“Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” snapped a female voice. “Get on your feet, man, and stop this pitiful groveling. Come on—we don’t have time to stand here all bloody night.”
Her companion chuckled dryly. “That’s a good way to persuade him not to be scared.”
The female ignored him, continuing to concentrate all her attention on Grince.
“Come on, you—answer me! What are you doing down here? Was it you who called me?” Her words were punctuated by bloodcurdling snarls from the demons.
“Lady—spare me!” Grince’s voice was little more than a terrified squeak. “I couldn’t help it! I didn’t take nothing, honest I didn’t! I didn’t touch a thing! I didn’t call you—I would never presume to bother Your Ladyship. The guards chased me here and I got lost, that’s all. If you’ll only show me the way out, I’ll never, ever, ever come back!”
The Mage made a small sound of impatience, halfway between a curse and a sigh.
“Gods help us,” she muttered. “Look, you stupid Mortal. No one’s going to hurt you, all right? Now just pull yourself together and get up off the floor. As soon as you’ve answered my questions, I’ll show you the way out of here.”
The thief risked a sneaky glance at her through his fingers—and began to relax a little. It was difficult to be afraid of even a dreaded Mage when she was standing over the fire rubbing her cold hands in such an ordinary, homely way, with the two black demons sitting at her feet and gazing blissfully into the blaze like a pair of fireside cats.
Watching his unnerving visitors closely to be sure that they had no objections, Grince rose slowly from the floor. As he did so, the leg with the sword cut gave way beneath him and he fell heavily, jarring his torn shoulder and crying out in pain.
The Mage was at his side in an instant. “You’re hurt?” She brought her light down to hover just above the thief. “Melisanda save us—what have you been doing with yourself?” She looked down at him sternly. “I suppose you did all this damage when you were being chased by those guards you mentioned? Maybe you had better tell me just why they were chasing you in the first place.”
Transfixed by her frank stare, Grince suddenly found that he couldn’t lie to her, as he had intended. “Lady, I—I—”
“By Chathak’s iron britches! Where did he get these?”
Grince jumped guiltily at the other Mage’s voice. He had found the thief’s sack, and was upending it near the fire. The Magewoman gave a low whistle as a cascade of gems came rattling out to heap themselves in a sparkling pile on the dark floor. Once more, she turned her stern gaze on the thief. “You stole these. Who do they belong to?”
Grince’s mouth went very dry. “P-Pendral,” he choked. “The High Lord Pendral.”
The Mage burst into peals of laughter. “Pendral? Is that filthy little pervert still alive?”
Dumbly, Grince nodded, utterly astounded by her reaction.
“And you stole his beloved jewels? Well done, you! It serves him right, the tightfisted bastard.” She chuckled to herself and almost slapped him on the back. She stopped herself just in time, and ran a light but expert hand over his injuries instead.
Grince, aghast to see a liquid shimmer of violet-blue radiance coming from the Mage’s fingers, shrank instinctively away from her touch before he realized, to his surprise, that she wasn’t hurting him in the least. In fact the opposite seemed to be happening. Where the tingling violet light fell on his wounds, the pain and stiffness suddenly vanished, to leave a wonderful feeling of ease and well-being. Before his disbelieving eyes, the gaping sides of the sword cut on his leg began to close up and knit together.
The Mage chuckled again. “You’ll have to sew up the rip in your breeches yourself,” she told him kindly. “I’m useless at that kind of thing.”
Grince looked at her wonderingly. He had lost his mother at the age of ten, and she had never bothered much about him in any case. Since then he had always shifted for himself, even though Jarvas kept a place for him at the sanctuary. No one had ever taken care of him like this. “Thank you, Lady,” he whispered. She smiled back at him, and in that moment he knew his life would never be the same again.
The other Mage had perched on the edge of a table and was smiling encouragingly, though the thief noticed that his hand was never far from his sword hilt. “Now listen,” he said firmly. “We came down here because we heard somebody screaming. Was it you who screamed?”
The female Mage turned from Grince with a startled exclamation. “The screaming! What with that other call, I had forgotten about that.” She paused a moment, her head cocked to the side as though listening for some distant call—then shook her head and cursed. “And now the other blasted voice has gone too.”
“From the effect it had on you, I’m inclined to think that may not be a bad thing.” Then the other Mage turned his gaze back to Grince. “Now he said gently. “Why did you scream, lad? You look in a bit of a mess—who hurt you?—Did that same person frighten you? Is someone else down here with you?”
Numbly, Grince shook his head. “It—it was horrible. It’s in there. . . ,”
Unable to say more, he pointed into the unseen depths of the gloomy alcove.—Aurian glanced sharply at Forral, then stepped away from the fire. “We’d better find out what he’s talking about.” Concentrating on the slip of Magelight that hovered above her, she 1 64 Maggie f u r ey made it flare into brilliant life once more. As the light leapt into the corners of the room, her eyes were drawn across the room to the alcove, whose depths were lost in shadow.
“There,” the little Mortal repeated, pointing. “That’s where it’s coming from.”
“Be careful,” Shia warned. “It may be a trap.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Aurian replied. “Keep an eye on this Mortal for me, will you? I think we can trust him, but I don’t want to risk him stabbing in the back while I’m preoccupied.”
Forral slid off the table to join her and together, they stole cautiously across the room toward the dark void, with Aurian’s Magelight high above them.—As the light reached into the recesses of the alcove, the swordsman cried out and the Mage recoiled in astonishment. “Gods preserve us,” she gasped. “It’s Finbarr!”
How many more shocks did the Academy have in store for her? Aurian was aghast at the sight of her dear old friend, changeless and stark within the blue network of a time spell, frozen in time like a lifeless statue. She took a deep breath and bit her lip hard. “I don’t believe this,” she said angrily.
“Finbarr was killed in the attack of the Wraiths—I felt him die. Why would the Archmage want to take him out of time like this? It’s insane!”
“When was Miathan ever sane?” Forral replied grimly. “But Aurian, are you absolutely sure you felt Finbarr die?”
The Mage was frowning, trying to think herself back into the past. “It was the first time I had ever experienced the death of another Mage. It’s not a thing you’d mistake, believe me. So why is Finbarr’s body preserved this way? I just don’t understand.”
“Miathan had the grail, remember.”
Aurian glanced back at the figure of Forral, wearing Anvar’s body. “We’ve already had an example today of the Caldron’s powers,” she told him thoughtfully. “After what happened to you and Anvar, do you think this could be something of the same kind?”
“Who can say?” Forral shrugged.
“Well, I think we should release him,” the Mage said decisively.