by Barb Hendee
Had she or one of her companions been injured? Or had something else delayed her? He could not allow Magiere to learn of his group's presence; she must not have warning.
"Wait here," he said. "Keep the monks quiet. Get them back in the tents if I do not return by dawn."
"By dawn?" Chane asked in surprise. "Where are you going?"
"Do as I instruct!"
He pushed past along the rough forested slope, staying clear of the beach. If Magiere was ahead, his ring would hide him from her. He caught only glimpses of the ocean as he worked his way south. Then he began sniffing about for himself, until he finally picked up a scent.
He crept on, and the odor sharpened more frequently on the unpredictable ocean breeze twisting through the foliage. Then it seemed to surround him from within the trees, and he halted, peering about with his senses fully opened.
Life-blood filled his nostrils, but it was different and faintly familiar- earthy and rich, yet less musky than a human's. He closed his eyes, with the scent filling his head, waiting for a triggered memory…
Of the lower levels of Darmouth's keep.
A tall figure clad in a green-gray cloak carrying another over his shoulder.
Welstiel opened his eyes.
He smelled elves.
He stepped onward, and the scent broke and faded in the breeze. So he reversed until it strengthened once more. And yet he saw nothing. He turned all the way around.
They were here-he had to be right on top of them.
Hkuan'duv heard footfalls on fallen leaves as something approached from the north. It was still a ways off when he tapped his companions awake. He swiftly motioned them into the dense heights of the nearby pines and evergreens, and they climbed and vanished from sight.
He stood watching north, and when he saw as well as heard movement, he backed into the depths of a thick fir, melding against its bark. He pushed up his face wrap until its edge slipped over his nose, and then tilted his head down so his cowl shadowed his eyes.
The stillness of thought is a silence, unheard and unnoticed.
The silence of flesh leaves only shadow, impenetrable and intangible.
This was how Eillean, Leshil's grandmother, had once tried to describe it, as she sat with him one long night in Crijheaiche. So seldom had they crossed paths. And that night, two Greimasg'ah attempted to describe the mysteries of silence and shadow. In the end, they merely chuckled at each other-for who could truly put such into words?
Hkuan'duv loosened his cloak and pulled its folds around himself. He let his mind clear, becoming nothing but an empty vessel filled by what his senses perceived. Sinking into a quiescence of mind, body, and spirit, he let the shadows embrace him.
A stranger walked straight through the spot where his comrades had rested moments ago.
Pale-skinned, even for a human, the man's dark hair was marred by white patches at his temples. His well-tailored cloak was shabby and his boots scuffed, as if he had walked countless leagues. The man stopped and sniffed the air.
He turned a complete circle, wandered the sharply sloped little clearing, and then returned to its center, scenting the air once more. He came so close that his shoulder brushed the branch tips of the fir Hkuan'duv stood within.
The man's eyes glittered softly, his irises nearly colorless.
Without moving, without thought, Hkuan'duv drew air through his nostrils. A stale scent, devoid of human sweat, lingered beneath the odor of the fir.
Welstiel smelled more than one elf-three, maybe four. The scent hung in the small clearing, waxing and waning in the shifting breeze. Yet no matter where he turned, no matter where he looked, he saw no one.
Magiere's venture among the elves might explain their presence. But why would they trail her-or were they following Leesil? Either way, he worried how this might affect his plans. He wanted no one to get between himself and Magiere.
The scent of life waned, diminishing, until he smelled only moss and needles and the salted breeze. He peered about but still saw nothing, and finally turned back north to where Chane and his monks waited.
Welstiel could not hunt something he could not find.
When Hkuan'duv lost sight of the stranger, he clicked his tongue three times, telling his companions to wait. Slipping from the shadows, he followed the stranger's trail. At a glimpse of movement ahead, he slowed, pausing until it disappeared. He followed again in silence, tracking the pale human by sound.
Then he heard grunting and snorting.
Hkuan'duv closed in, one silent step at a time. As the sounds grew closer, he spotted more movement in a clearing just above the beach. He sidled into an aspen, barely making its leaves shiver. Once again, he let shadow take him.
The dark-haired stranger approached another human, tall and younger with red-brown hair. All around them, others moved like half-crouched beasts, snuffling in agitation. They showed some fearful obeisance to the dark-haired man. Their faces were twisted, and their eyes glittered like his. Their tabards and robes were splattered with dark stains.
The tall young one spoke. "Was it Magiere?"
Hkuan'duv closed his eyes, letting their words fill his emptied mind. The strangers spoke Belaskian in low tones, and the younger man's voice never rose above a hoarse rasp.
"No… I do not think so," answered the man with white temples.
"Then what? Who else could possibly be out here? Some Ylladon survivor?"
"Not them," the elder answered. "They would not…"
Someone began savagely sniffing the air, and Hkuan'duv parted his eyelids.
Several of the crouching figures snarled and inched along the slanted forest floor.
"What now?" the dark-haired man asked.
"I do not scent anything," his companion answered. "They grew agitated when you left. It may be nothing more than wildlife."
Hkuan'duv had been detected somehow. What were these robed humans who acted like beasts? He dropped low, bunching his cloak and pulling its folds snugly close. He slipped into the forest as silently as a prowling majay-hi. It took only a few breaths before he was certain no one was pursuing him.
Once clear, he sped up and slipped swiftly through the trees. He whistled softly before entering the clearing, and his comrades dropped from above.
"Who was he?" A'harhk'nis asked. "He did not breathe as we do."
"And so pale…," Kurhkage added, "like the one Most Aged Father accused before the council of elders. This can be no coincidence."
"What did you find?" Danvarfij asked softly.
Hkuan'duv was unsure how much to discuss-as he was uncertain himself. Magiere had been accused of being an undead. Though the council of clan elders had dismissed Most Aged Father's charges, the patriarch's firm belief had never wavered.
Magiere, the monster and undead, had walked freely in the protected realm of the an'Croan. Now others, so similar in coloring and attributes, trailed her.
"An entire group camps some distance behind us," Hkuan'duv finally said. "I counted seven. I believe they are following Magiere as well, but I do not know why."
"How did they come to be here, so close upon her heels?" A'harhk'nis asked, his voice hard. "Did they make any mention of the Ylladon?"
Hkuan'duv shook his head. "The hkomas said their ship was destroyed." "A Pairvanean was also burned," Danvarfij pointed out, "and yet most of our people reached shore."
Hkuan'duv had considered this.
"Should we capture one of them?" Kurhkage suggested. "Perhaps glean more information?"
Hkuan'duv saw hazards in such a pursuit. When finished, they would have to kill the prisoner… thing… to maintain secrecy. He looked at Danvarfij.
She shook her head.
"They know little to nothing of our presence," she said, "and pose no immediate threat to us or to Sgailsheilleache and Osha. But if these pale ones have a claim concerning Magiere, they could be useful later. We cannot leave Sgailsheilleache at odds between our purpose and his guardianship."
Hkuan'duv glanced at Kurhkage, who looked silently troubled. It was clear he saw merit in both his companions' arguments. Duty and sense required that Hkuan'duv listen to all worthwhile input, but the final choice was his.
"We will watch and wait," he said. "But now we are monitoring two separate quarry at once… one of which appears to travel by night. We must move farther up into the foothills, ranging lower only as needed to track them. We will need all your skills, A'harhk'nis."
"Of course, Greimasg'ah," he answered.
Hkuan'duv's decision ended all discussion.
Just past dawn, Chap watched Sgaile, Osha, and Wynn pack up the dried fish. Leesil broke camp and then joined Magiere, who was once more peering southward over the fallen tree.
Chap had heard her murmuring in the night. Though Leesil tried to comfort and quiet her, Chap had slipped into her sleep-muddled mind. He tried to bury her dark dreams beneath recollections of hearth and home, of warm nights in the crowded Sea Lion Tavern, where familiar townsfolk filled the common room with chatter and clanking tankards.
His efforts were fruitless. Each memory he called up was quickly obliterated by the one of perpetual ice clinging to a six-towered castle. And for an instant, he glimpsed a pale-faced figure flicker past the frost-glazed pane of a window.
Now Magiere stood by the fallen tree, dressed in breeches and hauberk, with her black hair unbound and her falchion on her hip. The Chein'as's long dagger was tucked slantwise into the back of her thick belt. Her dark eyes shone in the morning light with a hard intensity.
Sister of the dead… my child… lead on!
Chap recoiled at those words rising from Magiere's memories, back-stepping once as he pulled from her mind.
That voice hissing in the darkness of her thoughts… like something on the edge of his own memories that he could not place. He shivered, and when he looked up, Magiere was watching him.
Chap's earthly instincts screamed that they should turn back. And in that faltering instant, he considered committing a sin. He remembered a law of the Fay:
Whatever they might do otherwise, no one of them would ever enslave the will of any being.
In part, this was why he had chosen to be "born" rather than invade the spirit of one already living. But if he wished, he could take Magiere, possess her even for a moment, and turn her from this journey. In his time with her and Leesil, he had come to respect their need for free will. So how could he take that from her now?
For that matter… why did he think of enslavement as the first "sin" of the Fay?
And how did these sudden fragments of his memories-and the voice of Magiere's dreams-connect to this artifact she sought?
More missing pieces that his kin had torn from him at his "birth."
Magiere reached down to stroke his head.
"When we get there, I'll know what to do," she whispered.
The others were packed up and ready to leave. Leesil stood with Sgaile, and Wynn walked with Osha, chatting away in Elvish, forgetting to enforce his practice of Belaskian.
Chap turned his eyes up to the west, and the high wall of the Blade Range, seemingly distant beyond the forested foothills. He traced the jagged silhouette far southward to where the range broke against the even higher snow-capped mountains.
"We'll travel the coast as long as possible," she said. "I'll know when we need to turn inland."
Leesil took her hand.
As the others headed down the open beach, Chap remained a little longer. He had forsaken everything to protect his charges from death and from their fates. But a chill ran beneath his thick coat, as if the worst was yet to come, and he dropped his head, feeling helpless.
He tried to focus on Wynn's light chatter to Osha about screeching seabirds wheeling high above the shore. And he loped after them across the gravelly beach.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Chane was still young in his undead existence and, at times, felt he knew too little of his new nature.
Almost a full moon had passed, and now he and Welstiel climbed into the high, snow-choked Pock Peaks south of the Blade Range. He gave little thought to the temperature dropping lower each night, as he never truly felt the cold.
As dawn approached, his fingers would not close.
Chane stared at his hands, paler than ever before.
"Welstiel?" he rasped.
Jakeb whimpered and began biting at his fingers.
Chane tried to fold his fingers against his thigh. His legs had stiffened and barely moved.
Welstiel cursed under his breath and dropped heavily to his knees, digging furiously in the snow with stiffened fingers.
"Set up shelter, quickly," he ordered, but his words were half-mumbled.
"What is happening to us?" Chane demanded.
Sabel and Sethe wrestled with the tent's cold-stiffened canvas as Welstiel uncovered a flat rock beneath the snow. He fumbled with his pack, but his hands were too stiff to open it. In the end, he simply bit through the flap's tie and dug clumsily inside before drawing out what he sought. The steel hoop with dark etchings was hooked over his wrist, and he dropped it in the hollow.
At the clang of steel upon stone, Chane remembered the hoop's scent and taste of char. He no longer felt his legs, but he kept silent, waiting to see what Welstiel would do.
Humming softly, Welstiel swept stiff fingers around the steel hoop, and its hair-thin lines and symbols began to change. Red sparks appeared, quickly spread, and those dark etchings brightened until all the hoop's markings were as fiery as a smith's forge. Heat began to emanate from the steel.
"Thaw your hands," Welstiel ordered, "but keep them still until they loosen… or you could lose a finger. We do not have enough stored life to repair severed digits."
Chane dropped hard to his knees, relieved he could bend at all, and glared at Welstiel.
"Why did you not warn me!" he hissed.
"I thought if we kept moving," Welstiel began, "we would not succumb to-"
"Answer me!" Chane spit back.
"We have bodies, dead or not," Welstiel returned in a low voice, "susceptible to freezing… but unlike the living, we do not succumb to pain… so we had no warning."
More secrets of Chane's new existence-fire and beheading were not the only things for a Noble Dead to fear. And again, he'd narrowly escaped a harsh lesson before Welstiel finally revealed the truth in little pieces.
"Put out your hands!" Chane whispered at the ferals.
He held his own above the arcane source of heat. Monks scrambled in around him to do likewise. Within moments, Chane's fingers began to flex, though his legs and arms were still stiff.
They raised the tent over the snow hollow and the glowing hoop, and then huddled together once more around the source of warmth. Welstiel shed his gloves, warming his fingers more directly, and Chane noticed his ring of nothing was now on his left hand. Perhaps the change meant nothing, and he never asked. He would not get an answer anyhow, and he passed the crawling time in seething over Welstiel's continued secrecy.
The only thing keeping him steady as he felt the sun rise outside the tent was the knowledge that Wynn had survived the shipwreck.
During one predawn pause in the foothills of the Broken Range, Welstiel had slipped down to the shore to check Magiere's trail. Chane could stand it no longer. He had followed at a distance, watching from hiding.
Welstiel had crouched low just beyond the reach of the noisy surf surging up the beach, and then he went a little farther, turning toward the tree line. He stopped to study the ground there. When he finally turned away, he headed back toward camp at a slow and steady pace. Whatever Welstiel sought, he looked no further.
Chane knew what Welstiel had found.
Magiere had finally turned into the foothills, headed for the mountains.
The moment Welstiel was out of sight, Chane had
rushed south through the trees rather than heading for the beach. He came upon a stream weaving down the rocky slope. At a lip of sod overhanging the trickling water, he found three distinct footprints among others in the mucky earth. Small and narrow, they could only be Wynn's.
As Chane hunched in the tent over the glowing steel hoop, he clung to that memory. He tried to shut out the presence of Welstiel and the ferals as he curled up on the ground. Soon dormancy took him, and he sank in the brief respite of dreamless nothingness for the day.
More nights passed.
Welstiel led them on, always following after Magiere. Each night, the temperature dropped lower as they climbed higher. Chane learned to keep moving.
As long as he did so, his body resisted freezing. Friction was also useful, for though his dead flesh generated no heat, rubbing his joints harshly and often kept them limber. He taught the ferals to do the same.
The steel hoop became a common sight, always present at dawn when they crawled into the tent. Sometime during the day's dormancy, its burning lines always faded to charcoal black. When they rose at dusk, Welstiel briefly reinitialized the hoop while they broke camp.
Chane tried to study it, to learn more.
One night, Welstiel shut down the hoop but was distracted by another disturbance from Sethe. He left the hoop lying in the snow hollow, and Chane surreptitiously crouched and reached for it.
He snatched his hand back at the sizzle of his fingertips and stepped away before Welstiel saw him.
When Welstiel returned from giving another beating to Sethe, he absently reached down for the hoop to return it to his pack. Chane heard nothing as Welstiel gripped it, and he suppressed his awe-and his frustration. Welstiel did not even flinch.
Chane appreciated secrecy. No mage revealed more than he had to. But he was tired of Welstiel doling out tidbits concerning undead existence only when necessary. Now it appeared that Welstiel's arcane knowledge was greater than Chane had estimated.
To create an object that conjured fire within itself was one thing. But Welstiel's steel hoop included something more that made only him immune to its damaging effects. But a few nights later, a more immediate problem reared up. The last of Welstiel's stored life elixir was gone, and the monks grew difficult to control-especially Sethe.
