“This one’s yours,” she told him, in case he’d missed its significance. “Obsidian for sorrow. The rest we find will be something about both of us.”
“Sorrow?” commented Wolf.
“Yes,” said Aralorn. “Like the maze as a whole, the first stones can tell you more than that. They’ll show you a bit about yourself and the pattern you’re living now—if you interpret what they’re saying correctly. I’ve always mostly ignored what the maze had to say about me, but you can try it if you’d like. Touch the stone for a minute or two, and it will tell you something.”
He hesitated, then took a step sideways and leaned against it, saying as he did so, “I’m not certain this is wise. I’ve never been fond of prophecy.”
“Mmm. Remember, it’s not a prediction of things to come: It’s an assessment of who you are now. And they’re not infallible.”
After a bit, he stepped away. He didn’t say anything, so she didn’t ask him what he’d seen. She drew the rune she’d used before, and the arrow appeared on the top of the stone, sending them at a shallow angle downward.
“The next stones are less personal and intended to help predict the near future—some of the time. The language of stones is pretty limited. Mostly it will just present attributes we have or will need.”
“Not very helpful,” said Wolf, and Aralorn grinned at him.
“Not that I’ve ever noticed.”
During the next several hours, they wandered from stone to stone, finding serpentine for wit, quartz for luck, and malachite for lust (she snickered a bit at that one). They ate the salted meat and cheese Aralorn had brought with them. As the sun reached its zenith, they started down the path the malachite had chosen for them. The stone they found was amethyst, protection against evil. When they came to a second, then yet a third amethyst, Aralorn grew concerned.
“I wonder if the stones will let us through,” she said, crouching in the snow beside the melon-sized crystal. “They might not if they think that harm will enter with us.”
“Do you want me to wait here?” Wolf asked softly. “You might find this easier on your own.”
Realizing he’d taken the message incorrectly, she raised her eyebrow. “Amethyst may be protection from evil, but the stones have already appraised you and have named you sorrowful. If they had judged you as harshly as you judge yourself, we would never have come this far.”
“Then you took quite a chance not coming here alone.”
She braced both hands on her hips. “I took no chances.”
“Stubborn as a pack mule,” he said.
Since she’d heard a number of people claim that, she couldn’t disagree.
She drew another rune and saw that their path led upward, as it had for the past few stones.
“I hope this ends soon,” she grumbled. “I really don’t want to spend the night outside. It’s cold, it’s getting late, and we still have to make the trip back.”
Waiting at the top of the climb was a wolf-sized chunk of white marble.
“Judgment,” said Aralorn in satisfaction. She thought it would be the last one, but found another maze stone at the top of a twisting bramble-and-brush-filled gorge.
“Rose quartz,” murmured Wolf. “It seems we are welcome here.”
Even so, Aralorn was unsurprised when the stone pointed them down the gorge.
“I knew I should have held out for luck,” she said. “Sometimes, there are ways around the gorge.”
There was no trail. Aralorn tore the knee out of her pants and almost lost her cloak before they arrived safely at the bottom. Wolf, of course, had no difficulty at all.
They emerged from the deep undergrowth into a small grotto. From the cliffs overhead, a solidly frozen waterfall plunged into an ice-covered pool. The transformation from the dense gray vegetation to the pristine little valley was shockingly abrupt, as if they had stepped into someone’s neatly kept castle garden. Even the snow that covered the ground was evenly dispersed, unmarred by footprints.
“This is it,” announced Aralorn with satisfaction. After a moment, she nodded toward the waterfall. “I spent one summer trailing streams in this part of Lambshold, trying to find every stream anywhere near here, and never found one that came through this grotto. I even tried to back-track this one, but I never managed it. I’d look away for a moment, and the stream would be gone.”
“I could do that with a variation of the lost spell.” Wolf eyed the rushing water speculatively.
“If you say so.” She heaved a theatrical sigh. “ ‘Frustrating’ is what I called it.”
He laughed. “I’ll bet you did. Isn’t there supposed to be someone here?”
“No, this is just the end of the maze. There’s a trail over by the waterfall,” Aralorn said, and began picking her way up the path that edged the pond.
A thin layer of snow turned to a sheet of ice as they approached the waterfall. Aralorn set her feet carefully and kept moving. Wolf drew to a halt and growled.
“I know,” said Aralorn quietly, stepping behind the shimmering veil of the frozen waterfall. “Someone’s watching us. I had expected them earlier.”
The difference between the bright daylight and the shadow of the falls caused her to stop to allow her eyes to adjust. Wolf bumped into her, then slipped past, examining the stone surface of the cliff face behind the waterfall. Behind a thin sheet of ice over the rock where a few last trickles of water had frozen, there was a small tunnel in the rock.
“That goes in about ten feet and ends,” said Aralorn. “I stayed there overnight once, but it was summer.”
The far end of the narrow path behind the falls was frozen over, but a few hits with the haft of one of her knives broke a small hole, and her booted foot cleared a space large enough to climb through.
Once out from under the waterfall, their way twisted up the side of the mountain. The path was cobbled, and the smooth stones were slicker than the natural ground. Aralorn tried to walk beside the path as much as she could. The climb was thankfully short, only to the top of the falls.
Over the years, the stream that formed the waterfall had cut a deep channel between the two mountains that fed it with the runoff from the snowy peaks. The path was cut into the side of one mountain several feet above the stream, winding and twisting with the course of the water.
After walking a mile or so, the path turned abruptly away from the mountain, through a thicket of brush and into a wide valley.
* * *
Wolf could still feel the eyes watching them, though he couldn’t tell where the spy was. It was not magic that told him so much, but the keen senses of the wolf. Not scent, nor sight, nor hearing, but faint impressions gathered from all three. It distracted him as he examined the place to which Aralorn had brought them.
The valley was surrounded by steep-sided hills that reminded him of the valley in the Northlands where he’d spent the past winter, although that had been far smaller. Someone had taken a lot of time to find a place this sheltered. The stone path, now half-buried in the snow, led up a slight incline to a pair of gateposts. Other than those, the valley appeared empty. Perhaps, he thought as he followed Aralorn, the village was located over the next rise.
Then, between one step and the next, magic rose over him from the ground, momentarily paralyzing him with its strength. Defensively, he analyzed it: a blending illusion that utilized the lay of the land to hide something in the valley.
Without conscious act, he found himself holding the magic to break the spell, magic that had nothing to do with the familiar, violent forces he normally worked. This was a surge of power that took its direction from the brief alarm he’d felt at the sudden wall of magic. It flared in an attempt to twist out of his fragile hold and attack the ensorcellment before him. The effort it took to restrain it challenged his training and power both.
“Wolf?”
Even wrapped as he was in the grip of his power, her voice reached him. Fear of what his magic would do to her gave him
the strength to contain it, just barely.
* * *
“Wolf?” Aralorn said again, kneeling beside him.
She didn’t dare touch him as he swayed and shook with rhythmic spasms. Gradually, the spasms slowed and stopped. He took a deep, shuddering breath and looked up at Aralorn.
“Problems?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you want to wait for me back by the waterfall?”
“No,” he said. “It’s all right now. It just took me by surprise.”
She looked at him narrowly for a moment before deciding to accept his word on the matter.
“Fine, then. There is some kind of protective illusion over the village. I don’t think we ought to tamper with it, but if we approach, I suspect we’ll be met.”
“Such an illusion is not the usual practice?” He sounded as controlled as he usually did, though he was so tense she could see the fine trembling of his muscles.
Aralorn shook her head in answer. “Not when I lived here.”
Though the village was hidden, the gateposts that marked the entrance were still there. Wolf, the ruff on his neck still raised from his battle for control of his magic, ranged in random patterns to either side.
“Stay on the path,” she warned him. “They wouldn’t have left the gateposts here if they didn’t have something nasty protecting the village from people who aren’t polite enough to enter by the proper way.”
When she tried to walk between the gateposts, a barrier of magic stopped her. It wasn’t painful, just solid.
Aralorn drew the rune she’d used in the maze on the left-hand pillar, but the barrier remained. She frowned but didn’t try to force her way through the gate.
Instead, she spoke to the watcher who’d accompanied them from the waterfall. “I have come to speak with Halven, my uncle.” Her tongue fought her a little as she curled it around the shapeshifter language that she hadn’t used since she’d last been here.
Beyond the posts, the wind stirred the snow into random swirls. The quiet was oppressive and uncomfortable.
Turning to Wolf, Aralorn said, “They may make us wait for a long time. Sometimes, the oddest things strike them as humorous.”
Without reply, Wolf made himself comfortable though he fairly vibrated with tension. Aralorn shivered as a cold breeze ran under her cloak.
“It is cold here,” said a man behind her in the same tongue she’d used. “You must want to talk to this uncle very badly.”
Wolf came to his feet with a growl; he hadn’t heard the man approach.
She put a hand on his head, then turned to face the stranger.
Shapeshifters were hard to identify: They could assume any features they chose. Nothing in the beautiful face and artfully swept-back bronze hair was familiar. Voices, though, were more difficult to change, and given a moment to recover, she knew who it was. She smiled.
“Badly,” she agreed, switching to Rethian for Wolf’s sake. “I would have waited a lot longer than this, Uncle Halven.”
“You might have indeed,” he replied without altering his language, “had I not seen you myself. I am not high in favor at this moment, and you never were.”
“You flatter me,” Aralorn replied. She continued to speak Rethian. If he was going to be rude, she’d follow his lead. “As I recall, I was too insignificant to warrant animosity.”
Halven smiled like a cat—with fangs and cold eyes. “Aralorn the half-breed certainly was, but the Sianim spy is a different matter altogether.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Spy? Who says I am a spy?”
“If you would talk,” said Halven mildly, “it would best be done here.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “I apologize in advance for keeping you out in the cold.”
“Not at all.” Halven was suddenly all gracious host, though he’d yet to switch to Rethian, which he would have if he’d really been in an accommodating mood. “What brings you and your dog here on this chilly morning?”
Wolf was sometimes mistaken for a dog by people who hadn’t seen him move because he lacked the usual gray coat. It surprised her that Halven would mistake him, though, and she almost turned to look at Wolf. But she didn’t want to draw her uncle’s attention to him.
Assuming the shapeshifters were as resistant to the ae’Magi’s magic as she had been, there was no reason they would be upset about his death; but she would rather they didn’t know any more about Wolf than was necessary. Unlike the people at Lambshold, if Halven looked closely, he might be able to tell that Wolf was a shapeshifter—and a both green and human mage of great power. With that much information, it was only a step to identify him as Cain ae’Magison, who killed the ae’Magi. The shapeshifters didn’t talk much to people in the outside world, but that was one thing she would rather no one knew. The ae’Magi’s spells ensured that almost everyone loved him—and if they knew where Cain was, they would try to kill him.
The maze stones knew what, and who, Wolf was already, but they seldom spoke anymore.
“Have you heard that my father’s been taken ill?” she asked.
“I’d heard he was dead,” replied Halven flatly.
“Yes, well these things do get exaggerated upon occasion, don’t they?” Aralorn said. “I’m pleased to tell you that he’s alive, but there is some sort of magic binding keeping him in a deathlike trance. I wondered if you might know something about it.”
For a moment, her uncle’s expression changed, too quickly for her to catch what it was he felt; she hoped he was glad the Lyon wasn’t dead.
Seeing her face, Halven laughed with real humor that pierced the armor of his outward charm like a ray of sunlight through a stained-glass window. “You want to know if I did it, eh?”
“That was the general idea,” she replied.
“No, child, I haven’t done anything to him. As a matter of fact, we have begun to exchange favors.” He shook his head in bemusement. “I never thought I would deal with a human, but the Lyon is nothing if not persistent—much like his daughter.”
Relief swept through her. Halven prided himself on being truthful in all things. If he’d hurt her father, he’d have told her or found some clever way of not admitting one way or the other.
“Would you be willing to come and look at him? I’ve never seen anything like the spell that holds him—I can’t even tell if it is green magic or human.”
Halven was shaking his head before she finished speaking. “No. Call down one of the human mages. My position in the quorum of elders is touchy enough without risking a visit to the human stronghold. They feel I have compromised our safety, though they agreed before I helped your father with his breeding project.”
“The ryefox,” said Aralorn thoughtfully. “That’s the reason for the new glamour and protection for the village. Too many people know you’re here. What did my father give you for your help?”
“The Lyon has deeded this section of Lambshold to me and my kindred by special dispensation of the new king. We also have a treaty calling for the protection of our land by the Lord of Lambshold in perpetuity.”
“If the Lyon said it, it is true,” said Aralorn. Then she raised an eyebrow. “If he had time to tell my brother Correy about it. You can’t expect Correy to take your word on the matter, given the suspicion that you yourself might have caused my father’s strange condition.”
The Lyon wouldn’t have left it to chance, she knew. He would have recorded it immediately—but Halven might not know that.
“Your manipulation is heavy-handed, Aralorn,” he said.
She shrugged. “I only tell you what you have been telling yourself. The Lyon probably told my brother. Probably my brother will hold to my father’s word—even with the suspicion that will be aimed toward the shapeshifters. But it would be better for you if the Lyon was returned to health. Irrenna has sent word to the ae’Magi, but the spells are black magic. Kisrah may be quite brilliant, but his reputation does not make him an expert in the dark art
s.”
“And I am?” he asked.
“How old are you?” asked Aralorn. “Kisrah is only a few years above forty. How many more centuries have you spent learning? Don’t tell me that you have nothing more to offer us than a human mage.”
“Persistent,” he said chidingly. “I told you his affliction was none of my doing, child. Making an agreement with the Lyon is one thing; going to the keep is an entirely different matter. I will not endanger my people further.”
Aralorn met his gaze. “Come. Because I ask it of you. Because my mother would have done so if she had lived.”
His eyelids fell to cover the expression in his eyes as he thought. She wasn’t certain her appeal would be enough, especially because she had no idea if her mother cared enough for the Lyon to come to his aid.
It might just be possible that he would want to come. No one could resist the Lyon’s charm when it was directed at them, not even, she hoped, Halven. If he liked her father enough . . .
* * *
Wolf watched Aralorn’s uncle with sympathy—Aralorn could talk a cat into giving up its mouse. He could only understand her half of the conversation, but he could tell quite a bit from Halven’s gestures and Aralorn’s speech.
Wolf wondered, for a moment, why Aralorn had told him once that her uncle was indifferent to her. The poor man hadn’t even taken his eyes off her long enough to notice that her pet was a wolf. The shapeshifters had few children—Halven, Wolf knew, had none at all.
* * *
“Leave the humans to their own trials, my dear,” said a lark as it landed on Halven’s shoulder. Her voice was light and high-pitched, making it difficult to understand her.
He shrugged irritably, sending the small bird to perch on top of a gatepost. “Does this concern you, Kessenih? Tend to your own business.”
Aralorn could have cheered. Nothing was as likely to persuade her uncle to go to the hold as his wife’s opposition.
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