Masques (Sianim #1)(57)

The howls were louder as she turned into a cave marked "Door to Outside" over the top. She smiled at the awkward lettering even as the cold sweat of fear gathered on her forehead. Cautiously she crept forward through the twisted narrow channel.

The Uriah were there, howling with frustrated rage at the wall of flame that covered the entrance. Someone, Aralorn noted with absent approval, had also set up the wood for a bonfire where the tunnel narrowed - it sat unlit, a good ten feet behind the fire that blocked the entrance. Aralorn couldn't feel the heat from the first fire, but toasted bodies of Uriah lay twitching feebly just outside the cave as evidence to its effectiveness.

Shaking with the aftermath of adrenaline, Aralorn leaned against the side of the cave and watched as another Uriah, incited by her presence just inside the barrier, dove into the flames. Nausea touched even her hardened stomach as she watched the hungry flames engulf it.

"Aralorn!" If the unexpectedness of his voice hadn't made her jump, the underlying anger in it would have. It was only bad luck that there was a low spot in the ceiling.

"Plague take you, Wolf! I was supposed to hurt you the next time you startled me like that, not myself," she hissed, putting her hand to her head where the rock had cut it.

After evaluating the flaming entrance in one quick glance, he steered her away and set his staff upright on its clawed feet. With a hand on her chin, he used the other to explore the damaged area despite the fact that she squirmed and batted at his hand. In clipped tones he said, "You need a plaguing bodyguard. It seems like every time I've turned my back on you lately, you are getting hurt one way or another."

To her surprise he bent down and pressed his cheek against hers. She hadn't experienced the healing of a green magic-user very often, barring her more recent experience. Generally she hadn't been in any shape to know exactly what it was that they did, but she knew enough to know that this was very different. This was not purely physical, there was an emotional link too; a meeting on a more primal level.

It was over before she could analyze it further. Wolf stepped back as if bitten; she could hear him gasping for breath beneath his mask. She looked at him in wonder, knowing enough about human magic to realize that he shouldn't have been capable of doing what he just had done.

"Wolf," she said quietly, reaching out to touch him. He backed away, keeping his head away from her and his eyes closed.

"Wolf, what's wrong?" When he said nothing, she took a step back to give him room. "Please, talk to me."

He flung his head up then, and blazing yellow eyes met hers. When he spoke, it was in a whisper that his ruined voice made even more effective. "What am I? I should not be able to heal you. The other things - the shapeshifting, the power I wield - they could be explained away. But magic doesn't work this way. It doesn't take over before I can react and do things that I don't ask of it. I swore that I would never .., never let anything control me the way that my father did; but even he left me free will in the end. This ... does not."

"It was you who healed my eyes." It was an inane comment at best, stating the obvious. She wanted to give herself time to think. There was something that she should be grasping, a puzzle to be solved if she could just figure out how to look at it.

"Yes," he said.

"Were you trying to?" she asked.

He obviously forced himself to relax, and leaned against the wall as he spoke in closer to normal tones. "If you mean did I try to heal you with a spell, no. I just ... wanted you to quit hurting." She could almost see the effort he made to open up to her, this man who was so private.

He continued with his eyes closed again. "I was so tired. I hadn't slept much since I found that you were gone." He opened his eyes to look at her. "You were getting worse and I couldn't do anything about it. I do not recall what I was thinking, precisely. I had done all that I could for you and knew that it would never be enough, and something made me lie beside you and this magic took over." He clenched his hands in what was very near revulsion.

"Who was your mother? Do you know"?"' asked Aralorn quietly. "I've heard a tot of stories about Cain, the son of the ae'Magi, but none of them ever mentioned his mother."

Wolf shrugged, and his voice had regained its cold tone when he answered. "I only saw her once, when I was very young, maybe five years old, I remember asking Father who she was, or rather who she had been, for she was quite dead, killed by some experiment of his, I suppose. I don't remember being particularly worried about her, so I suspect that it was the only time I saw her."

"Describe her for me," requested Aralorn in a firm voice that refused to condemn or sympathize with the boy he had been.

"I was young; I don't remember much. She looked small next to my father, fragile and lovely - like a butterfly. The only time I ever heard him say anything about her was when some noble asked about my mother. He said only that she was 'flawlessly beautiful'."

Aralorn nodded, her suspicions confirmed - "I would have been surprised if she had been anything else." She smiled at him. "Would it help you to know what is wrong?"

"Do you know?"

She nodded. "Your mother must have been a shapeshifter, or some other green magic-user - but the 'flawlessly beautiful' sounds a lot like a shapeshifter. That feeling that the magic is taking control of you is fairly common when dealing with green magic, I suppose because you are dealing with magic shaped by nature first and only then by a magician. You need learn to work with it so that you can modify it. If you fight it, it will prove stronger than you."