Sianim 01 - Masques

be sure which direction was “outside.” “Could not take over the minds of a whole people without turning to older ways.”
    “Older ways?”
    He slumped, his hands petting the book as if it gave him comfort. “There is a lot of knowledge stored in the ae’Magi’s castle. They brought the things—books, artifacts, and the like—that could not be destroyed there, where they would be safely guarded against misuse. In the forbidden books, the ae’Magi found a way to leach energy so that he could use it to hold open the magical channels longer than he otherwise could have. He has greatly increased the amount of power that he can capture at any one time, making him stronger than any wizard living.”
    She looked at him and thought again about Cain, the ae’Magi’s son. But the ae’Magi, by his actions, betrayed a lot of people. The personal knowledge that Wolf had could have come from any of the wizards who’d been close to the ae’Magi. One of his apprentices maybe. There were several who had “died” or disappeared five years or more ago—the study of magic at the higher levels wasn’t any safer than being a mercenary.
    “Earlier, you said that human magic works this way for most magicians, not for you?” asked Aralorn carefully.
    His yellow eyes caught hers like a bird of prey’s. He seemed a stranger to her, hostile almost.
    Aralorn set her chin and stubbornly refused to let herself feel threatened. “How does it work for you?” she rephrased her question.
    Suddenly, he relaxed and loosened his shoulders. Mildly he said, “I forget sometimes, how difficult it is to intimidate you. Very well, then; yes, it is different for me. When I started working magic, it wasn’t obvious just how different I was. Not until I started working the more powerful spells did the difference make itself felt. Most magicians are limited by the magic they can draw into themselves; I am limited more by the amount of magic I can shape into a spell.”
    A lot, Aralorn thought, remembering the merchant he’d transported.
    “I suspect that the ae’Magi”—he paused and touched her hand lightly—“who was my teacher, as you suspect”—he’d learned to read her, too, over the past few years—“knew long before I did, and separated me from the rest of his apprentices. From then on, I lacked anyone with whom to compare myself. When I was fifteen, the ae’Magi decided to try to use me to gather more power. He had me gather all the magic that I could so that he could use it.”
    Wolf fell silent. Aralorn waited for a minute, then asked, “Something happened?”
    Wolf made a sound that could have been a laugh. “Yes, something happened. Either the method that he was trying to use wasn’t successful, or he wasn’t ready for the amount of power I drew; but before he could do anything, I destroyed most of the tower we were in. The stones were melted. I don’t know how he managed to keep us alive, but he did. It was three months before I could bring myself to collect enough magic to light a candle.” He paused for a minute, collecting his thoughts or dealing with the memory.
    Aralorn waited patiently for him to continue or not, as it suited him. He had told her more about himself in the last five minutes than he’d told her in the four years she’d known him. If he chose to stop, she wasn’t going to push him.
    In time, he began again. “That was when he turned to the older texts. He began to experiment with drawing power from others. Not with me, because that first experiment had proved such a disaster. It was during these experiments that he found that with the aid of certain rituals—rituals forbidden even before the Wizard Wars, if you can imagine anything those wizards would have forbidden—he could use the power of untrained magic-users, especially children. They don’t have the defenses that others do.” He stopped again, his golden eyes bleak.

    I should stop here, he thought. She knew what he did now about the ae’Magi. If something happened to him, she might be about to find another mage—surely some of the more powerful mages could work themselves free, if the half-trained wreck that he’d been had managed it. But he was consumed by the desire, the need to let her glimpse the monster that he was, to destroy her belief that Wolf, her wolf, was some kind of paladin for right and justice.
    “For a long time, I helped him,” he continued. To his surprise his voice was still its sepulchral