Instead, she spoke to the watcher who’d accompanied them from the waterfall. “I have come to speak with Halven, my uncle.” Her tongue fought her a little as she curled it around the shapeshifter language that she hadn’t used since she’d last been here.
Beyond the posts, the wind stirred the snow into random swirls. The quiet was oppressive and uncomfortable.
Turning to Wolf, Aralorn said, “They may make us wait for a long time. Sometimes, the oddest things strike them as humorous.”
Without reply, Wolf made himself comfortable though he fairly vibrated with tension. Aralorn shivered as a cold breeze ran under her cloak.
“It is cold here,” said a man behind her in the same tongue she’d used. “You must want to talk to this uncle very badly.”
Wolf came to his feet with a growl; he hadn’t heard the man approach.
She put a hand on his head, then turned to face the stranger.
Shapeshifters were hard to identify: They could assume any features they chose. Nothing in the beautiful face and artfully swept-back bronze hair was familiar. Voices, though, were more difficult to change, and given a moment to recover, she knew who it was. She smiled.
“Badly,” she agreed, switching to Rethian for Wolf’s sake. “I would have waited a lot longer than this, Uncle Halven.”
“You might have indeed,” he replied without altering his language, “had I not seen you myself. I am not high in favor at this moment, and you never were.”
“You flatter me,” Aralorn replied. She continued to speak Rethian. If he was going to be rude, she’d follow his lead. “As I recall, I was too insignificant to warrant animosity.”
Halven smiled like a cat—with fangs and cold eyes. “Aralorn the half-breed certainly was, but the Sianim spy is a different matter altogether.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Spy? Who says I am a spy?”
“If you would talk,” said Halven mildly, “it would best be done here.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “I apologize in advance for keeping you out in the cold.”
“Not at all.” Halven was suddenly all gracious host, though he’d yet to switch to Rethian, which he would have if he’d really been in an accommodating mood. “What brings you and your dog here on this chilly morning?”
Wolf was sometimes mistaken for a dog by people who hadn’t seen him move because he lacked the usual gray coat. It surprised her that Halven would mistake him, though, and she almost turned to look at Wolf. But she didn’t want to draw her uncle’s attention to him.
Assuming the shapeshifters were as resistant to the ae’Magi’s magic as she had been, there was no reason they would be upset about his death; but she would rather they didn’t know any more about Wolf than was necessary. Unlike the people at Lambshold, if Halven looked closely, he might be able to tell that Wolf was a shapeshifter—and a both green and human mage of great power. With that much information, it was only a step to identify him as Cain ae’Magison, who killed the ae’Magi. The shapeshifters didn’t talk much to people in the outside world, but that was one thing she would rather no one knew. The ae’Magi’s spells ensured that almost everyone loved him—and if they knew where Cain was, they would try to kill him.
The maze stones knew what, and who, Wolf was already, but they seldom spoke anymore.
“Have you heard that my father’s been taken ill?” she asked.
“I’d heard he was dead,” replied Halven flatly.
“Yes, well these things do get exaggerated upon occasion, don’t they?” Aralorn said. “I’m pleased to tell you that he’s alive, but there is some sort of magic binding keeping him in a deathlike trance. I wondered if you might know something about it.”
For a moment, her uncle’s expression changed, too quickly for her to catch what it was he felt; she hoped he was glad the Lyon wasn’t dead.
Seeing her face, Halven laughed with real humor that pierced the armor of his outward charm like a ray of sunlight through a stained-glass window. “You want to know if I did it, eh?”
“That was the general idea,” she replied.
“No, child, I haven’t done anything to him. As a matter of fact, we have begun to exchange favors.” He shook his head in bemusement. “I never thought I would deal with a human, but the Lyon is nothing if not persistent—much like his daughter.”
Relief swept through her. Halven prided himself on being truthful in all things. If he’d hurt her father, he’d have told her or found some clever way of not admitting one way or the other.
“Would you be willing to come and look at him? I’ve never seen anything like the spell that holds him—I can’t even tell if it is green magic or human.”
Halven was shaking his head before she finished speaking. “No. Call down one of the human mages. My position in the quorum of elders is touchy enough without risking a visit to the human stronghold. They feel I have compromised our safety, though they agreed before I helped your father with his breeding project.”
“The ryefox,” said Aralorn thoughtfully. “That’s the reason for the new glamour and protection for the village. Too many people know you’re here. What did my father give you for your help?”
“The Lyon has deeded this section of Lambshold to me and my kindred by special dispensation of the new king. We also have a treaty calling for the protection of our land by the Lord of Lambshold in perpetuity.”
“If the Lyon said it, it is true,” said Aralorn. Then she raised an eyebrow. “If he had time to tell my brother Correy about it. You can’t expect Correy to take your word on the matter, given the suspicion that you yourself might have caused my father’s strange condition.”
The Lyon wouldn’t have left it to chance, she knew. He would have recorded it immediately—but Halven might not know that.
“Your manipulation is heavy-handed, Aralorn,” he said.
She shrugged. “I only tell you what you have been telling yourself. The Lyon probably told my brother. Probably my brother will hold to my father’s word—even with the suspicion that will be aimed toward the shapeshifters. But it would be better for you if the Lyon was returned to health. Irrenna has sent word to the ae’Magi, but the spells are black magic. Kisrah may be quite brilliant, but his reputation does not make him an expert in the dark arts.”
“And I am?” he asked.
“How old are you?” asked Aralorn. “Kisrah is only a few years above forty. How many more centuries have you spent learning? Don’t tell me that you have nothing more to offer us than a human mage.”
“Persistent,” he said chidingly. “I told you his affliction was none of my doing, child. Making an agreement with the Lyon is one thing; going to the keep is an entirely different matter. I will not endanger my people further.”
Aralorn met his gaze. “Come. Because I ask it of you. Because my mother would have done so if she had lived.”
His eyelids fell to cover the expression in his eyes as he thought. She wasn’t certain her appeal would be enough, especially because she had no idea if her mother cared enough for the Lyon to come to his aid.
It might just be possible that he would want to come. No one could resist the Lyon’s charm when it was directed at them, not even, she hoped, Halven. If he liked her father enough . . .
Wolf watched Aralorn’s uncle with sympathy—Aralorn could talk a cat into giving up its mouse. He could only understand her half of the conversation, but he could tell quite a bit from Halven’s gestures and Aralorn’s speech.
Wolf wondered, for a moment, why Aralorn had told him once that her uncle was indifferent to her. The poor man hadn’t even taken his eyes off her long enough to notice that her pet was a wolf. The shapeshifters had few children—Halven, Wolf knew, had none at all.
“Leave the humans to their own trials, my dear,” said a lark as it landed on Halven’s shoulder. Her voice was light and high-pitched, making it difficult to understand her.
He shrugged irritably, sending the small bird to perch on top o
f a gatepost. “Does this concern you, Kessenih? Tend to your own business.”
Aralorn could have cheered. Nothing was as likely to persuade her uncle to go to the hold as his wife’s opposition.
“Very well, Aralorn,” he said, “I’ll accompany you to see your father. Is that silly goose still the only bird you do?” He stopped abruptly and frowned. “That dog”—he paused, frowning at Wolf—“wolf of yours is going to slow us down.”
Halven had looked at Wolf but hadn’t been able to detect his nature. Shapeshifters always knew their own—but Halven hadn’t seen Wolf for what he was any more than Aralorn had at first.
“Why don’t you meet me there?” she suggested. “I’ll walk back with Wolf. Maybe the stones will aid our travel.”
Halven frowned. “All right. I will ask the stones to speed you to Lambshold. Sometimes that helps.” In a flutter of hawk feathers, he was gone.
FIVE
“So, you’ve grown up, halfling,” observed the lark, having fluttered to one of the gateposts after Halven made his abrupt switch.
Aralorn bowed shallowly to the yellow-and-black-banded bird. Not certain how much Rethian her aunt understood, she switched back to the shapeshifters’ tongue Kessenih had used. “As you see, Aunt.”
“No good will come of this.” The lark’s beady eyes focused malevolently on Aralorn. “If it is known he is gone to the castle again, he will be cast out. They came close to doing it when he helped the Lyon with his cattle breeding. He was told not to contact the humans again without the approval of the quorum.”
Aralorn looked at the snowy ground for a moment. She didn’t know how far to trust Kessenih. Her aunt hated her husband almost as much as she despised Aralorn herself.
“It is his decision to make,” Aralorn said at last, a little fiercely. “I have no choice but to ask him to make it.”
“Selfish child,” her aunt decreed.
“Perhaps so,” agreed Aralorn, “but the fact remains that the shapeshifters benefit as much from my father’s continued existence as I do, if not more. It is in your best interest to keep Halven’s activities a secret, as you will share his fate if he is exiled.”
“Then you’d best be gone from here before someone notices,” snapped Kessenih as she exploded into flight.
Wolf waited until she was gone before speaking. “She said something that upset you?”
Aralorn nodded, switching back to Rethian. “My uncle is risking a lot to help us.”
“He’s going to help? I couldn’t tell.”
“He’s meeting us at the castle.” She shrugged, feeling discouraged as well as guilty for asking Halven to risk so much.
“He says he didn’t have anything to do with Father’s current problem. There appears to be opposition to the aid Halven gave Father in breeding the ryefox. Judging from my aunt Kessenih’s attitude, I think that there could be enough opposition to having humans know of their presence that they might be willing to kill to stop the association with humans.” Aralorn gave him her best smile. “It would be simpler if the shapeshifters didn’t have a hand in this. If the people here are convinced that my father’s affliction came at the hands of the shapeshifters, it would mean war.”
“We’ll have to see to it that doesn’t happen.” He paused. “If necessary, we could provide them with a villain.”
She glanced at him, and said sharply, “Oh, no, you don’t. You’ve been maligned quite enough as it is. Let the late ae’Magi’s evil son disappear from view after his father’s death.”
She started hiking back toward the waterfall. “My uncle might be able to do something about the creature that is guarding the Lyon. He’s a lot older than he looks—and powerful. If nothing else, he should be able to tell us what the shadow-thing is.”
As they exited the waterfall, Wolf glanced over his shoulder, then froze, pricking his ears. Aralorn followed his gaze and saw that the smooth surface of snow behind them was unmarred by any sign of their passage.
“It’s always that way,” murmured Aralorn. “There are never any trails—not even of casual wildlife. I don’t know why the stones extend the effort since no one can come here without first going through the maze. They are very old, though, and have their own ideas of what’s important.”
She headed for the place they’d entered the grotto, where the undergrowth was thinner. Ascending the gorge was worse than climbing down had been—at least while they’d been going downhill, when she slipped it was in the right direction. It didn’t help that Wolf seemed to have no trouble at all and spent most of his time waiting for her to struggle through the underbrush.
They emerged finally into a level meadow, where frozen strands of grass poked gracefully through the snow at the bases of fifteen gray monoliths set in a circle, each one the height of a man. It looked nothing at all like the place that had been at the start of their descent earlier that day.
“The maze stones as they are from this side of the maze,” said Aralorn. “Do you want to take a closer look?”
Without replying, Wolf stepped into the circle.
“The story is that each of the stones was once a shapeshifter. They gave their lives to protect the remnants of their people,” she said.
High above them, a red-tailed hawk called out.
Aralorn looked up. “That’s my uncle. We’d best be on our way.”
“You know where we are?” asked Wolf, leaving the circle after a last thoughtful look.
She shook her head. “After we pass through the center of the maze stones, there is a barrier to cross outside the circle—here it is, do you feel it?”
The wolf shivered briefly as he started through it. Quickly, Aralorn grabbed a handful of fur and followed.
“Sorry,” she said, releasing his pelt. “If you cross separately, we’ll end up in two different places.”
“Ah?” Wolf turned to look behind him. There was no clearing, no monolithic stones, only dense forest. “A translocation spell? It didn’t feel like it.”
Aralorn frowned, smoothing the fur she’d ruffled on his back. “I don’t know how like your translocation spell it is. With green magic it is possible to build . . . pathways from one area strong with magic to another. The stones direct the paths and work magic constantly to keep the valley safe.” She smiled. “If they listened to Halven, it shouldn’t take us long to get home.”
The woods closed in upon them, and the path they trod became a knee-high growth of evergreens amid the older trees. Here and there, it became so choked with brush that they had to leave it altogether and look for a better way around. It was in the middle of one such detour that they came upon an old abandoned stone hut in a small clearing.
“The hermit’s cottage,” exclaimed Aralorn in surprise. She looked around the forest and shook her head. It was funny how familiar everything suddenly looked when she knew where she was. “I should have figured it out earlier: This is the only part of Lambshold that has so much forest. We’re not as close to the keep as we could be, but if we head due south from here, we should make it before dinner.”
As she turned to look at Wolf, something crashed through the trees half a dozen yards away. She turned to see an animal as tall as Sheen and even more massive emerge from the forest. It let out a hoarse moaning sound that started deep in its chest and rose to a high-pitched mewl.
The terrible cold of its breath touched her face though she shouldn’t have been close enough to feel it. The animal was covered with a thick white coat that darkened to a dirty yellow in the heavy mane that ringed its neck. Its blunt-featured face was similar to a bear’s, but the intelligence in the eyes above the yellow-fanged mouth made it much more threatening.
“Howlaa,” murmured Aralorn in disbelief as she stumbled back.
The creatures were rare, even in the Northlands, where they hunted with the winter winds. She’d never heard of one this far south, but, she recalled abruptly, the trappers had been whispering about an increase in the magical creatures of the Northl
ands for the past few years. Frightening as the beast was, the storyteller in her captured images of the creature.
Her fascinated gaze traveled from the howlaa’s fangs to its glittering diamond eyes and stopped. Awareness of anything but the howlaa faded to insignificance. Distantly, she felt an odd dizziness that rapidly increased to nausea. Though she knew she stood firmly planted on the ground, she could feel nothing solid under her feet. As she swayed, torn adrift from her moorings, the wind touched her—gently at first.
Sadness, despair. It is out of place here and dying from the warmth. Aralorn winced away from the alien deluge but could not escape the net the howlaa had caught her in.
There were some things a human mind was never meant to understand . . . the color of warmth and the voices that rode the winter winds. How to ride the blue currents of biting ice. The many textures of evil and its seductive, icy grip. Evil gave generously to those who knew ITS call . . . IT had sent this one to look for a shapechanger. IT wanted the wolf dead and promised a return to icy sheets that went on forever in all directions.
A pained whine added itself to the growing cacophony surrounding her. Ice-colored eyes turned from her.
Without the grip of the colorless gaze, Aralorn fell to her hands and knees, unable to feel the bite of the snow, for she’d been touched by something even colder. The wind blew past her. Gathering its chill thoughts and whispering to her in a thousand thousand voices, voices that murmured and shrieked of death, of evil and all its incarnates. She couldn’t pull any one thing out of the deluge, only flinch from it and cower in terror.
A muffled grunt sounded from nearby, this time as human as the howlaa’s whine was not.
Wolf, she thought. The thought of him allowed her to pull her hands to her ears, and the voices ceased with blessed suddenness. Awareness returned, and she looked up at Wolf in human guise, his back to her, confronting the howlaa.
Despite the blood that dripped from his shirt to melt the snow, Wolf wielded his black staff with cool grace. The crystals that grew from one end of the staff glittered like the eyes of the howlaa, while the finger-long, sharp metal talons on the other end dripped blood.
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