Kisrah asked about other wizards in the area.”

Aralorn nodded. “So he can’t release the spell until he finds the other mage?”

“Right.”

“If he cast the spell with this other wizard, then why doesn’t he know who it is?”

“Perhaps he set the spell in an amulet,” said Wolf, grunting even before she poked him. “Seriously, I don’t know.”

“Nevyn,” she said with a sigh. “It must have been Nevyn. I’ve heard that poor Anasel can hardly feed himself.”

But Wolf shook his head. “If it was Nevyn, I’d expect that Kisrah would know it. Kisrah was telling the truth when he said it wasn’t Nevyn—he’s a terrible liar.”

She wriggled her toe in the covers for a minute, then she twisted around and braced her chin on Wolf’s chest. “So Kisrah decided that you and I had a hand in the former ae’Magi’s death. In a fit of vengeance, he uses black magic on Father to draw me, and therefore you, into coming here, where he could exact vengeance. Then another wizard steps in to add his two bits’ worth—I don’t buy it.”

“That’s because you are trying to make whole cloth from unspun wool.”

She grinned in the darkness. “You’ve been hanging around Lambshold too long. ‘Sheepish’ comments aside, I suppose, you’re probably right. Do you have a better idea?”

“I have a suspicion, but I’ll wait until I’ve had a little more time to think on it.”

She yawned and shifted into a more comfortable position. “I think I’ll sleep on it, too.”

She really didn’t expect to gain any insight while she lay dreaming, but it was several hours before morning when she awoke with her heart pounding.

“Wolf,” she said urgently.

“Umpf,” he said inelegantly.

She sat up, letting the chilly night air seep under the warm blankets. “I mean it, Wolf, wake up. I need your opinion.”

“All right. I’m awake.” He pulled the covers snug around his neck.

Almost hesitantly, she asked, “Did Kisrah look tired to you? I thought so, but I don’t know him very well.”

“Yes. There are a lot of people around here who haven’t gotten enough sleep.” Sleep-roughened as it was, his voice was almost difficult to understand.

Aralorn smoothed the covers as they lay over her lap, not at all certain her next question was important enough for the pain it would cause him. “When you saw her, the one time you saw her, did your mother have red hair?”

He withdrew instantly without moving at all.

“It’s not an idle question,” she told him. “I thought of something while I was telling stories tonight. I thought it was silly then, but now ...”

“Yes,” he said shortly, “she had red hair.”

“Was it long or short?”

“Long,” he bit out after a short pause. “Long and filthy. It smelled of excrement and death.”

“Wolf,” said Aralorn in a very small voice, looking at the bump her toes made under the quilts, “when you destroyed the tower, were you trying to kill yourself?”

She felt the bed move as he shifted his weight.

This question seemed to bother him less than the one about his mother. The biting tone was missing from his rough voice, and he sounded . . . intrigued. “Yes. Why do you ask?”

She ran her hands through her hair. “I’m not sure how to tell you this without sounding like a madwoman. Just bear with me.”

“Always.” There was a bit of long-suffering in his tone.

She leaned back against him and smiled wryly. “Ever since you left this last time, I’ve been having nightmares. At first they weren’t too different from the ones I had after you rescued me from the ae’Magi’s dungeons, and I didn’t think much more about them. About a week ago, they became more pointed.”

She thought about them, trying to pick out the first that had been different. “The first set seemed to have a common theme. I dreamed that I was a child, looking for something I had lost—you. In another dream, I was back in the dungeon, blinded, and the ae’Magi asked me where you were—just as he did when he had me at the castle. It was so real I could feel the scratches on my arms and the congestion in my lungs. I’ve never had a dream that real.”

She reached out a hand to rest on Wolf’s arm for her own comfort. “I saw Talor again, and his twin. They were both Uriah this time, though Kai died before he could be changed.”

She paused to steady her voice and wasn’t too successful. “They asked me where you were.”

“You think they were more than dreams?” She couldn’t tell what he thought from his voice.

“I didn’t at first, though I thought it was strange that in my dreams they never asked where ‘Wolf ’ was—I don’t think of you as ‘Cain’ very often. That’s what my father asked me. He said, ‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten where you put Cain.’ ” She laughed softly, shaking her head. “As if you were a toy I’d misplaced.” She grinned at him. “I thought that one was just worry because you’d left so abruptly.”

She lost her smile. “That’s where the color of your mother’s hair comes in. The last dream, the one I had in the inn on the way here, was even odder than the others. At least they seemed to come from my experiences: This one wasn’t about anything I’d ever seen.”

“It concerned my mother?”

Aralorn nodded. “Partially, yes. It was more a series of dreams. They all concerned you—things you had done.”

“What sorts of things?”

“Unpleasant ones. Like when your mother died. Someone who didn’t know you as well as I do might have thought you didn’t feel anything.”

“I didn’t.”

Aralorn shot him a look of disbelief, remembering the boy’s frozen face, then shook her head at him. “Right,” she said dryly. “At any rate, that was the first part. In another, I was tied down, and you were going to kill me. But I knew there was something wrong, and I fought it. When I did, it . . . altered. I was watching again, and it was the ae’Magi who held the knife. He offered it to you, and you refused.”

“I didn’t always,” commented Wolf softly—he had stiffened again.

Aralorn tightened her grip briefly on his arm. “I know. But you wouldn’t smile while you killed—or talk either, for that matter. At any rate, the last part was when you destroyed the tower. What I saw at first presented you as a power-mad mage, but this time it was easier to shift the dream back to what really happened. I can picture you motivated by rage, hurt, or cold-blooded anger, but greed just doesn’t fit.”

“The story you told tonight made you think that something was sending you dreams like the Dreamer?” repeated Wolf carefully.

“It sounds even stupider when you say it than when I think it,” she commented, but she slid back under the covers and huddled near his warmth just the same. How to explain the alien feel of the dreams without sounding even stupider? “I didn’t know the color of your mother’s hair, or that you were trying to destroy yourself with the tower. We are living in odd times.” Times made odder by the last ae’Magi’s foray into forbidden magics—she didn’t need to say it. Wolf knew his father was in some part responsible for the changes taking place. “Dragons fly the Northland skies, and howlaas venture into Reth.”

She continued without pause. “There has even been a resurgence in the followers of the old gods for the past several years. Look at the temple here. It’s been centuries since there was a priest in residence, but there’s one here now. The trappers have been decimated by nasty critters like the howlaa and other things that haven’t been seen in generations. Is it so impossible that . . . that something else was awakened?”

Wolf broke in. “You mean that the black magic my father worked might have fed the Dreamer you told us about tonight?”

“Yes.” She swallowed. “That howlaa today. It was sent, Wolf.”

“Sent?” asked Wolf.

“Uhm.” She nodded. “When I met its gaze, it spoke to me. Something evil sent it searching for us—it was meant to kill you.” She hesitated, then continued. “Then there was the wind . . . Wolf, I believe that there is something evil here.”

Silence lingered for a while as Wolf thought of what she’d said.

“Well,” he said finally, “as long as we are throwing out odd theories, I have developed one of my own, just for you. It even has to do with dreaming.”

“You didn’t laugh at mine, so I won’t laugh at yours,” she promised.

“Right,” he replied. “When it became obvious to me that Kisrah had worked the spell, I thought about just what it would have taken to persuade him to do so. I could only think of one thing—and tonight I realized that it was even possible. Let me tell you a little something you may not have known about human magic.”

“That doesn’t limit the topic much,” she quipped.

He ruffled her hair. “Quiet, little mouse, and listen. Human mages have different talents; one of them—though it is very rare—is a form of farseeing. The mage’s spirit leaves his body and can travel over vast distances in a matter of moments. In that state, he can speak to others in their dreams or merely watch them. Usually, they are invisible in that form—but occasionally they can be seen as a ghostly mist.”

“All right,” agreed Aralorn. “I think I’ve heard of that. It’s called spirit travel or something of the sort—but I thought it was rare.”

“Like shapeshifters,” agreed Wolf.

“Your point,” she acquiesced, grinning a little in the darkness of the chilly old castle room. “So you think that maybe my dreams might be coming from a human mage? Someone deliberately trying to get information from me?”

“My father could do it,” said Wolf softly. “I heard him talking about it once with another wizard. They were discussing another mage, I think. I don’t know which one. He said, ‘Of course I’m certain he’s a dreamwalker. I have some talent in that direction myself.’ I think he used his talent to influence his rise to power—by speaking to the other mages as they slept.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “I remember, because I marked a rune on my staff that kept him from doing the same to me as soon as I overheard him.”

Aralorn tightened her arms around him, wondering how he was still sane after all his father had done to him. He squeezed her in return—to comfort her, she thought—and continued to speak without a pause.

“If the body of a dreamwalker is killed while the spirit is outside, the spirit remains alive for a time. He probably would not be able to work magic as a spirit, but he can persuade others to act on his behalf.”

“A ghost?” she asked.

He grunted. “No. Ghosts are . . . bits of memory trapped in place. A spirit is—it’s too late at night for lessons in magic theory, my Lady. Let me get back to the subject at hand. It is possible that my father managed to leave his body before the Uriah killed him. In that state, he could have visited Kisrah—as well as the other mage who appears to have had his hands in the pie—and persuaded them to act in his stead.”

“You think the only reason Kisrah would use black magic ...”

“Was if my father asked him to do so,” said Wolf. “Yes.”

“To use Father as bait for us.”

“Perhaps.”

Aralorn stiffened at his cautious tone, which usually meant things had gone from bad to worse. “What do you mean?”

“My father wanted to live forever, Lady. Do you think that he would be content with mere vengeance?”

“You think he’s trying to use Father’s body?”

“Your father can’t work magic; but your father is connected intimately with three mages. Attack him with magic, and my father has a whole selection to choose among.”

“He would prefer yours since you are the most powerful of the three.” Aralorn shivered and settled closer. “I think I prefer the Dreamer.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Wolf mildly, “we’ll be lucky, and it is only Kisrah trying to kill me.”

She snickered into his shoulder. “Not everyone would look at that as lucky.”

“Not everyone is looking at our list of alternatives.”

“True.” She yawned.

They fell silent, and she thought Wolf had drifted off to sleep. She patted him gently.

Her uncle had said that Wolf had a death wish.

She’d known that he had a tendency to be reckless, thought that it was something they shared. In her dreams (and she was convinced that the memories of Wolf’s experiences were true dreams, however they’d been sent), she’d seen that he’d expected death when he’d destroyed the tower. He’d hoped for death. Apparently, he still did.

She took in a deep breath of his familiar scent and held it to her heart. She would not lose him.

“Tomorrow, I think we might visit the priestess of the death goddess,” she said. He had been asleep, because her voice jerked him awake. “If there’s a ghost or a Dreamer out there, the death goddess ought to know—don’t you think?”

“Could be,” Wolf muttered groggily. “Go to sleep, Aralorn.”