Chapter Four

Two evenings later, Wynn walked with Shade down a pier in Calm Seatt’s port. Nikolas, Chane, and then Osha followed behind her. Though it had taken some doing, Premin Hawes’s arrangements had put off the sailing of a cargo vessel until after sunset—for Chane’s benefit. Wynn had suggested her old excuse of Chane suffering from a skin malady that made him painfully susceptible to sunlight. Sometimes a partial truth was the best lie.

Preparations had been both rushed and trying. Chane resented Osha’s inclusion and made no secret of his feelings. Osha, still stoic and silent, expressed his revulsion for Chane in all ways but words. But at times Wynn had caught flashes of either pain or anger in Osha’s eyes.

Nikolas was perhaps the most and least of Wynn’s complications among her companions. He had accepted their company on this journey without argument; in fact, he’d barely reacted at all. What weighed upon him was a deep dread of returning home.

Wynn worried about this entire state of affairs, but all she could do was press onward.

Their supplies were minimal, and Chane carried the sealed stack of texts for Master Columsarn. Chane wore a heavy hooded cloak and both his swords: a long dwarven blade given to him by Ore-Locks, and a shorter one that had been broken and reground to a new point. Osha’s cloak was lighter, and once again he bore his bow, a quiver of black-feathered arrows, and the strangely narrow canvas-wrapped, twine-strapped object across his back. The only new thing Wynn had learned about that was that whatever was in it had some weight, by the way he’d picked it up and wrestled to strap it on before they left the guild grounds.

Wynn used her only weapon as a walking stick: the sun-crystal staff made for her by Ghassan il’Sänke, the domin of the guild’s Suman branch, to whom she had sent Magiere, Leesil, and Chap. The staff itself was taller than her head, and a leather sheath now covered the hand’s-length clear crystal at its top. With it she could emulate sunlight. Before leaving the guild, she’d also retrieved Chane’s scroll from Premin Hawes’s office and stowed it in her pack.

Nikolas carried nothing but his travel bag, and, as Wynn glanced back, his eyes were down, as if he followed her steps without looking where he was going.

Wynn finally stopped at a three-masted vessel with the label The Thorn painted on its bow’s side. She found that an odd name for a ship. Glancing down at her travel papers in hand, she headed for the boarding ramp without a word to the others. Shade fell behind her and started whining softly. The dog never enjoyed tight quarters or even being on an open deck with too many sailors . . . strangers.

The impending sea voyage was not going to be pleasant for anyone.

Followed by the others, Wynn stepped on deck. All around, sailors were fiddling with this or that, though it was obvious the ship was ready and the crew was waiting for the last of their passengers.

A silver-haired and slender man in a long, heavy coat called out orders from the aftcastle to the crew as a younger man with a shaved head came trotting across the deck.

“You’re the passengers from the guild?” he asked without a greeting.

Wynn nodded, but he rushed on before she could speak.

“I’m First Mate Shearborn.” He looked over the small group, ending on Shade. “The request to take on three more passengers arrived only yesterday, but I managed to arrange an extra cabin. You’ll have two between the lot of you—and two bunks per cabin.”

Wynn frowned; of course Shade could stay with her and sleep on the floor with an extra blanket, but all three men couldn’t sleep in a cabin with only two bunks. And that wasn’t the only problem.

Nikolas had no idea what Chane was . . . and could not be exposed to the sight of Chane lying dormant—as if dead—all day. Osha was a stranger to Nikolas, who was already under enough stress. And frankly Wynn wasn’t certain she wanted to share space with either Osha or Chane, with neither wanting the other anywhere near her.

“It is of no matter,” Chane rasped as he stepped forward to look down at her. “You and I will share, as we have done before.”

Wynn was more than acquainted with the tones of his damaged voice. He was not trying to be arrogant or overbearing, though he could be both at the same time. He simply stated the least complicated option. They had shared confined spaces in inns, elven tree dwellings, and excavated stone rooms in the bowels of a dwarven seatt, always living by night until Chane fell dormant at dawn.

Yes, his assumption was the best of poor options, but when Wynn looked back and up over Nikolas’s hanging head, Osha was watching her sternly. His large amber eyes shifted once toward Chane, and narrowed before looking to her again.

Wynn turned back to First Mate Shearborn. “Thank you for your efforts on such short notice. We’ll manage fine with two cabins.”

The first mate stepped off with a gesture toward the aftcastle door, and, without looking back at anyone, Wynn followed.

• • •

The next morning, far down the coast in Soráno, Magiere began to worry. Though her small group had adequate lodgings at a clean inn, they’d had no luck in finding passage south toward il’Dha’ab Najuum in the Suman Empire.

Part of the problem was Brot’an’s insistence that no one risk being seen in the open on the docks. Magiere hadn’t disagreed with him as yet. Leesil even thought it was “a fair bet” that they’d arrived ahead of any anmaglâhk still trailing them. But each passing day made it more likely that those assassins might have caught up and would be watching the entire port.

Magiere finally grew fed up with sitting, partly because Leesil had already had enough. It had taken hard arguments with both him and Brot’an to get them to see that she was the most normal-looking of all of them, if she covered herself up well enough. For the past few mornings she’d made furtive trips to the harbormaster’s office to ask about any possible ships headed south.

She’d had no better luck than Brot’an.

This morning, barely past dawn, she slipped back into their room at the inn and found both Leesil and Chap expectant and eager. Chap was stretched out across a bed—his silver-gray body long enough to cover its width—and Leesil sat beside him.

Wayfarer was there and hurried over to take Magiere’s cloak. Brot’an, possibly checking to see if she had been followed, stood peering between the closed curtains and out the window.

“Well?” Leesil asked too loudly.

Much as Magiere knew he hated sea travel, it was obvious he was starting to hate the four walls around them even more. It was a nice enough room, large and airy with two double beds. Brot’an always slept on the floor, which left the second bed to Chap and Wayfarer. All in all, the situation could have been worse.

But for as long as Magiere remained silent, though Leesil was desperate to press on, the answer to his question was obvious.

He flopped backward on the bed beside Chap and, with a groan, ran his fingers through his long, unbound hair. Chap dropped his head on his paws with a threatening rumble as a stream of memory-words rose in Magiere’s mind.

—This isn’t working— . . . —We need . . . to walk the piers . . . and . . . talk to captains . . . directly—

Magiere winced. “Don’t growl at me! I’m no happier about this than any of you.”

Leesil lifted his head and looked first at the dog and then at her. “What did he say?”

“He wants to start talking to ship captains.”

“Then I should do so,” Brot’an put in, still peeking out the window.

Magiere clenched her jaw. “You’d be spotted quicker than anyone. We’ve all tried disguises, and I’m sure they’ve learned to look closer at anything suspicious. You’re a head and a half taller than any of the natives . . . even taller than most travelers and sailors in the port.”

Glowering in all directions, Leesil sat up slowly on the bed’s edge and began tying the old green head scarf over his bright, white-blond hair. Wayfarer glanced at Chap, but she didn’t speak and remained standing, clutching Magiere’s cloak in both hands.

“They’ve got to be spread thin by now,” Leesil muttered, looking to Brot’an, though normally he didn’t speak to the shadow-gripper unless he had to. “Can you guess how many are left?”

“I know exactly how many,” Brot’an answered, “and exactly who they are. Three women and one man, and one of the women is crippled.” He finally turned to look only at Magiere. “Fréthfâre is with them, for Dänvârfij would not have made some of their rasher choices.”

Chap snarled as his head snapped up, and Leesil’s mouth fell open for an instant. Even Magiere felt anger rising and had to push it down before she could speak. She had run Fréthfâre through with her own falchion, though that vicious advisor to Most Aged Father, leader of the Anmaglâhk, had survived. Magiere didn’t mind Brot’an’s guarded secrets, but only so long as he remained useful.

“You’ve known this since Drist?” she asked him. “Didn’t you think that was something you should’ve shared?”

Brot’an raised his right eyebrow, which made the scars skipping around it spread. “You never asked,” he replied passively.

Again not trusting herself to speak, Magiere closed her eyes. They should have attempted this conversation before, but both Leesil and Chap were dead set against sharing anything with Brot’an unless necessary. And the old assassin had a habit of only trading information.

“Én’nish is one of the women,” Leesil put in. “I caught her across the stomach with a blade in Drist. She couldn’t be fully healed yet.”

Brot’an nodded once.

Magiere’s anger began to fade. “That leaves two in good health, and two can’t cover the entire port.”

“The two are highly skilled,” Brot’an countered. “They can cover more area than you realize. You are correct that they might spot me, or even Léshil in disguise, more easily among the local inhabitants. You two are also taller than the people here.”

“Then what are we supposed to do?” Leesil asked in frustration.

“I could go,” Wayfarer said quietly.

To make it all worse, Magiere had already seen Brot’an look the girl’s way.

“With Chap,” Wayfarer added. “I speak enough Numanese, and I saw other dogs on piers with the people here.”

“No!” Magiere snapped.

“I saw a number of black dogs down there,” Wayfarer continued without flinching, and her beautiful green eyes were so calm that she almost didn’t seem herself. “It seems a common color in this place. We could try the trick Leesil used before.”

At that, Chap growled.

Wayfarer actually frowned at the dog, something no one would have expected for how much she, like her people, revered the majay-hì.

“At least the people of Calm Seatt thought you only a wolf,” she said to him, “instead of . . . what you are.”

Chap silently watched the girl, and one of his ears twitched as he looked over at Leesil.

Leesil stiffened upright to his feet and whirled on the dog. “No, it isn’t a good idea!”

Magiere could guess what Chap had said.

“I am smaller than any of you,” Wayfarer went on. “Covered in a plain brown cloak and leading a black dog, no one would notice me.”

Magiere wasn’t about to let the girl fall into the hands of the anmaglâhk, and grasped Wayfarer by the shoulders. “You can’t walk around the port, not even with Chap. What if you were spotted? Have you thought of that?”

—I can protect her—

Magiere ignored Chap, but Wayfarer frowned as she looked to Brot’an. “Greimasg’äh?”

Brot’an had grown too quiet, and that worried Magiere when he looked at her.

“The girl and the majay-hì need only look for the larger ships,” he said. “Find one with a captain willing to take passengers, and then arrange for payment.”

“No!” Leesil insisted.

“I agree, they cannot go alone,” Brot’an added. “I agree that I cannot be seen walking openly around on the docks . . . and neither can you. Wayfarer may be the only one who can blend well enough. I will trail her and Chap to the port but hide off the open waterfront, exposing my presence only should a threat occur.” He looked to Magiere. “If you had a better option than what you have already tried, you would have said so. We must find passage and leave this port.”

Magiere’s thoughts were blank; she didn’t have a better option.

Brot’an turned to Wayfarer. “I will teach you how to walk in a way that will support a guise.”

Magiere took a step back in defeat and then studied Chap. “We’ll need a bucket of coal.”

Leesil didn’t look fully convinced, either, but he didn’t argue. “We’ll have to do something with his ears, too.”

Chap hopped off the bed.

—No one . . . is touching . . . my ears—

Magiere crossed her arms. “You think not?”

• • •

Midmorning of the same day, Dänvârfij—Fated Music—stood at the prow of a small Numan trading vessel called the Falcon as it maneuvered into dock at Soráno. Leaning on the rail, she looked out across the port and strained for a glimpse of a large cargo ship bearing the name Cloud Queen.

No such ship or any of its size was in sight.

A few of the sailors glanced her way, as she and her small team had remained below deck for most of the short voyage. As she did now, she had often worn a cloak with its hood pulled over her head when she left her cabin, so some of the men still tried for a curious glimpse.

To them she would appear overly tall and slender, with strands of long white-blond hair escaping the hood if the wind was too strong. She pushed such back inside her hood, exposing one pointed ear for an instant.

Any human aboard would have paused at the sight of her slanted, oversized eyes with large amber irises in a darkly tanned face too narrow to be human. And from that they would think her one of the Lhoin’na, the elves she had heard about of this continent. But her homeland was half a world away in a place that humans near there called the Elven Territories.

Ignoring the sailors, Dänvârfij continued studying the harbor.

The sailors soon began throwing lines to men on the pier. None of them hurried, and she did not know whether she wished them to or not. Such complacency was unworthy, but the task she had been given had begun to feel endless.

“You should not carry anything,” said a deep voice behind her. “At least not yet. Let me do it.”

“The wound is not as bad as it seems,” a female voice answered. “I can carry my own pack while you assist the Covârleasa.”

Dänvârfij turned her head to see her three remaining companions, a man and two women, coming out of the aftcastle door in preparation for disembarking. Like herself, all three of them were an’Cróan and Anmaglâhk.

Though Én’nish’s complexion was tan, and her hair white blond like nearly all an’Cróans’, she was smaller and slighter of build than most. Her size was a deception she used in combat to an advantage. She was also reckless, as well as poisoned by their people’s grief madness after she had lost her mate-to-be to Léshil’s blade.

From the start Dänvârfij had opposed Én’nish’s inclusion in their purpose, but at least the young one had proven to be a survivor when others had not. Én’nish had taken a blade wound across her stomach in the last battle with their quarry, back in that degenerate human port called Drist. And again it had been Léshil who had done this.

Rhysís stood towering over Én’nish. His hair was even a lighter shade than hers. He always wore it loose, and it whipped in the wind. None of them now wore the forest gray cloaks and clothing of the Anmaglâhk; they traveled disguised in human clothing. For some reason that Dänvârfij could not fathom, Rhysís had developed an apparent liking for the color blue, even to the dark cloak he wore. His outer arm supported the final surviving member of their team, which had been eleven in count when they had left their homeland.

Rhysís released his hold on Fréthfâre—Watcher of the Woods—once she took her hand from his arm. She leaned heavily on a walking rod as she slid one foot after the other, stepping forward under her own power with great effort.

These were all that Dänvârfij had left with which to hunt the monster Magiere; her mate, Léshil; the deviant one they called Chap; and the traitor greimasg’äh . . . Brot’ân’duivé.

“How soon can we disembark?” Fréthfâre demanded, though her voice was strained with weariness.

Dänvârfij did not answer at first. In Fréthfâre’s eyes, even the leisure of the crew in docking the ship would be seen as Dänvârfij’s fault.

Fréthfâre held status as shared leader of the team, but she was fit in neither body nor mind. Perhaps not even in spirit. Her wheat-gold hair, uncommon for an an’Cróan, hung in waves instead of lying silky and straight. In youth she had been viewed as supple and graceful, but now she was unseasonably brittle as she approached a mere fifty years . . . barely half or less of the number most would see in a lifetime. The human red dress and light but limp cloak she wore made her appear all the more fragile.

Once Covârleasa—“Trusted Advisor”—to Most Aged Father, Fréthfâre was nearly useless now. More than two years ago, the monster Magiere had run a sword through Fréthfâre’s abdomen. The wound should have killed her, but a great an’Cróan healer had tended her. Even so she had barely survived, and the damage would never be wholly undone.

Dänvârfij was ever vigilant in showing respect for the ex-Covârleasa. “Soon,” she finally answered. “Once the ramp is set, and then . . .”

She trailed off, for she was still calculating their next step.

A year and a half ago, when Most Aged Father had asked her to prepare a team and sail to this foreign continent, she had not hesitated. Their purpose then had been direct and clear. They were to locate Magiere; her half-blood consort, Léshil; and the tainted majay-hì who ran with the pair. Magiere and Léshil were to be captured, tortured if necessary concerning the “artifact” they had carried off from the Pock Peaks, and then eliminated—along with the majay-hì if possible. The last of that had not sat well with Dänvârfij’s team, even Én’nish, though Fréthfâre had not blinked.

Never before had so many jointly taken up the same purpose. Their task had been of dire importance in the eyes of Most Aged Father, who feared any device of the Ancient Enemy remaining in human hands. Eleven anmaglâhk had left together, but one more had shadowed them across the world. After the first and second deaths among them, before they knew for certain, Dänvârfij could not bring herself to believe who that one had to be.

Only on the night when she had glimpsed his unmistakable shadow had she acknowledged the truth.

Brot’ân’duivé, that traitor, had been stealing their lives, one by one, ever since.

Yet they could not stop or turn back. They could not fail Most Aged Father.

“Pull up your hoods,” Dänvârfij ordered.

The ramp was soon lowered to the pier, and, without asking, Rhysís took both packs from Én’nish. She did not argue. Dänvârfij stepped in to assist Fréthfâre, and all four departed the ship and headed up the pier into this city called Soráno. It would have been preferable to make port in the night: Dänvârfij did not doubt that the traitor would be watching the dock if he was here. However, as yet, she did not know whether her quarry had stopped here, let alone remained.

“Our first task is to confirm their arrival or continued presence,” Fréthfâre whispered, leaning heavily upon Dänvârfij’s arm. “Or if they have simply come and gone. I do not see the Cloud Queen anywhere in the harbor.”

“Nor do I,” Dänvârfij said.

The four of them left the waterfront and made their way through a surprisingly clean and organized city—a relief after the filth and chaos of their previous stop. Olive-skinned people in colorful clothing glanced curiously at them, but not with any surprise, as if the locals were used to the sight of what they called “elves.” That puzzled Dänvârfij as passersby smiled and nodded. She replied in kind to blend in, and kept moving, helping Fréthfâre down the street.

Though she would never admit it, she was faintly repulsed by the closeness of the crippled woman hanging on her. As they passed a shadowed cutway between two buildings, she glanced back at Én’nish and Rhysís, and nodded. All four of them stepped into the shadows.

“I will make inquiries more easily on my own,” she said. “Rhysís, take Én’nish and Fréthfâre to find an inn, and meet me here when finished. We will plan from there once we have viable information.” As a mere afterthought, she looked to Fréthfâre. “If this seems wise to you as well.”

She knew the ex-Covârleasa was already beyond the limit of her fading strength, but Fréthfâre merely nodded instead of uttering one of her typical accusatory barbs. Such words no longer stung Dänvârfij, and Rhysís took her place in aiding the cripple among them.

Dänvârfij left her companions behind and slipped up the cutway to the connecting alley behind the buildings. She gathered herself in a rare moment of solitude before stepping out of the alley’s far end to head back toward the waterfront. In a port of this size, there had to be at least some small place that served as a harbormaster’s office.

All such thoughts fled her mind as she turned onto the waterfront’s main walkway.

Two tall men walking toward her fixed their amber irises—in lightly tan triangular faces—on her.

Dänvârfij took in their strange wheat-colored hair, pulled back and up in identical fashion in high tails held by single silver rings. The narrow tips of the men’s elongated ears were plain to see. They were garbed in tawny leather vestments with swirling steel garnishes to match sparkling armor on their shoulders. Each bore a sash the color of pale gold running diagonally over his chest. Long and narrow sword hilts, slightly curved, protruded over their right shoulders.

Dänvârfij lost her composure for an instant and stared. They were an’Cróan . . . and not an’Cróan.

Her people did not carry swords, and the anmaglâhk kept their weapons hidden. Her people did not dress in accoutrements that sparkled and drew such attention. As the men, walking proudly, strode closer toward her, one slowed while staring at her with equal surprise. His skin was not as dark as hers or any of her people’s, though she was tall enough to look him in the eyes.

This continent possessed its own people, somehow akin to hers, called the Lhoin’na, but she had never encountered any of them in her travels. Perhaps this port was closer to their territory than that of other humans. And this pair’s matching garb hinted at some kind of military.

A sliver of anxiety crept in as both men closed the distance, walking right up to her . . . studying her as if they were uncertain whether she was one of them.

Dänvârfij knew that by her own people’s standards she was not a beauty. Her nose was a bit too long and her cheekbones a bit too wide, and then there were her scars. All anmaglâhk had scars. Worse, she was dressed like some vagabond human in faded breeches, a shirt and vest, and a worn cloak over the top.

It was not a wonder that these two stared at her.

The one on the left, slightly taller and more angular of face than his companion, bowed his head slightly.

“May we be of service?” he asked. “Are you searching for something?”

It took Dänvârfij a moment to understand him. His accent was thick and strange. Some of his words were disordered and incorrectly constructed, but his voice held a tone of authority. His expression was openly concerned, like some guardian meeting one of his own alone in a human settlement.

When she did not immediately answer him, his expression grew even more concerned, then uncomfortable, followed by a hint of embarrassment. He bowed his head again quickly and put his hand to his chest.

“Forgive me. I am Arálan of the a’Ghràihlôn’na Shé’ith,” he said, and then gestured to his companion. “Gän’wer.”

Dänvârfij was on uncertain ground. Did Arálan feel he had breached some code of manners by not introducing himself? She merely nodded to each of them, and the first appeared confused and more than a little curious about her. She had no intention of telling him where she was from, but one word he had said clung in her thoughts.

Shé’ith.

It was halfway familiar, for in her tongue—the true tongue of her people—the root word séthiv meant the state and nature of “tranquility” or perhaps “serenity.” If it meant the same in their dialect, then that word for these Lhoin’na might place them in their culture as a guardian caste similar to the Anmaglâhk . . . a term that meant “thief—or thieves—of lives.” The mandate of the Anmaglâhk was to take back the people’s way of life from any who would steal it from them.

She had to say something, and she glanced up and down the waterfront as if she was lost.

“Harbormaster?” she asked, hoping the one word was close enough to how they would say it and that her accent did not sound too strange to them.

Both men frowned slightly. The second lifted his head with furrowed eyebrows, but the first turned and pointed down the way to a narrow building jutting out slightly between a warehouse and what might be either a tavern or place of prepared foods.

“There,” he said, and then he took a quick breath. “Where are you from?”

Dänvârfij had to disengage immediately.

“My thanks,” she said with a nod, and moved on, walking past them. She felt their eyes on her but heard no hurried steps trying to catch her. And there were enough people crowded around the spot she sought that she quickly blocked herself from sight. Only when she neared the harbormaster’s office and stepped in beside its door did she glance back.

The two Lhoin’na—Shé’ith—were moving onward again. Stranger still, most of the little humans of the place showed them deference or even smiled and greeted them warmly. For one moment the pair paused to speak with a young woman with two children clinging to her skirt. And the first one, who had spoken to Dänvârfij, bowed his head with a hand over his heart.

These Shé’ith were respected here and even welcomed.

An idea came to Dänvârfij.

She turned back through the crowd to follow the pair. A visit to the harbormaster could wait briefly until she finished one new task.

Chapter Five

With a stab of guilt, Wynn sighed with a welcome sense of renewed freedom. Gripping the railing of The Thorn, she looked out across the waves at midmorning. She loved to journey, whether by land or sea, but, given the reason for this voyage, taking pleasure in the wind in her face still felt wrong.

“It is good to see you happy,” someone said in Elvish from behind her.

Wynn turned to find Osha, his hair loose and waving in the breeze, standing a few paces off. Dressed in breeches and a dark brown vestment, he hardly looked like the young anmaglâhk she’d once traveled beside. Unfortunately she liked the look of him better this way.

Chane was dormant below in his bunk, and Shade had stayed in the cabin as well, possibly in case Nikolas came knocking. And since Osha had come up by himself, Nikolas was probably still in their cabin.

Wynn couldn’t help feeling too alone with Osha, even though the sailors were going about their duties. Suddenly she didn’t feel so happy anymore.

“I’m sorry,” she said without thinking, “considering what we are investigating. I just felt so . . . confined at the guild.”

Osha stepped up beside her. “Do not be sorry. I felt the same. There is no shame in happiness when it becomes rare.”

At least he appeared less angry now—less intent on trying to dredge up the past. Although, at the moment, she was not so inclined to completely avoid all elements of the past. The memories Shade had shown her rose in her thoughts: of Osha’s being shown a smooth stone and forced to leave Leanâlhâm and Gleann.

Wynn was careful not to betray any of this in her expression as Osha pointed behind her. When she looked, two barrels rested against the thick center mast, but there was a space between them.

“Do you remember our voyage down the eastern coastline of my continent?” he asked, his voice even softer now. “And how we sat in little spaces on the ship of my people and played at Dreug’an . . . or talked?”

Wynn swallowed hard. She remembered all too clearly passing the time with him and listening to him tell her things he’d never told anyone. She also knew exactly what he was doing now.

He had questions of his own for her—about her—and topics that he wanted to discuss. Perhaps in his current mood that would not be such a bad thing. Without a word, Wynn turned toward the mast, sank down between the barrels, and only then looked up at Osha.

• • •

Osha froze as Wynn turned away, and then grew confused as she simply settled between the barrels and looked up at him.

He had been angry the previous evening when that undead thing had forced his way into sharing her cabin. Instinct screamed at him to intervene, but, as Wynn had not openly objected, there had been nothing he could do.

In the night he had realized that an open conflict with that monster would not serve him where she was concerned. Such behavior would only push her further away.

Upon waking this morning, while the young sage, Nikolas, still slept fitfully, Osha realized he had one new advantage: Wynn would no longer spend her days in study or hiding away with Premin Hawes. And Chane would lie dead for the day and unable to get in the way.

Osha might have Wynn to himself under the sun.

She’d told him that, once they landed, they would travel by night, but for now they traveled by sea. With a little time he might regain some of what they had lost when last together. No one had ever spoken—or listened—to him in the way she once had.

But now Osha looked at her almost with suspicion. He had not expected her to respond so quickly. Was she inviting him to sit with her and share as they once had?

Slowly he walked over and settled beside her.

“Not all of that journey was so pleasant,” she said, pushing a mass of her wispy light brown hair from her face. “The Pock Peaks were difficult.”

He had not even had to prod her in this, and he nodded carefully, saying nothing.

“Afterward was even worse.” She whispered this time. “The journey through the Everfen and . . . Sgäile’s death . . .”

Osha did not want to speak of Sgäilsheilleache’s death and looked away.

“But then Magiere and Leesil’s wedding . . . and that was a good day,” Wynn went on.

Osha turned his head back to find her looking up; even sitting on the deck she was still much shorter than he was. And, yes, that day—and that evening with her—was one of his best memories, no matter the sorrows he had carried then.

“. . . And then you and I said good-bye on the docks of Bela.”

There—she finally spoke of it, admitted that it had happened. But now that those words were out in the open, he grew lost for what to say.

Wynn shifted a little, turning more toward him with her eyes still on his.

“What happened then?” she asked almost fiercely. “I know you had to go home and tell Leanâlhâm and Gleann about Sgäile, as well as deliver the journal I prepared to Brot’an. Something happened after that, and you were pulled away from them. What happened to you?”

Every muscle in Osha’s body tightened as he stared at her. How did she know he had been pulled away? Had Leanâlhâm spoken of things she should not have?

“Tell me,” Wynn whispered.

Was that what it would take? He wanted to close the gap between them, one that had begun in their short time together in Miiska and had seemingly widened to a chasm now that he had found her again. Part of him longed to tell her everything, but he feared how she might react to certain things.

Some secrets should never be told to others. There were torments—falls and failures—to be borne in silence, especially with those who mattered most. Least of those secrets, but most of all to others, was her journal.

Wynn still expectantly watched him, and Osha lowered his eyes.

So little within the journal had mattered much to those who did not know her as he did. But the mentions in those pages of an “artifact”—an orb, to those who knew better—had been used by Most Aged Father and Brot’ân’duivé to start an open war among the people. If Osha had known then what he knew now, he might have burned that journal before he ever reached home.

Even so, he could not have done that. The journal—and its too-simple account of their journey together—was all that he had had of her.

Osha studied Wynn’s oval face: she was a human he had come to know as so different from all he had been taught in his youth. And she was even more than just different. She was unique to him.

“It began with another journey,” he whispered, and . . .

• • •

After Osha was forced away from the Coilehkrotall’s main enclave, he had followed Brot’ân’duivé through their people’s forests for three days. He could not stop thinking of how he had left Gleannéohkân’thva and Leanâlhâm in mourning and was not there to share their grief or to comfort them.

This was also a way to avoid thinking on the reason for this sudden, rushed journey.

The smooth stone that bore his name etched by small claws.

Three days into the forest, as the sun glimmered through the canopy overhead, Brot’ân’duivé halted suddenly and looked back along their path.

“Continue on,” he whispered. “I will catch up.”

With a puzzled glance back the way they had come, Osha obeyed and jogged onward, wondering what had given the greimasg’äh such pause. He did not have long to wait.

Soon after, Brot’ân’duivé came dashing from the forest, not bothering to be silent. Without stopping, he signaled to Osha to run.

Osha did, but Brot’ân’duivé caught up and took the lead, changing directions many times. The greimasg’äh finally stopped and crouched down beneath the bright leaves of a squat maple. Osha, utterly confused, dropped beside him.

“We are followed,” Brot’ân’duivé whispered. “I can no longer come with you, and we must act quickly now.”

Osha rocked backward on his haunches and braced against the maple to keep from toppling. Who would follow them? More important, it was impossible for him to continue alone.

“But, Greimasg’äh . . .” he whispered, “only caste elders know the exact way to the Burning Ones.”

Young initiates were blindfolded for part of their journey. Even those given assent by their jeóin did not learn those last steps until many years—if ever—into their lives of service. Osha would require a guide.

Brot’ân’duivé snatched Osha by the front of his forest gray vestment.

“Listen,” he hissed. “You will travel like the wind to the coastline where the Branch Mountains, what the humans call the Crown Range, meet the eastern coast at the far corner of our territory. . . .”

“Greimasg’äh!” Osha whispered loudly. “Do not break the covenant!”

Telling Osha these things would breach a most sacred oath between the Chein’âs and the Anmaglâhk.

“Quiet!” Brot’ân’duivé ordered.

The greimasg’äh poured out secrets into the forest air, and Osha was powerless to stop him.

Brot’ân’duivé told him how to reach the cave of the Burning Ones on his own. No one should know these things until proven fit to do so. By the time the greimasg’äh finished, Osha had gone numb in disbelief that any of this was happening.

It was not over, for there was worse to come.

Rising, Brot’ân’duivé looked all around, and then walked off toward a patch of bright light in a break among the trees.

“What are you doing?” Osha asked, barely trusting himself to speak.

“Be silent and follow. Do not speak again until instructed to do so.”

When the greimasg’äh reached the clearing’s edge, he halted and gestured for Osha to stay back. Only then did the master anmaglâhk step to the clearing’s center and close his eyes.

Cold grew in the pit of Osha’s stomach, though he was lost as to what was happening. Moments slipped by . . . until a heavy footfall made his gaze shift instantly.

Out among the trees beyond the clearing’s far side, two branches among a cluster of cedars moved. Then the limbs separated from the others and drifted out around the tree into view. Below them came a long equine head with two crystalline blue eyes larger than those of a majay-hì.

Any deer would be small next to this great sacred being, as large as an elk or any human’s horse. Its long silver-gray coat ran shaggily over its shoulders and across its wide chest. What had at first appeared to be branches were the horns rising high over its head in two smooth curves without tines.

Osha’s voice choked in his throat until he whispered one word. “Clhuassas!”

The “listeners” were among the oldest sacred beings, like the majay-hì, who guarded the an’Cróan lands from all interlopers. He had seen one of them only three times in his life, and always from afar. That it stood so close to the greimasg’äh was somehow disturbing.

“My thanks,” Brot’ân’duivé whispered.

Osha realized what the greimasg’äh had done. Brot’ân’duivé had somehow called a clhuassas, but how . . . and why?

The sacred one stalked slowly into the clearing, and sunlight made its coat shimmer like threads made from the metal of Anmaglâhk blades. Its eyes appeared almost too bright to look upon, and Osha shied away from doing so. More shocking was when it stepped up to the aging greimasg’äh and lowered its great head.

Brot’ân’duivé put his forehead against the bridge of the sacred one’s nose.

It snorted and then stamped a forehoof once that made the ground shudder under Osha’s feet. But the sacred one did no more than that and became still.

“Osha,” the greimasg’äh said. “Come . . . now.”

Hesitantly, Osha inched into the clearing. “What are you doing?”

“Climb onto its back,” Brot’ân’duivé ordered.

Osha froze as the cold in his belly raced through his bones. “No! I will not ride one of our sacred creatures like some beast of burden!”

“It has already been too long since I received the stone!” Brot’ân’duivé answered angrily. “And this one will carry you far more swiftly than you can run. It has agreed to do this. . . . Now mount.”

And then Brot’ân’duivé took out the smooth message stone and thrust it out.

Osha stared in horror between the stone and the listener. Worse, the sacred one swung its head toward him. It watched him as if those large unblinking eyes could see every flaw or failing within him. It took a step.

“This is its choice,” Brot’ân’duivé said. “Climb on.”

Still caught in disbelief at what was being asked of him, Osha fixated on the words its choice. Swallowing hard, he took the stone. Averting his eyes, he stepped in carefully at the sacred one’s side and reached up.

When his fingers closed on the mane down the back of the listener’s broad neck, he grew sick inside and faltered.

This was sacrilege.

Somehow Osha pulled himself up and swung his leg over; he snatched his hands away from touching the clhuassas.

Brot’ân’duivé stepped closer. “In silence and in shadow.”

Osha would neither look at the greimasg’äh nor repeat the oath of his caste. The clhuassas lunged without warning, and Osha was forced to grab its neck. It raced off through the trees too quickly, and Brot’ân’duivé was gone from his sight.

The few days and nights that followed became a blur.

By what Osha could estimate, from where he left the greimasg’äh, the listener had to carry him roughly seventy-five or eighty leagues. He did not know how far it could travel in one day or night, especially in the densest parts of the forest. His mind and heart were both so shaken and sickened on the first day that he did not even pay attention to the distance covered. He barely noticed tree branches rushing past his head as he held on and allowed himself to be carried eastward.

By evening, hunger and thirst and exhaustion began to take their toll, and those awakened the part of him that had curled up inside. He did not know how he could—should—properly address the one who carried him.

Finally desperation drove him to whisper, “Stop . . . please.”

The sacred one slowed to a halt and remained motionless.

Osha slid to the ground, and his legs gave way beneath him. He had never ridden any animal, let alone another true being. As he crumpled on the ground, the silver-gray clhuassas stepped farther into the brush and swung its head from one side to the other . . . until its great head came fully around, and those huge crystal-blue eyes pierced him.

The sacred one exhaled slowly, snorted at him, and stomped one hoof.

Osha struggled to his feet, but his legs still shook as he stumbled closer.

There beyond the clhuassas was a vine low to the ground and filled with ripe bisselberries, purple and plump. He dropped to his knees and began to eat, taking advantage of both the food and its moisture. He ate them, bitter skins and all, but, halfway through gorging himself, he froze and stared at the berries in his stained hands.

Osha heard the clhuassas breathing behind him. When he slowly looked up, he then shriveled inside under the sacred one’s gaze. It had carried him—him, not even a full anmaglâhk now that he had lost his teacher, his jeóin. And here he was stuffing himself in front of it.

How shameful!

Osha averted his gaze as he slowly raised his cupped hands. When he felt its muzzle, as large as either of his hands, touch his fingertips, he shuddered. And then he felt its tongue drag over his hands and the berries. When he dared to look up, all he could do was stare.

It would be one moment he could never forget, for when the clhuassas halted and lifted its head to look at him, he lowered his hands to find he still held three bisselberries. And the listener snorted at him again.

How long had it taken him to understand?

Even when he ate those berries, somewhat slick with saliva, he was still uncertain. Each time he gathered more and offered them up, the sacred one left three behind for him. Finally it turned away and stood silent for a moment, and when it looked his way, it closed its eyes and hung its head in stillness.

Osha did not know what to do at first. He merely settled where he was. Later, not realizing he had fallen asleep, he woke with a start at hearing—feeling—thunder in the ground beneath him.

The sacred one stood waiting.

This was how the following days and nights passed, with Osha clinging to the back of the clhuassas, their journey broken only by intermittent stops for rest in which the sacred one found them food or a stream from which to drink. At some time over one following night, when dawn came, Osha could feel that his guardian was growing weary.

Nothing he did or said convinced it to slow or halt for longer rests. Even when he grew bold enough to plead and beg, it pressed onward. As they drew nearer to the coast, and the trees and brush grew sparser, water became more difficult to find.

One morning, after sleeping only part of a night, Osha woke up so thirsty that his mouth was too dry to speak. The clhuassas stood waiting and watching him. When he climbed onto its back, to his surprise, it turned north and bolted. Osha knew they needed to be heading southeast.

“Stop!” he tried to say through cracked lips, but it did not listen.

Not longer after, it halted. When Osha looked down, his gaze met the sight of a trickling creek. In relief he dropped to the ground and drank his fill. This time he did not flinch at thunder in the ground when the clhuassas stepped in beside him to do the same.

No water had ever tasted so good, and no moment of his life had ever been so serene. Though it did not relieve his grief in losing his teacher, his shame for abandoning Leanâlhâm and Gleannéohkân’thva, or his suspicions concerning the greimasg’äh . . .

That moment of silence beside a sacred one, with only the soft sound of trickling water, would be remembered. This was the way the world should have been and was not.

When they resumed their journey, the sacred one turned southeast again. After a hard and long run, it stopped past nightfall. Osha slid off, knowing now that food and water would be close by. He found a patch of odd wild berries, all red as blood and covered in tiny seeds, he had never seen before. These were far sweeter than the skins of bisselberries.

They shared another meal, and Osha curled up beneath the bare trunk of a tall and spindling pine. He never got to close his eyes, let alone sleep, before the clhuassas walked over and lowered its head, and he could feel its breath on his face.

Osha did not know what to do this time. He had never asked for this journey, but a being sacred to his people had seen him safely this far, never leaving him to struggle onward on his own.

“My thanks,” he whispered.

Osha froze stiff as the sacred one pressed its soft, gray nose against his forehead. A feeling of peace swept through him, like that moment by the creek, and he fell asleep without even realizing, until . . .

When he opened his eyes again, he was alone in the dawn.

It took a few moments for him to realize the listener was nowhere in sight. He scrambled up and looked around, uncertain of where he was. The sound of crashing waves reached his ears, and he stepped off over a rise toward that distant roar. Not long after, he spotted the edge of the thin woods and looked down toward a coastal settlement.

Small boats lined the few narrow docks, and two ships floated in a tiny bay formed by twin streams running into the sea. As he looked upon the settlement, all of the remaining sensation from his last night with the sacred one vanished.

Osha headed down the gradual slope to find passage farther south. . . .

• • •

Wynn didn’t even realize she’d stopped breathing until Osha went silent and looked down again from where he sat beside her. She took a sudden breath, and any question of what had happened next caught in her throat. All she could think of was that Fay-descended creature that had . . .

“The greimasg’äh, and I . . . and you,” Osha whispered, “are the only ones I know of who have ever been so close to one of them.”

At first Wynn wasn’t certain what he meant.

One time in his land, when Leesil had needed to find his mother, Chap had gone off into the wild on his own. Wynn had snuck out after him, even though the an’Cróan forest would quickly confuse her—or anyone not an’Cróan. She was almost instantly lost, but Chap had found her and so had a pack of wild majay-hì, which had included Chap’s future mate, Lily.

The only way Wynn had been able to keep up with the racing pack in Chap’s search for Leesil’s mother was . . .

“You and I,” Osha added, “are the only ones I know who have ever been gifted with their aid, in carrying us.”

Yes, in Chap’s racing search with the pack, a listener had carried her.

Osha hung his head. Whatever tense harshness had shown in his long features since she had first seen him in Calm Seatt appeared to fade.

For just a moment Wynn saw the Osha of past, better days. And though to be Anmaglâhk was all that he had ever wanted, it was his innocent wonder that made him so much better than any of them in her eyes.

“But it left you . . . before you even reached your destination,” she said too quickly.

Osha looked over at her, and some brief confusion passed across his face.

“No . . .” he stammered, as if baffled. “It made certain I would hear the waves upon waking.”

Wynn wanted to curse herself, and not only for having stalled him now that he was talking. The Osha of old vanished before her eyes, replaced by that harsher, hardened one. It hurt her to see that.

“But you found passage?” she asked, trying to urge him onward.

“Of course,” he whispered, looking away. “I was Anmaglâhk. My people would do anything to serve them.”

For an instant Wynn hung upon those two words—I was rather than I am—and then Osha’s suddenly cold voice pulled her onward. . . .

• • •

Osha had no trouble gaining free passage on a small, single-masted fishing vessel. That was best, for it had no destination for passengers or cargo that would be delayed in serving his need. The following day, when he boarded, the boat’s master and her small crew were more than happy to assist an anmaglâhk. He did his best to smile, and he was more than grateful in his manners, though what he had asked of them was not by his choice.

That first day, sailing south down the eastern coast, heading beyond his people’s territories, was when he began to truly contemplate the stone inside the pocket of his forest gray cloak.

What unknown reasons did the Chein’âs—the Burning Ones—have for summoning him, of all the Anmaglâhk, a second time?

He could not find an answer.

Worse, over the next two days, now that he no longer clung to the back of the clhuassas, he had too much time to think. He dwelled upon the faces of Leanâlhâm and Gleannéohkân’thva locked in grief with no help or comfort. But on the third day he began watching the shoreline, as Brot’ân’duivé had given him clear instructions regarding what to look for.

When the beach came into view and he saw a distant mountain’s peak line up with that place, his chest began to ache. He found it hard to even breathe as he left the bow to approach the ship’s master. He was given what meager supplies he asked for without hesitation from the crew.

Osha felt all the more unworthy in that he was here only because a greimasg’äh had broken a sacred oath. And yet the summons could not be refused, or sacred ties to the Chein’âs might be damaged—and Osha would not be responsible for that. If the Chein’âs called to him, he would answer.

So he stepped down into the lowered skiff and allowed himself to be rowed to the shore. Once he was alone again, he turned inland toward the peaks.

He could still hear Brot’ân’duivé’s voice driving through his mind like a knife.

The last time he had made this journey, he had been blindfolded while following an elder member of the caste, but he knew it had taken three days. Now he walked with his eyes open as he headed straight toward a mountain in the distance . . . until he saw another, closer one with a broken top.

There were streams along the way, providing both freshwater and fish. He tried not to think beyond his daily needs. He did take the time to find a stout branch, and, using supplies taken from the fishing vessel, he fashioned himself a torch. He knew it would be needed.

It was late the third day when he located the chute. Its bottom end was partially hidden by an overhang. He would have never noticed it without knowing exactly what he was looking for.

He remembered having climbed it while blindfolded, and how he had nearly slipped on the loose, rocky debris in its bottom. After one last hesitation, Osha entered the chute and climbed upward until he reached the mouth of a tunnel . . . where he stopped and lingered.

It was a while longer before he knelt to strike flint against a stiletto to light his torch. He forced one foot in front of the other, inside and downward, until echoes of his steps were all he heard rolling along the dark and rough stone walls. He traveled deeper underground as the tunnel turned this way and that, until he began to feel slightly dizzy and the air grew uncomfortably warm.

The walls were craggy, but the floor smoothed out, and then suddenly he stepped from the tunnel into a cavern. His eyes instantly locked on the space’s only prominent feature.

A large oval of shimmering metal, taller than himself, was embedded in the far wall.

Taking shallow breaths in the heated air, he crossed to it. Raising the torch in his left hand, he ran his gaze downward over the metal. His eyes followed the barely visible razor-straight seam. The oval appeared to be split down the center into two halves, but he saw no handle or way to open them. Orange-yellow torchlight glimmered on their perfect, polished surfaces, a bleached silver tone too light for steel.

The portal was made of the same material as his tools and weapons of an anmaglâhk.

Osha stared at it as he thought back to when Brot’ân’duivé had forced him into this journey.

Once in the cavern, you will know what to do. And when you reach the portal of the Burning Ones’ white metal—

Osha had cut off the greimasg’äh and not allowed him to finish. Here and now there was no need, for this was not his first glimpse of the doors. The first time he had come here, he had been allowed to remove his blindfold once he stood in this stone chamber. The path here was kept a secret, but all Anmaglâhk were trusted enough to bear witness to what came next.

Osha reached up his left sleeve with his right hand and pulled a stiletto from its hidden sheath. Reaching out, he touched the blade’s matching metal to that of the portal.

The portal split down its hair-thin line as it began to open. . . .

• • •

“Wynn, are you out here?”

Osha fell silent, looking up as Wynn jumped slightly at Nikolas’s call. She barely saw Osha drop his head, and then he called out before she could.

“We here.”

Frustration washed through Wynn, and then anger, as she watched Osha’s expression close up. It had taken so long to find the right moment to get him to tell her the missing gaps in his past . . . to tell her what had changed him so much.

Nikolas came walking over.

His hair wasn’t combed, and he had dark circles under his eyes.

Still angry with him for interrupting, she felt suddenly guilty. At least he was out of his cabin.

“I knocked on your door, but no one answered,” Nikolas said. “I couldn’t lie there in that bunk any longer, and I . . . I was hungry. Maybe that’s good, as I haven’t felt that since . . .”

Wynn knew the rest: since the letter from his father had arrived. She tried to smile, to hide any resentment at the interruption.

“It is a good sign,” she confirmed as she rose, though Osha hadn’t moved. “I have a friend who can’t keep any food down while on a ship.”

Wynn held one hand down to Osha. It took another moment before he looked up—at her hand and not her. After a few blinks he rose, though he didn’t take her hand. And she looked once more to Nikolas.

“Chane is resting, but we’ll get Shade and head down to the galley and find some breakfast.”

With a quick nod, Nikolas headed off for the door in the aftcastle wall, but when Osha took a step to follow, Wynn touched his arm. Stoic and silent, he looked down at her.

“Later,” she whispered, “and . . . thank you.”

She forced her hand into his and pulled him along.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 628