Masques s-1

by Patricia Briggs

  After a slight pause, he continued, “As you speculated, they are all running from the ae’Magi in a manner of speaking—the way that you would have been fleeing from Sianim if you had made a few more negative comments about the ae’Magi. Most of them were driven from their villages by the townspeople.

  “Except for Myr, everyone in camp can work a little magic. The adults didn’t have enough ability to be trained as magicians and escaped the ae’Magi’s control that way. The children are young enough that they had not yet been sent for training.”

  “How far does that control go?” she asked him. “Are they his puppets?”

  “No more than Ren or any of the other nonmages who do as he wants. He just takes away the advantage their magic gives them, and so they only see what he wants them to see.”

  Aralorn turned until she faced him. “Why aren’t you under his control?” She expected him to avoid answering as he usually did when her questions became too pointed.

  But Wolf moved in a lupine version of a shrug. “I either broke the ties of the binding, or I wasn’t in training long enough. I am not sure which.”

  Aralorn and Wolf sat in silence, watching the camp stir in the valley below them. Aralorn stretched her feet out to the fire, which still flared uneasily, as if waiting for another command.

  Watching the red play of flame reflected on her feet in the dim light, she ventured another question. “How long have you been helping Myr?”

  She noticed with self-directed amusement that her tone was disinterested, revealing none of the jealousy she felt. It had surprised her to feel resentful of Myr, but Wolf was hers. When she found out that not only was there someone else close to him but that Wolf had revealed himself as a human mage to him—it bothered her.

  Wolf spoke slowly. “I have been looking for a way to move against the ae’Magi for a long time. It came to my attention that Myr didn’t hold the ae’Magi in the same esteem that most people do: Apparently, Myr is not susceptible to magic. I am still not sure what use he will be against the ae’Magi, but it seemed prudent to watch him. At first I did little more than observe, but after Myr’s parents were killed, I introduced myself and offered my help. For the most part, all that I did was offer advice and block a few spells that might have resulted in fatal accidents.”

  “Accidents like a carriage overturning unexpectedly,” offered Aralorn, remembering Myr’s parents.

  Wolf nodded. “Or an archer’s arrow going astray, things that immunity to magic does not shield against. I am not sure if I helped much in the end. The last attack that the ae’Magi set against Myr was more subtle. Did you hear what happened?”

  Aralorn shook her head. “The first thing that I heard about it was back at the inn, when some messengers from the capital rode in and spouted nonsense. Myr was supposedly crazed with grief and attacked one of his own men.”

  Wolf snorted. “Myr was in his private courtyard in the palace when he was attacked by an elemental—a lucky choice for Myr, as most of an elemental’s ability to harm is magical.” So maybe she’d convinced the ae’Magi that Myr wasn’t immune to magic, or maybe he was testing it.

  Wolf continued with the story. “They made enough noise that I went out to investigate. I think that Myr would have won even if I hadn’t been there.” Wolf shrugged. “When it was dead, the demon transformed into a more mundane creature—one of Myr’s personal guards. We were still standing over the body when the better part of the castle guard ran into the courtyard. They attacked, and we managed to flee. Here is where we’ve been ever since.”

  “What now?” asked Aralorn, drawing pictures in the dirt near the blankets.

  Wolf let out a sound that passed as a laugh. “Now, Myr is trying desperately to prepare this camp for winter, and I am trying to find a way that I can move against the ae’Magi.” He paused, then said in a tone that reeked of frustration, “It’s not that I don’t have the power. It is the training I lack. Most of what little I do know I’ve learned myself, and it’s not enough. If I could find just one of the old magicians not under his spell, I could find something to use against him. Instead, I have to wade through piles of books that may be utterly useless.”

  “I will help with the books,” offered Aralorn. He wasn’t worried about power? Against a mage strong enough to turn Sianim into his worshipping congregation? “But this is the ae’Magi you’re going up against, Wolf. He’s not just some hedgewitch.”

  He ignored her worries about the ae’Magi. Instead, he said, “If I have to read through the dusty old relics, you might as well suffer, too.” He was teasing her; she could tell by his tone of voice. He knew she would devour every time-scarred tome with a zealot’s passion—she loved old books. “How many languages do you read? I’ve heard you speak three or four.”

  Aralorn shrugged. “Including dialects? Ten, maybe twelve. Sometimes I can pick out the essentials in a related language. Father was a fanatic about it—he got caught in a battle one time trying to negotiate a surrender, and the only person who spoke both languages had been killed. So he started us all when we were children. After I came to Sianim, I learned a lot of others. Anything very old, though, will be in the Ancients’ tongue. I can pick my way through that, but I’m not fluent.”

  He gave her a wolfish grin. “And they always said that collecting folktales was a useless hobby.” He continued more seriously, “The two of us can get through more material than I can alone. If I even had the name of a magician with a spell that could stop him, I could save time. I have a library near here, and if you can go through the secular books, it would leave me free to work with the grimoires.”

  Aralorn made a point of looking around at the mountain wilderness that surrounded them. “You have a library nearby?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes,” she repeated.

  Gravely, he met her eyes. If she hadn’t known him as well as she did, she might not have seen the faint humor in the amber depths.

  “I did notice that you ignored me earlier,” she said. “This is the ae’Magi you are talking about facing. Do you really think you can take him?”

  “No,” Wolf answered softly. “But I’m the only chance we have, aren’t I?”

  From the valley rose the distant sound of a metal spoon hitting a cooking pot—the time-honored call to gather for a meal.

  Wolf rolled lithely to his paws, changing almost as he moved into the tall, masked figure that was his human form. Courteously, he extended a hand to help her to her feet.

  Aralorn accepted the hand a little warily, finding that Wolf in his human form was somewhat more intimidating than the wolf was. As a human, he maintained the grace that he had as a wolf. She watched with envy as he easily negotiated the slope that she scrambled and slid down.

  A stray thought caught her. At the valley bottom, she touched his arm to stop him.

  “Wolf, I think that I may have caused a problem for you.” Anxiously, she bit her lip.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “During the ball at the ae’Magi’s castle the night I left, Myr saw me in the cage where he should have seen only a bird. The ae’Magi saw him talking to me and questioned me about it. I told him that I’d seen a magician help Myr break the illusion spell, hoping to keep Myr’s immunity to magic from the ae’Magi.” She kept her eye on the contrast her hand made against the black silk of his sleeve: It was hard to remember that the masked figure was Wolf. “Did I cause you any trouble?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so. That was probably why he progressed beyond straying arrows to an elemental—the timing is about right. But since we survived it, there was no harm done.”

  * * *

  Myr was up and arranging breakfast with a dexterity that Aralorn, who liked to arrange people as well, found fascinating to watch. She let herself be organized with a bowl of cooked grain that made up in amount what it lacked in flavor. After the food she’d eaten at the inn, she felt no inclination to complain. Wolf neither ate nor removed the
mask, a situation that seemed an established pattern since no one commented on it.

  As she ate, Aralorn took the time to observe the people. The introductions she’d received the night before had been needfully brief, and many of the people had been asleep. She could only place the names to a few of the faces.

  The sour-faced cook was a smith from a province in southern Reth. A large snake tattoo wrapped itself around one massive forearm, disappearing into his sleeve. She noticed that for all of his gruffness, his voice softened remarkably when he was talking with the children. His name was Haris.

  Edom sat a little apart from the rest. He had the dark straight hair and sallow skin typical of parts of western Reth, the legacy of interbreeding with the dark Darranians. His hands were the soft, well-cared-for hands of an aristocrat. He was an oddity in the camp. Too old to be a child, yet younger than any of the adults. He was a recent arrival and still looked as if he felt a little out of place.

  All but two of the children had been sleeping when she’d arrived at the valley. Those two who she’d met were now seated as close to Myr as they could get. Stanis had the red hair and freckles of the Southern Traders and the flamboyant personality to go with it. The second boy, Tobin, was a quiet shadow of his friend. Stanis tugged impatiently at Myr’s shirt until he had the young king’s attention. Then he settled back on his knees and started talking with grand gestures of his arms that looked a little odd on a boy of ten or eleven summers.

  Aralorn was just about to look away when she saw Myr’s expression sharpen with alert interest. He looked around for Wolf and waved him over. Aralorn followed.

  “Stanis, tell Wolf what you just told me.”

  Stanis hesitated for a moment, but the enjoyment of being the object of attention manifestly won out over any shyness that he felt around the intimidating magician.

  “Yesterday afternoon, when it was time to eat lunch, nobody could find Astrid. Me and Tobin thought that she might have been playing up near the old caves. So we all went up there to see if she still was. Edom was too scairt to go in, but I wasn’t. We looked for hours and hours. Then when we all got back out together, she was waiting with Edom.

  “She said that she was lost in the dark. She cried and a nice man who knew her name found her and took her out of the caves. Edom says that he didn’t see no one with her when she came out. And Haris said that he thinks that she wandered into the mouth of one of the caves and fell asleep and dreamed about the man. But I think that she met a shapeshifter, and Tobin does, too. Only he thinks that it could have been a ghost.”

  Aralorn suppressed a smile at the boy’s delivery—he’d gotten most of that out in one breath.

  “What do think, Wolf? Astrid doesn’t tell stories, for all that she’s but a child. Who do you think she saw?” Myr’s tone was quiet, but it was evident that the thought of someone living in the caves (wherever they were) bothered him.

  Wolf said, “It’s entirely possible that she did meet someone. Those caves interconnect with cave systems that run throughout the mountain chain. I have seen many strange things in these mountains and heard stories of more. I know for a fact that there are shapeshifters in this area.” He didn’t even look at Aralorn as he said that, nor did Myr, though the young king twitched. “I’ll keep an eye out—but if he were going to harm us, I’d think he’d have already done so.”

  Myr relaxed a little, relying on the older man’s judgment. Stanis looked pleased with himself—Wolf had agreed with him.

  * * *

  After breakfast, Aralorn found herself cornered by Myr, and before she knew it, she was agreeing to give lessons in swordsmanship. Myr divided the adults into four groups to be taught by Aralorn, Myr, Wolf, and a one-armed ex-guardsman with an evil smile and the unlikely name of Pussywillow. The other three teachers were, in Aralorn’s estimation, all much better with a sword than Aralorn was, but luckily none of her students were good enough to realize how badly outclassed she was.

  The first part of any low-level lesson was a drill in basic moves. Haris Smith-Turned-Cook handled the sword with the same strength and sureness that a good smith uses in swinging a hammer. He learned rapidly from a word or a touch. Edom had the normal flaws of adolescence—all elbows and awkwardness. The others were in the middle range. Given three or four years of steady sword work, they would be passable, maybe.

  It didn’t really matter, she thought. If it came down to hand-to-hand fighting, they were all doomed anyway. But it was something to keep the people busy and make them feel as though they were working toward a common goal.

  She fought her first bout with Haris, deciding to face the best fighter first—when she was fresh. It was a good idea. He might not have had much experience with a sword, but he had been in more than one dirty fight. If she’d had to rely on only her swordsmanship to fight him, she might have lost, but she’d been in a few dirty fights herself.

  When she finally pinned him, Haris gave her the first genuine smile she’d seen on his face. “For a little bit of a thing, you fight pretty well.”

  “For a hulking brute, you’re not too bad yourself,” she said, letting him up. She turned to the observers. “And that is how you fight on a battlefield. But not in a training session on swordsmanship. The sword got in his way more than it helped him. If he were fighting in a battle today, he’d be better off with a club than with a sword. That will not be true in a month, for any of you—I hope.”

  The others were easier, so she lectured as she fought. By the time she was facing the last student, Edom, she was short on breath. Cleaning the inn had been good for keeping in shape, but a two-hour workout with a sword was enough to test her powers of endurance.

  She opened with the same move that she’d used in all the other fights—a simple sidesweep that all the others had been able to meet. Edom fell, which should have shown him to be an utter idiot with a sword. She heard a few suppressed sniggers from the audience. But something about the fall struck her as a little off; if he had fallen from the force of the blow, he shouldn’t have fallen quite as far as he had. She wasn’t big enough to push him that distance without more leverage than a sidesweep allowed for.

  She helped him up and handed him his sword. Grasping his wrist, she showed him the proper block and swung again. He met it that time, clumsily. She worked slowly with him at first, gradually speeding up. He progressed slowly, with nothing more odd than ineptness showing in his fighting.

  She worked with him on three blocks, aiming different attacks at him and showing how each block could be used. She was getting tired, and made a mistake that a better swordsman would never have made. She used a complex swing, difficult to execute as well as counter, and misjudged it. Horrified, she waited for her sword to cut into his leg.

  He blocked it.

  He shouldn’t have been able to, not at his level. She wasn’t sure that she could have blocked it. She certainly couldn’t have executed the combination that he used. She stepped back and met his eyes. Softly, so that no one but she could hear, he said, “Can I explain in private?”

  She considered a minute and nodded. Turning back to the others, she dismissed them, sending them to watch Myr, still fighting nearby.

  Alone, Edom met her gaze. He shuffled a foot in the dirt. “You . . .” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat and tried again. “You know that I’m not quite what I appear to be. I’m not even Rethian; I’m from Darran. I don’t know if you know it, but Darran is under the ae’Magi’s influence, too.”

  “Darran?” Darranians hated magic. People who could work magic left, or risked being killed. Impossible to imagine Darranians approving of the ae’Magi.

  He saw her expression.

  “Yes. It was pretty obvious when it happened,” he said. “Scary. I said the wrong thing, and I had to run for my life.” He shrugged. “I don’t know why I came here. Something . . . drew me here, I guess. It seemed as good a place to go as any. I found the valley full of people like me, hiding from the ae’Magi. But
they were all Rethians. Given current feelings between Darran and Reth, I could hardly tell them that I was a noble-born Darranian.

  “So I told them that I was the son of a Rethian merchant. I thought that it was a good idea, I speak Rethian with a faint enough accent that I could pass for any number of western provinces—and it explained the richness of my clothes.

  “Then Myr came and started this swordsmanship training. Where would a merchant’s son get trained in Darranian-style swordsmanship? So I faked it.”

  Aralorn looked him over. “Quite a problem, I agree. What you will do is tell this all to Myr. You do it, or I will.” She put a bite into her last sentence. She’d trained her share of new recruits before she became a spy—some of them needed orders that sounded like orders.

  Edom balked; she saw it in his eyes. Whether it was the order, the idea of telling Myr his secret, being told what to do by a woman, who was also obviously Rethian (prejudice went both ways between Reth and Darran), or all of the above, she didn’t know. Though she suspected all three. She waited while he worked it out, saw him swallow his pride with an effort.

  “I’ve heard he’s not as prejudiced as most Rethians.” She waved a hand in the vague direction of the rest of the camp. “And with the lack of trained fighters here, Myr can’t afford to be too picky.”

  Edom stared at her a moment. “I guess I’ll go do that now, then.” He gave her a small smile, took a deep breath, and seemed to relax. “If he doesn’t kick me out, I guess it might be nice to be useful, instead of sitting on the sidelines all the time.” After a brief bow to her, student to teacher, he ran off to where Myr was fighting.

  Aralorn stretched wearily. Tired as she was, it had felt good to work out with a sword rather than a mop—it was almost as good as playing at staff.

  The exercise had made her hot and itchy, so she wandered over to the creek. It took her a while, but she found a place deep enough to wash in, with a large flat rock that she could kneel on and avoid the worst of the mud. She ducked her head under the water—its icy temperature welcome on her overheated skin.