by Barb Hendee
"No central hall," Sgaile said. "No main meeting or feasting place."
"What?" Leesil asked.
"Human fortifications usually have a main hall from the entrance, where visitors are greeted and formal meals are held. But not here-this place is strangely built."
"It wasn't made for the living," Magiere said, looking down one side passage. "The dead don't take in visitors or host feasts."
Leesil thought he saw a flicker in the dim side passage beyond Magiere. Then it was gone, and he turned away.
Magiere suddenly flipped the falchion between her hands. She ripped off her coat and let it fall.
A mute shape, darker than a shadow, sailed toward them through the dark air in the side passage.
Leesil quickly shed his coat. He'd barely separated his blades back into both hands when the darting shadow shot into the stairway chamber. It rose higher… and spread into a set of wings.
An enormous black raven wheeled in the chamber's heights. It tucked wings and began to fall. When it spread out again at the bottom of its diving arc, Leesil saw the landing of the stairs behind it-through it-in the amulet's light. He remembered Ubad's ghostly guardians in the Apudalsat forest.
The black winged shadow leveled straight at Osha.
"Don't let it hit you!" Leesil shouted.
Another shadow shot out of the passage, rising behind its falling twin.
He raised his blades out, fanning them in the air as he shouted, "Here!"
As Osha dodged away, the first shadow raven swerved toward Leesil. He dropped and rolled forward beneath the bird's dive.
It slammed into the archway's wall and vanished.
Leesil heard the flutter of wings out in the pillared corridor, and the second raven flew at Sgaile. At the last instant, Sgaile lunged aside, out of its way.
"Stay off the stairs and in the open!" Magiere shouted. "Don't get penned in."
An eerie caw sounded loudly, and Leesil saw the first bird coming in low along the pillared corridor. When it neared the peaked archway, the amulet's light seemed to shine upon its black feathers.
Magiere stepped into its path.
Leesil went cold with panic, but the raven stalled, wheeling up in a flutter of wings.
"We need light!" Sgaile shouted.
Leesil spun about, still uncertain what Magiere was doing. The amulet's light turned with him, spreading over the chamber and stairs. He spotted the second raven diving along the central stairway, straight for Sgaile's back.
"Down!" he shouted.
Sgaile dropped flat, and the raven passed an arm's length above him. It swerved suddenly, straight at Leesil's face.
He had no defense against something that could pass through solid walls and threw himself aside. His shoulder hit the floor, and his hauberk's rings grated along the cold stone. As he rolled, he grabbed the amulet's leather cord, trying not to stab himself with his own blade. The cord snapped, and he cast the amulet to the chamber's center for light. Then he saw Magiere.
She turned to face the bird swerving toward her and just stood there, waiting before the archway. Her arms opened wide, as if challenging the thing coming at her.
"Magiere!" Leesil shouted.
She whipped her arms together and under as the second raven darted for her chest. And her falchion swiped upward.
The tip's arc caught the bird, dead center. A screech filled the chamber as it exploded into smoke.
Trails of sooty vapors blasted around Magiere, driven by the bird's momentum. They collected beyond her, smoke gathering again into the raven's form. It shot out the peaked archway as its twin dove in from the corridor.
The first shadow raven slammed into Magiere's back.
She buckled as it shot out her chest and rose up the center stairs. Sgaile's eyes widened at the sight just before he had to duck away from the bird's passing.
A rumbling growl escaped Magiere's mouth as she straightened.
Leesil took a shaky breath. These things had no more effect upon her than did the ghosts of Apudalsat.
"How?" Osha cried out from where he crouched by the archway's near side.
"She can't be hurt by such things," Leesil shouted. "But we can, so watch yourself!"
The first raven turned for another pass. Magiere couldn't get her blade up in time. She swung at it with her free hand as the amulet's light glimmered on the bird's form.
Feathers tore away in Magiere's hooked fingers, and a squealing caw echoed through the chamber.
Torn black feathers turned to vapor before they reached the floor.
The shine upon the raven's plumaged faded as it righted its tumbling body. Magiere whipped the falchion in the air, and it wheeled away out of reach.
Leesil didn't know what these creatures were, but he saw an advantage.
Magiere's falchion inflicted true injury on an undead, so these birds were something akin. And when they couldn't harm her in their shadow state, one had appeared to turn solid for an instant.
"Watch for light on their feathers!" he shouted as Sgaile rose and backed toward Magiere. "That's when they can be struck!"
Leesil reached for Osha to drag him clear of the wall.
The black shadow of a wolf's head thrust through the stone, its jaws spreading wide.
Wynn knelt upon the floor near Li'kan.
Her pity mixed with fear as she tried to read aloud from pieces of writing on the walls. Every word drew a cringe from the pale woman, though her eyes were filled with hunger for the sound. She had been alone for so long that she no longer recognized the wall writings as her own. Chap urged Wynn on, hoping to learn more from whatever memories flashed through the undead's mind.
He was able to gather that Li'kan had been one of three guardians who once existed in this place, perhaps as far back as its original construction. She was the only one left.
Though Li'kan had the attributes of a vampire, Chap sensed no hunger in her, at least not for the blood of the living. What sustained her remained a mystery.
Time and again, Wynn halted over a mislettered word she couldn't make out. A few times, Li'kan slowly mouthed something. Wynn tried to catch the woman's voiceless, breathy utterance, sounding it out as best she could.
Some writings described events Wynn could not understand, but most were incoherent ramblings. In the worst places, the characters grew haphazard, perhaps written after Li'kan's mind had deteriorated too much.
Wynn dearly wished to return to the iron sheaf's hide pages or any other texts she could lay her hands upon. The clearer prose might hold far more than the mad marks upon the walls. She grew weary from constant fear, and her throat was getting dry. And she wondered if she would ever again leave this place.
Li'kan's fascination with her voice, her words, seemed to be all that was keeping Wynn and Chap alive. But it also made them prisoners. If Wynn stopped talking too long, Li'kan became agitated.
Chap stayed close, but often, Wynn dared not turn her attention from Li'kan to ask what he learned.
He suddenly pricked his ears and looked to the doorway.
Li'kan rose fluidly to her feet, turning the same way.
"What is it?" Wynn asked.
From a distance, she heard a voice shouting, and then the hint of metal striking something hard.
Li'kan darted out of the study. Chap lunged for the doorway, halting to look about the outer corridor, and Wynn quickly joined him.
Outside, the passage had dimmed once more. Had they been in this chamber all day? But Wynn saw no shadows moving. How far had Li'kan brought them beyond the pillared corridor?
Stay behind me, Chap ordered as he trotted out.
Wynn hurried after him. Ahead down the corridor, Li'kan's white form turned right at an intersection.
Chap rounded the corner ahead of Wynn. When she followed, she caught a glimpse of Li'kan far ahead. Dim light from outside spilled through ice-glazed windows high along the corridor's right wall. Wynn shuddered as the undead passed through those shafts.
Li'kan did not even flinch as waning daylight slipped across her naked body.
The shouting ahead grew louder, and Wynn ran on behind Chap as one voice became clear.
"Watch for light on their feathers!"
Li'kan swerved left into the opening of a narrow passage.
"That was Leesil!" Wynn cried. She followed as Chap turned in behind the undead.
Li'kan raced out the corridor's distant end. The space beyond was lit by a soft amber glow. Chap bolted out, leaving Wynn behind, until she, too, skidded into the open.
Magiere stood in a huge chamber before a wide staircase, and shadow ravens circled high above. Leesil reached for Osha, crouching beside a broad archway.
A wolf shadow lunged from the wall, directly behind them, snapping at Osha's leg.
"More damned dead!" Leesil spit.
He jerked Osha aside, and the lanky elf tumbled away as the wolf's transparent jaws closed on air. Another wolf shot from the small passage on the chamber's far side, and it charged at Sgaile. For an instant, amber light glittered upon black fur and eyes.
Images of Li'kan mangling the two anmaglahk flashed into Wynn's mind.
"Li'kan, stop this!" she shouted.
Leesil spun about at her cry, as Sgaile ducked around the stone banister, poised to strike the wolf coming for him. Leesil ran to Wynn, grabbing her coat and pulling her backward.
The ravens lighted upon the stairway's rail high above.
Both wolves came to a halt, poised as their heads turned toward their mistress.
Li'kan stood staring at Magiere.
Magiere's eyes were flooded pure black, and a livid snarl twisted her face. She lifted the falchion, gripping it with both hands, and closed on Li'kan.
"No!" Wynn shouted, for Magiere did not know what she faced.
Magiere looked into the naked undead's teardrop-shaped eyes. This thing had to be one of the "old ones" that Welstiel had hinted at. But the woman looked nothing like what Magiere had expected. Frail and small, too tiny to be a true threat.
Yet she had taken two anmaglahk before they could fight back. And she had stolen Chap and Wynn.
Magiere wanted her head.
She swung the falchion back and up. Both hands gripped the hilt as it rose past her shoulder. When she charged, she faltered at a glint of metal.
"No!" someone cried.
Magiere saw the thick ends of red-gold metal with protruding knobs about the undead's slim throat. The white woman sprung forward with a silent snarl, and Magiere twisted aside, bringing her sword down. A frail white hand caught the falchion's blade, and the sword stopped without cutting through.
The impact shuddered through Magiere's arms and into her shoulders. The little woman wrenched the blade aside, and it twisted in Magiere's grip. This only made her angrier, and her hunger erupted.
"Leesil, stop her-she cannot win against Li'kan!"
Magiere heard Leesil's name, and her eyes shifted once to find him. Wynn struggled, pinned in one of his arms as he held a winged blade before her. A flash of doubt passed over Leesil's face.
The woman's colorless eyes widened, mirroring Magiere's hunger. She shook, and her mouth gaped, exposing sharp teeth.
Magiere released one hand from the falchion's hilt and grabbed for the undead's white throat. More quickly, the woman latched her other hand around Magiere's wrist.
They stood straining against each other. Black fluids ran down the falchion from between the white undead's fingers. Magiere tried to press her blade forward but couldn't, and her boots started to slide upon the stone floor. One of her legs began to buckle.
She let one knee drop to the floor, then thrust upward with her whole body.
The white woman's narrow feet lifted sharply, but her grips tightened on Magiere's wrist and sword. Magiere pivoted before the undead could come down, and whipped the woman's small body in an arc.
Glistening black hair snapped wildly around the woman's white face, until her body slammed into the stairway's side. The stone railing shattered, scattering pieces across the floor.
The grip on Magiere's wrist broke, but the woman's momentum jerked Magiere off her feet. Her sword clattered from her hand as she hit the floor and rolled onto all fours.
The white woman scrambled to her feet amid bits of broken stone. A figure in gray-green leaped up onto the thick railing's remains. A long, glinting wire was stretched taut between his spreading hands.
"Wynn, stop it!" Leesil shouted, and then, "Sgaile! Don't!"
Sgaile hesitated, his amber eyes fixed upon the white woman below him. She lashed out with one hand, not even looking up at him.
Sgaile hopped up into the air. A grating screech of stone filled Magiere's ears as the undead's nails tore more chips from the railing. Magiere gained her feet and lunged with her bare hands.
The white woman charged to meet her-and then jerked to an awkward halt.
Magiere's whole body grew instantly weak.
A sudden sense of weight nearly crushed the hunger out of her, and the chamber turned dim in her sight. She wavered where she stood, and when her sight cleared…
The white undead shuddered with narrow muscles straining beneath her smooth skin. She lifted her sagging head, but her eyelids drooped as colorless irises rolled up. She swayed like a drunkard or someone caught in waking sleep.
Wynn appeared in Magiere's way. "Wait! She is more dangerous than you know… and we may need her."
Chap trotted over, pacing before Magiere as he watched the frail-looking undead.
Magiere held her place only because hunger had slipped from her, and she wanted it back.
Nothing was as Magiere had expected. All she wanted was to kill any undead in her way, find and take the object she'd come for, and silence her dreams once and for all. She felt weary.
Magiere grabbed Wynn by the arm and pulled the little sage back behind herself. Then she remembered the shadow beasts.
The ravens were perched upon the rail of the upper landing. The inky coats of both wolves glimmered slightly. Then they all turned to translucent smoke and vanished through the chamber walls.
"This is getting a little too odd," Leesil whispered, "even for us."
Magiere's relief doubled at the sight of him beside her. Beyond him, Osha hurried toward Wynn, but Sgaile still perched above the white woman, watching her coldly.
The white undead lowered her head, crystalline irises rolling down to settle upon Magiere.
Chap reached for Li'kan's memories.
Her forced breaths hissed out, twisted and broken, as her lips worked in a failed attempt to speak. She pressed a hand over one ear and appeared to whisper to herself. But she never uttered a sound.
Chap recalled a memory he had seen within Magiere-and once heard her recount.
When Ubad had conjured Magelia's spirit, Magiere's mother had shown her memories from a few moons before her birth. Welstiel had wandered her father's keep's courtyard in the dark, whispering to a voice Magelia could not hear.
Chap saw nothing within Li'kan's mind.
Then something blinked through her thoughts.
Not an image, but a fleeting sound, like a whisper or a hiss.
Chap could not make out any words. About to pull free from Li'kan's thoughts, he heard the sound change.
Like a leaf-wing flutter?
That was how Wynn described hearing Chap communing with the Fay, but rather than the chorus she'd mentioned, he heard just one quick, soft buzz in the undead's thoughts.
Then it was gone, like a blink completed.
Chap watched Li'kan tilt her head with half-open eyes, as if listening. Her lips moved silently again, and he pulled quickly from her mind.
Perhaps he had only heard Li'kan's own voiceless whispers.
He studied this mad thing and reflected upon the "night voice" spoken of in the old parchments found by Wynn's guild. He felt like a pup lost in a dark room, wandering to find a way out.
Chane stared at Welst
iel in disbelief as dusk settled in.
"What do you mean, 'she's lost'?" he demanded.
"Last night," Welstiel answered. "Sometime before sunrise."
They crouched in the tent, facing each other across the glowing steel hoop. The ferals sensed their tension and shifted restlessly.
Chane's mouth hung half-open. He closed it, teeth snapping together.
"You knew… when you returned before dawn? And you said nothing!"
"What would you have done?" Welstiel challenged. "Run off once more to save your little sage-in daylight? Spare me your outrage."
Chane slapped open the tent's flap. He was already ripping down the shelter before any of the others got out. Barely bothering to fold the canvas, he lashed the tent into a bundle as Welstiel sat scrying in the snow. When the undead stood, he appeared mildly surprised.
"What now?" Chane hissed, hating to even ask.
"Magiere may have gone farther than anticipated… or has not yet returned from the search."
Welstiel's continued reluctance to share information was infuriating. Chane finished packing their gear and motioned to Sabel.
"We go."
She took up the bundled tent, and the other monks reluctantly gathered the remaining gear to follow. This trek of ice and starvation wore on all of them.
Welstiel stepped off upslope as they followed, but Chane hung back to walk at the line's end. They trudged on, until spotting a crusted canvas pinned to a rock face across the slope.
"Their camp," Welstiel said. "We can track from here along their trail."
Chane had a fleeting urge to look inside the canvas, as he smelled no life nearby. Instead, he pushed past Welstiel along the clear path in the snow left by Magiere's people. He followed this for a long while-up to a place where the tracks broke in all directions. Many of them turned back atop each other, all placed around a gully that forked in two directions.
"Which way?" Welstiel asked.
Chane crouched in the snow. The thought of doing anything for Welstiel's benefit made the beast in him yowl. But he could not stop picturing Wynn lost out here in this frigid land.
"The right fork has no returning footprints," Chane rasped. "Wherever they went, they did not come back this way… as on the other paths."
