“Don’t discount Aralorn so lightly, you may be surprised,” commented Wolf, stretching the stiff muscles of his neck. “Certainly I never thought that she could get back from the Northlands so quickly. Perhaps the Old Man of the Mountain sent her back.”
The ae’Magi snorted in disbelief. “You could not have sent her so far; the Northlands would have blocked such transportation. I do not care where she was. As for the Old Man of the Mountain myth, there is no such person, or I would have run into him long since.”
Wolf curved his lips in the dim light of the ae’Magi’s staff. “If you are so sure that the old gods are real, why not a folktale as well?”
The keener senses of the icelynx made the smell of the dungeon worse, and she curled her lips in a silent snarl of disgust as she stalked slowly toward the ae’Magi. She crouched behind him and twitched her stub of a tail, waiting for just the right moment before she sprang.
Her front claws dug into his shoulders for purchase while her hind legs raked his back, scoring him deeply. But that was all that she had time for before the ae’Magi’s staff caught her in the side of the head with enough force to toss her against a wall. As she lay dazed, her eyes focused on Wolf.
On his knees, Wolf carefully retraced the circle of power. Reaching out almost casually, he snagged his staff where it apparently had been waiting for him in the darkness.
“Father,” he said, getting to his feet.
The ae’Magi turned and, seeing Wolf, brought his staff up and took up a fighting stance. It was quiet for a moment, then Wolf struck. Some of the fighting was physical, some of it was magical, most of it was both—accompanied by a very impressive light show.
Aralorn watched from her corner and got slowly to her feet. Anything that she could do as an icelynx was likely to do as much harm as good with so much magic flying around. She took back her human shape, from habit as much as anything else. She had started to lean against the wall to watch when she caught a glimpse of the sword, half-buried in the filthy rushes on the floor. On impulse she picked it up; the heat that had made her drop it was gone.
Atryx Iblis the Old Man had called it in an archaic dialect. Atryx was easy, it meant “devourer.” Iblis took her a while longer, but when she understood it, she smiled and held it at ready, waiting for a chance to use it again.
Healing himself had weakened Wolf, and he was showing it. His blocks were less sure, and he lashed out in fewer and fewer attacks. The ae’Magi was also tiring; the blood he was losing to the deep slashes that Aralorn had made on his back was bothering him, but it was Wolf who slipped in the muck on the floor and fell to one knee, losing his staff in the process.
For a second time Aralorn attacked the ae’Magi’s back with the sword, but this time she stabbed him with it instead of cutting him, and released the grip. The sword Ambris hung grotesquely from his chest, though it was doing no apparent harm. Without taking his eyes off Wolf, the ae’Magi swung the tip of his staff at Aralorn and said a quiet phrase.
Nothing happened, but the Smith’s sword was glowing brighter than either of the staves, bathing the dungeon with pink. Wolf got to his feet and retrieved his staff, but made no move to attack. Frantically, the ae’Magi grabbed the blade and pushed the sword out, cutting his fingers in the process, although the blade slid out easily enough and fell, shimmering, to the floor.
Aralorn grabbed it, heedless of the heat, and sheathed it, as she said conversationally, “The Old Man says that it’s one of the Smith’s weapons. Atryx Iblis, he calls it—Magic Eater.”
The ae’Magi’s staff was dark, just an elaborately carved stick to his touch. The ae’Magi’s hands formed the simple gestures to call forth light, and nothing happened. Turning to his son, he said, “Kill me, then.”
Passionlessly, the predator the ae’Magi had created looked at him with glittering yellow eyes, then said in his macabre voice, “No.”
Wolf turned to Aralorn and, gripping her arm tightly, transported them to the meadow where they’d faced the ae’Magi’s illusion, leaving the Archmage in the darkness, alone.
Wolf stepped back from Aralorn almost immediately and stood looking at the magician’s castle. Aralorn looked at his brooding face and wondered what he was thinking.
He spoke softly. “I am still what he made me, it seems.”
“No,” said Aralorn in a positive voice.
“Do you know what I just did? I left him bleeding, to face a castle full of Uriah that he no longer controls.”
“A kinder fate than he had in mind for you,” Aralorn reminded him, examining the burns the sword had left on her hand. “He has as much chance of escaping from the Uriah as Astrid did. More of a chance than Talor or Kai did.” There was nothing wrong with her that wouldn’t heal up in a few days.
“You also eliminated the threat that his faithful followers would attack us after we killed the ae’Magi,” she told him. “He’ll be found, mostly eaten by his former pets.”
Wolf caught her hand, and the burns disappeared from it, along with much of the dirt. Aralorn laughed softly and wiped her other hand on his cheek, showing him the smudge on it. “This time, you are almost as dirty as I am.”
“He’s dead,” Wolf said.
“Dead,” she agreed.
He closed his eyes and shuddered. She took his hand and he gripped it tightly.
“I think,” he told her, “that I have just enough magic to take us back to the library.”
“Let’s go find Myr and let him know what’s happened. Then I have to get back to Sianim and let Ren know that there is going to be a plaguing awful mess of Uriah running around that someone’s got to clean up. If he works it right, Sianim stands to make a lot of gold off this.”
“Not that you care,” Wolf said. “Since you gave up Sianim to follow Myr.”
“To follow you,” she said. “And I’ve had time to think a bit. Don’t you think it was a coincidence that Ren sent me to an inn not twenty miles from where the King of Reth was hiding? And you know what Ren says about coincidence.”
“Usually, coincidences aren’t,” said Wolf.
FINIS
The fifth baron of Tryfahr, Seneschal of the Royal Palace (also known as Haris the Smith) stepped into the kitchen to examine the food being prepared for the feast celebrating King Myr’s formal coronation. Seeing the Seneschal slip into the kitchen, the Lyon of Lambshold, who currently held the title of Minister of Defense, decided to join him.
In the main kitchen, the cook who ruled sprawled asleep in her rocking chair near the dessert trays, a nasty-looking wooden spatula in one hand. The new court taster stood silently near the stove.
The new cook was a marvel; the fowl had never been so moist, the beef so tender, and her sweets were beyond comparison. More wondrous still was that she was able to maneuver her bulk around (though no one but the hulking taster who lurked in the corner had ever witnessed it) and cook.
“So,” commented Haris, “the mercenaries have offered to help clean up the Uriah.”
“Aye,” snorted the Defense Minister, “for a discounted rate, since their troops will be in the vicinity clearing the Uriah out of Darran as well. They’ve already cleared out the ae’Magi’s castle.” His hand crept out involuntarily to hover over one of the lacy sugar cakes.
“I wouldn’t,” muttered the Seneschal to the Lyon, nodding at the massive hand that was tightening around the spatula’s handle though the cook’s eyes had remained closed. He cleared his throat and remarked in a louder tone, “Likely they were hoping to find the ae’Magi in a state to pay them, but I heard that they couldn’t find a trace of him anywhere.” There was a note of satisfaction in his tone.
The Lyon snatched his hand back, and said absently, “Eaten, most likely, poor man. Sianim’ll probably make the next ae’Magi pay them before they turn the castle over to—” He was interrupted by a shout from one of the pages, who seemed to be taking over the castle lately.