The Night Voice

by Barb Hendee

  A different meeting had been arranged.

  While he walked the night streets, his thoughts lingered upon one left behind in the sanctuary, the only one who truly troubled him.

  Try as he might, not once had he penetrated the thoughts and memories of the scarred greimasg’äh.

  That both majay-hì minds had been impervious as well was no surprise, but the elder elf was another matter. Each time he had tried to slip into Brot’an’s mind, he found his efforts obscured by shadows.

  It was like knowing there was movement somewhere within a maze of black gauze curtains. Each time he sensed movement therein, and swatted aside another drape of night fabric, he faced only more of the same.

  Khalidah was suddenly aware of how quiet and still Ghassan il’Sänke had become.

  “Oh, tsk-tsk, my domin,” he whispered inwardly and aloud. “Do you truly think there is some hope in the scarred one? Quite the opposite.”

  Walking deeper into the city, he navigated toward a less-populated area composed mainly of shops long closed. There, he slipped into a cutway between an eatery and a perfume shop and stepped out in the back alley for a strange gathering.

  Khalidah’s gaze fixed first on a man standing apart, as if pretending he had no connection to the others. He was tall and well formed, and his face was so pale that it appeared to glimmer even in the dark. Except for his head, nothing more of him was exposed, from his black gloves and leather-laced tunic to his dark pants and high riding boots. Oh, and then there was a wide leather collar of triple straps buckled around his neck, as if he needed that extra support to keep his head erect.

  Sau’ilahk eyed Khalidah in turn without a word, both of them hiding in stolen flesh, though at least Khalidah’s own was still alive. Fallen Sau’ilahk had once been first and highest of the Reverent, priests of il’Samar, Beloved, during the Great War. Actually, he and his had been simple conjurers, though he too had been betrayed by Beloved.

  Khalidah knew the story, or at least the important parts, which were all that mattered.

  Sau’ilahk had begged his god for eternal life; he should have asked for eternal youth instead. Only one would have given him true immortality and kept his beauty unmarred by age. Forced to watch his own body decay and die, he still gained his eternal life, of a sort, as an undead spirit. The wraith, Sau’ilahk, had only regained flesh most recently.

  Poor, poor priest, high or not, undone by boundless vanity and assumed synonyms.

  Khalidah was careful not to smile. The ex-priest was not to be trusted any more than when they had hated each other in their living days. Now a mutual hate for their god was greater than that, and Sau’ilahk’s hate could be useful.

  As to the other one who had come for the gathering, Khalidah’s gaze shifted as a small, semitransparent, and glimmering girl-child in a tattered and bloodied nightshift stepped toward him out of the alley’s darkness.

  Light from a streetlamp at the alley’s end both illuminated and penetrated her. Her visage was that of the moment of her death, including her severed throat. She stopped beyond arm’s reach and peered up as if he were an undesirable necessity.

  Behind her came a litter with two large side wheels rolled by a pair of muscled men—both animated corpses. At the sight of Khalidah, the men rocked the litter forward until its front end clacked on the cobble. Lashed to the litter was a preserved corpse held erect by straps.

  His hands, folded and bound across his chest, were bare, exposing bony fingers and nails elongated by withered, shrinking skin. He was dressed in a long black robe, and where his face should have been there was a mask of aged leather that ended above a bony jaw supporting a withered mouth, likely more withered in death than in his last moment of life.

  There were no eye slits in his mask.

  Somewhat like that of the ex-priest in stolen flesh, the corpse’s neck was wrapped in hardened leather to keep its head upright. Unlike Sau’ilahk, this creature was from the current era though still pretending to serve Beloved.

  Ubâd, a filthy necromancer, could not move and had trapped himself somewhere between life and death. The only way he could speak was through his conjured slave, the ghost girl.

  Khalidah knew little more, but he needed to know only that Ubâd had also been betrayed by Beloved. How unfortunate not to see the hate in his face, as in Sau’ilahk’s.

  “You are late,” the girl said too articulately for her apparent age. “Do not keep me waiting again.”

  Khalidah sighed. “My time is limited.” Raising his gaze to the corpse, he added, “So do not waste it with petulant complaints.”

  Slowly, Sau’ilahk stepped nearer. “Why are we here, mad one?”

  “To see the end of our beloved affair, of course,” Khalidah answered. “Which has become stale and tasteless . . . no, moldy. I guess—I know—it has for you.”

  Sau’ilahk remained silent a moment, and then said, “Get to the point.”

  Khalidah’s self-satisfaction remained. “I have the dhampir. And even now those who follow her are gathering the anchors of creation.”

  He let those words hang to savor his triumph, his superiority.

  Sau’ilahk’s expression filled first with shock, and then a shadow of doubt. “Is this true?”

  “The vampire and gray majay-hì sailed tonight,” he related. “They travel north to the white wastes of this continent for two orbs. Upon return, they stop at the last seatt of the Rughìr, the dwarves, for the third in hiding. They claim they know the route from the north side of the Sky-Cutter Range that emerges on the south side through—”

  “Through Bäalâle,” Sau’ilahk whispered.

  Khalidah smiled. “Oh, yes, a great loss in the war that was . . . more for me than you. I convinced the dhampir there are reports of undead heading eastward in the great desert. She and those remaining behind will travel there with me, bringing the orbs of Spirit and Air as we ‘scout’ to verify these reports.” He paused for effect. “When the vampire and the elder majay-hì rejoin us, all five orbs will be in my possession.”

  Sau’ilahk’s expression hardened. “This vampire . . . Is he called Chane Andraso?”

  Khalidah shrugged. “Yes.”

  Taking a few quick steps closer, Sau’ilahk nearly walked through the ghost girl. “He is mine to kill, as is the small sage!”

  “And I take the gray majay-hì!” the ghost girl added, sounding bitter and unhinged.

  Khalidah was certain of the necromancer’s and Reverent One’s hate for Beloved, though theirs would never match his. As with the vampire and the two majay-hì—and Brot’an—it had been impossible to read the thoughts of his conspirators. It had not occurred to him that they might harbor petty, personal grievances.

  Well, this too could be useful, if it kept them focused and distracted in the end.

  Dramatically, he shrugged and spread his hands.

  “As you both wish, so long as these desires can wait. Playing my part as the fallen domin is still to your advantage. Wynn Hygeorht trusts Ghassan il’Sänke more than she admits. Where she goes, Chane and both majay-hì will eventually follow. You two will play your parts until I say otherwise.”

  Sau’ilahk tilted his head. “And what are our parts?”

  “Bait,” Khalidah answered. “The dhampir expects to find undead to the east, though the others each hope in different ways that she will not. I will instruct how you will fulfill that expectation as we proceed.”

  As an undead, Sau’ilahk would need to feed as he traveled, though how would be uncertain. There was not much to feed upon in the desert and mountains, as Khalidah knew well, so what was found needed to serve for sustenance as well as another purpose.

  “What of Andraso and the gray majay-hì?” Sau’ilahk challenged. “They are beyond being monitored. You have no way to know if they return early, or at all, or with or without the missing orbs u
ntil they arrive.”

  Khalidah raised an eyebrow. “And what makes you think I have not accounted for that?”

  “Have you?” Sau’ilahk pressed.

  “I have dealt with it,” Khalidah countered. “I will always know their direction and general distance.”

  He was not about to elaborate or share information concerning the ensorcelled pebble he had given Chane Andraso. Better to leave his confederates in the dark—and ignorant of the pebble’s other potential uses. Besides, as Ghassan had ensorcelled the pebble, it was forever connected to his mental presence. So long as Khalidah kept that presence alive and imprisoned, he as well controlled the pebble.

  It gave him more power over the pebble’s bearer than Chane knew. Well, if and when the lowly vampire ever removed that irritating brass ring.

  The ghost girl eyed him. “Once the orbs are gathered, you know Beloved’s last resting place?”

  The answer required great care. He had seen it, and he suspected so had Sau’ilahk, but the range was vast and a thousand years had passed. The images were vague.

  “Even if not,” he began dismissively, “once the orbs are gathered, dear Beloved will certainly call us. We, as our god’s most potent—and obedient—supplicants, will bring the anchors to our god. And then . . .”

  The rest need not be said.

  Khalidah knew more than these two about orbs—the anchors. He had learned through success as well as defeat and failure nearly ultimate. As leader of the triad, the Sâ’yminfiäl, whom the dwarves had called the “Eaters of Silence,” he had been at the fall of Bäalâle Seatt in using the anchor of Earth.

  He still remembered the roots of the mountain suddenly blowing apart around him. He remembered the agony of being simultaneously burned, torn, and crushed. His last willful act at the instant of death was to tear his own consciousness free.

  Neither priest nor necromancer could have done so, yet it gained him too little and too much . . . for Beloved abandoned him to his fate. Centuries passed before any living being with the necessary mental capacity had wandered near enough for him to seize, and it was longer still in that longest starvation until he found something else upon which to feed. And then, captivity again by il’Sänke’s hidden sect, trapped in the pure darkness of an ensorcelled, brass sarcophagus for so many years.

  Neither of these two corpses in this alley knew such suffering . . . or the absolute purity it brought. And Beloved would never expect open betrayal either. His god believed him cowed in fear and reverence.

  To kill a god meant to become a god. And again there would be only one, only him.

  Oh, but he had savored this too long.

  Reaching inside his cloak, he withdrew a medallion hanging on a chain and held it out to Sau’ilahk.

  “What is it?” the dead priest asked without taking it.

  “A communication device, invented by my current host and his dead peers. I took it off one of them and wear one myself. Wear it against your flesh.”

  Sau’ilahk only watched him and did not move.

  Further explanation followed another sigh and tsk-tsk. “Anyone with your arcane . . . background should have no trouble mastering it. If you feel it grow warm, I am attempting to contact you. Hold the medallion, and my thoughts will reach you. If you wish to contact me, hold it in your hand and focus upon me in your thoughts.”

  Sau’ilahk still hesitated. “What do you mean, your thoughts will reach me?”

  Khalidah wanted to sigh. “It is much like speaking, though either of us only hears thoughts the other wishes to share. We must be able to locate each other. Take it!”

  Sau’ilahk hesitated again but reached out and took the medallion.

  Khalidah glanced from the ghost girl to Ubâd. “You will all leave for the desert tomorrow night . . . and I will instruct you as opportunity permits.”

  A brief silence followed, and the ghost girl answered, “Yes.”

  • • •

  Trapped inside his own body, Ghassan raged in panic, though no one but Khalidah would hear him. The only answer he received was to feel his own face smile softly. Then his body turned and stepped back along the cutway out of the alley.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Days slipped into nights, until Chap nearly lost count as various ships carrying him and Chane sailed north up the entire continent. One evening, as the sun dipped lower, he stood on the deck of a small ship in the chill air and looked out at a snow-crusted shoreline.

  All land in sight appeared glazed, frosted, or frozen, but he knew where he was, as he had been here before. He focused on a coastal settlement ahead along the shore.

  “White Hut!” a sailor called from the bow.

  Dusk was near, though the captain would not force him to disembark until Chane awoke. Though it had grated on Chap at first, he had grown reluctantly accustomed to playing Chane’s “dog” after so many days and nights.

  In the early part of the journey, he had wondered how Chane would manage long-distance travel since he fell dormant the instant the sun rose. Yet this had proven surprisingly easy. Chane simply told any vessel’s captain that he suffered from a skin condition and could not be exposed to daylight. Odd as it sounded, no one questioned him. Some, such as the first mate of this ship, had even expressed sympathy.

  The journey so far had passed without incident. From the Suman port, they sailed directly to Soráno, where Chane had proven useful. He already knew where the caravaners camped beyond the city and quickly found one group loaded up for a journey to a’Ghràihlôn’na—“Blessed of the Woods”—and the central settlement of the Lhoin’na.

  Chane had offered both Osha’s and Shade’s services as caravan guards in exchange for passage. He paid Wayfarer’s fee in coin.

  While Chap would never admit it, he would not have managed this so easily on his own. After that, all that remained was a somewhat painful good-bye to Wayfarer and to Osha as well. His panic at leaving them to a foreign people and land did not pass quickly. He had to trust that Shade and Osha would guard the girl as much as possible in whatever she would face. He still believed her safer in this than in following Magiere and Leesil.

  Parting from Shade had been painful in a different way, and at best civil.

  There could be no reconciliation after what Chap had done to his unborn daughter, left behind long ago, and the only glimmer of what little trust might now exist between them was one he had not recognized at the time.

  Often during the voyage’s first part, Wayfarer could not stand remaining in the cabin she shared with Osha and Chap himself. Shade always slept in Chane’s cabin. One day, Chap had gone up on deck to find Osha sitting on the cargo hatch’s edge with Wayfarer at the rail nearby.

  Shade was there next to the girl.

  With her forepaws on the rail as she too looked out over the water, she must have heard or sensed something. Shade glanced back once at Chap and returned to watching the ocean with Wayfarer. At least Shade had accepted the girl as her new charge, but something more did not occur to Chap until later that day.

  Shade had left Chane unguarded.

  Whether she believed her father would not act against Chane, or that no one would, considering he was now necessary, Chap would never know. Chane did check in with everyone whenever he rose after dusk. Those were tense times at best, but there were others late at night that only Chap noticed.

  While he lay half asleep on the end of Wayfarer’s bunk, he had often heard Chane’s cabin door open. Then came bootfalls in the outer passage . . . mimicked by a set of clawed paws.

  Chane did not need to be guarded at night. That any majay-hì kept company with an undead was unsettling. That she, his daughter, did so by choice burned him with anger and pain, but he swallowed both and kept silent.

  Later, upon seeing the young trio off with a caravan, there had been little more than plain acknowledgmen
t from a daughter for a father; more than she had ever shown him, though less than he wanted.

  Then . . . when Chap had reboarded with Chane, it was just the two of them. They took to one cabin so as not to waste what coin was left. They had little to say to each other and even more limited methods with which to say it. Along the journey north, it had been necessary to change ships twice.

  Chane had proven himself frugal, retaining enough coin for their return journey. Before leaving the others, everyone had shared and separated their differing coins. The total proved worrisome until Ghassan contributed a surprising amount, which he claimed comprised the secretly amassed reserves of his sect. Magiere could be prideful over anything she considered “charity,” but even she said nothing when all was thrown in and divided.

  Along the journey, Chap had watched Chane carefully, ready to take him down if he showed any inclination to feed upon the ship’s crew. This never happened, though, which left Chap wondering about how often a vampire needed to feed. Perhaps they could survive for longer periods than he would have thought. He had no intention of asking. Wynn had once assured Magiere that Chane fed only on livestock. Neither Chap nor Magiere believed this, and there was no livestock aboard the ships they occupied.

  Now he stood on deck as White Hut came into view.

  The sun dipped below the horizon as the vessel anchored offshore from the trading station, as there were no docks. Shortly after, the aftcastle door opened.

  Chane emerged in a heavy cloak. Sometimes it bothered Chap that he no longer felt any instinctual impulse to snarl in the undead’s presence. Because of Chane’s brass ring, it was also unnerving not to sense when Chane came near unless Chap saw, smelled, or heard him approach.

  “We have arrived?” Chane asked as he approached the captain.

  Captain Nellort was a bulky, grisly man who wore a variety of patchwork furs. Strangely enough, he smelled worse when he was not bundled up.

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “It’s White Hut.”