Masques (Sianim #1)(15)

Here at the inn, she'd let it be known that he was the only legacy left to her when her elderly protector died. The innkeeper didn't ask her too many questions - just retained the better part of her weekly salary in payment for boarding the horse.

Aralorn scuffed her foot lightly in the dirt as she leaned against the stall door. Sheen moved over to her and shoved his head against her shoulder. Obligingly she rubbed his jaw.

"It's got to be the ae'Magi's doing, Sheen. The last time I saw Myr he was hardly distraught enough to go berserk. I think that it is too convenient that the Assembly decided to place the ae'Magi as Regent, don't you?" The stallion whickered softly, as if in response. Aralorn laughed at his timing and gave him the carrot she'd taken before it would have gone to its death in the greasy pot of stew.

She tangled her hand in the coarse grey-black mane and listened to the munching sounds he made and continued with some enthusiasm. "I could go to Ren with this, but given his present attitude toward the ae'Magi, I don't, know what he would do. Myr needs to be protected from the ae'Magi. Since Myr is the king and immune to magic, he's the ideal hero to stand against the ae'Magi. Someone has to stand against him, and people would hardly follow a mercenary from Sianim.

"I only wish I had some way of contacting Wolf. Knowing him, he probably could tell us exactly where Myr went. It could take me quite a while to find him; I'm not nearly good enough with magic to locate anyone, let alone someone immune to magic." She paused and then smiled. "But I would be much better occupied looking for Myr than struggling with the futile battle to clean the floor of the inn."

Finished with the carrot, Sheen bumped her impatiently, asking for more rubbing. "Well, Sheen, what do you say? Should we abandon our post and go missing-monarch hunting?" The grey head moved enthusiastically against her hand when she caught a particularly itchy spot. Aralorn laughed softly: it looked for all the world as if he were nodding his head in agreement.

When Aralorn decided to move, she moved fast. She snuck into the kitchen and blessed her luck because no one was there. She located a large cloth that was almost clean and folded it to hold such provisions as would keep on a journey: bread, cheese, dried salt meat.

Cautiously she made her way upstairs without meeting anyone and crept into the room that had belonged to the only son of the innkeeper. He'd died last winter of some disease or the other and no one had yet had the heart to clean out his room. She murmured a soft explanation of what she was doing and why in case his unquiet spirit lingered nearby.

She look a pair of leather trousers and a tunic, neither of which were remarkable in any way. She found also a pair of sturdy riding boots and a set of riding gloves. Searching through a chest by the font of the bed, she discovered a worn cloak, which she wrapped her loot in.

In her attic room she retrieved her sword from its hiding place inside the straw mattress (she generally slept on the floor, it being less likely to be infested by miscellaneous vermin). Before sliding the sheath onto her belt, she drew the sword and ran a finger over its smooth, curiously colored surface. It was a sword she'd found hidden in one of the many cubbyholes of her father's castle - the pinkish-gold luster of the metal had intrigued her. Aside from Sheen, it was the only thing she'd taken from her home when she left. She wasn't that good with the plaguing thing, having found it most useful against beasts like the Uriah, creatures too big to be killed quickly with a dagger and not easily downed with a staff. She'd only brought it because she didn't know if she would be returning to Sianim.

She gratefully rid herself of the maidservant's dress and dropped it on the floor. She removed the knives from their position on her thighs and rethreaded the sheaths onto her borrowed belt. She donned the stolen garments and found that, as she expected, they were very tight in the hips and chest and ridiculously big everywhere else.

Most shapeshifters could switch their sex as easily as most people changed shoes, but she had never been able to take on a male's shape, perhaps because of her human blood. Fortunately, the boy whose clothes she'd appropriated had been slender, so that it was an easy thing to create a tall, angular, androgynously female body that could pass as a man's.

Once dressed she appeared to be a young man neither rich nor poor, who wouldn't look out of place on a sturdy draft horse. Most of the items in the room she left behind, though she was careful to take the copper pieces that she'd earned as well as the small amount of coins that she always kept with her as an emergency fund.

Quietly she shut the door to her room and made sure that the bundle that she was carrying wasn't awkward-looking. As she made her way down the stairs she was met by the other barmaid. Aralorn gave the woman a healthy grin and swept past her unchallenged.

In the stable Aralorn quickly saddled Sheen. The cloak and the food she packed into her copious saddlebags. She filled an empty sack that was lying nearby with grain and tied it onto the saddle. From one of the saddlebags she took out a small jar of white paste. Carefully, she painted the horse's shoulders with white patches such as a heavy work collar tends to leave with time. No farmer's plug, but he could well pass for a squire's prize draft horse.

On the road she hesitated before turning north toward Kestral. That was the direction that the messengers had been traveling. In the guise of a young farmer she could question them, as a servant would not. A better reason for looking north was that the northern mountains were the best place for someone seeking to hide from a human magician. For some reason, human magic didn't work as well in the Northland mountains as it did other places. There were stories of places where human magic wouldn't function at all. Users of green magic, on the other hand, found that magic was easier to work in the North - most of the remnants of the shapeshifters lived in northern Reth and the Northlands.