Sianim 01 - Masques

his Darranian apprentice. My father smiled when he talked about how he killed his teacher.”
    “Not the first Darranian mage,” Aralorn said.
    Wolf grunted and started to walk.
    Aralorn let her hand drop and followed thoughtfully.
    Wolf was first in the tunnel that opened into the main chamber. He hissed and jumped back, narrowly avoiding Myr’s sword.
    “Sorry,” said Myr. “I thought that you were one of the Uriah. You should have said something before you came in. Did you find out why the Uriah aren’t coming in?”
    “Is there a reason the King of Reth is guarding the doorway instead of someone more expendable?” asked Wolf.
    “Best swordsman,” said Myr. “Are you going to answer me?”
    “Let’s do this where everyone can hear,” Aralorn said, continuing on so she could do just that. “The Uriah aren’t going to be coming in here.”
    She stepped out into the main cave and saw that most of them had heard her last remark. “Our guardian of the cave doesn’t want them in.” She was in her element, with a captive audience and a story to tell. She projected her voice and told them the story about the origin of the Old Man of the Mountain and finished with the barrier that was keeping the Uriah out.

    She made the tale sound as if it were part of shapeshifter history, Wolf decided, rather than a forgotten story in an obscure book. Usually, she did it the other way around—turning an unexciting bit of history into high adventure. He hadn’t realized that she could do it backward.
    As she had predicted, the refugees seemed reassured by her story, not questioning just how far the Old Man’s benign stance would continue. Right then, they wanted a miracle, and Aralorn was giving one to them.
    Responding to Wolf’s look, Myr joined him just outside the cave, leaving Aralorn to her work.
    “We may be locked in here for some time,” Wolf informed Myr. “They might not be coming in, but there is no way to determine how long they are going to howl at our door. Do we have enough food to last us a week or so?” He should have been paying attention, but it was an effort to remember that he was supposed to care about these people. He was trying to be . . . something other than what he was. Someone Aralorn could be proud of. When she’d been hurt, he’d lost all interest in the extraneous details.
    Myr shrugged. “We have enough grain stored to last us into next summer, feeding animals and people. We’re short on meat, which is why I sent out the hunters this morning. They came back with Uriah instead of deer. For a week or two, we can do without. If it turns into a month we can always slaughter a goat or sheep to feed ourselves. Our real problems are going to be morale and sanitation.”
    Wolf nodded. “We’ll have to deal with morale as it comes. I might be able to do something about the sanitation, though. The blocked-off tunnel where you’re storing grain leads to a cave with a pit deep enough that you can throw a rock into it and not hear it hit bottom. It’s fairly narrow, so you should be able to put some sort of structure over it to keep people from falling into it.” Solving logistic problems helped center him.
    “That should relieve Aralorn,” commented Myr, a smile lighting his tired face for the first time since he’d heard the Uriah. “She was really worried that before this was all over, she’d be pressed into digging latrines.”
    Myr laughed wearily and pushed his hair out of his face. “I should have asked this right away. Is it possible that the Uriah can find their way in here through another entrance?”
    “Maybe,” answered Wolf, starting to head toward Aralorn, who was swaying wearily as she finished her story. “The Old Man has been here a lot longer than we have. If this entrance is protected, I suspect that all of them are.”

    Outside, the Uriah quieted and sank to their knees as a rider came into view. His horse was lathered and sweating, showing the whites of its eyes in fear of the Uriah. But it had learned to trust its rider, and Lord Kisrah was careful to keep the Uriah motionless with the spells of control that the ae’Magi had taught him.
    He dismounted at the entrance to the cave. He could see the runes just inside the entrance, but he couldn’t touch them to alter their power.
    In the air, he sketched a symbol that glowed faintly yellow and passed easily through the entrance. The symbol touched a rune and fizzled as a man walked into the cave and