by Sharon Shinn
“We don’t have time to work through the argument again,” Kirra said, cutting her off. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to use a little magic to make you look different. Look like any other novice. I’m going to shift shapes and change my clothes, and I’m going to look like a novice, too. Then we will stroll out the room, down the steps, and out the front gates. You will use whatever dark sorcery you have to hide us from the guards and anyone who happens to be watching. Or will such magic not work in the daylight?”
“It will,” Ellynor said, hoping that was still true.“But what about Justin?”
“We will leave Justin behind, shaped like you.”
“No,” Ellynor said.
“The next ten groups of novices who come in to chastise mystics will be making their case against Justin instead,” Kirra continued as if Ellynor had not spoken. “When I have gotten you to safety, I will return for him. I will change him into a hawk again, and we will fly from here as swiftly as we can.”
“No,” Ellynor said. “Let him come with us now. The three of us can leave together. Surely my magic is strong enough to conceal us all.”
“Ellynor, if someone enters and finds this room empty, the alarm will be raised so fast we will not be able to make it to the gates. Someone knows you’re a mystic—they must also know that one of your powers is concealment. They will have ten guards strung across the gate, hands outstretched, waiting to catch you.”
“Then change me into a bird, too—we’ll all fly out the window together,” Ellynor begged. “Don’t make Justin stay here.”
Kirra shook her head. “Trust me, you wouldn’t make it out of the room. It takes time and patience to learn to fly—Justin has had some practice, and even so he was almost dashed out of the sky three times on our way here.”
“Please,” Ellynor whispered. “Don’t leave Justin behind.”
Justin was hopping in her palm now, chattering at a furious rate, trying to convey—something. Ellynor thought she could guess what it was. I love you. I will risk my life for you. You cannot do anything to keep me safe when you are in danger.
But she could not bear to know that she might escape at the cost of his life.
“He insisted on coming,” Kirra said softly. “He defied Tayse—for what was surely the first time in his life—because he wanted to save you. The plan will work no other way. We must stop talking about it and put the plan in motion, or it will be too late for either of you.”
Before Ellynor could answer, Justin erupted into a furious tirade and launched himself from Ellynor’s hands toward the window. Kirra hastily stepped back toward the wall and shrank into proportions so small Ellynor could not see her. Only then did Ellynor hear the rattle at the door and realize another set of novices was being brought in to view her.
She stayed standing near the window, sunlight on her face, no brighter than the defiance that must now be blazing from her eyes. Shavell led the small group inside, repeated the recitation of evil and death, and shot Ellynor one spiteful look before herding the women out of the room again.
Kirra was right. If someone came into this room and it was empty . . .
“We have to work very fast,” Kirra said, materializing again from some shape that seemed to possess hairy black arms, which visibly reformed themselves into Kirra’s more elegant limbs. A spider, possibly. Justin darted back into the room, landed on Ellynor’s shoulder, and proceeded to nibble at her hair. “I can’t change as quickly as Donnal can, and I certainly can’t change myself and Justin rapidly enough to fool someone who bursts in through the door. Are you done arguing?”
“Yes,” Ellynor whispered. “But please, please, please make sure you’re back for Justin in time.”
“I will be.” Kirra studied Ellynor a moment, her eyes sweeping down the length of the chain, pausing on the rope encrusted with moonstones. “I can’t touch your shackles. We need Justin, after all.”
Imperiously, she snapped her fingers and pointed to the floor, and Justin hopped down from Ellynor’s shoulder. Kirra knelt before him and put her fingers against his tiny head. Ellynor watched in a fearful fascination as Justin took shape beneath her delicate hands. As soon as he was himself again, he whirled around and snatched Ellynor into a hard embrace.
“Bright Mother, I have been so worried about you,” he whispered into her ear. “I was sure you were already dead.”
“Oh, Justin, you shouldn’t have come here! I won’t be able to bear it if something happens to you—in my place—”
“I’m sorry, we don’t have time for sweet reunions,” Kirra said, actually sounding sorry. “Justin. Can you cut her bonds? And then hide them somewhere? I will manufacture a piece of rope that looks like it’s covered with moonstones, and we’ll tie you up with that. Otherwise, I won’t be able to change you when I come back.”
Even before she had finished speaking, Justin had pulled a dagger from a side sheath and sliced through the ropes. Then he lifted first one chafed wrist and then the other to his mouth, as if his kiss held a healing magic. Perhaps it did, or perhaps the moonstones had been burning her flesh even more hotly than she realized. In any case, she felt those kisses like a balm; her hands felt light enough to float.
Kirra was yanking a belt from around her own waist, refashioning it into a length of hemp even as Ellynor watched. Quickly enough it was dotted with small, glowing gems that looked enough like moonstones to fool anyone who hadn’t been present in the room. She motioned to Justin.
“Come stand by me and prepare for an even stranger transformation than any you’ve yet undergone.”
He grinned and complied. “Never really wondered what it felt like to be a woman,” he said. “Guess I’ll find out.”
“I’m sure the experience will do wonders for your empathy,” Kirra replied. “Hold still.”
Again the golden-haired mystic put her hands on Justin’s face. Clearly, she couldn’t effect a transformation unless she was touching the object or the creature she wanted to enchant. Ellynor watched in equal parts wonder and fear as Justin’s face smoothed out, his hair darkened, his burly body shrank down, slimmed out, developed curves.
She was staring at an exact likeness of herself.
It was too strange; she put a hand to her mouth and tried to keep back a little cry. For his part, Justin seemed just as nonplussed. He lifted his hands to study them. He glanced down at his chest to investigate his bosom. When he looked up again, he was grinning. The expression did not belong on her own face. It was utterly Justin.
“I have seen some pretty outlandish things since I took up with mystics,” he said, and his voice sounded exactly like Ellynor’s. “But I don’t think anything compares to this.”
Kirra had already started binding his wrists before him with the magical rope, slipping it through the loop of the padlock.“Just remember who you’re supposed to be, and don’t do anything out of character,” she advised him. “If someone speaks to you and you can’t figure out what you should say, don’t say anything at all. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“I’ll be waiting for you.”
Now Kirra turned to Ellynor. “You might feel a tingle. A sort of fluttering of your skin. It shouldn’t actually be painful. I’m just going to make you look like some nondescript girl in a clean white robe. So even if your magic slips and someone sees us, they won’t see you.”
Ellynor nodded, not trusting herself to speak. In fact, Kirra’s magic brushed lightly over her, pinpricks against her face and along her shoulders, and then faded. She wished she had a mirror; she would like to see a stranger’s face looking back at her. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Kirra took a half step back, seemed to focus on something inside her body, and underwent her own subtle transformation. The arrestingly beautiful face was now plain, unmemorable, framed by rather lank hair. The body was hidden under perfectly stitched white robes. There was even a moonstone bracelet dangling from one wrist.
“You wouldn’t look twice if you passed me in
the hall, would you?” Kirra demanded.
Ellynor shook her head. “No. You’re nobody I recognize, but you look like you belong.”
“You’d better go,” Justin said in Ellynor’s voice.
Kirra nodded and reached for the door. Ellynor said anxiously, “It’s locked.”
Kirra just gave her a droll look and didn’t answer. But before she could take hold of the handle, Justin hissed, “Someone’s coming,” and turned to face the door.
For a moment, Ellynor was blank with panic. Someone would find Kirra and Justin here! They would all be discovered, and there would be no escape for any of them! But then Kirra’s hand closed around her wrist, and the mystic pulled her back toward the wall.
“Now would be a good time to use your magic,” she murmured in Ellynor’s ear. “So all they see is Justin.”
Of course. Ellynor fought for calm, for Kirra’s unwavering self-confidence. Justin was staring at them in deep apprehension, for there was a rattle at the lock and then the door swung open. But Justin’s face relaxed before the first of the novices stepped inside, and Ellynor realized she had managed it, had summoned magic under duress and turned both herself and her companion invisible.
Shavell again. She must have requested this particular duty. She certainly seemed to be enjoying the chance to castigate Ellynor before every audience of wide-eyed novices.
“You see this wretched woman?” Shavell demanded. “Do you see the evil in her eyes? Study the features of the mystic so you might recognize the same kind of magic on another woman’s face.”
Considering that she was ranting about a man who had no sorcerous ability, Ellynor almost wanted to laugh out loud. Of course, she also wanted to stand unmoving, unbreathing, until Shavell was safely out of the room, and so she merely stood pressed against the wall, her wrist still caught in Kirra’s hand.
“Why don’t you recant your magic, wicked girl?” Shavell demanded now of the Rider in disguise. “Why don’t you renounce your false goddess?”
Kirra had told him to keep silent, but Ellynor supposed there had never been any real hope of that. “I’d rather die,” Justin said calmly.
Shavell’s eyes narrowed. “And so you shall.”
“And so will you,” he replied in a soft voice that sounded dangerous even given his circumstances. “Sooner than you like to think.”
Kirra’s hand squeezed on Ellynor’s arm as if to say, Why can’t Justin ever behave? Shavell gasped and launched into a furious tirade, invoking the name of the Lestra and the anger of the Silver Lady. Justin turned his back on her, clearly not interested. Ellynor had to strangle another laugh at the look on Shavell’s face.
“You’ll be sorry soon enough,” Shavell was promising now, her lean cheeks bright with color as she wrenched the door open and almost shoved the flock of novices out. Ellynor was startled when Kirra suddenly tugged her toward the door, until she realized that Kirra wanted them to exit with this small group and mingle with them casually in the hallway. She obediently fell in step behind the white-robed girls, Kirra at her side. No chance to say a last good-bye to Justin! She wondered if he would even know they were leaving, or if he would speak her name once, twice, after Shavell set the lock. She looked back, but she could not see him through the closing door.
They must get to safety as quickly as possible so that Kirra could return for him.
They followed the group of novices along the hallway and down one set of steps. The magic held; no one noticed them. Ellynor and Kirra continued down the stairway when the novices headed toward one of the chapels on the second floor. It was odd, so odd, to glide through these familiar hallways with absolute stealth, keeping to the shadows, moving along the walls, making no sound. Ellynor felt like a ghost, barred from full participation in a familiar world but still driven to revisit former beloved sites.
Kirra kept her hand locked around Ellynor’s wrist and followed her so closely they would only have cast a single shadow. If she had spared a moment to think about it, Ellynor might have worried that Kirra would be clumsy in her attempts to creep unnoticed through a defined space, but Kirra was as silent as a lean raelynx on a bitter winter night. Ellynor could only conclude that the mystic had done some hunting in the past.
Finally clear of the stairwell—now crossing the great hall with care, avoiding the novices, the dedicants, the guards, who bustled in ones and twos through the wide space. Out the door right behind a contingent of guards who were arguing about somebody’s horse and its ability to run faster than somebody else’s horse. Past the stark, thick stake forced into the ground right in the middle of the courtyard, with plenty of room on all sides for an audience to gather and watch. The fuel piled in a circle around it had to be two feet high. Enough to smolder a good long while. Long after anyone tied to the stake had burned to ash and cinder.
Ellynor glanced up at the sky, even now starting to haze over with gathering dusk. How long would the Lestra wait to put the mystic to death? Till midnight, when the ritual chants were over? Or would she forgo the offering of song tonight, since she had a much more spectacular offering to present to the Silver Lady? Would she bring out the bound captive the minute true darkness fell?
It might be only an hour till sunset.
Ellynor was almost running now as she towed Kirra toward the massive gates. She had been wondering if Kirra planned to treat the wrought iron as she had treated the glass, and turn the barrier to something more permeable, but she didn’t have to. Even as the two women arrived at the gates, the guards on duty were pulling them back to admit a small party of soldiers on horseback. It was a simple thing to edge to one side, avoid being trampled by unwary hooves, and ease past the convent walls.
Free. Safe. Rescued from the fire.
They couldn’t stop there, of course. Ellynor let Kirra take charge now, since she assumed the other woman had a destination, and Kirra led them at a rapid pace about a quarter of a mile into the forest. Then she pulled them both off the road into an overhang of wood and finally dropped Ellynor’s hand.
“Are you going back for Justin now?” Ellynor said eagerly and was bitterly disappointed when Kirra shook her head.
“I need to get you to safety first.”
“I’m safe! I’m out! Please, Kirra—”
“All this risk will be worth nothing if we don’t truly get you away from here,” Kirra interrupted. “I’m going to take the shape of a horse now and carry you to the place where Senneth and the others are waiting. Then I’ll come back for Justin. The more you argue,” she said, raising her voice as Ellynor was about to protest again, “the longer it will be before I can return.”
Ellynor shut her mouth with a snap. “I know where I’m going,” Kirra added, “so just let me run.”
Practically on the words, Kirra began to shift shapes. Ellynor wondered if it ever got mundane, the sight of a mystic undergoing transmogrification. She, at least, had not grown accustomed to the display, and so she stared as Kirra’s head puffed up and her arms lengthened so much they seemed to pull her toward the ground. Her hips turned into haunches, her back extended, her flowing hair became the blond mane of a palomino. Kirra was as pretty a mare as she was a human— and she had thoughtfully manufactured for Ellynor a saddle and a set of stirrups. No bridle, though; clearly, there would not be much hope of controlling this particular animal.
Ellynor grabbed the pommel and quickly mounted, and Kirra took off almost before Ellynor was settled in the saddle. It seemed only logical to maintain her own useful magic, concealing both horse and rider from any chance passersby as they ran through the shadowy forest, racing against the oncoming night.
CHAPTER 39
IN the next hour, two more groups of novices dropped by to mock the mystic. Neither of them was led by the sour-faced woman who had spewed such hatred the last time, so Justin figured she had been well and truly infuriated by his brazen attitude. All to the good, he thought. He refrained from speaking during the next two visits, just contented
himself with leveling a cold stare at the white-robed young girls and their chaperones. Neither of the older women seemed much affected by his expression, but the novices were clearly made uncomfortable. None of them could meet his eyes for more than a second or two, and most of them shuffled their feet and looked longingly at the door.