by Barb Hendee
Pawl opened his eyes in the back room of his scriptorium. If he still existed, so must she. He had seen names in those scant sheets for transcription from the guild. Was she one of them? Could that be possible?
He ran his hands down his face. No matter the hatred and need that clung to those few, unbroken pebbles of memories, his responsibilities here came first. He had his existence, in his city, to attend.
The world he’d created here for himself was his best protection. He never lost sight of this, and he glanced at the unlocked back door, its stout iron bar leaning beside it. What was keeping Liam and Imaret?
Despite the guild having both slowed and altered the project, they still provided his shop with a good deal of other work. A journeyor in the order of Sentiology had recently returned from his first year’s assignment. Premin Renäld had engaged Pawl’s scriptorium to transcribe the young man’s journals for the guild’s archive. The deadline was today.
Upon arriving at the shop this evening, Pawl had found that his scribes weren’t finished. He sent Imaret and Liam to assure the premin of completion by tomorrow at closing. As a matter of principle, he kept all patrons fully informed. A one-day extension should cause no concern.
Hopefully it wasn’t Imaret who kept him waiting.
The first two sages murdered last autumn had been friends of hers—one of them in particular. The pair had another close companion at the guild, Nikolas Columsarn, who’d later been attacked. Naturally, shared loss had brought Imaret and Nikolas together, and the young sage had begun spending much of his free time at the shop. Imaret used any excuse possible to go visit him.
For all his quiet, nervous nature, Nikolas possessed a sharp, curious mind. More central to Pawl’s curiosity was the boy’s interest in history. Something about Nikolas Columsarn pulled at Pawl. It wasn’t pity, but rather a driven need to . . . protect what was his.
Pawl grew more anxious and wary after each of Nikolas’s visits, lingering longer each night as they pored over papers and books brought from Pawl’s own home library. Attachments of any kind were a danger, and he already had enough of those in managing the shop and its staff, and especially Imaret.
And she still kept him waiting.
He stepped to the back door, reaching for his broad-brimmed hat and black cloak on a peg beside it, preparing to step out and look for the girl. But the back door flew open, and he stopped it with one hand before it struck him.
Imaret nearly fell inside, breathing hard, and cried, “Master?”
She looked about wildly, and Liam followed her in, appearing equally unsettled. Pawl startled both of them as he stepped from behind the door and closed it.
“What is it?” he asked immediately.
Small for her age, Imaret had her mother’s dusky skin and mass of slightly kinky black hair. Liam stood a full head taller than her, and had reddish hair and pale blue eyes. Pawl guessed them to both to be about sixteen years old, although he’d never asked.
“The guild is locked down.” Imaret panted. “It’s under guard. City guard!”
Pawl froze for three of Imaret’s fast breaths. “Slow down . . . and explain.”
“We didn’t even get to the courtyard,” she rushed on. “The portcullis was down, and the Shyldfälches are walking the walls, and Nikolas is trapped inside!”
Her words left Pawl anxious, though likely not for the same reasons as her. She wasn’t making sense, and he turned his hard gaze on Liam.
“We weren’t able to deliver our message properly,” Liam added. “We refused to leave, insisting we would stand there until a guard sent word that we were waiting . . . and we kept on waiting. We thought they’d let us in, but it wasn’t Premin Renäld who finally came out. It was Domin High-Tower. He didn’t care about the journeyor’s work we should’ve completed, and he said all work on the translation project has been suspended. You’re not to send any scribes until further notice . . . from him. And then he just walked off!”
Imaret was still panting, and her face was distraught. Pawl had no time to reassure her, for Nikolas was the least of his concerns. Something drastic had happened if Sykion had halted all work on the translation project. But what would cause her to call in the city guard?
Pawl was now completely cut off . . . indefinitely.
“Did High-Tower or the guards give any reason for why this has happened?” he asked.
Both apprentices shook their heads.
“Nikolas hates being locked in,” Imaret said. “He hated it when he was . . . when it happened last autumn.”
Nikolas had been assaulted, like several other young sages. Unlike them, he had survived, just barely. He had spent more than a moon in convalescence, and even now was not fully recovered—perhaps never would be.
Pawl could not squelch a flash of pity. Imaret was afraid for the only friend she had left, and he could not let this impede her valued skills. She was more than just a gifted scribe in training. Even at her young age, he had come to depend on her for artistic assignments.
She could reproduce anything she read from memory, character for character, whether she could read it or not.
“Liam, take Imaret directly home,” Pawl instructed. “No deviations. And then do so yourself.”
He looked down at Imaret and placed his wide-brimmed hat on his head. He slung his cloak over his shoulders and began to tie it. She hadn’t argued, but she looked up at him, as if barely restraining an urgent plea.
“I will go to the guild myself tonight,” he told her. “Tomorrow, I’ll tell you what I learn.”
Her dusky little face flushed with relief, and then: “Couldn’t we wait here, until you—”
“Home now,” he said sharply, and then calmed, looking for a rational way to dissuade her. “I already risk censure from your parents for keeping you this late. Both of your families will soon begin worrying.”
Imaret blinked at him, and Pawl had a strange feeling she might argue—not with his reasoning or his instructions, but with something else he had said. She glanced back at Liam and turned away in resignation.
“You’ll ask after Nikolas?” she said, reaching for the door’s handle.
“I will try,” he answered, not willing to make a promise.
Once Pawl had seen off both apprentices, he headed in the other direction—toward the guild’s castle. He moved quickly through the dark streets, wondering if perhaps Imaret and Liam had overstated the situation. Emotion and personal concerns often narrowed the perspectives of the young. Soon he found himself heading up Old Procession Road, and the inner bailey gate lay just ahead. But as he opened the gate, he saw that Imaret’s emotional outburst had been no frightened exaggeration.
The portcullis was closed, and a Shyldfälche in a red tabard peered out at him through the thick, upright beams. Pawl spotted another one heading off along the bailey wall’s southern half.
He approached the portcullis, greeting the guard inside with only a nod. The man was very large, with a shaved head and an overly affected grimace.
“Can I help you, sir?” the guard asked, though his tone hardly suggested interest in doing so.
“I am Master a’Seatt from the Upright Quill,” Pawl said, intentionally pitching his tone to slightly haughty and annoyed. “My scriptorium is engaged in several projects for the sages, yet two of my apprentices were sent away earlier tonight. Please tell Domin High-Tower I wish to speak with him . . . now.”
The guard’s expression didn’t change, and he merely answered, “Domin High-Tower has given instructions that he’s not to be disturbed. Come back tomorrow.”
All the bald guard did was stand there, arms crossed, staring out through the portcullis beams.
Pawl stared back in a silent moment of indecision. The guild grounds indeed had been locked down. The work for his shop was the most immediate practical concern, but he had also lost the means to fulfill his own desire. Pressing the matter here and now might only prolong such loss or even make it permanent.
He finally turned back out the bailey gate and up Old Procession Road. But he kept remembering the names he had read in those mixed fragments sent for transcription at his shop.
Vespana, Ga’hetman, Jeyretan . . . Fäzabid and Memaneh . . . Uhmgadâ, Creif, and Sau’ilahk . . . Volyno and Häs’saun . . . and Li’kän.
Was she among them?
Patience was a benefit of a long existence, but like anything else, it could be worn thinner than the finest paper.
* * *
Magiere allowed Leanâlhâm to help hold her up as they waited in a cutway between two buildings. Chap and Leesil were flattened up against the wall nearer the street, keeping watch. Leesil had managed to retrieve their travel chest, and it rested on the ground beside him along with their packs.
The building at Magiere’s back was some form of tall, three-story inn. Osha had gone around to the front to enter, make his way to the back, and let them all inside, out of sight. But in waiting, Magiere looked down and cupped Leanâlhâm’s face with one hand.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered.
As the question escaped her lips, Leanâlhâm’s eyes widened. She quickly put her hand over Magiere’s mouth and shook her head for silence.
When Magiere had last left Leanâlhâm, the girl had been safe at home in the elven forest of the eastern continent, living with the elderly healer Gleann, Leanâlhâm’s so-called “grandfather.” Leesil’s mother, Nein’a, had gone to stay with them as well. Magiere could only imagine the girl’s grief, as well as Gleann’s, upon hearing of the death of her “uncle,” Sgäile. Although Sgäile had been related to the girl and the old healer by blood, Magiere had never quite understood elven familial connections. Titles like “grandfather” and “uncle” were likely a bit too simple.
What could have possessed Brot’an to take Leanâlhâm away from such a peaceful life? Magiere jerked her head away from Leanâlhâm’s hand. “Why aren’t you at home with your grandfather?”
Leanâlhâm didn’t answer and looked away toward the cutway’s back end, but Osha hadn’t appeared yet.
Magiere could no longer see Leanâlhâm’s face inside the girl’s hood. She began to suspect something more than fear of being overheard by their enemies caused the girl’s silence.
“Leanâlhâm?” she whispered, more gently.
The girl instantly cringed, almost as if the word were a blow, and then suddenly she straightened and pulled on Magiere’s arm.
Osha was leaning around the inn’s back corner, waving all of them to follow him.
Magiere looked back the other way. “Psst!”
Leesil glanced back, as did Chap, and she waved them into retreat. They followed as Magiere hobbled down the cutway toward Osha, with Leanâlhâm’s help. Around back, Osha opened a back door that had been left cracked and ushered them inside to the nearby stairs.
The effort and agony of making the climb did little to distract Magiere, for Leanâlhâm was still too quiet.
Leesil wasn’t surprised to find that Brot’an had chosen a room on the top floor. Anmaglâhk had a penchant for coming and going via rooftops. But in the moment, he didn’t much care. Once he’d put down their belongings, he took hold of Magiere’s arm, quickly unbelted her falchion, and then helped Leanâlhâm get her settled on the room’s one narrow bed. After the madness of this night, he and Chap had finally gotten Magiere locked away in at least the illusion of safety.
“Are you in much pain?” he asked.
As Magiere leaned back, Leanâlhâm pushed a blanket-covered pack under her shoulders and head. Magiere finally shook her head in reply, but Leesil knew she was lying.
Her pale features were strained, and her jaw was clenched. He wanted to give her a few moments before they tried to remove the arrow. The pain was going to get much worse.
Leanâlhâm knelt on the floor at the bed’s other side as Leesil glanced about, spotting a small pile of travel gear in the corner—water skins, another blanket, and two more packs. Besides these, there was only a small table big enough for one person’s needs, two stools, and a tin pitcher and basin near the door. He couldn’t tell how long Brot’an had been staying here.
Chap padded to the filthy window. He rose, and with his front feet on the sill, he huffed for attention as he pawed the open slide bolt where the window’s two halves closed together. Then he growled, glancing back at Leesil.
“Lock that up,” Leesil said, looking to Osha. “At least then we’ll hear anyone trying to get in.”
Instead, Osha unslung his quiver and then viciously pulled the slipknot of another cord across his chest. He caught the long and narrow cloth-wrapped bundle sliding down his back and tossed—nearly threw—it into the corner atop the other gear.
Osha shuddered once with a grimace, rubbing his shoulder, as if the burden were heavier than it could possibly be. Leesil wondered what was wrapped inside the cloth, but this was not the time to ask.
Chap dropped down from the sill and backed up as Osha stepped to the window. Instead of locking it, Osha opened one half partway and peered out into the night and upward toward the roof. When he closed it again, he didn’t bolt it.
Chap growled softly and looked at Leesil, but they both knew what this was about: Brot’an. Osha expected the shadow-gripper to come in from above. Chap’s jowls wrinkled as he stalked toward the door and lay down to watch the window and the whole room.
Leesil turned his attention back to Magiere.
Just across the bed, Leanâlhâm was already examining Magiere’s wound.
“What are you doing here?” he asked her with one quick glance at Osha. “Either of you . . . why aren’t you with Gleann . . . and my mother? Leanâlhâm?”
Leanâlhâm tensed but remained fixed on splitting Magiere’s pant leg from around the protruding arrow. Leesil saw one of her strangely green eyes twitch.
“I must work on this,” she answered.
Her Belaskian was better than Osha’s. Likely, that had been through Sgäile’s tutelage, though Gleann had also spoken it quite well. Wynn had worked with Osha a bit, but like Leesil himself, Osha had little talent for any language but his own.
Leanâlhâm suddenly rose and went to dig in a pack among the gear in the corner. She pulled out several pieces of white cloth and a box large enough that she needed to hold it with both hands. Returning to the far bedside, she set her items on the floor where Leesil couldn’t see them. Leanâlhâm further widened the tear in Magiere’s pant leg, using one of the cloths to wipe away blood so she could better inspect the wound.
“What’s in the box?” Leesil asked.
“The tools of a healer,” Leanâlhâm answered. “It was my . . . grandfather’s.”
Gleann was a renowned Shaper among his people, the an’Cróan, or rather a healer who worked on the wounded versus guiding the shaping of living things, such as trees grown into homes for their people. Perhaps like him, Leanâlhâm was gifted, and he had trained her. But had that old, owl-faced an’Cróan given up his work? Why else would he hand over his wares to his granddaughter?
“The arrow missed the bone,” Leanâlhâm said. “But the shaft is lodged against it. The protruding head can be snapped off, but I will have to widen the wound a little to get the shaft out cleanly.”
Magiere elbowed up from her reclining position. “Don’t bother,” she said, but her words sounded muffled.
Leesil’s gaze flew to her face. He’d warned her earlier about letting her dhampir nature out to mask the pain.
Magiere’s brown irises flooded to black, and Leesil panicked. He knew what she was about to do. As she reached under her leg and snapped off the arrow’s head, he shouted at her.
“No!”
Before he could grab her wrist, she ripped the shaft out of her thigh.
A grating cry of pain or rage erupted from Magiere’s widened mouth. The arrow shaft snapped in half in her clenched fist as Leesil scrambled up on the bed to pin her down. Leanâlhâm gave an involuntary cry, grabbing a pie
ce of cloth to staunch the blood flow.
“No!” Magiere snarled and pushed the girl’s hands away.
Leesil saw Magiere’s eyes flood nearly black as her irises expanded. Through the pain, she clenched her teeth, and her lips parted. Her teeth had begun to shift and change. Leesil threw himself on top of her, pinning her down as he shouted, “Chap!”
Chap wasn’t fast enough. By the time he latched onto the back of Leanâlhâm’s cloak and pulled, the girl’s eyes had gone wide. She twisted away across the floor, ducking behind Osha’s legs as he rushed in.
Osha looked horrified but not surprised. He’d seen Magiere change more than once, both in the Elven Territories and while fighting beside her in the ice-bound castle when they’d gone after the orb. He had seen Magiere’s dhampir half, but never like this.
All Leesil could do was hold Magiere down and hope she didn’t lose control.
Every one of her muscles was rigid beneath him, and he looked to the tear in her pant leg. This ability to just call up her inner nature was new—and how she’d learned to do so in the northern Wastes wasn’t something anyone else should know about. He lay atop Magiere as Chap watched them both, standing by and ready to lunge in. Leesil grew numb and couldn’t even look at Magiere’s face anymore. He just kept looking down at the blood-soaked rent in her pant leg.
The blood wasn’t flowing anymore. He couldn’t be certain amid the mess, but he knew the wound would begin closing.
Magiere whimpered and went limp beneath him. Osha and Leanâlhâm still watched as one last exhausted exhale escaped Magiere.
“What . . . what . . . ?” Leanâlhâm, now on her feet and peering around Osha’s side, stammered.
“It’s all right,” Leesil said, his voice flat. “She’ll need water and food soon.”
Leanâlhâm remained there, hiding behind Osha.
Leesil swung his head back to see Magiere’s face. Her eyes were closed, but her mouth was slack enough for him to see that her teeth had returned to normal. She was covered in sweat, and he reached for the scrap of cloth Leanâlhâm had dropped to wipe Magiere’s face.
