Masques (Sianim #1)(58)

He stared at her a bit and then joined her on the floor without speaking, holding his silver mask in lightly clenched fingers.

"I suspect," continued Aralorn, "if you hadn't been taught how magic should work, you would have discovered your half-blooded capabilities long since. You were told that you couldn't heal, so you didn't try."

"It fits," said Wolf finally.

"I should have thought about it sooner," apologized Aralorn. "I mean, I am a half-breed. It's just that I've never met another half-breed. I could tell that you weren't a shapeshifter, so I just assumed that you were simply an extraordinarily powerful human magician."

Wolf gave a half laugh with little humor in it. "It sounds just like an experiment the ae'Magi would try. To a Darranian, it would be the ultimate form of bestiality. Just the thing to spark his interest," Wolf observed sourly.

Aralorn leaned over, pushed aside, his mask and bussed him on the unscarred mouth with a kiss that was anything but romantic. "You beast, you," she said.

He got to his feet and pulled her to hers, his eyes warmed with relief, humor and something else. Gripping her shoulders, he kissed her with a passion that left her breathless and shaken. He stepped back and returned the mask to its usual position.

"We'd better get back and tell Myr he can relax. It doesn't appear that the Old Man is going to welcome the Uriah into his cave anytime in the near future," he said, offering her his arm to lean on.

She caught her breath, smiled and tucked her arm through his. "Do we tell the whole camp that we are being protected by the Old Man?"

"It might be the best thing. I have the feeling that we shouldn't push his hospitality by wandering around too much. The best way to see that it doesn't happen is to tell them the whole truth - if they'll believe it." Wolf slid through a narrow passage with his usual grace, towing Aralorn beside him.

"We are dealing with people who have some minor magic capabilities; are following a dethroned king who just barely received his coming-of-age spurs; who number among their acquaintances not just one half-breed shapeshifter, but two half-breed shapeshifters - one of whom, incidentally, wears a silly mask. We could tell them that we were in the den of the old gods and that Paris, empress of the dead, conceived a sudden passion for Myr and it probably wouldn't faze them," was Aralorn's reply.

Wolf laughed and Aralorn pulled him to a halt. "Wait. Did you say that the ae'Magi is Darranian?"

He nodded. "Peasant stock. Apparently his Master was very surprised to find a magician who was Darranian - used to tell jokes about his Darranian apprentice. My father smiled when he talked about how he killed his teacher."

Aralorn let her hand drop and followed thoughtfully.

Wolf was first in the tunnel that opened into the main chamber. He hissed and jumped back, narrowly avoiding Myr's sword.

"Sorry," said Myr. "I thought that you were one of the Uriah. You should have said something before you came in. Did you find out why the Uriah aren't coming in?"

"Our guardian of the cave doesn't want them in," replied Aralorn, coming up beside Wolf. She was in her element now, with a captive audience and a story to tell. She projected her voice and told them the story about the origin of the Old Man of the Mountain and finished with the barrier that was keeping the Uriah out.

Wolf observed that she made the tale sound as if it were part of shapeshifter history rather than a forgotten story in the book. Usually she did it the other way around - turning an unexciting bit of history into high adventure. He hadn't realized that she could do it backward.

As she had predicted, the refugees accepted her story. For some reason most people seemed reassured to have a guardian, even if he were guarding the cave and not them. People believe what they want to believe; right now they wanted a miracle, and Aralorn was giving it to them.

Responding to Wolf's look, Myr joined him just outside the cave, leaving Aralorn to her work.

"We may be locked in here for some time," Wolf informed Myr. "The Uriah are being kept out of the caves with some sort of fire show, but they can smell food in here, and there is no way to determine how long they are going to howl at our door. Do we have enough food to last us a week or so?" Wolf asked.

Myr shrugged. "We have enough grain stored to last us into next summer, feeding animals and people. We're short on meat, which is why I sent out the hunters this morning, but for a week we can do without. If it turns into a month we can always slaughter a goat or a sheep to feed ourselves. Our real problems are going to be morale and sanitation."

Wolf nodded. "We'll have to deal with morale as it comes. I might be able to do something about the sanitation, though. The blocked-off tunnel where you're storing grain leads to a cave with a pit deep enough that you can throw a rock into it and not hear it hit bottom. It's fairly narrow, so you should be able to put some sort of structure over it to keep people from falling into it."

"That should relieve Aralorn," commented Myr, a smile lighting his tired face for the first time since he'd heard the Uriah.

Wolf nodded seriously. "She was really worried that before this was all over she'd he pressed into digging latrines."

Myr laughed wearily and pushed his hair out of his face. "I should have asked this before. Is it possible that the Uriah can find their way in here through another entrance?"