by Barb Hendee
Chane hunted wildlife along the way to sustain himself, though it fed him poorly compared to longer-lived humans. Among wolves, wild dogs, bears, and a ranging mountain lion, which he gave a wide berth, only once did he ever see anything on two legs.
It was neither human nor elf.
He emerged early one night from the tarp used to protect himself from the sun, and felt something watching him.
The only item of Welstiel’s he had learned a little of was the steel hoop that conjured fire within itself. Without looking about and letting the hidden watcher know he was aware of it, he laid out the hoop.
Its circumference was slightly less than a dinner plate, and its black thread-thin etched lines and marks smelled faintly of charcoal. With a hoarse hiss—which was the most Chane could manage for the necessary chant—he traced a finger around the hoop’s circumference. Then he snatched his hand back; he still did not know how Welstiel had handled the hoop while hot without being scorched.
Red pinprick sparks appeared in the hoop’s markings and quickly spread along all the dark swirls, until the hoop’s etchings became fiery and hard to look upon. It provided little light in the growing dark, but enough for Chane’s undead sight. He glanced sidelong without moving his head.
Beyond a far tree in a sparse copse of firs and pines, two eyes reflected the hoop’s glow. But they were yellow, not red.
The creature was hard to see at first, peeking around one tree, but the position of its eyes marked it as roughly two-thirds of a man’s height. Finally it leaned out just a little, peering intently at Chane.
Wildly spotted fur covered its hulkish body, thinning across its face—if one could call it that. Longer bristles sprouted about its head, so canine-like, though its muzzle was short by comparison. It snorted, grunted, and perhaps sniffed hard, which wrinkled its muzzle, exposing oversize canine teeth.
Chane finally turned his head, staring it down.
The creature leaped sideways into open view. Sickening yellow irises glared unblinking at Chane.
He had read of apes in the books of his father’s library. Many kinds were known in the southernmost parts of the Suman Empire and the jungles beyond that. This thing seemed much like those descriptions, though shaped disturbingly more like a small, grotesquely overmuscled and furred man—except for its head and face, like some abhorrent breed of wild dog had bred with . . . what was it called? . . . a mandrill?
The result was far larger and more monstrous than either. In place of nails it had claws at the end of each thick finger. But more startling was the rusted and rent chain vest on its torso. And it gripped a thick cudgel made from a gnarled tree root.
The beast grunted in a staccato rhythm and raised the club in the air.
Chane dropped a hand to his longsword’s hilt. The thought of feeding on something with more life than a deer made the beast inside him thrash against its confinement.
The creature shrieked and pounded the earth with its crude weapon. It sniffed and snorted sharply. With huffing grunts it backed away.
Chane stood instantly, but it spun, flinging forest mulch in the air, and fled through the trees. It ran on three limbs, hauling its crude weapon over one bulging shoulder with the fourth. Chane dashed after it.
Before he passed half a dozen trees, he lost the sound of it. He crouched, checking for its trail, and found prints. A few were distinct among others in the torn earth, and their shape was like nothing he had ever seen. Claws had torn the ground in front of its toes, and the tracks were a bizarre mishmash between those of a beast and a wide-footed man.
Chane crouched lower and sniffed. No, not male but female, and in heat, but its overall scent was unfamiliar to him. Then he spotted more tracks.
At least six other trails led away into the dark, parallel to the creature’s own. All the foot-paw prints were like the creature’s, matched with the imprint of wide knuckles or claw gouges where they ran on three or four limbs.
Chane listened in the dark but heard nothing. He was not about to face a half dozen of these unknown beasts in the wilderness. He could only guess why they had run off. Since Langinied, he had not seen a need to wear Welstiel’s ring. Perhaps the female “scout” had sensed what he was and warned off the others. Some animals grew nervous in the presence of an undead.
He returned to camp, gathered his belongings, and continued the long walk westward. Until one night he finally entered widespread farmlands dotted sparsely with small towns. He skirted any military outpost but used the main roads to lead him onward. More nights passed, and then he saw the scattered lights of Calm Seatt in the distance.
Somewhere therein was Wynn’s home, the founding branch of the Guild of Sagecraft.
How he longed to walk among its library shelves.
And now, sitting in his attic room, Chane knew the torment of watching paradise from outside its walls. Ever the outsider—and a beast—he would never enter Wynn’s world. But he pulled the scroll case’s pewter cap and gently slid out its contents.
Rolling it open, he stared for the thousandth time at its black-coated surface.
“Wynn,” he whispered. “What texts did you bring back? Could you find any hint to this secret?”
And last night he had seen the dog again outside the Upright Quill. She had grown and filled out, but it was the same animal he had followed across the western ocean.
And Wynn had seen him inside the scriptorium trying to steal a folio. What would she deduce, though she had told him to run? She had also seen the thing that attacked him, solid before his eyes and yet nothing he could touch.
Chane knew he had to do something, no matter how risky. In truth, he had little left to risk. Wynn knew he was in her city, and at this point a straightforward course was best.
Ripping a blank page from a freshly acquired journal, he penned a quick note.
Then he went downstairs, found the grease-stained proprietor, and handed over his message for delivery.
Before supper Wynn stopped at the hospice to visit Nikolas. He lay on a narrow cot, his condition unchanged. Though he continued to live and breathe, and she saw the barest hint of color returning to his features, he was still curled up, fetal. Half-opened eyes stared at nothing and never seemed to blink. Even when his lids opened fully for brief periods, he remained as if lost in mind-dead sleep.
She had overheard Domin Bitworth, a master of naturology, tell High-Tower they had to use rather unpleasant means for getting Nikolas to swallow broth and water. Wynn wondered what those “means” might be, but if anyone could keep Nikolas alive, Bitworth or Premin Adlam could.
“Come back soon,” she whispered in Nikolas’s ear, stroking one gray streak in his hair.
She left the hospice, heading for the common hall, and wondered how she would be received. The instant she stepped through the archway, a few people looked up.
Whispers spread quickly, causing other heads to turn, until every eye glanced at least briefly her way. Word of her threatened claim must have spread like winter sniffles through the initiates’ dormitory. Perhaps Premin Sykion had even leaked the story herself. Wynn tried to wet her dry mouth and looked about for the emptiest table, hoping to be left alone.
In recent days she’d found the company of Miriam and Nikolas a welcome change. Now Miriam was dead, and Nikolas was lost in a seemingly endless inner terror—all because her superiors refused to accept the truth.
The hall was quite full, considering the curfew. No one would leave the guild tonight, not even for a change of meal at a local inn or tavern.
Wynn finally spotted a nearly empty table in the right corner, farthest from the hearth. She ladled a bowl of brown bean soup from a crock on a central table and went off to settle in private. And not surprisingly, everyone sitting at that table’s other end was suddenly finished with their meal.
Keeping her eyes on her supper, Wynn tried to ignore the whispers. Once she made the mistake of glancing up.
Regina Melliny sat with a small huddl
e of apprentices from different orders, all speaking in quiet but rapid voices. Wynn heard the word “traitor,” and Regina lifted her head, peering over with a rude wrinkle of her nose.
It was too much.
Wynn grasped her bowl and stood up. At least she could be alone in her room and not feel like an outcast yet to be formally cast out. As she was about to leave, an apprentice in a sienna robe entered through the main archway, looking about.
“Journeyor Hygeorht?”
Wynn sighed and briefly closed her eyes. By the time she opened them, he was standing before her.
Judging by the set of his mouth, he wasn’t thrilled to speak to her. “There is a boy with a note at the front gate. He is asking for you.”
Wynn set the bowl down. Most likely it was from Captain Rodian, though she wondered why he’d sent a message. He probably knew about the offer High-Tower had made to her, concerning the translation project. Rodian would be all too eager to know whatever she discovered of the folios’ contents.
“Thank you . . .” she began, then realized she had no idea what the apprentice’s name might be. It didn’t matter, as he’d already hurried off.
Wynn left the common hall, heading out the double doors to the courtyard, but a startling sight met her as she approached the gatehouse tunnel.
The old outer portcullis had been lowered—and she’d never seen it closed in all her days.
Beyond its stout crisscross of iron bars as thick as her forearm stood a small boy, too young to be out alone at night. Dressed in tattered clothes, he wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Then he spotted her coming closer.
“You Wynn?” he asked.
What was Rodian thinking, sending such a child?
“Yes,” she answered, wondering if she should find someone to walk him home, as she was trapped on guild grounds. “You have a note for me?”
He poked his little hand through the portcullis, holding out a folded bit of paper with a torn edge. The outside wasn’t addressed in any manner.
Wynn hesitated. Rodian wouldn’t send a message like this. Proper and elitist, he would’ve used quality paper, perhaps an envelope, and addressed it specifically. Appearances mattered greatly to him.
She fished in her pocket, but all she had on her was two silver groats. Even one was more than the rate for a messenger.
“Thank you for your trouble,” she said, and gave him one coin just the same. “Be sure to go straight home. It’s getting late.”
The boy grunted and was off down the path toward the bailey gate.
Wynn waited until he was out of sight before returning to the courtyard. She lingered beneath one of the gatehouse’s inner braziers and unfolded the paper, reading . . .
Meet me behind the stables south of the guild’s grounds.
I need to speak with you.
The ragged note wasn’t signed, and it was written in Belaskian, not Numanese. Even so, she would’ve known the handwriting anywhere.
Chane.
Wynn didn’t blame herself, but she knew she had to be part of the reason he’d traveled here. Even after all this time, she found her feelings toward him were conflicted. She just stood breathing for a few moments, rereading his brief note.
Of course she would go—if only to find out why he had come all this way and broken his promise to leave her alone. And she had to know of his involvement in the deaths and thefts, and what he’d been doing in Master a’Seatt’s scriptorium, holding that folio.
Wynn looked up as two apprentices walked out the main doors and headed across to the southside barracks, where her own room was located. She couldn’t get out the front gate, and she still needed a few things before she faced Chane.
She waited long enough for the pair to reach their own quarters, then hurried inside and upstairs. Reaching her room, she closed the door and leaned against it. Reading the note again, she remembered the first time Chane had come to the guild in Bela—the handsome young scholar. And then the night he’d appeared in Apudâlsat’s dank forest, and she watched in horror as Magiere cleaved his head from his neck. And last, atop the Pock Peaks inside Li’kän’s library, his features taut and rigid as he promised . . .
I will not follow you anymore. You will not see me again.
Those words had brought pain—and relief. His reappearance rekindled both.
Wynn took the crystal from her cold lamp and pocketed it before opening her small trunk to retrieve a warm cloak. Climbing to her feet, she spotted something else.
The staff leaned in a corner, the sun crystal atop it covered in the protective leather sheath.
Under Domin il’Sänke’s tutelage, she had tried to ignite it only once. The best she got from it was a soft glimmer, and that had cost her. When it winked out, she felt as if she’d been hauling some heavy burden for ten leagues without water. And the next day she had been so tired that she could barely get up to eat.
Magic, even artificed permanently into an object, was no wonder to idly enact with quaint words and a flourish of fancy gestures. It was dangerous, taxing, and costly. She knew as much from the plague of her mantic sight. But still, even a glimmer of light with the nature of the sun might be enough if Chane could no longer be trusted.
She stared at the staff for a long moment of indecision, then grabbed it and headed out. In the outer passage she paused in frustration.
How could she get out of the keep, let alone unseen? There was only one possibility, and it was risky. Sighing, she headed for the stairs and out to the courtyard.
She tried to keep the staff close, wrapping the folds of her cloak around it, and hoped she didn’t run into il’Sänke. He always seemed to know too much about what she was thinking. When she entered the main building, she took the long way around to avoid passing near the common hall. She reached the keep’s back at another entrance into the library and peered carefully around the archway’s side.
No one was in sight among the nearest tables or tall bookcases, but that might not hold once the evening meal ended. She hurried for the central stairs up to the top floor.
She’d spent little time in this building since her return. It was well organized and a welcome place for study and research. But it didn’t hold the wealth of knowledge to be found in the archives. Generations of sages would enjoy the wide library’s open design, with windows allowing in natural light during the day, so unlike the excavated catacombs below the guild. Premin Sykion constantly sought to improve it.
Long rows of oak shelves, attached stoutly to the ceiling, stretched out before Wynn. Specially designed cold lamps were mounted in the stone walls on small iron bases shaped like the bottoms of oil lanterns. Within those bases, the guild metaologers replenished treated fluids that generated a low heat. This fed the lamps’ crystals, so there would always be light here.
Wynn heard soft voices several shelves off and headed quickly to the library’s back wall. She reached the nearest window and peered out the finest panes the dwarves could make.
The new library was constructed behind the main keep at the back of the inner bailey. It filled the space all the way to the bailey wall. Wynn could see that the drop down to the wall’s top would be easy, but the rest of her plan might prove more difficult.
She tucked the staff under one arm and propped the window open as quietly as she could. Climbing upon the sill, she clung to the window’s frame for an instant before she hopped outward. Her knees buckled as she dropped atop the bailey wall’s walkway; it was a little farther down than it looked. With one backward glance, she hurried along the old battlements.
Wynn rounded the eastern tower and headed onward, taking the chipped and faded stone steps below the southern tower into the orchard of barelimbed maple trees. She crept through the barren gardens toward the bailey gate before the gatehouse tunnel.
In getting this far, she’d successfully bypassed the closed outer portcullis. All that remained was to open the bailey gate. None of her peers or superiors would be outside, so she
should be able to slip away without being seen. Slowly she crept to the edge of the nearest barbican framing the gate and peered out.
“Ah, no,” she whispered.
Two of the Shyldfälches stood just outside the portcullis. She hadn’t heard of Rodian placing guards to watch over the guild, and she backed into hiding. Chane was waiting, but she had no idea how to get out unseen. Ghassan il’Sänke stepped to the library’s window and watched as Wynn sped off along the wall. His grip tightened on the sill when he saw the staff in her hand. He shook his head and waited until she rounded the wall’s turn beyond the eastern tower.
He had followed her, apprehensive of what she was up to and where she was going. In his long life, very little surprised him anymore. But earlier today he had been shocked upon learning that she had been granted access to the translated pages and the codex. She was neither mature nor experienced enough in the dangers of knowledge for such a thing. Then again, neither were some of the domins and masters of this branch.