Part 8 (2/2)

”Are you all right, Lady?”

She smiled at him, trying for rea.s.surance. ”Ask me tomorrow. What about your shoulder?”

He shook his head. ”A scratch. It'll need cleaning when we get to the keep, but it's nothing to worry about.”

She insisted on seeing it anyway, but he was right. She'd held on to the rush of battle until she was certain he was all right. Her worry satisfied, she relaxed.

Taking the edge of his black velvet cloak, Wolf wiped the smudges of tree sap and howlaa blood off her face. Finis.h.i.+ng her nose, he pulled a few sticks out of her hair and pushed it back from her eyes.

”I don't know why you bother,” said Aralorn. ”Ten steps through the trees, and it will look just as bad.”

Wolf's amber eyes glittered with amus.e.m.e.nt. He made a motion toward his mask as if he were going to take it off, when his gaze pa.s.sed by her, and he stopped. Aralorn turned to see the red-tailed hawk perched on the dead howlaa.

”Where did you find a shapes.h.i.+fter powerful enough that I could not tell he was anything other than a wolf who followed at your heels?” Her uncle spoke in his native tongue.

Without replying, Aralorn translated his speech into Rethian for Wolf. She was too tired for verbal battles-though translating wasn't much better.

”She found me, and I followed her home,” said Wolf dryly.

”So why do you need me, child?” Halven switched to Rethian, though his tone lost none of its hostility. ”I felt the force of the magic he called when you were imperiled; your shapes.h.i.+fter is surely as capable as I.”

”No,” said Wolf.

”He only knows human magic,” said Aralorn, when it became obvious that Wolf had said all that he would on the matter.

Her uncle let out a coughing sound and ruffled his feathers. ”I am not stupid. No human mage could hold the shape of a wolf for so long without being trapped in his own spelling.”

”His father, who raised him, was a human mage,” she said cautiously, not wanting to give too much away. ”We think his mother was a shapes.h.i.+fter or some other kind of green mage. His ability to work green magic . . . fluctuates.” She wouldn't tell her uncle how badly it fluctuated, not now. Perhaps later, when he was in a better mood. ”In green magic, he has only the little training that I've been able to give him, and you know how poorly trained I am.”

”Your own fault,” he snapped.

”Of course,” she said, happy to have distracted him to a more familiar frustration. ”Wolf has already looked at the spells holding Father. Perhaps you might be able to tell how they were cast, but neither of us could figure it out. There is this also: Father is guarded by some sort of creature that I have never even heard stories about. We thought you might be able to identify it.”

”Why didn't you tell me about all this before?” asked Halven in a dangerously soft voice.

Tired as she was, Aralorn found the energy to grin.

”What?” she said. ”And use my best ammunition first? I thought that you would be much harder to convince, and I'd have to pull out the shadow-thing to draw you to the keep out of curiosity. I wasn't counting on Kessenih doing half the work for me.”

She couldn't be sure, but she thought she saw an answering amus.e.m.e.nt rising in her uncle's eyes.

”We think,” said Wolf slowly, ”that your people have nothing to do with this. If you can banish the creature who guards him, or tell us how to do it, then with luck we can unwork the spell and identify the caster.”

Halven raised his eyebrows. ”I hadn't heard that you could trace a black spell back to the wizard.”

”If it is human cast, I can,” said Wolf.

The shapes.h.i.+fter c.o.c.ked his head. ”So if I can help you rid the Lyon of this creature, you can deal with the black magic binding him?”

”If it is black magic, worked by human hands-yes.”

”I thought,” said Halven with soft intent, ”that human mages proscribed black magic. A mage caught using it is killed.”

”Working black magic is,” replied Wolf. ”But unworking it usually requires no blood or death.”

”You are very familiar with something that is supposed to have been forbidden for so long.”

”Yes, and you are not the first to note it,” agreed Wolf, without apparent worry, though Aralorn curled her hands into fists. He took such a risk. Her uncle would figure out who he was, and she no longer knew him well enough to predict what Halven would do. If he told any of the humans about it, Wolf would become a target for anyone. The Spymaster, Ren, liked to say that anyone could be killed, given enough time, money, and interest in accomplis.h.i.+ng that person's death.

”If I am seen by a human mage,” Wolf continued, ”he will most certainly attempt to see that I am killed. It is to spare myself needless effort defending myself that I spend so much time as a wolf.”

The wind had been teasing the treetops, but as the sun moved down and removed that slight source of warmth, it began to blow in earnest once more. Aralorn lost track of the conversation, unable to tell one voice among many. Keeping her face impa.s.sive, she slipped her hand onto the curve of Wolf's elbow and kept her mouth closed for fear of echoing the shrieks reverberating in her head.

Wolf glanced at her face, then said something to Halven.

The hawk c.o.c.ked its head and gave a jerky nod. With a leap and a thrust of wings, it took flight.

Wolf waited until the hawk was out of sight before turning back to Aralorn. The wind howled through the trees, making Wolf's cloak snap and crackle around her as he drew her under its shelter.

”What is it, Lady?” he asked, the rough velvet of his voice penetrating the chaos that rang in her head.

”The wind,” she whispered. ”It's the wind. I can hear hear them.” them.”

” 'Them'?” He frowned at her. ”Who do you hear?”

”Voices.” She saw the worry in his eyes and tried to explain better. ”An effect of the howlaa's gaze, I think.”

He didn't speak again; she drew comfort from the warmth of his body and the strength of his arms. Her hands weren't sufficient to block out the noise, but they helped. She wasn't aware of time's pa.s.sing, but when the wind finally died down, the sky was noticeably darker, and a light skiff of snow had begun to fall.

She pulled away slowly, meeting Wolf's worried gaze with one of her own. ”In the Trader Clans, when a man goes insane, they say that he is listening to the wind. I have always wondered what the wind said.”

Wolf nodded slowly. ”I have heard that the Traders have another saying-may your road be clear, your belly full, and may you never get what you wish for.”

Aralorn summoned a grin. ”Just think of the legends I can sp.a.w.n now . . . the woman who could hear the wind-it has a certain rhythm to it, don't you think?”

”More likely it would be the woman who died in the winter because she couldn't quit talking long enough to get out of the cold,” replied Wolf repressively.

Her smile warmed into something more genuine. ”By all means, let us avoid such an ignominious fate.” She gestured grandly to the underbrush that covered the old trail. ”Away, then, to the Lyon's keep.”

He bowed low. ”Allow me to retrieve your knives first?”

”Of course,” she said, as if she hadn't forgotten them. She slipped the knives, cleaned by Wolf, back into their sheaths and strode into the woods.

Her heroic stride was shortened somewhat by the waist-high aspen seedlings and drifts of snow nearly as high, but her spirits lifted all the same-how many people could claim to have met a howlaa and survived? Her optimism was greatly helped by the wind's continued absence.

By the time they reached the keep, the snowfall was no longer so light, and Aralorn was grateful to have Wolf's eyes to depend upon rather than her own feebler senses-he had s.h.i.+fted back to lupine form as soon as the keep was in view. The sentries allowed her entrance through the gates without challenge.

<script>