Masques (Sianim #1)(20)

Watching the red play of flame reflected on her feet in the dim light, she ventured a question. "How long have you been helping Myr?" She noticed with self-directed amusement that her tone was disinterested, revealing none of the jealousy she felt. It had surprised her to feel resentful of Myr, but she had gotten used to being the only one to whom Wolf revealed himself. When she found out that not only was there someone else close to him, but that he knew things about Wolf she didn't, it bothered her.

Wolf spoke slowly, like one who was turning his thoughts into words for the first time, "I have been looking for a way to move against the ae'Magi for a long time. It came to my attention that Myr didn't hold the ae'Magi in the same esteem that most people do; apparently Myr is not susceptible to magic. I am still not sure what use he will be against the ae'Magi, but it seemed prudent to watch him. At first I did little more than observe, but after Myr's parents were killed, I introduced myself and offered my help. For the most part all that I did was offer advice and block a few spells laid to cause permanent accidents."

"Accidents like a carriage overturning unexpectedly," offered Aralorn.

Wolf nodded. "Or an archer's arrow going astray; things that immunity to magic does not shield against. I am not sure if I helped much in the end. The last attack that the ae'Magi set against Myr was more subtle. Did you hear what happened?"

Aralorn shook her head. "The first that I heard about it was back at the inn, when some messengers from the capital rode in and spouted nonsense. Myr was supposedly crazed with grief and attacked one of his own men."

Wolf snorted with disgust. "Myr was in his personal courtyard in the palace when he was attacked by an elemental. They made enough noise that I went out to investigate. I think that Myr would have won even if I hadn't been there." Wolf shrugged and continued. "When it was dead, the demon transformed into a more mundane creature - one of Myr's personal guards. We were still standing over the body when the better part of the castle guard ran into the courtyard. They attacked and we managed to flee. Here is where we've been ever since."

"What now?" asked Aralorn, drawing pictures in the dirt near the blankets.

Wolf let out a sound that passed as a laugh. "Now, Myr is trying desperately to prepare this camp for winter and I am trying to find a way that I can move against the ae'Magi." He paused and then said in a tone that reeked of frustration, "It's not that I don't have the power. It is the training I lack. Most of what little I do know I've learned myself, and it's not enough. If I could find just one of the old magicians not under his spell I could find something to use against him - instead I have to wade through piles of books that may be utterly useless."

"I will help with the books," offered Aralorn, "if they're in a language I know."

"I had intended that you should. If I have to read through the dusty old relics, you might as well suffer too." He was teasing her, knowing that she would devour every time-scarred tome with a zealot's passion. "How many languages do you read? I've heard you speak three or four."

Aralorn thought for a minute. "Including dialects? Ten, maybe twelve. Sometimes I can pick out the essentials in a related language." She grinned at him, "Father was a fanatic on it. He got caught in a battle one time trying to negotiate a surrender - someone else's - and the only person who spoke both languages had been killed. When I started collecting stories I learned a lot of others. Anything very old, though, will be in the ancients' tongue. I can pick my way through that but I'm not fluent."

He gave her a wolfish laugh. "And they always said that collecting folk tales was a useless hobby." He continued more seriously. "I'm short on time, and we can get through more material than I can alone. If I even had the name of a magician with a spell that could stop him, I could save time. I have a library near here, and if you can go through the secular books it would leave me free to work with the grimoires."

Aralorn made a point of looking around at the mountain wilderness that surrounded them. "You have a library nearby?" she questioned in a falsely bright voice.

"Yes," he replied succinctly.

"Yes," she repeated. "You are aware that if it were anyone but you telling me this, I might not believe them."

Gravely he met her eyes. If she hadn't known him as well as she did, she might not have seen the faint humor in the amber depths.

Faintly from the valley rose the sound of a metal spoon hitting a cooking pot - the time-honored call to meal.

Wolf rolled lithely to his paws, changing almost as he moved into the tall, masked figure that was his human form. Courteously, he extended a hand to help her to her feet.

Aralorn accepted the hand a little warily, finding that Wolf in his human form was somewhat more intimidating than the wolf was. As a human he maintained the grace that he had as a wolf. She watched enviously the easy way he negotiated the slope that she scrambled and slid down.

A stray thought caught her as she struggled down the slope. At the bottom she caught his arm to stop him when he would have set out for the camp.

"Wolf, I think that I may have caused a problem for you." Anxiously she bit her lip.

"What's that?" he asked.

"During the ball at the Magician's castle the night I left, Myr saw me in the cage where he should have seen only a bird. The ae'Magi saw him talking to me and questioned me about it. I told him that I'd seen a magician help Myr break the illusion spell, hoping to keep Myr's immunity to magic from the ae'Magi." She kept her eye on the contrast her hand made against the black silk of his sleeve: it was hard to remember that the masked figure was Wolf. "What I didn't know was that Myr did have a magician aiding him. Did I cause you any problems?"