by J. C. Hendee
“Kyne?” Shinat said.
She didn’t know what to say. His expression flattened around shocked and fluttering eyes.
“Hey! What are you doing in the boys’ wing?”
The curtain on Marten and Grim’s alcove ripped aside.
A shadowy figure leaned out.
Kyne almost dropped the jug.
Sirron Gauld, in his midnight-blue robe, glared once at her before his hard eyes in his dark face turned on panicked Shinat.
“Back to bed, now!” he ordered.
Shinat’s eyes were sleepy no more, and he vanished in jerking his curtain closed.
Sirron looked up and down aisle as he nearly shouted, “Everyone to sleep. This does not concern you.” Then his gaze locked on Kyne. “Inside, now!”
What else could she do? Whether Sirron had found Floraile missing and gone looking for her, or he had found her and they both had walked about to see that all was well, there was no doubt of what they had found.
A wolf cub hidden away in the initiates’ dormitory.
A young lhoin’na not an initiate but dressed like one.
And now Kyne sneaking about where she was not supposed to be, and just before the city guard would likely to go through the entire guild looking for…
She slumped in shuffling into the alcove under Sirron’s hard eyes. What she found inside was not quite what she expected.
Yes, all of the boys were up, though only Marten and Grim looked panicked. Alshenísh’ìn wore a stern expression in eyeing Sirron. None of them were sitting, as Sirron had commanded. At the alcove’s rear, the pup was on all fours, ears flattened and jowls pulled back as he growled lowly. His tail had bristled to twice as thick as normal, and even that was no surprise.
Floraile stood rigid in the small alcove’s center with her unblinking eyes fixed on the pup—and she was not quaking in fear.
“Kyne,” Grim whispered, shaking his head, “We tried to—”
“Silence!” Sirron hissed, letting the curtain swing closed.
Grim shuddered as his mouth snapped shut, but even at that sharp word, Floraile didn’t flinch.
Kyne turned frightened rather than surprised.
Floraile slowly turned her head, blinked as if not recognizing Kyne at first, and her expression was slack in utter confusion or astonishment.
Kyne didn’t think anything could get worse, but it did.
Somehow, Floraile knew…
“What have you done?” Sirron whispered.
Kyne stiffened at that question she was so tired of. Anger almost overcame panic, until she looked up into his fixed gaze. He knew as well, and she should have known he would.
Sirron and Floraile recognized what—who—the pup was.
Magic was not really what Metaology was about; in fact, it was the least of Metaology's purposes where the guild was concerned, aside from making things like the cold-lamp crystals in the guild’s workshops.
Sirron was a journeyor, like Wynn, but a metaologer instead of a cathologer. His order studied religions, philosophies, and metaphysics, both past and present, as well as lore, legends, traditions… and folklore. They gathered what shaped cultures, the way in which people saw their world, and what they believed in addition to what they knew for certain.
Either Floraile had taken an interest in Sirron’s interests, or he had merely shared something with her at some time.
Typical. Boys were always trying to impress girls with what they knew.
“You…” Sirron whispered at her, “and your childish babbling about…. and now this! How?”
“Stop that,” Floraile whispered.
Everyone—even Kyne—turned at those firm but soft words.
Floraile actually frowned at Sirron. A stern stare from her might have been startling enough but all the more so because it was for him. Some of that disapproval carried over when she looked at Kyne.
All of that staring at Kyne ended when Alshenísh’ìn said, “So, do we assume you two know what he is?”
Too much attention turned toward the pup, and he backed up a step.
“A scandal is… what he is,” Sirron answered, “should the Shyldfälches find him here and anyone else learn of this.”
“City guards?” Marten asked too loudly. “What are you talking about?”
“Quiet,” Kyne warned. “They are going to search the keep… for something… for… a dog.”
Sirron looked down on her in surprise and then even more anger.
Kyne was too frantic to be anymore afraid of him. With no time to explain everything to everyone, those who didn’t know everything, all she did was rattle out the basics in a whisper.
“We have to get him out of here,” she finished, looking to the pup and then to Marten. “Right now.”
Grim moaned and dropped his face in his hands.
Marten closed his eyes, shaking his head.
“Very well,” Floraile whispered.
Kyne’s breath caught as both boys looked up.
“No,” Sirron hissed, still glaring at Kyne. “You will not drag my…” and he faltered strangely. “You will not drag Floraile into this.”
Floraile closed another step toward him. “Do not be such a—”
“You bear the blame,” Sirron cut in, again at Kyne, “and you will not spread it to anyone else.” He turned his sharp eyes on Marten and Grim. “No one but the three of you will lose a place in the guild for this.”
“Oh, stop it!” Floraile snapped at him. “Since when do you speak for me?”
For an instant, for first time Kyne had ever seen, Sirron appeared lost for any words.
“I only…” he finally faltered out. “They… you do not understand how this could—”
“You are not my superior,” Floraile said, cutting him off. “And you will not… Oh, oh no, do not try that contrived sinister glare with me! Those robes of yours do not intimidate me, and I will do as I think best. Am I clear in this?”
Sirron’s mouth snapped shut. Once again, no one made a sound. Even the pup stopped growling.
When Kyne glanced up once more, Sirron was still visibly seething, but his jaw was clenched tight. Kyne—and Marten and Grim—stared dumbfounded at a stern Floraile, even aside from an apprentice speaking that way to journeyor.
Yes, they were of different orders, even different guild branches, but still. Hopefully Floraile’s outburst had not roused anyone else in the dormitory who might come for a look.
Floraile’s expression softened. “Just look at him, Sirron. You do not understand because you are still new in this land.” And she turned toward the pup. “He is sacred to the Lhoin’na, and besides… not just some animal.”
At another time, Kyne would have been so relieved in hearing someone else openly speak those words. Of course, it was girl who did so.
“I cannot leave this as is,” Floraile added, and with a sigh both sad and overwhelmed, or maybe just in wonder. And she took a short step in reaching toward the pup.
Kyne, Marten, and Grim all lunged at her.
“Stop!” “Wait!” “No!”
The pup’s hackles rose. His jowls pulled back. And he snapped with a clack of teeth.
Floraile’s sucked a breath and snatched her hand back just before anyone grabbed her. Sirron lunged in, either at Floraile or the pup or both. Before Kyne could step in his way, Alshenísh’ìn did so.
“Will there be more reasons to attract more attention?” he whispered.
Sirron eyed Alshenísh’ìn as he slowly pulled Floraile away. And now Floraile was shaking again with her eyes on the pup.
“He is so… so…” she stuttered.
“Yeah, we know,” Marten griped. “The little gnasher only likes Kyne.”
Kyne again ignored that awful name. “What about the closed portcullis? At least one guard is inside that and maybe someone else out front. Even if we sneak him out through a window and through the bailey, we have to pass anyone at the gate.”
A long pause, and…
&
nbsp; “Perhaps it is foolishness, as I implied,” Sirron said.
Even shaking in fright, Floraile looked up at him. “Do not start that men-know-best nonsense from your homeland… or you will see what our superior—your superior here—‘Lady’ Sykion has to say about it.”
“I did not mean—”
“I know exactly what you—”
“Why is the city guard so worked up?” Marten interrupted.
Kyne quickly answered before Sirron or Floraile started again. She explained that for some reason the Shyldfälches wanted to search the guild after losing track of the wolf-catcher and the wagon driver. No one could figure that out, but it was worrisome in some way.
“All right, I’ll get that guard away from portcullis,” Marten said, looking to Kyne, “so you and… Allen… can sneak the pup out through the inner bailey. But where to? We can’t use the Hoof House again, not anymore.”
“Out of the city, at least,” Alshenísh’ìn suggested, and following more questions, “Carriages for hire often linger near the inland gates of wealthier districts. If we can find one, I have enough coin. We might take him unseen to some small inn beyond the city walls.”
Kyne was surprised that he offered without any hesitation. That would cost more than the rest of them had. It was another temporary solution, but again, the only one they had.
“But the portcullis,” she reminded.
“Leave that to me,” Marten said but glanced at Grim. “And you’re going to help.”
“Me?” Grim squeaked.
“Yeah you, and can you fix that trunk?” Before Kyne even asked, Marten added, “No tarp this time. That was too much trouble.”
Grim grumbled and sank down to work on the trunk, unlocking it first.
Kyne glanced up at Alshenísh’ìn, but he was too busy scowling at Marten, as was Sirron.
“How will we know when to run for the gate?” she asked.
“You’ll hear it,” Marten muttered, and then with more ire, “Everyone’s going to hear it, since it has to be something that will get that guard away from the front… and out of sight of the streets. So get to the southern tower and watch along the front. When everyone starts scrambling, run for the gate.”
At that, he looked to Allen—and Alshenísh’ìn nodded once.
Kyne didn’t like not knowing—again—what Marten was up to. On second thought, maybe she didn’t want to know this time.
“You go with them,” Floraile said, and when Sirron’s mouth opened. “You have to. Something is wrong here, for all that the Shyldfälches are doing. Even so, we do not send initiates out alone at night. Do we?”
The last part snapped Sirron’s mouth shut again. He exhaled sharply through his nose and pierced Kyne with another glare.
She didn’t like the idea of him coming along, but she had been worried about how she could help Alshenísh’ìn carry the trunk.
Getting the pup into that trunk was not easy, though perhaps easier than making him get into the tarp for a third time. The only thing she could think to do was crawl halfway into the trunk herself. That he understood what she wanted was obvious when he snarled at her. She and everyone else waited anxiously, until he came to her and climbed in. That he did so still left Kyne astonished as well as relieved.
No dog—or wolf—would have ever done that, let alone so quickly understood what she wanted.
Floraile pulled the curtain aside as Sirron and Alshenísh’ìn lifted the trunk, but before Kyne slipped out first, Marten stopped her.
“Head to the back of this wing and get out a window,” he whispered. “Grim and I are headed the other way for the courtyard. When you reach the southern tower, wait for… well, you’ll hear it. Don’t run for the gate until after you hear any guard in the tunnel run away.”
“Just what am I supposed to do?” Grim asked.
Marten looked at him. “You can hope we find you some tools where we’re going.”
“And where is that?”
Marten shook his head and pushed Kyne out, but on her way past, she grabbed Floraile’s sleeve.
“If anyone here rouses and comes out,” she whispered, “keep them in here as long as you can.”
Floraile nodded once, and they were all off.
Leading the creeping way down the aisle, Kyne looked back in the dark. She could just make out Alshenísh’ìn at the trunk’s front end, though Sirron was almost invisible at the back in his midnight-blue robe. Twice along the way, the pup thumped and growled inside the trunk when either Sirron or Alshenísh’ìn had to adjust their grips.
Kyne heard initiates stirring in the boys’ wing and hurried too much. When she reached the tall, narrow window and looked out, the drop to the inner bailey was farther than she liked. Thankfully, Marten and Grim were not housed on the second floor. She fumbled to get a grip on the window’s iron latch, and then, after soft clunk, a dull light rose behind her. When she twisted about, she also snagged her cuff’s sleeve on the handle.
The trunk was set down in the aisle. Sirron pushed past Alshenísh’ìn with a dimly lit cold-lamp crystal in his hand. Then Kyne saw the trunk’s lid clunk twice, noisily.
The pup’s nose pushed out of the crack.
She quickly dropped to all fours and scrambled around Alshenísh’ìn’s long legs. One thing she had not—could not—make clear to the pup was when it was time to get out again.
He growled as she lifted the lid enough to push his head down. When she looked up, both Sirron and Alshenísh’ìn were watching her, one with ire and the other with worry. Both shook their heads as Sirron turned to the window.
He opened its heavy iron frame set with thick rughìr glass panes, pointed at Alshenísh’ìn, and then at the trunk.
Kyne scooted back, hoping the pup stayed put. Sirron thrust his crystal at her, and she took it.
Alshenísh’ìn and Sirron heaved up the trunk, placing one end on the stone sill. At a nod from Sirron, Alshenísh’ìn then climbed over the trunk and dropped out the window. It was a long moment before Sirron began sliding and wiggling the trunk through the narrow opening.
The way the trunk grated on stone was too much for Kyne.
When Sirron had most of it out the window, he slowly let it tilt downward and ended up leaning completely over the sill to lower it. When he straightened again, no longer holding the chest, he waved Kyne forward.
Sirron lowered her out and down, and Alshenísh’ìn caught her by the waist from below. Once Sirron followed, he took the crystal from her, and they were off again.
Kyne led the way through the narrow gap between the dormitory and the tall bailey wall. At the curve of the southern tower’s base, she slowed and inched around it. She peered along the front to the nearer gatehouse tower and the even tinier open-topped towers framing the bailey gate.
There was no one out front. Whoever the inner city guard had spoken with was gone. And they waited—and waited—until…
A crash of metal striking stone rolled with rattling and squealing.
Kyne lurched back out of sight and looked to the others, and even Sirron looked panicked at that much noise. Worse, when she peeked along the front again, the noise had made it impossible to hear if the guard inside the portcullis had run off. Shouting from inside guild grounds carried loudly over the keep wall. At another glance back, Alshenísh’ìn shook his head at a loss but Sirron waved her on.
Kyne took off at a run through trees of the narrow inner bailey. She only slowed when she neared the gap between the gatehouse and the bailey gate. With no one in sight, she dared to step out a little farther for peek through the portcullis’ heavy beams.
The city city guard was gone, but she saw yellow-orange light flickering across the tunnel’s inner walls. At a glance down the tunnel, she spotted a small wreckage of metal amid a blazing fire that burned to one side of the exit into the inner courtyard.
Exactly what had Marten—and Grim—done to cause that?
The one city guard was there and started sho
uting orders for water as a few sages came running into sight.
Kyne rushed for the bailey gate, waving Alshenísh’ìn and Sirron to follow.
Once they were out in the front run of Old Bailey Road she paused. Alshenísh’ìn nodded northward. She eyed the trunk once, and seeing it was still closed, she hurried away, for she knew where Alshenísh’ìn wanted to go.
The closest city gate in a decent district was inland to the northeast beyond small, elite shops and even more elite rows of tall stone houses favored by lesser nobles and well-to-do merchants. Somewhere along the way, she heard her companions’ quick steps stumble and scuff on the street stones. When she stopped and turned, Alshenísh’ìn looked frantic, for Sirron had pulled him up short by the trunk.
All Kyne saw was the back of Sirron’s dark robe as he stared the other way down the street. He stood there too long and then suddenly stuffed the cold-lamp crystal away in his robe. That didn’t matter, for districts like this were well lit by street lanterns.
She finally heard distant footfalls growing louder back the way they had come.
Either someone had seen them flee and now followed, or local constables were walking patrol, as always, in a district like this. Worse, she saw no nearby cutways between these homes to quickly reach an alley behind them.
Sirron spun back and whispered at the same time as Kyne. “Run!”
She barely reached a crossing sidestreet when someone stepped into sight at the next intersection ahead.
That dim, bulky figure paused, though she didn’t see if it looked her way.
Kyne quickly rounded into the sidestreet. When she spotted a mid-block alley’s mouth on the left, aimed the way they had to go, she ran for it. She paused just inside of it and, when Alshenísh’ìn rushed in and passed her, she didn’t even check the trunk as she thrust a hand out at Sirron.
“The crystal,” she whispered.
He gave it to her, and she hurried ahead up the long alley between old barrels and back doors. She no longer cared how much noise they made. The quicker they got through, the better, and it would matter little who heard them and came out to look.
A shadow passed across the alley’s far end in the next sidestreet.
Kyne halted, and Alshenísh’ìn almost rammed into her. Not knowing how to put the crystal out, she stuffed it inside her robe’s pocket.
