The Night Voice

by Barb Hendee

  “Ah me, my dear domin,” he whispered aloud, though it was not necessary for il’Sänke to hear him. “Such great effort and yet for nothing.”

  Khalidah exerted his will, broke through, and, tilting up one ear, he heard . . .

  • • •

  “Chap, where’s the last of our cheese?” Wynn asked, digging into a small canvas sack. “Did you eat it? All of it?”

  Chap glanced over without lifting his head from his forepaws and watched Wynn invert the sack and shake it to see if anything fell out. She was dressed in a loose shirt and pants, having left her midnight blue sage’s robe crumpled on her bedroll. Wispy light brown hair, still uncombed, hung around her pretty oval face.

  “Well, did you?” Wynn pressed, dropping the sack.

  He knew what she saw when she looked at him: an overly tall wolf with silver-gray fur and crystalline blue eyes, the ears and muzzle just a little long for its kind. That was because he was not a wolf.

  Chap did not bother answering.

  Eight people and two majay-hì, he being one of them, had been living on top of one another in two rooms for days and nights on end, and this state of affairs was taking its toll. They were safe for the moment but trapped in hiding. Their current quarters had passed from feeling overcrowded to outright stifling.

  There was little enough comfort these days so, yes, he had eaten the cheese.

  If there had been any more, he would have eaten that too!

  Chap surveyed his surroundings for the . . . uncountable time.

  Shelves lined three walls of the main room, all filled with scrolls, books, plank-bound sheaves, and other academic paraphernalia. This was no surprise in a place once a hideaway for a sect of renegade metaologer sages who had resurrected the forbidden practice of sorcery.

  Cold lamps provided light, and one rested on a round table surrounded by three chairs with high backs of finely finished near-black wood intricately carved in wild see-through patterns. The lamps’ ornate brass bases were filled with alchemical fluids producing mild heat to keep the crystals lit.

  The right side of the main room’s back half, just beyond a folding partition, was covered in large, vibrantly patterned floor cushions. Farther right was a doorless archway into another room with two beds. Fringed carpets defined various areas throughout the place.

  For two or three people, all of this would have been a welcome luxury. For eight people and two majay-hì, it was cramped, cluttered, and becoming unbearable. There were also packs and sacks filled with personal belongings everywhere . . . aside from two large chests in the bedchamber.

  “Chap, answer me!” Wynn insisted.

  “Oh, leave him alone,” Magiere growled. “We can buy more cheese.”

  Chap’s gaze shifted to her standing in the bedchamber’s opening. Just behind her, Leesil was fussing with something unseen.

  Magiere was tall and slender with smooth skin pale to the point of seeming white. Her long black hair hung loose, but the lamps here did not provide enough light to spark the bloodred tint in her tresses. She wore the tan pantaloons favored by the Suman people and a blue sleeveless tunic. These were a stark contrast to her usual studded-leather armor and dark canvas pants.

  “Don’t snap at Wynn,” Leesil admonished her, as if more tension were needed. “If Chap’s been rooting around like a hog again, I’d call him out.”

  Magiere half turned on her husband but apparently bit back whatever retort came to mind.

  It was an excuse for another bit of petty bickering after being stuffed away in hiding for too long.

  Chap rumbled with a twitch of jowls but did not lift his head.

  Leesil was only slightly taller than his wife. His coloring was the sharper contrast. White-blond hair, amber irises, tan skin, and slightly elongated ears betrayed his mother’s people, the an’Cróan—“[Those] of the Blood”—or the elves of the eastern continent. His father had been human. Leesil too wore tan pantaloons, but his tunic was a shade of burnt-orange.

  And as to the others present . . .

  Wayfarer, a sixteen-year-old girl three-quarters an’Cróan, sat in one high-backed chair at the table, mending a torn blanket. Unlike Leesil’s, her hair was a rich brown, and in any direct light, her eyes were a shade of green. Chap was fond of her and, shy and quiet as she was, she clung to him the most, though she had come to look upon Magiere and Leesil almost as new parents, or at least as accepted authority figures.

  Osha, a young full-blooded an’Cróan with the height as well as the white-blond hair of his people, sat across from the girl, fletching an arrow. He had proven himself an exceptional archer, though how he had come by that skill was not a subject to raise with him. Vigilant in guarding all with him, he caused little trouble, with one exception: he was obsessed with Wynn.

  Any feelings Wynn had for him, she did not show. That situation bore watching, considering Wayfarer’s mixed feelings for Osha. And if that was not bad enough . . .

  Chane Andraso—a Noble Dead, a vampire—stood near Wynn, as dour and sullen as always. Though he was barely tolerated by anyone here besides her, they had all been given little choice in tolerating his presence. He resembled a young nobleman, with red-brown hair and with skin nearly as pale as Magiere’s. His white shirt, dark pants, and high boots were well made, if well-worn. And he, like Osha, was obsessed with Wynn.

  Chap’s gaze shifted slightly right, and he failed to suppress a snarl. Sitting cross-legged on the floor below the one window at the back left of the room was Brot’an—Brot’ân’duivé, “the Dog in the Dark.” That aging elven master assassin was one of Chap’s greater concerns.

  Coarse white-blond hair with strands of darkening gray hung over his peaked ears and down his back beneath his hood. Lines crinkled the corners of his mouth and his large amber-irised eyes, which rarely looked at anything specific but always saw everything. The feature of the man that stood out the most, if someone drew near enough to look into his hood, were four pale scars—as if from claws—upon his deeply tanned face. Those ran at an angle from the midpoint of his forehead to break his left feathery eyebrow and then skip over his right eye to finish across his cheekbone.

  Brot’an claimed to be protecting Magiere, but Chap knew better. Brot’an always had an agenda and would place it over the lives of anyone if a choice had to be made. He had proven this more than once.

  Needless to say, Chap was in a very foul mood.

  He might hate Chane for what he was, but he hated Brot’an for who he was.

  As Chap’s eyes continued drifting—to the cramped room’s one other occupant—his feelings grew more complicated. The other tall but charcoal black majay-hì lay on the floor beside Wynn, where the troublesome sage still knelt with the upturned cheese sack.

  Chap’s own daughter, Shade, refused to acknowledge his existence for the most part. She was not without good reason, but tonight he chose not to think about that. Instead, he swallowed down his pain and turned his attention back to Wynn, speaking directly into her mind as he could do only with her.

  Now that our host has stepped out for a while, perhaps it is time to talk . . . of something other than cheese.

  Wynn slapped the sack onto the floor and turned toward him with an angry frown. But the frown faded, and she did not argue, only letting out a tired sigh. Their “host,” Ghassan il’Sänke, had gone out on an errand, and time without his company was rare.

  She nodded. “Yes . . . we should.”

  “Should what?” Magiere asked, and then looked to Chap, knowing something had passed between the two.

  Chap often spoke to Magiere, Leesil, and Wayfarer by calling up words out of their own memories—something Wynn quaintly called “memory-words.” How he communicated with Wynn was not based on pulling up broken, spoken phrases. She was the only one to whom he could speak directly in thought—after she had fouled up a thaumaturgica
l ritual while journeying with him in the past.

  “What’s he babbling into your head now?” Leesil asked, pushing out of the bedchamber and past Magiere.

  “We should settle some important things while Ghassan is away,” Wynn said to the two of them.

  All annoyance faded from Magiere’s pale face. “I don’t know what. Unless you’ve come up with an idea for a hiding place we haven’t already discounted.”

  Wynn shook her head, and Chap let out a long exhale.

  They were not hidden away in this place by choice.

  Several years ago, the four of them had found themselves embroiled in a desperate search for five “orbs” or “anchors.” Some believed the Ancient Enemy had wielded these devices a thousand years ago in its war on the world. Servants of the Enemy had hidden them centuries ago when the war had ended. The Enemy’s living and undead minions had now begun surfacing to seek the devices for their master or perhaps just for themselves.

  The orbs could never be allowed to fall into such hands and had to be rehidden.

  The first two that Magiere had located were those of Water and Fire. Chap alone had hidden those far up in the icy northern wastes of this continent. Wynn, Shade, and Chane had located the orb of Earth, and Chane had taken it to the dwarves’ “stonewalkers,” so that it might be safely hidden away in the underworld of their people’s honored dead. More recently, Spirit and Air had been recovered, and both of those orbs were now in chests inside this bedchamber.

  This was the problem Chap and the others faced.

  Wynn pushed tiredly up to her feet. “I agree with Wayfarer’s suggestion that we take the orb of Spirit to the lands of the Lhoin’na. That is at least . . . something.”

  Yes, it was. The Lhoin’na—“(Those) of the Glade”—were the elves of this continent. No undead could walk into their lands because of the influence of Chârmun, the great golden tree in their vast forest, who was thought by some to be the first life of the world. As the anchor of Spirit seemed most useful to the undead—as a possible tool—Wayfarer’s suggestion had been considered seriously.

  Magiere did not want either orb out of her sight. She was waiting for a plan for the orb of Air before any action was taken. Chap had another dilemma, one he could not speak of to anyone, not even to Wynn.

  When he had been up north, burying the orbs of Water and Fire, he had sensed something inside them: the presence of the Fay—or rather that a singular Fay presence might be trapped inside each orb.

  The Fay were the source of all Existence. He had been part of them, it, the one and the many, before choosing to be born into the body of a majay-hì pup and later walk his current path.

  Now that he was in the presence of the two final orbs, he longed to privately test one of them. Would he be able to commune with the Fay as a whole, or even with the single Fay imprisoned inside any one orb? The physical proximity of both orbs taunted him, but trapped here with the others, he never had a private enough moment. He might never find that moment until Magiere decided it was time to move the orbs from this sanctuary.

  Wynn faced Magiere. “If I can’t come up with something soon, do you have any ideas?”

  “Maybe . . . something.”

  At this from Magiere, for the first time all day and night, Chap’s mind went blank. He stared at her, waiting.

  • • •

  Magiere was frustrated by their failure to think of a suitable hiding place for the orb of Air, though in truth, she wasn’t overly concerned. The orb was in their possession, and that mattered the most. All five had been found, three safely rehidden, and there was a plan for the orb of Spirit. She and those she loved were in one piece and still breathing.

  All in all, everything could’ve been worse.

  Yes, Leesil had been somewhat snippy, but even he’d seemed more at ease in the past half-moon. The end was in sight, and once they’d hidden the last two orbs, they could go home. That was all he’d ever wanted.

  Glancing around the room, Magiere realized everyone was watching her. “I could take the orb of Air out to sea and drop it at a depth where it could never be recovered.”

  Leesil’s amber eyes widened slightly with hope. “Yes, that would do.”

  She knew he was overly anxious to have this all finished. Most likely he would have jumped at any suggestion. The others didn’t appear quite so convinced. And at least with Chap and Wynn, there had to be some agreement before they—she—did anything.

  “Why you?” Chane asked in his harsh, rasping voice.

  Magiere choked back a retort. He had no place in this and was here only because Wynn insisted on keeping his company.

  Leesil and I . . . would go . . . with you—

  Those broken phrases out of her memories came from Chap. Of course he and Leesil would go with her. That was a given. Of late, her dhampir half had grown harder to control when she was pushed to her limits. More often, it had taken over and she’d lost herself. Only Leesil and Chap could bring her back under control.

  Before she could respond to Chap, Brot’an rose straight up and stepped closer.

  “What of the orb of Spirit?” he asked flatly. “While you are at sea, will some of us take it to the Lhoin’na?”

  That was the crux of the problem; Magiere had no intention of trusting anyone else with an orb. She tilted her head up slightly to look him in the eyes.

  Aside from being a former member of the Anmaglâhk, a caste of assassins among the an’Cróan elves, he was also a greimasg’äh—“shadow-gripper”—and a master of their ways. She wasn’t intimidated by him or by how he tended to use his height to intimidate others.

  “No,” she answered. “Leesil, Chap, and I will take both orbs, drop the one of Air at sea, and then take Spirit into the Lhoin’na lands.”

  “And what about the rest of us?” Wynn asked.

  Magiere would trust her life to Wynn, but not the orbs, not with Chane around.

  Wayfarer dropped her head, her face hidden by dangling hair.

  Magiere suspected the girl assumed she would take part in delivering the orb of Spirit to the Lhoin’na—as it had been her idea. That wasn’t going to happen.

  Osha’s expression flattened. He’d followed Wynn here and often seemed uncertain of his place in this larger group. He rarely caused trouble but too often agreed with whatever Wynn wanted.

  “Can the three of you protect two orbs?” he asked, suddenly stern of expression.

  This took Magiere by surprise. Of late, Osha’s grasp of languages other than his own had improved a bit, but asking a forceful question wasn’t like him. She didn’t like being questioned, not now. Still, she held her temper. This was too important, and any flash of anger would just start another heated argument.

  “Yes,” she answered carefully, remaining calm. “The three of us can travel faster by ourselves, and we can protect the orbs.”

  Wynn’s brow wrinkled, and then she sighed in resignation. “I suppose that is best. A small group is less likely to attract attention, and you three are . . . able in that regard.”

  And the most trustworthy, Magiere thought with a quick glance at Brot’an, though she didn’t say it.

  Brot’an’s expression was unreadable. Likely, he wasn’t going to let this drop so easily but would bide his time.

  “So we’re really going to do this?” Leesil asked. “Get these last two hidden?”

  “And then what?” Wayfarer asked softly, her head still down.

  “We go home,” Magiere answered, and stepping closer, she put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “And that means you too . . . with us.”

  The girl was an orphan, thrust by circumstance into the care of Brot’an. Magiere had no intention of leaving her with him.

  Wayfarer looked up, eyes wide, but then glanced at Osha.

  “So,” Wynn said, cutting off any more from Mag
iere, “how do we begin? I suppose we find a ship? Did you plan to simply slip up on deck one night and drop the orb over the side when no one is watching? We’ll need to book passage for three on a vessel making a long voyage in a straight run with few if any stops. That is the only kind likely to head out into deeper water for speed.”

  “No,” Magiere answered, “I was thinking of our manning something smaller by ourselves. We wouldn’t need to sail far before—”

  The sanctuary door opened, cutting her off.

  Domin Ghassan il’Sänke stepped in. He was tall for a Suman, with dusky skin and peppered hair. Though he’d been more than useful in recent days, Magiere didn’t trust him any more than Brot’an—maybe less.

  He took in the sight of the gathering, and the sudden silence as well. Clearly, he could tell he’d interrupted some discussion.

  “Have I missed something?” he asked.

  Magiere let out a long breath. There was no sense putting this off. “We’re going to hide the orb of Air. So we’ll be relocating both orbs soon.”

  “You might hold off,” he said sharply.

  Magiere was taken aback.

  Ghassan rarely showed anger, though he had a barbed tongue. His tone wasn’t lost on Leesil either.

  “What do you mean?” Leesil demanded.

  Ghassan ignored him and remained focused on Magiere. “I mean that something has happened that might prohibit moving the orbs . . . or make the task too dangerous.”

  “What is that?” Wynn asked.

  Magiere could almost feel Leesil tensing as he stepped near, shoulder-to-shoulder with her.

  Ghassan remained fixed on her as he went on. “I have spoken with the new emperor. He related reports of strange movements in the east. Bands of unknowns have been spotted in the desert but only at night. When approached, they fled and vanished, even in the open. There was also mention of bodies found . . . torn apart, partially eaten to the bones, or merely pale and desiccated in the heat and—”

  In midsentence the domin scowled, flinched, scowled again, and appeared to turn menacing. Then some sudden shock spread over his dark face, as if a thought came to his mind that startled him. All of this quickly vanished, and he was calm and attentive again, as if waiting for a response.