Between Their Worlds_A Novel of the Noble Dead

by Barb Hendee

  “Dänvârfij, are you here?” he called out in their own tongue.

  He strolled to the wide street’s far side and paused, his back to her as he looked toward the bailey gate. Dänvârfij slipped her hand into the back of her tunic, reaching for the parts of her bow.

  Osha cocked his head, though he did not look up her way.

  “We must talk,” he called, as if he knew she was near.

  She drew her bone knife instead of her bow’s handle, and hooked it on the roof’s edge. Whatever he had come here for, he had to be stopped from calling her name again. It was not a long drop from a shop’s roof. She rose from her landing, bone knife in hand, and he turned to watch her.

  He appeared calm and did not move at all in the street, but he looked as tired as she felt. She took a step.

  “Far enough,” he warned.

  She halted and kept her voice lower than his. “What do you want?”

  “Nothing but to be done with you . . . all of you.”

  His voice sounded so weary beneath his anger, but Dänvârfij felt no pity for him. “The damage is done; you are a traitor in trying to kill your own!”

  “I have killed no one,” he returned.

  “You tried, and that is enough. For that, your life is forfeited.”

  The instant she took another step, he shrugged his shoulder. The bow dropped forward and he snatched it with one hand as the other quickly pulled an arrow from the quiver.

  Dänvârfij faltered, for the distance might still allow him to fire. She needed room to evade, so she could then close before he drew a second arrow.

  Osha simply held the arrow’s notched end between two fingers, not yet setting it to the bowstring.

  “I could have killed one of yours the night they came after the first wagon,” he said. “And again this very night. Those two should soon be coming to you.”

  Deep within a corner of Dänvârfij’s mind, she understood his loss and the need to lash out. He had lost his teacher, as she had lost hers, in the same instant when the two had killed each other . . . over the pale-skinned monster called Magiere. But she had not acted on those drives as Osha had. She had not abandoned her beliefs, her caste, her oath, and her people.

  “I came to tell you that Brot’ân’duivé has left the city,” Osha went on, bitterness and spite plain in his voice. “He slipped past yours and has taken Magiere, Léshil, and Chap on a ship bound for what is called the Isle of Wrêdelyd. You will not catch them, and there is nothing left here for you.”

  Her throat closed up. This could not be possible. It was a lie!

  “I do not care if you believe me,” Osha said. “I am sick of all of you. You are no better than him . . . if you think killing your own will save our people. They need saving only from you . . . and him. I am done with Brot’ân’duivé, as I am with you.”

  Dänvârfij was almost overcome by the urge to attack, but his words burned in her ears. Had he truly abandoned the traitor greimasg’äh? Had she truly let her quarry escape?

  “If you do not believe me,” Osha said, “then go and see for yourself.”

  He told her of the inn where they had all been hiding, yet he still did not move or turn away. Was this the truth—had she failed yet again in her purpose? Had Brot’ân’duivé slipped away once more, and this time taken what she and hers had sought?

  She had to reach the docks. Then another chirp in the dark startled her.

  Without thinking, Dänvârfij glanced up the street into the city, and then looked back in panic.

  Osha was gone.

  She almost ran out to look for him. There were few ways he could have taken in that brief mistake of hers, but too much had been already lost. She turned, running for the shop’s wall to reach the roof once more.

  As Dänvârfij finally gripped the roof’s edge, pulling herself up, Én’nish was waiting for her rather than on watch at the waterfront.

  Brot’ân’duivé remained unseen in the night shadows outside a waterfront warehouse as he waited for Osha. Once the skiff came in for its arranged final trip, he would have to step out to meet it at the dock. If the skiff arrived and found no one waiting, it would simply leave.

  He did not fear being seen once he left the shadows, for he believed Léshil’s plan to pull the anmaglâhk away had certainly worked. Even now, Osha should have found Dänvârfij or one of her comrades near the guild’s castle and panicked them into gathering in an effort to verify his story. Osha was then to return to the waterfront to board the ship.

  The best of the lie that Brot’ân’duivé had formulated for Dänvârfij had been that it was the truth. Dänvârfij and Fréthfâre would be in full panic once they found Magiere’s last hiding place was empty. By the time they converged on the waterfront, any ship they managed to board and search would give them nothing.

  Magiere would be long gone, and they would have to wait to follow her.

  Brot’ân’duivé wanted them to wait—and to follow. For in all the plans concerning the orbs, there were three factors that concerned him the most.

  First, he had had to choose whom to follow in going after only one orb at a time. Following Magiere was the only true choice, though Wynn Hygeorht seemed to know much more about the devices.

  Second, keeping his enemies far from as many facts as possible meant keeping them away from the young sage. And again, that meant keeping their focus on Magiere in their ignorance. But this also served Brot’ân’duivé’s final concern.

  And last, Dänvârfij, Fréthfâre, and all with them would never give up. It would not matter how many ways he found to hamper them. If he was to keep them from completing their purpose, they would have to be brought within his reach. They must follow Magiere—and him—and he would not leave one of them alive in the end.

  His people’s freedom from Most Aged Father depended on this, just as their survival in what would come might depend on these unknown devices of the Ancient Enemy.

  The waterfront was far beyond sight of the small castle of the human sages, yet Brot’ân’duivé looked up the street between the warehouses and into the city.

  Three bells for midnight rang softly across Calm Seatt, and still there was no sign of Osha.

  Whatever had happened to the young one, Brot’ân’duivé could only hope that Osha had fulfilled his final task. There was no time for worry, disappointment . . . or even grief, if the worst had happened. In that last concern, he had one dark hope.

  It seemed impossible that Osha could have died. No, not for the sake of the unexplained fate that had separated the young one from the life he had wanted most of all. Osha had to be alive, which meant he had chosen not to return as instructed.

  Brot’ân’duivé looked toward the bay and saw the skiff coming in. He slipped from the shadows and headed silently up the nearest dock, waiting until the skiff arrived and a heavily bearded sailor climbed up the ladder.

  “Any baggage?” the man asked.

  Brot’ân’duivé shook his head.

  “Then we’d best go. Captain wasn’t thrilled with this delay for a late-night pickup.”

  Brot’ân’duivé hesitated. “One moment,” he said, and looked again toward the city.

  “You waitin’ for someone else?” the sailor asked.

  Brot’ân’duivé lingered, ignoring the sailor, until he heard the man sigh. Then he turned and followed the sailor down the ladder into the skiff.

  Leanâlhâm stood at the ship’s rail, waiting for the skiff to return. In the last year of crossing the world, she had waited too many times. However, the worst of this instance was not being without the certain protection of a greimasg’äh but wondering when Osha would finally return.

  It was so dark across the water to the lights of the human city, and waiting yet again grew to be too much. As late as it was, she needed something to fill the moments. It did not matter anymore if she took up her final task without Brot’ân’duivé.

  Leanâlhâm turned away, ignoring the stares of two sailors o
n deck. She descended the ladder below the aftcastle to hurry for the cargo bay. She paused at its door long enough to turn up her oil lantern and then peeked inside, making certain no sailors were in there. The bay was only half full, and thankfully the two trunks were in easy reach and not buried beneath other cargo. She set down the lantern and crouched before the first one.

  “I am here,” she said, struggling with the strap buckles on the slightly smaller trunk. “One moment.”

  It took longer than that before the straps were free. She pulled a cord with a set of keys over her head to unlock the trunk’s catch. It took both hands for her to heave the lid open.

  Magiere sucked a deep breath and struggled out of the ball she was curled into inside the trunk.

  “Are you all right?” Leanâlhâm asked.

  Magiere struggled up to her feet, scowling as she worked one stiff knee and growled, “Leesil is never planning anything again!”

  “Oh, quit whining,” came a muffled voice from the other trunk. “It worked, didn’t it?”

  The other trunk suddenly vibrated amid an erratic thumping from within.

  “Hey!” Léshil shouted louder. “For the last time, Chap . . . get your butt out of my face!”

  Leanâlhâm’s mouth gaped.

  Magiere groaned under her breath. “Let’s get them out of there . . . before Chap gets bitten.”

  Leanâlhâm crawled to the second chest, waiting as Magiere quickly undid the straps, and then she fumbled once while getting the key into the lock.

  “Hurry up, already,” Léshil cried out.

  Magiere quickly heaved open the lid. Inside the trunk, Leanâlhâm found Chap almost upside down atop Léshil, who was crushed at the bottom.

  “What took so long?” he demanded.

  “Oh, quit your whining,” Magiere answered.

  “Yeah? Well, you had a private ‘room,’” Leesil retorted. “Next time, you get to bunk with his sacred stinkyness.”

  “I said there won’t be a next time,” Magiere warned.

  Leanâlhâm could only imagine how awful the afternoon and half a night had been for these three, locked up like this. Even with a water skin each and some air holes punched low in the trunks’ sides, it must have been more than stifling.

  Chap launched off the top of Léshil’s stomach, and Leanâlhâm had to duck.

  Léshil made a retching sound. “Ow! Valhachkasej’â, you mongrel!”

  Leanâlhâm gasped at Léshil’s curse. As Chap landed on the floorboards behind her, she gripped the trunk’s edge, leaning straight into Léshil’s face.

  “You do not speak to him that way!” she admonished.

  Léshil lurched away, his back flattened against the trunk’s far side. “But he . . . I only . . .”

  “He is a sacred guardian of my people!” Leanâlhâm shouted, too outraged for any of his excuses. “You will show respect.”

  Léshil just blinked twice and looked up at Magiere.

  Magiere took in Leesil’s dumbstruck face, and she held up both hands. “I’m not getting into the middle of this.”

  Leesil’s eyes narrowed on Chap, though he clenched his mouth shut in an angry pout under Leanâlhâm’s steady glare. It didn’t help that Chap peeked around from behind the girl and flicked his tongue out and up over his nose.

  This had to be more than just the girl reacting to Leesil’s and Chap’s foul moods. Leanâlhâm had been left on her own for too long, too worried about all that was happening beyond her reach.

  Magiere reached down and grasped the girl’s arm, pulling her. “Come on . . . we could all do with some fresh air.”

  Leanâlhâm grasped Magiere’s arm in turn. “No! You cannot be seen. . . . What if all did not go right . . . the other anmaglâhk come for the ship . . . or someone here betrays you?”

  “We’ll be fine,” Magiere assured, though more than ever she realized how difficult things were going to become with Leanâlhâm to watch over. “Brot’an set up the timing and they should both be aboard soon. We’ll be out of port before anyone knows it.”

  Leanâlhâm calmed a little, though she still looked uncertain. She wouldn’t let go of Magiere’s arm.

  “Yes,” someone said. “The sails are being set.”

  Magiere spun, pushing the girl behind her as she reached for her falchion. Her hand never found the hilt, as her sword was still in the first trunk. There was Brot’an in the hold’s doorway. As he stepped in, Leanâlhâm ducked around Magiere.

  “Greimasg’äh!” she breathed in relief.

  Leanâlhâm seldom appeared glad to see the elder of the anmaglâhk, but she now smiled at the sight of him. Brot’an only nodded and, pulling down the hood of his cloak, stepped right past her toward Magiere. So little could ever be read on Brot’an’s scarred face that the slight wrinkle of his brow put Magiere on edge.

  “What now?” Leesil asked.

  Obviously he’d caught the flicker of expression, as well, though Chap was strangely silent. Brot’an looked between them, perhaps considering his words, and that started Magiere worrying even more.

  “Where is Osha?”

  At Leanâlhâm’s question, Magiere spotted the girl outside the hold’s doorway and peering down some outer passage. Brot’ân’duivé’s mouth visibly tightened, and he didn’t look back at the girl.

  “What happened?” Magiere asked, growing alarmed.

  “Ahäichei Osha?” Leanâlhâm nearly screamed at Brot’an.

  When he still didn’t answer, she turned and ran out of sight up the passage.

  Magiere shoved past Brot’an, racing after Leanâlhâm, as she felt the ship lurch under rising sails.

  Dänvârfij did not know what to expect as she ran out onto the waterfront with Én’nish.

  “What do we do?” Én’nish breathed.

  Dänvârfij stood there, staring at the few ships still in dock. If Osha had spoken the truth, then none of these vessels would gain her anything.

  Én’nish had little more to offer on the way here. She could only relate that there had been another decoy, and that Rhysís had been wounded but was well enough to have returned to their quarters on his own. In that, Dänvârfij truly worried that Osha had spoken the truth.

  Rhysís should not have been outdone by the likes of Osha, that pathetic excuse for one of her caste on whom Sgäilsheilleache had taken pity. But Osha had beaten Rhysís with a bow.

  Dänvârfij tried to see out across the great bay, but in the dark and over the distance, she could not make out whether there was an outbound vessel. What could she do now?

  Footsteps on wood rose behind her, and she spotted a large human male in a striped shirt and long coat of shaggy black fur striding down a pier toward the shore.

  “Wait here,” Dänvârfij told Én’nish.

  She quickly pulled down her face wrap and hood. Stepping slow and steady, she gave the heavy man time to spot her before going to meet him.

  “Pardon,” she said. “You are a master here?”

  He stopped, looking her up and down and then straight in the eyes, for she was as tall as he. She was obviously a foreigner, but most likely he would mistake her as one of the elves of this continent that she had heard mentioned twice in her time here.

  “Ship?” she asked. “Bound for the isle?”

  This was the only hint Osha had given her. Her Numanese was not perfect, but that last word would be enough for the man to understand her intention.

  “You mean Wrêdelyd?” he asked. “You looking for passage?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sorry, the only ship I’ve heard bound for there just set sail.” He shrugged and pointed off toward the waterfront’s north end. “Leave word with the harbormaster about where you’re staying. When the next ship headed that way comes in, he’ll let you know.”

  She could not even bring herself to shake her head as she tried to think of what to do next. Nothing came of it other than that she would have to explain all of this to Fréthfâre.

  D
änvârfij turned away from the man without even a thank-you. She had let the monster—and any whereabouts of the artifact—slip from her grasp again.

  Brot’ân’duivé now had both.

  The following night, Chane paced alone in the guild’s inner courtyard. Events of the recent days and nights were fresh in his mind. He was a little surprised, perhaps annoyed, to find himself missing Ore-Locks’s company.

  They’d arranged for the dwarf to head back to Dhredze Seatt as soon as Leesil’s plan had been set in motion. Ore-Locks’s tasks were done, and after all he had learned of the orb—the orbs—he had grown increasingly anxious to return home.

  In that, Chane had agreed. No matter that the orb of Earth was hidden away with the Stonewalkers; he trusted only Ore-Locks where the orb was concerned.

  Tonight, Wynn had gone to the main library to search for all possible routes, should they start a new journey soon. The library held more recent maps versus those in the archives, but Chane suspected that she wanted to be alone with her thoughts. A little time on his own was not unwelcome, either, now that a calm had settled over the guild, though he wished she had not grown so quiet.

  Upon their return the previous night, as promised, Hawes had brought them in and dealt with the council. An instant storm rose over Wynn’s change of order. It seemed that simply changing robes was not all there was to this, and a petition process was required first. The arduous review and examination would be much the same as for any apprentice first applying for jouneyor status.

  Fortunately, Premin Hawes had handled that, as well, or at least Chane assumed so. No one on the council, nor Domin High-Tower himself, had come at Wynn with any further requirements. Likely Hawes had simply told them it would be easier for her to keep an eye on Wynn if they waived any re-petitioning. Still, many an eye among the guild’s populace would turn Wynn’s way at the sight of her new midnight blue robe. On the surface, she would be treated like any other sage of rank, or so Hawes had proclaimed.

  In Chane’s view, Wynn’s change of garb carried an extra warning not to tamper with a journeyor under the cold, watchful eyes of the premin of metaology. That was enough for now, but he wondered what hid beneath that protection. He would not forget the premin’s reactions to Wynn’s greater knowledge of the orbs and what lay within the scroll that he carried.