A Wind in the Night

by Barb Hendee

  What had caused Shade to claim that she sensed a Fay? What had caused Wynn and the others to fall ill and then recover so quickly? What had left him upon the edge of losing his control to the feral nature that hid within him?

  His thoughts drifted back to something Wynn had said earlier . . . about a single memory Shade had stolen from the young duke:

  Just a flash . . . an image of two of those Suman guards standing in front of a door in a dim, windowless passage. Maybe . . . maybe underground.

  Why would the duke order two Sumans to guard an underground door—if it was underground as Wynn or Shade had claimed? If this door had been the one thing to pass through the duke’s thoughts, then what lay beyond it?

  Chane watched Osha, still reclined with his eyes closed, and knew that he would have to wait until the elf fell truly asleep. That had not happened yet, judging by the sound of the man’s forced breathing. The next obstacle would be getting past the guards in the passage. A diversion or distraction was needed if Chane was to seek this door perhaps somewhere below the keep.

  To his frustration, Osha opened his eyes a little, glanced at the burning candle, and then closed his eyes again.

  Desperation, impatience, and still-nagging hunger goaded Chane.

  He rose and went to the door to put his ear against it. Listening for any sounds outside, he heard nothing. He assumed both guards would still be at their posts even after the turmoil, but without peeking outside, he could not know for certain.

  “Not yet.”

  Chane glanced back to find Osha watching him, and he then looked to the lit candle. Had the elf been waiting—timing—something of his own?

  “Do not tell me what to do,” Chane answered.

  Osha merely closed his eyes. “If any need go out, I go. I am . . . was anmaglâhk. No one see—hear—me.”

  Chane hissed before a dry reply. “And how would you get past two guards?”

  “I will,” the elf answered, “when time right.”

  Chane paced back toward his bed but did not sit. “Fool! Go to sleep.”

  Neither of them spoke again for some time. Osha opened his eyes infrequently but always to look at the candle while ignoring Chane. And then, at another, later glance at the candle . . .

  Osha rose off the bed. “I go.”

  Chane was on his feet before the elf finished. “You are staying here, out of my way.”

  Osha turned toward the door at the foot of his bed.

  Chane almost lunged to grab the elf, but then stopped himself. “And how are you going to get past those guards?”

  Soft footsteps rose in the passage outside.

  Osha froze, cocking his head.

  Chane realized the elf heard them, too, and he took a step. When Osha twisted toward him, he froze. Raising both of his hands, open and empty, Chane slowly pointed at the door. Osha sidestepped to the corner behind the door and then along the room’s side wall. Chane cracked the door open to a sliver and peeked out.

  With the door opening inward, and its hinges toward the passage’s back end, he could see along the door to that end of the passage. The guard stood with his back to the far wall and stared straight across the passage.

  Chane looked back at Osha and then nodded toward the candle. Osha rounded wide and snuffed out the flame. The passage outside was very dim, and, as Chane pulled the door farther inward, he did his best to keep inside the frame and out of the rear guard’s sight line. When he had pulled the door open enough, he took a quick peek toward the passage’s front end, retreated, and quietly closed the door.

  “What you see?” Osha whispered.

  Reluctantly Chane told him. “The guard near the stairs is missing.”

  Osha nodded. “I overpower guard . . . without him know too soon. I move fast; he not . . . remember.”

  Chane scoffed. “Even so, he might be found when the other returns. And if one of us is found missing, we will be blamed, no matter if he remembers who put him down or not.”

  “Then what you do?” Osha challenged, folding his arms.

  “A distraction first,” Chane rasped. “Be quiet and let me focus, but be ready to crack the door open.”

  He went to his pack and dug out the gloves he used as part of his coverings for withstanding daylight. Returning to the closed door, he focused upon it and then along the chamber’s front wall as he imagined the passage’s end toward the stairs that he had just seen.

  Chane stilled his thoughts and held out his right hand with the palm turned up. In his mind he drew lines of light and slowly crafted symbols to overlay his sight. First a circle, then around it a triangle, and he scrawled the needed glyphs and sigils stroke by stroke into the corner spaces between the two. He prepared to aim . . . as a small wisp of fire ignited in his palm. Then Chane felt his flesh begin to sear beneath the glove as Osha sucked in a sharp breath.

  “Now!” Chane whispered.

  Osha stepped in and pulled the door slightly.

  Chane crouched, lowering his hand. Throwing the flame was not possible, for it was fueled into existence by only his concentration. Even fire could not hang in the air without something physical as fuel to feed it. But making the flame move might work. When the back of his hand flattened on the stone floor, he shifted his mental pattern slightly into the passage and . . .

  The flame crept off his fingers and around the door’s frame.

  “Close it,” he whispered, and Osha silently shut the door.

  Chane clung to concentration as he moved the pattern in his mind’s eye along the wall of the room, parallel to the passage. The bed in the way did not help in that. When his gaze reached the room’s corner, where the passage would turn down the stairs, he heard noise outside. Perhaps the flame had died the instant it was out of his sight.

  “Fire!” a voice shouted out in the passage.

  Osha pushed at the door, but Chane raised a hand. “No danger,” he barely whispered, and already the steps of running feet had passed the door’s far side. “The flame will go out.”

  Then he regretted having explained it at all.

  Chane dug inside his shirt and pulled out a cold-lamp crystal. It was a spare that Wynn had given him in their journey to find the orb of Earth, but he did not ignite it yet. Opening the door slightly, he heard the guard descending the stairs, and then came mute voices from somewhere below. He quickly slipped out, and, as he was unable to stop the elf, Osha followed him.

  The situation rankled Chane as they hurried up the passage the other way to find another route to the lower floors.

  • • •

  Sau’ilahk was alone in the small stone chamber with the orb.

  Hazh’thüm had already removed the body of the other guard—the one Sau’ilahk had drained of life—and the duke had been carried away to his private chamber above in the keep. It was inconvenient for Sau’ilahk to have sacrificed one of his small contingent, but it had been necessary to recover from the orb’s unexpected influence. If nothing else, the remainder of his servants would be that much more cowed into obedience.

  What mattered most was whether the duke would recover.

  Any effects upon his flesh could be dealt with once the process was complete. Sau’ilahk dwelled instead on the almost-certain presence of Wynn Hygeorht.

  Why was she here, and what had truly called her to the keep?

  He had to know, and in thinking, he gazed at the orb. The act he had in mind would cost him much of the energy sapped from one guard—not as much as the fully opened orb had taken from him—but there was little choice if he was to remain undetected until he learned more.

  Floating to the chamber’s center, Sau’ilahk focused inward.

  In midair, he envisioned a glowing circle the size of a splayed hand for Spirit. Within this he formed the square of Air, and in the spaces between the nested shapes, he stroked
glowing sigils with his thoughts. He fixed upon this grand seal for his first conjuration as a small part of his energies bled away in a passing wave of weariness.

  He needed something more than what one element could provide, for Air only recorded sound and so would be worthless in the night when everyone was asleep. He needed something capable of sight, capable of slipping through stone rather than limited to following passages.

  A silent breeze grew inside the chamber.

  Sau’ilahk called the breeze into the seal’s center. The room’s temperature did not change, but the pattern’s center space warped like air over a searing desert at noon. That nearly invisible distortion held its place, and he solidified one hand to cage it in his fingers. Then he conjured yet again for the element of Fire.

  A yellow-orange glow began emanating from within his grip.

  Next came Spirit, for the necessary connection with it, though this would also give it a will and make it harder to control. And last came Earth. . . .

  Exhausted, Sau’ilahk slammed the servitor into the chamber’s stone floor.

  The square for Earth via Stone rose in umber lines around his splayed hand and then the blue-white circle for Spirit as he embedded a fragment of his will. More glyphs and sigils of iridescent white filled the second pattern upon stone.

  All the glowing marks in his sight vanished as he whispered in thought, Awaken!

  A glow rose in the stone beneath his hand and began to rush about as if light swam beneath the chamber floor. He closed his fingers like hooks, and he straightened, making a motion as if drawing something to the surface.

  The floor bulged like a bubble erupting from gray mud.

  One glowing eye like molten glass winked at him as his servitor heaved its oblong body out of the floor and stood up on four three-jointed legs of stone that ended in sharp points.

  Go!

  It skittered up the chamber wall and sank through the ceiling above him. Sau’ilahk lost all sight of the orb’s chamber as his servitor swam through the keep’s stone.

  Here and there, darkness broke as it surfaced upon the ceilings of passages, rooms, and chambers, one after another. He saw through it, catching sight and even sound as a servant here or a guard there went about duties late into the night. Not one ever looked up to spot the small monstrosity that submerged back into the ceiling and moved on through the keep.

  The duke had not been present when the “guests” had been housed, but there were few spaces in this small place for such. Sau’ilahk had already wandered the keep himself in the last quarter of some nights. He guided his servitor to the third floor and the only spare chambers he had found with beds.

  When the servitor surfaced again, he looked down at a young male with white streaks in his hair. Over the end of the bed lay the gray robe of a sage. Something about this one struck Sau’ilahk as familiar. As if struck by some recurrent nightmare, the young man murmured and gasped in his sleep.

  Sau’ilahk drove his servitor across the ceiling and through the wall to the next room.

  It was empty. Though someone . . . perhaps two people were clearly lodged here. Two cloaks hung on pegs near the door. Two packs, one near the other, were at the foot of one bed. A bow and quiver with black-feathered arrows, as well as something long wrapped in canvas, lay on the floor beside the bed nearest the door.

  Sau’ilahk stalled too long in looking about the room. Where were the occupants, considering how late into the night it was? He finally drove his servitor on to the next room.

  The servitor froze upon the ceiling as Sau’ilahk succumbed to pure hatred.

  Wynn Hygeorht sat on the floor below and watched the black majay-hì pace about. Neither was doing anything comprehensible, and nothing in the room offered a clue as to why they were here. And she was garbed in a midnight blue robe.

  Sau’ilahk had no idea why, and he did not care. There was no doubt that the previous room housed the undead called Chane and likely the unknown Lhoin’na who had come with them. But if so, where were they?

  A sudden wave of weariness overtook Sau’ilahk. He was being drained too much in maintaining a continuous connection to his servitor, and he would need his energies for the next night to come. Once he had finished his work here and achieved his long-awaited desire for living flesh . . .

  Wynn Hygeorht would never leave this keep alive.

  • • •

  Osha continued after passing through the archway at the back of the passage. He led the way, with the undead creeping too close behind him. It stood to reason that there would be stairs somewhere else on this level of the keep.

  “There,” Chane whispered, pointing past Osha. “A landing.”

  Squinting in an unlit passage, Osha took several more steps before he saw it. He flinched at a sudden pale light rising behind him and looked back to see a crystal, much like the ones that Wynn carried, in Chane’s hand. It was glowing softly.

  Chane stepped ahead.

  Osha was admittedly relieved not to have the undead at his back, and admittedly his unwelcome companion could walk in relative silence. So far they had heard no one raise an alarm, and as long as any guard returning to the guest quarters’ passages did not look into the second room, they would not realize anyone was missing.

  Chane quickly descended all the way to the main floor and then paused as he closed his hand over the crystal. Osha listened as well and heard no movement or voices. Carefully Chane stepped out, rounding quickly into a wide passage, and then Osha heard something.

  Chane halted, and they both listened for a moment.

  Osha heard the distant, muted sound of waves breaking on a shore.

  “We are somewhere near the keep’s back wall,” Chane whispered, opening his hand slightly to let the crystal’s light escape. “And some opening to the outside, from what I hear.”

  Osha nodded. The area was cold and appeared deserted. He noticed old cobwebs above in the corner where one wall met the ceiling. This passage must not be a main path used in the keep. At his best guess, they were facing northward, and possibly the passage led out of the keep’s north side.

  Chane crept onward until they reached where the passage continued ahead but also had a branch to the left, likely leading toward the keep’s front. He stalled there and closed his hand on the crystal, and as he put that hand behind his back and retreated one step, Osha was forced to retreat as well.

  When the undead flattened against the passage’s left wall, Osha shifted to the right side to do the same. Ahead and beyond the left-side passage, where the main passage they followed continued straight, a small light glowed faintly. It was not large enough for a torch or lantern, and did not flicker, either.

  Osha slowly shifted forward along the wall. His people could see better in the dark than humans could, but without a moon or stars in an open sky, that was not enough illumination to tell where that light came from . . . and then it vanished.

  Osha froze.

  The light reappeared and had moved, perhaps farther along the passage’s far half. He heard soft scrapes of footsteps down there, and then something poked his shoulder.

  Osha slapped at the contact and quickly reached behind his back for his dagger, and then he heard a soft hiss. Chane leaned close enough for Osha to see his scowl.

  Chane looked down to where his fist holding the crystal was now beside his rearward hip. With his other hand, he pointed at his fist and then toward that other light.

  Osha looked along the passage in the dark.

  He did know how Chane had made the connection. Only three other people that they knew of in the keep might have a sage’s crystal. Had Wynn slipped out to go searching for something on her own before they had? No, the majay-hì would have never tolerated that, and Nikolas Columsarn doing so seemed as unlikely.

  That left only the elderly counselor, the young sage’s father. Then
again, Chane had acquired a crystal, so . . .

  Osha waved Chane back and then slid forward along the wall until he could peek down the side passage.

  It appeared to run all the way to the keep’s front. There were two doors and at least one archway that he could see along the length. He held his breath and slipped across that passage, and flattened himself at the far corner where the hallway met the one he had left. Before he could peer around that corner, the undead slipped across and flattened beside him.

  Chane quickly raised his fist; the crystal’s light made it glow faintly. He held up two fingers on his other hand and pointed toward the corner.

  Osha scowled, but he would not ask how Chane knew there were two people near that other light. He peeked around the corner with one eye, and, indeed, he made out two shadowy figures. Both were muted in form by bulky cloaks and hoods. When the shorter one turned slightly, a soft light appeared in the hand of the other one and illuminated an elderly face inside a hood.

  Jausiff held out some strange metal object in his hand.

  Osha could not make out the other person’s face, but from the height alone it might be Aupsha—as she was taller than Jausiff and claimed to be his servant. The elder sage appeared to be studying the floor, and when he turned up the passage, Osha lost sight of what the sage was doing. The other figure turned as well in following the old man, and the pair slowly continued onward, stopping every few steps. In another dozen of their paces, Osha noticed something more.

  At the passage’s far end was a door with some sort of small opening at head height. Perhaps it had small bars across it, but Osha knew that was from where the sound of the waves came. The door had to lead out to the northern side of the keep’s courtyard. And, more, the right side of the passage’s end near that door was too dark compared to the walls of the passage.

  There was a turn or archway there, though the layout made no sense if the passage ran along the keep’s rear wall.

  What would the old sage be doing here, studying the passage’s floor step by step?

  Osha heard other steps more clearly, and quickly turned the other way to find Chane staring down the side passage. Those footfalls were hard and rhythmic, at least three pairs, perhaps four.