In Shade and Shadow

by Barb Hendee

  Shade spun and leaped off the bed, straight over to Wynn.

  The stone wall around the window blackened as it bulged inward.

  Chane jerked on Wynn’s arm, heaving her across the floor toward the door.

  “Run!” he rasped.

  Searing pain ignited in his hand as he jerked out his sword.

  The majay-hì’s yowling snarls battered at his ears as the animal spun about before him to face the bed.

  The black figure—the wraith—slid through the wall.

  It stood in the bed, as if it were not truly there. As if it were real and the bed was not. Chane looked into its voluminous cowl but saw no face within the black pit of cloth. Then the cowl turned downward, its opening fixing upon Wynn.

  Chane raised and leveled his blade, knowing it would have little effect. All he wanted was to catch this thing’s attention and distract it long enough for Wynn to get out.

  The hood snapped up, and its black-filled opening turned on him. It remained where it stood, the lower half of its robe and cloak penetrating the narrow bed.

  Perhaps after their last encounter, it did not wish to touch him again. He could use that. But the dog’s noise must have awakened everyone in the building, if not elsewhere on guild grounds.

  The figure hung there as if studying him. Beneath the dog’s wailing and snarls, a low hiss rose, like whispers too hard to hear. It seemed to come from everywhere in the room.

  Chane heard startled voices in the passage outside the room’s door.

  Short-lived relief at the wraith’s hesitation washed away in panic. What would this thing do if startled sages came running in? Not only did he have to get Wynn out of its reach—he had to draw it away before more sages died.

  Snarling and snapping, Shade wove across the floor before Chane. The wraith drew back and lashed down at the dog with one cloth-wrapped hand. Chane quickly swiped his blade at the hood.

  The sword’s tip passed through, not even ruffling fabric. Shade yelped as the wraith’s fingers grazed her shoulder.

  She stumbled away toward the desk, pulling up her left foreleg.

  Wynn rose up onto her knees, scrambled to the corner by the door, and latched both hands around the staff.

  Chane stiffened. Surely she wouldn’t use it while he was still in the room?

  A shout rose in the passage beyond the door.

  “All of you, back to your rooms and stay there!”

  Chane’s panic grew. Someone of authority had been alerted and was already outside. At any moment that person would reach the door.

  The wraith spun away from the dog at Wynn’s movement and fixed upon her.

  Chane shifted quickly into its way, but there was only one thing he could do.

  And it was going to hurt—more than the burns on his hands.

  Shade regained her feet and darted in, snapping at the shadow creature, trying to drive it back through the wall.

  “Chane, get out!” Wynn shouted.

  The wraith’s hood twisted sharply toward the dog, and Chane lunged.

  He thrust out with his empty hand.

  At the scriptorium, he and the wraith had had a moment of contact, which neither of them had cared for. Chane heard Wynn whispering as his hand passed straight through the figure’s forearm.

  A shock of cold raced through his arm.

  His burned hand felt as if he had thrust it into fire. When the frigid cold reached his shoulder, he could not help crying out. He let anger bring hunger to eat that pain, but he could not smother the fresh searing in his hand.

  Chane snatched his hand back, curling it against his chest as the hissing whispers in the room rose to a screech. The wraith whipped its arm away, sliding rapidly back through the bed toward the wall. And Wynn’s crystal atop the staff leaned out into the side of Chane’s view.

  He hated any thought of abandoning Wynn, and even so, he would never make it out of here in time. Not with whoever was outside the door.

  “Get down!” Wynn whispered. “Cover up!”

  Chane wavered briefly. He crumpled and flattened upon the floor. But as he jerked his cloak’s hood forward, pressing his face to the stone floor, the door burst open and bashed hard against the wall.

  “Wynn, stop!” a deep voice ordered, and the door slammed shut.

  But she didn’t. She barely recognized il’Sänke’s voice, and tried to keep her focus amid the sickening vertigo of mantic sight.

  The wraith was inside the guild—inside the dormitory. There were too many apprentices and initiates close by. She held the crystal’s triggering pattern in her mind but kept her eyes upon the wraith, hesitant and writhing before the window.

  And for an instant she saw it—him—within the cloak and heavy robe.

  Blue-white mists permeating the room began to shift, drifting slowly toward this thing. Wherever they touched the figure they were swallowed by it. The traces where they vanished formed outlines. Wynn saw shapes beneath the figure’s black garments and the cloth strips wrapped about its body.

  A skull faced her within the cowl.

  Consumed mists marked its outline like glistening moisture upon bones as black as coal beneath the wraps of its skeleton form. Then a wisp of another image overlaid this as well.

  She saw a face.

  Not like Chane or any other undead she had seen, retaining their appearance from the moment they were killed. Aged, emaciated, and sunken features suddenly covered the skull in another layer. As if this thing—man—had died of old age before he rose again.

  She couldn’t be certain, with no complexion to gauge, but the prominent cheekbones, nose, and chin made him appear Suman, like il’Sänke. His eyebrows had grown long and unkempt, and the straggles of a remaining beard hung in wisps along his jawline.

  His eyes weren’t clear to her, as if the open sockets were only glaring wells of obsidian. She was nothing more than a small thing in his way.

  A hand clamped over Wynn’s eyes, blocking everything out.

  Vertigo vanished, leaving only nausea in her gut. She lost the pattern in her mind as her head was jerked back against someone’s chest.

  The staff bucked in her hands under someone’s grip.

  “No, not yet!” she shouted, and then she heard il’Sänke murmuring near her ear.

  Chane was still in the room, but was he fully covered?

  A last raging howl from Shade hit Wynn’s ears. Then a burning flash of light filtered suddenly through il’Sänke’s hand, turned red-orange by his flesh.

  “No!” she screamed.

  Il’Sänke’s voice faded as darkness winked in behind Wynn’s closed eyes. When his hand lifted from her face, she thrashed free, searching for Chane. The wraith was gone, and the room was no longer filled by the blue-white of Spirit. Il’Sänke had taken away her mantic sight again. Chane was hunched on the floor, cloak hood pulled over his head.

  For an instant she thought she saw thin trails like morning mist rising from his hunkered form, and then they were gone. He glanced up around the edge of his hood.

  “Do not move!” il’Sänke hissed.

  Wynn whipped around in fright.

  Domin il’Sänke stood with one hand latched around the staff, just above her own grip. She knew only by the downward tilt of his head that he watched Chane—because she couldn’t see his eyes.

  He was wearing spectacles with a heavy pewter frame.

  In place of clear lenses, these were so dark they hid his eyes. The lenses began to change, growing clearer, finally revealing his unblinking gaze locked on Chane.

  Wynn rarely saw Domin il’Sänke truly angry. Even through lingering nausea, she winced at the cold expression on his face. Pounding ceased at the door, and Premin Sykion’s voice rose from the other side.

  “Quickly! We must break it down.”

  Wynn tensed with dread at the thought of anyone else entering her room. Then puzzlement followed. The door didn’t have a lock, so why would they need to break in? Il’Sänke had entered ea
sily enough, so . . .

  Wynn looked at the tall domin.

  Il’Sänke quickly gestured for Chane to move up against the wall behind the door. Chane glanced once at Wynn.

  She had to trust in whatever the domin was up to, or be left to explain Chane’s presence.

  “Do it!” she whispered.

  Chane spun onto his knees and stood up, flattening against the wall.

  Il’Sänke released the staff and pulled the strange spectacles from his face. As he tucked them in his robe, he passed his other hand in an arc before the door, never actually touching it. Then he opened it partway, holding it in place so that no one could step in.

  “It is nothing,” il’Sänke said through the door’s space, shaking his head with a half smile. “A large cat got into the courtyard and began to mewl. It set the majay-hì off. In our efforts to quiet her, Wynn and I made quite a racket. I do apologize.”

  Wynn couldn’t see Premin Sykion outside, but she heard the head of the guild let out an impatient exhale.

  “We shall speak further of this tomorrow.” Her tone was both annoyed and relieved.

  “I will make certain everything is quiet,” il’Sänke assured her. “You can send everyone back to bed, or we will all be useless in the morning.”

  Il’Sänke closed the door. His false smile vanished as he turned toward Chane.

  Always before, in any conflict involving Chane, Wynn feared for the safety of others. Watching il’Sänke, she suddenly felt the opposite.

  “Do not hurt him. I . . . we need him,” she whispered to the domin, still fearing that anyone outside might hear.

  “I assumed this was not some lovers’ tryst,” il’Sänke answered disdainfully. “And do not think I have forgotten him from your previous outing! I waited to see what you both might do . . . though this hardly meets my better expectations.”

  Chane just stood tense and silent.

  “Toying with the staff—and your sight, at the same time!” il’Sänke snapped. “The growth of your stupidity is astounding.”

  He shook his head slowly, and then snatched the staff from Wynn’s hand.

  “What drew that thing in here?” he demanded. “Did you sneak any translations back to your room?”

  “No,” Wynn answered. Just what was he implying? Before she could stop herself, she glanced down without thinking.

  Her open journal and quill had been kicked against the wall on the door’s other side—and the scroll as well. Fortunately no one had stepped on it amid the conflict. She went cold at the sight of ink all over the floor stones, for her small bottle had been kicked under the bed. But the splash of black hadn’t traveled to the other items.

  By the time Wynn looked up, in no more than a blink, il’Sänke had already followed her gaze. He leaned down and picked up the scroll, frowning suspiciously at its blackened surface.

  “Is this what it came for?” he whispered.

  “It is mine,” Chane rasped, reaching out. “I will take it and go.”

  “I do not recall dismissing you,” il’Sänke replied, though he didn’t even look at Wynn’s secret guest.

  Wynn silently shook her head at Chane, and he held his place. She glanced down at his hand. The ring was there again on his left hand—it hadn’t been when she’d looked for it with mantic sight. And she couldn’t remember seeing him put it back on, let alone having taken it off.

  Il’Sänke’s gaze shifted to the journal and quill. He picked up the former, holding it open atop the scroll, and then his scrutiny returned to Chane.

  That intense gaze made Chane fidget, and Wynn almost lunged when his grip tightened on his sword.

  Il’Sänke cocked his head and frowned.

  A strange instant of wary uncertainty washed over his dark features, as if he’d tried to read something in Chane’s face and couldn’t.

  “We need him,” Wynn repeated. “That thing came inside the guild. Maybe it has done so before . . . since no one could’ve stopped it. The three of us are the only ones who even believe it exists. We can’t afford to turn on one another if we’re to seek the truth and a way to destroy it.”

  “You are leaping to conclusions,” il’Sänke said. “After last night it could have simply been attacking you, as obviously this scroll is unreadable, except . . .”

  He bent his head, peering down at the journal.

  “What is this?” he asked—like a parent’s accusation, who already knew what trouble a child had gotten into.

  “A copy,” Wynn answered. “But only what I could make out from the scroll—”

  “—with your sight,” he finished for her, and then he turned to Chane. “So . . . bearer, where did you get this scroll?”

  Cold mistrust showed on Chane’s burned features.

  “From the same library where I found the ancient texts,” Wynn answered.

  “Wynn!” Chane hissed.

  “We cannot solve this alone!” she hissed back. “He needs to know everything.”

  And she turned back to il’Sänke.

  “There is a poem under the coating, penned by one of the ancient undead among the trio who wrote the texts I brought back. I haven’t been sure who to trust in this—but we must protect the guild and the texts. If I tell you everything we have learned, will you help us?”

  Il’Sänke remained expressionless, but he tilted the staff’s crystal toward Chane.

  Chane instinctively flinched away.

  “Who is he?” the doman asked.

  “I’ve known Chane for some time,” she answered. “He often came to our little branch in Bela, studying with myself and Domin Tilswith. He reads several languages from his region and has an interest in history. He . . . he knows a good deal about the undead.”

  “I can imagine,” il’Sänke said drily.

  Wynn’s heart began hammering. How much had Domin il’Sänke already guessed concerning Chane? And the way the domin had tilted that staff suggested much.

  “I should not stay,” Chane said. “There will be questions if I am discovered. I came only to ensure Wynn’s safety.”

  Domin il’Sänke snorted once and spoke only to Wynn. “He is correct about questions—but you cannot stay here alone. Both of you will come with me—now. I will take him out the library window, atop the wall.”

  Wynn gaped. He knew how she’d been getting out. But they would be seen if il’Sänke took Chane through the keep.

  “No one will see us,” he said. “I’m sure I can be quite as sneaky as you. But I will keep the scroll for now.”

  “No!” Chane rasped, raising his sword.

  As Shade snarled, Wynn rushed in and grabbed Chane’s forearm. She didn’t fully understand why, but it was clear how much the scroll meant to him. Yet il’Sänke might be the only one who could read the ancient Sumanese that she’d blindly copied from the scroll.

  “Let him keep it,” she told Chane. “He’s not like the other domins here. He won’t lay claim to it. And even you shouldn’t walk alone tonight while carrying it.”

  “Especially since you already look rather a mess,” il’Sänke added.

  Chane glanced down at Wynn. With a glower he reluctantly let her pull his sword arm down.

  “And you had best take these,” il’Sänke said to Wynn, taking out the strange glasses he’d been wearing. “At least until you learn to control the crystal’s intensity. Your mantic sight will be all you have left . . . if you stupidly blind yourself.”

  Wynn snatched the glasses from him, feeling less than grateful. “What was I supposed to do? You weren’t here.”

  “I am not the one drawing so much attention to myself,” he countered, and turned for the door.

  With a quick glance in the outer passage, Domin il’Sänke ushered them all out. Wynn went last, with Shade beside her. They paused at the door to the courtyard. When il’Sänke nodded that all was clear, they slipped across to the main doors and back inside the keep, heading for the library. He led them the same way by which they’d co
me in, yet another disturbing coincidence that bothered Wynn.

  When they reached the library’s first floor, il’Sänke had them wait while he scouted ahead. By the glow of perpetual cold lamps, Chane turned to Wynn, and the burns on his cheek looked orange in the soft light.

  “I will help,” he said. “I want to protect . . . the guild.”

  “I know,” she answered, but she wouldn’t give him more encouragement than this. She could never let him hope for anything beyond ending the current crisis.