Between Their Worlds_A Novel of the Noble Dead

by Barb Hendee

  Magiere didn’t need to see the rest of his face to know him. His full Elvish name was too difficult to pronounce, and she’d taken to calling him by a shortened version.

  The sight of Brot’an, here in this city on another continent, was too much to take in after all that had happened this night. Brot’an ignored Leesil and Chap’s threats and fixed only on Magiere.

  She was still at a loss, and she was weakening under Leanâlhâm’s weight pulling down her sword arm. The tears on the girl’s cheeks had begun to dry, but her face was stained by pure fright. Why would Brot’an bring Osha, let alone Leanâlhâm, this far across the world?

  Magiere had once made a promise to an anmaglâhk who’d been their guardian. She’d sworn to Sgäile, Leanâlhâm’s “uncle,” that whenever possible she would protect his quarter-blood niece. Sgäile had later sacrificed himself to guard Magiere and those with her. And here was Brot’an, one of less than a handful of shadow-grippers left in the world, a master among the Anmaglâhk.

  Magiere forgot about everything but Leanâlhâm; the girl would not see more bloodshed tonight.

  “Chap, stop it!” she demanded, and then louder. “Leesil, you back off!”

  CHAPTER 7

  EVEN AFTER MAGIERE’S demand, Chap couldn’t control his anger once Brot’an—Brot’ân’duivé, the Dog in the Dark—pulled down the black scarf and revealed his face. All Chap could think of was the master anmaglâhk’s treachery.

  Brot’an had manipulated Leesil into assassinating Lord Darmouth in order to start a war among the human provinces of that warlord’s region.

  Brot’an had acted as Magiere’s defense counsel in her trial before the an’Cróan’s council of elders, but only in his effort to discredit and undermine Most Aged Father, the ancient leader of the Anmaglâhk.

  Brot’an did nothing, helped no one, unless it furthered his own agenda.

  What was he doing here, half a world away from his homeland and apparently at odds with his own caste? The possibilities kept Chap’s hackles raised, but try as he might, he could not dip a single rising memory in the master anmaglâhk’s mind. It was as if this butcher, as Leesil had so rightly said, was not truly standing there. And the more Brot’an stared at Magiere, the more Chap wanted to add more scars to the elder elf’s face.

  But Chap still needed to understand what was going on, for nothing here made sense.

  The group of anmaglâhk who had ambushed them had opted for a frontal attack—not their usual way. They clearly wanted Magiere alive, and Chap could only guess that they wanted to know more about what she had taken from the ice-bound castle. But only one of four anmaglâhk who had followed them to that place had escaped to return home.

  Now an entire group had come after Magiere across half a world.

  Brot’an waged war subtly, and since he had just “saved” Magiere again, Chap could think of no way to show her otherwise. She might not fully trust the elder anmaglâhk, but she had a blind spot when it came to him. In addition, aside from Osha, the sight of young Leanâlhâm was startling. What could have possessed Brot’an to bring a young quarter-human girl into his scheme?

  Chap backed up into the crossing alley, bumping against Leesil behind him. Brot’an remained at the cutway’s mouth into the crossing alley. Chap turned sideways and peered around Leesil’s legs to where Leanâlhâm clung to Magiere. But when he reached for rising memories within the girl, he found nothing. Likely her conscious thoughts were too filled with the moment to let anything else rise. Osha, staring with concern from behind Magiere, offered nothing better than the girl. All Chap caught from the young man were flashes of the long journey back to Miiska after the first orb had been recovered.

  And why were neither Brot’an nor Osha dressed as anmaglâhk? Even while spying on enemies, they always wore their identical garb. For that matter, where were Osha’s stilettos?

  “What do you want this time?” Leesil nearly spat at Brot’an. “Who dies in this city to start another of your wars?”

  Chap turned his attention upon the elder elf. Brot’an did not answer, and his gaze dropped slightly, as if he finally looked at something other than Magiere’s face. Chap did not turn to see what, keeping his focus on Brot’an and waiting for some memory to slip out.

  Brot’an’s gaze rose as he commanded in Elvish, “Get them into hiding and tend her wound. I will make certain we are not followed.”

  Unable to stop himself, Chap swung around, searching for the target of these orders.

  Osha was looking directly at the shadow-gripper, but his eyes held no awe for the legendary elder of his caste. This, too, appeared odd. The last time Chap had seen Osha, the young elf had nearly worshipped Brot’an.

  Osha took a slow breath through his nose and let it out in the same way, as if trying to calm some inner turmoil. Or was it resentment? A fleeting memory rose in the young elf’s consciousness, and Chap seized it.

  A dark cavern, but the air was so hot Osha fought to breathe. A far precipice glowed with red flickering from below it, and the silhouette of a small, spindly form crouched before the edge of the great depths. Between it and Osha, on the blackened stone, lay a sword without a hilt. Red light reflected off its white metal, shimmering in the dark.

  The memory vanished as quickly as it had come. Osha nodded once, finally acknowledging Brot’an.

  Chap grew even more wary. For the first time, he noticed an odd, long, and narrow bundle of dark cloth protruding above Osha’s right shoulder, next to the young elf’s quiver. It was held in place by a cord running along the same path as the quiver’s strap across his chest. But such a minor curiosity had to wait.

  Osha stood close behind Magiere, and when he finally looked her way, Chap saw a hint of Osha’s old innocence and purity resurface. Osha’s long-featured face softened as he moved in on Magiere’s side and softly grasped her other arm, like Leanâlhâm.

  Magiere wouldn’t move and kept her eyes on the girl. When she finally did glance away, it was to Brot’an, and her gaze hardened.

  “What is Leanâlhâm doing here?” Magiere demanded.

  A good question, though not the first one Chap wanted answered. He did note that Leanâlhâm cringed strangely at the sound of her own name. The reaction vanished as Magiere’s balance faltered, and the girl’s grip tightened, the lantern jostling, as she tried to use both hands.

  Magiere gently but firmly pushed the girl behind her. “Why bring her into all of . . . whatever this is?”

  Leanâlhâm looked past Magiere, likely at Brot’an, but again, the old shadow-gripper did not answer.

  Chap almost turned to look, as well, until he saw Leanâlhâm’s tear-stained expression harden with a scowl . . . as if in blame. Suddenly, a rising memory in the girl filled Chap’s awareness.

  He saw through Leanâlhâm’s eyes as Brot’an stepped silently out of the night between two trees. The butcher was dressed in full anmaglâhk raiment, but Chap—or, rather, Leanâlhâm—saw rips and rents in the forest gray fabric of his attire, along with several large, dark patches. When he came a few more steps, the dark spots on his clothes became visible, still glistening.

  Brot’an was spattered and stained in blood, his own or someone else’s—perhaps both. The steady drip down the back of his right hand and off his dangling fingers was nearly black in the dark. Chap heard himself—heard Leanâlhâm—suck a breath in that remembered moment.

  She averted her eyes, and the memory sank beyond Chap’s reach. The girl took hold of Magiere again.

  “Come,” she said softly. “We have a safe place . . . where I can tend your wound.”

  Chap heard a rustle of cloth behind him.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Leesil snapped.

  By the time Chap spun, Brot’an was halfway down the cutway to the next street. His hood was pulled back up. Before Chap could move, Leanâlhâm rushed by.

  She caught up with Brot’an and grasped his arm. He turned on her, making her flinch. Leanâlhâm looked back to t
he dead anmaglâhk lying at the near corner where the cutway crossed the alley.

  “Please,” she begged Brot’an, “do not leave him like this.”

  Chap heard the others shifting behind him, likely looking at the body. Anmaglâhk death rites were complicated and strict, but Brot’an was unmoved.

  “I will prepare him for our ancestors,” he answered, “when the living are tended first.”

  Brot’an reached out with two fingers and snapped the shutter of Leanâlhâm’s lantern closed.

  The sudden change of light caught Chap off guard. By the time he blinked, only Leanâlhâm stood in the cutway’s far half. He lunged past the girl, peering ahead, but the anmaglâhk master was gone.

  “Come, Léshil,” Osha said in Belaskian, using Leesil’s elven name. “We go quick. Safe place.”

  Chap did not turn back for them. He ran on until the cutway emptied into another street. There he raced up and down, peering all ways.

  Brot’an was nowhere to be seen.

  Chap rumbled in his throat, even as he heard the others exit the cutway behind him. A hand fell gently on the base of his shoulders, startling him.

  “I know, old friend,” Leesil whispered, “but he will answer us, soon enough.”

  Dänvârfij—Fated Music—stood near the window of the room at their inn. Though she had chosen an establishment for her team of anmaglâhk not far from the Guild of Sagecraft, the view simply overlooked the street below. It was safer that way.

  She had sent what was left of her contingent to watch the guild’s castle from all sides. Hopefully, tonight they might finally learn the whereabouts of the monster, the one called Magiere. That one would likely return to this city somehow, someday. If she could not be spotted, then perhaps her half-elven consort or the tainted majay-hì might be. One way or another, that half-undead abomination would be found.

  Dänvârfij did not let her hopes rise too high. She and hers had been in Calm Seatt for more than two moons and yet seen no sign of Magiere or her companions. Only one hint—one hope—had surfaced last night.

  Wynn Hygeorht had returned to the guild, seemingly from nowhere.

  So long as the little sage remained here, this city was the one place where Magiere might eventually reappear. The sage was Magiere’s only other known companion besides Léshil and the majay-hì they called Chap.

  Dänvârfij still pondered how to learn where the young sage had been and how to use her if necessary to locate Magiere. As yet, nothing effective had come to mind—or at least nothing that would maintain secrecy and not end with the young sage’s death. For even if Wynn knew nothing of Magiere’s whereabouts, the little human might still be used as bait for a trap.

  Dänvârfij closed her eyes, pondering events that had brought her to this deadlock. She remembered a weathered face with sharp features and white-blond hair cut so short it bristled upon his head.

  Hkuan’duv—the Blackened Sea—had been her mentor for five years.

  She had traveled with him, trained with him, and slept beside him on the open ground. In the beginning, she hardly believed that one of the four remaining Greimasg’äh—shadow-grippers—agreed to be her jeóin, or “assentor.” He would be the one to complete her final training, until he judged her fit to stand for herself among the caste. Always cold and remote, it was only after two years with him that she had begun to suspect his feelings for her went deeper than that of a mentor.

  Dänvârfij knew she was not beautiful. Tall for her own people, she could look most males in the eyes. Her nose was a bit too long, her cheekbones a bit too wide, and then there were her scars. All anmaglâhk had scars, though some were unseen to the eye.

  But Hkuan’duv had loved her, though he had never acted on it.

  Anmaglâhk lived lives of service. They were not forbidden from bonding to another, but it was rarely done. They were wed to the guardianship of their people—in silence and in shadow—and Dänvârfij never revealed her awareness of Hkuan’duv’s true heart. The day he assented and released her among the Anmaglâhk was the day she had bested him with the bow during a hunt. In the following years, they occasionally shared purpose in a mission. She found quiet contentment, simple joy for the future, knowing she might again spend such times with him.

  It was enough—it had to be enough—until Most Aged Father sent them after that pale-skinned monster who had walked in and out of their land. They were to wait and watch until Magiere acquired an “artifact” of the Ancient Enemy and then take it from her by any means. More untenable was that one of the most honorable of the Anmaglâhk—Sgäilsheilleache, Willow’s Shade—had sworn to protect Magiere and hers. It had all ended in horror beyond Dänvârfij’s imagining.

  Hkuan’duv and Sgäilsheilleache went at each other over whatever that half-dead woman had taken from the castle. That alone was unthinkable among their caste—and then they killed each other in the same instant.

  Outnumbered amid failure, Dänvârfij had fled in grief for her homeland.

  Telling Most Aged Father what had happened was only second in misery to her loss. He had called the death of Hkuan’duv a tragedy for the Anmaglâhk—for all an’Cróan. “Tragedy” was not a strong enough word for Dänvârfij. But it was the death of Sgäilsheilleache that struck Most Aged Father the most, almost more than the failure of Dänvârfij’s purpose.

  She had seen the misery beneath the rage in the ancient patriarch’s eyes. Then, once word had somehow slipped out concerning what had happened, some anmaglâhk cursed Sgäilsheilleache as a traitor. Most Aged Father had suffered that in silence.

  The unthinkable had happened. Anmaglâhk had killed anmaglâhk. Their collective purpose had been wounded by the death of Hkuan’duv. Repercussions spread like ripples from a drop of blood striking a pool of . . .

  “Tea . . . is there any left?”

  Dänvârfij opened her eyes as she turned from the window.

  Fréthfâre—Watcher of the Woods—sat bent forward in a corner chair, a heavy walking rod leaning against her right thigh. As the true leader of the team, she was the only other who had remained behind with Dänvârfij. But she was not fit to lead, in body or in mind.

  Once the Covârleasa—Trusted Advisor—to Most Aged Father, Fréthfâre was a fanatically loyal anmaglâhk and a sometime cunning strategist. Dänvârfij had never wanted the crippled Covârleasa included in this current mission, and her doubts grew with every passing night.

  Fréthfâre’s appearance was somewhat unique among the an’Cróan. Her hair was wheat gold, not the white blond of their people. It hung in waves instead of silky and straight. In her youth, she had been viewed as slender and supple. Approaching only middle age, somewhere shy of fifty years, she appeared beyond such a reckoning and almost brittle.

  “Tea?” Fréthfâre repeated.

  “It is likely gone,” Dänvârfij answered. “I will make more.”

  She went to the room’s small hearth, built above the one below on the inn’s main floor, and set a blackened kettle in the remaining coals.

  Fréthfâre nodded and then coughed, and a cough turned to a spasm as she grimaced. She buckled even more where she sat and pressed a hand against her abdomen. That hand remained there until her shudders ceased.

  Dänvârfij watched this in silence. Her concern was not all for her companion’s state.

  Fréthfâre had aged quickly in the past two years, since the night that Magiere had run her sword through the Covârleasa’s abdomen. Fréthfâre had spent long moons recovering under the constant care of healers, but she had been crippled for life . . . however long that would last. Her suffering only fed her hatred and obsession for the one who had done this to her.

  Dänvârfij knew passionate emotion had no place in service to a purpose. But there had been nights since Hkuan’duv’s death when she doubted even herself in this.

  “Would you prefer the mint,” she asked, “or savory?”

  “The savory,” Fréthfâre whispered with effort. She finally settled back
in her chair, her breaths coming quick and shallow. A sheen had developed on her strained face.

  Lately, they spoke of nothing of import, if at all. There was little to say until sound information had been gained to fulfill their purpose.

  When the water began to hiss, Dänvârfij scalded leaves in a clay cup and held it out. Fréthfâre nodded and took it, and Dänvârfij prepared a cup for herself. It would be another long night of waiting.

  “I know,” Fréthfâre said. “I tire of this, too. But we will have our revenge.”

  There the truth slipped, and Dänvârfij said nothing. She returned to watching and poking at the floating leaves steeping in her own cup.

  Fréthfâre seemed driven only by a need for vengeance. The crippled Covârleasa should never have been assigned to this purpose, this mission—and likely she had not. At a guess, she had demanded it of Most Aged Father.

  Dänvârfij would not succumb to rage or hunger for revenge, though she had reason for both. Instead, shame and sorrow burned inside her. She had failed Most Aged Father once. She had lost a secret treasure of her own in Hkuan’duv. And her caste was tearing itself apart.

  When Most Aged Father had asked her to prepare a team and sail to a foreign continent, she had not hesitated. Their purpose was direct and clear on the surface: locate Magiere or Léshil or the tainted majay-hì, learn anything possible concerning the mysterious artifact they had recovered, and then eliminate all three.

  She had balked at the thought of killing a majay-hì until Most Aged Father convinced her the one the humans called Chap was an abomination, like the pale-skinned monster he guarded. She would always follow Most Aged Father’s counsel—as had Hkuan’duv.

  “Perhaps we could go over the city’s layout again?” Fréthfâre suggested. “Has anything further been added in scouting?”