Masques (Sianim #1)(44)

Wolf paused to think before he continued. "If she's not there, I'll come back here to check in with you. If she escapes, this is the only sanctuary that she has to come to." On those words, the Wolf melted into the forest shadows, leaving the young king sitting on his rock.

* * *

"MYR HAS A MAGICIAN WITH HIM. WHAT DOES HE LOOK like?" The ae'Magi's voice was really extraordinary, thought Aralorn. Soft and warm, it offered sanctuary - but she knew those tones, and terror cat-footed toward her.

But not even that fear, combined with the cuts he was making on her arm, was enough to hold her attention for long. The pain from centuries of magic woven tightly into the stones of the dungeons made what he was doing to her body seem surreal. She wondered if she ought to tell him that if he used iron manacles in the torture chamber as well as in the cell that she would be much more aware of what he was doing; the iron blocked her meager talents from picking up on the twisted magic that a thousand years of magicians had left in the stone of the dungeon.

A bucket of cold water brought her attention back to her body. It felt good against her hot skin at first, but then the chill made her shake helplessly. In a rational moment she smiled; the lung-fever would take her soon, in a few days, if she could just hide it from him so that he wouldn't turn her into one of the dead things that hung restlessly in her cell. She'd been grateful when she'd lost her sight and she didn't have to look at them anymore - if only she could do something about hearing them.

He wasn't using magic on her as he had the first time she'd visited his castle. Maybe the dungeon inhibited his magic as well - or maybe he was using all his magic for something else.

* * *

BAFFLED, THE AE'MAGI LOOKED AT THE PATHETIC FIGURE hanging in front of him. He had seen her smile while he was cutting her, and it bothered him. She wasn't one of those who enjoyed pain; she didn't seem to even feel it. Torture wasn't working on her.

She seemed confused sometimes, though. Perhaps stealth could get him what pain could not.

"Sweetheart, sweetheart, listen to me," said Myr's voice, his tones as gentle as a young man could make them.

Aralorn jerked in reflex at the voice.

"Sweetheart, I know that you hurt. I've come to get you out of here, but you need to tell me where Cain is. We need him to get you out."

She frowned and said in a puzzled voice, "Cain?"

"Yes," said Myr; she heard a touch of anger in the voice now. "Where is Cain?"

Myr wouldn't be angry with her. The certainty came from somewhere. She should know who Cain was, though, and it bothered her that she didn't. That didn't mean that she wanted the person who had stolen Myr's voice to know that.

"Dead," she said then, with utter certainty. Somewhere a part of her applauded the edge of melancholy she gave to her voice. "He is dead and gone."

That hadn't occurred to him, it simply hadn't occurred to him. The ae'Magi paced the length of the chamber. It wasn't possible. Angrily he stripped off the gloves he'd fastidiously donned to separate him from her filthy flesh.

It would ruin everything if his son were dead. All his efforts would be for nothing. He raised the knife to her throat and then thought better of it. Turning on his heel, he stalked out of the chamber. As he passed through the guardroom he left orders to have her moved back into her cell and, as an afterthought, told the dungeon master that if he could find out where the rebels were hiding now, he would give him a silver piece.

* * *

THE MASTER MAGICIAN'S CASTLE WAS OVER A THOUSAND years old, and the result of those years on the dungeon was not lovely. The smell made Wolf choke as he slunk into it from the hidden entrance. Magic had taken him to the castle, but he'd been forced to use mundane methods to enter.

No one saw him as he emerged. The night guards were in the room that was the only passageway from the main dungeon, other than the hidden ones, of course. There was no need for their presence in the actual dungeon, unless they were escorting a captive to or from the cells.

He stood on a wide stone walkway, in human shape. On one side were seven cells, sunken the depth of a grave, in the old style. On the other side was the torture chamber, also so sunken. It was unoccupied at the moment. The only hint of life came from the smoldering coals in the raised hearth in the center of the cells.

There was no light in the dungeon other than Wolf's staff, but it was sufficient. The ring of keys was still kept on its holder near the guardroom door for convenience's sake.

He slid the nearest door open and stepped in. The prisoners watched him with fear, hatred, or indifference. He took wolfshape because of the wolf's sharper senses and immediately regretted the necessity. The smells of a dungeon were bad enough to a human nose, but the Wolf's eyes were watering as he backed out of the eel!. She wasn't in there. He found the same at the second and third cells.

In the last cell, chained corpses littered the floor and hung on the wall like broken dolls, but they moaned and breathed with the pseudo-life that animated Uriah, They watched him with glittering eyes as he shifted again to wolfshape to sample the air. She was here. Back in human form again, he waded through the corpses, indifferently pulling free when one caught at his foot.

He found her at last. Her skin was darker and her face was different, but she was muttering to herself, and it was her voice; her scent under the filth. Her breathing was hoarse and difficult, breaking into heavy coughing when he shifted her against him to take off the irons. He swore softly at the wounds they left on her ankles and wrists.