by Barb Hendee
Wynn wondered why he’d brought it at all, as the sword he’d gained from Ore-Locks was far superior. But she didn’t ask. Chane had both of his packs—or, rather, his own and the one he’d taken from Welstiel—hooked over his shoulders. More than ever, Wynn didn’t like that insidious vampire’s toys being in Chane’s possession, with the possible exception of the brass ring.
Wynn wore her old elven tunic and pants beneath a knee-length gray travel robe and a heavy winter cloak. She carried her staff, its long crystal sheathed, and her own pack stuffed with scholarly needs. She’d also belted on Magiere’s old battle dagger. The last of their baggage was a medium-sized chest that sat at Chane’s feet, loaded with supplies, clothing, and Wynn’s journals.
They were as ready as they would ever be.
Chane pointed outward. “The skiff is coming.”
But Wynn looked back toward Calm Seatt’s great waterfront.
She saw no sign of Ore-Locks, though she’d sent him a message that morning as to the time and place of their departure. Only a few moments after, she’d second-guessed herself, but if he was determined to follow, there was little she could do to stop him, anyway. Still, if Ore-Locks missed the boarding, it wouldn’t be her fault.
“How many cabins do we have?” Chane asked.
Wynn welcomed the question, as the silence was getting thick. Anything mundane put off talk of what had happened between them.
“Two,” she answered. “I told Ore-Locks to make his own arrangements.”
She and Shade would need a cabin to themselves. Chane valued his privacy for obvious reasons. Ore-Locks could fend for himself.
“Perhaps he’ll change his mind,” she said.
“I do not think so.”
Chane was probably right. Ore-Locks’s estranged sister, a master smith fallen on hard times, had made Chane’s new sword. Wynn couldn’t guess what it had cost Ore-Locks financially and personally, and she wondered how he’d acquired it to barter for his inclusion in this journey.
The skiff had almost reached them. Wynn made out the beard stubble of one sailor kneeling in the prow. When the boat neared the dock’s ladder, the slim man climbed up to meet them and glanced down at the chest.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“Just our packs,” Wynn answered. “We’ll keep those.”
She’d done well in using only one chest, considering they had no notion if they’d find horses, let alone a cart, when they hit final landfall.
“In, Shade,” she said, pointing to the skiff.
Shade circled behind Wynn, still watching Chane closely.
Wynn regretted not trying harder last night to suppress her memories from Shade, but she’d been too overwhelmed. Hopefully, Shade would come to her senses and remember how Chane had always protected Wynn in the past. They needed him on this journey.
“Shade, go,” she said.
The dog circled back, growling as she approached the dock’s edge. At the sight of her, one of the sailors at the oars looked up. His eyes widened at the massive wolf above, and his hand dropped to a knife in his belt.
“Leave off!” commanded the stubble-faced one.
High-Tower must have explained about Shade when he’d booked their passage.
Shade dropped off the dock’s edge. She landed in the skiff below, and it rocked sharply. Both oarsmen grabbed pier lashings to steady the vessel. As their foreman heaved the chest, the sound of heavy footfalls vibrated in the planks beneath Wynn’s feet.
She didn’t need to look.
Ore-Locks came down the dock, stopping at Wynn’s side with his long, red hair glinting under the lanterns. An overburdened sack was slung over his broad shoulder. He still dressed like a shirvêsh of Feather-Tongue, iron staff and all.
Wynn bit her tongue as he proffered a slip of paper to the bearded sailor.
It seemed he could pay his own way. How a stonewalker acquired money was a puzzle, but Wynn now had no legitimate excuse to leave him behind. Then she felt an unwanted spark of petty glee.
Ore-Locks looked down at the skiff and grimaced slightly. Most dwarves disliked sea travel intensely. Not that they couldn’t learn to swim, but rather that it didn’t matter—because they sank.
The sailor carrying the chest eyed Ore-Locks anxiously. He glanced at the voucher and then down at the skiff. A dwarf’s weight alone might make it sit very low in the water.
Chane ignored them both and lowered his packs, doing likewise with Wynn’s, and waited while she climbed down. Once she was safely aboard the skiff, he followed, but Ore-Locks still stood above.
“Are you coming?” Wynn asked, settling in the skiff’s rear with Chane.
The bearded sailor frowned. “Please, sir, sit close to the center, near the oars.”
Ore-Locks’s expression tightened ever so slightly. When he began scaling down, two ladder rungs creaked slightly. He hesitated again before placing one heavy-booted foot into the skiff.
“Careful,” Wynn warned.
He looked at her. “Do you fear sinking?”
“Goodness, no,” she answered. “I can swim . . . or at least float.”
Ore-Locks stepped down with his full weight.
Wynn’s petty glee at his discomfort vanished as the skiff rocked so hard that she grabbed one side.
Ore-Locks moved with surprising speed, shifting quickly to crouch toward the center. The small vessel steadied, and with a sigh of relief, the bearded sailor climbed into the prow, using the chest for a seat.
Wynn was finally embarking on a long journey to both find and secure a powerful tool of the Ancient Enemy—and she had few skills or weapons of her own. Her only companions were the secret worshipper of a dwarven traitor, a vampire obsessed with her, and an adolescent majay-hì.
As the sailors locked their oars into the cradles and began to row for the frigate, Wynn sat silent in a moment of self-pity. But she couldn’t turn back now.
Sau’ilahk materialized on a barren spot down the rocky shore from Calm Seatt’s port and watched as the tiny skiff pulled up to the large frigate. Much to his surprise, the last passenger in Wynn’s skiff had the bulk of a dwarf and red hair. Sau’ilahk was puzzled.
He searched his memories of all dwarves Wynn had ever met while in Dhredze Seatt. He recalled only one with such hair. Ore-Locks, a stonewalker, was no longer dressed like his sect. Had he abandoned his way of life in the underworld? Even so, what was he doing with Wynn?
Sau’ilahk waited until activity aboard the vessel picked up as the men prepared to set sail. He was patient as the moon climbed higher. The ship eventually sailed outward, leaving Beranklifer Bay and turning south down the coast. For now, that was all he needed to know.
Sau’ilahk sank into dormancy for an instant. Focusing on the southern-most point along the shore, he “blinked” to that place to wait and watch again.
Chane stood near the ship’s bow, with sea spray glistening upon his face. The last half-moon of the voyage had passed quickly, one night blending into the next.
Wynn had given the captain an excuse they had used before: that Chane suffered from a skin condition and could not be exposed to sunlight for any reason. As with most people, the captain’s need to accommodate a paying customer took precedence. By now, none of the sailors even noticed Chane’s presence on the deck at night. Leaning against the rail, he closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the night wind blowing damply over his skin.
“Can you see the lights?”
Chane opened his eyes at Wynn’s approaching voice. She pressed up against the rail an arm’s reach away.
“Chathburh,” she said, pointing outward. “We’ve arrived.”
Shade came trotting up beside Wynn and reared, hooking her front paws on the rail.
“Where will we lodge?” Chane asked.
“The guild annex has guest rooms. I’ve heard the library is small but unique. You might like it.”
His chest tightened. He had almost felt as if Wynn were safe on this ship.
Their sea voyage was about to end, and they would be back in the real world. The search for impossible clues would continue, opposed by even those who might have the power to assist them.
Wynn would throw herself into danger again. His place was to protect her, to keep her alive. They couldn’t just sail on like this forever.
And he had been growing hungrier over the past three nights.
Chane had disembarked once—by himself—during a stop at Witenburh and tried feeding on a goat. That revolting experience had provided some life for his need. Since then, he had mulled over other options without further fracturing Wynn’s confidence.
The lights of Chathburh grew brighter, closer, in the distance.
A sailor hurried past, and Chane called out, “How long to port?”
“Soon,” the sailor answered. “We’ll dock by second bell . . . late evening.”
Chane knew that with this stop, Wynn’s search for Bäalâle Seatt would truly begin. Of course, he did not wish her to find it.
He had seen both the guardian and the safeguards placed upon the orb that Magiere had found. He did not want Wynn getting near anything so dangerous, not if he could stop it. But his place was at her side for as long as she would have him. A journey, any journey, ensured his usefulness. For now, that was enough.
Chane gazed toward the city, bracing himself for whatever might come.
“This . . . is a guild annex?” Chane asked in surprise.
He watched as Wynn trotted toward what looked like an aging four-story inn. Its unusual height was its one remarkable feature.
“I’ve never seen it before,” she answered. “But it was once a lavish inn for wealthy patrons. When the owner passed away, there was no heir and no one bought it. It became city property, left in disrepair for many years, until the guild finally purchased it for almost nothing.”
Wynn scanned the front of many windows, appearing well satisfied.
All Chane saw was a nondescript building that had been too hastily stained without the boards being properly stripped and cleaned.
“The front parlor should be part of its library,” Wynn added. “I’ve heard it’s well designed to serve our needs.” She stepped up onto the porch landing and knocked at the front door. “Hello?”
Though well into the evening, it still was not late. The second bell for quarter night had not rung until they were off the piers. Chane assumed someone would still be awake, and he was not wrong.
The door opened, and a short, middle-aged woman in a teal robe looked out. Taking in Wynn’s gray, short robe, she smiled pleasantly. Chane wondered if Wynn might be better treated where no one truly knew her.
“Journeyor Hygeorht of Calm Seatt,” Wynn introduced herself, “with a message for Domin Yand. Do you have rooms to spare?”
“Of course,” the woman answered, waving them all inside. “I’m Domin Tamira. The annex is never but half full. You can take your pick of rooms on the top floor. Have you had supper?”
Wynn and the domin continued chattering away as Chane stepped in, though Shade pushed past, hurrying after Wynn. Ore-Locks came last. They all passed through the wide foyer and into a comfortable sitting room filled with old, overpatched armchairs and small couches, along with bookcases stuffed with volumes, some as old and worn-looking as the building itself.
Chane backed around Ore-Locks to the parlor’s entrance. “Wynn?”
The domin’s thin eyebrows rose at his maimed voice, and Wynn paused in her chatting.
“Yes?”
“I will go out . . . for a few missing supplies and return in a while.”
She tensed slightly before nodding. “Yes. Find me when you’re done.”
Chane set down the travel chest and pulled off his own pack, leaving it by the door with his old sword. He kept Welstiel’s pack over his shoulder.
“What could we need at this point?” Ore-Locks asked, watching him closely.
The ship’s crew had seen to their meals on the voyage. They had not delved into their supplies.
Chane ignored him and left.
Sau’ilahk materialized in a cutway beside a fishmonger’s stall down the street from the old building. He had kept his distance along the way, so that neither Chane nor Shade would sense him. As Wynn knocked, a domin of Conamology had answered.
Sau’ilahk knew of guild annexes, though he’d never bothered with one in his centuries. What could Wynn possibly seek in this out-of-the way place?
He had not risked getting close to the ship to hear anything she might say, and tonight was his first safe opportunity. His only method was through a servitor—a minor but complex elemental with enough awareness to be his eyes and ears. He cleared his thoughts, preparing to exert energy into conjury.
The annex’s front door opened again, and Sau’ilahk paused.
Chane stepped out alone and strode off inland along an adjoining street.
In brief moments in Dhredze Seatt, Sau’ilahk had clearly sensed Chane as an undead. Other times, as now, he seemed more like a solid apparition—seemingly not there to Sau’ilahk’s senses, and yet somehow there to see, hear, or even touch.
Sau’ilahk hung in indecision, wondering whom to spy on: Wynn or Chane? He finally blinked to the corner, spotting Chane moving on with a steady gait.
Chane picked up his pace when he breached the city’s inland edge. Trotting into the surrounding farmlands, he let his senses widen fully. Even with the brass ring on, somewhere ahead he smelled life, alone and isolated. Perhaps it was his hunger that overrode the ring’s dulling of his senses.
He kept on, losing track of time, and wishing to be farther away before attempting what he had planned. Traipsing through a copse of near-leafless maples, he peered out over a fallow field to a small, thatched barn. Smoke drifted lazily from the clay chimney of a nearby cottage. He silently closed on the barn, pausing, listening for anyone nearby before entering.
It was a poor little place, with only three cows stabled inside. The nearest one had a black face and tan body. Kneeling on the hay-strewn floor, he dropped Welstiel’s old pack and dug inside it to pull out an ornate walnut box.
Chane opened the box to study three hand-length iron rods with center loops, a teacup-sized brass bowl with strange etchings, and a white ceramic bottle with an obsidian stopper. All rested in burgundy padding. He slipped back in memory to the first time he had seen Welstiel use the cup.
They had been starving in the rocky, jagged wilderness of the Crown Range north of his homeland when they came upon an elderly wandering couple huddled by a campfire. Chane had wanted to lunge, but Welstiel stopped him with a warning.
“There are ways to make the life we consume last longer.”
True, and Chane now reenacted exactly what he had seen Welstiel do.
He took out the rods, intertwined them into a tripod, and set his dagger on the ground beside it. Placing the brass cup upon the stand, he lifted the white bottle. Its contents—thrice purified water—were precious. Pulling the stopper, he half filled the cup, remembering Welstiel’s cold, clinical explanation.
“Bloodletting is a wasteful way to feed. Too much life is lost and never consumed by our kind. It is not blood that matters, but the leak of life caused by its loss.”
Chane glanced at the black-faced cow. To his best knowledge, Welstiel had never tried this on an animal.
The very idea of the cup was revolting, not to mention the humiliation of feeding on livestock. But he needed life to continue protecting Wynn. He could not risk feeding on a human, or she might hear rumors of someone missing or found dead and in a pallid state.
Chane approached the cow. The animal raised her head and blinked liquid eyes at him with no fear. Grasping her rope halter, he led her out of the stall and moved her to one side into a clear place to fall. He pressed slowly and steadily with his foot into the back of her front knee. As she began to kneel, he tipped her over, pinning down her head. She bellowed once in panic, struggling to get up, and then relaxed.
He took up the dagger and made a small cut on her shoulder. Once the blade’s tip had gathered leaking blood, he carefully tilted the steel over the cup.
A single drop struck its pure water.
Blood thinned and diffused beneath dying ripples as Chane began to chant. He concentrated hard on activating the cup’s innate influence. When finished, he waited and watched the cup’s water for any change.
Nothing happened.
His incantation was based on researching Welstiel’s journals and the tiny engravings on the cup’s inner surface. Something was wrong. As with any mage, their workings were individual, and seldom could one successfully use the workings of another.
The cow let out a low sound. Suddenly her ribs began to protrude, as if she were turning gaunt.
Chane released his grip and scooted back.
The cow’s eyelids sank as her eyes collapsed inward. Jawbones began to jut beneath withering skin. It was not long before the animal became a dried, shrunken husk as vapors rose briefly over her corpse. As Chane heard the cow’s heart stop, he turned his gaze to the cup.
The fluid was so dark red, it appeared almost black, and it now brimmed near the cup’s lip.
Chane did not know whether to feel elated or revolted. He knew what awaited him in drinking the conjured liquid. The first time, Welstiel had warned him with only two words.
“Brace yourself.”
Chane shuddered once before he downed the cup’s entire contents. When he lowered the brass vessel, it was completely clean, as if it had held nothing at all. For a moment, he tasted only dregs of ground metal and strong salt. Then he gagged and collapsed on the straw-strewn dirt.
His body began to burn from within.
Too much life taken in pure form burst inside him and rushed through his dead flesh, welling into his head. Curled up, he waited with his jaws and eyes clenched until the worst passed and the convulsions finally eased.
Had he used a mortal human in this fashion, he could have gone a half-moon without feeding again. He did not know how long the life energy of a cow would last.
