In Shade and Shadow

Chapter 13

Chane crouched at the stable's rear corner, uncertain what he would say to Wynn. And the smells of dung, old leather, and straw rose around him.

The horses inside had already been fed and settled for the night. No one would come out back after dusk. This was the nearest and safest place he knew of for a private word without having Wynn walk too far at night. Something... someone besides him was after the folios—and it had fixed upon Wynn outside the scribe shop.

Chane had brushed out his cloak and combed his red-brown hair, which had once hung to his shoulders. More than a year ago, in Venjètz, Welstiel had cut it jaggedly to disguise Chane for a ruse played on Magiere. The hair would never grow back. He pushed a loose strand behind his ear, closing his eyes briefly.

Wynn would come, but how could he explain his actions, driven by obsessions that he did not fully understand?

He watched the street from along the stable's side. Across the way he could just make out the tops of the guild's keep towers above shops, inns, and one eatery across the street. Then movement pulled his gaze back down.

Wynn stepped into sight on the street, wearing a brown cloak over her gray robe.

She gripped a walking staff taller than herself, and the two hands' length above her head was sheathed in leather. She halted, reached into her pocket, and pulled something out. When she flattened her hand against her wool robe and rubbed brusquely, Chane knew it was her cold lamp crystal. Faint illumination filtered through her fingers, and he stepped quickly along the stable's side to its front corner.

Wynn halted midstreet, staring at him. Faint lines of concentration creased her forehead.

An ache swelled in Chane's chest at the sight of her oval face within her robe's raised cowl. Wynn embodied what little he held worthwhile in this world—all the things he could never have. She finally came toward him, stopping a few paces off, well beyond his reach.

Something about her face was different, not in her features but in her expression. She seemed older, too serious, and poignant. All Wynn's youthful curiosity, her wonder and innocent passion... it all seemed gone from her soft brown eyes.

But so long as he saw no fear, he could bear anything else.

"I did not kill them," he rasped in Belaskian. "Any of them! I would never harm a sage."

Watching her flinch made him hate the sound of his maimed voice more than ever before. But her reaction to his words was far more important.

"I believe you," she whispered, yet as her gaze searched his face, he still saw doubt. "Why did you send for me?"

Blunt and to the point, but she certainly had many other questions. Why was he here, halfway across the world, and how was he involved with the folios' thefts? But she had not asked him any of this. She treated him like a stranger, and the ache in his chest became a pain.

Chane reached into his cloak and drew out the aged tin scroll case.

"Did you ever see this... while in the castle of the Pock Peaks?" he asked.

He had found it on the floor as he fled that place, not knowing who had dropped it there.

For a moment Wynn looked at the case in puzzlement. Then her eyes widened, staring with intensity—and recognition. She opened her hand slightly, allowing more of the crystal's light to escape.

"Where... how did you get that?" she whispered, taking two steps closer.

Chane saw the Wynn of past days as she looked up at him with that old curious astonishment.

"Near the passage out of the library," he answered. "I actually kicked it as I left. I still do not know why I picked it up."

Wynn reached out hesitantly toward the scroll case. "Li'kän took it from the library shelves."

"Li'kän?" Chane asked. "Do you mean the white undead?"

Wynn did not seem to hear him. She was fixated on the scroll case, shaking her head slightly.

"She went right to it... never touched anything else," Wynn whispered. "She wanted me to read it to her."

Chane hesitated before saying, "That is not possible."

Wynn's brow crinkled again. Before she could ask, he pulled off the case's pewter cap. Scholarly wonder always got the better of her, and Chane was more than willing to distract her from the harder questions concerning him. He slid out the leather scroll and opened it.

"You could not have read this to her," he said.

Wynn stepped all the way to him and held the crystal closer. It was instantly clear what he meant when she saw the ink coating.

"I don't understand," she said, her small fingers lightly touching the blackened surface.

"There is something hidden beneath it," he added. "Something marked in the fluids of a Noble Dead."

Her gaze flicked up, and he could swear her face paled.

"How do you know that?" she asked.

"I can smell it."

Doubt and suspicion returned to Wynn's eyes. "It's too old. No scent would last that long. No one, even something... someone like you, could catch it."

Chane tried not to flinch: some... thing... like him—an undead with senses to match any feral beast's.

"I did not smell it until I had nearly finished restoring the scroll's leather. The scent was faint but exactly the same as freshly spilled fluids from one of my kind."

"Like the writing on the castle's inner walls," she whispered, gazing again at the scroll.

Chane remembered the vague, thin smell inside the white undead's fortress.

"This is why I want to see the folios," he said carefully. "From those texts, from that same library, I had hoped to learn what it is, if not what it contains. I could not risk stripping the coating to see what was hidden. Then I heard... saw how the works that you brought back had placed you and the guild in danger."

"Why?" she demanded. "Do you know what is hunting us?"

Sharp as it was, her earnest question held no accusation toward him. The pain in his chest lessened a bit.

"I do not," he answered. "At first I assumed the texts you chose were ones clearest to read. But with your project still ongoing, that must not be the case for all of them."

"I selected a range of works from the library," she explained, "based on what was oldest but still sound enough to transport... and what I—or others skilled in old tongues—might have a chance at translating."

"Yet the work continues," he said.

Wynn shrugged weakly. "Yes, the translation has been... seems more difficult than I guessed."

"Someone hid whatever is in this scroll," he added with his own emphasis, "either the author or someone else, in place of simply destroying it. I believe it is of importance. More so now, as your Li'kän wished you to see it, knowing there was nothing here you could read. Perhaps it might be a key to uncovering other secrets in your texts... Why else would that black figure be shadowing the folios and killing for them? I think it, too, is having difficulty in finding what it seeks."

Chane held out the scroll to Wynn.

She took it and stepped around him along the side of the stable. Leaning her staff against the wall, she dropped cross-legged on the ground and opened the scroll upon her lap. Holding the crystal above it, she touched its black surface.

"This is why you came to Calm Seatt," she said, not even looking up. "Why you came after me again."

Chane crouched beside her but thought better of mentioning the dog like Chap that he had followed at first.

"Domin Tilswith and other sages in Bela would have never trusted me long enough to ask anything."

"May I keep it, for now?" she asked. "I need to take it back for further study. There may still be one or two people willing to help me."

A flash of anxiety overwhelmed Chane at relinquishing the scroll. But more than one phrase from Wynn's lips left him wondering. What did "further study" actually mean, since there was nothing in the scroll that could be studied? And her last words implied that she, too, now had few people to trust in the world, even among her own kind, it seemed.

What had happened to her in the guild branch of her homeland?

But he trusted her above all others, and he could only cling to the belief that she trusted him a little.

"Of course," he answered, handing over the case and cap.

Wynn carefully rolled the scroll and slipped it back into its protection. Then it struck Chane that he could not—could never—go back to the guild with her, as one more she could rely on in deciphering this new mystery.

"I should get back," she said, rising. "Where are you staying?"

Clearly she wanted to be away from him. Chane would never blame her for that.

"Better you do not know," he answered. "I will send word soon, when and where we should meet again."

He stepped into the street, heading away from her.

"Do you still... kill to survive?" she wh srvi

Chane did not let those words make him falter, not until he rounded the nearest turn.

He stopped there, half collapsing against a shop's side wall. Peering back around the corner, he watched Wynn until she slipped beyond his sight.

Wynn's heart pounded so hard that her ribs ached. She forced herself to walk calmly without looking back. She'd almost forgotten the long, clean lines of his face.

Chane was part of a past she had given up. Once she'd heard Leesil mutter to himself, "One should never walk backward through one's own life." It was trite, of course, but a sound thought nonetheless.

Yet, how long had it been since she'd spent even moments with someone who actually cared for her—who knew her? Someone who not only believed her accounts of undead, but who knew more of them than she did.

He was one of them—akin to that robed monster murdering her people—and yet he'd come across the world to seek help and to help her. She needed help from someone, anyone, who fully realized what her guild faced.

Part of her longed to linger in his company, but he hadn't answered her last question. His omission spoke volumes—like any accounting of all his victims.

Wynn slipped the scroll case and her crystal inside her cloak.

As she walked, she kept the staff from striking the cobblestones and making any sound that would attract attention. In spite of her warring emotions over accepting Chane's assistance, a flicker of hope seeded in her thoughts.

Her superiors had finally granted her access to translated passages and the codex. Now Chane had provided her with Li'kän's chosen scroll. The combination might lead to answers—if she could find a way to uncover what was hidden beneath a coating of old ink, written in the dried fluids of an ancient undead. She tried not to think about such impossibilities, or her seeds of hope might be ground to dust. She turned down Leaful Street, headed toward the Old Bailey Road.

Two patrolling men in red surcoats stepped out from the intersection's left side.

Wynn quickly scurried over against a shop's front wall. She held her breath beneath the awning's deeper night shadows.

She'd seen only two of Rodian's men when she'd slipped out of the keep. It never occurred to her that he would've put even more on patrol around the whole grounds along the loop of the Old Bailey Road. She listened as their boots clomped slowly along.

How was she going to reach the gate, let alone get past the pair stationed before the gatehouse? How many guards had Rodian sent out here?

She'd been gone only a short while, but if she didn't hurry back, someone might miss her—especially if il'Sänke turned up at her room. She had certainly badgered him enough about learning to use the staff.

Wynn swallowed hard.

If she were caught outside, in defiance of Premin Sykion's mandate, it would most certainly weigh against her. It might even cost her access to the translations.

Wynn crept along the shops and peeked around the corner.

The guards were still too close to the intersection for her to slip past behind them. Her hand clenched the staff, and she turned back down Leaful Street.

With a frustrated exhale, she cut into the next street paralleling the southeast side of Old Bailey Road. She stuck close to the buildings until she spotted a narrow walkway that would take her back to the loop around the keep. When she ducked in, she could just make out the alley's far end. Beyond, she spotted part of the wall across Old Bailey Road. She needed a vantage point farther behind the patrolling guards to check for any others circuiting the guild. And as yet, she still had no idea how to get past the two at the gatehouse.

Wynn padded along the narrow space and suddenly came upon a widened area midway. It opened on her left, and for an instant the change confused her in the dark.

A quick staccato of scratches filled the space. Wynn backed against the alley's opposing wall.

Digging in her pocket, she was already scanning the dark area as she pulled out her crystal. Light washed over a wide alcove behind the building.

Tall, narrow barrels and a few crates were stacked around three worn wooden steps leading to a rear door. A tawny rat darted across the alcove's floor stones into hiding beneath those stairs.

Wynn took several slow breaths. Her nerves were so on edge that now she was startled by vermin. Wouldn't that have given Leesil something to gibe her about, after all the dangers they'd faced in their journeys?

Fearful of revealing her presence, she stuffed the crystal back in her pocket and turned toward the alley's far end.

There was only darkness ahead. No faintly lighter space showed where the alley opened into Old Bailey Road. Only impossibly deep black filled the narrow alley.

Wynn backed up.

The dark began moving. Flowing up the alley, it seemed to eat what little light came from the street beyond. Chane turned down the street's gradual arc. He knew he should stay away from Wynn for her own good. Yet she had asked him questions laced with eagerness for his help, and hints concerning her life at the guild left him wondering.

Was she lonely among her own kind? Enough that even the sight of a familiar monster was welcome? Or was it just that he wished it so? He could not let himself wallow in false hopes, and he headed off toward the Graylands Empire and his small attic room.

The beast inside him rumbled in agitation.

Chane's fingernails instinctively hardened as he halted. He spun sharply around in the empty street. Barely an itch inside him, but still, something pulled at the edge of his awareness.

s" w, bSince entering this city he had taken to wearing Welstiel's ring of nothing at all times. The longer he wore it, the duller his awareness became. But he felt something wrong, something that made the feral beast within him rise in warning.

Chane looked down the dark street as his senses fully widened—and panic crept in.

After his botched attempt to seize the folio, that black figure, so physical to his eyes and yet not, had fixed upon Wynn. If it still watched for her, and she now carried the scroll from the same source as the texts...

He had been so relieved at her acceptance of him, that he had not thought of the further danger in which he had placed her. He had not even thought to trail her home in secret.

"Fool!" Chane hissed at himself, and bolted back up the street.

Blackness vanished suddenly from the alley.

Wynn saw the dim outline of the exit reappear. Still, she took another step back.

Had she seen that pure darkness at all? Or had she grown so paranoid that her mind played upon her fears?

Down the alley she clearly saw the tall bailey wall and the keep's southern tower above it. Both remained plainly visible. In a slow, angry breath, she gripped the staff with both hands.

"So... paranoid it is," she grumbled to herself and stepped forward.

Reaching the alley's far end, she carefully peeked around the left side.

The guild's southern corner hid the front gate and gatehouse from sight, but she didn't spy any patrolling guards. A quick glance right found that way empty as well. Wynn stepped out, prepared to dash for the wall and follow it around to the castle's front.

A black column stood twenty paces off in the middle of the road.

Pieces of it began to waft, like night-colored sails unfurling under a rising breeze.

Wynn glanced quickly up at the keep's southern tower.

As during her escape, all its windowed archer's slits were dark. No one was there to see her. When her gaze dropped she lurched backward.

The figure stood no more than five paces off.

Folds of its heavy black cowl sagged across its cloak's shoulders. And the cloak's layers over its long black robe floated on a wind that touched nothing else in sight. Wynn gripped the staff in both hands, glancing frantically about.

She wasn't skilled enough with the staff's crystal for this rushed moment—she wasn't really skilled with it at all. She couldn't outrun this thing in the open, but fleeing into the alley was foolish. All the murdered sages had been caught and trapped in tight spaces. As much as her own safety or life, she didn't want the scroll to fall into this thing's possession.

Should she scream out, call to any guards who might hear?

Wynn whirled to run the other way, hoping to catch the patrol she'd evaded, and a chill wind swirled up around her. It tore at her cloak and robe until her hood ripped back and her hair whipped across her face. She slapped the tendrils out of her eyes.

There it was again.

The black figure loomed in front of her. She stumbled back and it rushed her. A hand wrapped in shreds of black cloth reached out.

Wynn twisted away in the only direction it hadn't appeared. She ran straight into the alley.

Her robe's skirt slapped against her legs. Any instant she expected to see the figure appear before her, but she didn't look back. She reached the alley's far end, skidded into the next open street, and wildly searched for anyplace to hide.

No open inns or eateries lay in sight with any lighted windows or people about, just dark buildings, one with storage bins out front and marked with the sign of a dry-goods shop. She looked back to the alley.

Darkness rolled toward her, swallowing any scant light upon the brick walls. The figure slid into the open without the sound of a footfall.

Wynn choked once as the air turned frigid around her. Sucking in a freezing breath, she retreated toward the street's far side. As numbing cold spread through her, a savage howl erupted along the street. Wynn turned her head as a dark form rushed forward.

A charcoal-colored wolf wove and twisted, snarling before the robed figure. Its ears flattened as its jowls pulled back, exposing fangs and teeth glistening with spittle.

Wynn blinked as the black figure shrank away one pace, and the wolf, so tall—too tall—spun to one side.

She saw its pointed ears and long muzzle. And its glittering eyes, like pale and faceted sapphires... like Chap's eyes.

It was a majay-hì, but it wasn't Chap.

A hiss of unintelligible whispers filled the street in answer to the animal's threat. The dog lunged in.

"No!" Wynn breathed. "Don't!"

The air's chill waned as the figure pulled farther back.

Wynn stared at the snarling dog.

How could it be here, and why? Chap was the only majay-hì that she knew of beyond the bounds of the elven lands. Unlike his silvery gray, this one's charcoal-colored fur was almost inky, though faint shimmers rose within its coat.

As much as for herself, Wynn feared for this animal so far from its native land. And all she had for defense was the sun crystal staff. She'd brought that more for show, in case she needed to threaten Chane. She'd promised il'Sänke never to attempt to use it without his guidance. And honestly, she wasn't even sure if she could.

The black figure slid sideways, trying to get around the dog, and the pure silence of its movement terrified Wynn. The majay-hì darted quickly to cut it off, and the figure swung one hand down at the dog's head.

"No!" Wynn shouted, though it came out voiceless and strangled.

She'd seen this creature kill three city guards with little effort.

The dog twisted its head clear of the strike and whipped back with a snap. Its jaws bit into—through—those wrapped fingers. The majay-hì's teeth clacked, as if they'd closed on nothing at all.

The figure snatched its hand back, fingers quivering as if in pain.

An eerie, hollow screech erupted around Wynn. And the dog's yelp rose over that. The majay-hì backed toward her, shaking its head in whimpers.

Wynn was so startled that she forgot about the staff and crystal.

An undead mage, with the skill to become incorporeal, and yet the snap of a Fay-descended majay-hì had hurt it in turn. Both dog and figure recovered quickly and fixed upon each other with caution. Wynn tried to block out the threatening snarls and hissing.

She ripped the sheath off the sun crystal.

Letting it drop, she gripped the staff with both hands and shut her eyes, trying to remember what little Domin il'Sänke had taught her.

Not a spell, but more a series of thoughts—symbols—matched with plain words so that her voice reinforced her intent. She leaned the staff's head out and concentrated, seeing the long crystal's shape in her thoughts.

"From Spirit..." she whispered, and a circle surrounded the crystal in her mind's eye. "To Fire..." And she added a triangle within the circle. "For its light" — and another inverted triangle appeared within the first—"of life!"

A final circle filled the inner space of the pattern, overlaying the crystal's image. Wynn held her focus, keeping the pattern alive in her mind.

A soft warmth spread upon her face.

The insides of her eyelids brightened slightly—as if a candle had been lit before them. Clinging to the mental pattern, Wynn turned her face aside.

"Wynn!"

She snapped her eyes open at the rasping voice.

Only the barest light showed around her. Horror flooded Wynn at the sight of Chane running toward her, his sword drawn—and the pattern vanished from her thoughts.

Light, like a noon sun, ignited before Wynn's face.

Three sounds struck her ears amid sudden blindness—a dog's startled yelp, a hiss rising to a wail, and Chane's grating shout of agony. Everything washed white, erasing Chane from Wynn's sight.

And a last sound smothered the other three.

A shriek filled Wynn's skull, riding on the searing light's pain lancing through her eyes. She felt herself hit the cobblestones.

That last sound had torn from her own throat.

Ghassan il'Sänke heard a howl and followed the sound, half leaping and half floating from rooftop to rooftop. When he reached the next street, Wynn stood with a dark wolf between her and the tall black-robed figure.

A cloaked man was running toward her, gripping a sword. "Wynn!" he cried in a rasping voice.

Then a glimmer rose in the long crystal of Wynn's staff.

"No!" Ghassan growled, and extended his hand in the air, aimed toward the staff. Not one symbol or shape came quickly enough into his mind.

Yellow-white light erupted, turning night into instant day, and Ghassan ducked, raising a sleeve before his eyes. He heard a hissing wail, a yelp, and a rasping shout. Wynn's shriek smothered all three.

Daylight winked out.

Caught half-blind between colored blotches over his sight and the sudden return of darkness, Ghassan dropped quickly over the eave's edge. But when he landed upon the street, still blinking and squinting, the black-robed figure was nowhere in sight, and neither was Wynn's armed protector. Both had fled in the crystal's flash—but not the wolf.

It shook its head, whimpering, and Ghassan ran to kneel where Wynn lay.

Curled upon the cobblestones with her eyes shut, she shuddered in a growing sweat with the staff still clutched in one hand. He jerked it from her grip, but when he tried to touch her damp brow, the lanky wolf charged at him.

Ghassan slapped his robe's skirt aside and spun away on his knees with the staff in hand. The wolf hopped straight over Wynn's quivering form to block him from reaching her.

He raised a hand, symbols and shapes forming in his vision, and prepared to cast the animal aside as easily as he lifted himself to the rooftops. The wolf pulled up short, head low and jaws parted in a snarl, but it didn't advance.

Ghassan paused and studied this aberrant animal.

It stood its ground, directly between him and Wynn, as if guarding her. And the more he saw of it, the more it seemed too oddly formed. Wolves were not found in his homeland, but its legs, ears, and snout seemed exaggerated, from what little he knew of them. And its eyes... glittering crystal blue eyes...

There was something familiar about this beast.

Ghassan had little time left if he were to free Wynn from the effects of a failed attempt with the staff. He turned his gesture from the wolf to her, closed his fingers tightly, and jerked his fist back.

Wynn's curled form slid sharply across the cobblestones—right into the wolf's legs. The animal toppled in surprise, tumbling over her. Wynn came to a stop in front of Ghassan.

He pointed the staff's crystal outward as the wolf thrashed to its feet. It hopped aside, trying to get around, but Ghassan already had his free hand on Wynn's fevered brow.

He sank into her thoughts—and erased the lingering trace of the patterned shapes submerged in her mind.

Wynn went limp and still, moaning softly as she tried to roll over. Ghassan already felt excessive heat fading from her forehead.

"The dog..." she whispered weakly. "Bring..."

She fell unconscious, and the wolf ceased rumbling, staring at her as its ears rose. Then it turned its eyes on Ghassan.

Its jowls curled, exposing teeth, as if warning him away from Wynn.

When he set the staff down, prepared to lift Wynn, the dog lunged at him and snapped.

Ghassan froze as his brow wrinkled in impatience. Wynn needed more care, and his first instinct was to just slap this animal aside—or perhaps he should kill it. Tonight had already been filled with enough nonsense.

Some form of nonsense always circled around Wynn.

But the wolf, or dog, puzzled him, as much for its sudden appearance as for its strange form. And when the black-robed mage had come after Wynn, this wild beast had tried to defend her.

He gripped the staff with his right hand, rose slowly to his feet, and swept his left hand across his sight of the wolf. More symbols formed in his mind.

"Halt," he murmured, reaching for the animal's simple thoughts.

It stopped cold, as if bound where it stood.

Ghassan gestured in the air over Wynn, and her body rose off the street. When she reached his waist, he cradled her in his arms, still gripping the sun crystal's staff.

The wolf went into a snarling frenzy.

"Silence!" Ghassan snapped, and reached deeper into the animal's limited mind.

Something in there slapped his mental intrusion aside, as surely as if it had slapped his face. He nearly lost hold of Wynn.

The wolf lurched forward, one slow paw at a time, and Ghassan stared in surprise.

A simple beast should not have resisted his command so easily, let alone felt—or responded—when he entered its thoughts. He turned away, heading down the road toward the guild. He had no time to deal with getting some strange wolf onto the grounds, even if Wynn wanted it.

The animal's snarls intensified, and he paused, glancing over his shoulder.

It had not kept up, but it still made headway against his will sainhei.

Ghassan sighed. In a quick flash of symbols and a silent chant, he ripped the command from the wolf's mind.

It lunged forward and circled him.

Ghassan hissed back at it, hurrying on, and the wolf hopped aside before it got caught by his boots.

Chane lay on the far side of a leather shop, gritting his teeth in pain. Thin trails of smoke rose from his charred face and hands. It took effort not to whimper and betray his presence as he climbed to his feet and peered around the shop's side.

A tall sage with dusky skin and dark hair knelt beside Wynn's curled form. He was older and wore the midnight blue of a metaologer. Chane remembered him from the night the first two sages were found murdered in an alley.

At least the black figure was gone, and in the company of one of her own, Wynn might be safe for the moment.

The dark-skinned sage picked up the crystal-adorned staff, but when he tried to touch Wynn's forehead the dog lunged at him. What followed cut through Chane's suffering as he watched, to the instant Wynn floated up into the sage's arms.

This man was more than a sage. Chane's amazement succumbed to pain as Wynn's savior headed off, carrying her in his arms. And the dog followed, still snarling and circling.

Chane barely fumbled his sword back into its sheath. He was almost grateful for the Suman's arrival, as he certainly could not carry Wynn anywhere in his present state. He needed to feed, and soon, and he didn't care whom he found. Almost anyone would do, but he continued to watch the retreating deep blue robe.

Chane knew conjury, though he was less skilled than a true mage. Nothing in that art could have raised Wynn from the ground without a telltale sign—perhaps a geyser of conjured air. He had felt no wind, let alone one powerful and controlled enough to lift her small body from the street.

Thaumaturgy's manipulation of the physical world had better possibilities, but he had never heard nor read of a thaumaturge who could turn a breeze into wind so precisely shaped and with such strength.

This sage had appeared suddenly, in just the right place and moment, barely an instant after the black figure had vanished.

Chane grew anxious—and frustrated with his own weakness—for there was nothing he could do. Had he left Wynn in the hands of some new and unknown threat living within the walls of her own guild?