“Aurian!” Forral hissed at her. “What the blazes are you playing at? You can’t let them get away to tell Pendral there are Mages loose in Nexis.”
He was right, the Mage realized. She bit back a curse, possible solutions cascading with lightning speed through her mind as she struggled with her conscience.
A dozen soldiers, two great hounds, and their handlers would be too large a number to guarantee the success of a full-out attack. With Forral beside her and the great cats in support, Aurian had little doubt about the outcome, but she knew it could not be accomplished without risk. The possibility of serious injury or even death for herself or some of her companions was high—and in the end, there was no guarantee that some of the enemy might not escape into the catacombs after all.
The Mage knew she could unleash the Death-Wraith that occupied Finbarr on the soldiers—but she shrank from that dreadful option. It would also be impossible to take the men out of time—she could not ensorcell all of them at once, and before she had frozen more than a handful of their number, the rest would be turning on her. Also, there was still the possibility of losing one or more of them—and not a single one must escape.
Only one option remained—evil, dark, and dreadful. She knew there would be a price to pay—but what else could she do? I have no choice, Aurian thought desperately. And she would have to act fast—there was no time for discussion, or pondering the repercussions of her deed. Taking the Staff of Earth from her belt, she grasped it tightly in both hands, invoking its powers as she had done so many times before. Her mind went forth into the labyrinth, seeking the retreating soldiers among the twisting, intersecting tunnels. When she found them, the Mage set her will against the rock of the ceiling above them, and found a fault line where the planes of the rock had sheared and slipped a little. Sliding the tendrils of her power into the tiny crevice, she struck at the weakspot with all the power of the Staff.
Forral heard the distant rumble, and then felt the slight vibration as the earth trembled beneath his feet. “What the . . . ?” Then Aurian crumpled to the ground beside him, and as he caught a glimpse of her stricken expression, he knew at once what she had done.
Horror claimed him—horror and utter disbelief. He had been advising pursuit of the enemy—with the cats, surely he and the Mage could have finished them off.—Truth to tell, he had been spoiling for a fight, and glad of the excuse . . .—but he had never imagined that Aurian would deal with the problem in this appalling manner. Why, she would never do that—not his Aurian. She would no more be capable of using magic to murder a dozen men in cold blood, than . . .—But she had done it. All those men, plain soldiers like himself who had only been following orders, lay dead and buried under tons of rock. Killed, not in a fair fight, but from afar, by foul magic.
Aurian was huddled on the floor, her hands over her face as though to hide from her own ghastly handiwork, her breath coming in harsh, racking sobs that were more like retching than weeping. Forral looked down on her, his feelings a roiling mix of revulsion and icy rage, unable to believe or accept the change in the young girl he had known and loved.
“Damn you,” he said softly. “Damn you.” Then he turned on his heel and walked away from her.
14
Master of the Unicorn
After a sleepless night, Jarvas, now seriously worried, left Benziorn in charge of his sanctuary on the quayside and went out into the city to search for Grince. The thief had not returned last night, and Jarvas feared the worst. He alone had known what Grince had been planning—and he blamed himself for having failed to dissuade the lad from such insanity. He should have knocked him out or locked him up—even if Grince had never forgiven him for the lost opportunity, it would have been better than letting the idiot suffer the consequences of trying to steal from Lord Pendral.
Jarvas had felt responsible for Grince ever since he had caught him—a wild, scruffy fourteen-year-old ruffian in those days—trying to rob the sanctuary one night. Lord Vannor, before he had vanished on that insane expedition to attack the Phaerie, had brought prosperity back to the city, resulting in the reopening of the Grand Arcade, and because the newly staffed Garrison had been so successful in controlling the city’s petty crime in those days, the boy had lost his home and his livelihood, and fallen on hard times. He had been raiding Jarvas’s refuge not for himself, but in a desperate attempt to get food for his dog.
Until he saw Warrior, and recognized the animal as one of the distinctive offspring of Emmie’s dog, Storm, Jarvas had not realized that his burglar was Tilda’s son. He and Benziorn had been certain that the boy had perished in the initial destruction of the refuge, and he was aghast to discover that Grince had been living as a criminal in the city ever since. For the last half-dozen years or so, Jarvas had tried to take a father’s place for the young orphan, but since the lad had never had anyone to depend upon, even when Tilda was alive, he remained as wary and untrusting as a wild animal, refusing to respond either to authority or kindness. Emmie might have been able to win him over, but she had remained with the smugglers and married Yanis, the Nightrunner leader, taking over most of the domestic running of the secret underground complex from an increasingly frail Remana. She was happy, he heard, but had not been back to Nexis in years. Jarvas had never told her that the lad had turned up again—she had enough on her plate these days, and had probably forgotten all about him in any case.
As the years passed, Grince had refused to mend his ways and settle down to learn a trade, as Jarvas had suggested. Nothing had cured him of his habit of stealing—neither cajolery nor punishment. When Jarvas, out of pure desperation, had eventually tried taking a stick to him, Grince had simply started disappearing for weeks at a time, only coming back when he had some pressing need—usually for Warrior’s sake rather than his own—that only Jarvas and his refuge could supply. At heart, he was not a bad lad—had he been sunk in villainy or vice, it would have been easy for Jarvas to wash his hands of the entire problem. But surprisingly, given his background, there wasn’t a vicious bone in Grince’s body. Thievery was simply a way of life to him—and sadly, he was proud of his skill and the independence it gave him.
Though Jarvas had been determined to shoulder the additional burden of responsibility for the difficult boy, it was Grince’s intense hatred of authority that caused him the deepest concern. The makeshift home in the Grand Arcade had represented the only security the lad had ever known, and he blamed the High Lord for its loss. When Lord Pendral had taken power following Vannor’s disappearance, he had instituted severe penalties for stealing which put Grince into constant peril. Jarvas sighed. The thief was taking risks that increased with time—and in a city the size of Nexis, it had been inevitable that he would eventually be caught.
That was not the worst of it, however. Something had happened last year to fan Grince’s hatred into a deadly blaze. Pendral’s troops had killed the white dog, Warrior. A patrol had recognized the thief and given chase, and Warrior, ten years old now, had not been able to run fast enough to escape. Before Grince could rush back to help, a soldier, enraged at the escape of his true prey, had put an arrow through the fleeing dog…
For a time Jarvas had despaired of Grince’s life. He had been stunned by grief, unwilling to talk, refusing to eat, unable to sleep. Warrior had been everything to him—family, companion, protector, and friend. For days he had remained in his little cubicle in the refuge dormitory, sitting on the bed and staring at the thin partition with unseeing eyes. Jarvas, watching him with increasing concern, never saw him weep. About eight days after Warrior’s death, the boy vanished into the night. A worried Jarvas was organizing searchers when Grince returned with the dawn, a boy no longer. There was blood on his hands and a bleak, cold, adult look in his eyes that had not been there before. Nonetheless, he had thrown himself into Jarvas’s arms and sobbed like a brokenhearted child. He would never talk about where he had been, but no one was surprised when the reports came in of a soldier who’d been found in a lonely alley with his throat cut.