by Barb Hendee
Years ago, back in Bela, Chane had left a string of brutalized bodies in his wake.
Had someone told Magiere she’d ever willingly allow Chane to lead her anywhere, she’d have pounded the witless snarker unconscious. And the only reason she followed Chane this night was the hope that he would lead her to something she wanted to kill even more than him: the one who had made her helpless.
She wasn’t helpless anymore.
“We are almost there,” Chane rasped without looking back.
That nearly voiceless voice reminded Magiere of when she’d taken his head, and yet he’d come back again. His hands were gloved, and inside his hood he wore a leather mask. Around his neck hung a pair of metal-framed glasses with lenses so dark they looked black. Wynn carried the same for whenever she used that new staff with the long crystal atop it, so it was obvious why Chane was so covered up.
So he would survive that same crystal and its light like the sun.
This only made Magiere more aware of how much Wynn and Chane had been through together, about how much they had accomplished. Another orb had been recovered.
Thankfully he still wore his “ring of nothing,” as he called it. Otherwise, Magiere and Chap would both be distracted in sensing what he really was.
“You all right?” Leesil whispered.
“Yes,” she answered.
But every time she thought of that gray-robed and -cowled figure who had tortured her without a single touch, she grew cold inside to the point of being numb.
She wanted the fire in her guts again. She wanted hunger and rage, even to the rush and risk of those overwhelming her. She wanted what had been taken from her. In that, she might need Chane as well. At least in thinking on him she could feel the hunger that fed her strength.
—We will . . . destroy . . . the specter—
As these words surfaced in her mind, she almost stopped. Perhaps Chap had done it unconsciously, but there was a sharp, determined tone to the memory-words he’d called up. He sounded almost as driven and obsessive as she felt.
“Yes,” she answered him as well.
Ahead, the street emptied into a large open marketplace, all quiet in the predawn darkness. So far, they hadn’t spotted a single imperial or city guard, and she wasn’t sure exactly what that meant.
Chane halted and pointed ahead with one gloved hand. “There, up the next block. Are you ready?”
Magiere settled a hand on her falchion’s hilt, even knowing she needed nothing but her hands and teeth.
* * *
Ghassan stood behind a shed between two houses across the street from the one he had chosen. Though the sky was still dark, dawn was not far off. When he peeked around the shed’s corner, Wynn did so as well, for she was so short he could see over the top of her hooded head when she crouched a little. And in her hand was the staff, its sun crystal at his eye level and unsheathed.
When he had made that for her, he had not known how useful it would be. He also knew that others had been made as a last means for dealing with Khalidah, and yet everyone of his sect had died but him.
He had never learned how that could have happened. He had seen only their lifeless eyes staring upward where they lay. Every crystal in the sect’s subterranean sanctuary had been shattered within the chest that contained them. There had been no resources, let alone the time to make more before he fled that place.
Shade stood attentive and pressed up against Wynn, shoulder to thigh. Every now and then she uttered a half whine.
“What is wrong with her?” Ghassan asked.
“She’s just . . . overprotective when she thinks I’m going to do something dangerous.”
He raised an eyebrow. “With your penchant for trouble, she must be continuously distressed.”
Wynn’s head turned upward. Whatever irritated sharp look she gave him was not clearly visible in the dark. When she looked away, and he was about to do the same, she jabbed her elbow into his side.
Scowling, Ghassan had no chance to protest.
“Look!” she whispered.
A glint of gold caught his eye. He spotted two imperial guards stepping into view from a side street. They entered the market, briefly looked about, and turned back the way they had come.
Ghassan frowned. “So soon, and closer than I expected.”
“At least we know they’re here and looking. Your prince accomplished what you asked of him.”
Yes, but it would mean little if Magiere and Chane were pulled into a fight before reaching the house. He needed Magiere to nearly reach the house before being seen and recognized as she and her companions entered.
This required stealth and timing, two attributes Ghassan was less than certain Magiere had in her. But once—if—her task was accomplished, any guards who spotted her would not act without orders. Rather, they would send someone off to report to . . .
Ghassan waited for the one who would come—for the host of Khalidah.
All it would have taken was a slip from his prince to be overheard. Not just about the escapees but about a fallen domin, last of a sect of sorcerers who had escaped from the audience chamber atop the imperial palace. The old assassin and Leesil had not been wrong, though they had been presumptuous in thinking that he had not considered their notion himself.
Ghassan eyed the street both ways.
The specter would not ignore a chance at catching both of his most desired prey in one place. And wherever it found Magiere, it would expect to find the last of its previous keepers.
Whoever entered that house across the way would be Khalidah’s host.
“What now?” Wynn whispered.
“We wait.”
* * *
From above, Brot’ân’duivé spotted Chane slipping down the street with Magiere, Léshil, and Chap. Lifting his gaze, he focused across the rooftops through the darkness.
He no longer knew what to expect from Osha.
Back in Calm Seatt, he had been caught off guard when the young and most inept of anmaglâhk had failed to appear at their meeting point. And then the ship carried Brot’ân’duivé and the others southward.
Osha had chosen to remain with Wynn Hygeorht—and without a word of warning.
Until then, Brot’ân’duivé believed he could read the young man without effort. Osha had surprised him, and not many in the world were capable of this. Worse, for all of Osha’s training under the tutelage of great Sgäilsheilleache, he still exhibited a reticence to kill.
Sgäilsheilleache had killed without hesitation when necessary. He had failed in not teaching his last student to quiet his mind, still his heart, and act as required.
That need would come soon, and Brot’ân’duivé doubted Osha could fulfill it.
For a moment, he slipped into annoyance, for he could not spot Osha on the assigned rooftop . . . not until the young one moved and crept to that roof’s edge over the street.
Brot’ân’duivé peered downward as the quartet below came closer, and he firmly gripped his short bow. His task—and Osha’s—would be to provide Magiere’s group cover should they be discovered too quickly before reaching Ghassan’s other hidden place.
The domin’s plan would fail otherwise.
Brot’ân’duivé shifted up to one knee, pulled the arrow enough to feel tension in the bowstring, and watched as the group below approached the house. Even with their hoods up, it was simple to differentiate between Chane and Magiere by their heights and movements. He did not spot any guards, but they had to be near if the domin’s plan was truly in motion. For an instant, Brot’ân’duivé’s gaze locked only on Léshil.
To date, he had explained both his presence and his actions as a determination to protect Magiere and keep the orbs from falling into the hands of Most Aged Father. Magiere understood his reasons and believed him—in part, it was the truth. He had other reasons he kept to himself.
First, he had to learn the power of the orbs, their purpose, and their use. It had been a rare frustration to live
in the presence of the orb of Spirit and not open the chest to examine it. If he betrayed such interest, he would have given himself away prematurely.
Chap was ever suspicious and missed little.
Second, Brot’ân’duivé had to make certain at any cost that Léshil survived. The half-blood offspring of a human father and his an’Cróan mother, Cuirin’nên’a, served a purpose.
Many years past, and well before Léshil’s conception, a few among the Anmaglâhk watched with great concern as Most Aged Father’s distaste for humans became something worse. The return of the Enemy was not in doubt by those who still learned of the far past, but the patriarch set the caste to actions that could bring about dangerous repercussions.
In that forgotten age, humans had been used as tools of the Enemy.
Most Aged Father’s obsession with this became a threat to his own people. He began using the Anmaglâhk not as guardians and protectors but as weapons themselves. They were ordered to seed war among human nations, to turn such against one another, and weaken, cripple, or eliminate their potential as weapons should the Ancient Enemy return.
Some among the caste, such as Brot’ân’duivé’s one love—the maternal grandmother of Léshil—saw the danger that others did not. Cuirin’nên’a’s mother, the great Eillean, had been a founder of a hidden collection of dissidents inside the caste and later among the clans.
Yes, it was Eillean who feared that humans would learn what was being done to them, if not why. They would turn against the an’Cróan for vengeance, and a thousand years of peace, sanctuary, and safety would be lost. Brot’ân’duivé later joined the dissidents by Eillean’s consent. It had been through her that he learned of Cuirin’nên’a and, more critically, of Léshil as the dissidents’ own instrument to strike the Enemy when it came again.
Cuirin’nên’a had followed in her mother’s ways.
She sacrificed much to bring her half-blooded son into this world and train him beyond the caste’s reach. So he was born and raised in the Warlands, away from his people, with few influences outside of his mother. This was necessary for him to remain beyond the influence of any one people, culture, or faction. It would then be easier to keep him free for what would come, and to direct—control—him amid his feelings of being cast adrift in the world.
Cuirin’nên’a was to turn her own son into the weapon that their people might someday need. So it should have been—until he fled . . . with a majay-hì.
Brot’ân’duivé easily reasoned this had been Chap’s doing. No one could have known then what hid within one majay-hì pup that a grandmother delivered secretly through a mother to a lonely half-blooded boy. But Chap’s act of stealing Léshil away did not change fate.
Even the long-dead ancestors recognized Léshil when he later went to them for his name-taking. Instead of leaving him to choose a name for himself, they put another name upon him linked to one among them.
Leshiârelaohk . . . Leshiâra’s Champion . . . the Champion of Sorrow-Tear.
Léshil’s destiny was clear, and Chap’s plans no longer mattered. The mixed-race son of Cuirin’nên’a would play a pivotal role should the worst come and the Ancient Enemy of many names return again.
Brot’ân’duivé would make certain of Léshil’s survival above all else.
He watched the half-blood and the others walk out in the open market, now still and quiet, and he knew Osha had seen them as well. Though the young one had become unpredictable, he would not hesitate to protect his human friends.
About twenty paces from the house, Léshil stopped. Chap halted beside him, and Magiere paused ahead to look back. Léshil reached up and pushed his hood back, exposing his white-blond hair, which caught the light of lanterns halfway down the block. Chap stood in plain sight, looking both ways as Magiere pushed her hood back.
Brot’ân’duivé remained poised. His gaze shifted between every dark place along the street. This was the moment in which the domin’s plan might fail.
* * *
Wynn held her breath as Leesil exposed his hair. Her friends were almost to the safe house. She jumped slightly when Ghassan touched her shoulder. Looking up, she followed where he pointed.
Eight imperial guards emerged from a side street in the market. They moved silent and quick heading toward Magiere and the others. And worse for Wynn’s stomach, this was no accident.
Magiere had been spotted as she and hers had passed through the market.
Panic rushed through Wynn. She and Ghassan were too far away to act yet. Somewhere above, Osha and Brot’an would fire when necessary, but more guards could be coming. Magiere’s group had to reach the house at the right moment.
“What do we do?” she whispered.
Ghassan didn’t answer . . . as the guards suddenly stopped.
Two of them turned and hurried off the way they’d come.
“That is what we needed,” Ghassan whispered. “Two have gone to report that the prisoners have been found. The others are waiting for orders.”
The domin let out a long breath, but Wynn didn’t share his relief.
“Chane still has time to get everyone into the cellar,” Ghassan added.
As if signaled, Chane hurried up the front porch, opened the door, and entered. Magiere, Chap, and Leesil followed him, but Wynn wasn’t certain any of them had noticed the guards lurking among the market stalls. And when she looked away . . .
The two missing guards returned to the others. They had not been gone long.
A tall, thin figure in a hooded gray robe stepped out of the shadows behind them.
At least twelve more guards followed after that, and the robed figure raised one arm to halt them. He then strode through the guards already waiting in the market until he was in the lead. Without even slowing, he dropped his arm, and all the guards began to advance.
“Too soon!” Ghassan hissed. “Chane will never get them through the hidden door!”
Before Wynn could respond, one imperial guard cried out and toppled backward in the street. An arrow protruded from his chest.
Another went down as his shoulder was struck.
Shouts erupted as other guards scattered for cover, calling out to one another as more arrows struck. But that gray figure didn’t break stride and approached the front door untouched with five men behind him.
“We need to get in there!” Wynn whispered loudly.
Ghassan rushed out, and Wynn dashed after him with her staff as Shade sped ahead of her.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Chane led the way into the house with Magiere and Chap directly behind him. He heard Leesil follow and close the door. As il’Sänke had described, Chane found himself in a hallway aimed straight ahead.
Through the eyeholes of his mask, he barely made out small lamps lining one side of the way. None were lit, and he could not see to the hallway’s end. He moved on without a word to the others. At least while wearing the mask he did not have to guard his expression.
The trek through the streets had been more difficult than anticipated. It did not bother him that the three he led all hated him. He welcomed their hatred as it meant he did not have to attempt any false civility.
What did bother him was their unmitigated hypocrisy.
Magiere viewed him as a killer, which he was—or had been more than now. But she saw herself as some paragon fighting the good fight. He remembered how this contradiction had once played out.
On the eastern continent in the dank forests of Droevinka, he had been trailing Wynn in secret as she traveled with Magiere, Leesil, and Chap. Wynn ended up separated from her companions and in danger, and Chane had had no choice but to reveal himself to protect her.
Magiere later stumbled upon them and attacked him.
He managed to step inside her guard, catch her with a fist, and knock her off her feet. As he was about to ram his sword down through her chest, Wynn threw herself in his way, begging him to stop.
He hesitated . . . but Magiere did not and s
truck upward with her falchion.
The blade’s broad end cut into his neck and jaw. He never saw the second blow that took off his head. When he awoke much later in a shallow grave, little more than a pit, he was covered in freshly killed corpses and blood, though his head was back on his neck.
Magiere had not known that was possible—neither had he. It was only accomplished by the arcane intervention of Welstiel Massing, another undead and Magiere’s half brother.
During the fight, he had hesitated to kill. She had not, and yet she viewed herself as so much better than him.
It was insufferable.
He kept his eyes straight ahead, for hatred had likely turned his irises clear.
“Where’s the door to the cellar?” Magiere asked.
He heard the strain in her voice at having to speak to him.
“The hallway’s end, on the left,” he answered.
Chane drew the extra cold-lamp crystal from his pocket and brushed it against his cloak. It glowed softly.
“Where did you get that?” Magiere demanded.
His first impulse was to ignore her. “Wynn gave it to me.” And he walked on.
As he passed a large archway on the right, he saw a well-furnished sitting room beyond it, filled with low couches, chairs and tables, and framed paintings on the walls.
“How will you get us through the lower . . . hidden door?”
This time it was Leesil who questioned him, but Chane did not answer. The half-blood could pick a lock but knew nothing of the arcane. Il’Sänke had given Chane a pebble and told him how to use it. The outcome depended upon whether or not they had been spotted entering the house.
So long as they had, the plan was fairly simple.
Once Magiere and Leesil were recognized and observed going inside, whoever among the guards saw them would slip away to report. Chane was to lead his group downstairs, open the hidden door, and take everyone into the secret windowless cellar chamber. Wynn, Shade, and il’Sänke were positioned close by outside, and the specter—in whatever host—would come directly for this house and enter. He would never risk leaving their capture purely in the hands of the imperial guards.
