Of Truth and Beasts

by Barb Hendee

  Chane didn’t need protection from the cold.

  “What’s all this for?” Wynn asked.

  He didn’t answer. Then she noticed a scrunched bulk of leather in his right hand. Two laces dangled from his curled fingers along with the strings of a brown felt pouch.

  “This way,” he said, and headed for the gatehouse tunnel. As he turned, the side of his cloak wafted open.

  The hilt of his new sword protruded above his hip, its mottled dwarven blade now couched in a new sheath. He never walked the guild grounds while armed, as it was considered poor manners.

  “Chane . . . ?” Wynn called, but he strode away, and she had to trot to keep up.

  When he exited the tunnel, he didn’t go on to the bailey gate, but turned left into the inner bailey. They’d nearly reached the barren trees and garden below the southern tower when Wynn got fed up.

  “Chane, what is going on?”

  He turned to face her. Without answering, he jerked the leather sheath off her staff with his free hand, exposing the sun crystal’s long prisms.

  Wynn stepped back in alarm, catching the crystal’s sheath as he tossed it at her.

  “Give me your glasses,” he said, fiddling with the pouch he carried.

  “First you tell me what we’re—” She stopped.

  Chane held up another pair of glasses like her own. These were smaller, with delicate arms curved at the ends.

  “Made for you,” he said. “Put them on, and give me your old ones.”

  Confused but curious, Wynn pulled out the glasses made by Domin il’Sänke and handed them over. The lenses were clear, designed to go dark only when struck with harsh light. They allowed her to see when the sun crystal ignited.

  Chane took them, shoving the new ones into her hand.

  Wynn hooked their thin arms around her ears. They fit snuggly and did not shift like the old ones.

  “Better,” she commented, adjusting them on her small nose. “What made you think to have them made?”

  But Chane was off again.

  Wynn glanced at her staff’s crystal in puzzlement and had to hurry. She’d barely caught up as he rounded the southern tower and stopped. He looked up once, and Wynn did so, as well. All the windows in the tower were dark.

  He pointed toward the barren corner garden. “Stand there.”

  “Chane, what is this about?”

  With his back to her, he stopped a few paces down the keep’s left side and lowered his head. Whatever that leather object was in his hand, he appeared to be tucking it inside his hood. When he raised his head again, he didn’t turn to her. He just stood there with his hands limp at his sides.

  “Ignite the crystal,” he said, his rasp sounding strangely muffled.

  “What?” Wynn gasped, and then she had a notion of what he was up to.

  From the gloves and scarf to the cloak, he’d planned this. What was he trying to prove?

  “You don’t know if that’s enough protection,” she said. “And you’re too close.”

  “Ignite it!”

  “No.”

  Chane held to his resolve. Reason had not been enough, as she would not listen. She had to see one thing, beyond a doubt.

  “I’m not playing this game,” she said.

  Chane heard her footfalls in the autumn leaves as she began walking away, and he reached for his sword’s hilt.

  “This is not a game.”

  In one motion, he ripped the blade from the sheath and turned with a level slash. The tip of mottled steel passed a hand’s length before Wynn’s throat as she lurched back. Her eyes widened in sudden fright, but Chane did not stop. As the beast rose within him, he lunged in, reversing his slash without a pause.

  “Chane!” Wynn cried out.

  He brought the blade tip back along the side of her head, so close that she could hear its passing in the air. Brittle aspen branches snapped as Wynn twisted away along the autumn trees. She lost her footing and toppled into the bailey wall.

  Chane faltered for an instant, but he could leave her with only one choice, and he cocked the blade for a direct thrust.

  “Mênajil il’Núr’u mên’Hkâ’ät!” Wynn shouted.

  The world flashed blinding white in Chane’s eyes.

  Wynn sucked in cold air that burned her lungs, as the lenses turned black against the glare.

  This wasn’t some reckless test of Chane’s to withstand the crystal’s light. He’d been the one to demand Shade stay behind. Why had he turned on her after all the times he’d fought to keep her from harm?

  The glasses’ lenses quickly adjusted, and Wynn shed no tears from the intense light. She gripped the staff with both hands as she saw Chane. At first he was little more than a black silhouette beyond the burning crystal.

  He just stood there with his sword’s tip dangled against the hardened earth.

  “Chane?” she whispered, and the sight of him grew more distinct.

  Inside the cloak’s hood she saw the glint of round glasses with black lenses, the ones she’d exchanged with him. But she didn’t see his pale features around them.

  She saw only pure black, like when she’d stared into the cowl of Sau’ilahk’s black robe. There was no Chane, just a featureless darkness broken only by those round, pewter rims that focused on her.

  Why had he attacked her? And why did he now just stand there?

  “Look at me!” he rasped. “Do you understand what this means?”

  Wynn didn’t answer, for she didn’t understand. She finally shook her head, holding on to the staff so tightly that her hands began to ache.

  Chane lunged at her.

  Wynn tried to swing the crystal into his missing face. He grabbed the staff above her hands and turned it aside. She tried to pull it free, but her effort was futile, and she knew it.

  He didn’t take the staff from her. He just stood there, gripping it, his missing face much closer now.

  A leather mask completely covered his features.

  The look of it made Wynn cringe. Then she felt something else. The staff was shuddering in her hands. She glanced only once, fearful of changing her focus too long.

  Chane’s arm was shuddering, the tremor spreading into her staff. She spotted the quiver of his hood’s edge. He was beginning to shake all over.

  “Look at me,” he said. “If I can stand in the sun crystal’s light . . . if I can resist it with so little preparation . . . how could you know Sau’ilahk is gone?”

  All her terror and anger at his seeming betrayal twisted in her throat.

  “The wraith . . . cannot . . . not . . . that easily,” Chane whispered, and the shudders were now in his voice. “You only believe . . . wish it so.”

  Wynn felt something fracture inside of her. Her worst swallowed fear, the one she’d pushed down so hard, leaked from that crack. She shoved at Chane.

  “No!”

  Chane stumbled back as he released Wynn’s staff, though her little force would have done nothing to him. He lowered his head, turning from the searing light . . . and from the agony on her face.

  All of his skin prickled and stung, like the memory of a blistering sunburn in the youth of his lost life. It sank deeper and deeper with each moment, eating away his strength, but he was not burning . . . yet.

  If he had to, he could now withstand the crystal’s light for a while. But he could not bear to look into her eyes. He heard her breaths come in shudders, perhaps sobs, but she still said nothing more.

  If he had to burn for her to make her face the truth, then he would.

  Chane let the sword fall and thud upon the cold ground. When he saw Wynn’s feet shift and stumble, he reached across and jerked the glove off his left hand. Without looking up, he thrust it blindly out at her.

  “Look! It did not even burn me.”

  But it did so now. He bit down against the pain. The air around him became laced with the stench of searing flesh. Wynn’s breaths ended in a sudden inhale, and all light winked out instantly. />
  Everything went pitch-black.

  Chane drew back his hand, curling it against his chest. He tried to remain steady as he fumbled to pull off the glasses and mask with his good hand.

  “That wraith . . . a spirit . . . is centuries older than me,” he said, panting. “More powerful than I could ever become. You believed you had burned it to nothing . . . in the streets of Calm Seatt the first time. How can you know you succeeded . . . the second time?”

  Even his night eyes took a moment to adjust to the sudden return of darkness. And he dared to look at her. What he saw was worse than the torment of his hand.

  Wynn stood clutching her own glasses, the staff pulled so close to her face that Chane made out only one wide eye over a tearstained cheek. Her breaths came too fast as she shook her head ever so slightly.

  “You weren’t there in the tunnel,” she said, sobbing. “You didn’t see what happened. I destroyed it!”

  “You have no proof! You are about to set sail and head into the wilds, yet you cling to a false belief you only wish was the truth.”

  Wynn broke right before Chane’s eyes. Half buckling, nearly dropping, only the staff held her up. Her eyes clenched and tears flowed fast, dripping down her chin.

  “You bastard,” she whispered.

  Chane wanted to run, to hide from her sight.

  Anger and fear twisted inside Wynn as those words had leaked out.

  In the last few years, she’d traveled with a mix of companions, from a dhampir and half-blood rogue to a Fay spirit in the body of a majay-hì, and elven assassins as either allies or enemies. They had all possessed innate talents, which gave each a chance against the Noble Dead.

  She was just a small, mortal human possessed of only one weapon: the staff and its sun crystal she’d begged from Domin il’Sänke. Now Chane made even that sound like nothing—like she was powerless.

  Didn’t they have enough to fear without him making it worse? Couldn’t there be just one small victory for her in the face of all that might come?

  She would never forget the sight of him in that mask and those glasses, swinging a blade at her throat. Not ever. She wanted to hurt him.

  “And aren’t you hungry yet, for all this effort?” she asked. “Do you need another urn of blood to help heal your hand? No, wait. You didn’t even need the first one.... Did you?”

  Chane straightened, his eyes widening this time. Any pain faded from his features—his pale, undead face.

  “Don’t lie to me,” she rushed on. “The shirvêsh at the temple found it still full in the room you had there.”

  “The urn would not help me,” he said so quietly she almost didn’t hear him. “Blood is only a conduit for the life . . . that must come from a living entity . . . for my need.”

  Perhaps this was truth. Perhaps it wasn’t just an excuse. Still clutching his seared hand, he twisted his head so far to the side she could no longer see his face at all. The sight brought her no sense of victory. She had hurt him, and some part of her now wished she could take the words back.

  “I could not bring myself to tell you,” he whispered, “that your efforts would not help.”

  “What . . . what have you been feeding on?”

  Chane hesitated far too long. By the time he answered, she wasn’t sure she believed him.

  “Your notion of livestock was not wrong, but the animal must be alive.”

  He wouldn’t meet her eyes, and the discomfort inside Wynn began growing again.

  “You and Shade are all I have left,” she said, sidestepping around him to go back toward the gatehouse tunnel. “But if you ever . . . ever feed on another sentient being, I will leave you behind. You will never enter my presence again. Do you understand? Never.”

  Chane still hung his head and said nothing.

  Wynn turned and strode off along the inner bailey. By the time she reached the gatehouse tunnel, she was running. She didn’t stop until she’d shut the door to her room, collapsed against it, and slid to the floor. There were so few certain pieces left in her fragile world. Two had just shattered.

  She could no longer deny that the wraith might still exist.

  She could no longer trust Chane.

  Wynn finally noticed that Shade now stood right before her. Shade looked to the door.

  Her ears flattened as her rumble grew, and her jowls pulled back, exposing her teeth. No doubt Shade picked up everything from Wynn’s memories of moments ago.

  Wynn sobbed once and threw her arms around Shade’s neck, burying her face in the dog’s thick charcoal fur. The only one Wynn could count on now was an obstinate, adolescent majay-hì.

  On the rocky shore, south of Calm Seatt and high above the foaming waves of the bay, the night air shimmered. The outline of a tall shape slowly began taking form.

  A dark figure garbed in a flowing robe and cloak shifted and swayed. Then it twitched and jerked, as if writhing in pain. No face was visible within the pitch-black pit of its sagging cowl. One arm rose, and its sleeve slipped down, exposing a forearm, hand, and fingers wrapped in black cloth strips.

  Sau’ilahk came into consciousness amid the agony of Beloved’s anger. And only then could he scream. Heard from afar, the sound would have been a sudden shriek of wind.

  As he became aware of himself, startled that he had not ended in Beloved’s embrace, he realized he had returned to the world of the living. Turning, he searched to see where he was. Calm Seatt spread before him with a multitude of night lamps illuminating the city. He did not know whether to feel rage or gratitude.

  The last he remembered was being trapped by the Stonewalkers as Wynn burned him to nothing. And yet he had returned to the edge of Beloved’s dream. In the punishment for his failure, his disobedience, he wished he had perished instead.

  But Beloved would not let him die.

  Now fear and suspicion clouded his every guess.

  Sau’ilahk had believed that he could control his own fate—that he could tease and twist the hints to his salvation from his god. A thousand or more years past, at end of the great war, Beloved’s thirteen “Children” had divided into five groups. Each group had been given one of the Anchors of Creation—the orbs, so called by the ignorant few who had now learned of them—and the Children had dispersed to the ends of the world, taking the orbs into hiding.

  Sau’ilahk, highest of Beloved’s Reverent Ones, its priests, knew only this much, and not where those five journeys had ended.

  But as reward for his own service, he had asked for eternal life, for his beauty to never end. Beloved consented, and then cheated Sau’ilahk with a twist on that promise’s words. Sau’ilahk’s body decayed, but his spirit remained. He received his eternal life, but not eternal youth.

  All Sau’ilahk wanted was the Anchor of Spirit. Through it, he could have flesh and beauty again. Yet his search had proven fruitless through the centuries, until one pitiful little sage uncovered words penned in ancient texts by three of the Children. Wynn Hygeorht was his one hope to force Beloved to fulfill what had been promised. Through her, he would learn the long-lost paths of the Children and the resting place of the orbs.

  He had believed that he was manipulating Beloved into assisting him, but Beloved had raged over his recent failure, his destruction, in the underworld of Dhredze Seatt . . . and Beloved had punished him.

  And yet now, here he was just outside of Calm Seatt, Wynn’s home.

  Follow the sage . . . to your desire. Serve, and she will lead you.

  Sau’ilahk whimpered, a sound like breeze-ripped grass. He cowered down, feeling dormancy threatening to take him at the sound of his god’s demand. Then his mind began to clear of terror.

  Perhaps the texts were not the true answer? Perhaps Wynn Hygeorht’s interpretation of them was the key? Was Beloved using him again, or did they share the same goal?

  Sau’ilahk did not know. But if Beloved knew his desire for the orb, the Anchor of Spirit, then why else would his god return him to the world?
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br />   He floated on the cliffs south of the city, watching its lights. There was fear, doubt, suspicion, and one more emotion fought against these, almost as strong as the desire for flesh.

  Revenge against the sage.

  She had been the cause of his suffering, or at least of his continued failure. Once flesh was within Sau’ilahk’s reach, once he satisfied his god, he would show Wynn Hygeorht a glimpse of the torment Beloved had given him.

  CHAPTER 4

  The following night, Wynn waited on the docks, watching a wide, three-masted frigate anchored in the bay. Shade continued to glower at Chane, who stood a few paces behind them. The dog’s jowls quivered, revealing her teeth.

  Nothing about this night had been easy.

  When Wynn had left her room that evening, Chane had been waiting for her in the keep’s courtyard. Before she could do anything, Shade charged him, snarling, with hackles raised. She terrified two passing apprentices as she backed Chane against the northern building.

  Wynn had tried over and over through memory-speak to explain what Chane had done and why. Either Shade didn’t understand or didn’t care; she knew only that Chane had attacked Wynn.

  Shade became even more enraged when Wynn made it clear that Chane was still coming with them. She had woven back and forth in the courtyard as if looking for a way to get at him. All Chane did was raise empty hands and wait. Wynn had to drop her belongings and grab for Shade. From that moment on, amid the rush to port, Wynn and Chane stayed focused on the task at hand. Neither of them spoke of what had happened the night before in the inner bailey.

  Tonight, Chane was dressed the same, minus glasses and mask. The only noticeable difference was his old sword strapped on his other hip. He’d mentioned taking it to a blacksmith and having the broken end ground to a point, so it would be usable again. The old sheath’s end was cut short for the blade and crudely closed with leather lacing.