by Barb Hendee
• • •
Chane grew more desperate as time crept by. But to escape this room, he would have to break the door. In doing so he would lose the element of surprise.
Wynn sat on the end of Osha’s bed nearest the door. Her chin rested in her hands with her elbows propped on her knees. If there were more than two guards posted outside, the chance of injury to her—before Chane could clear a path—was too high.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“That I wish I could see out into the passage . . . or into the next room to know if our weapons are truly there.” He thought he had heard them dropped in there, but he wanted to be certain.
“Weapons are there,” Osha stated flatly where he leaned against the wall. He had not moved since listening to the guards enter Wynn’s room.
Wynn looked up at Chane. “Do you want me to try?”
The question confused him at first and then he understood. “No! Even one use of your mantic sight has always left you incapacitated.”
“I’m better.”
“Twice is foolish!”
Shade rose from where she lay, sat before Wynn, and growled at her. Clearly the dog agreed with him.
“Only way,” Osha butted in. “She can do.”
Chane turned on him. “You do not know anything about it!”
“I know her,” Osha added, stepping away from the wall.
Before Chane could think of putting the elf down . . .
“Stop it, all of you!” Wynn ordered, even grabbing Shade by the muzzle as she fixed on Chane. “I only need a moment, maybe two, to get the count and position of the guards, and maybe glimpse where our weapons and my staff are. If there are too many out in the passage, then nothing is lost anyway. And it’s better than just sitting here!”
Beyond the far bed—Chane’s bed—Nikolas silently eyed everyone, though his gaze flinched away when Chane looked over.
No one spoke for too long, and Wynn pushed her way around Shade to head for the door.
Both Chane and Osha started after her for differing reasons.
“No,” Osha said before Chane could, and the elf pointed to the room’s front corner at the foot of the first bed. “Best—short—to look from passage to room.”
That was not what Chane would have said, and he wanted to put Osha down right then. Wynn got in his way as she ducked back around the bed and crawled atop it to the corner.
Shade started growling again, but Chane knew it would not matter.
“Shade, enough!” Wynn snapped over her shoulder. “I don’t have a choice.” And she began tracing with a finger atop the bed.
“What are you doing?” Nikolas asked.
Chane found that the young sage had crept closer, not flinching now as he watched. No one answered Nikolas, and the sooner this was over, the better.
Wynn scooted forward over whatever she had traced upon the bed. At another pass of her finger around herself, she closed her eyes.
Nothing happened at first, and then she gagged.
Chane hated this, but he did not touch her yet. He only stepped around Shade for a better angle to see.
Wynn opened her eyes and shuddered as she peered at the wall between the room and the passage outside. Her head turned slowly, as if she followed something along the wall. Then she stopped, her sight line aimed roughly toward the passage’s back end.
“Two guards . . . keep guards,” she whispered, and then swallowed hard as if choking something down. “Both outside our door . . . with crossbows.”
She turned slowly the other way until Chane could no longer see her eyes. She stalled, then wobbled, and Chane almost rushed in. Wynn caught herself with one hand as her head turned further, and she faced the corner of the wall between their current room and hers.
“Bow . . . quiver . . . swords . . . are . . .”
Chane heard her gag, though she just sat there, facing the wall.
Then she began to topple back.
“Wynn?” Osha almost shouted, reaching for her.
Chane leaped onto the bed and dropped an instant before Wynn fell back across his knees and thighs. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth was slack.
“Wynn!” he rasped.
Her eyelids did not even flutter.
• • •
Sau’ilahk pushed Karl Beáumie longer and harder than ever before.
A quiver ran down the young duke’s arm to the deformed hand gripping the key, which held the spike out of the orb by the barest fraction. Lines of perspiration, all sparkling in the harsh, scintillating light escaping the orb, ran in rivulets down the man’s face and jaw.
“Must . . . stop,” he whispered. “Enough.”
A moment more, my lord. Only another moment . . . to gain eternity.
Sau’ilahk solidified his right hand and, without warning, gripped over the top of the duke’s deformed one.
Karl Beáumie lurched backward, slipping halfway through Sau’ilahk as he tried to pull free.
Sau’ilahk twisted his grip upon the duke’s hand and the key.
Chapter Eighteen
Osha knelt beside the bed and studied Wynn’s pallor and closed eyes for any sign that she might awaken. Chane had been right about one thing: Osha did not understand enough about Wynn’s mantic sight.
Whenever Chane was awake and involved, Osha felt as if he was secondary, and he had let this get to him. He should not have claimed certainty of Wynn’s success. He should not have let the undead’s interference push him to spite. Even worse, Wynn’s sacrifice had gained them little beyond what he had already determined by merely listening to the movements of the guards.
Osha adjusted the blanket over Wynn as the majay-hì hopped up and wriggled along the wall to lie beside her. Shade occasionally licked Wynn’s face with a rumbling whine, but it had no effect upon her.
“We need to get out,” Chane rasped as he paced. “We must overcome the guards and reach our weapons.”
Osha turned his head and scowled over his shoulder. Chane paused his pacing to return the look in kind.
“It is what she would want,” the undead added, “rather than waiting for her to awaken.”
This time Shade instead of Osha snarled at Chane.
“No!” Osha said for the majay-hì. “We wait. . . . Guards grow tired . . . easy to surprise. Wynn sleep, so I need carry her and you fight only. Not wise.”
Chane stopped pacing, as if pondering these objections, but he turned quickly at another voice.
“I can carry her.”
Osha spotted Nikolas standing quietly in the far back corner. For most of their time locked in this room, the young sage had remained silent. Osha looked him over with some reservations, for Nikolas’s build was slight.
“I am stronger than I look,” Nikolas added, perhaps with a bit more force. “And Wynn . . . well, she’s not very big.”
No, she was not, and, lying there on the bed, she appeared even smaller. There might be more to Nikolas than Osha had yet seen.
“Even so,” Chane said, his near-voiceless rasp now a hesitant whisper. “Perhaps Osha is . . . Perhaps we should wait a little longer.”
Osha said nothing as he returned to watching Wynn.
• • •
Sau’ilahk opened his eyes.
That sensation alone made him shudder. He lay upon the floor and felt cold, hard stone beneath his back. He went numb in thought until the pain came. All his joints and muscles felt as though they had been torn loose . . . but he did not have joints and muscles.
Everything rushed in on him as he fought to lift his left hand until he could see. . . .
A perfectly fitted glove of black lambskin covered the duke’s left hand. When Sau’ilahk thought to close his hand . . . the duke’s fingers curled. He cautiously tried to touch his face—and did so.
By the power of the orb, he had taken Karl Beáumie’s body.
As he tried to roll onto his side and push himself up, he grew suddenly concerned. How much damage had been done to the duke’s flesh in shaking loose the last vestiges of the man’s spirit? Sau’ilahk had had to claim that flesh in the precise instant.
Why was he so weak . . . and would this pass?
What of his abilities and powers honed over a thousand years, now that he was once more housed in living flesh? He had wanted this in ways beyond imagining but had never considered the costs until now.
Advantages began returning in his thoughts.
He was now the duke of Beáumie, lord of everyone and everything for the leagues of this remote province. That sliver of authority and earthly power was nothing compared to what he had once wielded in a long-lost life as Beloved’s high priest. Given time, he would build upon this, but his first task was to secure his new identity. That included removing all evidence that he was not who he appeared to be.
The orb had to be taken somewhere beyond the reach of Wynn Hygeorht and any who might believe her claims. And then this body had to be made truly immortal beyond the false promise by which he had seduced the young duke.
Looking down, he saw Karl’s slender form dressed all in black felts, wools, and leathers. The first wave of pure joy overtook him, but the flesh itself had been neglected. He was unwashed, and his clothing smelled as if it had not been changed, let alone laundered, in many days. He needed a bath, sandalwood soap for his hair, and of course fine clothes, but such things could wait a little longer. Sau’ilahk went to the pedestal—still troubled by a weakened and damaged body—and checked on the orb.
The spike had fallen into place and become one with the orb again, and the key—the handle—lay on the floor near one pedestal leg. He had to brace himself on the pedestal while leaning down to retrieve the key, and the other hand—the deformed one inside the stretched glove—was clumsy in its grip.
He shuffled to the door and called out, “Open!”
The sound and ease of a true voice were startling to him.
After the scrape of a key and the clack of a lock, the door opened, and all seven of his remaining Suman guards were waiting outside as instructed. Their rapid, hushed chatter barely abated, and Captain Hazh’thüm stood farthest away, toward the passage to the stairs.
Not one of them dropped their eyes. They stared at him.
The one who opened the door bowed his head slightly. “My duke, do you wish an escort to your room?”
Growing furious, Sau’ilahk glared at the man. Then he calmed in a fit of amusement.
“You do not recognize me . . . do you?”
The guard frowned, blinked twice in confusion, and glanced back at his captain.
Stepping closer, Hazh’thüm pushed through the others as he, too, frowned.
“You are . . . Duke Beáumie,” the nearest guard said hesitantly. “Are you unwell, my lord?”
Sau’ilahk could not help but smile. Then he searched his own thoughts, his own memories, just in case. No, nothing lingered of Karl Beáumie in this flesh. That might be a difficulty, not knowing all about the past of the duke for a proper masquerade. Yet now he faced a different problem.
How much would it take to prove who he truly was to these base underlings?
How much of his former nature still remained, now that he had taken flesh?
Both the closest guard and Hazh’thüm peered beyond Sau’ilahk through the door. Perhaps looking for a tall, black-robed and cloaked form, their gazes roamed the orb’s chamber.
“Sire, you should rest,” Hazh’thüm suggested. “Let me take you to your room.”
The others appeared relieved by him taking charge.
Sau’ilahk had no time or desire to reason with them. There was a quicker way to test something he needed to know. He lashed out with his left, good hand and snatched the nearest guard by the throat.
At the sight of him attacking one of their own, the others all pulled their swords.
Even Hazh’thüm lunged at him—and stalled in the last instant. His eyes widened as his mouth gaped.
The one guard barely had a moment to struggle and claw at Sau’ilahk’s grip.
Satisfaction followed by relief flushed Sau’ilahk as his captive’s hair began to bleach and his face withered with rushing age. All of the guards froze where they stood as they watched their comrade’s life being drained away.
That life filled up Sau’ilahk. The pain in his new body lessened, and he straightened to full height as he released his grip. The guard crumpled like an old man breathing his last, and Sau’ilahk succumbed to euphoria amid relief.
He could still feed.
What other remnants of his previous existence had carried though to this new one?
The dead guard hit the floor. All six remaining men stood frozen until Hazh’thüm stepped back and lowered his eyes.
“Now do you know me?” Sau’ilahk asked.
All six men dropped to one knee and bowed their heads low.
“When we are in public, under the eyes of the unknowing, you will serve me as the duke,” he commanded. “At all other times, you will show proper respect for who I am.”
“Yes, my lord . . . Yes, Eminence,” Hazh’thüm whispered.
Sau’ilahk smiled. “Prepare the orb for transport. We leave this place tonight.”
• • •
Chane sagged in relief when Wynn’s eyes opened. He had told himself over and over that she had merely collapsed from exhaustion. When she struggled to sit up on the bed, he did not even interfere when Osha assisted her and then put a cup of water to her lips.
“Are you all right?” Chane asked.
After a swallow, she nodded weakly. “Still dizzy . . . and . . . what happened?”
Her braid had come partially loose, and her wispy brown hair was a mess around her oval face. Her olive-toned skin appeared slightly pallid, but he was further relieved by how coherent she sounded—almost herself.
“You fainted,” Nikolas said. “What were you doing?”
No one answered him, and Chane stepped to the door to listen for a moment. “It has been quiet out there for some time,” he whispered, and then looked to Wynn. “If I break the door, Osha, Shade, and I can rush the guards. One of us, at least, should break through to our weapons . . . and your staff. Can you run yet?”
“Wait,” Osha said. “She need more time.”
Wynn waved him back and swung her legs off the bed. “I can walk,” she said, struggling to her feet. “I’ll get better soon enough.”
Chane nodded. He would have preferred to give her more time as well, but if there was an orb in this keep, they had been locked in here too long. He knew she would not want to wait.
“I will break through,” he whispered to Osha. “Once I have drawn the guards’ fire, and they have no chance to reload, you and Shade must rush for the other room.” He looked to Shade. “Agreed?”
Shade huffed once as she dropped off the bed to step around Wynn and closer to the door. Osha slipped his hand behind his back, and it came out again with the dagger.
“Nikolas, come here near me,” Wynn said, but he didn’t move.
“Where exactly are we going once we get out?” Nikolas asked. “Karl controls all the guards, not just the Sumans. Even if you get this artifact out of the lower levels, the front gates are locked down.”
Chane had thought of this, though there was little to be done about it. If they could breach the lower levels, find the orb, and dispatch the Suman guards, perhaps they could break out through the door at the back passage’s end. That might at least gain them something . . . and again perhaps most of the guards would be drawn into the keep in a search.
“First we retake our weapons, then the orb, and all else . . . we will deal w
ith as needed.” He glanced at Osha. “Ready?”
The elf nodded once, and Chane grabbed the door’s handle. He let his hunger rise, expanding his senses, and he prepared to rip the handle and, he hoped, the lock bolt out so he could pull the door open.
A shout carried in the passage beyond the door, and he froze.
Then he heard a clang of steel and the clatter of a sword on stone, followed by one rough thud and then another that carried through the floor stones under his feet. After that there was silence outside in the passage.
Chane hesitated and looked to the others. It was obvious that at least Osha and Shade had heard something as well, and the dog’s ears flattened. Something clinked outside the door, and then came a scraping of metal near the lock. The door’s lock bolt clacked, and Chane shifted left, ready to strike as the door swung inward.
In the narrow space of the open door was a leather mask over a hooded figure’s face.
“Wait,” it said in Numanese with a rolling thick accent not correct for a Numan.
That person pushed the door wide until it banged carelessly against the wall. Somewhere behind Chane he heard Shade snarl in warning.
Beyond the strange figure in the doorway, at least one guard lay unconscious in a heap upon the passage floor. He could not see the other, but he heard no movement outside. Still ready to strike, he looked their would-be rescuer up and down.
The figure raised a tawny-gloved hand and slid the mask upward into its hood.
Aupsha eyed him in turn. “I have freed Counselor Columsarn, and he has gone to do the same for the duchess. Come with me.”
It was all too convenient, and Chane did not move, even when he heard the others in the room step nearer.
Aupsha’s forearm was encompassed in a hardened leather bracer. The same type of armor, suitably shaped for a woman, covered her torso. Even her thighs and shins were protected, and everywhere on those pieces of darkly dyed armor were ornately carved swirling patterns that obscured symbols Chane could not quite make out.
“Freed?” Nikolas asked. “My father and Sherie were locked up?”
Aupsha’s eyes shifted briefly toward the young sage before returning to Chane.