by Barb Hendee
“What did you see?” he finally asked. “When you came in behind me?”
“A man,” Garrogh answered, his brows gathering. “A tall man in a black cloak. Why?”
Rodian quickly hefted the surviving young sage. Holding his charge carefully, he strode down the alley toward the cart. His anger flared as he stepped over the girl’s body.
The royal family valued its misguided sages. Now two more were dead, and another might soon follow. But no matter who had done this, High-Tower and Sykion were responsible. They’d refused to acknowledge the danger and sent more of their own out in the night.
This time Rodian would drag the truth from them.
Wynn still waited in the common hall, but too much time had passed. Only a few others were still about, either reading or writing or chatting softly. She fretted over some way to look occupied.
If she just sat doing nothing, and Domin High-Tower or Premin Sykion came by, either would surely comment. They never missed an opportunity to note any odd behavior on her part. But she dared not leave even long enough to fetch a journal or book from her room.
Supper was finished, and still the messengers hadn’t returned. What was taking them so long?
Wynn’s dilemma ended as a slam from the keep’s front doors echoed down the outer passage into the common hall. She lunged off the bench, racing to the main archway to meet Nikolas, Miriam, and Dâgmund.
But instead, Domin il’Sänke appeared, pulling back his cowl.
“Wynn,” he said, and his slight smile seemed forced. “You look disappointed to see me.”
“Where have you been?” she asked bluntly.
His smile faded. “I ate supper early in the kitchens, perhaps too much. At my age, one needs to walk off such a meal before turning to other matters.”
“Sorry,” she said, feeling foolish for her urgency. “Nikolas, Miriam, and Dâgmund have not returned. After what happened last night . . .”
She trailed off as his expression changed again. His left eye twitched, and he licked his lips.
“The folios are not your concern,” he said, barely above a whisper.
Wynn clenched her jaw so tightly her teeth ached. Now il’Sänke reminded her the texts were no longer her business—as if she needed to be told that again. And she’d thought he was her only ally in this place.
“Pardon,” he muttered, and his gaze suddenly fixed elsewhere in the hall. “It has been a long day, and I have one more thing to attend to.”
Wynn turned her head.
Domin High-Tower stood in the narrower side archway, not looking at her but beyond her, perhaps at il’Sänke. He seemed expectant, even in his usually dour state, but his expression suddenly changed.
High-Tower’s wide features slackened in some shock.
Wynn saw his chest expand in a deep breath and one exhale. Then he sagged. By the time Wynn looked back to il’Sänke, the elder Suman was stone-faced. She was left wondering what had just passed silently between these two, who had always been plain regarding their irritation with each other.
And a thunderous boom echoed down the main passage beyond the archway.
Wynn heard one of the keep’s front doors recoil sharply off a wall. She made for the archway to go see who forced such a hurried entrance.
Il’Sänke raised an arm in her way.
She barely glanced up, finding his gaze turned toward the outer passage, and then Captain Rodian came around the turn.
His face tight with anger, he carried the limp form of Nikolas Columsarn.
Rodian’s hard gaze settled on il’Sänke as the first sage of rank in his sight.
“Get one of your physicians,” he barked over heavy, exhausted breaths.
Il’Sänke was already reaching out. “Here, Captain, let me take him.”
The tall Suman lifted Nikolas from the captain’s arms and headed for the nearest table.
“Where are Miriam and Dâgmund?” Wynn asked.
Rodian ignored her, looking about the hall. “Where’s High-Tower . . . and Sykion?”
As il’Sänke carefully laid Nikolas on a table, others in the hall rose from benches and chairs, drawing nearer.
“Here,” High-Tower answered.
His gaze locked on Nikolas as he closed on the table’s far side. Il’Sänke put a hand on the young sage’s chest and leaned down to listen at Nikolas’s slack mouth. He glanced up at High-Tower, nodded once, and the dwarven domin breathed a sigh of relief.
Wynn exhaled, not realizing she’d held her breath in that moment. “Where are Miriam and Dâgmund?” she repeated.
Rodian didn’t even look at her. He kept his angry eyes on High-Tower.
“Dead,” he said sharply, “in an alley near the Feather and Parchment.”
All the warmth drained from Wynn’s flesh.
Il’Sänke grabbed the sleeve of a female apprentice in brown. “Get Premin Adlam or Master Bitworth . . . or any elder in the hospice. Quickly, girl!”
Rodian kept his eyes on High-Tower. “And your folio is gone as well,” he hissed.
High-Tower finally looked up, but he didn’t appear surprised.
Wynn went to the table, pushing aside others in her way. Nikolas’s eyes were closed, and his skin was pallid. Strands of hair down the left side of his head were grayed. There was not a mark on him that she could see, and she glanced back at Rodian.
“The others,” she whispered, “the same, like Jeremy and Elias?”
He closed on the gathering at the table. “Yes . . . or one of them.”
Wynn hesitated at the answer, looking again at Nikolas’s ashen features. If they both died, but only one in this way, then how . . . ?
“Someone is killing for your folios,” Rodian snarled at High-Tower. “And you’re going to tell me why.” Without looking away from High-Tower, he jabbed a finger at Wynn. “What is in those texts she brought back?”
Wynn flinched as too many eyes turned her way among the initiates and apprentices gathered around. High-Tower’s iron-pellet irises fixed on the captain.
“Chlâyard . . . do not!” il’Sänke whispered.
For an instant Wynn was lost by that one word, though she knew what it meant—the high tower.
It had been so long since she’d heard anyone utter the domin’s name in Dwarvish, and her gaze flickered between High-Tower and il’Sänke. What was happening between these two?
“What’s in those texts?” Rodian shouted, and his voice echoed about the still hall. “Why do you throw away more lives in your denial and ignorance . . . and deceit?”
High-Tower’s face flushed within his red beard and hair.
“Captain!”
Wynn turned at the sharp female voice. Duchess Reine and three of the Weardas stood in the main archway.
“I heard—and came straightaway,” she said more softly.
She wasn’t dressed in her split gown this time. Beneath the sea green cloak of the royal family she wore a leather vest over a stark cotton shirt, and leather breeches tucked into high riding boots. She looked far more like one of her own, the horse people of Faunier, than a member of the reskynna family. Her gaze drifted to settle upon Nikolas’s frail form.
How had she learned of this tragedy so quickly?
Rodian’s jaw tightened, and he looked baffled by the sight of the duchess.
“Highness,” he said, with only a curt half bow. “How . . . ?”
Wynn sensed a battle of wills about to smother all else.
“We must get Nikolas to the ward,” she urged. “There’s no time to waste.”
High-Tower’s hands were tightened into fists the size of sledgehammers, but he seemed to hear the sense in her words. He quickly dispersed the cluster of apprentices and initiates.
“Get the boy proper help!” Rodian spit. “Then you and I will talk.”
High-Tower glared back and took a step around the table’s end. Il’Sänke pressed a restraining hand to the dwarf’s shoulder, but it didn’t slow him. Il’Sä
nke ended up stumbling aside. In that instant Wynn feared for Rodian’s safety.
“Captain,” Duchess Reine repeated, and she stepped between the two. “These people have suffered again. Any necessary discussion will wait.”
High-Tower held his place with deep, slow breaths and finally turned aside.
“Apologies, my lady,” Rodian answered coldly. “But it is a tragedy of their own making . . . and it’s time I was given a free hand.”
“The king might feel differently,” she said softly.
Rodian’s angry expression wavered. “Pardon, but feelings have nothing to do with the law.”
“The king is offering his assistance,” the duchess went on. “A royally appointed physician has returned from a journey south. A Suman, one who knows toxins. The king has asked him to visit the barracks tomorrow to . . . examine bodies and provide any information he can for your investigation. For now, leave the sages be.”
Rodian breathed in twice and shook his head, and Domin il’Sänke watched him carefully.
Wynn didn’t know what to think. Clearly the royals wanted these ugly murders stopped, yet again they shielded the guild from the captain of the city guard.
She should’ve been relieved—and part of her was. People like Rodian wouldn’t understand the breadth and importance of the project. But if he were kept from delving deeper into these horrid events, he might never uncover what she already believed. The killer was unnatural, and sages would keep dying and pages would keep disappearing, unless someone pulled the truth from denial.
The apprentice il’Sänke had sent off came running back with two others dressed in brown robes. They settled a stretcher on the bench beside the table. Premin Adlam entered on their heels. All activity in the room focused on getting Nikolas to the hospice for proper attention.
Nikolas never even moved as High-Tower and Adlam lowered him onto the stretcher and the apprentices rushed him off. But there was nothing to be done for Miriam or Dâgmund.
“As you wish, Highness,” Rodian said. Without even a nod to her, he backed toward the hall’s main exit.
“Expect the royal physician tomorrow,” Duchess Reine told him.
The captain turned and left without another word.
After polite farewells, the duchess and her bodyguards followed. Wynn stood uncomfortably with silent High-Tower and il’Sänke. She wasn’t certain whether fear, anxiety, or denial was thickest in the hall.
“I must report to Premin Sykion,” High-Tower muttered.
“May I go to Nikolas?” Wynn asked.
“No!” he growled. “Premin Adlam doesn’t need you. Return to your room.”
Stung, almost hating him, Wynn stalked out and down the passage to the front doors.
Two more of their own were dead! A third barely clung to life, struck down by something no one would admit was real. And she was sick of being treated like some addle-brained mental invalid who should be shut away.
She nearly ran across the courtyard and up to her room, slamming the door behind herself. Sinking onto her bed, she felt her anger drain away, but despair rose in its wake.
She tried not to imagine what had happened to Miriam and Dâgmund, and what it meant when Rodian said only one had died like Elias and Jeremy. Why hadn’t the captain sent his guards to protect them? Or had he, and they arrived too late? Had they seen anything to shed light on the murders and who—what—kept after the folios?
Wynn sat there, sinking in hopelessness for so long that her cold lamp’s crystal nearly winked out.
A soft knock came at her door, but she had no wish to see anyone, except perhaps the captain.
“Who is it?” she called weakly.
“Open up,” il’Sänke answered.
Wynn remained where she sat, uncertain whether she even wanted to see the one person who believed any of her “wild tales.” She finally rose to let him in.
Domin il’Sänke pushed her back as he entered and turned to close the door. He held something long in his hand, nearly as tall as himself, but it was hidden beneath loose wraps of dull burlap. He glanced toward the dwindling cold lamp on her table.
“Fix that,” he said with a curt gesture.
Wynn was staring at the strange long bundle, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask about it yet. Hope was something she’d grown wary of, but she went to the table-desk and rubbed the lamp’s crystal back to life. As light filled the room, she found il’Sänke standing by her bed, gazing down at the unwrapped item laid there.
Amid the folds of opened cloth lay a polished oak staff. One end was sheathed in a long, loose leather sleeve, held closed around the wood by a drawstring.
“Such an item takes time,” il’Sänke said. “And cost, in trial and error as much as resources . . . more for as much as I hurried.”
Moons had passed since Wynn had first gone to the domin. To her, that hardly seemed like a hurry. But she now understood what was beneath that leather sheath.
“Finished?” she breathed. “Finally finished?”
“Finished?” He snorted. “Perhaps . . . but there is no more time to test it further.”
Wynn swallowed hard. “I’m not complaining, just—”
“Come here,” he commanded.
He reached down and gripped the staff’s tawny shaft, lifting it. Turning it over, he let it slide through his soft grip until its butt thumped upon the floor. And finally he pulled the sheath off its top end.
Mute glimmers exploded around the room as light struck the sun crystal. Its prisms played multicolored wisps upon the walls. Wynn was so mesmerized, she barely heard the domin’s warning.
“Do not judge High-Tower,” he said harshly. “He is stricken by Miriam’s death . . . as I am by Dâgmund’s.”
Wynn’s gaze shifted to his face, seeing cold anger beneath suppressed grief. She’d had no idea that Dâgmund had any close association to the visiting domin. But her eyes quickly returned to the crystal.
“This will take time and practice to use,” he said. “And you will treat this object with great care, as a replacement might not even be possible. Are you prepared for a first lesson?”
Wynn was suddenly hesitant, especially when he looked down at her.
Domin il’Sänke’s dark brown eyes held none of their habitual sly humor. They were hard and frightening. But she reached out and grasped the polished staff.
“Yes . . . I’ve been ready all along.”
CHAPTER 9
The following afternoon, Rodian barely listened as Garrogh went over the latest barracks issues to address among their own contingent. “And some of the men are complaining about the new cook,” Garrogh went on. “Lúcan says she drinks. Should I look into it or just have her replaced?”
Rodian glanced up from his desk. After a nearly sleepless night, he hadn’t heard most of what Garrogh was saying. He’d spent the day trying to occupy himself while waiting for the appointed royal physician to determine Miriam’s official cause of death.
As for the other dead sage found in the alley, a journeyor named Dâgmund, the cause was obvious—head trauma. The young man was barely recognizable, his face caved in by a hunk of brick wall.
Rodian hoped this Suman physician might tell him something of use, at least more than the city ward’s healer had concerning Jeremy and Elias. He still remembered the instant that tall black figure had broken a brick wall with only its cloth-wrapped hand. Who—or what—had killed those young sages? And he couldn’t stop thinking about the last of the trio, the one named Nikolas Columsarn.
Any living witness was worth more than the word of a dozen Suman physicians, royally appointed or not. But it was too soon to know whether Nikolas would recover enough to answer questions.
“Should we stop for today?” Garrogh asked, dropping the stack of reports on the desk.
Rodian looked up. Two whitish stains stood out on the lieutenant’s tunic from last night’s seafood stew. He was suddenly disgusted with his second—with the entire lot of sa
ges—but most of all, with the interference of Duchess Reine.
Garrogh must’ve mistaken his expression for frustration and leaned forward. “They say this Suman knows more about poisons than anyone.”
Rodian glared at him. “And who are ‘they’?”
His second in command shrugged, clearly having achieved the wrong effect. “A couple of the royal guards . . . just what I’ve heard.”
“You’ve been talking to the Weardas?”