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Although he had a good idea why the Shaper had returned, Reiffen said nothing as the crow cocked his head to the side and fixed Hubley with one bright button eye.
“Brawwk. Happy birthday. I wasn’t sure I’d make it, but I guess I got here just in time.”
The bird paused, his attention distracted by the shiny sparkle of Hubley’s new silver thimble. Hern snapped her napkin at him. “Shoo, you.”
“I’ve got him.” Avender scooped the crow up off the table with one arm.
“Take him away,” ordered Ferris. “And don’t bring him back till he’s changed into something more respectable.”
“Brawk! There isn’t time. I haven’t come all this way to be locked in the barn.” Unable to get at Avender with his beak, the Shaper flapped his large wings and scrabbled with his claws. Reiffen pocketed one of the large black feathers that floated through the air.
“What have you come for?” asked the king.
The crow gave Hubley another sideways look. “This isn’t the place to talk about it.”
Reiffen agreed. “Giserre, if you would take over as host, Ferris and I will escort Avender and the Oeinnen to her workshop. Your Majesties. Nolo. If you would care to join us.”
Hubley jumped up, wrapping and ribbons flying. “I’m coming too!”
“Not now,” warned her mother. “This is for your father and me.”
“But it’s my party!”
Giserre’s eyebrows rose. “Hubley, you are now ten. It is time you learned the meaning of duty.”
“We’ll have plenty of fun without them.” Snapping his fingers, Plum produced another bright butterfly. It flew off across the garden before dribbling away into the air like a handful of sand.
As they went inside, Avender let Redburr go. The bird flew up toward the top of the Magicians’ Tower while everyone else climbed the stair.
“Not there!” Ferris leapt forward as she spotted the Shaper perched on a small table in the middle of her workshop. “Wellin gave us that for our fifth anniversary. I won’t have you ruining it.”
Spreading his glossy wings, the crow glided over to a stool. Unlike the basement workshops, Ferris’s was an airy chamber, with a tall ceiling and wide windows facing east, south, and west. On the northern side a long bench stood against the wall, rows of books and beakers filling the shelves above.
“Well now,” she asked, satisfied the damage to the table could be repaired. “What’s this all about?”
The Shaper glanced bird-wise at Reiffen. “You never did tell her, did you?”
“We agreed I wouldn’t,” the magician replied.
“Tell me what?” Ferris demanded.
“Redburr’s been watching Ahne.”
“Watching Ahne? What in the world for?”
The Shaper gripped the edge of the stool with his claws. “Ever since Reiffen and I learned the Gray Wizard was teaching magic to Dremen witches and Keeadini shamans, we knew it was only a matter of time before he went after your apprentices. I’ve been watching Ahne for the last year.”
“Ahne would never have anything to do with the Wizard,” scoffed Ferris. “He’s a good man. It’s why Reiffen and I picked him.”
“A pleasant fellow,” the king agreed.
“Well, he isn’t pleasant anymore.” The bird snapped his beak with a sharp crack. “Remember that girl who disappeared in West Wayland last year?”
“Of course.” Wellin’s interest sharpened at the mention of the child. “We sent two companies of the guard to help with the search.”
“Ahne has her now.”
Ferris broke through the hush of everyone else’s surprise. “I don’t believe it.”
The Shaper fixed Reiffen with one dark eye. “I’m sure your husband does. He knows the Wizard’s power better than anyone.”
Though he would have preferred not to, Reiffen agreed. The news that Ahne had stolen a child shook him deeply. It meant that all his worst nightmares were coming true. He and Ferris had chosen their apprentices for goodness as much as wisdom, but now, when the first of them had faced the Wizard, goodness hadn’t turned out to be much good at all. He should have known he had to get rid of Fornoch first, before passing his knowledge along to anyone else. Now, in addition to the Wizard, he was going to have to deal with the apprentices too.
“But why would Ahne want to steal a child?” asked the king.
“There are many uses a magician might have for a child,” Reiffen answered. “Ahne, however, knew none of them when he left Castle Grangore. Ferris and I do not teach that sort of thing.”
“Fornoch does,” said the bird.
“Did you see him?”
Redburr shook his beak. “I haven’t even seen the girl. But I heard her. Three days ago Ahne left the door open to a secret cave in the hill behind his cottage. They talked for a while, and he called her by name. That’s how I knew who she was.”
“So she’s still alive,” said Ferris.
“We must rescue her,” said Wellin.
Reiffen decided to speak up before everyone’s good intentions got out of hand. “It might be a trap. Clearly, Fornoch has been corrupting Ahne for some time now, otherwise a child stolen from her parents a year ago would not be in his possession.”
“Remember it’s the Wizard we’re after here,” added Redburr. “Not the child.”
“Nonsense.” Wellin’s look dared anyone to contradict her. “If the child is alive, rescuing her is our first concern.”
Brizen pulled at his chin. “I have to agree. Redburr, I will not permit the child to be used as Wizard’s bait.”
The Shaper pointed his sharp beak at the king. “Even if it rids us of the Wizard once and for all? One child for many is a good trade.”
“It is not,” said the queen. “You are not human, Redburr. You cannot understand.”
“It hardly matters anyway.” Everyone turned to Reiffen as he waved their arguments aside. “Redburr just told us he has not seen Fornoch once during the entire year he’s been watching Ahne. In all likelihood the Wizard has never visited Ahne in person at all. He will be using dreams or mirrors. I shall have to go see.”
Ferris began untying her apron. “We can rescue the girl while we’re there.”
“Redburr and I will certainly rescue the child if we can,” said Reiffen. “But I think it would be better if you remained behind.”
“Why?”
Reiffen readied himself to catch her apron in case his wife threw it at him. “As I said, this may all be a ruse. Fornoch may be attempting to lure us away from Castle Grangore. Someone has to stay and guard Hubley.”
Ferris didn’t bat an eye. “Better I go, then. You’re always saying how you guard Hubley better than I do.”
Reiffen hadn’t considered that. Hubley’s safety was his first concern, but he much preferred being the one to examine Ahne’s cottage. Alone, if possible. Ferris might find things there it would be better she never saw.
“No,” he said, making up his mind. “Fornoch will know we’ve seen through his plans if you show up rather than I. Better for you to stay. You and Hubley can hide in our special place.”
“If you think I’m going to cower in the basement while you go off to fight the Wizard, you’re out of your mind. I’ll stay here, but I won’t be chased into hiding. A fine example we’d be setting for our daughter if I ran away at the first sign of danger. It’s bad enough I can’t go with you to see what sort of a mess Ahne’s gotten himself into, but I’m not going to pretend to be afraid to stay behind.”
“If you thought about it for a minute,” said Reiffen, “you’d know there’s no pretending as far as being afraid of Fornoch is concerned.”
“Brawk!” The Shaper flew between husband and wife. Both stepped back, or his wings would have smacked each in the face. “Let it go, Reiffen. Ferris can take care of herself.”
“I’ll come with you,” offered Avender.
“No.” Reiffen shook his head. “You won’t be able to keep up.”
“Why not?”
“I can only travel as far as Ipwell. I’ve never been to Norly. After that Redburr and I will have to fly.”
“You’ll still need some sort of reserve. Let Ferris take me to Malmoret to fetch a company of the king’s guard, then bring us along with you. That way, if it turns out you need help, we’ll already be on our way.”
Reiffen decided it wouldn’t hurt to have a company of soldiers near at hand, provided they were properly armed. There never was any knowing the Wizard’s plans.
“Fine. Have them bring crossbows. We’ll arm them with Inach bolts when they arrive.”
Wellin and Brizen chose to return with Ferris and Avender to Malmoret, though their retainers had to remain behind for another trip. Reiffen spent the time they were gone preparing his spell. He had only been to Ipwell once, to speak with a Hisser who had seen Fornoch, and couldn’t go there with a simple thought the way he could to more familiar places.
They were a large group when they left, about as many as Reiffen could take so far with success, five soldiers in addition to Avender and Redburr. The magician lay on the desk with his eyes closed, his companions holding his bare arms. He remembered an inn with a large beech tree standing outside the front gate, a wooden bench wrapped around the tree’s wide trunk. Past the gate a whitewashed rabbit dashed across a wooden plank above the door. A small stream chattered behind the house, funneling through a narrow race to the baron’s mill down the road...
The soldiers gasped, though they had just traveled from Malmoret to Castle Grangore a few minutes before. But to suddenly find themselves in the middle of the road outside the Running Rabbit in Ipwell came as a shock, no matter how much they had been expecting it. Their surprise, however, was not nearly as great as that of the two farmers sitting on the bench below the beech tree. Their mouths hung open; pale smoke curled from the pipes in their hands.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen.”
The magician nodded as he stood and patted the dust from his clothes. Pointing past the farmers, he showed Avender the way to Norly.
“If you march all night,” he said as Redburr flew up into the tree, “you’ll reach the village by dawn. Redburr and I will meet you there. By that time I imagine we will have learned everything possible from Ahne and can decide what to do next. I doubt we will find Fornoch, but, if we do, remember your Inach bolts are the only thing that will work against him. Iron, or even blumet, won’t work at all.”
As Avender led the soldiers away, Reiffen entered the house. Paying the innkeeper a full night’s fee for an hour’s use of one of his rooms, he went up the narrow stairs. After first opening the window, he sat on the bed and retrieved a small black feather and a tiny iron brooch from a leather pouch within his cloak.
“Brawwk. What’s that?”
The Shaper perched on the windowsill, a bit of carrion under one sharp claw.
“A charm.” Reiffen opened the brooch’s clasp. “Transformation spells are not the sort of thing you can cast just anywhere. At least not at my present level of ability. So I have prepared a few in advance, like this bird, for instance.”
“Looks like a bug on a pin to me.” Bending over, the Shaper picked at the mouse with his heavy beak. Tearing off a long string of red flesh, he gulped it down like a robin with a worm.
“It’s a bird. The feather will determine what kind.”
“Is that my feather? The one you took when Avender picked me up?”
“Ah, you noticed that.” Reiffen twirled the quill between his fingers. “No, this is a common crow’s. The feather determines the sort of bird I shall transform into. Yours would be much too uncertain. Though it might be interesting to try sometime when our task is less urgent.”
“Brawwk. Use one of mine and you might turn into a weasel instead of a crow.”
“That’s why I am not trying it now. Though I do wonder if it would allow me to retain the ability to speak, which this will not. Not even the language of crows.”
Unbuttoning his shirt, Reiffen pinned the brooch to his chest. Two trickles of blood ran down his skin. Holding the feather in his left hand, he chanted,
“Toe to talon, beard to bill,
Change my form to fit this quill.”
Unlike traveling, Reiffen always felt a transformation. Not on the outside, where skin and hair and clothes merged and sprouted into beak and claws and feathers, but on the inside, where the change was most acute. Sight blurred and melted; shapes and colors spun like water spiraling round a drain. Touch and feeling disappeared. Cut loose from the world, he felt as if he were drawing in on himself, like ivy growing backwards.
And then he was somewhere else. Or, in this case, something else. His sight sharpened. Weight and solidity drained away; no longer did he feel part of the earth. The air lifted his feathers and called him to the sky.
“Is that what I look like when I change?” squawked the other crow from the windowsill. “Bird and human blinking on and off, faster and faster until only the bird’s left?”
Reiffen shook his head, conscious of the way his sharp beak sliced the air. Without thinking, he flapped his wings and joined the Shaper on the sill. The brooch on his breast pinched at every wingbeat, reminding him who he was. The smell of dead mouse clung sweetly to the air.
The sun was falling behind the higher peaks of the Blue Mountains as they darted out the window. Redburr led them northwest toward Norly, the hills falling away beneath their wings. They saw no sign of Avender and the soldiers, who would have to wind their way back and forth around those same hills. A trip that would take the better part of a night for men walking was going to take a pair of crows no more than an hour.
The light failed quickly. The land fell into shadow, broken only by the occasional glimmer of farmhouse or town. Despite the pull of his crow’s nature to investigate each shining flicker, Reiffen enjoyed his flying very much. It was so very different from anything a human could do. Even the steady prick of the brooch against his breast did nothing to lessen the joy of racing through the sky, wings nearly brushing the early stars.
Night had come by the time they arrowed down toward a small dot of light at the side of a hill several miles past Norly. The smell of chickens and other delightful edibles eddied through Reiffen’s bill as he swooped across the yard and settled into one of the weedy flower boxes in front of the two shuttered windows. Cocking his head, he set an eye to a crack in the wood.
A single cluttered room met his gaze. Shelves of books and magical apparatus lined the opposite wall, where the stony side of the hill cut straight to the floor. On the left, a sleeping loft hung just below the rafters. Reiffen’s former apprentice sat on a stool by the side of the hearth, a ladle in one hand. Fresh bread and butter lay on a plate nearby: the pot bubbling over the fire smelled more like soup than magic. A chicken and several rabbits hung from the rafters alongside bags of onions and potatoes; what looked like a tiny fox’s paw lay on a large platter, several thin metal wires trailing from it to a jar of bubbling yellow liquid.
Reiffen hopped back and forth along the window box as he tried to see into every corner of the room. Stirring his pot by the fire, Ahne certainly didn’t act as if anyone else was with him. Had Fornoch been present, Reiffen would have been forced to fly several miles down the road in order to change back to human, otherwise the Wizard would have sensed the burst of magic. Ahne, however, had no such sensibility.
Spreading his wings, Reiffen darted to the woods at the other end of the yard. His bird-self felt a pang at having to give up such freedom, but his human-self remained in firm control. At the base of an old silver birch, he poked at his breast until he found the hard iron of his charm. The clasp had been designed to open easily; the difficulty was in pulling it out. Bright pain seared his chest with each tug. Though he couldn’t see them, he felt bits of down waft across his face. But he had done worse things to himself, and others, in the course of nearly twenty years of magic, and the bit of iron soon came free.
The night swayed. Falling on his side, Reiffen waited for the dizziness to end. When he could sit up again, he found the Shaper perched on a low stump.
“Your turn.” The magician spat the brooch out into his hand.
“Any trace of the Wizard?”
“No. But I will have a better sense of whether his magic is around now I am no longer a bird.”
“You’d better wait till I’ve shifted too.” Tiny glints of starlight glimmered in the Shaper’s eyes.
“I won’t need your help with an apprentice.”
“No, but you will if we find the Wizard.”
Spreading his wings, the Shaper flapped further into the woods. Reiffen listened for a moment to make sure the crow had settled down for his change, then slipped back out to the yard. In the time it would take Redburr to shift, Reiffen would be able to learn whatever there was to know from Ahne.
He approached the cottage cautiously. A hen cackled in the coop; a cow shuffled inside the shed. Thin smoke drifted from the chimney, twisting upward across the stars in ghostly imitation of the leafless trees on the hill behind. Still feeling no sign of the Gray Wizard’s presence, Reiffen knocked.
A stool scraped on the hearthstone inside. Reiffen caught a breath of dust and magic as Ahne opened the door.
“Reiffen!” Ahne’s flower blue eyes widened in surprise, then darted back and forth to see if the magician had come alone. “What brings you here?”
“I thought it was time to see how you were doing.”
“I wish you’d given me some notice.” The former apprentice stepped aside and let his master in. As usual, he wore a farmer’s loose shirt and trousers, the legacy of his youth in Wayland. His sandy hair skewed unattended across his head. “I could have offered you better than soup.”
“Soup is fine.”
The room grew close as Ahne shut the door. The smells of fire and alchemy thickened the air. Scooping a pair of empty sacks off a chair, he wiped the seat with his hand and pulled it up to the fire.
“Sit, please.”
Both men’s thimbles clicked against the sides of the bowl as Reiffen accepted his helping.
“Rabbit?” Reiffen’s eyebrows lifted as he caught the aroma.
Ahne nodded. “I still make my own snares.”
“You catch more than rabbits with them, too.”
“Pardon?” Ahne’s broad face scrunched in puzzlement.
“The fox paw on the dish.” Reiffen nodded back toward the table behind them.
The apprentice’s face tightened further. “No one minds a fox getting trapped now and then. Certainly not my chickens.”
“Or the rabbits.” Reiffen blew on the broth before lifting the spoon to his lips. “Seems a little undersized though. Was it newborn?””
Ahne had never been particularly good at lying, which was one of the reasons Reiffen had chosen him. The former apprentice changed the subject instead of answering. “I don’t suppose you came all this way for rabbit soup. Wanting to know what I’ve been up to?”
“Yes.”
Ahne rubbed his hands briskly, but the gesture fell flat under the uneasiness in his eyes. “I’ve been doing a bit of good here in Norly. Setting bones, easing labor. It’s amazing what a little magic can do.”
“And a newborn fox?” Reiffen allowed his gaze to wander back across the table. “What does that have to do with setting bones?”
The younger mage pulled the bread apart with his broad hands. “It’s a solution I came up with on my own. Rock salt and eft glands. I’m trying to see whether the mixture staves off rot. I couldn’t very well use a live animal, so I’m left with the paw.”
“I see. You’re looking into the problem of putrefaction in compound fractures.”
“That’s right.” Ahne looked greatly relieved, as if he hadn’t thought Reiffen would believe him. “Rot is the biggest danger in that kind of wound.”
“So it has nothing to do with prolonging life?”
“No, nothing at all.” Ahne paused slightly, then realized he might have said the wrong thing. “You mean preventing rot is one of the ways to extend life?”
“Not unless you use newborns.” Reiffen pushed back a jar of grubs to make room on the table for his empty bowl. “The unborn work even better, though perhaps Fornoch has not told you that.”
Understanding filled Ahne’s face, followed by a splash of fear. As Reiffen knew from his own experience, the Wizard’s touch was always deft enough to leave his pupils’ guilt intact.
“So you know about that?” Without any prompting, Ahne began to talk, as if grateful for the chance to unburden his mind. “I won’t ask how you found out. You’ve probably been spying on me ever since I left Grangore. All that talk about letting me go free after I’d served my apprenticeship, I knew that was all it was. You used to have me fooled, but Fornoch made it clear enough. He’s the real master, yours as well as mine.”
“He is an excellent teacher,” Reiffen agreed. “You seem to have progressed rapidly under his hand.”
“He shows me everything.” The former apprentice’s glance flickered toward the fox paw. “Unlike you, He doesn’t keep anything to Himself.”
“Was it he who took the child?”
“You know about her, too?”
“Of course.”
“What He did to her is beyond me. And beyond you, too, He says.”
“Has he shown you how to fashion a Living Stone?”
“No.” For the first time self-pity showed in Ahne’s fair blue eyes. “You know, none of this would have happened if you’d taught me the magic yourself. Then Fornoch would have had nothing to offer.”
“Fornoch always has something to offer.”
“You can do a lot of good with this sort of magic,” Ahne insisted. “It doesn’t have to be selfish. I never used any of it on myself.”
“I am certain you did not. But there is still a cost. Did he help you heal someone first, to draw you in, then show you how to do it after?”
Ahne shifted uncomfortably, heavy boots scuffing the floor. For a while he said nothing, but sat looking at the fire. Red and gold shadows crawled across his hands.
“Baron Norly’s daughter nearly died giving birth last year. When the midwife showed me a way to stop the bleeding, I had no way of knowing she’d learned the trick from Him. He only revealed Himself a few months later, when it was too late to go back. When I had learned too much.”
“And how does he come to you? In dreams? Or does he use a mirror?”
“A mirror. That’s what the girl was for.”
Reiffen’s heart jumped. This he had not expected. What would Fornoch want with a girl and a mirror? Especially for a spell beyond Reiffen’s power?
“Nothing in magic is free,” he said, hoping to prod his former apprentice into revealing more. “What Fornoch has shown you with the girl is nothing compared to what goes into a Living Stone.”
Rather than answer, Ahne reached for his thimble. The magician grabbed his old apprentice’s wrist as Ahne spoke the word of return.
Reiffen recognized where they had gone at once. A small eight-sided room with a low stone shelf on one wall. Nine small gold caskets gleamed in the light of a Dwarf lamp on the ceiling. One was open and empty. Ferris and he had given a casket to each apprentice when the time had come for them to learn the thimble spell.
“You still use our sanctuary?”
Ahne shrugged. “I haven’t found a safer place.”
“More likely, you thought to bargain with me by trying to steal my child. Your other thimble leads back to the cottage?”
“Yes. Reiffen, I never—”
“Then take us there.”
Ahne removed the second thimble. The dim light disappeared, replaced by tight darkness. Reiffen thought of light, and light appeared, hovering in the air above his head.
This time they were in a natural cave, dirty and damp, that had been turned into a magician’s workshop. Reiffen guessed it was the secret cave Redburr had described in the hill behind Ahne’s cabin. Glancing swiftly around the room, he found no sign of the girl. The single heavy table was covered with the same sort of apparatus as the room outside, but the shelves here were stuffed with the sorts of things that needed to be kept hidden from prying eyes. Like aphids on leaves, bubbles clung to the hearts, lungs, livers, and kidneys floating in the same thick yellow fluid as the fox’s paw.
“Where is the child?” asked Reiffen as he dropped Ahne’s arm. Having used both his thimbles, his old apprentice could no longer escape with a word.
“In the mirror.”
Ahne nodded toward a large glass framed in carved locust wood at the back of the room. Taller than Reiffen and slightly wider, the mirror was far larger than necessary for simple talking. Like a phantom, Reiffen’s reflection appeared in the glass as he stepped before it. He waved his hand, but no new reflection emerged.
“It opens if you touch the top left corner.”
A new thought stopped Reiffen’s hand. He had to be careful. “Where is the other? The twin to this one?”
“In Fornoch’s workshop, I guess.”
“If I open the mirror, Fornoch will know I am here?”
“He usually comes right away.”
Reiffen removed his hand. “That might prove dangerous.”
Ahne shrugged. Tricking Reiffen had been worth a try. Then his face tightened as he realized it might not have been worth it at all. Stealing children was one thing, but trying to fool Reiffen into showing himself to the Wizard was another matter entirely.
“You can only serve one master,” Reiffen said, raising his right arm.
“The same goes for—”
“Empty.”
Ahne coughed, a long, wheezing gasp. His discomfort rose quickly to panic as the air squeezed out of his lungs. Silently he clawed at his mouth and throat but, no matter what he tried, he couldn’t breathe. The tendons in his neck stretched; his eyes bulged. Catching himself on one corner, he fell across the table. Except for the scuffling of his feet and the soft scratching of his fingernails against the wood, he made no sound.
Reiffen found himself vaguely disappointed. He had hoped his apprentice would show a bit more fight. He himself had held out against Usseis for some time, though he had to admit he would have lost in the end had his friends not been there to help him. And the Living Stone, as he had learned over the years, did add potency to his spells. Someday Ferris would notice the difference, but until then he preferred not to tell her. Or anyone else. That extra edge was just the sort of advantage he liked to have in moments like these.
Ignoring Ahne’s body, he turned back to the mirror. He should at least see how the child was connected to it. The Shaper had thought she was still alive. And any chance of surprising the Wizard was gone.
Carefully he ran his fingers along the edges of the wood. He found the switch where Ahne had said he would, a small whorl near the top, higher than most people would naturally touch. Pressing his thumb against the slight depression, he woke the magic in the glass.
The image of a child appeared, flickering at first like an oil lamp with a dry wick, then brightening. Nothing of her surroundings showed in the darkness behind her.
“Hello,” said Reiffen. “What’s your name?”
“Enna,” said the girl. She looked only a little younger than Hubley.
“I knew an Enna once. She used to make maple candy.”
“My mother makes maple candy.” The girl’s face gleamed pale and bloodless as the moon. Reiffen wondered how much the Wizard had taken from her already. “Have you come to take me home?”
“I hope so. I have a little girl just like you.” If anyone did such a thing to his daughter, he would murder half the world. “Maybe you’ll be friends. But first I have to ask you some questions. Do you know where you are?”
The child shook her head. She looked like she might cry, though Reiffen doubted the girl would be able to do that any more than it looked like she could bleed.
“Does anyone visit you?”
“The magicians.”
“Magicians? How do you know they’re magicians?”
“They’re the ones who put me here.”
“But you don’t know where here is?”
She shook her head again.
Reiffen persisted. “Are you in a house? In a cave?”
“I don’t know where I am. There was a cave, and the magicians, and a big mirror. They put me on the table, and hurt me till I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was here.”
“Is there a mirror with you now?”
“No.”
“Then how can you see me?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re just there, hanging in the air. I was scared first, but the nice magician told me not to be afraid.”
“The nice magician?”
The girl nodded. “The big one. With the black eyes.”
Raising his hands, Reiffen brushed the frame with his fingers and wondered what else the mirror was for. He really didn’t think Fornoch would use so large a glass simply for talking.
“You are correct,” said a voice. “It is not just for talking.”
Reiffen stepped back. Only the Wizard had ever been able to tell so easily what he was thinking, but Enna remained the only figure in the glass. Glancing quickly around, Reiffen reaffirmed he was the only person in the cave.
“Fornoch?” he asked.
The girl in the glass nodded. “He’s the one I told you about,” she said. “The one with the black eyes.”
“Where is he?”
“Don’t you see him?” The girl appeared surprised. “He’s here, just like you. You’re looking right at him.”
Like a nokken rising from the smooth surface of Valing Lake, the Gray Wizard stepped out of the glass. Not a ripple crossed the pane. Reiffen retreated toward the front of the cave, though the Wizard was only human-sized.
“Do you like my spell?” he asked, his hands concealed in the depths of his long gray sleeves. “I made these mirrors especially for you.”
Reiffen thought about casting a spell, but doubted he would be able to harm the Wizard. Perhaps he should have waited for Redburr, and Avender’s crossbowmen, after all. But, no, whether the Shaper was present or not, Fornoch would only run away if attacked. Reiffen had nothing to fear. Besides, he wanted to learn more.
“How do you know I have been trying to make traveling mirrors?” he asked.
“It was a natural development.” The Wizard smiled in that way he had that made Reiffen unsure of whether he should feel proud or ashamed. Twelve years they had been apart, and still Fornoch treated him like an apprentice. “Given the direction of my teaching, it was only natural you should seek a less strenuous, and more permanent, mode of traveling. One that might be used by magicians and non-magicians alike. Shall I show you how it is done?”
“I can guess.” Enna watched listlessly as Reiffen replied. “It’s the child, isn’t it? She keeps the two mirrors bound. My mistake was in using subjects that had already died.”
“Your approach was sound. The problem lies in the fact that two entities sharing a single corporality will always prefer to be separate. There is no ridding the spell of the inherent tension. Eventually you would have succeeded, but only for short periods of time. Five or six passages through the portal, a dozen at most, and even your best constructions would have shattered.”
“But with a single person there is no tension.” Reiffen finished Fornoch’s line of thought. “In fact, the effect is just the opposite. The single spirit binds the two mirrors together even more tightly, no matter how far they are apart.”
“An excellent interpretation. It is the binding that is paramount, not the connection.” The Wizard’s smile widened, which only made Reiffen angrier. He was not a child any more, and did not appreciate Fornoch treating him as if he were. Still, he wished he had figured out this approach himself.
“What about the girl?” he demanded. “Is she alive?”
“Of course. The spell would cease to function if she died.”
“Her body? Is it preserved as well?” Reiffen remembered how he had used a beaver kit to open the gate from his cabin in the northern woods to Malmoret, the day Ferris had chosen him over Brizen. But the kit had died as soon as the portal closed.
“Her body is safe. As long as it lives, the spell will remain active between this mirror and its twin. Had I given her a Living Stone, the pairing could last forever. But that would mean expending a great deal of effort for something which is really quite simple.”
“And if I break the mirror?”
The Wizard shrugged, his robe swaying like a curtain. “Then the connection is broken, of course. And the child dies.”
The magic was vile, but Reiffen was still intrigued. Perhaps he could manage the same effect with a dog. Or maybe there were people in the world who would find such an existence more satisfying than their current lot. Cripples, perhaps. What would be done to them wasn’t so different from what had been done to Durk, only here the subject was bound to glass instead of stone.
“Ahne appreciated everything I showed him as well.”
“Ahne made his choice,” Reiffen said.
“As you made yours. Still, you need not have killed him.”
“Anyone you have taught is too dangerous to leave alive.”
“Except you, of course,” Fornoch agreed. “But what about your other apprentices? Will you slay them too? Will you ever let them go, now you know I am waiting for them when they leave Grangore?”
“You cannot turn them all.”
“Perhaps not. But as long as you keep knowledge from them, you leave the way open for me. You have been greedy, Reiffen. You have not revealed everything I taught you.”
“Much of what you taught me should never be revealed.”
“Perhaps other mages, with greater imagination, will disagree.”
“I doubt it.”
“And yet you and your family take advantage of that knowledge all the same. For yourselves. If as good a man as Ahne can succumb, what of everyone else? What of your daughter? Really, Reiffen, I thought I taught you better than that. Surely you, of all people, understand what it means to have knowledge withheld. It only makes the desire for what is withheld the stronger. Look what you gave up, the minute you were introduced to power.”
“Yes. But I got it all back. I have Ferris, and my child.”
“You do.” Another smile graced the Wizard’s mouth and chin. “And it would be so terrible if they should ever turn out to be other than what you desire.”
Fresh anger welled up in Reiffen at the second mention of his daughter. With great effort, he forced himself to retain his self-control. “I told you once never to bother my mother. The same is true for my child.”
“Perhaps Hubley will seek me herself. You did.” Fornoch’s face narrowed greedily in a way that reminded Reiffen more of the Black Wizard than the subtle insinuation that was the Gray Wizard’s special brand of malice. “Or perhaps your daughter will agree with you, that good can come from evil.”
Reiffen’s chest tightened further. “Touch my daughter, and you will discover how much I have learned in the dozen years since I killed your kin.”
“You have shown yourself to be quite formidable, there can be no doubt of that. And unlike my brothers, I do not fear sharing power. But I warn you, if your daughter grows up to be anything like you, there may come a time when she welcomes my tutelage. If only to augment yours. And who knows? Maybe I shall teach her to do good. Just as I taught you.”
Reiffen raised his hands. What he had to do was clear. No one could hurt his daughter. But Fornoch had not spoken without knowing what his words would bring. Wrapping his gray cloak around him, he stepped back through the mirror the same moment Reiffen’s lightning bolts burst across the cave. Past the glass they crashed, smashing the walls like clumsy manders. Rocks and sand rattled from the ceiling. Several of Ahne’s jars smashed against the floor.
The wooden door at the front of the cave crashed open. Roaring, the bear rushed in. He stopped short when he saw Ahne’s body sprawled across the table, his claws scratching furrows in the floor.
“What’s going on here?” he growled. “I thought I heard an explosion.”
“Fornoch was here.”
The Shaper sniffed at the body on the ground, and the insides of others littering the floor. “He killed Ahne?”
“I did that.”
“Why? Did Ahne kill the cub?”
“No.” Reiffen pointed wearily at the mirror. “She’s in there. Fornoch has used her to fashion a portal of the sort I have been trying to make for the last five years.”
The bear sniffed at his reflection in the glass.
“It’s a door? To where?”
“Fornoch’s workshop would be my guess. Ahne didn’t know.”
Rearing up on his hind legs, the Shaper brought his full weight down on top of the wooden frame. The mirror splintered under his forepaws like a box of twigs. Shards of wood and glass sprayed across the floor.
“What did you do that for?” Reiffen, startled out of his lethargy, jumped up. “I could have learned a great deal from that mirror.”
“Exactly.”
The Shaper dropped back to all fours, broken glass crunching under the weight of his heavy paws.
Suddenly worried about where the Wizard might have gone, Reiffen removed the thimble on his left hand and spoke the word of return.
He left the bear behind.