The Night Voice

Chapter Eight

Aboard the Kestrel, Chane came to a decision halfway to Soráno. He had been preparing to try something and believed he was ready.

Chap and Ore-Locks had adapted to living on his schedule, sleeping through the days, though they were always up before he rose at dusk. They also chose to spend a fair portion of time on deck, which gave Chane some much-desired privacy.

He carried two packs wherever he traveled. The first contained his personal possessions, spare clothing, and now the talking hide for Chap. The second was old and faded and a guarded treasure.

That pack and most of its contents had once belonged to Welstiel Massing, another vampire, Magiere’s half brother, and son in life to a vampire once a vagrant noble. Welstiel had also been an arcane practitioner of thaumaturgy by artificing, specifically alchemy. And his subtle skill with both pushed the limits of Chane’s minor knowledge of conjury.

When Welstiel died, Chane had taken his pack. A number of objects inside it had proven invaluable in his own experiments. The pack also now contained texts Chane had stolen from a monastery of healers on the eastern continent.

The most critical one for this night was The Seven Leaves of Life.

Chane was obsessed with one page in that volume, though its instructions were archaic and obscure. It described the making of a rare and potent healing concoction. During his stays with Wynn at the Calm Seatt branch of the Guild of Sagecraft, he had privately discussed both the ingredients and the creation process with Premin Hawes, head of the branch’s order of Metaology. Most of the ingredients were herbs, easy to obtain, but two were unknown to him until Hawes translated and explained them.

Muhkgean was a mushroom grown by the dwarves. Ore-Locks had once helped him gain those mushrooms, and they were harmless.

The other had not proved harmless, at least for him.

Anamgiah, the “life shield,” was a white flower found in the fields outside the Lhoin’na forests. Later, he had learned the same grew in the lands of the an’Cróan on the world’s far continent, where it was called Anasgiah. Even raw, those opalescent blossoms had healing properties. And so much more when combined correctly with the other six ingredients.

When he had recognized those blossoms upon first visiting the Lhoin’na lands with Wynn, Shade, and Ore-Locks, he had been stunned. He should have never gathered them by hand, and he had nearly died the last time upon barely touching their glistening petals.

But now he had them in his possession, dried, wrapped, and stored in the second pack well away from contact with his skin. Over time, he had collected the other necessities for the formula. At last, he had everything, or so he hoped.

Before rejoining Wynn, and hopefully Shade—and before any of them faced the Ancient Enemy—he needed to be certain of saving either of them, should the worst come. His own body was nearly indestructible. Wynn’s was not, and even Shade had her limits.

However, instructions to make the potion appeared deliberately vague.

This elixir was powerful enough to be feared in the wrong hands, and he had reasoned why. A tyrant or butcher of the battlefield could be nearly untouchable with the ability to heal the gravest wounds in short order. And from what Chane surmised, this elixir might as well be protection against poison, venom, disease ... anything that caused living flesh to fail.

He studied the page with a translation that he and Hawes had made, pausing on the word “boil” and not for the first time.

This suggested water or liquid; every concoction he had ever read of related to nonliquids used thrice-purified water as the medium. He suspected the same herein, though like many things in the fields of hidden knowledge and practice, it was not explicitly mentioned by the author.

Chane picked up a copper bottle but did not remove its matching stopper. He gently turned it, feeling its contents slosh. He had taken great pains to make as much thrice-purified water as he could.

From the journey’s earliest part, he had caught clean rain in a bowl held out the cabin’s porthole whenever he could, and he stored the rainwater in a glass vessel.

When he had enough rainwater, he sterilized an empty copper bottle with wood alcohol, pouring that out to save, and blowing out excess fumes, and then carefully inverting the bottle over the flame of a candle.

Any ignition had been extinguished.

After this, he prepared an oil-fueled burner with several Anamgiah accoutrements. He took up the glass vessel filled with rainwater and the copper one he had sterilized. Upon filling the copper bottle with rainwater, he replaced its stopper with a ceramic elbow-shaped pipe.

He set the glass bottle under the elbow’s other end.

Steam rose into the ceramic elbow and dripped into the glass bottle’s mouth. It took a while, and the process had to be repeated twice. In the end, he had less than a third of the original water, now thrice purified. He stored this in the sterilized copper bottle.

On the night the Kestrel docked at Chathburh, less than halfway to Soráno, Chane steeled himself to attempt making the elixir from The Seven Leaves of Life. He feared failure, for there would be no chance to replenish the two most important ingredients, but he could no longer put off the attempt. When he, Ore-Locks, and Chap went up on deck, he waited for Chap to wander off toward the forecastle.

Chane pulled Ore-Locks aside. “Do you trust me?”

Ore-Locks blinked and frowned. Neither had ever asked such a pointed but general question of the other.

It was a long moment before Ore-Locks nodded. “Yes ... I do.”

Equally surprised by the answer, Chane realized he trusted Ore-Locks enough to share part of the truth.

“I need time alone in the cabin to make something for Wynn’s protection—and maybe others’—should the worst come.”

In spite of his prior claim, Ore-Locks frowned. “Make something?”

“Medicine,” Chane answered, for this was partly true, though if successful, it would be more than that. “No one else should know for now, and Chap does not trust me enough to stay out of my way. Can you keep him from the cabin for as long as possible?”

Ore-Locks’s frown deepened, and he growled, “Very well.”

About to leave, Chane then wondered what the errant stonewalker might be able to do about Chap. Asking would waste time, so with a nod, he hurried for the aftcastle door. The last thing he did was to borrow a bucket of cold seawater from a deckhand.

Once inside the cabin, Chane bolted its door from inside and set to work.

He had attempted something similar only once before.

Welstiel had possessed an elixir that allowed a vampire to remain awake during daylight, though it had to stay out of direct sunlight. When Chane had stolen the pack after Welstiel’s death at Magiere’s hands, he had found a small amount of this elixir in the pack.

And there were journals and notes as well.

After obtaining a key component—a poisonous flower called Dyvjàka Svonchek or “boar’s bell”—he had later managed to re-create that elixir by using himself as a test subject. The process was unpleasant and dangerous, but he succeeded after multiple attempts and gained the advantage of guarding Wynn constantly during some of their worst times.

Unfortunately, he had used up all of that elixir, and there had been no opportunity to procure more boar’s bell.

Now he was to try something he could not test on himself, for it would contain extract from Anamgiah blossoms. The result would be “deadly” to any physical undead. There would be no room for mistakes, no way to test it, and no certainty of success until it was needed.

Chane slowly opened Welstiel’s faded pack.

One by one, he took out the components, tools, and necessities and laid them out upon the floor. A clear glass vessel was among them. After this, he prepared the oil-fueled burner. Then he took up the copper bottle filled with thrice-purified water.

Opening The Seven Leaves of Life, he turned to the correct page and laid the book out on the floor. With the copper bottle wedged between his folded legs, he began to powder and prepare the ingredients. Again, he guessed—hoped—the list in the book represented the proper order for adding ingredients. For such a concoction, adding all at once did not make sense; this was not some cook’s soup. For each ingredient added, he applied heat to the copper vessel and then poured a tiny amount into the glass one to examine it.

Twice the water was cloudy; twice he reapplied heat. More puzzling was how the water eventually turned clear again after the first two ingredients. He took this as a sign of correctness for all others that followed ... until the last two.

Chane glanced at those two still wrapped in folded paper. Opening the first, he uncovered the dried Muhkgean, strange gray mushrooms with caps that spread in branched protrusions. Though now withered, each branch’s end splayed and flattened in a shape like a tiny leaf. He powdered the mushrooms with a pestle and mortar.

Quantities for ingredients were another guess, and so far with measures, he had assumed all ingredients were added in equal quantities. He did the same with a pinch of powdered Muhkgean. But no matter how often he checked and reboiled the mixture ... something had gone wrong.

Chane sat staring at the cloudy, slightly grayed water, caught between panic and anger at failure. Had he used too much or too little of the mushrooms? Had he done so with one or more of the other ingredients? There was not enough left of some to try again. And how much longer could Ore-Locks keep Chap from returning to the cabin?

Panic and frustration turned into desperation as Chane stared down.

The tiny leaf-shaped petals of dried Anamgiah had lost almost all of their opalescence, though they were still pure white. There was nothing he could do now but finish.

He took out a pair of small tin tweezers from among Welstiel’s tools and carefully pinched dried petals to grind with mortar and pestle. Even dried, he dared not touch them with his own flesh, so measuring an “inch” on the tip of a knife made him freeze up for an instant.

Chane tilted the knife’s tip over the copper bottle. And just before he placed the copper vessel back upon the tripod above the flame ...

Hope failed him, and neither fear nor rage could bring it back. There had been too many variables in the process.

All he could do was continue.

Up on deck, Chap strolled about in the fresh air. It was far better than being cooped up with his traveling companions. Eventually, he elicited one too many annoyed glances from the crew members rushing about in their duties, so he turned back from the bow.

Then he noticed Ore-Locks was alone, and he paused. Chane often spent some of his waking time belowdecks, but not usually so early in the evening. Where had he gone? Ore-Locks was turned away to the near rail, looking out to sea, and Chap decided to go below and see what Chane was doing. He headed toward the aft doorway.

“Majay-hì.”

Chap halted and looked to the dwarf. Ore-Locks rarely spoke to him, and he had little idea what to even think of the young stonewalker.

In a few overheard conversations with Chane, Ore-Locks had sounded displeased when he learned they would be stopping at the city of the Lhoin’na before the long trek to Bäalâle Seatt. It seemed the stonewalker had a deep mistrust of anything he considered to be “elven.” Worse, Ore-Locks’s attitude made it plain that he considered Chap to belong in that category.

Chap watched as the dwarf left the rail and came toward him.

“Majay-hì,” Ore-Locks repeated, “my master said that you spoke into his thoughts with words out of his own memories, and in the voices of others in his past. Can you do so ... with me?”

Chap’s surprise—and suspicion—grew as the dwarf continued.

“Chane said you cannot speak to him because of the ring he wears. Is this also true?”

That Chane and Ore-Locks had discussed this was another surprise. Chap had never spoken directly to the vampire and did not wish to do so, ever. He could only imagine what atrocities Chane had committed in the past that might rise out of his memory. The cries of his past victims were the last thing Chap wished to use for a voice—of words—with that thing.

Or did Chane ever even think of the slaughter he had left in his passing?

Still, Chap did not answer Ore-Locks.

Until recently, Chap preferred to keep his new ability to himself. His way of communicating with Wynn was unique. He had limited the other, newer method to Magiere, Leesil, and Wayfarer. Only desperation had pushed him to use “memory-words” with Cinder-Shard and reveal himself as more than he appeared to be.

He did not like letting that secret out.

“As we will travel,” Ore-Locks went on, “with other challenges to meet and who knows what else ... perhaps it is best if you and I could speak? Or you with me, that is.”

Chap sighed, for it was certainly sensible and practical. And in this case, there was no secret left to be kept, though he wondered why Ore-Locks had waited until now.

—What ... would you like ... me ... to say?—

Ore-Locks’s eyes widened, blinking rapidly, until he swallowed and cleared his throat.

Chap wanted to roll his canine eyes. But someone knowing he could do this and experiencing it firsthand were worlds apart.

“By the ancestors!” Ore-Locks whispered.

—Did you think ... your master ... lied ... about me?—

“No, no ... but ...” and then came a furtive glance toward the aftcastle door.

Chap stiffened. After this mostly one-sided conversation, something else occurred to him.

—Where ... is ... Chane?—

And again, Ore-Locks appeared startled, but not in the same way.

Chap turned and dashed for the aftcastle door.

In the cabin, Chane heated and reheated and visually tested and retested the concoction. Each time he poured the tiniest drop through a piece of silk as filter and into the glass, it was still clouded. He had then rinsed the glass bottle and tried again—and again.

He knew he had been down here alone for too long. Soon enough, Chap would notice and become suspicious.

If Chane was caught, he would have to explain, though Chap would not believe anything he said. There was too little—or rather no—personal trust between them.

Chane studied the next droplet in the glass flask ... still faintly gray.

Very well, if the majay-hì caught him, so be it.

He poured as much of the droplet as he could back into the copper bottle, stoppered it, and set it on the tripod to heat again. This time, he did not watch, dropped his head and closed his eyes, and silently counted off the time. He listened for the warning soft hiss to make certain the fluid did not come to a full boil.

A snarl and slam shuddered the cabin floor.

Chane stiffened upright as it happened again. He watched the door buck and heard its bolt rattle. Heavy bootfalls quickly grew louder in the passage outside. Then the growling, rolling snarl turned to a half howl.

He knew that sound. He had heard it more than once in being hunted by Chap.

“Enough!” Ore-Locks shouted out in the passage. “You will draw the entire crew!”

Chane snatched up the brass bottle as he rose and snuffed the burner. He could do nothing about the smell of smoke in the cabin. He heard and then felt the sizzle of his own flesh from the scorching copper bottle and swung it behind his back as he stepped to the door. Just before he grabbed the bolt, the door bucked so hard, he heard its planks start to crack.

“Please desist!” Ore-Locks snapped, and then said more loudly, “Chane, it is over. Open the door!”

Chane pulled the bolt, and the door slammed into him. He barely righted himself in retreat. Chap lunged in, fur on end, ears flattened, jowls pulled back, and teeth exposed in a long rumbling hiss. And Chane set himself for a fight.

His gaze flicked once to his swords tucked under the right-side bunk.

Ore-Locks took only one step into the doorway, and Chap looked back once with a snarl. Ore-Locks barely raised open hands in yielding, and Chap turned on Chane again. Sniffing the air and everything on the floor, Chap inched forward but never took his eyes off Chane.

Chane felt the bottle’s searing heat spreading in his whole hand.

Chap’s head flashed around at Ore-Locks and quickly back. Ore-Locks stiffened in a flinch and blinked twice, and looked at Chane.

“He ... demands to know what you were doing,” Ore-Locks said.

Chane looked back to Chap. Perhaps growing pain spreading to his forearm got the better of him.

“No,” he rasped.

Chap snarled and lunged, Chane dropped to a crouch ready to counter, and Ore-Locks rushed in behind Chap.

The dwarf tried to grab Chap’s tail and only half succeeded.

Ore-Locks barely closed his big hand when Chap turned and snapped. Chane almost lunged but stalled, uncertain whom to go after. Ore-Locks jerked his hand back.

He glared at Chap, stuttering, “You ... you ... yiannû-billê!”

Chane did not react. Hopefully Chap did not understand that racist comment, but when Chap’s growl sharpened, Chane knew better.

Ore-Locks quickly raised a booted foot and slammed it down.

Even as Chap quickly retreated, Chane felt the whole cabin shudder.

“And what do you think you can do about it?” Ore-Locks snarled at Chap.

The dog must have said something into the dwarf’s head. Chane could not guess what, and before he tried ...

“I do not need to wait for port,” Ore-Locks ranted on. “All I need to do is take my orb and drop over the side to sink. Try to follow through stone at the ocean floor, if you can.”

That panicked Chane. He could not fail Wynn like this, even for perhaps his only other friend.

“I am tired of both of you,” Ore-Locks grumbled, and then eyed Chane. “And you need to stop baiting the majay-hì with your secrets!”

That as well frightened Chane as he looked between his cabin mates. When his gaze returned to the dwarf, Ore-Locks’s narrowed eyes were not looking directly back; he was looking much lower.

Ore-Locks thrust out his hand. “Give it to me.”

Chane hesitated.

“Now!” Ore-Locks added.

Chane did not like this. He had multiple reasons for not wanting anyone else—especially Chap—to know what he had been doing. Even Wynn might not have liked it, considering he had again been using Welstiel’s tools.

Ore-Locks thrust out his hand even farther.

With a soft exhale through his teeth, Chane relented and held out the copper bottle.

Ore-Locks took it, held it up, eyed it with a scowl, and then eyed Chap. He suddenly pulled the stopper and put the bottle to his mouth.

“No, do not!” Chane rasped.

It was too late, and Ore-Locks tipped the bottle slightly. He smacked his lips once, ran his tongue over them, and wrinkled his broad nose, as if he had smelled something unpleasant. He tilted his head as if some puzzled thought occurred to him, and then looked down at Chap.

“There,” he said, “I am fine ... See?”

Chane was not so certain, though he had seen dwarves drink wood alcohol that would kill a human. The elixir had not clarified, which left him worried about unknown effects upon even one of them.

Ore-Locks slapped the stopper into the bottle and tossed it at Chane, who caught it in another rush of panic. It felt nearly full.

“You two settle this matter, once and for all,” Ore-Locks warned.

He turned out of the cabin, slamming the door.

Chane was alone with Chap. The majay-hì climbed up on the far bunk, lay down, and glowered in silence. Chane settled on the other bunk above where his swords were hidden.

“I am not the only one with secrets,” Chane said. “What were you doing when you ran off into the trees and left me to dig up two orbs?”

Chap did not move or even blink. He made no sound at all, nor did he do anything to indicate that Chane should pull out the talking hide for a response.

Chane finally dropped his gaze to the copper bottle in his hands, one of which still stung from being seared. From what he felt of the bottle’s weight, Ore-Locks had taken no more than a sip, but that still worried Chane. He bent over to pick up the glass bottle and the scrap of silk, and filtered a tiny amount of the concoction into the glass bottle.

For an instant, what he saw did not make sense, and when he had poured every bit of the mixture into the glass bottle, he could only stare.

The liquid was now entirely crystal clear.

Not long past sunset, Wynn watched as Magiere, Leesil, and Brot’an set off on another scouting trip. Dinner—or perhaps breakfast—tonight had come as a relief.

Ghassan had somehow caught and killed a sizable desert lizard. He had also been saving the best chunks of coal from previous fires, and soon had a low-flamed heat ready for cooking. And meanwhile, he dressed down the lizard. The creature provided nearly as much meat as a chicken.

Everyone was beyond tired of eating dried stores. Though none had ever eaten lizard before, it proved quite tasty—either because it was or because they were desperate for anything other than their normal rations. There was a time when Wynn ate only vegetables and fish. Now she ate whatever was available.

Once the trio passed beyond sight, she turned to Ghassan, who had remained behind with her to guard the orbs. There had been some tension between him and Magiere, as Ghassan wanted more proof of any supposed gathering of a horde before they turned to hunting their real quarry’s hiding place.

Wynn wished they knew more about this Ancient Enemy—il’Samar, Beloved, and any of too many other names. All they really understood was it was a being or person of great power who had waged a great war across the world, created the first of the undead, and then for unknown reasons withdrawn into hiding.

Even this much was speculation based on what she’d gleaned from ancient texts. Now, apparently, it was reawakening after a thousand years.

Magiere was driven to find it.

And things were moving out there toward ... wherever ... in the east.

Ghassan urged caution until all five orbs had been brought together. He felt that more information should be gained first. Were most of the gathering servants vampires? Or were some more powerful, like the wraith, Sau’ilahk?

Magiere saw little point to learning any of this, and for her, finding the location of the Enemy was all that mattered. After a heated debate, she and Ghassan had compromised. Scouting trips would continue, but if she came across any undead heading east, she and those with her would try to trail them to their final destination, and hopefully to Ancient Enemy.

Night after night, Magiere came across only a few bodies.

Wynn was nearly always left behind at camp. With her shorter legs, she only frustrated Magiere and even Brot’an with their long strides. Lately, Ghassan had been the other one most often to remain in camp.

Wynn had grown more and more concerned about Leesil. He never joked or teased her anymore. He’d become even quieter than Brot’an, and that by itself was the most disconcerting change.

Now Ghassan sank down cross-legged before the tent he shared with Brot’an. Wynn knew he preferred being out under the night sky unless he was asleep. She looked up, for though it was full night, the desert was clear to see beneath a brilliant silvery moon.

“Ghassan,” she began slowly, “do you think we would need all five orbs, should Magiere find the Enemy?”

She expected resistance, but she thought she saw him stiffen where he sat.

“Why do you ask?”

Wynn hesitated, wondering how far to take this. “Magiere has only opened the orb of Water, and not fully. I wasn’t with her, but I know what happened. All moisture in the area rushed into the orb in a storm. The potential destruction ...” She faltered, uncertain how much farther to go. “It barely started before the spike was slammed back into the orb, closing it. And I know something of how the orb of Earth was used to bring down Bäalâle Seatt.”

“And what are you suggesting?” Ghassan asked.

This was something she wouldn’t dare say to the others.

“We have the orbs of Air and Spirit in our possession,” she began again. “I don’t know what Spirit will do when it’s opened, but Air could create a similarly destructive storm to Water. If—if we trap the Enemy, and one of us gets close enough to open the orb of Air ...”

She couldn’t say it aloud. Knowing Ghassan, she didn’t have to. Yes, that suicidal move might be enough to either kill or trap the Enemy again ... along with whoever tried to use the orb of Air.

“I am surprised to hear such a notion from you,” Ghassan said.

His abrupt dismissal annoyed Wynn. She shifted where she sat near the dying coals of the fire to look right at him. She could not see him clearly, but she saw enough by the moon’s bright light. He was watching her intently but calmly.

“Why?” she asked.

His head tilted down, one of his hands moved slightly, and a whisper of some kind escaped his lips.

A faint glow caught Wynn’s eyes halfway between herself and him. A stone first appeared to have a glimmer around it, as if dust-mote fireflies began to swarm. The glow grew, softly at first and then brighter and brighter—from the stone itself.

Wynn inched back a little. How had he done this?

“Listen!” Ghassan commanded. “We do not go recklessly stumbling into the lair of the Enemy and attempt to open one orb. If one can cause cataclysmic destruction by itself, do not assume five would be fivefold worse. The Enemy created the five anchors for a reason. That is the answer we must uncover first, before any needless rush or wasted life—yours and others’.”

“And who will use all five, if we learn how? You?”

“Unless you would like to try.”

At the start of this journey, they had intended to gather the orbs as a last option, should the Enemy be proved to be reawakening. If that terrifying reality came, she had envisioned at least a few careful experiments to see how the devices might be used together. Now she wasn’t sure at all if anyone should know that secret ... and live to tell it.

And she hadn’t known how set Ghassan was on the original, final option.

“What if Chane and Chap fail?” she asked. “Or they don’t return at all?”

Ghassan lifted his head and fixed on her in the half dark under the moon. “Chap and Chane have not failed.”

Wynn balked for a moment. Ghassan appeared to close his eyes and bowed his head, and he remained that way for too long. This gave Wynn further pause before she asked anything more.

“How could you—?”

“The same way that I knew you were in the alley behind the sanctuary ... on the night I needed your help to persuade the others to hunt the specter.”

Wynn swallowed in confusion and almost challenged him again. Then she knew how he knew that Chane and Chap had succeeded. Relief flooded her in knowing they were safe.

“The pebble, the one you gave Chane.”

Ghassan raised his head again and nodded once.

“You could know this? From so far away?” she asked.

“Even now they are on a ship nearing Soráno. And they have the final orb and its stonewalker guardian as well.”

“Ore-Locks? He’s coming with them?”

Ghassan nodded again. “You understand my reason for checking on them?”

She did, yet he seemed different from the man she’d once known, and she looked again to that still-glowing rock between them.

Ghassan was a sorcerer, a practitioner of a reviled magic. His focus was upon that of the mind, its powers, and its manipulations, though he had employed guild thaumaturgical alchemists in Calm Seatt to make her sun-crystal staff. Causing a rock to produce light was psychokinetic at a physical level, or at least that was how she would describe it from studies in the sciences.

She had never seen him do so before. It left her wondering about the sun crystal. He had once used that to track her into Bäalâle Seatt?

Had sorcery been involved in what he had contributed to the sun crystal’s making?

“And now I need your help,” Ghassan said, almost tiredly.

Wynn was afraid to even ask. “What help?”

Ghassan lay in the dark of his own mind, his own flesh not his anymore. In one instant of pause during conversation with Wynn, the specter had turned inwardly upon him.

Though he had no flesh within that darkness, he now lay shuddering as if burned and beaten to his own last breath. And the specter—Khalidah—had found and taken what he needed.

... The same way that I knew you were in the alley behind the sanctuary ...

The specter had not been there in that moment; that had been Ghassan himself. Khalidah had taken that memory from him to once again deceive Wynn and to regain her trust in using hope against her. Khalidah wanted those orbs more than she knew, and yet ...

Ghassan’s false breath caught in realization as much as agony.

Khalidah was afraid to face the Enemy as yet.

He—the specter—did not yet know how to use the orbs.

How could that be possible? There were two nearby, and the specter could have even put Wynn into a natural slumber, so that he might delve those devices through sorcery. There was only one reason that had not happened.

Khalidah already knew his sorcery would not work on an orb.

Oh, yes, he might lift one by his art while in a chest, or perhaps even directly, but he could not examine and find the secrets of the orbs themselves through his art.

Were the orbs impervious to the other two magical arts as well?

If they were proof against thaumaturgy and conjuring, how had they even been made? Such defenses so ultimate could not have been applied to them during or after their making. As to during, for what they could already do, such work would have been almost impossible.

No one could truly know how they had been made, what they were—except perhaps the Enemy.

Ghassan’s mind blanked in trying to see how to use this. He stored it away as one other thing took hold of his awareness. The specter had to come at him to find something to convince Wynn that she still spoke to Ghassan himself. Khalidah had to come and tear that out of him forcibly.

The specter had not found that on his own, as he likely could have with past hosts.

Again, Ghassan did not see the use of this ... not yet.

Upon disembarking in Soráno, Chap found his relief at having solid ground under his paws wiped away everything else for a moment. The sea voyage was over, and now they would travel inland to a’Ghràihlôn’na to find Wayfarer, Osha, and Shade. At that thought, he found himself looking forward to company besides Ore-Locks’s and Chane’s.

The three of them walked the port city’s streets after obtaining a stout, strong mule on which to lash two of the chests. Ore-Locks carried the third, as three orbs might be too heavy, even for a mule.

Although Chap and Chane had stopped briefly here on the way north in dropping off the younger trio, Chap had remained on the docks that time, while Chane had gone in to make the caravan arrangements.

But now Chap walked through the evening streets of the port city, running necessary preparations for further travels through his mind. Reaching the Lhoin’na lands was not even half of the journey ahead. Being lost in such thoughts, he was halfway through the city when he slowed upon noticing a young woman in a long, saffron-colored wrap gown passing by. As he took in her olive-toned skin, light brown hair, and roundish face, he halted completely and looked about.

Nearly everyone here looked like Wynn!

Fine boned, though round cheeked, the people of the Romagrae Commonwealth weren’t as tall as the Numans of Malourné, Faunier, or Witeny, nor quite as dark-skinned as the Sumans. Nearly all walking past wore pantaloons and cotton vestments or long wrap dresses of white and soft colors. But they all had olive-toned skin with light brown hair and eyes.

Chap knew Wynn had been left as an infant at the gates of the guild’s Calm Seatt branch. He now wondered if her parents had come from here, and how she had ended up being abandoned so far north. Some answers were never found, but still he wondered.

Thinking of her filled him with sharp urgency to move onward.

Soráno’s streets were clean, most cobbled in sandy-tan stones, and small open-air markets were all along the way. There were many solo stalls, tents, and booths here and there. Almost any necessity—and some minor fancies—were available within a short walk from every side street. Everyone appeared to be some kind of merchant or farmer or crafter or artisan, and all appeared to have the freedom to set up “shop” wherever they pleased. The result was somewhat overwhelming.

Arrays of olives, dried dates, fish, and herb-laced cooking oils were abundant. Of course, though, it was past dusk, and many vendors were now closing up for the night.

“They are a friendly and polite people,” Chane rasped. “But do not wander off. It disturbs them when animals are seen unattended.”

Chap refrained from making a sound. Yes, he had forgotten that Chane had been here before with Wynn and Shade. He also did not like how “thick” Ore-Locks was with Chane; the young stonewalker was not to be trusted too much because of that.

Still, Ore-Locks now had his uses.

—What now?— ... —A caravan?—

Ore-Locks paused in the street, looked down at him, and then to Chane. “The majay-hì asks if we should seek a caravan headed our way. I pondered the same thing.”

Chane turned, halting the mule. “What other choice is there?”

“We both know the way. I say we buy a wagon and team for ourselves.”

Chap thought that sensible enough. Much as the orbs were locked up and well guarded, he did not care for the idea of traveling with them among strangers.

“I would agree,” Chane said, “if we had enough coin left.”

Ore-Locks shook his head slightly and waved off the objection. “I have coin. Master Cinder-Shard made certain before I left.”

Both Chane and Chap blinked in surprise.

Ore-Locks shrugged. “It did not come up until now.”

After another pause, Chap offered a single huff.

“Very well,” Chane said. “We are all in agreement ... for once.”

As with most needs in this place, it was not long before they found a stable. They summoned the owner from within a small sandstone domicile attached to it. Ore-Locks took to doing the talking with the middle-aged man before he even stepped out.

Chane glanced down at Chap and whispered, “If you have never before seen a dwarf haggle, you may as well sit. This could take a while.”

And it did. The poor stable master began to grow red in the face amid the bargaining.

Chap sighed at almost the same instant as Chane.

“Wait here,” Chane whispered, dropping the mule’s lead next to Chap. “I will go back to the main street and find supplies before all of the vendors are gone.”

He walked away before Chap could consent. And by the time Ore-Locks finished, the poor stable master looked exhausted. That was how Chap felt in just sitting there while pinning down the mule’s lead with his rump.

Chane returned with an armload of goods as Ore-Locks gave in on trading both the mule and money for a wagon and two bay mares, as well as full harnesses and several folds of canvas in the bed. Even so, when the dwarf produced a pouch with strange silver coins, each had a hole punched through its center.

The stable master balked at the sight of those, until he bit each one—several of them twice—to test their metal.

“That was still quite an amount of coin,” Chane observed as they loaded the stores, chests, and all of their belongings into the wagon.

Ore-Locks merely grunted and shrugged, heaving another chest onto the wagon’s bed.

“You know my people value iron more,” he said. “Or even copper, tin, and steel. And I did not want the poor man to have a stroke on the spot.”

“Do we leave tonight?” Chane asked, pausing and looking down at Chap.

As curious as the city was, Chap worried what might have become of Wayfarer and Osha—and his daughter, Shade—in all of this time. And after that, there was still more distance to cross beyond the forests of the Lhoin’na.

Chap huffed once in agreement. The sooner, the better.