Masques (Sianim #1)(25)

Wolf fell silent. Aralorn waited for a minute and then asked, "Something happened?"

Wolf made a sound that could have been a laugh. "Yes, something happened. Either the method that he was trying to use wasn't successful or he wasn't ready for the amount of power I drew, but before he could do anything I destroyed most of the tower that we were in. The stones were melted. I don't know how he managed to keep us alive, but he did.

"It was three months before I could bring myself to collect enough magic to light a candle." He paused for a minute, collecting his thoughts.

Aralorn waited patiently for him to continue or not, as it suited him. He had told her more about himself in the last five minutes than he'd told her in the four years she'd known him. If he chose to stop, she wasn't going to push him.

In time he began again. "He began to experiment with drawing power from others. Not with me, because that first experiment had proved such a disaster. It was during these experiments that he found that with the aid of certain rituals - rituals forbidden even before the Wizard Wars - he could use the power of untrained magic-users, especially children. They don't have the defenses that others do." He stopped again, his golden eyes bleak.

"For a long time I helped him," he continued finally, his sepulchral, emotionless voice making it sound as if he were telling the story about someone else, "even though I knew what he was. I used dark magic. I worked his will and gloried in the power and the madness of it. I knew what he was and hated him and myself, but it didn't matter. He has a magnetism that binds as solidly as iron."

His hands gripped the table until they were white-knuckled, giving the lie to his passionless voice. "I don't know exactly when it was that I began questioning what we were doing."

He released his grip on the table abruptly, and when he spoke again Aralorn thought he was changing the subject. "When I was young, the passages of the Magician's castle fascinated me. I wandered through them for hours, sometimes. There are places in the passages that haven't seen human hands for generations.

"About a year before I left the castle, I found an abandoned library; it fascinated me. Almost everything that I had read before I found the library were grimoires and the like. The books in the little room were of another ilk entirely. Someone had collected books about people - histories, biographies, myths and legends. I learned from what I read." He hesitated. "What I learned made my current occupation ... distasteful. So I left. Departing the castle was easy enough; but changing what I am has proven to be much more difficult."

She could tell by the stiffness of his body that he was hurting and decided to lighten the mood. "If you change into one of those zealots who give everything they have to the poor and go around all the time telling everyone else to do the same, I will feed you to the Uriah myself."

She startled a reluctant laugh out of him and he shook his head in mock reproof. "You ought to watch what you say around me. I might forget that I have repented of my evil ways and turn you into something really nasty."

Chapter Five

The next morning Myr decided that the camp needed improvement more than the refugees' weapon skills did. So after breakfast, anyone who could ply a needle was sent to turning the yards of fabric, recently purchased from the accommodating merchant, into a tent. The design of the tent was Myr's own, based loosely on tents used by the northern trappers.

When the project was finished there would be three large tents that could house the population of the camp through the winter. The tents would be stretched over sturdy frames, designed to withstand the weight of the snow. The walls of the tent were sewn with a double wall; it could be stuffed with dry grass that would serve as insulation in the winter. A simple, ingenious flap system would make it possible to keep a fire inside the tent.

The rest of the camp was put to work building what Myr termed "the first priority of any good camp" - the lavatories. The risk of disease was very real in any winter camp, and any military man knew stories of regiments destroyed by plagues due to the lack of adequate waste facilities. Myr's grandfather had been a fanatic on the subject. Myr, thought Aralorn with private amusement, was like his grandfather in more ways than one.

Aralorn searched futilely for Wolf and ran into Edom looking frustrated as he was trying to stop the tears of a little girl in a ragged purple dress.

"I want Mummy. She always knows how to fix it so her hat doesn't come off." Clutched in the child's grubby hand was an equally grubby doll.

"Astrid, you know that your mum isn't here and can't help you," said Edom impatiently.

"Hello, Astrid. May I see it?" Aralorn held out her hand. Astrid looked at the hand distrustfully for a minute before carefully placing the doll and its hat on Aralorn's palm.

Years of being the oldest daughter of fourteen gave her the experience to twist the hat on at just the right angle so that it slipped firmly over the doll's wooden head, Astrid look the doll in one hand and smeared her tear-wet cheeks with the other.

"Can you see if you can get all of you young ones over here?" asked Aralorn. Astrid nodded and ran off.

Turning to Edom, Aralorn said, "I take it that you are supposed to be keeping an eye on the children?"

Edom rolled his eyes. "Always."

"I can relieve you for a while, if you like," she offered. He nodded and took off with a grin. She wondered if he'd be as pleased when Myr cornered him for latrine duty.