A Wind in the Night

Chapter Eighteen

Osha knelt beside the bed and studied Wynn’s pallor and closed eyes for any sign that she might awaken. Chane had been right about one thing: Osha did not understand enough about Wynn’s mantic sight.

Whenever Chane was awake and involved, Osha felt as if he was secondary, and he had let this get to him. He should not have claimed certainty of Wynn’s success. He should not have let the undead’s interference push him to spite. Even worse, Wynn’s sacrifice had gained them little beyond what he had already determined by merely listening to the movements of the guards.

Osha adjusted the blanket over Wynn as the majay-hì hopped up and wriggled along the wall to lie beside her. Shade occasionally licked Wynn’s face with a rumbling whine, but it had no effect upon her.

“We need to get out,” Chane rasped as he paced. “We must overcome the guards and reach our weapons.”

Osha turned his head and scowled over his shoulder. Chane paused his pacing to return the look in kind.

“It is what she would want,” the undead added, “rather than waiting for her to awaken.”

This time Shade instead of Osha snarled at Chane.

“No!” Osha said for the majay-hì. “We wait.... Guards grow tired ... easy to surprise. Wynn sleep, so I need carry her and you fight only. Not wise.”

Chane stopped pacing, as if pondering these objections, but he turned quickly at another voice.

“I can carry her.”

Osha spotted Nikolas standing quietly in the far back corner. For most of their time locked in this room, the young sage had remained silent. Osha looked him over with some reservations, for Nikolas’s build was slight.

“I am stronger than I look,” Nikolas added, perhaps with a bit more force. “And Wynn ... well, she’s not very big.”

No, she was not, and, lying there on the bed, she appeared even smaller. There might be more to Nikolas than Osha had yet seen.

“Even so,” Chane said, his near-voiceless rasp now a hesitant whisper. “Perhaps Osha is ... Perhaps we should wait a little longer.”

Osha said nothing as he returned to watching Wynn.

Sau’ilahk opened his eyes.

That sensation alone made him shudder. He lay upon the floor and felt cold, hard stone beneath his back. He went numb in thought until the pain came. All his joints and muscles felt as though they had been torn loose ... but he did not have joints and muscles.

Everything rushed in on him as he fought to lift his left hand until he could see....

A perfectly fitted glove of black lambskin covered the duke’s left hand. When Sau’ilahk thought to close his hand ... the duke’s fingers curled. He cautiously tried to touch his face—and did so.

By the power of the orb, he had taken Karl Beáumie’s body.

As he tried to roll onto his side and push himself up, he grew suddenly concerned. How much damage had been done to the duke’s flesh in shaking loose the last vestiges of the man’s spirit? Sau’ilahk had had to claim that flesh in the precise instant.

Why was he so weak ... and would this pass?

What of his abilities and powers honed over a thousand years, now that he was once more housed in living flesh? He had wanted this in ways beyond imagining but had never considered the costs until now.

Advantages began returning in his thoughts.

He was now the duke of Beáumie, lord of everyone and everything for the leagues of this remote province. That sliver of authority and earthly power was nothing compared to what he had once wielded in a long-lost life as Beloved’s high priest. Given time, he would build upon this, but his first task was to secure his new identity. That included removing all evidence that he was not who he appeared to be.

The orb had to be taken somewhere beyond the reach of Wynn Hygeorht and any who might believe her claims. And then this body had to be made truly immortal beyond the false promise by which he had seduced the young duke.

Looking down, he saw Karl’s slender form dressed all in black felts, wools, and leathers. The first wave of pure joy overtook him, but the flesh itself had been neglected. He was unwashed, and his clothing smelled as if it had not been changed, let alone laundered, in many days. He needed a bath, sandalwood soap for his hair, and of course fine clothes, but such things could wait a little longer. Sau’ilahk went to the pedestal—still troubled by a weakened and damaged body—and checked on the orb.

The spike had fallen into place and become one with the orb again, and the key—the handle—lay on the floor near one pedestal leg. He had to brace himself on the pedestal while leaning down to retrieve the key, and the other hand—the deformed one inside the stretched glove—was clumsy in its grip.

He shuffled to the door and called out, “Open!”

The sound and ease of a true voice were startling to him.

After the scrape of a key and the clack of a lock, the door opened, and all seven of his remaining Suman guards were waiting outside as instructed. Their rapid, hushed chatter barely abated, and Captain Hazh’thüm stood farthest away, toward the passage to the stairs.

Not one of them dropped their eyes. They stared at him.

The one who opened the door bowed his head slightly. “My duke, do you wish an escort to your room?”

Growing furious, Sau’ilahk glared at the man. Then he calmed in a fit of amusement.

“You do not recognize me ... do you?”

The guard frowned, blinked twice in confusion, and glanced back at his captain.

Stepping closer, Hazh’thüm pushed through the others as he, too, frowned.

“You are ... Duke Beáumie,” the nearest guard said hesitantly. “Are you unwell, my lord?”

Sau’ilahk could not help but smile. Then he searched his own thoughts, his own memories, just in case. No, nothing lingered of Karl Beáumie in this flesh. That might be a difficulty, not knowing all about the past of the duke for a proper masquerade. Yet now he faced a different problem.

How much would it take to prove who he truly was to these base underlings?

How much of his former nature still remained, now that he had taken flesh?

Both the closest guard and Hazh’thüm peered beyond Sau’ilahk through the door. Perhaps looking for a tall, black-robed and cloaked form, their gazes roamed the orb’s chamber.

“Sire, you should rest,” Hazh’thüm suggested. “Let me take you to your room.”

The others appeared relieved by him taking charge.

Sau’ilahk had no time or desire to reason with them. There was a quicker way to test something he needed to know. He lashed out with his left, good hand and snatched the nearest guard by the throat.

At the sight of him attacking one of their own, the others all pulled their swords.

Even Hazh’thüm lunged at him—and stalled in the last instant. His eyes widened as his mouth gaped.

The one guard barely had a moment to struggle and claw at Sau’ilahk’s grip.

Satisfaction followed by relief flushed Sau’ilahk as his captive’s hair began to bleach and his face withered with rushing age. All of the guards froze where they stood as they watched their comrade’s life being drained away.

That life filled up Sau’ilahk. The pain in his new body lessened, and he straightened to full height as he released his grip. The guard crumpled like an old man breathing his last, and Sau’ilahk succumbed to euphoria amid relief.

He could still feed.

What other remnants of his previous existence had carried though to this new one?

The dead guard hit the floor. All six remaining men stood frozen until Hazh’thüm stepped back and lowered his eyes.

“Now do you know me?” Sau’ilahk asked.

All six men dropped to one knee and bowed their heads low.

“When we are in public, under the eyes of the unknowing, you will serve me as the duke,” he commanded. “At all other times, you will show proper respect for who I am.”

“Yes, my lord ... Yes, Eminence,” Hazh’thüm whispered.

Sau’ilahk smiled. “Prepare the orb for transport. We leave this place tonight.”

Chane sagged in relief when Wynn’s eyes opened. He had told himself over and over that she had merely collapsed from exhaustion. When she struggled to sit up on the bed, he did not even interfere when Osha assisted her and then put a cup of water to her lips.

“Are you all right?” Chane asked.

After a swallow, she nodded weakly. “Still dizzy ... and ... what happened?”

Her braid had come partially loose, and her wispy brown hair was a mess around her oval face. Her olive-toned skin appeared slightly pallid, but he was further relieved by how coherent she sounded—almost herself.

“You fainted,” Nikolas said. “What were you doing?”

No one answered him, and Chane stepped to the door to listen for a moment. “It has been quiet out there for some time,” he whispered, and then looked to Wynn. “If I break the door, Osha, Shade, and I can rush the guards. One of us, at least, should break through to our weapons ... and your staff. Can you run yet?”

“Wait,” Osha said. “She need more time.”

Wynn waved him back and swung her legs off the bed. “I can walk,” she said, struggling to her feet. “I’ll get better soon enough.”

Chane nodded. He would have preferred to give her more time as well, but if there was an orb in this keep, they had been locked in here too long. He knew she would not want to wait.

“I will break through,” he whispered to Osha. “Once I have drawn the guards’ fire, and they have no chance to reload, you and Shade must rush for the other room.” He looked to Shade. “Agreed?”

Shade huffed once as she dropped off the bed to step around Wynn and closer to the door. Osha slipped his hand behind his back, and it came out again with the dagger.

“Nikolas, come here near me,” Wynn said, but he didn’t move.

“Where exactly are we going once we get out?” Nikolas asked. “Karl controls all the guards, not just the Sumans. Even if you get this artifact out of the lower levels, the front gates are locked down.”

Chane had thought of this, though there was little to be done about it. If they could breach the lower levels, find the orb, and dispatch the Suman guards, perhaps they could break out through the door at the back passage’s end. That might at least gain them something ... and again perhaps most of the guards would be drawn into the keep in a search.

“First we retake our weapons, then the orb, and all else ... we will deal with as needed.” He glanced at Osha. “Ready?”

The elf nodded once, and Chane grabbed the door’s handle. He let his hunger rise, expanding his senses, and he prepared to rip the handle and, he hoped, the lock bolt out so he could pull the door open.

A shout carried in the passage beyond the door, and he froze.

Then he heard a clang of steel and the clatter of a sword on stone, followed by one rough thud and then another that carried through the floor stones under his feet. After that there was silence outside in the passage.

Chane hesitated and looked to the others. It was obvious that at least Osha and Shade had heard something as well, and the dog’s ears flattened. Something clinked outside the door, and then came a scraping of metal near the lock. The door’s lock bolt clacked, and Chane shifted left, ready to strike as the door swung inward.

In the narrow space of the open door was a leather mask over a hooded figure’s face.

“Wait,” it said in Numanese with a rolling thick accent not correct for a Numan.

That person pushed the door wide until it banged carelessly against the wall. Somewhere behind Chane he heard Shade snarl in warning.

Beyond the strange figure in the doorway, at least one guard lay unconscious in a heap upon the passage floor. He could not see the other, but he heard no movement outside. Still ready to strike, he looked their would-be rescuer up and down.

The figure raised a tawny-gloved hand and slid the mask upward into its hood.

Aupsha eyed him in turn. “I have freed Counselor Columsarn, and he has gone to do the same for the duchess. Come with me.”

It was all too convenient, and Chane did not move, even when he heard the others in the room step nearer.

Aupsha’s forearm was encompassed in a hardened leather bracer. The same type of armor, suitably shaped for a woman, covered her torso. Even her thighs and shins were protected, and everywhere on those pieces of darkly dyed armor were ornately carved swirling patterns that obscured symbols Chane could not quite make out.

“Freed?” Nikolas asked. “My father and Sherie were locked up?”

Aupsha’s eyes shifted briefly toward the young sage before returning to Chane.

“The duke has sealed the keep, even to the servants in their rooms,” she said. “The counselor was locked in his chamber but not under guard, so I released him first.” Her tone grew impatient. “The duke has left, taking his Sumans and some of the keep’s guards on horseback. But he is aboard a wagon ... with a covered load in its rear.”

“Back up now,” Chane ordered.

Aupsha lingered for a breath before retreating to the outer passage’s far side.

Chane slipped out, looked both ways, and found that the second guard was also down. The others came out behind him.

“We cannot delay for your doubts,” Aupsha added sharply.

Osha immediately rushed for Wynn’s room as Shade dashed to the passage’s end and peered down the stairs. Chane remained poised before the tall dark servant, now dressed and armored more strangely, more foreignly, than she herself had always appeared.

“Do you know what’s in the wagon?” Wynn asked, stepping in on Chane’s right.

“My guess would be the same as yours,” Aupsha answered, “and I have little patience left.”

Chane was about to push Wynn back and sidestep toward her room when Osha returned and handed off his blades. Chane took them and quickly strapped them on as he kept his eyes on Aupsha.

“Is my staff still there?” Wynn asked.

“Yes,” Osha answered.

At Chane’s glance, the elf was already stringing his bow, and the strange and narrow canvas bundle was again tied over his back.

“Get your staff,” Chane told Wynn. “Nikolas, go with her.”

As the two ran off, Shade came trotting back.

“Anyone?” Chane asked, and Shade huffed once for no.

Only then did Aupsha look away at Shade with a brief narrowing of her eyes. “I will go below and verify that the artifact has been taken,” she said.

“Why would I trust you for that?” Chane challenged.

Aupsha let out a slow breath, as if suppressing distaste. “Whether it is there or not, the duke has tried to lock away everyone who knows him ... and has fled the keep. That alone is enough reason to stop him from whatever he has been doing.”

Chane was half tempted to remove Aupsha here and now, but if the duke had been so mad as to use the orb in some way, the man would not have relinquished it in taking flight. Still, Chane wondered what might happen if he was mistaken. What if Aupsha, who knew the duke much better, had a reason for sending all of them off and out of the way?

“Someone must find the counselor and the compass I left with him,” she said. “Only that device has a chance to locate the artifact if it has been removed. You will also need Lady Sherie to manage any remaining guards.”

“Wait—where are you going?”

At that, Chane found Wynn at his side again with her staff in hand.

“You and Nikolas get our packs,” he told her, and she looked from him to Aupsha. “Please,” he added, “we must move quickly and be prepared for anything.”

With obvious reluctance, she and Nikolas went off.

Chane barely turned to see Aupsha heading for the passage’s back. And before he could go after her ...

“I come with you ... to help,” Osha called out.

Aupsha halted and turned. Her mask was down over her face once more, and it was impossible to gauge her reaction.

Wynn returned and handed off Chane’s packs. It was obvious what Osha intended to do, and she held out a cold-lamp crystal.

“Take it, just to be sure,” she told him. “Meet us in the courtyard when you’re done ... and be quick.”

Before Osha even nodded, Aupsha had turned away. He took the crystal and followed her.

“Nikolas, Shade, and I will find Jausiff and Lady Sherie,” Wynn said to Chane. “You get our wagon ready, but be prepared to clear us a path if the guards won’t listen to the duchess.”

Chane disliked the idea of them all splitting up this way, but there were too many paths to follow, and Wynn was already headed for the stairs with Shade.

Only Nikolas lingered, eyeing Chane, until Chane stepped off after Wynn.

Osha slipped ahead down the stairs to the passage’s rear, and Aupsha said nothing. He did not like having her at his back, but whatever lay below, he intended to see it first, and he brushed Wynn’s crystal across his tunic several times to heat up its light.

He would have preferred to remain with Wynn, but he had seen her face upon learning that Aupsha intended to verify the orb’s presence or absence beneath the keep. He had seen such an artifact once in his time with her—and Magiere, Léshil, and Chap. He would know another one when he saw it. But when he and the strangely armored woman reached the rear passage with its end door out the north side ...

Around the corner and down the two steps, the door leading below was wide-open.

He glanced at Aupsha, but the mask made it impossible to read her. This door being open did not bode well, and she slipped into the lead as they descended more stairs beyond the door. Another passage at the bottom led them into a narrow stone chamber with six heavy doors of old wood, three to each side.

Aupsha halted, and Osha had to sidestep to view the chamber. Something more caught his attention immediately.

A body lay crumpled on the floor, though Osha recognized it only by the garb of a Suman guard. The man looked nothing like any guard he had seen, for this one was aged, too old to be in service. The corpse’s eyes were half-open, as was his wrinkled mouth, but those eyes were as clouded and pale as his near-white hair.

Aupsha was still frozen in place and looking down when Osha heard the crackling squeak of leather. He followed the sound to her nearer gloved hand, now clenched in a fist.

“You see this before?” he asked.

At first she did not answer, and when she did so, she did not look at him.

“Once. Among my dead ... a few were not broken but left like this ... dead or dying.”

Osha waited no longer and ran from one door to the next. All were locked except the second one on the right. The only things he found in that small, dark room were a plain old table and a strange iron stand. The latter had a waist-high round hoop at the top, in place of any surface on which to set anything. When he left that room, Aupsha had not moved.

“Nothing here,” Osha said. “Other doors locked.”

Aupsha stared down at the body a moment longer and then turned back toward the passage out. “It does not matter. The artifact would have been guarded, always. It is gone.”

“We find it,” Osha said, quickly following. “We take it back.”

Again he slipped ahead to light the way, anxious to protect Wynn now that they knew the orb had been taken—or at least moved. He slowed as they reached the stairs and listened for anything above. No sound echoed to his ears as he crept up the stairs and through the opened door. He closed his hand over the crystal as he peered around the archway’s side.

There was no one in the back passage along the way they had come. He heard no sounds except the sea outside below the keep—and then a snap of cloth.

A sharp movement of air, like a brief breeze, tossed Osha’s hair. He looked back and then spun fully around. Wide-eyed, as he looked down the stairs, he opened his fist to release the crystal’s light.

Osha saw no one, even in the lower passage.

Aupsha was gone.

Chane reached the keep’s main hall at a run and raced on to the front doors. He halted to crack them open only a little.

He saw no one near the stable or the other, smaller structure on the courtyard’s left, but the rented wagon was still outside. To the right were the barracks and what might be another small storage building, and straight ahead two keep guards in gray tabards huddled together before the gate and peered out through its lattice ironwork. Another one atop the wall to the gate’s left faced the other way, looking down the road. That one held a heavy crossbow.

Chane had no difficulty in hearing them.

“Where could he have gone?” the shortest man on the ground called up to the one atop the wall. “And why did he take Lieutenant Martelle?”

Sharpening his sight, Chane recognized the man on the ground as Captain Holland.

The man on the wall did not even turn around as he answered. “Don’t know. He just ordered the lieutenant to gather a few others, and they headed off with the duke and those Sumans. Good riddance on the latter!”

“How long ago?” Holland called back up.

“Not long,” the guard above answered. “Going by the wagon’s lantern, they turned off below and headed inland instead of along the coastal road. But they had no provisions that I saw, not for what little bulk was in the wagon. And no instructions from the duke. He just ordered us to open the gate.”

Chane grew uncertain. Preparing their own wagon would not be so easy if the captain and his men were confused by the duke’s taking men out in the middle of the night. If Chane headed for the stable, he might be detained and questioned. Such an event could be better handled if the duchess was here to at least try to clear the way.

Lost in thought, he did not hear the fast footfalls until they grew close.

Chane turned and reached for his sword. Osha came at him at a run through the main hall, but he was alone.

“Where is Aupsha?” Chane whispered.

Osha shook his head. “The way below not locked. We found no orb. We return to back passage ... near door to outside ...” He shook his head again.

It did not make sense to Chane. “Why would she break us out, accept our help, and then vanish?”

Osha shook his head once more.

Chane turned back to peer through the cracked-open door. The situation was even more uncertain now, for it seemed they had two choices: risk going for the wagon and team without attracting attention or wait for Wynn to arrive with the duchess.

The former seemed an unlikely success, so he held his place a little longer.

Wynn trotted with Shade behind Nikolas toward Jausiff’s study, for that was where Nikolas suggested that his father would return once Sherie had been freed. The young sage, with his slightly longer legs, shot out ahead and reached the door first.

“Father?” Nikolas called, banging on the door. “Are you in there?”

When no one answered, he tried the handle and found it locked.

“Where else might they be?” Wynn asked.

“I don’t know,” Nikolas answered. “Maybe Sherie’s chambers.”

Before Wynn could say more, he strode back down the passage toward the stairs. Wynn trotted after, followed by Shade, and halfway there they heard voices carrying down the stairs.

Jausiff and Lady Sherie stepped down into the passage.

“Father,” Nikolas breathed in relief, and perhaps his first instinct had been right.

“Nikolas?” Sherie said, hurrying toward them. Her gaze shifted to Wynn and then Shade. “You are free.”

“Aupsha let us out,” Wynn answered. She quickly told them everything that had happened that she knew so far, and then focused on Jausiff. “Aupsha wants you to get her device to track the artifact’s direction.”

“One moment,” Jausiff said, unlocking his chamber with one key on a heavy ring. “I haven’t seen a single guard wherever I went in the keep. All I know is that Karl left with his Suman contingent. You say Aupsha went to the lower level?”

“Yes. Osha went with her to verify that the artifact had been taken.”

Jausiff hurried to his desk and this time pulled out a tiny brass key on a string around his neck. He unlocked the chest behind his desk table and began pulling out various things and setting them aside in meticulous stacks.

Wishing he would hurry, Wynn bit down on her impatience. He finally straightened up, turned about, and set a small case of thick, stiff leather on the desk. When he undid the lashings and opened it, there was the piece of ruddy metal to which he referred as a “compass.”

Shade pushed in close at Wynn’s side before the desk, and her ears pricked up. But Wynn barely glanced at the dog as she waited for Jausiff to do ... something.

Jausiff stretched out his arm, his hand open and palm up with the slightly curved piece of an orb key resting in it. Wynn was so fixed upon the object that she was startled as the old sage whispered something.

Jausiff’s eyes were on the “compass,” and when Wynn looked down, for an instant she thought she saw the ruddy metal quiver, or perhaps move or rotate just barely. The master sage closed his grip on it.

He stepped around the desk, with the device held out in his upturned fist. He kept turning slightly left and right as he walked all the way into the outer passage. Wynn rushed in behind him as everyone else present followed.

Jausiff went all the way down the passage to the stairs leading to below. He turned rightward once, and there was a scowl of confusion on his old face. The aging sage quickly turned to face up the passage again toward the keep’s rear.

Jausiff halted in only three more steps, and his hand holding the piece of an orb key dropped to dangle at his side.

“The artifact is no longer inside the keep,” he said.

Wynn turned on Sherie. “My lady, that artifact is dangerous. It’s what has been causing changes here in your brother, as well as in the surrounding land. Chane is trying to ready our wagon even now, but we need you to get us out of here past any remaining keep guards.”

Sherie appeared stricken, troubled, and doubtful as she looked from Wynn to the keep’s counselor. It was obvious that she had difficulty understanding anything that had happened here—that her own brother had ordered her locked into her room.

“Why would he leave?” she demanded. “Why take this object away from here after all he has done to hide it and whatever he has been doing with it?”

“I don’t know,” Wynn answered honestly. “But if you want to help him—and stop all of this—you must get us through the front gates.”

At that the duchess turned halfway and looked to Nikolas right behind her. Perhaps she wondered what he had to do with all of this, though he wouldn’t have much to tell. It seemed to take effort for Nikolas to even meet Sherie’s eyes, and when he finally did so, he simply nodded to her.

“This way,” the duchess commanded, walking forward to take the lead.

Chane, thinking that he—and Osha—should take a chance and head for the stable, began to doubt his choice to wait.

“Chane?”

At that whisper, both he and Osha turned to find Wynn and Shade hurrying toward them, along with Nikolas, the elder sage, and the duchess in the lead.

“Why aren’t you out there?” Wynn asked. “Are the horses harnessed?”

Chane shook his head. “The guards outside are agitated by what has happened. I thought it best to wait for Lady Sherie.”

“Where is Aupsha?” Jausiff asked, pushing in closer.

“Gone,” Osha answered.

“Gone?” the elderly sage repeated in shock.

“Step aside,” the duchess ordered, advancing immediately.

Chane did so. She passed him without slowing and pulled open one of the front doors. She did not pause as she strode out in the courtyard and straight toward the gates.

“Get to the horses,” Wynn urged as she passed him in following the duchess. “Osha, go and help him.”

Neither of them hesitated as the others followed Wynn.

Chane quick-stepped with Osha on his heels as they aimed straight for the wagon. When they reached it, Osha jumped up before the bench, and, as Chane was about to go into the stable for the horses, he paused, looking up at the elf.

“If the duchess cannot convince the guards, can you put down the one atop the wall before we near the gate?” Chane asked.

Osha finished untying the reins from the brake lever and straightened. At his simple shrug, his strung bow dropped off his shoulder, and he caught it without even looking.

“Not one,” he answered. “All three.”

Chane, not interested in the elf’s bravado, rolled his eyes as he turned at a trot for the stable doors.

Wynn stayed close behind Nikolas as they followed Sherie, and Shade remained at her right, while Jausiff came along a little wide on her left.

“How does your device work?” she asked.

He glanced sidelong at her and then held up his hand, still gripping the small metal object.

“Simply hold it once it is active, as now,” he answered. “It produces a ... a pull in a general direction.”

Wynn couldn’t hold back one more question. “Was Aupsha the one who carried your messages to Calm Seatt?”

“This is hardly the time—”

“Did she?” Wynn insisted, for there might not be another time.

“Yes,” he admitted. “She possesses certain ... abilities and was able to escape the keep. No one knew she was gone, because she and I were believed to be locked away in a self-imposed quarantine.”

Wynn glanced ahead. Sherie had almost reached Captain Holland, who stood waiting, his troubled gaze on only her.

“Did Aupsha have the device with her?” Wynn rushed to ask.

“Certainly,” Jausiff answered. “How else would I have it now?”

Wynn ignored that, for this all told her something more, at a guess. The key piece, the device ... the “compass” was the only way anyone could have tracked the orb hidden away with the Stonewalkers. Both messenger and would-be thief were one and the same somehow, though this didn’t explain how Aupsha had traveled from Calm Seatt to the dwarven underworld in one night.

She must have been so confused, probably thinking the orb of Spirit had been moved to Dhredze Seatt on the peninsula. Only when a blank wall of rough stone had stopped her had she fled back here, realizing the orb she was after was still in the keep.

And yet she now knew where another orb lay hidden. Worse than this, that bit of severed, ruddy metal in Jausiff’s hand left Wynn wondering.

Could any key be used to track any of the orbs? And, again, how had the orb of Spirit been located among Aupsha’s people and then stolen?

“Captain Holland, open the gates,” the duchess ordered.

All of Wynn’s fearful speculations ended—and then shifted—when the captain didn’t move.

“My lady,” he said. “Do you know where the duke has gone?”

“My brother has run off with what is left of the treasury,” Sherie returned. “There isn’t even enough left to pay the guards or servants. I am in charge while my brother is absent, so why are you questioning me?”

Wynn wondered whether this was a ruse, or if the duke had also stolen money from the keep.

“The treasury?” Holland asked, incredulous. “Do you wish me to go after him?”

“No. I’m sending others instead.”

The duchess said nothing more and stood there staring at him.

The captain, a hardened soldier probably bent to the breaking point with all that had happened in the past day and night, merely stared back a moment longer. But it seemed he would still obey the duchess, for he looked to the other guard nearby and nodded. The two of them began sliding the heavy iron bolts out to separate the gates.

Wynn kept silent until she heard rolling wheels and clopping horses behind her. Chane and Osha had the wagon in motion.

“Give me the device,” Wynn whispered to Jausiff.

He glanced down in surprise. “No. I am coming with you.”

“So am I,” Nikolas added.

“You can’t, either of you,” Wynn countered. “Neither can Lady Sherie ... not for an assault on the duke! If this fails, someone will have to speak for us, so none of you can be involved.”

Before anyone could argue further, Wynn held out her hand to Jausiff.

The master sage scowled and slowly held out the device. “Do not lose hold of it,” he warned, “for once it has been activated, it must remain in contact with your skin, or it will cease to function until reactivated.”

That didn’t sit well with Wynn. There might come a moment when she would have to let go of it, if events took an even worse turn. As Jausiff placed the ruddy metal in her hand, she closed her fingers around it.

“I’m coming,” Nikolas then argued again. “Karl is my friend, and I’m going to help him. He’ll listen to me before any of you.”

Wynn shook her head. “Whatever the duke has been doing with that artifact, he isn’t the man you knew anymore. Look after your father and the duchess, and leave Karl to us. Do not leave the keep until you hear from me.”

Nikolas, almost looking at Sherie, barely turned his head and didn’t say another word.

Wynn knew he would stay, and judging by the silence behind her, she knew the wagon was close. She turned to find Chane up on the bench with his long dwarven-made sword unsheathed beside him. Osha stood in the back with his bow in hand and the quiver of black-feathered arrows rising above his right shoulder. Wynn was thankful that a show of force was unnecessary as she scrambled into the back with Osha, and Shade loped out ahead through the open gates.

Chane was about to flick the reins.

“Bring my brother back,” the duchess said, looking right at him.

No matter the role he had played in this place as bodyguard to Wynn, perhaps she recognized another noble when she saw one and tried to appeal to his honor.

He would make no promises.

Chane snapped the reins, and both horses broke into a trot, heading out the gates and down the slope along the road. He looked ahead through the dark for Shade, as the dog would never go far from Wynn.

They were barely out of sight of the keep when Wynn made a change.

“Osha, take the reins and drive,” she said. “Chane, back here with me.”

“Why?” Chane asked.

“Just do it!”

Osha climbed over the bench, and Chane handed off the reins to join Wynn. He found her awkwardly removing the sheath from her staff while still holding the strange piece of ruddy metal. Once the sheath was off, and the staff’s long crystal was exposed, she began digging one-handed through his pack and pulling things out at random.

“What are you doing?” he rasped. “What good will your staff be against—”

“Look at this,” she said, holding out the piece of metal. “It’s part of an orb key or handle.”

Chane looked up from her hand. He was not certain what this meant, but he did not care for it.

“Aupsha’s people had a key for the orb stolen from them. They cut it into pieces so it could never be used with the orb ... but they did something else to it ... somehow.” And she looked up at him. “It’s activated now, and so long as someone holds it, this piece of key can be used to point the general way to an orb ... and not just the one the duke has. I know this because Aupsha was the one who broke into the Stonewalkers’ realm in tracking the wrong orb.”

Chane was momentarily stunned. Before he could form a question, Wynn turned back to his pack and pulled out his gloves, mask, and glasses.

“When you found the orb of Earth in Bäalâle,” she went on, “Sau’ilahk had gotten ahead of you. You found that the orb was still there, but you didn’t find a key handle. When Magiere returned from the Wastes, she had a key to match the orb she found there, yet the orb in Bäalâle had none. We couldn’t figure out why Sau’ilahk left the orb of Earth, but perhaps it wasn’t the orb he really wanted. Maybe he took the key instead ... and maybe he knew how to make it work in another way.”

Chane did not like what she was hinting at. “No ... Neither I nor Shade have sensed an undead in this place.”

“Maybe he’s kept enough distance. Maybe you couldn’t sense something through the keep’s stone ... or down below it. But who else could have taught Karl how to tamper with an orb ... or might have a key to open one?”

Chane wanted to dismiss all of this, but he could not. He had not bargained for carrying Wynn into another confrontation with the wraith. Perhaps she was wrong.

Wynn put everything else she had pulled out back into his pack until all that remained in her lap were his gloves, mask, and scarf, and the original pair of dark-lensed glasses that had been made with her sun-crystal staff.

“Get these on and pull up your hood ... and be ready,” she said.

Chane sighed, a habit left over from life. He did as she asked, for once he was completely covered, Wynn could freely ignite the sun crystal as necessary, and he could withstand its arcane light for a short while.

The possibility that she might need to use the sun-crystal staff stripped away all comfort in being prepared. Then something more occurred to him.

“If Shade senses an undead, she will ... go berserk. She might try to attack alone and drive it off before it senses you. That is what I would do in her place.”

Somewhere out in the dark Sau’ilahk could be with, trailing, or awaiting Duke Beáumie.

Wynn leaned forward. “Osha, faster!”

Chane pulled his gloves on and reached for the mask.