Masques (Sianim #1)(69)

"Is he monitoring it, do you think?" asked Aralorn, bouncing away from the circle toward Wolf.

"I doubt it. Both the illusion and the trap are simple enough spells that he wouldn't have to." He regained his human form and picked up Aralorn, setting her on his shoulder. "If I had triggered the containment spell, it would probably have alerted him then."

"Like a spider's web," said Aralorn softly.

"Just so," agreed Wolf.

"Where to now?" Aralorn asked, "Do we wait for the Uriah to attack or do we look for the ae'Magi?"

"For someone who should be scared and cowering, you sound awfully eager." Wolf stood staring at the silhouette of the ae'Magi; his voice wasn't as emotionless as usual.

"Hey," replied Aralorn, trying to break the mood, "it's better than spending the winter cooped up in the caves."

Wolf made no answer except to run an absent-minded hand over the smooth skin of his cheek. Aralorn waited as patiently as she could and then said, "He knew that you were coming."

Wolf nodded, "He's been expecting me for a long time. I knew that. I should have been more alert for something like this. Aralorn, when he had you here, did he ..." His voice tightened with rage and stopped.

"No," she said instantly. "The first time he was working on a spell and wanted to save his energy - much to my dismay." Sarcasm crept into her voice. "The second time he was too interested in finding you to worry about it. You shouldn't let him pull your strings so easily." She curled her tail against his neck in a quick caress.

The tension eased out of him. "You are right, Lady. Shall we go a-hunting sorcerers in the castle? Perhaps you would prefer a Uriah or two to begin with, or one of my father's other 'pets.' I believe that there are a few that you haven't seen before. Would Milady prefer to be outnumbered a hundred to two or just one to two? We can be accommodating."

"Then, of course," said Aralorn, "once you have attained your goal we can arrange to have the castle fall on you so that you will escape mutilation from the outraged populace that you have saved from slavery and worse. Sounds like something I want to spend my day doing." She thought that Wolf might have been smiling as he headed downhill and away from the castle, but it was hard to tell from her vantage point.

The woods grew increasingly dense as Wolf walked further from the castle. A hoot from an owl just overhead made Aralorn-the-mouse cringe lighter against his neck. "Lots of nasties in these woods," she said in a mouselike voice void of all but a hint of humor.

"And I," announced Wolf in a grim voice that was designed to let Aralorn know that it was time to be serious, "am the nastiest of all."

"Are you really?" asked Aralorn in an interested tone. "Oh, I just adore nasties."

He stopped and looked at the mouse sitting innocently on his shoulder. Most people cowered under that look. Aralorn began, industriously, to clean her whiskers. When Wolf stared to walk again, though, she said in a stage whisper, "I really do, you know."

* * *

THEY EMERGED FROM A PARTICULARLY THICK GROWTH OF BRUSH into a narrow aisle of grass. In the center of it sat an oddly shaped altar dedicated to one of the old gods. It was so heavily overgrown with moss and lichen it was almost Impossible to tell the original color of the stone. There was nothing unusual about finding the altar, as such remnants dotted the landscape from well before the Wizard Wars. However, the altar itself was unusual.

"Oh, dear," said Aralorn drolly, "I suppose that it must have belonged to one of the fertility gods, hmm?"

It stood as tall as a man and almost as big around. When Wolf touched it, it slid sideways with a creak and a groan, although it didn't appear to be difficult to move. Wolf slipped inside the dark hole that was revealed and started down the ladder. Aralorn darted off of his shoulder and down his arm to get a better look.

"The ladder is a lot newer than the altar," she commented, flashing back to her post and tucking a paw inside his collar.

"I put it up myself, when I saw that there was some kind of exit from the tunnels up here. There was no sign of another one, so I suppose it must have rotted completely away. Plague it, Aralorn, you're going to fall and kill yourself if you don't stay put!" The last was said as she darted out on his other arm to get a closer look at the tilework on the wall. He picked her off his wrist and set her firmly back on his shoulder. "Just wait until we get down and you can have a better look."

Once on the floor, he closed the opening with a wave and let his staff light the hall that they stood in. Aralorn scrambled to the floor and took her own shape, sneezing a bit from the dust. She scuffed a fool on the floor, revealing a dark, polished surface. The ceiling was as high or higher than the great hall in the castle and the walls were covered with detailed mosaic patterns of outdoor revelries of times gone by. The ceiling was painted like the night sky, giving the overall impression of being outdoors. Or at least that was what. Aralorn assumed. The years had covered the tile on the walls with cracks and knocked down whole sections. The ceiling was badly water-damaged, showing the stonework that held it up through gaps left by fallen plaster.

Reluctantly, Aralorn followed Wolf through a gap in the wall that led to a drab little tunnel that looked as if a giant mole had dug through the earth. It branched several times, but Wolf never hesitated.