Patricia Briggs - Masques

“Look here, Garogue, she ain’t as small as she looks!” Rough laughter and comments she would have felt better not hearing as a second guard neared.

Think, Aralorn. I was relieved that . . . that I had not met Lord Kisrah before. Her face felt hot and tight, in spite of the coolness of the stone under her feet. Lord Kisrah would not recognize me as the Lyon’s daughter. She waited a minute before the significance of that thought hit her. I have, however, met the ae’Magi as the Lyon’s daughter. He was intrigued with the color of my eyes—my shapeshifter blood.

Gods, she thought bleakly. If he realizes who I am, he can use my father against me.

While the guards were preoccupied, she tried again to change. Not a drastic change this time, just an adjustment to her face and eyes. Her features sharpened until they were as common to Rethian peasant stock as her medium brown eyes. The eyes were always the hardest part, for some reason, and she didn’t usually bother. But she didn’t want the ae’Magi to think that she had even the slightest touch of green magic. It might be important in her escape. With a bit more effort, her skin darkened to add authenticity.

“Too bad we can’t do nothin’ with her but look.” A callused hand ran over her hip.

“Yup, don’ you ever think of nothing else. Just you remember what happened to Len. He thought the ae’Magi wouldn’t ever know. Besides, we usually get a turn at ’em.”

Goody. Something to look forward to.

She was dragged forward again, her exhaustion making her more of a deadweight than before. Her head contacted the stone wall when she was swung over a broad shoulder.

“They sure grow these Northerners heavy!” More laughter, but by then Aralorn was beyond caring.

It was late at night when Wolf returned to the camp. He expected everyone to be asleep. Instead, he came upon Myr seated on a rock in front of the caves and polishing Aralorn’s sword by the light of the moon.

“Where did you find it?” Wolf asked.

Startled, Myr leapt to his feet, holding the sword at ready. Seeing Wolf, Myr resumed his former position on the rock.

“Oh, it’s you, Wolf. No luck? Damn.” Myr held the blade up to the light. “I found it in a small cave off the entranceway this evening. Someone had made an attempt to clean it but didn’t do a very good job. I suppose that one of the children found it and left it there when he realized what it was. I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d clean it—no sense letting a good sword rust.”

“No,” agreed Wolf, lying down facing Myr with his muzzle on his paws.

Myr wasn’t his friend. But Aralorn had liked him.

After a while, Myr asked, ”Where did you look?”

So Wolf told him. It took some time. Myr listened, running the soft cloth over the odd-colored blade. When Wolf was done, Myr thought for a minute.

“How did you look for her? I mean did you just look? Couldn’t a shapeshifter change her shape and escape?”

Wolf shook his head. “Once she was imprisoned, she wouldn’t be able to change. Too much iron in the bars.” And she’d have been chained.

“Iron does suppress magic?” Myr said, only half asking.

“Shapeshifter’s magic.”

The night was still except for the noise the soft cloth made on the sword. Then Myr said, “I’d met her once before, did you know that? It took me a while before I could pin down just where, because I was only a child. A more pompous, self-centered, proper little brat than I was you’d be hard-pressed to find. She was younger then, too, but she had the same mannerisms. Equal with anybody and observing protocol only because it suited her. I was offended, but my grandfather laughed and kissed her hands and said something about counting on her to liven up a dull reception.”

There was a brief pause before he continued with his story. “You have to understand that I’ve been raised reading people’s faces all my life. I saw that she really respected the tough old man, and the lack of sincerity in her manners was—dislike for the untruths that protocol demanded. It was a lesson that I took to heart.” Myr paused, examining the gleaming blade.

With a sigh, he set it aside. “What I’m getting to is this: The ae’Magi was at court a lot in those days. My grandfather thought the world of him. If I met Aralorn at court, wouldn’t he have? She’s not . . . pretty, but she is memorable. And if she wasn’t, her father certainly is. If I were going to break someone, the easiest way would be to go after her family. You might check out Lambshold and see if all of the Lyon’s family are accounted for.”

Wolf caught his breath sharply. “She would be much more conscious of that than you. With that in mind, she would do her best to make herself unrecognizable. How long is it since she was taken?” He’d lost track of time.

“Four days.”

Finally, the wolf spoke again. “She’s in one of the dungeons obviously—or she’s escaped, though that is extremely unlikely.” She’d escaped once, but the ae’Magi hadn’t been expecting it. “I think she may be in the first place I looked—in the Archmage’s castle. When I searched the last few castles I was thorough, and I think that she would have had to hide herself really well—better than she probably could by then. She doesn’t have much time, the dungeon masters in the ae’Magi’s keeps are not renowned for their gentle treatment of the prisoners—to say nothing of the ae’Magi himself. She should be safe from him, though; he’s got other concerns that are more important.” Wolf hadn’t been subtle the last two places he’d been, and the ae’Magi would know he’d been inside. Three dead men would have told him that someone had been there, and the method of their deaths would have told the Archmage who.

Wolf paused to think before he continued. “If she’s not there, I’ll come back here to check in with you. If she escapes, this is the only sanctuary that she has to come to.” On those words, the wolf melted into the forest shadows, leaving the young king sitting alone on his rock.

“Myr has a mage with him. What does he look like?”

The ae’Magi’s voice was really extraordinary, thought Aralorn. Soft and warm, it offered sanctuary—but she knew those tones, and terror cat-footed toward her.

But not even that fear combined with the cuts he was making on her arm was enough to hold her attention for long. The pain from the recoil of centuries of magic woven tightly into the stones of the dungeons made what he was doing to her body seem secondary.

She wondered if she ought to tell him that if he used iron manacles in the torture chamber as well as in the cell, she would be much more aware of what he was doing. The iron effectively blocked her meager talents from picking up on the twisted magic that a thousand years of magicians had left in the stone of the dungeon.

A bucket of cold water brought her attention back to her body. It felt good against her hot skin at first, but then the chill made her shake helplessly. In a rational moment, she smiled; the lung fever would take her soon—in a few days—if she could just hide it from him so that he wouldn’t turn her into one of the dead things that hung restlessly in her cell. She’d been grateful when she didn’t have to look at them anymore—if only she could do something about hearing them.

He wasn’t using magic on her as he had the first time she’d visited his castle. Maybe the dungeon inhibited his magic as well—or maybe he was using all his magic for something else.

Baffled, the ae’Magi looked at the pathetic figure hanging in front of him. He had seen her smile while he was cutting her, and it bothered him. She wasn’t one of those who enjoyed pain, but she didn’t seem to even feel it. Torture wasn’t working on her.