Patricia Briggs: Masques

“Aralorn,” said the Uriah from the shadows near the stairway that led down to the dungeons.

She came to an abrupt halt and spun to face Talor. “What do you want?”

It laughed, sounding for a minute as carefree as he always had, then said in a harsh voice, “You know what I am. What do you think that I want, Aralorn?” It took a step closer to her. “I hunger, just as your companion will shortly. Leave, Aralorn, you can do no good here.”

Aralorn shifted her grip on Wolf’s staff from her right hand, which was getting stiff and sweaty, to her left. “Talor, where is your brother? I haven’t seen him here.”

“He didn’t make the transition to Uriah,” it said softly, and smiled. “Lucky Kai.”

Aralorn nodded and turned as if to go down the stairs; instead she continued her turn, drawing the sword as she moved. Smith’s weapon or not, the blade cut cleanly through the Uriah’s neck, beheading it. The body fell motionless to the stone floor.

“Sweet dreams, Talor,” she said soberly. “If I find Wolf in your condition, I will strive to do the same for him.”

With the sword in her right hand and the staff in her left, she started down the stairs. The lower levels were darker, but Wolf’s staff was emitting a faint glow that allowed her to see where she put her feet. As she started down the third set of steps, it occurred to her that she didn’t really know what she planned to do. Alone against the ae’Magi, she had no chance. Not only was he a better magician (by several orders of magnitude), but, if he was Wolf’s equal with a sword, he was a much better fighter than Aralorn.

The smells of the dungeon had become strong, and the stench didn’t help her stomach, which was already clinched with nerves. In the guardroom, she abandoned the staff because she didn’t know how to stop the crystals from glowing.

She sheathed the sword and dropped to her belly, ignoring the filth on the cold stone floor. Slowly, she slid into the dungeon, keeping to one side. The voices that had been indistinct were now intelligible. She heard Wolf speaking, and the huge weight of grief lifted off her shoulders.

“. . . why should I make this easier for you than I already have? This is a very easy shield to break through, most third-year magicians could do it. Would you like me to show you how?” Wolf’s voice was weaker than she’d ever heard it, but there was no more emotion in it than it ever had. “It does have the unfortunate effect of incinerating whatever the shield is guarding.”

“Ah, but I have another method of removing your protection.” The ae’Magi’s voice was a smooth contrast to his son’s. “I have been informed that the girl that you so impetuously sent away has returned all alone. She should be here momentarily if she isn’t already.”

For an instant, Aralorn plastered herself motionless to the floor before her common sense reasserted itself. It really didn’t matter if the ae’Magi knew she was coming, the element of surprise wasn’t going to help her much anyway. What did matter was that somehow Wolf had managed to hold the ae’Magi at bay, and no matter how much Wolf cared for her, he knew that it was more important that the ae’Magi not be able to control Wolf’s powers. He wouldn’t give himself to the ae’Magi just to save her skin . . . she hoped.

She inched forward a few steps more until she could see Wolf revealed by the light of the ae’Magi’s staff. He sat in almost the same position that he had been in when she left him. He had drawn a single orange line of power around himself, and there was something different about his position. She looked carefully and saw that he was cautiously moving his toes. She smiled; he had bought enough time with his barrier to heal himself.

Aralorn drew the sword and stepped into the light in front of Wolf. She expected an immediate reaction, but the ae’Magi was pacing back and forth with his back to her.

“. . . you should not have crossed me. With your power and my knowledge, you could have become a god with me. That’s all that the gods were, did you know it? Mages who had discovered the secret to eternal life, and I have it now. I will be a god, the only god, and you will help me do it.”

All of the dictates of honor demanded that she call attention to herself before she attacked. Aralorn, however, was a spy and a rotten swordswoman besides, so she struck him in the back.

Unfortunately the same spell that had rendered her knife useless previously was also effective against the sword, which slid harmlessly through him and knocked Aralorn off-balance. She turned her fall into a roll and kept going until she hit a wall. Although the sword hadn’t done the magician any harm, the metal grip had heated enough that she was forced to drop it on the ground.

It had something to do with hitting a magician with metal, she supposed.

“Ah,” said the ae’Magi with a smile, “who would think that the son of my flesh would fall for a silly girl who is stupid enough to try the same trick twice.”

He turned to Wolf and started to say something else, but Aralorn quit listening. She couldn’t believe that the Archmage was just dismissing her. She decided not to question her luck and began to shapechange, trusting that Wolf would see her and keep the ae’Magi’s attention long enough that she could complete the transition to icelynx.

“Don’t discount Aralorn so lightly, you may be surprised,” commented Wolf, stretching the stiff muscles of his neck. “Certainly I never thought that she could get back from the Northlands so quickly. Perhaps the Old Man of the Mountain sent her back.”

The ae’Magi snorted in disbelief. “You could not have sent her so far; the Northlands would have blocked such transportation. I do not care where she was. As for the Old Man of the Mountain myth, there is no such person, or I would have run into him long since.”

Wolf curved his lips in the dim light of the ae’Magi’s staff. “If you are so sure that the old gods are real, why not a folktale as well?”

The keener senses of the icelynx made the smell of the dungeon worse, and she curled her lips in a silent snarl of disgust as she stalked slowly toward the ae’Magi. She crouched behind him and twitched her stub of a tail, waiting for just the right moment before she sprang.

Her front claws dug into his shoulders for purchase while her hind legs raked his back, scoring him deeply. But that was all that she had time for before the ae’Magi’s staff caught her in the side of the head with enough force to toss her against a wall. As she lay dazed, her eyes focused on Wolf.

On his knees, Wolf carefully retraced the circle of power. Reaching out almost casually, he snagged his staff where it apparently had been waiting for him in the darkness.

“Father,” he said, getting to his feet.

The ae’Magi turned and, seeing Wolf, brought his staff up and took up a fighting stance. It was quiet for a moment, then Wolf struck. Some of the fighting was physical, some of it was magical, most of it was both—accompanied by a very impressive light show.

Aralorn watched from her corner and got slowly to her feet. Anything that she could do as an icelynx was likely to do as much harm as good with so much magic flying around. She took back her human shape, from habit as much as anything else. She had started to lean against the wall to watch when she caught a glimpse of the sword, half-buried in the filthy rushes on the floor. On impulse she picked it up; the heat that had made her drop it was gone.

Atryx Iblis the Old Man had called it in an archaic dialect. Atryx was easy, it meant “devourer.” Iblis took her a while longer, but when she understood it, she smiled and held it at ready, waiting for a chance to use it again.