Patricia Briggs - Wolfsbane

“One night I dreamed that I saddled my horse and rode up to the old croft. There was a rabbit hiding under a bush that I killed with an arrow. Something happened then . . . when it died I felt a rush of power that filled me until I could hold no more. I walked the fence line of the croft, chanting as the rabbit’s blood dripped to the ground.”

There was a grim factuality to his story that Aralorn could not help but approve. To a boy who disliked hunting, the realization of what he had done must be sickening.

“When I was through, I dipped my finger into the rabbit’s death wound, and I was thinking of Father, on how much this would impress him, how proud he would be to have a son who was a mage. I made a mark on the corner post of the fence.”

“What did the mark look like?” asked Wolf.

“Two half circles, one above the other—connected bottom to top.”

Wolf frowned. “Open to the left or right or one each way?”

“To the left.”

Wolf closed his eyes as if it allowed him to better visualize the spell.

Still looking at the drawings, he asked, “You said you were chanting. Do you remember what you said?”

Gerem frowned. “No. It was in Rethian, though, because I knew what I was saying at the time. I remember thinking that it was strange. I remember that it rhymed.” He was silent for a moment. “Something about feeding, I think. Death, magic, and dreaming, but that’s all I can remember.”

“And then you burned the croft,” said Wolf.

Gerem nodded. “They said later there were animals in the barn.” He sounded sick.

“Be glad there weren’t people,” commented Aralorn.

“Thanks,” he said sourly, but with a touch of humor. “Now I can have nightmares about that every night, too.”

“You thought this was a dream?” asked Kisrah.

Gerem nodded. “Until we received news of the burning of the croft. Even then I didn’t really believe I’d been the one to burn the croft until Father collapsed.” He paused and looked at Aralorn. “I am really glad he isn’t dead. After he was brought back to the keep, I took out my hunting knife—there was dried blood on the blade just beneath the handle where my cleaning cloth might have missed.”

“Gerem,” said Kisrah, “of all of us here, you hold the least guilt. Without the protection of the spells binding master to apprentice, a dreamwalker of Geoffrey’s caliber could make you do anything he wanted you to. You are no more guilty of killing that rabbit, burning the animals in the barn, or entrapping the Lyon than a sword is guilty of the wounds it opens.”

Aralorn could have kissed him.

Gerem’s lips twitched up just a little. “You’re saying that I was just a hatchet that happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

The Archmage smiled and nodded. “After we free your father, I’ll speak to him about setting up a real apprenticeship.” He turned to Nevyn. “I’ll make certain he doesn’t have your experiences, Nevyn. You should have told—” He stopped when Nevyn flinched and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now.”

Wolf folded the drawings and put them into a pouch he carried on his belt.

“Do you know enough to release him?” asked Aralorn.

Wolf hesitated. “I will only get one chance at this. I’d like to think about it a little more. I know where Father kept his favorite spell books: Let me take a day or so to look through them before I try this.”

“In my library,” said Kisrah dryly.

“Not exactly,” said Wolf. “Remind me sometime to show you some of the secrets you ought to know about the ae’Magi’s castle. In the meantime, I need to look a few things up.”

“That sounds like a good idea to me,” said Kisrah. “Do you need any help?”

Wolf shook his head. “No. There are only two rune books he used—it wasn’t Father’s forte either.”

Kisrah bit his lip. “May I talk to you in private before you go, Cain?”

Wolf raised one eyebrow in surprise. “Certainly.” He took Aralorn’s hand and raised it to his lips. “I’ll be back this evening.”

She smiled and kissed his cheek. “Fine.”

He turned back to the Archmage. “Shall we walk?”

Kisrah led the way to the frozen gardens, making no attempt to talk until they were out in the cold.

“Cain, the Master Spells are missing—or rather half of them are.”

“What?” Shock broke through Wolf’s preoccupation with the spell he would have to perform in order to free Aralorn’s father.

“Haven’t you noticed?”

Wolf shook his head, still feeling disbelief—the Master Spells held the fabric of wizardry together. “They haven’t had any effect on me for a long time.”

“Without the spells, the position of ae’Magi is no more than a courtesy title. I have no way of controlling a rogue wizard, no way of detecting black magic unless I am in the proximity of whoever is working it. When I found them in Geoffrey’s library, the pages that contained the ae’Magi’s half of the rune spells were missing.”

Ah, thought Wolf, as he said, “I don’t know where they are.”

“I believe you,” said Kisrah, leaving Wolf feeling odd—as if he’d braced himself for an attack that hadn’t come. “You had no motive to take them. If anyone could have controlled you with them, Geoffrey would have done so a long time ago. Do you know where he would have hidden them?”

“The only time that I saw them, they were in the ae’Magi’s grimoire in the vault in the library.”

“They are no longer there. If you find them—”

“I’ll bring them to you. It’s not rogue wizards that bother me; it’s what will happen if everyone realizes you no longer control them.”

“Witch hunts,” agreed Kisrah grimly.

Wolf nodded. “I’ll look out for them, but don’t be surprised if I don’t find them. Father wasn’t the only wizard who dabbled in the black arts—I know there were at least two others. It would be worth their lives to keep them from you.”

Kisrah swore heatedly. “I hadn’t thought of that. Who are they?”

Wolf shrugged. “I don’t know their names, and they kept their faces hidden. Do you still have the other half of the spells?”

Kisrah nodded. “We hid them as soon as it was clear that something had happened to Geoffrey’s.”

“I’ll look,” promised Wolf again, then turned away from the ae’Magi.

“Cain,” Kisrah said.

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Wolf swept him a low bow before heading briskly out of the gardens. He would look, but he suspected the spells were long gone, maybe destroyed. Not entirely a bad thing, he decided after a while. Geoffrey ae’Magi could not have been the only ae’Magi who used them for other than their intended purposes, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many black grimoires left after ten centuries.

He had a library to visit with more urgent business. More than he needed his father’s books, he needed a quiet place.

Aralorn waited until Gerem and Nevyn followed the other mages out the door before turning to the chicken in the crate.

“Coming out, Halven?” she asked.

The hen let out a startled squawk.

She pulled the lid off the crate and shook her head. “Don’t give me that. If you wanted to remain anonymous, you could have made your clucks less pointed. Otherwise, I’d never have thought to check to see if the chicken was really a chicken. I never have been able to switch from one sex to the other.”

The hen jumped to the top of the crate and landed on the floor as her uncle—this time in the form of a tall red-headed man wearing the clothes of one of the Trader Clans. “Having you around makes spying much more interesting,” he said, sounding pleased.