Between Their Worlds

by Barb; J. C. Hendee

“You can’t,” she told him calmly. “Leesil will never believe anything if Brot’an’s the only one to report back. You have to go with him.”

  Brot’an kept glancing between them, at a loss for having heard only half of what was said. Chap was in no mood to have Wynn explain, nor for any more of her nonsense.

  And what will Leesil say when I return without you? What will Magiere say . . . or do?

  “Tell them I have to meet with Premin Hawes. They will understand—they have to.”

  “No, they will not,” Brot’an spoke up. “You will leave with us, little one.”

  This time it was Brot’an who received Wynn’s glare of warning. “Don’t think you can tell me what to do.”

  Chane stood up, towering over Wynn, and Shade rose from her haunches, as well. Ore-Locks stood watching in confusion, his iron staff in one hand; he took hold of it with his other on witnessing Chane’s and Shade’s reactions.

  Wynn looked nothing like the young woman Chap had once known, the one who had depended on him for so much. She appeared far too much at home as she rose between Chane and Shade. In his own quest to stop the Enemy, to locate the orbs, had he lost her? Or had she lost him?

  “Go tell Magiere and Leesil what’s happened,” Wynn said. “If they don’t understand now, they soon will. When I’ve spoken with Premin Hawes, I’ll let you know everything I’ve learned. Then . . . we plan our next move, and not before.”

  Chap considered knocking her on her backside and dragging her off. Twisted as it was, Brot’an would most certainly aid him. But in looking at Wynn, it seemed even that would come to nothing. He saw there was truly nothing he could say or do to make her leave this place.

  It was a deeply unsettling realization.

  * * *

  Still shaking from anger and fear, Magiere stood before the closed door. She could barely believe what had taken place. Wynn might believe that lines were being drawn, but for Magiere, if that meant a murdering undead like Chane was an ally, the line separating the living from its worst threat had been erased.

  Over and over, she remembered demanding to know how Wynn could accept Chane’s protection. She couldn’t stop thinking of Wynn’s answer.

  Because you weren’t there. None of you.

  Had Wynn had no choice but to accept Chane’s help because everyone else had abandoned her?

  Even amid guilt, Magiere couldn’t accept that, and, still trying to silence Wynn’s voice in her head, she turned her eyes to Leesil. She had no idea what to say to him. How could they just stand here and wait? Neither of them had ever been any good at that.

  She believed in taking a fight head-on. He believed in coming at it from the side before anyone saw him. Neither approach seemed possible now.

  “We should use this time,” Leanâlhâm said. “Who knows when we will have a moment again to do anything for ourselves.”

  Unexpectedly, Magiere had Leanâlhâm to thank for easing the tension. She studied the girl’s slender face, smooth brown hair, and those startlingly green eyes that should have been amber.

  “What do you suggest?” Magiere asked doubtfully.

  Leanâlhâm stepped to the hearth. “Leesil, will you start a fire so we can cook?”

  Her Belaskian was simple, but she spoke it well—far better than Osha, considering he was an anmaglâhk.

  “Magiere, you help Osha with his words,” Leanâlhâm went on. “If we travel together, seek orbs together, he must learn to speak better.”

  “Now?” Osha asked, though he didn’t turn from his vigil at the window.

  “Yes, now,” Leanâlhâm answered, and she began digging through a pack to retrieve a small pot, raw potatoes, and a few green stalks Magiere couldn’t identify. “Do you have something more important to do?”

  Magiere caught the quaver in the girl’s voice. She remembered that moment between Osha and Wynn, on Wynn’s first arrival, and how Leanâlhâm had reacted. That situation bore watching, and Magiere reached out to touch Leesil’s shoulder.

  “Get a fire started. We have to eat.”

  She then went to drop on the floor across from Osha at the window’s other side, still hesitant at the notion of language lessons amid all of this. She couldn’t help remembering how Wynn had once done this. Most of the Belaskian Osha knew, he’d learned from the sage.

  “Leesil, do you have a knife?” Leanâlhâm asked.

  “Nothing I’d let you use on potatoes,” he answered, gathering sticks from a pile near the hearth. “I’ll find you something.”

  Everything seemed so normal and, although the illusion didn’t fool Magiere, she was grateful that the girl tried just the same. Doing something—anything—was better than staring at the room’s closed door.

  Osha put his back to the wall and slid down to the floor. He glanced over, watching Magiere with some unspoken concern. Leanâlhâm wasn’t the only one exposed to Magiere’s growing problem. Suddenly, even language lessons seemed better than facing that.

  “How did Wynn do this?” Magiere asked bluntly.

  Osha tilted his head back against the wall, his long, white-blond hair falling away from his face.

  “She . . . talk,” he said, a bit too wistfully. “Ask question. Make me answer. Scold if I talk Elvish.”

  What Magiere truly wanted to ask was what Osha and Leanâlhâm were doing here. But by the way these two obeyed Brot’an’s every command, resentfully or not, it was too soon to press for answers.

  Osha lowered his head, as if sad, and Magiere regretted turning his thoughts toward Wynn.

  “I’ll give it a try,” she said. “You’re certainly doing better than Leesil did with your language.”

  Osha lifted his head and blinked twice in puzzlement.

  It had been a long time since Magiere had first entered the Elven Territories with Leesil, Chap, and Wynn. Along the way, Wynn had tried to tutor Leesil in Elvish, though it turned out to be the wrong dialect. Almost immediately, they’d been intercepted by anmaglâhk, including Sgäile and Osha. Since Osha was the most amiable among that escort, Leesil had thought to try out his new language skills.

  Osha had paled in shock, flushed with fury, and drawn a stiletto. Wynn had to rush in, frantically trying to explain. Whatever Leesil had tried to say, it had come out wrong . . . and as a possible insult to Osha’s mother.

  Magiere cocked her head toward Leesil and then winked at Osha.

  Osha rolled his eyes, snorted, and covered his mouth, trying to stifle a laugh.

  “I not this bad,” he whispered, but loud enough to be overheard.

  Leesil paused at the hearth long enough to shoot him a scowl.

  “I am not that bad,” Magiere corrected. “Now tell me about the voyage across the eastern ocean.”

  Osha turned serious, his thin lips tightening into a line as his jaw muscles clenched. He looked away, remaining silent.

  “Not about Brot’an’s little secrets,” Magiere added. “Just the ship, the crew, the food . . . the day to day.”

  Osha half smiled, nodding. “Ath, bithâ!”

  “No Elvish,” Magiere said. “I don’t understand it, anyway.”

  In halting, broken phrases, Osha began telling her of his seafaring experiences among humans. Magiere listened, sometimes correcting a word or two. For the most part, all that mattered was that he could make his meaning clear.

  Across the room, as the fire began to crackle, Leanâlhâm and Leesil spoke of mundane things, while he located a spare dagger and started on the potatoes.

  “Those pieces are too big,” Leanâlhâm admonished. “Slice thinner.”

  “That’ll take all night,” Leesil argued.

  “If you do not, they will have to cook all night.”

  She set the little iron pot’s handle onto the hearth’s arm and swung the pot in over the barely flickering flames. Magiere listened to Osha, but found it was not long before Leanâlhâm gently dropped a number of eggs still in their shells into the water. The potatoes followed, along with the green
s she’d cut up.

  After a while, Osha grew frustrated with fighting for new words he didn’t know. Soon after, he was saved from further struggle.

  “All right, you two,” Leesil said. “Come eat something.”

  They shared a late supper, maintaining the illusion that all was normal. But once the meal was done, they fell back into silent waiting—until the door opened.

  Brot’an stepped in, followed by Chap.

  Magiere climbed to her feet. Part of her was still enraged and heatedly hoping to talk some sense into Wynn about this insane notion of accepting help from anyone who offered.

  Brot’an shut the door, and Magiere’s thoughts went blank. It took two breaths before she could speak.

  “Where’s Wynn?”

  Chap stalked right by her toward the hearth with a breathy exhale through his teeth.

  Brot’an didn’t answer at first, and then said, “Wynn has chosen to remain with her other companions.”

  Leesil had allowed Leanâlhâm’s domestic activities to suppress his own sense of betrayal and panic. He’d been on the verge of feeling almost himself again. Then Brot’an had returned and answered Magiere’s question.

  Leesil was on his feet, but he didn’t speak to Brot’an. He turned on Chap.

  “You left her there . . . with him?”

  Chap clacked his jaw and then huffed twice.

  “It was not his choice,” Brot’an added.

  Magiere stepped between the two, caught at the room’s center as she tried to pick one of them to go at. She finally fixed on Brot’an.

  “Wynn would not leave,” Brot’an said before Magiere got out a word. “Forcing her would have accomplished nothing.”

  Leesil was at a loss, puzzled by how visibly uncomfortable Brot’an looked.

  “I tried to dissuade her, as did Chap,” Brot’an continued, ignoring Magiere, and turning to Leesil. “You did not see her there. She is in no danger, and perhaps where she belongs for what she must do . . . for all of us.”

  Leesil took a step, but Magiere got in his way as she rushed to the bed. It had been stupid to let Brot’an go in the first place, as he cared nothing for Wynn other than what she might accomplish for him. In one motion, Magiere grabbed her cloak from the pile on the bed and pushed right past Brot’an for the door.

  “Chap, you show me where she is—now!” Magiere half shouted. “She’s coming back, one way or another.”

  Leesil nodded. “I’m coming, too.”

  “You cannot,” Brot’an returned, his voice rising above its usually calm, firm state. “She has set careful plans in motion, ones worthy of her intelligence. A message has been sent to a Premin Hawes at the guild’s castle, who will meet with Wynn to assist in translating the scroll that was mentioned. Wynn will then come to us. By tomorrow night, we may know the location of another orb.”

  No one had a response to that, and Leesil struggled over what to do.

  “Wynn has become a warrior in her way,” Brot’an said, “to hinder the Enemy, to stop another war. Would you dismiss her efforts?”

  Leesil turned on him. “And what about you helping us, helping her . . . all out of the goodness of your heart? In seven hells! What are you really doing here?”

  Brot’an narrowed his large amber eyes; one glared through the cage bars of old scars.

  Leesil didn’t expect an honest answer, and nodded to Magiere as he headed for the door.

  “I do not trust Most Aged Father,” Brot’an said, freezing Leesil in his steps. “No more than I would trust the Ancient Enemy to retreat into hiding. I would keep these orbs from them both. Wynn is driven by this purpose, and I would join her in it . . . even if I must go through you.”

  Brot’an shifted around Leesil in a lunge that forced Leesil to back up.

  “What are you really doing here?” Brot’an echoed.

  Leesil was momentarily rattled. Brot’an may have a bagful of other secrets, but in that smaller part where Most Aged Father was concerned, he was telling the truth. Leesil looked to Magiere.

  She watched them both, and he clearly saw pain and fear in her dark eyes at Brot’an’s words. Like Leesil, Magiere had frozen in doubt. Only Chap remained as he’d always been concerning the master assassin. He rumbled, jowls pulled back partway.

  Leesil hadn’t received even one recalled memory from Chap, and likely neither had Magiere. For all Chap’s hatred of the old butcher, he hadn’t tried to argue against Brot’an in any way.

  Leesil realized how hard this night must have been for Chap. Chap cared deeply for Wynn, and he’d lost a daughter because of it.

  They couldn’t go to Chane’s inn and drag Wynn away.

  “What . . .” Leesil tried to say. “What now, then?”

  “A plan,” Brot’an answered, “to escape this city, once we have a destination.”

  Leesil closed his eyes. Another journey, another orb, another journey, and then what? How many times would it repeat, the next time getting harder than the last? Even succeeding wouldn’t make anything better, likely only worse.

  He felt Magiere’s fingers sliding into his palm, and he gripped her hand.

  “If you are going to plan,” Leanâlhâm said almost too quietly to hear, “then Brot’ân’duivé and the majay-hì should eat while you talk.”

  Again, the girl’s plain manner cut the tension by half.

  Leesil pulled Magiere toward the hearth. Osha joined them next, and finally Brot’an. But Chap lay down in the middle of the room, facing away toward the door. Leanâlhâm brought him a plate, but he didn’t even sniff at it. Slowly, while Brot’an ate, they all began to talk.

  “The city guard won’t be a problem,” Leesil said. “Those anmaglâhk are something else.”

  Osha nodded. “They watch all . . .” He faltered, switching to Elvish as he spoke to Brot’an.

  “Exits,” Brot’an finished for him. “If they have enough, they will have someone watching any way out of the city.”

  Leesil reached over and grabbed his pack and pulled out the talking hide, though at present, Chap showed no interest in conversation.

  “Where will the anmaglâhk focus now?” Leesil asked, and then shook his head. “No, never mind. It doesn’t matter. Wherever we’re headed will likely be a long way off. That means a ship or a long trek over land. There’s only so much we can do until Wynn gets back.”

  Brot’an nodded once. “The numbers of the anmaglâhk on your trail have dwindled, though I do not know their actual count. Another issue is that they will have word-wood devices—one or more. If so, once we are free of the city, and should they learn of our direction, they could report it to Most Aged Father. Though my people are a long way from here, he could still deploy more of his loyalists to intercept us . . . again, depending upon our destination.”

  Leesil hesitated at that one unique word—“loyalists.”

  Brot’an, and even Leesil’s mother, Nein’a, were part of a long-standing and silent, dissident faction among the an’Cróan, including some among the Anmaglâhk. Had the situation in the Elven Territories now escalated further? It seemed unlikely that Brot’an would make such a slip. Or had it been intentional? And what was Leesil’s mother doing even now, somewhere across the world?

  “Wynn said there are two orbs left,” Magiere put in. “We don’t know which one we’ll go after first. We’ll need to pick one before we even know where we’re going.”

  “Unless we go after both,” Leesil added.

  Magiere and Brot’an focused intently on him.

  He already knew how this suggestion would affect Brot’an. Even now, the shadow-gripper was calculating what to do should they split into two groups. Leesil didn’t look at Magiere, as that would’ve invited another argument. He went on before she could start in on him.

  “We have to get this over with,” he said. “And whichever orb is closest, those who go after it will have to stall for those who will make the longer journey.”

  “How?” Osha asked. “
Decoy?”

  “No, at least not like the last,” Brot’an answered. “We gave them something hidden in plain sight that they could not resist looking into, something obvious to uncover. That will not work a second time.”

  “Or . . . we could be even more obvious,” Leesil countered. “Give them something so plain to see that in their panic, they won’t think to second-guess it.”

  Magiere sighed in frustration, and Leesil knew she was sick of this roundabout approach. But Brot’an’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly.

  Only Leesil would’ve caught it while looking into those old eyes. As the master anmaglâhk nodded slightly in agreement, Leesil grew sick inside.