Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses) (76 page)
Read Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses) Online
Authors: Sharon Shinn
“Come stand by me and prepare for an even stranger transformation than any you’ve yet undergone.”
He grinned and complied. “Never really wondered what it felt like to be a woman,” he said. “Guess I’ll find out.”
“I’m sure the experience will do wonders for your empathy,” Kirra replied. “Hold still.”
Again the golden-haired mystic put her hands on Justin’s face. Clearly, she couldn’t effect a transformation unless she was touching the object or the creature she wanted to enchant. Ellynor watched in equal parts wonder and fear as Justin’s face smoothed out, his hair darkened, his burly body shrank down, slimmed out, developed curves.
She was staring at an exact likeness of herself.
It was too strange; she put a hand to her mouth and tried to keep back a little cry. For his part, Justin seemed just as nonplussed. He lifted his hands to study them. He glanced down at his chest to investigate his bosom. When he looked up again, he was grinning. The expression did not belong on her own face. It was utterly Justin.
“I have seen some pretty outlandish things since I took up with mystics,” he said, and his voice sounded exactly like Ellynor’s. “But I don’t think anything compares to this.”
Kirra had already started binding his wrists before him with the magical rope, slipping it through the loop of the padlock.“Just remember who you’re supposed to be, and don’t do anything out of character,” she advised him. “If someone speaks to you and you can’t figure out what you
should
say, don’t say anything at all. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
should
say, don’t say anything at all. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“I’ll be waiting for you.”
Now Kirra turned to Ellynor. “You might feel a tingle. A sort of fluttering of your skin. It shouldn’t actually be painful. I’m just going to make you look like some nondescript girl in a clean white robe. So even if your magic slips and someone sees us, they won’t see
you
.”
you
.”
Ellynor nodded, not trusting herself to speak. In fact, Kirra’s magic brushed lightly over her, pinpricks against her face and along her shoulders, and then faded. She wished she had a mirror; she would like to see a stranger’s face looking back at her. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Kirra took a half step back, seemed to focus on something inside her body, and underwent her own subtle transformation. The arrestingly beautiful face was now plain, unmemorable, framed by rather lank hair. The body was hidden under perfectly stitched white robes. There was even a moonstone bracelet dangling from one wrist.
“You wouldn’t look twice if you passed me in the hall, would you?” Kirra demanded.
Ellynor shook her head. “No. You’re nobody I recognize, but you look like you belong.”
“You’d better go,” Justin said in Ellynor’s voice.
Kirra nodded and reached for the door. Ellynor said anxiously, “It’s locked.”
Kirra just gave her a droll look and didn’t answer. But before she could take hold of the handle, Justin hissed, “Someone’s coming,” and turned to face the door.
For a moment, Ellynor was blank with panic. Someone would find Kirra and Justin here! They would all be discovered, and there would be no escape for any of them! But then Kirra’s hand closed around her wrist, and the mystic pulled her back toward the wall.
“Now would be a good time to use your magic,” she murmured in Ellynor’s ear. “So all they see is Justin.”
Of course. Ellynor fought for calm, for Kirra’s unwavering self-confidence. Justin was staring at them in deep apprehension, for there was a rattle at the lock and then the door swung open. But Justin’s face relaxed before the first of the novices stepped inside, and Ellynor realized she had managed it, had summoned magic under duress and turned both herself and her companion invisible.
Shavell again. She must have requested this particular duty. She certainly seemed to be enjoying the chance to castigate Ellynor before every audience of wide-eyed novices.
“You see this wretched woman?” Shavell demanded. “Do you see the evil in her eyes? Study the features of the mystic so you might recognize the same kind of magic on another woman’s face.”
Considering that she was ranting about a man who had no sorcerous ability, Ellynor almost wanted to laugh out loud. Of course, she also wanted to stand unmoving, unbreathing, until Shavell was safely out of the room, and so she merely stood pressed against the wall, her wrist still caught in Kirra’s hand.
“Why don’t you recant your magic, wicked girl?” Shavell demanded now of the Rider in disguise. “Why don’t you renounce your false goddess?”
Kirra had told him to keep silent, but Ellynor supposed there had never been any real hope of that. “I’d rather die,” Justin said calmly.
Shavell’s eyes narrowed. “And so you shall.”
“And so will you,” he replied in a soft voice that sounded dangerous even given his circumstances. “Sooner than you like to think.”
Kirra’s hand squeezed on Ellynor’s arm as if to say,
Why can’t Justin ever behave?
Shavell gasped and launched into a furious tirade, invoking the name of the Lestra and the anger of the Silver Lady. Justin turned his back on her, clearly not interested. Ellynor had to strangle another laugh at the look on Shavell’s face.
Why can’t Justin ever behave?
Shavell gasped and launched into a furious tirade, invoking the name of the Lestra and the anger of the Silver Lady. Justin turned his back on her, clearly not interested. Ellynor had to strangle another laugh at the look on Shavell’s face.
“You’ll be sorry soon enough,” Shavell was promising now, her lean cheeks bright with color as she wrenched the door open and almost shoved the flock of novices out. Ellynor was startled when Kirra suddenly tugged her toward the door, until she realized that Kirra wanted them to exit with this small group and mingle with them casually in the hallway. She obediently fell in step behind the white-robed girls, Kirra at her side. No chance to say a last good-bye to Justin! She wondered if he would even know they were leaving, or if he would speak her name once, twice, after Shavell set the lock. She looked back, but she could not see him through the closing door.
They must get to safety as quickly as possible so that Kirra could return for him.
They followed the group of novices along the hallway and down one set of steps. The magic held; no one noticed them. Ellynor and Kirra continued down the stairway when the novices headed toward one of the chapels on the second floor. It was odd, so odd, to glide through these familiar hallways with absolute stealth, keeping to the shadows, moving along the walls, making no sound. Ellynor felt like a ghost, barred from full participation in a familiar world but still driven to revisit former beloved sites.
Kirra kept her hand locked around Ellynor’s wrist and followed her so closely they would only have cast a single shadow. If she had spared a moment to think about it, Ellynor might have worried that Kirra would be clumsy in her attempts to creep unnoticed through a defined space, but Kirra was as silent as a lean raelynx on a bitter winter night. Ellynor could only conclude that the mystic had done some hunting in the past.
Finally clear of the stairwell—now crossing the great hall with care, avoiding the novices, the dedicants, the guards, who bustled in ones and twos through the wide space. Out the door right behind a contingent of guards who were arguing about somebody’s horse and its ability to run faster than somebody else’s horse. Past the stark, thick stake forced into the ground right in the middle of the courtyard, with plenty of room on all sides for an audience to gather and watch. The fuel piled in a circle around it had to be two feet high. Enough to smolder a good long while. Long after anyone tied to the stake had burned to ash and cinder.
Ellynor glanced up at the sky, even now starting to haze over with gathering dusk. How long would the Lestra wait to put the mystic to death? Till midnight, when the ritual chants were over? Or would she forgo the offering of song tonight, since she had a much more spectacular offering to present to the Silver Lady? Would she bring out the bound captive the minute true darkness fell?
It might be only an hour till sunset.
Ellynor was almost running now as she towed Kirra toward the massive gates. She had been wondering if Kirra planned to treat the wrought iron as she had treated the glass, and turn the barrier to something more permeable, but she didn’t have to. Even as the two women arrived at the gates, the guards on duty were pulling them back to admit a small party of soldiers on horseback. It was a simple thing to edge to one side, avoid being trampled by unwary hooves, and ease past the convent walls.
Free. Safe. Rescued from the fire.
They couldn’t stop there, of course. Ellynor let Kirra take charge now, since she assumed the other woman had a destination, and Kirra led them at a rapid pace about a quarter of a mile into the forest. Then she pulled them both off the road into an overhang of wood and finally dropped Ellynor’s hand.
“Are you going back for Justin now?” Ellynor said eagerly and was bitterly disappointed when Kirra shook her head.
“I need to get you to safety first.”
“I’m safe! I’m out! Please, Kirra—”
“All this risk will be worth nothing if we don’t truly get you away from here,” Kirra interrupted. “I’m going to take the shape of a horse now and carry you to the place where Senneth and the others are waiting. Then I’ll come back for Justin. The more you argue,” she said, raising her voice as Ellynor was about to protest again, “the longer it will be before I can return.”
Ellynor shut her mouth with a snap. “I know where I’m going,” Kirra added, “so just let me run.”
Practically on the words, Kirra began to shift shapes. Ellynor wondered if it ever got mundane, the sight of a mystic undergoing transmogrification. She, at least, had not grown accustomed to the display, and so she stared as Kirra’s head puffed up and her arms lengthened so much they seemed to pull her toward the ground. Her hips turned into haunches, her back extended, her flowing hair became the blond mane of a palomino. Kirra was as pretty a mare as she was a human— and she had thoughtfully manufactured for Ellynor a saddle and a set of stirrups. No bridle, though; clearly, there would not be much hope of controlling this particular animal.
Ellynor grabbed the pommel and quickly mounted, and Kirra took off almost before Ellynor was settled in the saddle. It seemed only logical to maintain her own useful magic, concealing both horse and rider from any chance passersby as they ran through the shadowy forest, racing against the oncoming night.
CHAPTER 39
IN the next hour, two more groups of novices dropped by to mock the mystic. Neither of them was led by the sour-faced woman who had spewed such hatred the last time, so Justin figured she had been well and truly infuriated by his brazen attitude.
All to the good
, he thought. He refrained from speaking during the next two visits, just contented himself with leveling a cold stare at the white-robed young girls and their chaperones. Neither of the older women seemed much affected by his expression, but the novices were clearly made uncomfortable. None of them could meet his eyes for more than a second or two, and most of them shuffled their feet and looked longingly at the door.
All to the good
, he thought. He refrained from speaking during the next two visits, just contented himself with leveling a cold stare at the white-robed young girls and their chaperones. Neither of the older women seemed much affected by his expression, but the novices were clearly made uncomfortable. None of them could meet his eyes for more than a second or two, and most of them shuffled their feet and looked longingly at the door.
None of them spoke up on Ellynor’s behalf, either to claim she was not a mystic or to argue that it didn’t matter. That made him angry—weren’t some of these women her friends? Wouldn’t the Riders defend Justin if he had been accused of some crime?—and he toyed with the idea of denouncing them for their faintheartedness. But Kirra had told him not to create a disturbance, and so he remained silent and relatively tame during both of these visits.
The rest of the time, there wasn’t much to do. The room was too small to permit true pacing, even allowing for the fact that Ellynor’s steps were so much shorter than his own. The chain didn’t afford him freedom to walk the length of the room, anyway. Mostly he just sat, resting his back against the wall and stretching his undersized legs in front of him. He was more tired than he liked to admit; if he thought he’d have an hour of peace, he’d actually try to get some sleep. But he wanted to be alert in case another set of novices came through the door, or Kirra suddenly reappeared at the window.
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