Sianim 01 - Masques

and the other securely around Aralorn and felt the ground ahead with his feet. He slowed his progress when a pile of refuse he kicked with his foot bounced down an unseen stairway. With a grim smile that no one could see, he continued blindly down the stairs.
    There were shuffling noises as rats and other less savory creatures scrambled anonymously out of his way. Once he almost lost his footing as he stepped on something not long dead. A growling hiss protested his encroachment on someone’s dinner.
    Only when they reached the last of the long flight of steps did he decide they were far enough down that he dared a light. The floor was thick with dust; only faint outlines showed where he had disturbed the dust the last time he’d been here several years before, raiding one of the hidden libraries—there were more than the one he’d made off with completely.
    Content that the passage had remained undiscovered, Wolf walked to a blank wall and sketched symbols in the air before it. The symbols hung glowing orange in the shadows until he was finished; then they shimmered and moved until they were touching the wall. The wall glittered in its turn, before abruptly disappearing—opening the way to still another obscure passage, deep in the rock under the castle. He continued for some time, his path twisting this way and that, through passages once discovered by a boy seeking sanctuary.
    Twice he had to change his route because the way he remembered was too small for him to take carrying Aralorn. Once, the passage was blocked by a recent cave-in. Several of the corridors showed signs of recent use, and he avoided them as well. They surfaced finally from the labyrinth, several miles east and well out of easy view of the castle.
    He shifted her from his shoulder then, cradling her in his arms, though she was harder to carry that way. There was nothing that he could do until they reached safer ground, so he trod swift of foot through the night-dark forest, listening intently for sounds that shouldn’t be there.
    He wished that he hadn’t had to show himself, because now—after all of his caution—it was going to be obvious that he was mixed up with Myr’s group. The ae’Magi had been seeking him for a long time. So the attacks on Myr’s camp were going to intensify. It was possible that the guards wouldn’t mention the incident to the ae’Magi—but it was always better to be prepared for the worst. He was going to have to stage his confrontation with the Archmage soon.
    He wasn’t looking forward to the coming battle. Old stories of the Wizard Wars—Aralorn could tell them by the hour—spoke of battles of pure power between one magician and another, and the great glass desert, more than a hundred square miles of blackened glass, gave mute evidence of the costs of such battles. If he, with his strange mutations of magic, ever got involved in a battle on those terms, the results could be far worse.
    It might be better by far to let the magician extend his power. Even the best magicians live only three to four hundred years, and the ae’Magi was well into his second century. Expending his power the way that he was now, even taking into account the energy he stole, would take years off his life. A hundred years of tyranny was better than the destruction of the earth.
    The glass desert had been fertile soil once.

    He walked until well after the sun rose, following no visible trail—losing the two of them in the wilds as best he might. He stopped when they reached the cache he’d set up on his way to the castle, far enough off the trails that they should be safe for a while. Not safe enough to use magic to transport them—that the ae’Magi might follow. But he could hide them from this distance—he’d found some spells that worked for that since his time hiding in the Northlands. Spells that had allowed him to follow Aralorn around without worrying the ae’Magi would find him.
    He opened the bedroll awkwardly, unwilling to set her on the hard ground, and gently placed her on the soft blankets. His arms were cramping and sore from carrying her, so he had to stretch a bit before he did anything else.
    Her darker skin hid the flush of fever, but it was hot and dry to his touch. Her breathing was hoarse, and he could hear the fluid in her lungs. He rolled the second blanket up and stuffed it under her head to help her breathe. Efficiently, gently, he cleaned her with spell-warmed water.
    On the dark skin it