by Barb Hendee
“Then it is not—”
“It feeds, Chane. It has to feed on life. And it is fully aware. Shade is convinced the black figure is a form of spirit.”
Chane stared at the majay-hì, not quite grasping what she meant. By Wynn’s words, this animal shared Chap’s antagonism toward the undead. Much as that might add weight to Wynn’s conclusion, it was not enough. How had she learned this from a dog?
“She’s been hunting it, as much as watching over me,” Wynn continued. “I don’t understand everything yet, but on the way here I kept thinking of something I overheard in one of il’Sänke’s seminars. Like the five Elements, the sages also divide all things in existence by the three Aspects—physical, mental, and spiritual.”
Chane knew this concept by different terms, but it still did not explain her assumptions.
“A vampire is distinguished in nature from a mere raised corpse,” she went on, “or anything in between those extremes . . . but they all are physical. So what is the difference? We both know from experience that ghosts exist, as well as other less-than-corporeal forms of the undead. But nonetheless, we’ve seen the dead come back . . . in spirit, as well as body.”
Right then he wanted to deny her, for where she headed with her reasoning was too harsh and dangerous—especially for her well-being.
“It’s fully aware and reasons,” she whispered. “Even if it’s a mage as well, then it has grown within its sense of self, as if it were still alive. And it has to feed . . . what else is that but a Noble Dead?”
Chane had no response, but this was not good at all. Uncertain as he was, he still trusted her intellect, as well educated as his own and then some. Caught between doubt and faith in her, which should he choose to follow?
And if she was right, how could he protect her from something he could not fight?
They still had no concrete idea what this creature—this wraith—was truly after, and they had not yet unlocked the secret of the scroll. Chane was not fanciful, but he could not help believing that the scroll had come into his possession for a reason. That the white undead had tried to show it to Wynn confirmed that instinct.
Whatever was hidden beneath the black coating might shape dangerous days ahead, and the future. At present he had no future.
“You said Li’kän wanted you to read the scroll to her,” Chane began, “or perhaps just to read it yourself. I do not see why this forgotten Enemy would want or allow that, so our next step should be to solve its mystery.”
Wynn looked at the floor. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
“So how?”
Wynn hesitated a long while. “I might have a chance.”
He stiffened. “You?”
“Do you remember when you found me at the smithy of Pudúrlatsat? You protected me from Vordana, and I was . . . in a state.”
Yes, she had been sick, and, strangely, she could barely see.
“Just before, I attempted to give myself mantic sight via a thaumaturgical ritual—the ability to see elemental Spirit in all things.”
Chane had never heard this before. “That was foolish!”
Wynn stiffened. “Magiere needed to locate Vordana quickly—who, as you well know, was a sentient undead.”
He fell silent.
“But my attempt went wrong,” Wynn whispered.
“You failed?”
“No.” She took a long breath. “I couldn’t end it afterward. Chap had to do it for me, and that turned out to be temporary.”
Chane shook his head. “How would seeing Spirit let you read the scroll’s content?”
Wynn studied him for a moment. “Because with mantic sight, I also see the absence of Spirit in a Noble Dead. Spirit as in the Element, not the Aspect.”
Again, Chane disliked where this was headed. He had suffered mishaps in his youth when first attempting conjury on his own with no tutor. One had left him bedridden for many days. The physician called by his mother had no idea what was wrong with him, nor why he had succumbed to a sudden burning fever that made his body seem to dry out and left him with an insatiable thirst.
“I not only see where Spirit is strong or weak,” Wynn explained, “but where it is lacking or where something other than life draws it in. The scroll and even the painted ink on top may hold a residue of elemental Spirit, but—”
“The writing in undead’s fluids would not,” Chane finished.
“Side effects of the sight,” Wynn went on, “have been with me ever since my mistake. But I can call it up at times, and I might be able to read what is beneath the scroll’s coating.”
“No!” Chane hissed, standing up.
And the dog—Shade—rose on all fours, growling.
“Chap is not here,” he said. “If you cannot stop this sight on your own, then we will find another way.”
“There’s no time,” Wynn returned. “And I’ve been experimenting since returning home. Domin il’Sänke has helped tutor me.”
“You trust him?” he asked harshly. “Enough to let him know about the scroll?”
Her lips pursed in indecision. “I trust him more than my own superiors . . . though sometimes I think he has his own agenda.”
“Then do not trust him further.”
The room fell silent except for Shade’s rumble.
“I have to try,” Wynn said quietly. “It’s all we have, at present.”
Chane’s first urge was to hold her in this room until she swore not to do this. Not even if it meant never learning the scroll’s secret and why it had come to him.
“Do you have it with you?” he asked.
“No, it’s hidden in my room. I was afraid the wraith might try to take it if I had it with me.”
Chane pulled on his spare shirt, wincing slightly, and then snatched up the second overcloak she had brought. “You cannot walk back alone—and you will not attempt this alone. I am coming with you.”
“Inside the guild?” Wynn countered loudly. “Absolutely not!”
“We do not know what is in that scroll! Nor what will happen to you if you cannot end your sight.”
He had placed her in enough danger already with his obsession, and her stubbornness could lead to worse. Donning the cloak, he pulled the hood forward as far as it would go.
“And what about Captain Rodian?” she demanded. “What if he is there? He saw you, as did some of his men, and he has stationed guards around the guild’s grounds.”
Chane scowled. “I have no concern over city guards.”
“You can barely close your hand,” she said. “And would you shed blood at the guild?”
He flinched, ashamed at his lack of thought. Wynn was still an innocent in many ways, no matter what the last two years had shown her. And the two of them had grown far apart from the time she had first learned who—what—he was.
“Is the captain expected tonight?” he asked.
“No, but he shows up unexpectedly, whenever he wants.”
“Then we will be cautious—but I am coming with you!”
“I don’t even know how to get back in myself,” she said. “There is a curfew in place at the guild, which is why the city guard is there, to protect us from this killer. I had to bluff my way out, and I can’t get back in the same way, let alone bring you.”
“And the other night, when you met me at the stable?”
Wynn scowled, growing visibly tired of this debate. Chane hoped she would simply give up altogether.
“I crawled out of the new library and along the inner bailey wall,” she said. “Then down the old stairs near the south corner. But I still had to go out the bailey gate, in front of the gatehouse, and the wall is too sheer and tall to climb from the outside.”
“Too tall for the living,” Chane corrected.
Wynn narrowed her eyes at him.
Despite the risk, Chane could not help a rising excitement.
It had been a hopeless dream until now, and though this was not the way he would have wished for it, t
onight he would step inside the guild and Wynn’s world.
CHAPTER 16
Wynn turned the final corner, heading toward Old Bailey Road. She knew bringing Chane was wrong.
He was a killer, regardless that he had nothing to do with the deaths surrounding the lost folios. Turning him over to Captain Rodian would’ve been the rational choice, but she couldn’t. Rodian would never solve the murders and thefts. Monster that he was, Chane at least tried to uncover the truth, to help her find out what this “wraith” wanted and why. Besides Shade, who else did she have?
Her whole world had shifted in two days, from her being nearly alone to having two companions, each carefully watching along the dimly lit streets. She felt almost as she had in company with Magiere, Leesil, and Chap—almost.
As she slipped across Old Bailey Road to the wall, she glanced both ways for any sign of patrolling city guards. The road was empty, so she urged Chane left along the wall toward the bailey gate, keeping herself between him and Shade.
At least bluffing her way out of the keep provided one advantage: The guards at the portcullis didn’t know who was a real sage or not. A fictitious domin named Parisean sending a “wolf” to escort a delayed scribe meant Shade might get back in on her own. If the dog pestered the guards enough, they would simply open the portcullis and let her in. Once Wynn was inside—if Chane could get her inside—she could go to the courtyard and bring Shade into the dormitory.
Shaded trotted close, brushing against her leg, and a memory appeared in Wynn’s thoughts.
She saw through Shade’s eyes and found herself peering across a large dark room filled with barrels and bundles lashed to the floor and walls. No, not a room, but the belly of a ship. And she saw Chane on the hold’s far side. He opened an old chest, glanced inside, then looked about as if something were missing therein.
Another memory came of Shade watching Chane from the shadows as he moved about the ship at night.
“You were both on the same ship?” Wynn whispered.
Chane glanced back at her.
“Shade says you were both on the same ship.”
“How . . . ?” And he glanced warily at the majay-hì. “I will tell you everything later. First we must get inside and out of sight.”
But those flashes from Shade left Wynn wondering more about her disparate pair of companions.
“Why doesn’t Shade sense what you are?” she whispered. “She is like Chap, and her kind hunts yours.”
Chane didn’t answer at first. It still struck Wynn as odd that Shade hadn’t turned on him the night they both came to her aid against the wraith. Since taking Shade in, Wynn constantly monitored her own thoughts—or rather her memories. The majay-hì’s dependence upon memory-speak meant there was no way of telling when or if Shade might dip into her mind for rising memories. Wynn didn’t want Shade to learn the truth about Chane at the wrong moment.
Chane stopped and held up his left hand, spreading his fingers, but Wynn still didn’t understand.
“The ring,” he whispered. “Welstiel made it long ago . . . called it the ‘ring of nothing.’ I took it before Magiere finished him. It seemed to protect him from Magiere’s and Chap’s awareness. He was also able to shield those he touched, perhaps expand its influence further through his skills.”
Wynn swallowed hard and quickly suppressed rising images of Magiere speaking of Chane’s actions within the orb’s cavern. He’d used his sword to slice off several of Welstiel’s fingers. In the aftermath, Wynn had wanted to believe Chane was trying to help Magiere. She hadn’t truly believed it even then, and now . . .
Disgust must have surfaced in her expression.
“I could not have escaped the castle without it,” he said defensively. “You asked, and I told you—far more than you have said concerning your staff and its crystal. I assume you went to great lengths to acquire it—yes?”
Wynn mutely pushed him onward.
They came within yards of the bailey gate, framed by its two small barbicans. It was shut tight, and Wynn flattened against the wall.
She couldn’t step out and open it to let Shade through—not in plain sight of the portcullis guards. Shade would have to draw one of them down. Wynn couldn’t think how to explain this with memories.
Then Shade ducked around her and headed out.
“What is that animal doing?” Chane hissed.
Shade paused before the gate, looking back, and a memory rose in Wynn’s head . . . her own memory of running the other way along the inner bailey wall.
“Come on,” Wynn whispered, and pulled on Chane’s arm. “She knows what to do.”
When Wynn reached the bailey wall’s southern turn, Shade’s first barks filled the quiet night. The dog was drawing attention to herself. Hopefully one of the guards would let her back inside.
Chane stalled and looked back along the wall. A strange, wary tension flooded his features at the dog’s noise.
Wynn jerked him onward. Creeping around the wall’s bend, she watched for city guards in the open road.
“So . . . what do you have in mind for us?” she asked.
“To scale the wall,” he answered, and before she blurted out disbelief, he pointed along the wall’s southeastern side. “Get to the corner where that jutting barbican joins the wall.”
Wynn looked ahead. A shallow inward corner existed where the bailey wall bulged outward in a wide half-round shape, like a small tower. In older days, when the royals’ ancestors lived here, soldiers and archers could’ve stood atop that open barbican and fired along the wall’s outside. Should enemy forces have breached the original outer bailey wall, now broken into remnants, this would be the last line of defense against a direct assault upon the keep.
Wynn scurried along the wall’s base and ducked in beside the barbican’s outward surge. As Chane joined her, she tilted her head back and peered upward.
The tops of the wall and barbican were beyond the height of a footman’s pike, as any sensible fortification should be. She could still hear Shade barking in the distance.
“Now we climb,” Chane said, and unshouldered his pack. “You first.”
Wynn glowered at him. “No one can climb this.”
He withdrew a coil of narrow rope from his pack, but there was no weight or hook on either end. Obviously it was just something he still carried from his travels rather than part of any carefully considered plan. He began making a large loop in one end, and Wynn couldn’t believe they were going to try this.
Chane collected rope coils with the loop. He glanced both ways along the road, stepped away from the wall, and flung the gathered rope upward.
The rope uncoiled, but its end barely cleared the barbican’s wall through a space between two rising ramparts. Chane huffed in irritation. Wynn didn’t know why until he pulled on the rope, and it all came tumbling down. She realized that he was trying to loop one of the ramparts.
“Did you even think this through?” she whispered.
“I do not recall you offering a plan of your own.”
She wasn’t sure what angered her more—his half-witted scheme, or that she couldn’t think of a better one.
Chane crouched against the wall and drew his sword. Before she could berate him again, he pulled off his cloak. He wrapped it around the blade and cinched the material tight by knotting the rope around the sword’s midpoint. Wynn watched as Chane flung his muffled makeshift anchor, and then flinched at the dull thump somewhere above.
And that was all she heard.
Wynn straightened, looking off toward the rounding of the wall’s southern corner. Shade had stopped barking.
Chane stood with the rope’s end in hand and looked off the same way. “Is she in?” he whispered.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” she answered, and Chane scowled at her. “I think she needs a line of sight to . . . Oh, never mind, just hurry up!”
Chane pulled on the rope, and it drew taut this time.
Wynn crept along the barb
ican curve but didn’t make it far enough to peer around. The soft clomp of boots on cobblestone carried along the street. She quickly sidled back along the wall, waved at Chane, and jabbed a finger back the other way.
Chane glanced once and couched low. He hooked a thumb in the air over his shoulder, pointing toward his own back. Wynn went wide-eyed and glanced up the wall.
Get on . . . now! he mouthed.
It was one thing to be caught breaking curfew. It was entirely another to be found breaking in by the city guard.
