Patricia Briggs - Masques

“Afraid of the dark, princeling?” A swarthy man stepped out of the crowd. His face was unfamiliar, so he must have arrived after Wolf left. He was an aristocrat, from his clothes—less impressed with the king than the peasants were.

Wolf spoke then from the darkness of the entryway, almost not recognizing his own voice. “As you should be,” he said. “If I were he, I would send you out on your own to find out what happens to fools in the dark.”

Wolf stepped to the left of Myr, clearly revealing himself in the light of Myr’s torch. When he was sure that all eyes were upon him, he took his human form with all the theatrics that even the ae’Magi could have used. Masked and cloaked, he stood with a hand on his glowing staff that made Myr’s torch look like a candle.

“As it happens, though, it is unnecessary for anyone to go out. Astrid is dead.” Wolf pitched his voice so that it carried to everyone in the room without echoing. “I found her remains as well as those of the horse that Aralorn was riding. I found no trace of Aralorn’s body. I suspect that she is a prisoner of the ae’Magi.”

He had to quit speaking after those words left his throat. From the reaction of the people facing him, he could tell that they hadn’t realized that this attack, too, had been engineered by the ae’Magi. He couldn’t work up the effort to care. As long as the ae’Magi didn’t know that Wolf was here helping Myr and as long as he didn’t know what Aralorn was to him, the Archmage probably wouldn’t torture Aralorn himself—he wouldn’t consider any information she had to be vital. She had to be important enough that he didn’t just kill her for the power he might gain, but not so important that he concentrated on her himself. That would buy Wolf time. It would keep her alive for him to find. It all rested upon how independent Edom had been.

The ae’Magi tended to give his tools more autonomy because he could trust that they had his best interests at heart. So Wolf would believe that he had time to find Aralorn. He had to believe he had time.

Wolf continued in a voice that sounded disinterested even to his own ears, this time speaking directly to Myr. “My advice is for you to stay here for now. It is probably quite safe for you to go out for a while yet. The ae’Magi won’t expect you to be this close to the original camp. If I am not back in a fortnight, it would be best for you to move on.” Wolf started to leave but turned back. He might not care for them, but Aralorn would want them safe.

“I would find a way to block off the paths that I didn’t map for you so that no one is hurt or lost. You could follow these caves for a hundred miles if you wanted to.” He left then, as quietly as he had come in.

He knew all the ae’Magi’s holdings, even those acquired after he’d left. He had made a point of exploring each of them, partially to see if he could do it without getting caught, but also because he might find that he needed the knowledge. Even as he had done so, he’d been amused that Aralorn’s passion for information had passed on to him. Now he was grateful for the habit.

First, he went, traveling by magic, as soon as he was far enough south that his spells worked, to the ae’Magi’s castle since it was the ae’Magi’s preferred residence as well as the closest one to the camp. He took the time to see if the ae’Magi was in residence, not that it would have kept Wolf out if he had been. He searched the dungeon twice, certain that she would be there—but he didn’t see her among the pitiful captives. He looked through the castle, even the stables, but saw no sign of her anywhere. Then he continued to the next hold.

He searched through the night and all the next day, even the royal palace of Reth and the small cottage in which the ae’Magi had been born. Finally, he had to admit defeat. He hoped that she had been able to kill herself because he found no trace of her anywhere with which the ae’Magi was remotely connected. For lack of anything better to do, he returned to the caves.

Aralorn traveled out of the Northlands flopped over the back of the Uriah who had captured her (she would not think of it as Talor). The smell of the thing at such close range was debilitating, and she was glad enough for the cold that stuffed up her nose. She had been stripped of her weapons with ruthless efficiency and bound hand and foot. The constant jostling of the thing’s shoulder in her midriff was giving her a headache that made it difficult to think clearly.

They stopped when they were out of the mountains and dumped her ignominiously facedown on the ground. By turning her head to the side, she could see them moving about restlessly, snarling irritably at each other. For the most part they ignored her, but she received enough hungry looks that she tried to make herself as inconspicuous as possible. She tried shapechanging once when nothing was paying attention to her, but the pain in her head kept distracting her.

She was concentrating for another attempt, but this time the distraction came in the form of a thud originating just out of her field of view. One by one the Uriah dropped to the ground; only the glitter of their eyes gave indication that they were not asleep—or dead.

“Sst. Filthy things. Why he uses them I cannot imagine.” The voice was a light tenor, speaking Rethian with a high-court accent. Her position on the ground limited her field of view, but she could see the elegant shoes topped by the embroidered stockings of a true dandy.

“So,” the soft voice continued, “you are the prisoner the ae’Magi is so anxious to get.”

She was pushed over on her side by a magical shove and got her first full look at the mage. His face was handsome enough although overpowered by the purple wig he affected. She didn’t know him by sight, but his ability to immobilize an army of Uriah and his dress let her put a name to him: Lord Kisrah, a minor noble whose abilities had been invaluable to Myr’s grandfather in the last war.

Her father told her once that he was a competent tactician and diplomat, high praises from a man who despised the courtier type.

“Not very much of you, is there? From all the fuss the ae’Magi is putting up over you, I had expected more—although you would clean up well enough, I suppose. It is too bad that you chose to attack the ae’Magi in such treasonous fashion.” He shook his head sadly at her, and she noticed with shock that his eyes were kind. “Get set now. I’m going to transport you to the ae’Magi’s castle. I don’t like transporting humans, it’s too hard on them. But the ae’Magi is concerned about Myr. It’s not right to take advantage of a man whose mind is turned by grief, and we need to get to him as soon as possible.”

He rubbed his hands together a minute in preparation. “The ae’Magi is much better at this than I am; but he is busy with other matters, so I will have to do.”

His magic hit her body with enough force that she almost passed out. She hit a hard stone floor sweating and coughing. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to die of lung fever before the Archmage could get his hands on her. She laughed at the thought, bringing on another fit of coughing.

Ungentle hands grabbed her upper arms with bruising strength, but the man grunted as he picked her up—she was a lot heavier than she looked. Muscle would do that.

It had been daylight outside, so the gloominess of the torchlit stone walls and her hair, which had come undone from its customary braid and hung over her face, rendered her effectively blind.

She was stripped with ruthless efficiency. To take her mind off what that meant, she tried to recapture a stray thought she’d had just before Lord Kisrah had sent her over. She had a vague notion that it might be important. Her aching head didn’t want to cooperate.