by Barb Hendee
Chane had never thought himself capable of anything resembling contentment. The closest he had ever come was in her company, especially when he was alone with her.
“Did you uncover anything today?” he asked, forestalling other concerns.
The near-soundless rasp of his own voice suddenly bothered him more than usual. Some years past, Magiere had severed his head; he had become whole again only through someone else’s arcane means. But his voice had never healed and likely never would.
Still silent, Wynn shook her head and glanced around at his sparsely furnished room. He required little besides a bed, a desk, ink, quills, paper, and the books he was studying.
“No,” she finally said, “and I spent all day in the archives.”
She sounded strained—and uncomfortable—as if she did not want to be here.
Chane clenched his jaw for an instant. “As I told you . . . I think the archives are a waste of your time. You and Hawes should focus on the scroll.”
Wynn looked up at him and nearly snapped, “Premin Hawes has other duties. She can’t spend all of her time playing nursemaid and tutoring me in using my mantic sight.”
“I do not want you using your mantic sight,” he shot back.
He quickly regretted that, considering that her mantic sight was required to read the scroll. They both fell silent for a long moment.
“The scroll is still the more likely option,” he said quietly.
He knew he was right, just as she did. He also knew there were issues with his perspective on this matter. Several years ago he had by happenstance stumbled upon that scroll containing a hidden and possibly prophetic poem written by one of the first thirteen vampires to walk upon the world. The verses contained metaphoric clues to the locations of the five orbs, or at least as somehow known long, long ago by the author.
And the poem had been written in the fluids of an undead and then covered with dark ink.
Wynn was the only one who could read those obscured verses.
She had once faltered in an unschooled use of a thaumaturgical ritual, and the taint of that failure had left her afflicted with mantic sight—the ability to see traces of the Elements, or at least Spirit, in all things. Once she invoked her sight, she could also see the absence of Spirit, such as in the fluids of a physical undead used for the poem hidden beneath the ink. But the aftermath was dangerous.
Wynn became dizzy and nauseated, sometimes even disoriented, and she could maintain her sight for only a short time without becoming more intensely ill. Worse, even when she wished to end her mantic sight, she could not. Someone like Premin Hawes was required to step in and help her. Strangely enough, Shade as well could sometimes help Wynn with this, but only if Wynn did not push such a session too far or too long.
So far Wynn had managed to recover and translate some useful phases, including one sentence that might bear on their current task.
The Wind was banished to the waters within the sands where we were born.
Premin Hawes reasoned that the “we” was a reference to “the Children,” those first thirteen undead—vampires—who had once served the Ancient Enemy itself. It was reasonable to assume that “Wind” corresponded to the orb of Air, for the other elemental metaphors in the poem, five in all, equally hinted at the other orbs. As to “sands,” this might refer to the great desert that spanned the continent between the northern Numan and Lhoin’na lands and the Suman Empire to the south. Hawes asserted that the climate there had changed in a thousand years and what was now a desert might have once been water, at least partly.
It was shortly thereafter when Magiere and those with her escaped from Calm Seatt to head toward il’Dha’ab Najuum. One of their first tasks upon arrival was to contact a ranking sage of the guild’s third branch, the Suman branch: Domin Ghassan il’Sänke, a domin of Metaology.
No one knew whether he would help or not, but il’Sänke favored Wynn, and he was quite possibly the only one who could help find the lost resting place of the orb of Air. Wynn, Shade, and Chane had remained behind in the hopes of launching their own search for the orb of Spirit.
And so far Wynn had uncovered nothing new of use.
The only clues she’d ever found had come from the scroll.
“We need something soon,” Chane said. “Perhaps you could ask Hawes to . . . let you try the scroll again.”
Premin Hawes was cautious about Wynn using her ability too often. In truth, Premin Hawes was not as cautious as was Chane—or Shade—but he was desperate for something—anything.
Wynn took a slow breath. “I’ll ask her.” Then she turned away. “I should go and . . . check on Osha.”
Chane almost grabbed Wynn’s arm.
That elf—an’Cróan, onetime assassin, interloper—should have left with Magiere. And yet Wynn insisted on being solicitous, checking on him.
It was intolerable.
“If something had changed for him, you would have heard of it,” he began, trying to find anything to dissuade her. “So why bother if you have nothing new to tell him . . . or me?”
Chane only half regretted those words, as Wynn halted halfway to the door. When she did not turn to look at him, he no longer regretted them at all. Then he heard her tired sigh.
“He is all alone here,” she said, still not looking at him. “He doesn’t have anyone here besides . . .”
She did not finish, so he did so for her.
“Besides you?” he nearly hissed. “And that is likely as he wishes it, planned it.”
Wynn started to turn. “Chane, we have more important matters to—”
Suddenly, he did not want to hear any more and pushed past her, opening the door to step out. “I will go check on Kyne and Shade. Someone needs to watch over them, so the girl is not run ragged.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Chane reached the stairs, never answering Wynn, and he did not hear any footfalls coming after him.
• • •
Osha—“a Sudden Breeze”—heard words, out in the passage, between Wynn and the little human girl who came before dawn each day to that undead’s chamber. He had almost stepped out of his room but then changed his mind, waiting to see whether Wynn came to him or . . .
She went to that monster instead.
How she could, or why she let that little girl do so, was unbelievable. All he could do was wait in silence for her to come to him last. She would, eventually, now that she had finally returned again.
Osha spent much time in this room. His tall body, white-blond hair, long features, and slanted amber eyes brought too many curious stares from the sages here. And then the questions began, as if the sages were prodding and poking him with their words, some of which he did not understand. In another life so recently lost, he had hidden himself away inside the forest gray cowl of an anmaglâhk. Now he dressed like a human traveler, in a human world he did not understand.
Over the past half-moon, he had begun to question his choice to remain here, to protect Wynn in her efforts as she had once protected him . . . from that same creature now lodged in the room across the passage.
Nothing had transpired as he had envisioned at the moment in which he found her again.
Nothing was like it had been once before.
More than two years ago Osha had accompanied Wynn, as well as her companions and his jeóin and teacher, Sgäilsheilleache, into the ever-frozen heights of the Pock Peaks of the eastern continent. He had helped the best that he could in their search for what he now knew as the orb of Water. At the time he had been an anmaglâhk in training, and his mentor, Sgäilsheilleache, had sworn guardianship to Magiere, Leesil, and Wynn.
Osha had stood true to the promise of guardianship . . . perhaps most especially for Wynn.
That had grown into something more, though his own kind might have found this loathsome.
While on a ship near the beginning of that journey, Wynn had asked him about himself, about his dreams, and, in all his life no one else had ever done so. It had been almost startling. Once they returned to land and began the climb into the snow-covered peaks, the journey became grueling and so long that customs soon broke for the sake of survival.
In the freezing nights with nothing but a thin tent for shelter, Wynn had slept on his chest, wrapped inside his cloak, allowing him to keep her warm. He had scavenged food for her and melted down water for them to drink, and, when threatened by enemies, she had run to him, seeking protection beneath his arm.
It meant something to him—more than he could put into words.
She was nothing like the humans that he—his people—hated and feared. Later she had tried to teach him how to dance at Magiere and Leesil’s wedding. No one had ever paid him so much notice.
When he had finally been forced to leave, to catch one of his people’s ships waiting nearby in hiding, she had walked to the docks of the noisy and smelly city of Bela with him. And even when they had said farewell, and he had reluctantly turned away through the crowd . . .
Wynn had run after him, thrown herself at him, and kissed him.
Even now Osha could still feel the soft press of her small mouth.
Then Wynn was gone, running off along the docks. He had no choice but to leave for the ship that would take him home, along with the journal she had given to him to deliver to Brot’ân’duivé.
Too much had happened since then—too much blood spilled, too much forced upon him . . . too much taken from him.
For one foolish moment more than a half-moon ago, he had been reunited briefly with Wynn. He had thought if he could only remain with her, all his pain would cease and the world might make sense once again.
Nothing had come about as he had envisioned.
Wynn had changed. He had changed. And, worse, he was now forced to accept that dead-pale thing waking each night across the passage.
How could Wynn expect this of him?
Osha heard a door open and then voices, though he missed what was said. At the rasping of that thing in the passage, heavy footfalls rushed away down the stairs. Still he waited, knowing that he would hear . . .
A knock sounded on his door.
He hesitated, glancing at an object lying at the foot of his bed. Slender and long, wrapped in canvas and left on the floor, as if to be hidden even as a known burden—it was unwanted. His longbow leaned against the wall by the door, ever ready along with a quiver of black-feathered arrows. He had few other personal possessions.
And the soft knock came again.
Osha stepped quickly this time and opened the door.
Wynn, wearing the strange night-blue robe instead of her proper gray one of the past, stood outside in the passage. Though she looked at him, this lasted only an instant before she dropped her gaze and asked him something in his own tongue.
“Are you going to the common hall for dinner?”
Though she spoke his language surprisingly well, she still had a strange way with some words. She always asked about his eating habits, and it had taken time for him to understand that this was her way to avoid saying anything that meant something . . . to him.
Obviously that thing across the hall had upset her again—as the vampire had a habit of making her life difficult. Why did she tolerate his presence?
Osha wanted to speak only of the past—their past together. He wanted to ask her what it had meant to her, what it still might mean. But it was now clear that this was the last thing she wanted.
Instead she wanted to know what had happened to him after she had left him on the docks.
Why had he left the Anmaglâhk?
How had he gotten the burn scars on his wrists?
Why was Brot’ân’duivé at war with his own caste?
What was happening among the an’Cróan?
Why had Osha left his home again and traveled halfway across the world to this continent, and why had Brot’ân’duivé brought Leanâlhâm as well?
And then, worst of all . . .
What was wrapped inside that canvas lying at the end of his bed?
All that she wanted to speak of were the things he no longer wanted to think upon. So they talked about little else but meals.
“Yes, I will go,” he answered. “Will you come?”
Sometimes, if she did not have duties with the strange one of cold eyes, Premin Hawes, she would go to the common hall and eat with him. He should cherish even that little . . . He should have.
She did not answer, and, as so often happened, her eyes strayed to the long, wrapped object on the floor. He tried not to tense, hoping she did not ask about it again. He had not even looked upon what was hidden in there since he had landed on the far side of this continent in following Brot’ân’duivé.
Wynn’s gaze shifted to his bow and quiver. She smiled slightly.
“You’ve become a good archer since . . . since before. How did that happen?”
An innocent question, but it was another way to press him to talk about the few years between their journey to the Pock Peaks and now.
“Many things have changed since . . . before,” he said, echoing her own slip, her reference to a past that he wished she would acknowledge. “You once tried to teach me to dance,” he countered against her evasion. “I still do not know how.”
He spotted the slight wince of Wynn’s left eye before she turned away.
“I need to see Premin Hawes, as we have more work to do,” she said, this time in her own tongue. Her pace quickened, as if she could not bear him to say anything else. “I wanted to see if you’d eaten, so you’d best go down to dinner.”
Osha stared down the passage long after Wynn had vanished. Much as he wanted to, he did not follow her.
Chapter Two
Wynn left the guest quarters floor and headed back down to the old storage building’s main passage.
After facing Osha, she hoped not to run into Chane again. Shade would be fine a little while longer with Kyne, especially if Chane had caught up to the pair. Wynn continued along the passage, but as she neared the door out into the courtyard, she turned right into a workshop. Then she cut along its near wall to the back corner and then down another staircase.
She stepped out into a narrow stone corridor on the first sublevel below the storage building’s main floor; the hallway was lit by two wall-mounted cold lamps with bulging metal bases. Alchemical fluids provided mild heat that charged the lamps’ special crystals, which, in place of a burning wick, produced light. She counted three wide iron doors on both sides of the passage, and behind those were the lower laboratories of the guild . . . except for the last one on the right. Wynn headed for that door, which was as tightly shut as the others, and she knocked softly.
“Premin, are you in?”
She barely heard footsteps on the other side, and then the door opened with a tiny squeal from its iron hinges.
Wynn faced a mature, slight woman in a midnight blue robe: Premin Frideswida Hawes, head of the branch’s order of Metaology. With the premin’s cowl down around her shoulders, her ash gray, short-cropped hair bristled about her head. Any lines of age were faint in her even, small features, down to her narrow mouth and chin—the latter similar to an elf’s. Though severe looking, she was not unattractive until one fixed on her piercing and pale hazel eyes that made one think of ice.
Premin Hawes held a folded piece of paper in one hand. Her eyes widened for less than a blink at the sight of Wynn; that was the limit of surprise that anyone ever saw on this premin’s face.
“Ah, Wynn . . . I wasn’t expecting . . .” Hawes trailed off.
It was Wynn’s turn to be surprised, for the premin looked almost distracted. That never happened, as far as Wynn knew, even when Hawes appeared to
be lost in thought.
“May I speak with you?” Wynn asked hesitantly. She glanced down the short three-step passage beyond the premin that emptied into the left side of a small chamber. Somewhere to the right and out of sight, a dimming cold lamp lit the space.
“Certainly,” Hawes said, though she hesitated again, which made Wynn nervous. “Come in.”
The premin turned away, and Wynn followed after closing the heavy door.
All she could see from the hallway were shelves pegged in the chamber’s left wall. These were filled with books, bound sheaves, and a few narrow upright cylinders of wood, brass, or unglazed ceramic. But as she stepped into the little chamber, she found stout, shallow tables and squat casements stuffed with more texts along the back wall as well. There were also odd little contrivances and unrecognizable devices of metal, crystal and glass, and wood and leather set erratically on the shallow tables and atop the casements.
Pushed up against the room’s right wall was an age-darkened desk of abundant small drawers below a top covered in stacks of papers, parchments, and sheaves. And there sat a cold lamp, with its dimming crystal inside its glass cover, on the desk’s corner.
Wynn’s gaze roamed over the stacks on the desk, as well as a few mortars and small bowls filled with granules and powders of varied colors. An array of articulated brass arms was anchored to the desk’s far front corner, each arm bearing a framed magnifying lens. All the arms were mounted so that any one or more of the lenses could twist in or out of alignment with the others. The chamber was clearly a workspace whose contents had piled up over many years. Premin Hawes did not go to her rickety and plain desk chair or simply turn to face Wynn.
Instead she settled slowly in the old armchair, of tattered blue fabric, which barely fit into the little room’s right corner beyond the desk. She leaned back, as if lost in a fleeting thought . . . still with that folding paper pinched in two long narrow fingers.
“What can I do for you?” Hawes asked absently.
She didn’t even look at Wynn, though she curled her fingers to grip the paper with her thumb as well . . . tightly.