by Barb Hendee
Premin Hawes’s eyes wandered again, and her smooth brow wrinkled so slightly. It was the closest thing to worry that Wynn had ever seen on the face of the premin of Metaology.
“Of course I’ll go,” Wynn said, “with my companions. I’ll need them.”
Hawes actually flinched, which made Wynn do so as well, as the premin came out of whatever deep thought had distracted her.
Premin Hawes was definitely not her usual self this night, and she pointed to a bulky oiled canvas satchel on her desk.
“There are the requested texts for Master Columsarn’s eyes only,” she said, “though you should familiarize yourself with them. You will have to watch over Nikolas in whatever lies ahead.”
Wynn nodded as she picked up the satchel, but before she could turn to leave, the premin continued.
“Domin High-Tower and Premin Sykion are worried about Nikolas’s state. He has physically recovered from the assault by the wraith, but there are concerns. I should have minimal trouble gaining permission for your leave of absence, since you are now under my charge and will be on an errand for me, traveling to the same destination as Nikolas. High Premin Sykion will likely be glad to have you off someplace else.” She rose, stepped to the desk, opened a drawer, and took out a pouch. “I will arrange passage on Nikolas’s ship for the three of—”
“Four of us,” Wynn corrected. Whether she wanted Osha along or not, she couldn’t see how she could leave him behind.
“As you wish.” Hawes returned and handed over the pouch. “There is enough for your travel expenses when you land.”
Wynn looked inside the pouch. There were far more coins than any stipend she had ever received—would have received—from the guild.
“Premin . . . this is your own money. I cannot—”
“Take it,” Hawes ordered. “I have no need of it, and this is too important a matter.”
The premin gestured toward the short three-step passage to the door. Wynn nodded and turned to leave as Shade stepped out ahead of her. They had barely walked out into the courtyard when Wynn halted and turned to Shade.
“Anything?” she asked.
Shade shook her head, a too-humanlike response.
Wynn sighed, though she hadn’t truly expected Shade to succeed. The dog couldn’t catch actual conscious thoughts. But like her father, Chap, if Shade focused on someone, she could pick up fleeting memories rising in anyone’s mind, so long as she wasn’t distracted in nosing about.
There were very few people Wynn had ever encountered who could hide surfacing memories from Shade. Chane was one, but only because of the brass “ring of nothing,” stolen from Welstiel Massing, Magiere’s undead half brother, that he wore.
Premin Frideswida Hawes was another.
Much as such subterfuge was ungrateful, considering all that Hawes had done, Wynn needed to know as much as she could about what was going on inside her guild branch . . . and anything the premin of Metaology might be hiding.
—Satchel . . . more . . . books—
Wynn started slightly at Shade’s memory-words. “I have it, and . . . what other books?”
Shade slipped in close and tucked her nose under Wynn’s palm. At that touch a memory rose in Wynn’s mind, and it wasn’t her own. This was something unique that Shade could do only with Wynn.
Wynn—Shade—sat off to one side and peeked behind Premin Hawes’s armchair, as she had moments before in the study. In that hidden space between the chair and the bookcase’s end was a large drawstring sack rather than an actual satchel. The way it bulged with square edges suggested there were possibly books inside of it. Many such.
Shade pulled her nose away and sat staring up. The image vanished instantly.
—Other . . . satchel— . . . —Other . . . books—
Wynn was lost as to what this meant. The only books needing packaging were the ones she held, so what were the others for? Then she thought of the expedition.
—Many spaces in . . . shelves— . . . —Missing . . . books—
Wynn wasn’t certain what Shade meant. Among supplies to be taken to the little guild branch in Bela, situated in a decommissioned city guard barracks, there would be many newly copied texts to increase its holdings. Those would be packaged in crates for the long journey across this continent and the eastern ocean. Such books wouldn’t come from any private library of . . .
Wynn turned, staring at the door that led back into the storage building . . . and to the stairs leading down to the laboratories and Premin Hawes’s private study.
“Oh, no,” she whispered.
Premin Hawes had packed books from her own library. There was only one reason for that: she was going with the expedition. That meant that she had failed to stop the other sages from launching the journey.
Wynn grew frantic, trying to think of a way to warn everyone off of this foolishness. But even if she did, that would reveal she knew something she wasn’t supposed to know. And there was the messenger, the invader into the dwarves’ underworld, and Nikolas, and all of whatever was now rising around her search for an orb.
Why was it that no matter what she did, there would always be a price?
• • •
After Wynn had gone off to speak with this Premin Hawes, Osha returned to the solitude of his room to get away from Chane. Though he had said little during the exchange between Wynn and Chane, he had understood the magnitude of what that undead had recounted.
Something was about to happen. Osha simply did not know what. So he waited, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his room. His mind had just achieved a state of stillness when he heard light footsteps in the passage outside.
Someone knocked on his door.
Osha rose fluidly and reached the door in one long step. It would be Wynn, as only she ever came to see him.
So it was when he opened the door. She slipped inside along with the black majay-hì, and Osha took in the sight of Wynn’s pretty oval face and olive-toned skin. There was worry, maybe even fright, there, though he did not know where it came from.
Had Chane done something?
“We’re leaving the day after tomorrow,” she blurted out in Elvish. “Premin Hawes is sending us with the young sage I mentioned, Nikolas. There is not much time to prepare, but his passage has already been arranged. The premin thinks she can get us on the same ship.”
“I could leave tonight if you asked,” he said, motioning around the room. “I have little to pack.”
Although Osha was uncertain this journey would lead to anything of use, his relief at the prospect of traveling outside this guild was profound. But even with Wynn’s excitement, there was still that strange concern on her face.
To his surprise, she appeared relieved by his reply.
“You do not mind?” she asked. “You will come with us to protect Nikolas and help me with what might be a wild-goose chase?”
He did not understand what geese had to do with any of this, but her words made him almost angry. Why did she think he had come here if not to help her?
Perhaps his own expression betrayed him.
She stepped closer, and it seemed that her concern, her worry, was suddenly focused on him. Then she glanced away at the long, canvas-wrapped bundle at the end of his bed.
“Before we leave,” she began, “could you tell me something of what happened to you since we parted on the docks of Bela? This might prove a dangerous journey, and I feel . . . I feel like I do not know you anymore. You have changed.”
“And so have you,” he returned. It sounded bitter to his own ears, and he swallowed hard.
What if he was wrong? What if the chasm between them was due to how much he had changed and not her?
“What caused this change in you?” she asked, barely above a whisper, and she glanced at the wrapped bundle at the bed’s end.
T
he black majay-hì called Shade never blinked as she watched him. And Wynn looked back to him as well. Now there was as much expectation in her small, brown human eyes as there was frantic worry on her face.
Though she asked what had changed him, perhaps when would have been the better question.
Well over a year ago, he had still been an anmaglâhk in his homeland on the eastern continent, as he had tried to find some purpose to his life while in the main enclave of the Coilehkrotall clan and the dwelling of Leanâlhâm and the old healer Gleannéohkân’thva. He had come to bring them tragic tidings: the death of their loved one, the great Sgäilsheilleache, who had also been Osha’s jeóin, or mentor, for his final training.
Osha had been determined to stay and help them heal, if he could. In this way he could atone for having brought them such news. But also he needed to do so, for he could not face his own losses in all that had happened.
Only a few days after his arrival, the greimasg’äh—Brot’ân’duivé—had uprooted him by showing him a small, smooth stone sent by the Chein’âs—the Burning Ones. Brot’ân’duivé told him what was etched upon the stone in claw marks—“a sudden breeze.”
It was the meaning of the name “Osha” had taken when he had gone to the ancestors’ burial ground as a youth for his name-taking.
He was being summoned for a second time to the Chein’âs.
They lived in the lava-heated depths of the mountains bordering the an’Cróan’s southern territories. Once young initiates completed basic training and received approval by the caste’s elders to stand among the caste, word was sent to the Chein’âs via the Séyilf—the Windblown, winged people. When new weapons and tools were ready, the Chein’âs sent a stone—a summons—to a caste elder among the Anmaglâhk. One elder then guided the initiate on a journey to the fiery cavern to receive those precious gifts.
Like all newly approved Anmaglâhk, Osha had received his weapons and thereby was allowed to seek out an experienced member of the caste as a jeóin to finish his training. He had known even before then that he wanted no one but the great Sgäilsheilleache for his mentor.
But young anmaglâhk were never summoned a second time.
Something was very wrong, yet he dared not refuse . . . even if he had known then what waited for him at the end of that second journey.
“Tell me,” Wynn pressed, inching closer. “Please . . . What happened to you?”
Even at the sight of her eager, worried eyes, he could not answer, though he wanted to. To do so would only widen the chasm between them, and he needed to cross that before he could take such a risk. And he needed to know why she had changed so much in so many ways: another wayward majay-hì at her side, the strange robe she now wore, and . . . that undead thing who went everywhere with her.
Osha turned away. “I will be ready to leave when you are.”
At her sudden intake of breath, he could not bear to look back at any disappointment on her face, though he almost did. Instead, in that quick flinch, he found the black majay-hì still watching him.
• • •
After delivering the news to Osha and then Chane concerning their impending departure, Wynn retreated to her room with Shade and sank onto her bed. She knew she had preparations to make, especially informing Nikolas of the change in plan. But somehow she didn’t think he would object to having her company foisted upon him on this journey. Even if he did, he certainly wouldn’t argue with Premin Hawes.
Wynn had what she needed: the freedom to seek out this messenger and the invader into the Stonewalkers’ realm. Though they were described in the same way, she doubted they could be the same person, due to the distance between their two closely timed appearances.
She tried not to think too much more on that . . . or on all the implications connected to Nikolas’s father in the attempt to reach one of the orbs. No, in this moment, she couldn’t help the rising sadness when Osha had seemed on the brink of finally telling her about things that mattered.
She’d watched him close himself off before her eyes. She shouldn’t have asked so much of him in the middle of everything else.
Now that she, Chane, and Shade—and Osha—would embark on a journey where they had to depend on one another, she had no idea what scars or damage Osha was hiding. They could not afford any complications.
Shade whined and pressed herself against Wynn’s leg.
“What is it?” she asked, reaching out to stroke the dog’s head.
An image flashed in her mind.
She was inside a great tree dwelling, like those of the an’Cróan homes, and in the bottom of her view were knees—her knees in that moment—covered in forest gray pants of worn cloth. This wasn’t Shade’s memory, though Wynn recognized the home of Gleannéohkân’thva and Leanâlhâm.
Directly in front of her, Leanâlhâm was weeping. For an instant Wynn fought the strange memory passed to her by Shade.
—From . . . Osha—
Shade was passing on something she’d seen in Osha, which meant Wynn was seeing through Osha’s eyes. Hoping to see more, she gripped the fur on Shade’s back.
The scene changed.
Wynn—Osha—stood before Brot’an, and the elder anmaglâhk’s face was visibly tense as he held out a small black polished stone.
Wynn—Osha—said to him, “I already made my journey to them years past to receive my weapons and tools. Why do you show me that?”
“Now they have called you back.”
“No!” Osha cried. “They call us once, when the elders of our caste approve an initiate to seek out a jeóin. That stone is a mistake!”
“There are no such mistakes,” lashed a soft voice.
Outside the memory, Wynn gasped. Within the memory, Osha turned his head to see Leesil’s beautiful mother, Cuirin’nên’a, standing in an archway while holding its curtain aside.
“You are summoned,” she said. “This is our caste’s way, and the way of our people’s elders, based on covenants with the Burning Ones, whom we protect along with the Windblown. This is part of our people’s ways as well. And in keeping them, this is part of what your jeóin died to uphold!”
Within the memory, Wynn felt Osha’s rush of pain as if it were hers. He was being torn from this place, from Gleannéohkân’thva and Leanâlhâm, and he did not want to go.
The image vanished.
Wynn saw only the stone walls and door of her little room.
“Shade!” she cried, gripping the dog’s face. “More! Did you see more?”
With a whine, Shade huffed twice for no, and Wynn sagged.
What did it all mean? Somehow, after returning to the an’Cróan territories, Osha had gone to the enclave of the Coilehkrotall. He had probably just delivered news of Sgäile’s death, for Leanâlhâm had been crying. And then, in some other moment, Brot’an had shown him the small polished stone from the Chein’âs. And Leesil’s mother had insisted that Osha obey Brot’an.
“Oh, Shade,” Wynn whispered, looking at the dog.
At least she had a place to start that she might subtly use to get Osha to tell her more. As to what Osha wanted from her, she didn’t dare think of that now.
Chapter Four
Two evenings later, Wynn walked with Shade down a pier in Calm Seatt’s port. Nikolas, Chane, and then Osha followed behind her. Though it had taken some doing, Premin Hawes’s arrangements had put off the sailing of a cargo vessel until after sunset—for Chane’s benefit. Wynn had suggested her old excuse of Chane suffering from a skin malady that made him painfully susceptible to sunlight. Sometimes a partial truth was the best lie.
Preparations had been both rushed and trying. Chane resented Osha’s inclusion and made no secret of his feelings. Osha, still stoic and silent, expressed his revulsion for Chane in all ways but words. But at times Wynn had caught flashes of either pain or anger in Osha’s eyes.
Nikolas was perhaps the most and least of Wynn’s complications among her companions. He had accepted their company on this journey without argument; in fact, he’d barely reacted at all. What weighed upon him was a deep dread of returning home.
Wynn worried about this entire state of affairs, but all she could do was press onward.
Their supplies were minimal, and Chane carried the sealed stack of texts for Master Columsarn. Chane wore a heavy hooded cloak and both his swords: a long dwarven blade given to him by Ore-Locks, and a shorter one that had been broken and reground to a new point. Osha’s cloak was lighter, and once again he bore his bow, a quiver of black-feathered arrows, and the strangely narrow canvas-wrapped, twine-strapped object across his back. The only new thing Wynn had learned about that was that whatever was in it had some weight, by the way he’d picked it up and wrestled to strap it on before they left the guild grounds.
Wynn used her only weapon as a walking stick: the sun-crystal staff made for her by Ghassan il’Sänke, the domin of the guild’s Suman branch, to whom she had sent Magiere, Leesil, and Chap. The staff itself was taller than her head, and a leather sheath now covered the hand’s-length clear crystal at its top. With it she could emulate sunlight. Before leaving the guild, she’d also retrieved Chane’s scroll from Premin Hawes’s office and stowed it in her pack.
Nikolas carried nothing but his travel bag, and, as Wynn glanced back, his eyes were down, as if he followed her steps without looking where he was going.
Wynn finally stopped at a three-masted vessel with the label The Thorn painted on its bow’s side. She found that an odd name for a ship. Glancing down at her travel papers in hand, she headed for the boarding ramp without a word to the others. Shade fell behind her and started whining softly. The dog never enjoyed tight quarters or even being on an open deck with too many sailors . . . strangers.
The impending sea voyage was not going to be pleasant for anyone.
Followed by the others, Wynn stepped on deck. All around, sailors were fiddling with this or that, though it was obvious the ship was ready and the crew was waiting for the last of their passengers.