Sianim 01 - Masques

uncomfortably close to doing that with me.” He tapped Aralorn’s nose in emphasis. “Next time I tell you to get behind me, get behind me.”
    “What’s next?” asked Myr.
    Wolf took off his mask wearily. In the bright light of the winter sun, Aralorn noticed the strain he’d been under written into the fine lines and dark shadows beneath his golden ambient eyes. “What else? I storm the castle of the ae’Magi and challenge him to a duel. Whereupon he engages me in best Aralorn-story-time fashion. Then either I win, and go down in history as the cruel villain who destroyed the good wizard, his father. Or he wins.” Wolf’s voice was coolly ironic.
    “If he wins, what happens?” Aralorn spoke from her prone position and showed no intention of moving. “I mean, what is he trying to do? Why does he want everyone to love him?”
    While he answered, Wolf played with a strand of hair that had worked its way out of her braid. “You asked me about that once before. I think I know the answer now.”
    Myr sat down beside Wolf. “What? Power?”
    “I thought that might be it at first,” Wolf said. “Maybe that was even the correct answer at one time. When I was his apprentice, that seemed to be it. He could link with me and use the power that I gathered for his own spells, much, I believe, in the same manner that he now uses the magic released by the deaths of the children he kills. But there was an incident that scared him.” For Myr’s benefit, Wolf briefly explained his destruction of the tower.
    Myr whistled. “That was you? I’d heard a story about that, I’ve forgotten who told me. They said that the tower looked like a candle that someone forgot to blow out. The stone blocks looked like they melted.”
    Wolf nodded. “He started to try using control spells on me, after that. I left before he had much success. But what surprised me was that he continued to try and get me back under his control. He’s been looking for me for a long time.”
    He looked down at Aralorn. “If all he wanted was to kill me, he could have done that easily enough. Or at least come close. If it were only my power he wanted, then he’s wasted a lot more of it trying to find me than he could ever get from me. I am more powerful than most magicians, but Lord Kisrah is very strong as well, and the ae’Magi never attempted to tap into his magic. The magic that he gets from one of the children he kills is also probably more than he could get from me because my defenses are stronger.”
    “Revenge, then?” suggested Myr. “Because he thought that he had you under his control and you escaped?”
    “So I thought,” answered Wolf, “but then Aralorn told me that she thought that I was half shapeshifter and that some of the magic that I am using is green magic.”
    Myr started. “Are you? That’s why you have so little trouble taking the shape of a wolf. I thought it was unusual.”
    Wolf nodded. “Most of the magic that I use is human magic. Since I found out that I could use it, I’ve been trying to work with the green magic. It is bound by much stronger rules than what I’m used to; so, except for shapeshifting, I find it much harder to work. Even so, it might give me an edge over the ae’Magi.”
    Wolf paused, then continued, “The question still remains, what does the ae’Magi want from me? He is a Darranian, and the animalism of having sex with a shapeshifter might appeal to him, but I couldn’t conceive that he would raise the resultant offspring as his own. Not until I realized that it might be the green magic that he wanted. Green magic that I didn’t use until I left his control.”
    “But why green magic?” asked Myr. “I can’t imagine that he values shapeshifting that highly.”
    “Healing,” said Aralorn softly—for the sake of her throbbing heart. Because the idea that Wolf had been leading them toward was terrifying.
    Wolf nodded. “Exactly. As you told me, Aralorn, a shapeshifter can heal himself until he is virtually immortal. What I believe the ae’Magi hopes to do is to reestablish the link that he had with me and use green magic to give himself immortality. Until then, he can use standard magic to defeat the problems of aging, but that doesn’t make him young.”
    “No point in ruling the world unless you have time to do it in,” offered Myr.
    “Yes,” agreed Wolf. “There was another clue as well. Neither of you was particularly well acquainted with the Uriah as they were a