Masques by Patricia Briggs

patted the space beside her in invitation. The wolf obligingly got up, trotted over, and resumed his relaxed pose, substituting Aralorn’s shins as his chin rest.
    They sat like that for a while, Aralorn running her hand through the thick fur—separating the coarse dark hair from the softer, lighter-colored undercoat. When her breathing had returned almost to normal, she broke the silence.
    “It’s good to have you back,” she commented. “I take it that they didn’t kill you.”
    “I think that is a safe assumption to make.” His voice was more noncommittal than it usually was.
    She gave him a halfhearted grin.
    “How long had you been watching?”
    “Long enough to see you put your foot in it and almost let that clumsy young fool remove you from this life.”
    She obligingly rose to his bait. “Clumsy? I’ll have you know that he is the second-best staffsman in Sianim.”
    “You being the first?” Amusement touched his voice.
    She cuffed him lightly. “And you know it, too.”
    “It looked to me as if he had you beaten. You might have to step into second place.” He paused, and said in a quieter voice, “Finally noticed that people are a bit touchy concerning the ae’Magi, have you?”
    She gave him an assessing look. “Has it been going on for a long time?”
    He grunted an affirmative. “I first saw it about a year ago, but recently it has gotten much more intense.”
    “It seems to be some sort of variation of the spells that he had at his castle, but I didn’t think that anyone could create a spell of this magnitude alone.” Aralorn’s tone was questioning.
    “He’s not doing it alone,” replied the wolf. “He started small. The villages near the ae’Magi’s castle have quite a few inhabitants who are strong in magic. The side effect of having so many young virile magicians apprenticing at the castle for several hundred generations.” His tone was ironic. “The adults that he couldn’t subdue he killed because their deaths provide more of a kick to his power than people with no magic at all. But the ones he craves are the children, who have raw power and no training . . .”
    Aralorn shuddered and rubbed her arms as if chilled.
    “You’ve seen what he does with the children.” Wolf’s tone gentled. “Fifteen years ago, if you made a negative remark about the ae’Magi, only the reaction of the villagers just outside the castle would be as strong as Talor’s. Now the streets of that village are empty of all but old men and women because the rest are dead. He has taken them and used them. As far away as Sianim, people are affected by the ae’Magi’s spell. He needs still more prey to continue to increase the strength of his magic, so he’s looking elsewhere. Sianim, I think, is merely getting the backlash of the main focus.”
    “What is the main focus?” she asked.
    “Where is magic at its strongest? Where do many of the common villagers have the ability to work charms? Where has magic flourished, protected by strong rulers from the persecution that magic-users were subject to after the great wars?”
    “Reth,” she answered.
    “Reth,” he agreed.
    “Crud,” she said with feeling.

THREE

    The inn lay about halfway between the small village of Torin and the smaller village of Kestral. It had been built snugly to keep out the bitter cold of the northern winters. When the snow lay thick on the ground, the inn would have been picturesque, nestled cozily in a small valley between the impressive mountains of northern Reth. Without the masking snow, the building showed the onset of neglect.
    The inn had had many prosperous years because the trappers of the Northlands were bringing down the thick pelts of the various animals that inhabited the northern mountain wilds. For many years, merchants from all over flocked to Kestral each summer because it was as far south as the reclusive trappers would travel. However, over the last several years, the trappers had gradually grown