Sianim 01 - Masques

connections who would see her safely back to her home—proof that though she had lived in Sianim all these years, Aralorn was still Rethian enough to despise slavery. It was even easier to use the magic of her mother’s people to rearrange her body and her features to mimic the girl and take her place.
    She hadn’t realized that slaves could be locked away until they were needed; she’d assumed she’d have work to do. It was well-known that the Archmage’s passions were reserved for magic, and he seldom indulged in more fleshly pleasures. She’d figured that the girl had been purchased to do something—not sit locked in a room for weeks.
    Aralorn had been just about ready to escape and try again using a different identity when she’d been brought up to the great hall of the ae’Magi’s castle four days ago and put into the huge silver cage.
    “She’s to be decoration for the ball,” said the servant who put her in the cage, in response to another servant’s question. “It won’t be for a week yet, but he wanted her here so he could see the decorations and her at the same time.”
    Decoration. The ae’Magi had purchased a slave to decorate his great hall.
    It had seemed out of character for the Archmage, Aralorn had thought. It took more than power to become the ae’Magi. The man or woman who wore that mantle of authority was, in his peers’ eyes, a person of unassailable virtue. Only such a one could be allowed the reins to control all of the mages—at least all those west of the Great Swamp—so there was never again a wizard war. Purchasing a person in order to use her as decoration seemed . . . petty for such a one as the ae’Magi. Or so she’d thought.
    Four days ago.
    Aralorn shivered. Her shoes made no sound on the marble beneath her feet, not that anyone would have been able to hear them over the music.
    Beyond the silver bars of her cage, the great hall of the ae’Magi’s castle was resplendent. By reputation, if not fact, the room was nearly a thousand years old, kept beautiful by good maintenance and judicious replacement rather than magic.
    Though this room was the heart of the ae’Magi’s home, by tradition no magic was to be done here. This was the place the rulers of men conducted business with the ae’Magi, and the lack of magic proved to one and all that there was no magical coercion taking place. Aralorn now knew that the current ae’Magi didn’t particularly care about following tradition, and coercion was something he used . . . on everyone.
    That first day, she’d been shocked when the stone beneath her feet vibrated with magic. She looked out at the room. Ten centuries old, or at least ten centuries of care and careful preservation by the finest craftsmen available. And the ae’Magi had saturated the stone with magic. No one would think to check, would they? And if they did, they’d just suspect another ae’Magi, an earlier one, because Geoffrey ae’Magi would never defy tradition.
    This evening it was lavishly decorated for the pleasure of the people who danced lightly across the floor. Late-afternoon rays of sunlight streamed through the tear-shaped crystal skylights etched on the soaring ceilings. Pale pillars dripped down to the highly polished ivory-colored marble floor that reflected the jewel-like colors of the dancers’ clothing.
    Aralorn’s cage sat on a raised platform on the only wall of the room that lacked a doorway. From that perch, she could observe the whole room and be observed in return. Or rather they could see the illusion that the ae’Magi had placed on the cage.
    Instead of the tall, white-blond woman that the ae’Magi had purchased to decorate his great hall with her extraordinary beauty, observers would see a snowfalcon as rare and beautiful, the ae’Magi had told her, as his slave, but not so controversial. Some people, he’d told her, licking blood off his hands, disliked slavery, and he disliked controversy.
    He’d decorated the room around his slave for his own amusement. Disguising her as a rare predator was simply a joke played upon the people who’d come here for entertainment.
    A chime sounded, announcing new visitors. Aralorn hugged herself as the ae’Magi greeted his guests with a warm smile. He’d smiled that same smile last night while he’d killed a young boy and stolen his magic.
    The stone floor had been red with blood, but it wiped up cleanly, and only someone able to sense magic might notice the pall that