Sister of the Dead

Chapter 9

S hadowed silhouettes flitted between the trees to either side of Magiere as she ran through the woods trying to escape. Each time she swerved to chase one down, it faded back into the forest beyond her reach. These skulking companions made hunger burn in her throat. When her night sight widened, she saw the glint of crystalline eyes in each dark presence.

Undead trailed her every move.

"We hunt," a voice whispered off to her right. "And you hunt."

"We hunger," from her left. "And you hunger."

One of the dark shapes appeared ahead of her between two wilting fir trees. Magiere slid to a stop, her grip tightening on the falchion's hilt.

Its eyes were like stars dragged down from the sky and entombed in the forest. They fixed upon her.

"You belong with us… you know this."

Magiere darted away and thrashed through the low branches. Night's chill ate into her but didn't slow her down. She ran faster, as if loss of body heat freed her. More shapes appeared in the trees, but these huddled upon the ground, alone or together. She heard their snarls, and beneath, the smothered whimpers of their victims.

They were feeding.

Magiere's rage grew. She swerved toward one shadow crouched by a cluster of bushes and raised the falchion to strike it down.

It vanished, and her hunger swelled instead of receding.

What remained was a young man prone upon the ground, limbs flailed out and vacant eyes staring up into the forest canopy. Beneath his slack jaw, blood leaked from his torn throat, and forest needles slowly fell upon him from above. She sensed a remaining trickle of life within him and saw her own hand reaching down for his throat.

Magiere lurched back.

Bodies lay everywhere upon the forest floor. Men and women, old and young. One girl child with eyes wide open sat limp against a tree like a doll on a shelf… like the stuffed doll the girl held in her lap. Bite wounds across her pale body showed through tears in her dress and wool sweater.

"No more left," came another whisper through the trees. "No more blood… but you still hunger. We still hunger."

All around Magiere, corpses decayed in the mulch.

"Must find more… more life… and we follow if you lead. Lead us on, little sister. Your time is coming."

Magiere's hunger surged again. Holding it down forced a whimper from her.

"Leesil," she whispered, over and over with eyes closed, until his face filled her thoughts. When she opened her eyes again, the dead were still there, all about in the forest.

A white flicker passed through the trees ahead, appearing briefly here and there between the rotted trunks. Magiere's senses opened wide in fright.

She heard soft breathing and the barest rustle of footsteps in the mulch. The pound of its heartbeat seemed to vibrate upon her skin.

This was all she heard-no other sounds, no living thing in the forest. Not even herself. Only one heartbeat instead of two, for beneath the cold spreading within her, her own heart had stopped.

She was dead-and she was starving. The voices of the undead in the dark had whispered for her to find blood… to feed.

The figure slipped from the trees and into the clearing where she stood.

Leesil stared at her with amber eyes, white-blond hair hanging loose around his tan face. He held out his left hand like an offering.

Magiere saw the scars of her own teeth upon his wrist. Inside she recoiled, but her body crept forward.

"No, Leesil," she sobbed.

The words were difficult to say as her teeth grew and her jaw expanded. Magiere tried to halt, but her feet stepped forward until she felt the heat of Leesil within reach. Rage surged through her for no reason. Hunger deepened in a spasm that made her drop the falchion.

"Stop me, please," she begged him. "You have to… once and for all."

"You are alone in this thirst," he said, and Magiere heard the undead gathering, closing in around them through the bone trees. "I'm all there is. And my blood is all that's left for you."

Magiere seized Leesil's arm, tears blurring her vision, and pulled him sharply toward her. Her jaws widened as she buried her face in his throat.

Welstiel crashed through the brush in search of Magiere. He wasn't certain why she had suddenly fled into the forest, but he suspected.

That dead thing in the crossroads had slipped something in her thoughts.

Magiere had fallen prey to a command, a suggestion or impression now fueled by her own thoughts and emotions. Lost in her own mind, she was capable of anything, from cutting her throat to drowning herself in the river. He had to find her.

Welstiel stopped, listening, trying to sense for Magiere's presence. He heard thrashing amongst the trees off to his right. Branches ripped at his cloak as he ran toward it. He slowed to a stop in the forest when he spotted Magiere ahead in a clearing. Bloodied scratches marred her arms and face from running through the brush.

He hesitated, seeking for any way to approach her unseen, and circled wide through the trees to get ahead of her before she bolted again. She spun around, frantic as she looked about the clearing, then closed her eyes tight as she whispered.

"Leesil… Leesil… Leesil…"

Her eyes snapped open, and she stared directly at Welstiel.

She saw him.

Welstiel ducked through the trees, hoping it had been happenstance, but her gaze followed wherever he went. All his plans melted in that moment. She would not continue this journey or the quest he hoped to steer her toward. Instead, she would turn to tracking him. There was nothing more to do but resolve this crisis.

He stepped from the trees to face her, holding out an empty hand. Hopefully he could stall long enough to free her of the phantasm clouding her mind.

"No, Leesil," she sobbed.

Welstiel froze. In her delusion, Magiere thought he was her half-elf-and hunger and dread were plain upon her pale, scratched face. If Magiere ever believed she had fed upon-killed-her closest companion…

His mind worked quickly. There was opportunity here.

She could never face what she had done-thought she had done-or return to Miiska and the pathetic life she had tried to build with Leesil. Magiere would be adrift without purpose. Grief and self-hatred addled a mind, made a person most pliable.

Welstiel carefully wriggled his hand from his glove, snatching it with thumb and forefinger before it fell. He worked the brass ring off his finger, knowing what this would do to her. Without the ring's protection, her instincts would sense his nature immediately.

Magiere shuddered.

Welstiel knew this was dangerous, but the possible advantage outweighed any cost. She certainly could not kill him.

"Stop me, please," she begged. "You have to… once and for all."

"You are alone in this thirst," Welstiel said. "I'm all there is. And my blood is all that's left for you."

Her irises full black, tears ran down her face as she seized his outstretched arm and pulled him close. She buried her face in his neck.

Welstiel tensed, waiting for her to bite into him.

A muffled moan rose out of Magiere that Welstiel felt through his chest. Her hands clenched tightly on the shoulders of his cloak.

Magiere shoved him away hard.

Welstiel grabbed at tree branches to keep from falling. His shock became frustration. Magiere collapsed to hands and knees like an animal trying to restrain itself. The sight was pathetic, distasteful.

She looked up at him, a hint of confusion in her feral features.

"Leesil?" she whispered with uncertainty.

Welstiel realized he had pushed too far. There was nothing more to do but what he had come for in the first place. He drew back his hand.

"Wake up," he snapped, and struck the side of her head with his fist.

Magiere spun backward, falling facedown in the wet mulch. Welstiel slipped on his ring and ducked out of sight behind the nearest trees.

He watched her from hiding to make certain the blow was enough to break this fear-driven obsession. She choked a few times, rose to her hands and knees, and looked wildly about the clearing.

"Leesil!" she screamed out. Magiere clawed her way to her feet and began running toward town.

Welstiel sank to the ground. Any relief he felt was smothered in bitter disappointment.

Leesil stood alone in the forest. There was blood on his hands, on the stilettos in his grip.

He dropped the blades, backing away, uncertain of where he was, what he'd done, and to whom. He glanced down at his arms. His sleeves were of thick cloth, colored a soft charcoal gray with a hint of green. A cloak of the same shade hung about his shoulders with its hood up over his head. Across his nose and mouth he felt a scarf wrapped to obscure the lower half of his face.

He had seen these clothes before. Sgaile of the Anmaglahk had worn them, the elven assassin who'd hunted him in Bela.

Leesil turned but stopped short before he could flee.

Between the trees ahead of him stood a tall man with his back turned. Narrow framed and square shouldered, black hair cropped short in a military style, he wore an indigo silk dressing gown. Leesil stepped closer, one hand reaching down for a punching blade. It wasn't there.

As he drew close, he saw a strange wound at the base of the man's head below the stubble of his hair. Blood seeped out, running down the man's neck to soak the robe's collar.

The man reached back to touch the spot, then looked at his hand and smeared the drop of blood between thumb and fingertip. He peered over his shoulder at Leesil. His long face was accented with chin beard and scant mustache below prominent cheekbones and a bony shelf of brow.

Leesil's throat closed up at the sight of Lord Progae's hazel eyes. He had never forgotten his first target.

"It never seems to stop, does it?" Progae shook his head with a sigh, neither angry nor sad, nor even surprised as he looked down at Leesil's hands. "The blood, I mean."

Leesil barely found his voice. "I had no-"

"Choice?" Progae supplied. "I understand. You followed orders, and undoubtedly were in no position to disobey

None of us under Darmouth's sway ever were. But I wonder about them. " He looked down at the ground. "Was this necessary? Did you have to let this happen?"

Leesil stepped around Progae, keeping a careful distance from the man.

He stood on the lip of a shallow and wide depression in the earth, ringed about by a handful of trees. There lay three curled bodies, a woman with her arms wrapped about two girl children.

There was little flesh left on them, their skin pulled tight over bone in starvation's last day before death. The children's eyes were closed, but not the woman's. The rag she'd wrapped around her head didn't hide her thinned hair.

Leesil had slid a stiletto into Progae's skull while he was alone in bed.

His wife and daughters were turned into the streets. The eldest was taken as an additional mistress by a lord who was loyal to Lord Darmouth. There had been no such half-salvation for the wife and the two younger daughters. As the family of a traitor to Darmouth, they'd found no noble or commoner who'd risk taking them in. Leesil never found them and heard only later that they'd starved to death in an alley.

"Couldn't you have done something?" Progae asked. "It's not as if they tried to usurp Darmouth."

Leesil still felt blood on his hands and wiped them on his gray vestment, but it continued to run between his fingers. He backstepped until Progae faded from his elven night sight.

Another voice carried through the forest. "We have a tenuous position here, Leshil."

High and lilting, it was touched with a strange accent he hadn't heard in many years. Not unlike the voice of Sgaile, used to the Elvish tongue and not wholly comfortable with a human language.

"Mother?" Leesil whispered.

"You are anmaglahk" came his mother's voice through the night forest.

It was a quiet and hollow statement of fact with no pride in it. She had said this to him long ago… not long before he'd taken Progae's life.

He spun about, searching for the voice. There was movement in the trees, but no more than shadowed silhouettes. Lord Darmouth's first mistress, Damilia, who'd conspired with Progae, stepped forward into his sight. She wore a deep green gown and ermine wrap, and a stray lock of auburn hair hung across her left eye. Her neck was deeply bruised around the welt left by a garrote wire. Leesil drew back from her.

"Leesil!" A woman's voice called again.

"Nein'a?" he shouted. "Mother, where are you?"

Among the trees, more figures closed in, stepping out into his way as he tried to evade them.

Latatz, Progae's sergeant at arms, bleeding from a double wound to the heart. The blacksmith of Koyva, his throat cut. Lady Kersten Petzka, wrapped only in her towel, her skin sallow from a deadly taint in her bath. They had all committed horrendous acts in service to Lord Darmouth or in their schemes against him. Or both.

But not Josiah.

The little old minister with his white hair and mirthful violet eyes stepped from the shadows, mouth spread by a swelled and blackened tongue. He'd never once raised hand or word against Darmouth. With no suspicion, the old man took in a young half-elf to train in a scribe's skills. Leesil had betrayed him to a hangman's noose because of Darmouth's paranoia.

Leesil raised bloodied hands to shield his eyes and fled.

Farther out in the forest, he caught glimpses of one lone shadow as it lunged through the trees like an animal on the hunt.

"Here. I am here," his mother called out through the night.

"Mother?" Leesil called back.

He could find her if he moved quickly, but a second voice called from behind him. "Wait for me! I am coming for you!"

Leesil glanced back. The hunting shadow raced after him. He glimpsed a pale face before the figure seemed to dive out of sight, into the brush.

"Magiere?" he whispered, not wanting to rouse the shadows of the dead once again. "She's here… My mother is here. We have to hurry!"

He raced on through the forest until a shimmer of white appeared ahead.

A tall, lithe woman sat before an ancient oak with her back turned. White-blond hair hung to the small of her back in a straight, silky wave. Leesil remembered her dress from the last evening of his youth, when he'd fled the Warlands at the sight of Minister Josiah hanging by his neck in the town square. Caramel like her skin, the gown's pattern of fine green leaves seemed like a wild vine printed upon her slender body. He dropped to the ground behind her, reaching out for her shoulder.

Slowly, Nein'a turned toward him.

Her once beautiful face was shriveled dried flesh across her skull. Large and slanted eyes were now empty sockets. She was long dead.

"Too long… too late," whispered Nein'a's corpse. "You're far too late for me."

She crumpled to dust before Leesil's eyes.

He couldn't move, couldn't even cry, and knelt there alone in the dark. Dusty grit from her corpse caked in the blood on his outstretched hands.

Magiere landed before him in a feral crouch, sending the dust of his mother billowing up around them. Her irises were full black, teeth extended in a canine snarl.

"Come back to me, Leesil," she said. "Please, I need you."

Wynn ran up the inland road, but once outside the town, she did not know which way to turn. The blue-white mist still plagued her vision, making her steps uncertain, but at least the eddies and currents had stopped moving. Vordana was certainly gone.

And further clouding her thoughts was Chane.

"Leesil!" Wynn called out. "Chap… Magiere?"

She could not ask for Chane's help, and she hoped with all her heart that he was on his horse and gone. If Magiere found him following them, she would destroy him, and part of Wynn now understood the dhampir's way.

And still, Chane had come in search of her, to bring her back to sages' guild and the warm comfort of her own life. This was not the action of a monster.

"Chap!" she shouted again.

She stumbled along the road, looking both ways through the dense forest and calling their names over and over.

"Mother…" a voice cried out. "Nein'a?"

It was Leesil.

Wynn took off through the woods. "Wait for me!" she called. "I am coining for you!"

Her short robe caught on a bramble. She stumbled and jerked it free. When she turned to hurry on, she caught sight of something vivid amid the forest's weave of blue-white essence. It was the back of Leesil's glowing white-blond hair, and she rushed toward him.

His amber eyes were the same bright yellow sparks that hurt to look at, but he stared through her vacantly.

"Come back to me, Leesil," she said in a moan. "Please, I need you."

Leesil did not move. Wynn tried shaking him, but she could barely move his body. Scarf missing, his long hair was tangled with tree needles and leaves.

'Too late…" he whispered. "Oh, Magiere, we took too long… and she died… alone."

He was lost in delusion. Wynn bit her lower lip, unwilling to start weeping again. She needed some way to rouse him, or at least make him recognize her.

Wynn reached into her robe pocket and felt the cold lamp crystal. She squeezed and ground it until its sharp edges hurt her palm. She kept rubbing, hard and quick, making certain its light would burn painfully bright.

"Look at me," she said sharply. "I am Wynn… see we!"

She grasped his jaw with her free hand, pulled out the crystal, and thrust it directly in front his eyes. The light was intense.

Leesil jerked his head away from her hand and grabbed both her wrists.

"Wynn?" he asked, and then sucked in a sharp breath. "My mother… dead. I'm too late."

"No!" Wynn answered, and closed her hand around the crystal to mute its glare. "It was not real. Vordana planted a seed in your mind that your own fears gave shape. Magiere and Chap are out here somewhere and may be wandering in the same state. We have to find them before anything happens."

Leesil looked around the clearing. "Magiere?"

He let her go and got to his feet with effort. Wynn stood, as well, swallowing down nausea as her vertigo surged.

"Which way?" he asked.

"Back to the road, and the town… and perhaps you can track her?"

He was still trembling, but he was Leesil again, and Wynn followed as he pushed on through the forest.

Chap ran through a dying land.

Trees and brush wilted before his eyes as shadows ambled through the forest. The world was dying… it was his fault. Spirits were wrenched from the trees and the earth to be swallowed by the walking shadows.

Chap slowed among the dead oaks and spruces to look back along his path. There was nothing left alive. The silhouettes came ever closer with a lone figure out in front, a heavy sword glinting in its grip. It stepped out into view.

Magiere wore black armor of scales like those of a massive serpent. Her filthy hair hung in matted tendrils. Her face was as sallow as Parko's, the first Noble Dead she had ever killed. Brother to Rashed in life and afterlife, Parko had lost himself on the Feral Padi, existing only for the sensual ecstasy of the hunt. Magiere's irises were full black, not like the colorless crystalline of hungry undead, but Chap saw Parko's ecstatic madness in her eyes.

She roared, no longer recognizing him, and exposed long fangs amid yellowed teeth.

Behind her, the shadows solidified into a horde.

Noble Dead drew near on all sides. Vampires with their pale skin, elongated nails and teeth. Wraiths like black shadows that shifted in and out of physical presence. There were two of the ardadesbarn, the half-dead of Wynn's continent. And packs of ghul from the Suman Empire's northern arid mountains, mortal demons who fed on the living flesh.

There were remnants of living things from the end of the last epoch-the end of the human's Forgotten History. Hulking locatha, more reptile than humanoid, and squat goblins with features like hyenas and yellow eyes that twitched.

Some wore tattered clothes or scavenged armor, and most wielded weapons of war.

All eyes were upon Magiere, waiting expectantly.

Chap had sacrificed eternity among his brethren Fay. He had taken the flesh of one lifetime, so that he might fulfill an all-encompassing purpose: to keep Magiere in the light, bound to Leesil… to keep her from the enemy's hands and the purpose for which she'd been made. He looked at her standing before this horde like the general of an army.

He had failed.

"Majay-hi." Magiere spat at him.

Chap's sorrow welled up and spilled from him in a wail.

She knew him. And she had become his enemy.

Magiere rushed him, falchion rising and ready to fall. And the horde surged forward, leveling all living things in its path.

Chap stood listless, unable to fight back. The blade fell and bit deep between his shoulder and neck…

Magiere's hungered face faded-but the pain did not.

Chap stumbled and then blinked.

Magiere and the horde and the dead world all vanished.

Around him was the empty Droevinkan forest. Through the trees to the south he saw the manor house and grounds. Something wet dragged across his ear. He jerked away and saw two filmy eyes staring at him in puzzlement.

Shade whimpered as she nosed him again. His shoulder hurt, and she had blood on her muzzle. She licked him, and Chap flinched at the pain running through the base of his neck. She had bitten him and now tried to clean the wound.

He remembered the decayed Noble Dead in the town, the sorcerer, and something piercing through his thoughts like a thorn. He growled at the memory, and licked Shade's head in return.

This simple creature had found him and, without true understanding, had called him back. The delusion remained in his memory, and he could not shake its weight from his spirit. Chap bolted for the town, keeping a pace that Shade could match.

Magiere's cuts and scrapes stung as she skidded to a stop in the town's midway. In her mind, she saw Leesil's wrist as he'd offered himself to her. Where was he… or Chap and Wynn… or the creature they'd faced?

"Leesil?" she shouted. "Can you hear me?"

All was quiet, and the only movement was the flickering light of the tripod braziers. She ran up the road to the last place she remembered of the battle with Vordana. Her torch and Leesil's punching blades lay abandoned on the ground. She gathered them up.

"Magiere!"

She whirled at Wynn's voice and saw the young sage round the corner from the inland manor road. Leesil was beside her.

Magiere's breath released in relief as she ran toward him. But she stopped short, remembering again the half-real moment he'd tried to make her feed upon him. She couldn't reach out, afraid to step too close. Wynn grabbed her by the arm, surprising her. The young sage faltered a moment, blinking twice.

"Look at me!" Wynn demanded. "What did you see?"

"Don't ask me."

Wynn shook her. "It was all a he. Vordana's spell took your inner thoughts and turned them on you. Do you hear? It was not real. What you saw never happened."

Magiere looked down into the sage's face. Wynn was so resolute and certain, but Magiere would never be sure. If what she'd experience had come from within herself, then not all of it was a lie.

Wynn suddenly swallowed hard and pulled her hand from Magiere's arm. She turned her face away, as well. Leesil stared up the inland road toward the forest.

"He was lost, like you," Wynn said. "And Chap is still out there. We have to find him."

Magiere reached out for Leesil's hand.

It remained limp in her grip for a moment, and a sharp edge of fear arose in Magiere when he didn't look at her. He said nothing, not even one of his irritating quips tossed out at the wrong moment. What had he seen in the forest?

Leesil finally squeezed her hand with a deep breath, and took his punching blades from her.

"Where is that monster?" he asked. "We can't just drop our guard."

Magiere heard running footsteps and released Leesil's hand, ready to draw her sword. It was only Geza hurrying toward them down the main road. His own sword sheathed, his blue-gray cloak billowed behind him, exposing his learner armor.

"You destroyed it," he panted. "People are waking, and for the first time, I no longer feel the fatigue that comes when I step outside the manor grounds."

Magiere glanced up and down the road. "We didn't destroy anything."

"But you must have. Can't you feel it yourself?"

She shook her head. She'd never felt the slow drain of this place as the others had.

"Maybe," Leesil replied. "But I'm too tired to be sure."

"I did it," Wynn whispered.

All eyes turned on the little sage in her snagged breeches and soiled short robe. Her braid had come loose, and her hair hung in tangled waves about her face as she stared at the ground.

"You?" Magiere asked. "How?

Wynn remained silent for a moment and didn't raise her eyes.

"After you ran off, I was alone," she said. "I shot Vordana through the eye and fled to the smithy. He caught me in there. I think he wished to toy with me. When he was close enough, I pulled the brass vial from his neck and threw it into the forge coals. It melted and broke open. Smoke rose up everywhere. When it cleared, he was gone."

As Wynn's words sank in, Magiere shook her head. "I'm sorry, Wynn. I'm sorry we left you with that thing. Are you sure he's gone?"

The sage still wouldn't lift her head. Magiere realized Wynn had been through too much for one night. She should never have come on this journey, but if she hadn't… what would have become of Leesil? Of this town?

When Wynn finally looked at Magiere, she cringed away immediately. Her eyes rolled, and she clutched her head. Before anyone could catch her, she toppled to the ground. Leesil dropped down beside her.

"What is wrong with her?" Geza asked.

"I don't know," Leesil answered, and he pulled Wynn up to lean against him.

"I cannot stop… seeing," Wynn moaned. "Please make it stop!"

"Oh, damn!" Magiere said. "I'd forgotten her eyes."

"We should take her back to the manor," Geza suggested, reaching down to lift the sage.

"And do what?" Leesil asked. "She can't take any more. We have to stop it, now!"

"How?" Magiere answered too harshly. "She's the only one who understands what happened. At the manor we can at least care for her until she can undo this herself."

"She's not the only one who knows," Leesil said, his voice quiet and cold. "There is someone else. Stay here where I can find you, or bring her if you hear me call out."

The moment Wynn was settled in Magiere's arms, the sage began struggling, trying to squirm away. Leesil was on his feet, already heading toward the inland road.

"Geza, check the woods to the east," he called. "If you see our dog, tell him Wynn is in trouble, and bring him here."

The captain stared at him. "What?"

"Just do it!" Leesil shouted back. "He'll understand."

Geza took off the other way, and Magiere sat in the road, gripping Wynn. The young sage cried out at her, as if Magiere were the source of her suffering.

"Wynn, enough," she said. "Just stay with me. Leesil will find Chap, and we'll make this stop."

Wynn twisted suddenly, wrenching herself to the side. She rolled away to scurry across the ground.

"Ribbons… shadows in you," she whispered. "Pulling at me, at my spirit. Do not touch me!"

She backed against the nearest building and curled up to hide her face in her hands.

Magiere crouched within reach, unable to understand why Wynn feared her.

Wynn heard Leesil's voice calling Magiere's name from far away and then felt herself lifted from the ground before she could escape.

She didn't open her eyes-couldn't open her eyes-to watch the writhing black ribbons flowing through Magiere. She knew Magiere only tried to help, but could not stop herself from struggling. All she wanted was to crawl away into the darkness, where those black tendrils in Magiere's essence couldn't find her.

"Wynn, don't!" Magiere snapped. "I'm taking you to Chap. Be still so I can carry you!"

"Magiere!" Leesil called. "Here, across the stream!"

Wynn clenched in panic at the sound of Magiere's boots splashing through water. Then everything turned end over end as she tumbled to the ground out of Magiere's arms.

She felt the soft earth beneath her, and its loamy scent filled her head. She straggled to push herself up and opened her eyes slowly for fear of what she might see.

Through the blue-white mist woven amid the branches and brash, a gleam of white danced down the slope. Wynn dug her narrow fingers into the earth, frantic, ready to scramble away into hiding.

Leesil's hair flashed as he ran toward her. His eyes were amber stones lit from within. Beside him loped something on four legs. Shade. Though she possessed her own living inner glow, Shade's essence was far less than what Wynn saw in Leesil.

Where was Chap?

Leesil skidded in the mulch as he dropped down beside her. He glanced back over his shoulder.

"Chap, get down here… now!"

Out among the trees, Wynn saw another glimmer of movement.

At first, it was nothing more than a moving bright spot amid the forest's essence, but it grew in intensity as it neared. She had seen Chap during the village battle, and his presence was as strong as Leesil's, but it was not what she saw now. Like a brilliant cold lamp crystal, a light loped through the trees.

As it approached, the very essence of each living thing lit up where it passed.

Wynn forgot nausea and vertigo and everything else that plagued her mantic sight.

Unlike all else in her confused vision, she didn't see one blue-white shape laid over the physical form before her. Chap was but one image, one whole shape, glowing with brilliance.

His fur was pure white and each fiber glistened like silk.

He padded toward her.

Wynn remembered studying the properties of light at the guild back home. The other initiates spun cut crystals on strings by a window to watch the colors dance on the walls. Wynn had stared into the spinning crystal itself, as she now stared into Chap's eyes.

They sparkled like crystals in sunlight.

She felt no wind but saw movement among the trees. No, not the trees, but their blue-white essence within. It moved and flowed, reaching out… to the dog.

Other glows like Chap's were moving inside the trees… inside the earth… in the air itself. They gathered inward around the dog, above and below him.

Wynn leaned back and closed her eyes against the growing brilliance.

She felt Chap's breath upon her face and sensed his light through her eyelids, and then his warm tongue swept over her closed eyes, one at a time.

Wynn put her palms to the ground, steadying herself as the sensation of falling filled her up and then vanished. She lifted her head to gaze at the world around her.

Before her was Chap, silvery gray and furry… and barely visible in the dark.

"That's it?" Leesil asked. "He slobbers on her? Wynn, are you all right?"

She could barely make him out. His white-blond hair was the easiest feature to see, but it looked the same as always.

Wynn wanted throw her arms around Chap, but hesitated. What she had seen began to weigh upon her. The Fay had gathered upon Chap, heeded his call to heal her. Mixed with her shock was an undercurrent of fright that such a creature had been near her all through this journey.

But now she saw only a dog, who licked his own nose and then sat on the ground with an exhausted grunt.

Welstiel stayed hidden among the trees as he watched Magiere and a moderately well-dressed soldier help Leesil and Wynn along the road to the manor. The majay-hi was with them, and also an aging wolfhound. He could not hear much of Magiere's words, but she spoke to the soldier in a familiar manner, once clearly calling him Captain. Welstiel's impatience grew.

His dream patron urged him to follow her, but he had listened to those black scales in his slumber for too many years. He was no closer to his goal for it. Magiere's search for her past stalled his pursuit of the jewel of his dreams and the future it hinted at.

He understood why Magiere had stayed in this place. It was her nature to hunt the undead, wherever they were found. But why did she travel farther into this land, lingering in a place where some things still might wait to find her… to find him? As he watched Magiere and her companions enter the manor grounds, he decided there were answers he must seek for himself.

His horse was gone, and he began the long walk back to where Chane had pitched their tent the previous dusk. Welstiel was not surprised to find both horses and his traveling companion waiting there for him. Chane sat on the ground outside the tent, his expression guarded. He was feeding his rat a handful of grain.

"I thought it best to get the horses out of sight," he said, as if nothing had happened.

Welstiel looked down at him. "Did you play the hero and destroy the monster to save your lady fair?"

Chane's left eye twitched. "Yes."

Welstiel decided not to press the issue of Chane's disobedience-not yet. Magiere was safe, and with the sorcerer gone, she would continue onward.

"Of course, you made certain Wynn did not see you?"

His companion hesitated. "I am no fool."

Welstiel stepped toward the tent. "It is dangerous to be so close to Magiere. The encounter has left them tired, particularly Leesil and the sage. I doubt they will leave at first light, but they will depart tomorrow. If she continues east, I need to know why."

Chane frowned. "You don't know where she's going."

"No… she should have turned north after leaving her village… or at least out of this land."

He offered this like a tidbit to a hungry dog, hoping to turn Chane's mind back onto their goal without telling him too much.

"I saw her speak to a soldier from the manor," Welstiel added. "Possibly the captain of the guard there. Did you ever assist your father in an interrogation?"

"Yes."

"On occasion, I helped mine, as well."

"Of course you did," Chane said bitterly. "One more thing we have in common."

Welstiel almost smiled.

Wynn had been given a room in the manor with a large bed and a down comforter. The rare privacy and the small luxuries of a window heavily draped against the cold and a table on which to set her scribe's instruments should have been a pleasure or at least a relief.

Beneath her short robe, breeches, and shirt, she wore a white cotton shift, which she normally managed to keep tucked in. Since leaving Bela, she had not abandoned her clothes to sleep in this loose cotton undergarment. Nights were too cold, and she was far too modest in company. The freedom to do so now, for this one night, should also have pleased her.

It did not.

She had written nothing in her journal concerning the undead sorcerer… or more of Magiere's nature, as Domin Tilswith would expect. She did not even warm up her crystal in the cold lamp on the bedside table. Instead, she closed her door tightly and crawled under the comforter, looking about the room's fixtures, so dim and normal in the low light of the single candle.

She had lied to Magiere, to Leesil, to the people here. She took credit for something she had not done… to save Chane… to keep Magiere from knowing he had followed them here.

There was a knock at the door, but Wynn did not wish to see anyone.

"It's me," Magiere said from outside. "Can I come in?"

"Of course," Wynn answered, but her voice was reluctant. She reached for the cold lamp, lifted its glass, and rubbed the crystal without removing it. Its light grew, brightening the room. As she replaced the glass, the door cracked open and Magiere entered.

She looked uncomfortable, hair down but uncombed, and wore only her loose white shirt and black breeches. A few cuts on her face were beginning to swell.

"Do you have any of the healing salve with you?" she asked.

More guilt for Wynn. She should have at least tended her companions' wounds before crawling into hiding.

"Yes, I'm sorry. I should have thought of that earlier. It's in the side of my pack."

Magiere shook her head. "Don't apologize. We're all tired."

Wynn rummaged out the small tin of salve, as well as a hairbrush. Guilt overwhelmed her discomfort at Magiere's presence.

"I can comb out your hair, if you like. It's full of burrs and twigs."

It wasn't that Wynn distrusted Magiere. She trusted the woman with her life, but the other half-the undead half- which even Magiere did not truly know or understand, weighed upon Wynn's fears. For the first time, Wynn felt resentful of her calling.

She loved the pursuit of "knowing." Nothing made her happier than gathering knowledge, but how could she document any of this as if it were some passing scholarly interest? The dark and dead half of Magiere frightened her as much as the pale woman's mysterious and bloody origin.

Magiere glanced at the brush, seemed about to refuse, and then sighed. "Yes, thank you."

Wynn poured water from a pitcher into a porcelain basin upon the table. There was a hand towel folded beside it, and Wynn dabbed its corner in the water. She settled on the bed's edge beside Magiere, forcing her hand not to waver as she cleaned Magiere's scratches and applied the salve. It was good for both healing and pain.

"Better," Magiere said.

Wynn climbed around behind Magiere and began combing out the tangles of black hair.

"How is Leesil?" she asked.

"Resting. All right, I think. I don't think Vordana took much from him in the fight, but we can't be sure. I'll make certain he eats well in the morning."

Wynn stopped brushing to gently pick at a burr with her fingertips.

"You have beautiful hair," she said, though its tendrils reminded her too much of the shadow ribbons in Magiere's essence. "Did Leesil tell you what he saw in the forest?"

Magiere turned about, and Wynn pulled her hands back a little too quickly. She folded them in her lap, holding on to the brush with both.

"No," Magiere answered. "Did he tell you?"

"He was incoherent, like you, but I think he saw his mother… dead. He said we were too late, and she was dead."

Magiere closed her eyes. "I should never have let Vordana trick me, never hesitated. If I'd cut that bastard down… Oh, Leesil. He's borne too much for me through all this."

She was silent for a moment, and when she spoke again, it was the last thing Wynn wanted to hear.

"What did you see tonight? What did you see in me that terrified you-hurt you?"

Wynn's mouth went dry. "You didn't hurt me, Magiere. It was not-"

'Tell me. I've nothing else but a chamber of bones in a decaying keep. So if you know something, tell me."

"It is not anything that I know," Wynn said, fumbling for a way to explain. "Only what I saw… felt."

Magiere sat waiting.

Wynn relented and told Magiere of the black shadow ribbons coiled in her spirit. Magiere barely reacted, gaze wandering the room to anywhere but Wynn's face. Perhaps she had accepted herself as part of the world's darkness. Wynn told her also of Chap, and how the second time she had seen him, he was not two images in her mantic sight, as was everything else. He was one clear luminous presence. When this distracted Magiere enough, Wynn told her of Leesil's sun-spark eyes amid the spirit mist of the world.

"I wish I'd seen him the way you did," Magiere said, and her expression softened. "I didn't really come here for the salve. I wanted to… to apologize for what I said back in Bela when you insisted on coming with us. I thought you'd be in the way, but your knowledge and skills have been so useful, and not just in dealing with Chap. Leesil and I, and even Chap, were outwitted tonight. If you hadn't been here, I don't know if either of us would still be alive. The townsfolk are going to give me the credit for this, and they won't understand anything else. And so I wanted to tell you this now and to thank you."

The words were so out of place for Magiere that Wynn's guilt grew again. For all they had learned of what Magiere was, she had no choice in that. She was trying to live a life beyond what had been forced upon her. Yet here she was, thanking Wynn, who was a liar and a secret observer.

Wynn had lied for Chane. Once such an enormous deception was spoken, there was no turning back. The truth would only abolish Magiere's trust, and possibly cost Chane his head.

"Let me finish your hair," Wynn whispered. "Then we should both get some sleep."

Magiere turned around, and Wynn worked the burr from her hair.

"And Wynn…" Magiere said, in her more usual abrupt manner, "no more magic for you."

Wynn sighed, nodding her head. "Agreed."