close-knit community, the grumblers fewer. Every evening they would all sit down and talk, when complaints and suggestions were heard and decided upon by Myr. Looking at the scruffy bunch of peasants (the nobles, by this time, blended right in with the rest) consulting with their equally scruffy king, Aralorn compared it with the Rethian Grand Council that met once a year and hid a grin at the contrast.
Only Wolf was excluded from the camaraderie, by his own choice. He made them nervous, with his macabre voice and silver mask. Once he saw that they were intimidated by him, he went out of his way to make them more so. He was seldom with the main body of the camp, sleeping somewhere deep in the caverns and spending most of his waking time in the library. He attended The nightly sessions with everyone else, but kept his own council in the shadows of the cave's recesses unless Myr asked him a question directly.
Most mornings Aralorn spent entertaining the children. Occasionally she went out with a hunting party, or alone to exercise Sheen and check the traps. The afternoons she spent in the library with Wolf, keeping him company and reading as many books as she could.
The nights she spent in the library as well, for she was still having nightmares and didn't want to wake the whole camp. Night after night she woke up screaming, sometimes seeing Talor's face, alive with all that made him Talor, but consumed with a hunger that was inhuman and wholly Uriah. Other times it was the ae'Magi's face that she saw, a face that changed from father's to son's. It was because of the latter that she didn't tell Wolf about her dreams.
Late in the afternoons Myr usually joined them, talking quietly with Aralorn while Wolf read tirelessly through books on rabbit breeding, castle building, and three hundred ways to cook a hedgehog.
It was on one such occasion that Myr came in to find Aralorn watching as Wolf carefully measured powders in a beaker. Aralorn looked up with a welcoming smile and waved him over.
"Wolf thinks that he found the spell. We're going to try it out outside. No telling what would happen if he worked it in here with all of the grimoires, especially since we don't know the range of effect." Aralorn spoke quietly, so as not to disturb Wolf's concentration.
They watched as he took a small vial from the open leather pack on the table. Opening it, he poured a milky liquid into the grey powder mixture, which became red mush and gave off a poof of noxious fumes. He donned his mask and cloak; then, ignoring his audience, he capped the beaker and took it and an opaque bottle and strode toward the exit, leaving Aralorn and Myr to trail behind.
"Won't the spell be affected by whatever it is that restricts human magic in the North?" asked Myr in a whisper to Aralorn, but it was Wolf who answered.
"No,'" he said. "It is a very simple spell. I only seem to have-problems with working more delicate magics."
He led them to the valley, where they were unlikely to have anyone interrupt them. Aralorn found herself holding the containers while, at Wolf's direction, Myr paced off circles, each bigger than the last until the dirt looked like an archery target. Wolf disappeared into the underbrush and reappeared holding a handful of small stones. He set several of them in each ring, floating about knee-high above the ground.
"This shouldn't be a particularly powerful spell; if I can get it to work, it doesn't need to be. If he doesn't know that it's coming, then he won't know to block it. Aralorn, stand over by the old firepit so that you are out of range of the spell. It won't hurt Myr, but I don't know what this could do to a shapeshifter," Wolf said as he sat on the cold ground in the middle of the innermost circle.
"How old is the ae'Magi?" asked Aralorn, moving to the position he'd indicated.
Wolf shrugged gracefully and gave her a half smile. "You aren't going to kill the ae'Magi the way that Iveress killed his Master. The Master was ill and near death, kept alive only by magic. As far as I know, the ae'Magi is nowhere near death, unfortunate as that may be - at least not from disease."
"What are our chances if the spell works as it is supposed to?" asked Myr. "Will you be