Sianim 01 - Masques

middle of the innermost circle.
    “How old is the ae’Magi?” asked Aralorn from the fire pit.
    Wolf shrugged gracefully and gave her a half smile. “You aren’t going to kill the ae’Magi the way that Iveress killed his master. His master was ill and near death, kept alive only by magic. As far as I know, the ae’Magi is nowhere near death, unfortunate as that may be—at least not from disease.”
    “What are our chances if the spell works as it is supposed to?” asked Myr. “Will you be able to kill him? I’ve seen him fight.”
    Wolf shrugged. “If the spell takes him by surprise, then the odds are about even. I used to spar with him often, and sometimes I beat him, sometimes not. This spell gives us a chance, but that’s all it does. If he recognizes the spell, it is easy enough to counter. That would leave us with only magic.”
    He looked at Aralorn. “I’ve learned some things about what I can do that he doesn’t know, but even so, he would easily best me that way. Without magic, at least we stand a chance of killing him. Perhaps.” No one, not even Aralorn, could have told how he felt about it from his voice.
    Aralorn and Myr watched as he emptied the contents of the bottle into the pot. He counted to ten, then poured the mixture onto the ground in front of him, where it gathered into a glowing pool of violet patterned with inky swirls. Dipping a finger into the pool, he used the liquid to draw several symbols in the air. Compliantly, the purple substance hung in the air as if on an invisible wall. Wolf repeated the procedure with his left hand.
    He picked up the pool in both hands. It swayed and oozed, never quite escaping the confines of his hands. He held it up in front of his face, then blew on it gently.
    Pain hit Aralorn hard enough to knock her to her knees. She fought to maintain consciousness for a moment, but she never felt herself hit the ground.

    When she recovered, she felt the hard strength of Wolf’s thigh underneath her ear.
    “I don’t know,” said Wolf, sounding vicious.
    She blinked cautiously, and when her head didn’t fall off, she pushed herself up.
    “Fine,” she told Wolf. “I’m fine. My fault.”
    Sitting up, she could see what had happened. The spell was directional all right, but mostly in a forward and backward kind of direction rather than the direction of a loosed arrow. It had knocked down the floating stones in a wide “V” pattern, with Wolf at the apex. The stones directly to either side of where he’d been sitting were still floating, but every stone more than two feet in front of him was on the ground.
    She had been sitting on the edge of the path of the spell, but apparently the fire pit hadn’t been far enough away.
    “How long was I out?” she asked, noticing that her ears were buzzing and her balance was off. Even sitting flat on the ground, her upper body wanted to sway.
    She was propelled down again with a none-too-gentle hand, as Wolf answered, “Not very.”
    “How do you feel?” asked Myr, concern evident in his voice.
    “Like the entire mercenary army of Sianim just got through marching over my head.” She closed her eyes and let herself enjoy their concern. She loved sympathy.
    “Not too bad, then,” said Myr with evident relief.
    “Not horrible, but not fun.” Aralorn decided that her headache had subsided enough she could open her eyes again.
    “You need to try some magic,” Wolf said grimly.
    She would have whined at him, but the hand on her shoulder was shaking a little. For Wolf’s sake, she called a simple light to her hand, then dismissed it.
    “Wolf,” asked Myr, “do you think that the ae’Magi will let you complete the spell? It seemed to take a lot of preparation.”
    “I won’t need to,” answered Wolf, relaxing against the wall of Haris’s former kitchen. His thumb ran over her collarbone, then stilled. “With a spell this simple, it’ll be easy enough to re-create the effect.”
    His relief was more obvious in the amount of words that he was using to explain himself to Myr. “Once I see the pattern to push the magic into,” he said, “I don’t need the physical parts of the casting anymore. It really is something only a beginning magic-user would have created. Take all of the most common spell components mixed together, add the first five symbols learned in magic, and blow—poof: instant spell. What is really amazing is that it didn’t blow up in the apprentice’s face. It came