Sianim 01 - Masques

Kisrah looked up, startled, from where he’d been eating breakfast in bed with a giggling young beauty.
    “Lord Kisrah, you wouldn’t be interested in showing me the way to the dungeons, I suppose?” asked Aralorn. She wondered if she should draw her sword or knife. She didn’t have a chance to act. Something flashed at her out of Lord Kisrah’s hands. Instinctively, because it was already in her grip, she moved to block it with the staff. When the flash hit the dark, oiled wood, the crystals on one end of the staff, which up to this point had been dull and lifeless, flared brightly, and Lord Kisrah’s magic dissipated without a sound.
    Unwilling to let him get another spell off, Aralorn attacked with the staff. Lord Kisrah, unarmed, not to mention unclothed, didn’t have much of a chance against Aralorn, who was wielding her favorite type of weapon. Her first blow broke his arm and her second knocked him unconscious on the floor next to the bed.
    Aralorn turned to his bedmate with apologies on her lips, but something about the girl made her tighten her grip on the staff instead. Focused intently on the unconscious man, the red-haired woman slithered out of the bedclothes, knocking the bed table with their food onto the floor.
    Remembering the harpy that she and Wolf had met earlier, Aralorn tapped the girl’s shoulder gingerly with the clawed end of the staff. She hadn’t realized how sharp the claws were until they drew blood. She felt bad about it until the girl turned and Aralorn got a good look at her.
    The girl snarled, and Aralorn jumped back and seriously considered leaving Lord Kisrah to his fate. As the girl moved, her shape altered rapidly into something vaguely reptilian, with a large spiked tail and impressive fangs, not the same as the silk-merchant girl, though maybe they were at different stages.
    The thing, whatever it was, was fast and strong: When its tail hit the post of the bed, the wood cracked. It was also, thankfully, stupid—very stupid. It jumped at Aralorn with a shrill cry and impaled itself on the claws of Wolf’s staff.
    Dying, it changed back into its former beauty and the woman blinked her green eyes—shapeshifter eyes—and said softly, “Please . . .” before she was unable to say anything.
    “Plague it,” said Aralorn in an unsteady voice as she retrieved the staff in shaky hands. She backed into the corridor and had started down it when she noticed the hungry gaze of one of the Uriah focused on the bloody end of the staff. She thought of Lord Kisrah lying like an appetizer beside his bedmate’s corpse; she went back and shut the door to the bedroom and locked it with a simple spell that Lord Kisrah would have little trouble breaking when he woke up.
    Just as she was about to give up hope, Aralorn rounded a corner and found herself in the great hall. From there it was a simple matter to find her way to the dungeon, and the closer she came, the stronger her follow-me spell summoned her. She was concentrating so hard on doing so that the whisper took her by surprise.
    “Aralorn,” said the Uriah from the shadows near the stairway that led down to the dungeons.
    She came to an abrupt halt and spun to face Talor. “What do you want?”
    It laughed, sounding for a minute as carefree as he always had, then said in a harsh voice, “You know what I am. What do you think that I want, Aralorn?” It took a step closer to her. “I hunger, just as your companion will shortly. Leave, Aralorn, you can do no good here.”
    Aralorn shifted her grip on Wolf’s staff from her right hand, which was getting stiff and sweaty, to her left. “Talor, where is your brother? I haven’t seen him here.”
    “He didn’t make the transition to Uriah,” it said softly, and smiled. “Lucky Kai.”
    Aralorn nodded and turned as if to go down the stairs; instead she continued her turn, drawing the sword as she moved. Smith’s weapon or not, the blade cut cleanly through the Uriah’s neck, beheading it. The body fell motionless to the stone floor.
    “Sweet dreams, Talor,” she said soberly. “If I find Wolf in your condition, I will strive to do the same for him.”
    With the sword in her right hand and the staff in her left, she started down the stairs. The lower levels were darker, but Wolf’s staff was emitting a faint glow that allowed her to see where she put her feet. As she started down the third set of steps, it occurred to her that she didn’t really know what she planned