Masques (Sianim #1)(72)

When she woke up the floor she was looking at was bare stone, not cobbled as the floor in the dungeon was. But it was by the musky smell of the books that she knew where she was.

"No! You stupid son of a ... Plague take you, Wolf!" Her scream was muffled by the rows of bookshelves in the library. Helplessly she pounded a list on the floor, letting her rage keep back her tears.

"The sword!" She didn't see anyone, but a firm hand pulled her to her feet. He materialized and shook her by the shoulders. His features were the too-perfect features of a shapeshifter.

"The sword, you stupid girl! Where is the sword?"

Aralorn had been through a lot. She had long since outgrown any patience with being manhandled. With a deceptively easy twist recently learned from Stanis, she freed herself and backed away.

With the distance between them, she could see the aura of age that clung to him, despite the smooth skin on his face. He was only a few inches taller than she was and far more beautiful to look upon. At another time she would have been more courteous to the Old Man of the Mountain, but Aralorn wasn't in the mood for politeness.

"What, sword are you talking about, old man?" she spat.

"The sword! The sword!" His arms swung widely in one of the overblown gestures that shapeshifters favored. He dropped into their language, and Aralorn had to struggle to understand the dialect he spoke. "You haven't let the ae'Magi get his hands on it, have you? Where is it? He mustn't have control over it."

"What sword?" Aralorn's voice was harsh with impatience; she needed to travel back to the castle, and a goose wasn't, the swiftest of fliers. "Sir, you will have to explain yourself more clearly."

"Your sword, did you leave it there? Didn't ..." He stopped and looked behind her.

Curious, she looked behind her and saw her short sword, the one that she had left in its usual place under the couch, floating gently in the air behind her. She could almost see the person holding the sword - it was like looking at an image in rough water.

"You didn't take it?" The Old Man's voice was filled with disgust. "What is wrong with you? I've given you so many hints I might as well have come out and told you what you needed to do! If it weren't for the fact that Lys cares about that Wolf, I would let you stew in your own pot."

He stalked to the sword and took it from the apparition that held it. He unsheathed it and swung it once. "This is the third of the Smith's great Weapons." He gave it a name, but Aralorn was too distracted to translate it. "If the ae'Magi gets his hands on her and realizes what he has, there will be no one who can stand against him. You were supposed to take her with you and use her. I take it that your silly little spell didn't work?"

He didn't wait for her nod but continued on. "I thought that he just might pull it off. Here" - abruptly the shapeshifter's voice lost its force and became querulous like that of a very old man - "take it and go back. I'm very tired - maintaining this shape is burdensome. Lys?" He shoved the sword at Aralorn and was gone with an abrupt pop.

Aralorn took the sword and looked at it. It looked no more magical than it ever had, but still ... it did match the description given for the Smith's sword.

Sheathing it abruptly, she slipped it onto her belt. With Wolf's staff in one hand, she ran out of the library to find Myr.

Chapter Twelve

Myr was never difficult to locate. Aralorn simply had to look for the largest group of people and head in that direction. She found him just outside the cave entrance giving knife-fighting lessons to a group of the younger refugees. He glanced up and saw her as he was avoiding a crudely wielded blade; the distraction almost cost him a slitted throat.

He talked for just a minute to his former opponent, who was white-faced and shaking; it was no light thing to come so close to killing a king. Aralorn shifted impatiently from one foot to the other as Myr dismissed the class and strode to her.

He took a long look at her, noting the scrape on her check that she'd gotten rolling across the floor, the filth that clung to her, and Wolf's staff that she held clutched in one hand. He didn't demand any explanations, merely asked in a businesslike tone, "What do you need?"

"I need you to call the dragon to take me back to the ae'Magi's castle. I can't get there fast enough by myself." She noticed with detached surprise that her voice was steady.

Myr nodded, gestured for her to wait for him and ducked back into the caves. He returned carrying his sword in one hand, the belt dangling from its sheath, and led the way through a thicket of brambleberry to a smallish clearing.

Carefully he unsheathed his sword and gave a rueful look to the blade that years of his grandfather's warring had left unmarred. Then he drove it into the sandy soil, trying not to wince at the grating sound. Another time Aralorn would have smiled.

When he was done calling the dragon he stood quietly beside her, not asking her what had happened. It was Aralorn who finally broke the silence.

"We made it into the ae'Magi's castle. He was waiting for us in the dungeons. I think that Wolf's spell would have worked anyplace else. There was too much old magic and the spell wasn't strong enough and backlashed. I was on the floor already so it didn't hit me very hard. The ae'Magi was knocked out momentarily. Wolf ..." Her voice cracked and she stopped, swallowed and tried again. "Wolf's back is broken; he tricked me into touching his staff and sent me back here. I don't know how fast a dragon can fly. Even if it consents to take me to the castle it will probably be too late." She laughed then, though it could have been a sob, and clasped the staff tighter. "He may have been right and it was too late when he sent me back."