First and Last Sorcerer

by Barb Hendee

  Dänvârfij stepped toward him. “That is a reckless tactic. Any of them missing will be noticed.”

  “One of them may know,” he countered again, “or know who among their own has such knowledge. Recklessness is all we have left, and this will not be a one-step process.”

  Dänvârfij fell silent rather than argue further.

  With every death and failure among them, her authority had been strained or diminished. To take action against the imperial guards could endanger their own secrecy. If they failed, or succeeded but were uncovered, their current lack of options would not be the worst of their obstacles.

  Dänvârfij could not think of anything better and looked to Fréthfâre, futile as that was.

  Fréthfâre nodded as well. “As you are no longer welcome inside, stalk the patrols on the outside for a straggler to capture.”

  Dänvârfij inhaled and exhaled slowly.

  * * *

  Standing in the cutway, Wynn watched Chane facing down Ghassan il’Sänke and decided to take matters into her own hands.

  “Chane . . . Ghassan is right. We need to get off the streets first.” When Chane’s brow furrowed, she turned to the domin. “Where will you take us? Some room at an inn?”

  The domin hesitated long enough to set her on edge.

  “I have a . . . private residence which is little known,” he replied.

  “So you are hiding,” Chane interrupted. “Why?”

  “Chane!” Wynn said in exasperation. She looked back in time to see Osha step in and fix on the domin with an expression nearly as suspicious as Chane’s.

  She didn’t trust the domin completely either, and with some embarrassment she remembered that only a few moments before, in her panic, she had blurted out that she’d not only found another orb, she’d brought it here.

  If Chane had not interrupted her, she might have spilled out one more piece of information that she wasn’t yet ready to share with Ghassan.

  In addition to the orb of Spirit, she’d also brought a small, strange device she had acquired that could be used to track an orb. The problem was that this device was currently dormant, she didn’t know how to reactivate it, and at some point she was going to need Ghassan’s help to make it work. How soon she decided to tell him of this object remained to be seen.

  But he’d protected her more than once and made her sun-crystal staff. If he had a safe place, then that was good enough for now.

  Without waiting for more arguments, she shifted the pack on her back, hefted her staff, and turned toward the cutway’s mouth with one glance at the domin.

  “Lead on.”

  Ghassan turned without a word and stepped ahead of her, looking both ways along the street.

  Wynn followed, and at least this time Shade wasn’t arguing, but she heard nothing from behind for a moment. Then came Chane’s hissing exhale and two sets of soft footsteps. There had been no doubt. Neither Chane nor Osha would let her simply walk away with the domin, whether Shade was with her or not.

  Occasionally, their overprotectiveness was useful.

  Il’Sänke made his way inland, eventually turning southward, and along the way he stopped often, though he didn’t look about.

  Wynn wondered whether he was listening, but she heard nothing herself. After a while, the walk began to feel quite long. The domin appeared to be taking them all the way across the city—or at least that was how it felt when they entered an area with more people out at night.

  Fine shops and eateries of tan stone lined streets with plentiful lamps and colorfully dressed women scented with jasmine. After another long stretch, all of this gave way to smaller dwellings in disrepair and people in the streets dressed in rags and too often bare feet. They passed one building with shuttered windows. A few staggered out its broad front door, which was guarded by two slovenly but armed men, and they shuffled away in a daze.

  Wynn passed close to one of the patrons and saw his eyes staring blankly ahead without looking at anything. He stank of sweet-smelling smoke strong enough to cut through the smells of the city.

  “I do not like this,” Chane whispered from behind her. “This place is not fit for you.”

  The domin didn’t look back, but Wynn did. “Snobbery won’t hide us any better. If the guild branch here is anything like my own, those guards notified the local constabularies about us.”

  In spite of her bravado, the glassy-eyed people unnerved her. She’d read about places where something called hashish was smoked. What were they called, something that meant “dream haven” or the like? Had she just walked past one?

  The domin turned down a darkened side street without a single lamp along the way. They continued past three shabby buildings and stopped in front of the fourth one. Its front door was crooked in its frame and covered in turquoise paint so peeled and full of cracks that Wynn could see the spidering lines in the dark. Broken tiles lay out front that might have fallen off the roof.

  “This . . . safe place?” Osha asked.

  Shade started rumbling at the door of peeling, cracked paint.

  Wynn couldn’t bring herself to shush them, for she grew reluctant as well.

  Ghassan il’Sänke stepped forward and pulled the crooked front door open.

  Wynn started after him, but Shade slipped in front of her. The dog planted herself with a growl and wouldn’t move. In frustration, Wynn nudged Shade’s rump with a knee—and again—until they both followed the domin inside.

  It was so dark in the narrow hallway that Wynn pulled a cold-lamp crystal from her short-robe’s pocket and stroked it sharply across the fabric. When it glowed with light, she instantly wished she hadn’t bothered, and Chane and Osha came in behind her.

  The place was filthy and dilapidated. Walls lined with warped wooden planks surrounded unpainted doors no better off than the front one. She heard someone coughing somewhere behind one of those doors, but Ghassan quickly headed for the stairs at the passage’s end. They climbed upward, though Wynn shuddered more than once at the sharp creaks of the steps beneath her feet.

  When they reached the top floor, the domin headed down the only hallway. Raising her crystal, Wynn could see nothing more than old doors and one open, unshuttered window at the hallway’s end. And that was where the domin went. When he stopped before the window, perhaps reaching for its waist-high sill, Wynn looked back past Chane and Osha at all the doors along the way.

  “Which one is for us?” she asked.

  “None of them,” the domin answered.

  Wynn was about to turn back when she heard Osha suck in a sharp breath.

  She looked up to see his lips parted below wide eyes staring over the top of her head. At a clunk, as if a door had closed, Chane dropped the chest, grabbed her shoulder, and jerked her back behind him. She half fell into Osha, who caught her, as Shade’s growl erupted with a clack of teeth.

  Even in Osha’s grip, Wynn regained her feet and spun about, though he held on when she tried to take a step.

  Ghassan il’Sänke was gone.

  Wynn lost her voice as she peered around Chane’s side. Shade inched back as Chane stepped in and . . . strangely, hesitantly extended his hand through the open window, as if afraid to do so.

  “Where is he? Where did he go?” Wynn managed to get out.

  Chane swung his hand to the window frame’s side and began tracing and feeling, gripping and pushing, all around it. He did the same to the wall on both sides and below the window.

  Much as Wynn couldn’t see how the domin had escaped, Chane’s actions were too bizarre. “What are you doing?”

  “There was a door,” Osha whispered in Elvish. “He went in . . . and then the door was gone.”

  Wynn had no idea what that meant, but Shade’s hackles were up. The dog backed up another step with a mewling growl like a spooked cat.

  “Ridiculous,” Wynn said. “He must have hopped out the window when I turned my back and the crystal’s light was blocked from—”

  The wal
l around the window swung away.

  Osha pulled Wynn close, Shade crouched with a snarl, and Chane hopped back in, pulling his shorter sword.

  There in the opening shaped like a doorway stood Ghassan il’Sänke.

  Chane leveled his sword at the domin.

  With an exasperated sigh and a roll of his dark eyes, Ghassan hooked a boot’s toe around the open door’s bottom corner. Wynn finally noticed that the passage’s end wall had suddenly changed and . . . looked like a door.

  Solid and made of dark, stout wood beams, unlike all the others along the passage, it was also iron-banded and had a matching lever handle. From what Wynn could see there was no keyhole in the plate around that handle. She finally closed her mouth with a swallow.

  “My apologies,” Ghassan said a bit tiredly, raising his hands in plain sight. “The door slipped from my grip. It is heavy and spring-loaded to shut if left open. Please come in.”

  “What is this?” Chane demanded.

  Ghassan took a slow breath with an extended exhale. “As I told you, this place is safe and clearly no one will find us here.”

  And then he simply stood there waiting and glaring.

  Chane inched in to tap the door’s frame with his sword’s tip. The frame still looked like part of the outer wall.

  The domin scowled, then scoffed and leaned away when Chane inched his sword through the opening. Shade rumbled even louder, and when Wynn tried to take a step, Osha held her back.

  Chane stood staring at whatever lay beyond the door and then turned his glare—and his blade—toward the domin.

  “How?” he demanded.

  After another extended sigh, Ghassan answered flatly, “That is a longer conversation than I care to have out here. Now, are you coming in or not?” He turned his annoyance on Wynn as if Chane’s sword meant nothing anymore.

  Wynn pulled out of Osha’s grip and stepped closer as Chane back-stepped to reach down for the chest without taking his eyes off the domin. She pushed past both him and Shade for a closer look, and what lay beyond in that softly lit place was as shocking as the hidden door.

  Shelves lined three walls and were filled with scrolls, books, and plank-bound sheaves, just like those of the archives below the guild branch in Calm Seatt. Unlike that place, everything here was pristine without a hint of dust, and all was made of dark but shimmering wood.

  Several cold lamps with crystals provided light around the interior. One rested on a round table encompassed by three cushioned chairs. By the lamps’ ornate brass bases, they had to have alchemical fluids producing mild heat to keep the crystals lit. All chairs were high-backed, and their finely finished near-black wood was intricately carved in wild see-through patterns.

  To one side stood like-carved folding partitions separating another area covered in large floor cushions of vibrant patterns with shimmering embroidery. At the back of the sitting area was an open door to another room, and in there were several beds as lavish as the cushioned sitting area. Clean, fringed carpets defined various sections of the floor.

  Though impressive, it all struck Wynn as rather cluttered. The last fixture she noticed left her a bit dizzy and disoriented.

  In the rear wall, between the cushioned area and the door to the bedroom, was a window exactly like the one she had faced in the passage moments before. Through it, she saw the same night-shrouded buildings across the same back alley, and she absently stepped in.

  This was nothing like any hideaway that Wynn could’ve imagined. In fact, it looked too well prepared and furnished, aside from that disturbing duplicate window.

  “H-how?” she stammered, turning around.

  Osha entered with Shade, and Wynn saw that Chane had already dragged in the chest. He stood with sword still in hand as he faced the domin. Wynn wasn’t certain whether or not to call off Chane. Osha glanced about, but, unlike Wynn, he looked openly wary.

  With a lift of one eyebrow, il’Sänke finally answered. “A mere glamour to hide this space.”

  “What do you take me for?” Chane rasped as he eyed the duplicate window set directly inline with the door.

  Wynn knew that Chane had learned his minor conjury the hard way—without any tutor or teaching and having to scavenge hard-won texts and knowledge delved alone in secret. Something here bothered him, and considering what she saw, she didn’t interfere with whatever he was after.

  “This entire end of the upper floor has been hidden,” Chane went on, still holding up the tip of his shorter sword before the domin. “And yet the window in the passage’s end shows the same view outside. I touched that wall and window, and felt them.”

  Ghassan acted as if the sword were not even there. “What would you have me say that you could possibly understand? It is beyond you. Accept that.”

  These final two words put Wynn on edge. She wished she was the one asking questions and that Chane was behind her to warn her of lies with a squeeze upon her shoulder.

  Then again, Ghassan hadn’t actually answered the question.

  “Why did the mention of your name almost get us arrested?” Chane asked.

  In the hesitation that followed, Wynn fixed only on the domin. “And why are city guards posted before the guild . . . at all?”

  * * *

  Ghassan barely glanced at Wynn, wondering how much to say. Clearly Chane Andraso was the more immediate problem, though one that could be dealt with. Doing so might also undermine gaining answers—and cooperation—for his own needs. And he was still anxious over the revelation that Wynn had gained another orb.

  He did not dare to look again at the heavy chest two steps behind Chane. Wynn’s appearance, the orb of Spirit, and her obvious accomplishments meant something more.

  She and her companions could be useful to him.

  Ghassan had been alone in his hunt for Khalidah since returning to his homeland. Wynn might attract trouble as easily as a melon draws flies, but she had skills and a weapon, which he had fashioned for her, that emitted sunlight. Chane could be unpredictable, but as a member of the undead, if properly motivated, he was a skilled fighter and almost impossible to kill. As for Shade, a majay-hì was a natural hunter of the undead. The elf’s usefulness . . . well, that remained to be seen.

  So how little could Ghassan say to gain more advantage than disadvantage?

  “I was part of a hidden sect among the Suman metaologers,” he finally answered.

  Wynn’s brown eyes never blinked, though she still stared at him, and so he continued.

  “We studied certain practices which . . . would not have met with the premin council’s approval.”

  “What practice?” Osha asked.

  Ghassan ignored everyone but Wynn. “We had kept a prisoner for a long time that we wished to study and safeguard in secret, since others would not be able to do so. Unfortunately, I was sent to your land because our branch wanted its share of the knowledge you brought back from the eastern continent.”

  The last reference was awkward, considering he had also done his best to stop her from gaining the orb of Earth in the bowels of Bäalâle Seatt. He had failed and, though she had no knowledge of what had come next, he had hurried for home upon receiving a message that it had escaped.

  “What sort of prisoner?” Wynn asked.

  “A dangerous one who escaped while I was away and . . . killed the rest of my sect.”

  For an instant, his thoughts slipped back to the night he returned home. All of his comrades lay dead in their subterranean sanctuary, their eyes wide and blank, mouths gaping in final horror—even the best among them, those more skilled than Ghassan himself.

  All dead but one . . . and that one other than himself was still missing.

  “Killed?” Wynn repeated.

  “As I told you, this prisoner is dangerous. Upon its escape, my own peers were not the only ones who died, though the rest of the guild is unaware of the cause of those deaths. There was no hiding this or our sanctuary any longer from High Premin Aweli-Jama. As the last
of my sect, I was wanted for questioning. I couldn’t allow this, as I am all that is left of those who can hunt the prisoner.” He hesitated. “Unfortunately, I was caught and taken before the imperial court. By happenstance, it was on the same day that your friends were arrested at the port.”

  There was a pause then, with so much to take in.

  “Why?” Wynn finally asked. “What were the charges against them?”

  “Murder. Two foreigners sought the aid of both the city and imperial guard . . . and they looked like him.” He tilted his head toward Osha.

  Osha’s expression twisted in alarm. “What you mean?”

  Ghassan kept his eyes on Wynn only.

  “He means not Lhoin’na,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Anmaglâhk?”

  Ghassan vaguely recognized that last term, though he couldn’t remember from where.

  “You do not know that, Wynn,” Chane put in. “This continent has a large population of elves, and some are light-haired.”

  “True . . . but it is possible the anmaglâhk team picked up Magiere’s trail after she fled Calm Seatt,” Wynn said, closing her eyes and looking tired. She opened them again and looked to Ghassan. “We must get my friends out, and you are going to help us.”

  Before Ghassan could raise an eyebrow—

  “What of this prisoner he hunts?” Chane interrupted. “I want to know more.”

  “Not now,” Wynn insisted, turning back to Ghassan. “Can you help us?”

  Ghassan remained passive. Gods, fate, ancestral spirits, or something else entirely appeared to favor him this night. By all accounts in Wynn’s travel journals, Magiere, Leesil, and their majay-hì were skilled hunters of the undead. And from what he understood, they were devoted to Wynn.

  “I will do what I can,” he assured her. “But it will not be easy.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Late the following morning, Ghassan donned a heavier cloak and pulled its hood low over his eyes as he left the hidden sanctuary now shared by his “guests.” On the long walk to the mainway leading to the front gates of the imperial grounds, he kept his mind clear for any warning from his senses—physical and otherwise. He didn’t need to walk so far for his task, but he wanted time alone to think.