Good evening," Aunn said. He tried to find just enough warmth for his voice, with a hint of excitement about the news Nara had promised, without revealing any hint of his fear. "What is it?"
"I'll tell you in a moment." Nara's smile, tiny and distorted in the glass orb, struck him as odd. There was too much of the predator in it, and Aunn couldn't be sure whether Aurala was the prey or he was. "You first."
Behind a bemused smile, Aunn tried desperately to think. He had to trust that the secret of his identity was safe with Thuel-they had agreed that he would continue playing Kelas's role in the unfolding drama. But he couldn't count on any other secrets. Anything that anyone knew-anyone besides himself and Thuel-Nara could find out.
"It's been an interesting day," he said, and sighed. Nara gave the slightest nod, and Aunn knew he was right-she already knew much of what had made it interesting.
"Gaven emerged from his stupor," he said, "and escaped my control."
He braced himself. If this was a surprise to Nara, she would almost certainly erupt in anger.
"So I have heard," she said.
Aunn tried not to let his relief show, even as he wondered who her source was. "Thuel has involved himself in the matter, and sent a team of agents to capture him this evening. I haven't been told yet whether they were successful."
"They were not."
Who could have told her that before anyone told him? One of the agents Thuel sent?
"That's unfortunate." Aunn measured his response, just as Kelas would have done. Nara had started the conversation on a cheerful tone-she wasn't as angry as circumstances seemed to warrant, so there must have been something important she hadn't told him yet. "What happened?"
"Gaven killed two of the three agents, right in the middle of Chalice Center. In full view of a dozen witnesses. I'm surprised you haven't heard yet."
"As I said, Thuel has involved himself. He's watching me very closely, and evidently not telling me anything. It will pass. It always does." That was fair-Kelas had been through similar periods before, when Thuel decided in a fit of pique or jealousy to involve himself more closely in his underling's affairs. It never lasted long.
"Don't you want to know how I know all this?" Nara said. She was smiling, and Aunn found it unsettling.
"I've never been naive enough to assume I was your only contact within the Royal Eyes."
"Oh, Kelas, are you jealous?"
What was she playing at?
"Of course not." Aunn let some of his irritation filter into his voice. "But I am tired of this game. Why don't you just tell me your 'exciting news' and we can get on with figuring out what to do next?"
"Well…" She hesitated, waiting for something.
A knock came at Kelas's door, and Aunn looked up, startled. "Damn," he said. He glanced around the office, looking for something he could drape over the orb to hide it from view.
"You should answer the door, Kelas," Nara said. "Don't worry about the orb."
Aunn looked back at Nara's face in the orb. She wore the same disturbing smile. She knew who was at his door, he realized. Had she sent an assassin to punish him for his failures?
"N-Nara," he stammered. It was more than he could take-too much in a single day, from appearing in Jorlanna's enclave before dawn to his audience with Thuel in the afternoon, and now this.
Her smile vanished. "Answer the door, Kelas."
He stood and fumbled with Kelas's sword. Gripping its hilt, standing behind the cover of the great desk, he called out, "Come in." His voice didn't quite carry the authority he tried to weight it with.
The latch rattled and the door swung open, and Aunn saw a face that registered as familiar, but he couldn't place it. A nondescript face on an average man-medium height, medium build, neutral hair. The kind of face that witnesses have trouble describing. He knew the kind, because Kelas had guided him in developing his own version of the same face. The perfect killer's face. Aunn hadn't worn his killer's face in many years, and he didn't even have a name for it.
The killer stepped into the room, cautiously, but he didn't have a weapon in his hand.
"Kelas," Nara's voice still came from the crystal orb in front of him, "you know Vec."
Vec? It sounded like a changeling name, and the newcomer confirmed the suspicion by dropping the killer's face, leaving no face to replace it, just featureless gray skin and limp white hair. Was Vec the changeling who had appeared in his office the night before, and the same one he'd faced in Kelas's house?
"Vec led Thuel's mission to capture Gaven, and failed-of course. Thuel doesn't know what he's dealing with, so Vec was not properly prepared. But Vec and I have spoken, and I'm convinced that he's the ideal person to fill your other changeling's role in our plan."
Vec pushed the door closed and leaned against it, his lipless mouth twisted in a strange sort of smile.
"Vec will kill the queen," Nara said.
Kill the queen-the other changeling's role? Kelas and Nara had planned for Aunn to be the assassin?
"I see," Aunn said. His eyes were fixed on Vec's blank white orbs.
"There's just one flaw in your plan, Nara," Vec said. His face began to change again-soft and round, with dark hair hanging over pale blue eyes. "This isn't Kelas ir'Darren." The face of the servant girl from Kelas's house wore a triumphant expression.
"You damned fool," Nara said.
Vec's triumphant smile dropped from his face as he tried to see into the crystal globe. Aunn glanced down at it as well. Nara looked disgusted.
"Do you actually think I was ignorant of this deception?" she said. Her gaze was turned in Vec's general direction. "As long as he thought I believed his ruse, he was still useful to me."
Aunn tightened his grip on Kelas's sword and glanced at the door. If he struck now-
Vec must have had the same thought, for he looked up at Aunn in a sudden panic, a dagger appearing in his hand.
"Now kill him," Nara said, "and prove your value to me." But the two changelings were already in motion.
Aunn jumped onto the chair and stepped up onto the desk, both to clear his path to the door and to maximize the advantage of his longer blade. He swept the blade wildly as Vec tried to stab at his legs, and drew one cut across the other changeling's forearm.
"You fool," Aunn snarled, doing his best impression of Kelas in a fury. "You've ruined everything." He shot a foot at Vec's head and managed a glancing blow. For a moment, he thought it might work-Kelas clearly had Vec cowed, and the changeling recoiled from both the blow and the rebuke. But then Vec stood straighter and began to change, taking on Kelas's face himself.
"Do you mock me, changeling?" Vec roared in Kelas's voice. "You think it's funny to wear my face?"
Cold fear gripped Aunn's chest-not fear of Vec, but the raw terror that Kelas had instilled in him over years of training. He fought it, trying to fix the image of Kelas's dead body in his memory.
"I already killed Kelas once," he said through gritted teeth.
"You dare to threaten me?" Vec yelled, and he launched a fresh assault, beating Aunn back. As Aunn shuffled back out of his reach, Vec stooped to grab the legs of the desk and heaved. The desk reared up under Aunn's feet and threatened to crush him against the wall. He managed to jump clear, toward the door.
The door burst open, and Aunn saw one of the soldiers stationed to guard the Tower, gawking in at the two Kelases in the office. Clutching a longsword in front of him, the soldier glanced between the two changelings, panic on his face.
"He's a changeling and a traitor!" Vec yelled, pointing at Aunn. "Seize him!"
"Idiot!" Aunn drew himself up to Kelas's full height and tried to wrap Kelas's imperious air around him, but Vec had a head start on that. "Don't involve yourself in something you don't have the wits to sort out." And don't get yourself killed, he added silently-I don't want to watch this bastard kill another innocent.
"You'll see the truth when he dies!" Vec shouted, and pain stabbed through Aunn's side.
Aunn cursed himself. He had let the guard distract him, let himself worry more about the guard's survival than his own. He batted at Vec with Kelas's blade, and he felt the dagger slide out through the muscles of his lower back. As he turned his full attention back to the assassin, he tried to assess the wound, probing the mutable flesh around it with his mind. He would probably survive it, assuming the blade wasn't poisoned-and assuming he didn't take any more wounds like it.
Vec lunged at him again, but Aunn deflected the blade with an awkward parry. The guard stupidly inserted himself between them, pushing Vec back with his shield.
"Drop your weapons, both of you!" he said. "I'll take you both to Thuel and let him sort it out."
"Are you blind as well as stupid?" Vec roared. "Can't you recognize a changeling when you see one?"
Aunn knew what Vec was doing. It never occurred to most people that anyone of their acquaintance could be a changeling. People knew they existed, of course, but mostly from outrageous tales and occasional reports in the chronicles. And that ignorance made them very susceptible to suggestion-once the idea was planted, they'd start to see changelings everywhere. Even the guards in the Tower of Eyes were easily fooled.
Sure enough, the guard turned to examine Aunn's face, suspicion in his eyes, exposing his back to Vec's blade.
"Watch out!" Aunn shouted, but in the same instant the guard's eyes went wide with pain, then his knees gave out.
"And so the queen will fall," Vec whispered, a feral grin twisting his face.
Aunn spent only an instant weighing his options. He could stand and fight, but he was already badly wounded and holding a weapon he didn't favor. He could try to run to Thuel for help, but Thuel was probably at home asleep, despite the guard's brash declaration. Besides, Aunn was no longer any use to Thuel, and the Spy Master was bound to figure that out soon enough. He needed to get out of the Tower of Eyes, out of Kelas's body and clothes, and out of the whole damned mess he'd put himself in.
He bolted out of the room, pulling the door behind him. The guard's body and the door would slow Vec slightly-just enough to allow Aunn to escape, he hoped. He tore down the deserted hall, Vec's footsteps pounding behind him.
"Coward!" Vec shouted, still playing Kelas's role to the hilt, trying to batter Aunn's will into submission-and perhaps to rouse more guards. "Come back and accept the punishment you've earned!"
Pain seared across Aunn's back from his wound with every step he ran. A moment with one of his wands would close it, but he didn't have a moment to spare. The pain sapped the strength from his legs and made his head swim. He felt as though he were running in a dream, making no progress through an endless tunnel, with his pursuer closing quickly.
He burst through a door into the center of the tower, with a wide stair twisting down to the ground floor. Aunn vaulted down, stumbled on the stairs as a fresh jolt of pain stabbed across his back, and ran as fast as he could manage down the winding stairs. A knife clattered against the stone just ahead of him, then nearly sent him tumbling down the stairs as he tried not to step on it. In that off-balance moment, a second blade bit into his shoulder-a small cut, but Aunn didn't need any more wounds. He fumbled in a pouch at his belt as he continued down the stairs, searching by touch for a wand he normally kept close at hand.
Polished wood, a smooth stone at the tip, fiery lines of power twisted and coiling inside-he found the wand he sought, drew it out of the pouch, and pointed it up the stairway. He had to pause a moment, stopping his rush down the stairs, to focus on loosing the knot of magic in the wand's core. A spark flew up from the wand as if from a bonfire, and erupted in roaring flame above him. As the fireball filled the stairway, Aunn ran again, and a moment later he burst through another door onto the ground floor of the Tower of Eyes.
Two soldiers posted at the entrance turned at the sound of the door, hands reaching for their swords. They were all that stood between him and freedom, but how was he going to get past them? They had orders not to let him out-not Kelas nor anyone else who might be a changeling, which meant anyone at all. There wasn't a face he could put on that would convince the guards to let him through the doors. He fingered the wand in his hand, toying for just a moment with the idea of blasting the guards out of the way.
No, he thought, I'll leave killing soldiers to Vec.
He changed his face quickly, before the guards could get a good look at him in the hall's lantern light. "He tried to kill me!" he shouted, finding and slowly settling into Thuel's pitch and clipped accent. He was breathing hard, out of breath, bleeding-the guards wouldn't think twice about his voice not sounding quite right. He pointed at the door he'd just burst through. "The changeling!"
The guards got their swords out and hurried toward him.
One stammered, "Sir, I-I thought you left the tower…"
"I came back," Aunn barked. He wasn't dressed like Thuel, and the other guard was thinking a little too hard about the situation, from the look on her face.
"We didn't see you-" she said.
"You don't think I have ways of getting in my tower that you don't know about?" he roared. "Now get ready to stop that maniac!"
The guards positioned themselves between Aunn and the swinging door, and Aunn heard Vec's steps coming down after him. They were uneven, as if Vec were half stumbling down the stairs. Aunn edged back from the soldiers, toward the beckoning freedom of the tower's exit, but the suspicious guard shot a glance at him.
"Haunderk!" Kelas's voice roared from the doorway, sending a lance of cold fear though Aunn's heart. He knew Kelas was dead-he'd stripped the clothes and armor from the dead body himself-but he couldn't forget a lifetime of lessons so painfully learned.
When Vec appeared in the doorway, he did not look like Kelas anymore. The burst of fire had burned his clothes and seared his skin, leaving pinkish-gray welts across his face and chest. His hair was white except where it was blackened by fire, and his face was frozen somewhere in between a horribly disfigured Kelas and his true changeling visage. The soldiers recoiled in horror, and Aunn used that moment to bolt for the door.
Am I leaving them to their death? he wondered. Letting Vec kill them so I didn't have to dirty my own hands?
"Stop him, you fools!" Vec called behind him.
"Come back here!" the suspicious guard shouted.
Well, they'll get through this all right, Aunn thought. Another few steps, and he felt the cold night air on his face. He ran across the broad, well-lit street that radiated out from the palace and past the Tower of Eyes, chose the narrow mouth of an alley and ran into it, letting its darkness close around him.
He ran through dark alleys and across bright streets until his breath failed him. He stopped, tried to quiet his breathing enough to listen for the sounds of pursuit, and heard nothing. He sank down against a wall and sat in the darkness until his breath came more easily.
He unfastened one of Kelas's belt pouches, opened it, and dumped the contents out onto the ground. A glowstone clattered on the cobblestone, shedding a faint light that let him see the rest of his and Kelas's belongings he'd dumped out-a ring of keys, a small knife with its blade folded into its hilt, several sets of identification papers, his wands. He found the wand he needed and touched its tip to the wound on his back, then his shoulder. Tingling warmth spread through his body, knitting his injured flesh back together and restoring some of his flagging energy.
He removed another pouch and dumped its contents out with the rest. More papers, the shard of masonry he'd taken from Gaven's cell, the silver torc he'd removed from Dania's body and then taken from the wreckage of the Dragon Forge. He found a tinder box as well, and set it in his lap.
He had one more pouch, which he removed and dumped out, and then he unbuckled his sword belt and took off his clothes as well. Naked but not feeling the cold, he changed-he let his body relax into no form at all. It was hard at first, to resist shaping himself and instead just let his body be what it wanted to be, but once he began letting go, his flesh gladly slid from his control. Shorter than Kelas, slender and smooth, gray-skinned and white-haired. He tried to look at his face in the blade of Kelas's sword, but he didn't have enough light.
"I am Aunn," he murmured.
He crouched back down to the ground and began to sort the things he'd dumped out of his pouches. Everything that belonged to Kelas went in one pile, everything that was his in another. Using Kelas's identification papers as kindling, he started a small fire in that pile, then one by one, he added his own belongings-starting with his own sheaf of identification papers, showing half a dozen different names and faces he never wanted to wear again. He fastened Dania's torc around his neck, rubbed the masonry shard between his fingers, and watched his old life and Kelas's slowly burn away in flame.
"I am Aunn," he said again. "This is who I am."