Masques (Sianim #1)(16)

As Myr was from Reth, Aralorn fell that it was safe to assume that he was aware of the partial protection that the Northlands offered. There were very few other places as easily accessible that offered any protection from the ae'Magi. Unfortunately, the ae'Magi would also be aware that the Northlands were the most likely place for Myr to go; hence the messengers.

Although it was still late summer the air was brisk with the chill winds of the Northlands. The winds retained their bite this far north year-round, making Aralorn grateful for the soft leather gloves and warm cloak.

Several miles down the road she turned off to take a trail me highwayman had once described. The shortcut traversed the mountain rather than wandering around its base. With luck and the powerful animal under her, she could cut more than an hour off her travel time. Sheen snorted and willingly took on the climb, his powerful hindquarters pushing his bulk up the treacherously steep grade. His weight and large hooves worked against him on the angular, rocky ground; and Aralorn held him to a slow trot which left Sheen snorting and tossing his head in impatience.

"Easy now, sweetheart. What's your hurry? We may have a long way to go yet this evening. Save it for later." One ear twitched back and he settled into stride, only occasionally breaking gait to hop over an obstacle in his way.

As evening wore on, the light began to fade; and Aralorn slowed him further into a walk as he began to stumble over rocks and brush made invisible by the play of light and shadow. Being unable to see clearly around him made the seasoned campaigner nervous, and he began to snort and dance at every sound. A branch snapped loudly to the left of them, and before Aralorn could pull him up, Sheen plunged off the trail and into the trees.

"Just you behave, you old worrywart you. It's all right. Nothing's going to get us but ghosts and vampires and other nice things that feed on stupid people who ride in the woods after dark." She pasted him reassuringly, silting back to ask him to slow down. The dark mountainside was too treacherous to allow her to pull up on the reins at the pace he was going.

The horse calmed marginally at her soft voice, so she babbled on. Gradually he slowed and stopped, lowering his head to snatch a bit of grass as if he hadn't been snorting and charging a minute before.

Aralorn stretched and looked around to catch her bearings. As she did so she heard something, a murmur that she just barely caught. Sheen's ears twitched toward the sound as well, if he hadn't heard it too, she'd have been tempted to put it to imagination. Following the direction of the stallion's ears, she moved him toward the sound. When she could pick up the direction herself she dismounted and whispered a command that would keep the horse in place until she called.

She crept closer, moving as slowly as she could so as not to make any noise. Several yards from Sheen she picked up the smell of a campfire. If it hadn't been for that, even with the sounds to guide her she would have missed it.

Against the side of the mountain, rendered almost invisible by a gigantic boulder that had rolled down the hill, was a cave. When Aralorn carefully peeked around the boulder she could see the reflection of firelight against the rock walls, but nothing more.

Mouse time again, she thought. The wonderful thing about mice was that they were everywhere and never looked out of place. She'd long ago perfected many different kinds of mice because of their usefulness, so that the medium-sized, northern-type mouse looked perfectly at home as she scampered into the entrance to the cave.

The adrenaline smell of fear hit her as she entered the cave, Two men stood by a large pile of goods that ranged from swords to flour, but consisted mainly of tarps and furs. The scent of fear drifted clearly to her rodent-sharp nose from the more massive (at least in bulk) man as he cowered away from the other. He wore ornate facial tattooing of the merchant's guild of Hernal, a larger city of the country Ynstrah, which lay several weeks' travel to the south. It was unlikely that the merchant had wandered that far, at least not in his nightshirt.

The second man was tall and slender, but something about the way he moved told her that this man had either been a dancer or fighter and was in very good shape. He wore a hooded cloak that flickered red and gold in the light. Underneath the hood of the cloak he wore a smoothly wrought silver mask in the shape of a stylized fate.

Traveling players used such masks when they acted out skits - allowing one player to take on many roles in a single play without confusion to the audience. Usually, though, these masks were made out of inexpensive materials like clay or wood.

Each mask's face wore a different expression denoting explicit emotions. As a Rethian noblewoman, Aralorn had spent many a dreary hour memorizing the slight differences between concern and sympathy, weariness and suffering, and other such nonsense. She found it interesting that the mask's face displayed the curled lips and furrowed brow of rage.

In one hand the slender man held a staff made of some kind of very dark wood. On the lower end was the clawed foot of a bird of prey molded in brass; its outspread talons glowed softly orange in the darkness of the cave, as if it had been held in hot coals. The upper end of the staff was encrusted with crystals that lit the cave with their blue-white light.

The staff made it obvious that this man was a magician. If he had spirited the merchant and his goods from the south as she expected, then he was a sorcerer of no little power.

Hmm, she thought, maybe this mouse idea wasn't such a good one. Magicians have this strange way of finding mice that weren't really mice and not being very pleasant about it. Even as she thought about this, the magician turned with incredible speed. She didn't even have time to squeak before she was stuffed into a leather bag that smelled strongly of magic.