by Barb Hendee
Wynn turned chill inside.
Sau’ilahk had gone ahead after the orb. What if he’d found it first? But if its key was missing, was that why he hadn’t taken the orb—because he couldn’t have used it? Or had Sau’ilahk, that black-robed monster without a face, taken only the key? And if so, why?
Who is this figure in the black robe with cloth-wrapped hands?
Wynn’s breath caught as Chap’s words erupted in her head in every language she knew. She twisted about, staring at him, and he was on his feet, inching toward her.
“What’s wrong?” Leesil asked.
Wynn swallowed hard when she met his hard, worried eyes. Even Magiere sat upright, her old scowl of suspicion returning. Even so, Magiere’s pale face was lovely. Her long, black hair with its bloodred tints was tucked back behind her ears. Leesil, however, was still studying Wynn, and he frowned.
“I see,” he said. “It’s been so long, I forgot that Chap can jabber right into your head.”
Wynn didn’t relax one bit, annoyed at herself for not being more careful. Indeed, she was the only one with whom Chap could truly “talk.” She couldn’t even begin to wonder how these three had fared without her to give Chap a convenient voice. She eyed Chap sidelong, for his question still hadn’t been answered.
Instead, Wynn quickly stilled her thoughts, banishing all images of Sau’ilahk from her mind, for memories of him could lead to those of someone else. . . .
Her more recent traveling companion, Chane, might already be back from escorting Ore-Locks to Dhredze Seatt—back from hiding the orb of Earth in the last great stronghold of the dwarves. Wynn didn’t need these three old friends learning of Chane’s presence right now. Chane was a physical Noble Dead, a vampire, and Magiere, Leesil, and Chap all hated him, perhaps more than any other undead they’d already finished off.
Wynn needed time to think of a way to explain a great deal, and without Chap overrunning her with questions based on whatever he caught in her errant, rising memories. There were larger issues at stake that needed—
“Journeyer Hygeorht! Why is this animal wandering unattended about my archives?”
Wynn shuddered at the sound of Domin Tärpodious’s aged and crackling voice echoing through the archives. He must have stumbled upon her dog, Shade, somewhere near his chambers. As she stepped toward the alcove’s near archway, Chap’s voice rose again in her head.
We cannot be seen down here.
“But why? When—”
“Uh-oh,” Leesil whispered.
Wynn’s eyes widened. “What did you do?”
Not now. We will discuss our . . . hastened entry later.
Before Wynn could ask Chap what he meant, Magiere snatched up the darker thôrhk and tossed Leesil his cloak. She got up too quickly and had to grab the stool before it toppled. Chap hurried by her toward the alcove’s far arch, rumbling at Leesil as he passed.
“It was nothing, honestly,” Leesil whispered, in his usual feigned innocence. “And completely necessary.”
After that, he glanced at Wynn and put a finger across his lips in warning just before Magiere jerked him out the alcove’s far side.
“Wynn?” Tärpodious called out, much closer now. “Get this beast under control! And why was the archive door left unlocked?”
Wynn’s eyes narrowed, but Leesil was already out of sight when she hissed under her breath, “Leesil, I’ll shove those lockpicks where you won’t get them until you . . .”
She quickly calmed herself, turning back to the archway.
“Yes, Domin. I’m here,” she called out. “I was just busy in the books and didn’t notice Shade had wandered off. I’ll be right there.”
“Well, be quick about it. Premin Sykion is waiting in her office to speak with you.”
Wynn slumped against the archway’s side. “Valhachkasej’â!”
Sykion was the last person she wanted to deal with tonight, but at least she’d stopped old Domin Tärpodious from coming all the way to the alcove. Now . . . she just had to get her friends out of here.
One thing at a time.
Hiding in the back passage, Leesil raised an eyebrow as Wynn uttered his own commonly used elven curse.
“You’re a bad influence, as usual,” Magiere whispered.
This time, he did look at her.
“Me?” he returned. “You think I’m the influence of concern here?”
There was no humor in his voice this time. After everything that had happened to them, she was the influence that worried him most of all. Since finding that second orb, she’d changed. Yet even after that, they—he—had been so close to putting an end to all this and going home.
It would have taken only Wynn’s assuring Magiere that nothing more had been learned—nothing more could be learned—about the orbs. Never mind that they’d found another and that Chap had hidden away the pair. Those cursed lumps of stone could stay wherever they lay, forever. But no . . .
Wynn just couldn’t shut up, even once, when it mattered most. The sage had nosed her way into something more, something worse, that Magiere would never let go. There would be no dragging Magiere away now.
Without another word, Leesil stepped back into the alcove.
“I don’t believe this!” Wynn whispered at him as she gathered up her belongings and the strange staff. “You’re here less than a quarter bell in the night, and I’m already in more trouble—and I don’t need your help with that.”
“Trouble?” Leesil returned. “When did you ever need help with that? What have you gotten yourself into this time?”
Wynn straightened, and her mouth gaped.
Leesil immediately regretted his words. Wynn was like a little sister to him. It just wasn’t in her nature to sit still for long—or to stay out of anything that caught her attention. If it were, she’d never have joined him, Magiere, and Chap in the first place. Tonight, she’d been so glad, so relieved to see him, and he’d just taken out his long-pent-up frustrations on her.
Moving toward her, he began, “Wynn, I didn’t mean to—”
But before he could finish, she suddenly jumped a little, her expression aghast, and she turned on Chap.
“What?” She exhaled at him, and then her voice rose above a whisper. “Don’t you take his side. You have no idea what I’ve—”
“Quiet, all of you,” Magiere insisted. “Save it . . . at least until we’re out of here.”
Everyone went silent at that, even Leesil, though he wondered exactly what Chap had said to the little sage.
Magiere started to glance about, and Leesil followed her attention in puzzlement. She looked around the alcove, through its archways, at the books on the table, and then fixed on Wynn.
“I know you must’ve been working on those texts,” Magiere began quietly. “The ones we hauled out of the Pock Peaks along with the first orb. I need to know anything else you might have learned about the orb—I mean orbs. Or even about these servants of the Ancient Enemy that you mentioned.”
Leesil sighed, long and heavy. The last thing he wanted was Wynn pushing Magiere onward in this obsession. Yet on the journey north, even he’d imagined Wynn finally having the chance to live as the scholar that she was, spending her days digging through all those texts. He’d tried to tell himself that they’d done her a favor by leaving her behind.
But Wynn fell strangely still and mute, perhaps growing a little pale as Magiere went on.
“Before we leave,” Magiere went on, “grab anything you’ve uncovered, or any of the texts themselves. I—we were hoping you could help figure out what these orbs are, what they do, especially now that you’ve told us there are five of them.”
Wynn flinched, and to Leesil’s surprise, she looked stricken.
“Oh . . . oh, Magiere,” she faltered. “No, I don’t . . . I was never allowed . . . The texts aren’t here. They were taken from me as soon as I arrived.”
It was an instant before Leesil realized his mouth had dropped open, and he shut it
. It was another instant after hope flooded him that Magiere might at least be slowed down, if not stopped, before he heard Magiere’s sharp whisper.
“What?!”
Wynn became frantic in trying to calm Magiere. “I’ve learned much that you need to know, just the same. Things that might not even be in those texts. I’ll tell you everything, though there’s more I have to figure out, but right now, we have to get you out of here.”
Magiere’s expression went dark at the prospect of another delay. Then Chap huffed once in agreement and padded toward the far archway. Wynn sagged a little and turned to follow him, but Leesil didn’t move.
He watched Magiere heft her pack a little too roughly and follow the sage and the dog. She was tall for a woman, slender but strong, and wore a scarred and weathered studded-leather hauberk under her cloak and a sheathed falchion on her left hip.
Leesil couldn’t take his eyes off her dark hair swinging when she walked. He watched her leave, and he remembered all of the times she had tried to stop him in some scheme or ploy. He was helpless now in stopping her.
He hefted his own pack and stepped out to follow Wynn’s lamp. Its crystal’s white light in the dark seemed as cold as those icy wastes he’d left behind.
Chap padded along beside Wynn as the young sage led the way, scurrying along the dark passages. The way was tight and narrow, for every wall was lined with dusty stone and wooden shelves and casements, all filled with books, cases, and other texts.
But even in this silent rush to get out of the archives, Chap could not stop pondering something he had seen inside Wynn.
In the alcove, the barest, fleeting memories had risen into Wynn’s conscious thoughts. Foremost was one of a tall, black-robed figure, its face hidden in a deep, sagging black cowl. The image vanished before he could catch more. But since that moment, not a single memory had risen in Wynn’s mind.
What was she hiding from him? And how had she learned to do this so well?
Wynn suddenly halted before an overloaded casement along the passage’s right wall. She cast a quick, accusing glance at Leesil, who stood back behind Magiere. Then she frowned, dropping her head to look down at Chap.
“Aside from him breaking in here,” she whispered, cocking her head toward Leesil, “how did all of you manage to get inside to sneak about?”
Chap was lost for words. This was what she now wanted to know?
“It wasn’t hard,” Leesil whispered.
Wynn balled her free hand into a fist, but Chap cut in before she went at Leesil again.
You are right in that we need to leave. Then he added more pointedly, But we all have questions . . . and expect answers.
Wynn took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and nodded. When she turned onward, Chap lapped her small fingers with his tongue. In spite of their being caught in a tense moment, he knew she was relieved to see them all.
Chap felt Wynn’s hand drag up over his snout and between his ears, until it came to rest upon his neck. Her little fingers nestled into his fur as he walked beside her. This familiar sensation was something he had not felt in a long, long time, and it did not seem right that the one person in the world he could speak with directly should rejoin him under these circumstances.
Yes, there were questions to be answered. They included whatever foolish notions had gotten into Wynn to make her go roaming about the land after the difficult choice he’d made to secure her here. She should have remained among her own kind, wrapped in the safe haven of humanity.
Then Chap found himself facing an entirely different kind of “meeting.” Beyond the passage’s end ahead, his daughter stood watching him, without blinking.
He kept on at Wynn’s side, halting at the entrance into the cavernous main chamber of the archives. Wooden shelves lined the walls, filled with matching, bound volumes of dark leather among a few cedar-plank sheaves of loose pages. Several tables filled the space, lit by cold lamps hung at the chamber’s four corners.
Shade, as Wynn called her, waited before the far stairs that led back upstairs—away from this scholar’s maze beneath the guild. At the sight of his daughter, it was Chap who lost all control of his memories.
He had never forgotten, never would forget, what he had done to her.
Several years ago, he’d been spending what he knew would be his last night among the an’Cróan—the elven people of the eastern continent—and he had fled from their one true city, racing back into the forest. At the next dawn, he would have to leave on an elven ship to watch over Magiere and Leesil on their journey to find the first orb.
Because of this, sacrifices were necessary.
His mate, Lily, had waited for him beyond the forest’s edge.
She stood among the ferns below the long branches of a redwood . . . a white majay-hì like no other. Her blue, crystalline eyes held flecks of yellow, and from a distance, sunlight blended her irises to a green almost as verdant as new leaves. He ran his muzzle along hers, inhaled her scent laced with fragrances of the wild Elven Territories, and she sent memories . . . visions . . . of the children she would bear. It was the most painful joy of his unnatural life, for he would not be there to see them born. And to one child he would do far worse than that.
Chap had already known that he had to leave; that Magiere and Leesil needed him. But after what he had done when his kin, the Fay, learned that Wynn could hear them, he knew he had to protect her from them, as well. As much as Magiere and Leesil needed him, he had to see to Wynn’s safety. Not only as cherished companion, but because even then she was an integral part of what was to come.
He did not spend that last night with Lily trying to forget that he would leave his mate. He tried to remember for her to see all that must be done. Someone else had to be sent to watch over Wynn, for he knew eventually she might be left behind. He gave Lily every memory he held, and in his faltering memory-speak, he begged her for something far worse.
One of their children would be condemned to banishment, or at least that was how a child would think of it.
Only someone akin to himself would have a chance to stand between Wynn and the Fay. A child of his would have to cross a world alone to protect a human. Once Chap had finished making his request, he and Lily lay there through the night. When he left her before dawn, her eyes were still closed, but she could not have been asleep.
But it wasn’t until tonight, when Chap came to find Wynn in this place, this old castle somehow given over to the guild, that he truly knew his request had come true.
Any brief relief drowned instantly in the deepest depths of guilt. The charcoal black majay-hì stood before the far stairwell leading out of the catacombs, watching him. And then his daughter turned away without a sound.
“Everyone wait here,” Wynn whispered. “When I signal, stay low and hurry across to the stairs.”
As she stepped out, passing in front of Chap, he lost sight of Shade. When his sightline cleared, all he saw was the tip of a black tail disappearing into the dark up those darkened, rising steps. Chap stood numbed by pain and regret, barely hearing Wynn’s voice coming from somewhere out of sight.
“Um, Domin, I had to leave some stuff on the table in the seventh alcove, so—”
“Yes, yes, I will see to it. Now run along,” an aged, cracking voice answered. “But leave the key I gave you. When I retire, I will be certain the archives are properly closed . . . this time.”
Chap inched forward, and he peeked around the corner.
Wynn stood off to the right, directly in front of a small archway, with her back to the open chamber. In her left hand she held the staff with its leather-sheathed top tilted slightly out. Her other hand was braced on the opening’s right, and the spread of her robe and sleeves somewhat blocked the entrance—so that whoever was inside might not see out.
Her free hand suddenly dropped and swung behind her, repeatedly waving off toward the far stairs.
“I’m sorry,” she said to the person in the chamber. “I thought
I locked the door behind me when I came down.”
A humph rose sharply from beyond Wynn as Chap padded softly across the chamber between its four long tables. He heard Magiere and Leesil creeping along behind him.
“Do you know what the premin wanted to see me about?” Wynn asked.
Chap reached the stairwell and ducked in, but he did not climb up. He waited as Magiere and Leesil slipped past him and up the stairs.
“No,” the other voice answered. “I would imagine it has something to do with your latest excursion.”
“All right,” Wynn answered. “And again, I’m sorry about Shade . . . and the mess.”
It was only a breath or two before Wynn appeared around the corner to the upward-curving stairwell. Chap waited for her to lead onward, but she paused, looking up the stairs.
The barest flash of two images passed through Wynn’s thoughts. Just as quickly, those surfacing memories vanished. This time Chap caught the second, as well. The first was again that of a tall figure in a black robe and cowl, its cloak appearing to waft under the pull of a night breeze. The second was even more bizarre.
A man in a long cloak with a full hood, wielding a longsword of mottled steel in one hand and a shorter, true sword blade in the other, turned his head. Within his hood, where there should have been a face, Chap saw only a leather mask and black-lensed spectacles with heavy pewter frames where there should have been eyes.
That was all Chap caught before Wynn’s memory vanished, and she hurried up the stairs, brushing one hand over his head as she passed. He hesitated a little longer, watching her disappear around the turn in the steps. All notions of memories slipped away as he thought of a young charcoal majay-hì, someone he should have known before yet had only met but moments ago.
That someone would be waiting at the door above when the others arrived.
Chap slunk up the stairs, his head down, thinking of the daughter who had turned away from him. He could not raise his eyes, even when he reached the top and the others were waiting for him in the keep’s back passage.