Between Their Worlds

by Barb; J. C. Hendee

  Did he want her to answer Wynn’s question?

  “What happened to you . . . all of you . . . in the Wastes?”

  No memories rose in Magiere’s mind. Over their journey north, that had become Chap’s most common way to express his intentions. When there wasn’t time for more cumbersome ways for him to communicate, he’d slip into her mind and call up her own memories to try to show her what he wanted to say . . . or command.

  Magiere suddenly couldn’t take her companions’ scrutiny anymore. Perhaps Wynn expected her to say something, and Chap wished her to stay silent. But she couldn’t tolerate Leesil ignoring everything, everyone . . . including her. She had to do something to end this lingering moment.

  Magiere reached beneath her cloak, toward the small of her back. She gripped something cold and metallic hooked onto her belt, jerked it out, and slammed it on the small table.

  Leesil flinched and spun around, but he looked at it, not her. Wynn stepped farther into the alcove, her gaze fixed on the object as her large brown eyes filled with more confusion.

  Magiere had heard Wynn once call such a thing a thôrhk, a word having something to do with the dwarves. It was shaped like a circlet of thick metal—about a fourth of the object was missing—but it had been made that way. Its open ends had knobs or studs that pointed directly across at each other rather than in line with the circlet’s curve.

  Wynn reached for it, hesitated, and raised her eyes to Magiere.

  “What happened to it?” she began. “It looks so …”

  “It’s not mine,” Magiere said quietly.

  Indeed, the one on the table was made of a ruddy metal, and the one Wynn referred to was something else. Magiere tugged open her hauberk’s collar, exposing another open-ended heavy circlet around her neck. But this one was made of a metal so silvery it was almost white.

  Wynn’s eyes widened, and her mouth hung open as she looked down at the second thôrhk on the table.

  A flurry of questions filled Wynn’s head so fast that the next blotted out the last. She’d always thought Magiere’s thôrhk, her orb “key” or handle, was the only one. In a deep cavern of severe heat, that object had been given to Magiere by the Chein’âs—the Burning Ones—one of the Úirishg, or five mythical races of the Elements. Yet here was another so different from the first. So worn with age it looked almost ancient, and it wasn’t made from the Chein’âs’s white metal.

  Where had it come from? What did it mean? Did each orb need its own key? If so, why had Magiere’s been able to open the orb of Water, if her thôrhk wasn’t designed specifically for that one?

  Or was Magiere’s thôrhk something special?

  In lost Bäalâle Seatt, two of Wynn’s other companions, Chane and Ore-Locks, had found the orb—the anchor—of Earth. Somehow they’d beaten a wraith named Sau’ilahk to it, which had seemed impossible, for that spirit form of an undead, a Noble Dead, had gotten ahead of all of them. Ore-Locks and Chane hadn’t come back with a thôrhk, a key for that orb. If one had been there, perhaps it had been overlooked. Or maybe . . .

  Wynn turned chill inside.

  Sau’ilahk had gone ahead after the orb. What if he’d found it first? But if its key was missing, was that why he hadn’t taken the orb—because he couldn’t have used it? Or had Sau’ilahk, that black-robed monster without a face, taken only the key? And if so, why?

  Who is this figure in the black robe with cloth-wrapped hands?

  Wynn’s breath caught as Chap’s words erupted in her head in every language she knew. She twisted about, staring at him, and he was on his feet, inching toward her.

  “What’s wrong?” Leesil asked.

  Wynn swallowed hard when she met his hard, worried eyes. Even Magiere sat upright, her old scowl of suspicion returning. Even so, Magiere’s pale face was lovely. Her long, black hair with its bloodred tints was tucked back behind her ears. Leesil, however, was still studying Wynn, and he frowned.

  “I see,” he said. “It’s been so long, I forgot that Chap can jabber right into your head.”

  Wynn didn’t relax one bit, annoyed at herself for not being more careful. Indeed, she was the only one with whom Chap could truly “talk.” She couldn’t even begin to wonder how these three had fared without her to give Chap a convenient voice. She eyed Chap sidelong, for his question still hadn’t been answered.

  Instead, Wynn quickly stilled her thoughts, banishing all images of Sau’ilahk from her mind, for memories of him could lead to those of someone else. . . .

  Her more recent traveling companion, Chane, might already be back from escorting Ore-Locks to Dhredze Seatt—back from hiding the orb of Earth in the last great stronghold of the dwarves. Wynn didn’t need these three old friends learning of Chane’s presence right now. Chane was a physical Noble Dead, a vampire, and Magiere, Leesil, and Chap all hated him, perhaps more than any other undead they’d already finished off.

  Wynn needed time to think of a way to explain a great deal, and without Chap overrunning her with questions based on whatever he caught in her errant, rising memories. There were larger issues at stake that needed—

  “Journeyer Hygeorht! Why is this animal wandering unattended about my archives?”

  Wynn shuddered at the sound of Domin Tärpodious’s aged and crackling voice echoing through the archives. He must have stumbled upon her dog, Shade, somewhere near his chambers. As she stepped toward the alcove’s near archway, Chap’s voice rose again in her head.

  We cannot be seen down here.

  “But why? When—”

  “Uh-oh,” Leesil whispered.

  Wynn’s eyes widened. “What did you do?”

  Not now. We will discuss our . . . hastened entry later.

  Before Wynn could ask Chap what he meant, Magiere snatched up the darker thôrhk and tossed Leesil his cloak. She got up too quickly and had to grab the stool before it toppled. Chap hurried by her toward the alcove’s far arch, rumbling at Leesil as he passed.

  “It was nothing, honestly,” Leesil whispered, in his usual feigned innocence. “And completely necessary.”

  After that, he glanced at Wynn and put a finger across his lips in warning just before Magiere jerked him out the alcove’s far side.

  “Wynn?” Tärpodious called out, much closer now. “Get this beast under control! And why was the archive door left unlocked?”

  Wynn’s eyes narrowed, but Leesil was already out of sight when she hissed under her breath, “Leesil, I’ll shove those lockpicks where you won’t get them until you . . .”

  She quickly calmed herself, turning back to the archway.

  “Yes, Domin. I’m here,” she called out. “I was just busy in the books and didn’t notice Shade had wandered off. I’ll be right there.”

  “Well, be quick about it. Premin Sykion is waiting in her office to speak with you.”

  Wynn slumped against the archway’s side. “Valhachkasej’â!”

  Sykion was the last person she wanted to deal with tonight, but at least she’d stopped old Domin Tärpodious from coming all the way to the alcove. Now . . . she just had to get her friends out of here.

  One thing at a time.

  Hiding in the back passage, Leesil raised an eyebrow as Wynn uttered his own commonly used elven curse.

  “You’re a bad influence, as usual,” Magiere whispered.

  This time, he did look at her.

  “Me?” he returned. “You think I’m the influence of concern here?”

  There was no humor in his voice this time. After everything that had happened to them, she was the influence that worried him most of all. Since finding that second orb, she’d changed. Yet even after that, they—he—had been so close to putting an end to all this and going home.

  It would have taken only Wynn’s assuring Magiere that nothing more had been learned—nothing more could be learned—about the orbs. Never mind that they’d found another and that Chap had hidden away the pair. Those cursed lumps of stone could stay wherever they lay,
forever. But no . . .

  Wynn just couldn’t shut up, even once, when it mattered most. The sage had nosed her way into something more, something worse, that Magiere would never let go. There would be no dragging Magiere away now.

  Without another word, Leesil stepped back into the alcove.

  “I don’t believe this!” Wynn whispered at him as she gathered up her belongings and the strange staff. “You’re here less than a quarter bell in the night, and I’m already in more trouble—and I don’t need your help with that.”

  “Trouble?” Leesil returned. “When did you ever need help with that? What have you gotten yourself into this time?”

  Wynn straightened, and her mouth gaped.

  Leesil immediately regretted his words. Wynn was like a little sister to him. It just wasn’t in her nature to sit still for long—or to stay out of anything that caught her attention. If it were, she’d never have joined him, Magiere, and Chap in the first place. Tonight, she’d been so glad, so relieved to see him, and he’d just taken out his long-pent-up frustrations on her.

  Moving toward her, he began, “Wynn, I didn’t mean to—”

  But before he could finish, she suddenly jumped a little, her expression aghast, and she turned on Chap.

  “What?” She exhaled at him, and then her voice rose above a whisper. “Don’t you take his side. You have no idea what I’ve—”

  “Quiet, all of you,” Magiere insisted. “Save it . . . at least until we’re out of here.”

  Everyone went silent at that, even Leesil, though he wondered exactly what Chap had said to the little sage.

  Magiere started to glance about, and Leesil followed her attention in puzzlement. She looked around the alcove, through its archways, at the books on the table, and then fixed on Wynn.

  “I know you must’ve been working on those texts,” Magiere began quietly. “The ones we hauled out of the Pock Peaks along with the first orb. I need to know anything else you might have learned about the orb—I mean orbs. Or even about these servants of the Ancient Enemy that you mentioned.”

  Leesil sighed, long and heavy. The last thing he wanted was Wynn pushing Magiere onward in this obsession. Yet on the journey north, even he’d imagined Wynn finally having the chance to live as the scholar that she was, spending her days digging through all those texts. He’d tried to tell himself that they’d done her a favor by leaving her behind.

  But Wynn fell strangely still and mute, perhaps growing a little pale as Magiere went on.

  “Before we leave,” Magiere went on, “grab anything you’ve uncovered, or any of the texts themselves. I—we were hoping you could help figure out what these orbs are, what they do, especially now that you’ve told us there are five of them.”

  Wynn flinched, and to Leesil’s surprise, she looked stricken.

  “Oh . . . oh, Magiere,” she faltered. “No, I don’t . . . I was never allowed . . . The texts aren’t here. They were taken from me as soon as I arrived.”

  It was an instant before Leesil realized his mouth had dropped open, and he shut it. It was another instant after hope flooded him that Magiere might at least be slowed down, if not stopped, before he heard Magiere’s sharp whisper.

  “What?!”

  Wynn became frantic in trying to calm Magiere. “I’ve learned much that you need to know, just the same. Things that might not even be in those texts. I’ll tell you everything, though there’s more I have to figure out, but right now, we have to get you out of here.”

  Magiere’s expression went dark at the prospect of another delay. Then Chap huffed once in agreement and padded toward the far archway. Wynn sagged a little and turned to follow him, but Leesil didn’t move.

  He watched Magiere heft her pack a little too roughly and follow the sage and the dog. She was tall for a woman, slender but strong, and wore a scarred and weathered studded-leather hauberk under her cloak and a sheathed falchion on her left hip.

  Leesil couldn’t take his eyes off her dark hair swinging when she walked. He watched her leave, and he remembered all of the times she had tried to stop him in some scheme or ploy. He was helpless now in stopping her.

  He hefted his own pack and stepped out to follow Wynn’s lamp. Its crystal’s white light in the dark seemed as cold as those icy wastes he’d left behind.

  Chap padded along beside Wynn as the young sage led the way, scurrying along the dark passages. The way was tight and narrow, for every wall was lined with dusty stone and wooden shelves and casements, all filled with books, cases, and other texts.

  But even in this silent rush to get out of the archives, Chap could not stop pondering something he had seen inside Wynn.

  In the alcove, the barest, fleeting memories had risen into Wynn’s conscious thoughts. Foremost was one of a tall, black-robed figure, its face hidden in a deep, sagging black cowl. The image vanished before he could catch more. But since that moment, not a single memory had risen in Wynn’s mind.

  What was she hiding from him? And how had she learned to do this so well?

  Wynn suddenly halted before an overloaded casement along the passage’s right wall. She cast a quick, accusing glance at Leesil, who stood back behind Magiere. Then she frowned, dropping her head to look down at Chap.

  “Aside from him breaking in here,” she whispered, cocking her head toward Leesil, “how did all of you manage to get inside to sneak about?”

  Chap was lost for words. This was what she now wanted to know?

  “It wasn’t hard,” Leesil whispered.

  Wynn balled her free hand into a fist, but Chap cut in before she went at Leesil again.

  You are right in that we need to leave. Then he added more pointedly, But we all have questions . . . and expect answers.

  Wynn took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and nodded. When she turned onward, Chap lapped her small fingers with his tongue. In spite of their being caught in a tense moment, he knew she was relieved to see them all.

  Chap felt Wynn’s hand drag up over his snout and between his ears, until it came to rest upon his neck. Her little fingers nestled into his fur as he walked beside her. This familiar sensation was something he had not felt in a long, long time, and it did not seem right that the one person in the world he could speak with directly should rejoin him under these circumstances.

  Yes, there were questions to be answered. They included whatever foolish notions had gotten into Wynn to make her go roaming about the land after the difficult choice he’d made to secure her here. She should have remained among her own kind, wrapped in the safe haven of humanity.

  Then Chap found himself facing an entirely different kind of “meeting.” Beyond the passage’s end ahead, his daughter stood watching him, without blinking.

  He kept on at Wynn’s side, halting at the entrance into the cavernous main chamber of the archives. Wooden shelves lined the walls, filled with matching, bound volumes of dark leather among a few cedar-plank sheaves of loose pages. Several tables filled the space, lit by cold lamps hung at the chamber’s four corners.

  Shade, as Wynn called her, waited before the far stairs that led back upstairs—away from this scholar’s maze beneath the guild. At the sight of his daughter, it was Chap who lost all control of his memories.

  He had never forgotten, never would forget, what he had done to her.

  Several years ago, he’d been spending what he knew would be his last night among the an’Cróan—the elven people of the eastern continent—and he had fled from their one true city, racing back into the forest. At the next dawn, he would have to leave on an elven ship to watch over Magiere and Leesil on their journey to find the first orb.

  Because of this, sacrifices were necessary.

  His mate, Lily, had waited for him beyond the forest’s edge.

  She stood among the ferns below the long branches of a redwood . . . a white majay-hì like no other. Her blue, crystalline eyes held flecks of yellow, and from a distance, sunlight blended her irises to a green almost as ver
dant as new leaves. He ran his muzzle along hers, inhaled her scent laced with fragrances of the wild Elven Territories, and she sent memories . . . visions . . . of the children she would bear. It was the most painful joy of his unnatural life, for he would not be there to see them born. And to one child he would do far worse than that.

  Chap had already known that he had to leave; that Magiere and Leesil needed him. But after what he had done when his kin, the Fay, learned that Wynn could hear them, he knew he had to protect her from them, as well. As much as Magiere and Leesil needed him, he had to see to Wynn’s safety. Not only as cherished companion, but because even then she was an integral part of what was to come.