Between Their Worlds

Chapter 4

CHANE STOOD NEAR THE door of Wynn’s room, listening to the sound of fading footsteps as he waited for the metaologer to follow Shade out into the courtyard. He glanced back to find Wynn still watching out the window, her back to the room and half bent over, with her elbows braced on the deep stone sill.

Moonlight or torch braziers on the gatehouse glinted off the top of her soft brown hair. Anyone’s eyes but Chane’s might not have caught this. Her locks shimmered as her head tilted to one side, perhaps in trying to look down to the barracks’ outer door. And not a word had passed between them concerning her three visitors to the keep.

Did she even know he had seen them?

“Not yet,” Wynn whispered.

Confused, Chane quickly realized she was referring to Shade leading off the guardian sage. Then he heard a muted, rhythmic clanking from somewhere outside, beyond the window.

Wynn stiffened upright. She leaned into the window’s deep recess and craned her head, looking all ways through the panes.

“Is that the portcullis?” Chane asked. The clanking ceased. “What’s happening?”

She shook her head, peering toward the gatehouse. In only a moment, the heavy clanking rhythm began again.

“I think it’s closing now,” she said. “They must have opened it briefly, though I wonder why.” Her focus suddenly pivoted down and to the right. “Finally! Shade is trotting for the main doors, and Dorian is rushing to keep up. They’ll be out of sight in a moment.”

Wynn began to turn.

Chane stalled again at the thought of leaving her. Of course, he was concerned about the safety of the scroll, but once he was outside these walls, the prospect of reentry was doubtful. He was reluctant to leave before the council had finished with Wynn. How could he even check on her to know what had happened?

“What?” Wynn asked, staring at him.

Perhaps too many thoughts showed on his face, so he quickly redirected her attention. “Do you remember the inn I stayed at before? Nattie’s, in what people here call the Grayland’s Empire?”

“Yes ... though I avoid such labels for the poor districts.”

“You can find me there. Send word when ... as soon as you can.”

Chane kept his expression passive, but he could not help rejoicing inwardly at the relief on Wynn’s face. She did not want to lose contact with him, either.

“Good,” she said, nodding.

And yet she had still not said a word about ...

Chane turned, about to slip out with nothing left to say—not until she did. Then he felt her small hand grab the back of his cloak, and he half turned to look down at her, but she did not release him.

“Chane ...” she began, faltering. “How much did you see?”

There it was.

She watched him carefully. Perhaps she had seen him glance at the window.

“You mean Magiere,” he whispered—or tried to—but he could hear the malice in his own voice.

Instead of being startled, she took a quick breath, held it for an instant, and then said, “Stay away from her—away from all of them.”

Anger made the beast within Chane stir. The scar that ringed his entire neck and throat began to itch and then burn. It was the only mark he bore from any kind of wound since he had first risen from death. Magiere had done this to him with her strange falchion.

“You were there,” he hissed, “when she took my head!”

“Because you tried to kill her first,” Wynn countered.

“And whom did you protect?”

She winced, but he did not take back his words, uttered so sharply in his nearly voiceless rasp. They both knew how his voice had been forever maimed. Wynn had thrown herself in front of him, begging him to stop when he had the upper hand and was about to kill Magiere. At Wynn’s plea, he had faltered, but Magiere had not even hesitated.

Chane still did not know why he had risen again. There was only the following night, when he awoke in a shallow open grave. He was covered in bodies and blood, and Welstiel Massing looked down upon him, as if waiting for him to rise.

Wynn closed her eyes, perhaps reliving that terrible moment between him and Magiere, but her silence did not last long.

“Leave her alone, Chane.”

This was not an answer to his question. “And did you give her the same warning? To leave me alone?”

Her eyes opened, and she blinked several times without a word. He understood.

“She does not know. None of them do,” he accused. “You did not even tell them ... that I have been here, while they abandoned you.”

“And I’m keeping it that way,” she shot back, “as long as possible. I don’t want you and Magiere going at each other again—not now, not ever. And, like me, they had something critical to accomplish.”

“Such as?” he asked angrily. “What happened to the first orb? What did they do with it?”

“There’s no time. Put any thought of vengeance out of your head. Promise me you’ll stay away from her—them. Swear it, Chane! Please.”

He had no intention of going after Magiere—at present. Even if he had, he was all the more angry, even hurt, that Wynn would put this on him. He had promised her that he would never feed upon a sentient being again; he had kept that promise, by the word of it, at least.

He gazed into Wynn’s face more deeply and saw only worry and fear. When she looked into his eyes, it was clear that her worry was focused upon him. But what of the fear? Whom did she fear for the most—him or Magiere?

“I swear,” he whispered.

Wynn sagged slightly, loosening her hold on his cloak. “Then you’d better go. Keep the scroll safe.”

Chane needed no reminder. He hoisted his two packs and turned, grasping the door’s handle. Wynn grabbed the side of his cloak again.

“You’ll hear from me as soon as I can—I promise,” she said softly.

Her grip lingered an instant longer, and then finally released.

With one last wave of regret—the feeling that leaving her was wrong—Chane slipped out the door and down the passage.

Siweard Rodian, captain of the Shyldfälches—the “People’s Shield”—worked long past supper in his office within Calm Seatt’s second castle. This castle had once housed the royal family more than a century past. After construction of a newer, larger third castle nearer the sea, the nation’s military had taken over the second, leaving the first castle of Malourné to be turned over to the Guild of Sagecraft.

The city guard was officially a contingent of the military, but it served autonomously for domestic defense in conjunction with civilian constabularies. It was complicated, but the system worked, for the most part.

Rodian took his duty seriously and kept meticulous records of which complaints or possible crimes needed investigation and who’d been arrested, charged, and scheduled to stand before the High Advocate in court. And who had already been sentenced or exonerated and set free. This too was complicated; more so than he’d imagined when he took his oath of service years ago.

Not all who slipped from justice were innocent. In turn, some who might have legally broken the law did not deserve to be branded criminals. He’d never wished for such complications, but service forced them upon him. In recent times, he’d grown weary of it.

Rodian set down his quill, rubbed his eyes, and realized he’d forgotten to eat again. Rising from his desk, he began unfastening his sword.

An engraved silver panel on the blade’s sheath bore the royal crest and a panorama of Calm Seatt. His tabard, worn over a chain vestment and padded hauberk, marked him as military. But unlike the regulars, attired in sea greens and cyans, his tabard was red. Combined with that sheath, it clearly declared him as captain of the Shyldfälches.

Some thought the position a high honor. Others considered it a dead end in a military career. But Rodian knew neither was wholly true.

Appearances were important to him. He was as meticulous with his grooming as he was with his records. He kept his hair cropped short and his beard close-trimmed, sculpted across his jaw above a clean-shaven neck.

He’d commanded the Shyldfälches for nearly four years, yet he was not quite thirty years old. Rumors spread by the envious didn’t bother him. He was ambitious, and success was more important than being liked, but that didn’t mean he cared nothing for the law.

Rodian had sworn his service oath upon the Éa-bêch, the first book of law from Malourné’s earliest times some four-hundred-plus years ago. The nation’s laws continued to grow until they could fill a small library of their own, but this first volume was the heart of it all. On the day he’d placed his sword hand upon it, his father, a plain timber man on the eastern frontier, had beamed with pride.

“Honorable service and strong faith,” his father proclaimed with an unrestrained grin. “What more could a father hope for his son?”

Rodian hadn’t known how to smile back.

He now glanced at all of the stacked papers carefully arranged on his desk, but for one. A letter he’d opened lay refolded on the desk’s far corner. He was too tired to think about it and needed to start remembering to eat. Heading for the office door, sheathed sword still in hand, he’d almost escaped from that letter when someone knocked.

“Sir?” a familiar voice called from outside.

Rodian opened the door to find Corporal Lúcan in the outer passage. The corporal kept himself almost as carefully groomed as his captain. However, right behind Lúcan stood a young male sage in a midnight blue robe. Rodian had to fight back a frown.

The last time a sage had come looking for him, he’d been forced into an investigation involving the guild. He looked back at Lúcan.

The previous autumn, Rodian, Lúcan, Lieutenant Garrogh, and others of the guard had hunted an unknown black-robed mage that Wynn Hygeorht had called a wraith. After the deaths of multiple young sages and several of the Shyldfälches, Garrogh had been killed in the final conflict with that figure. Lúcan, only a guardsman at the time, had been severely injured in a strange way.

Taln Lúcan looked no older than his early twenties, if not for the color of his hair. Since that night in the street, it had turned almost fully steel gray. His beard was the same if he didn’t keep it cleanly shaved, and if one looked closely, faint crow’s-feet framed his eyes.

Rodian had had difficulty accepting Garrogh’s death, more than he’d expected, as had the men under his command. Garrogh, slovenly as he had been, was liked as well as respected. But within a moon, Rodian had been forced to select a replacement.

He’d been sorely tempted to elevate Lúcan straight to lieutenant, thus skipping him over several orders of rank. He would’ve willingly faced the uproar from those with seniority in rank or years, but regulations wouldn’t permit it, so Lieutenant Branwell became his second-in-command. After all that had happened, Rodian still felt more comfortable with Lúcan, and promoted him from guardsman to corporal.

It had been a year of deaths, letters, and reports to write. Perhaps it was no more so than any other, but this year had wounded Rodian, even unto his faith.

Lúcan glanced sidelong at the sage and frowned as he looked at his captain. He shook his head, perhaps to express that he had no idea what the sage wanted here.

Rodian fixed on the visitor. The young man was panting from a hard run—not a good sign.

“Yes?” Rodian asked, not really wanting an answer.

The sage simply held out a folded paper—yet another letter—and Rodian was slow in taking it. Once in his grip, he broke the wax seal with its imprint from the guild’s Premin Council. He snapped open the sheet and quickly scanned its content.

Rodian took a breath and let it out slowly. The official address and the reminder of his position were another bad sign.

Short and to the point, if utterly vague, the message’s dismissive and commanding tone was insulting. He was not some lackey at the high premin’s beck and call. Rodian’s gaze returned to the signature.

Did Sykion think to impress—intimidate—him with a reminder of her noble rank from her homeland of Farien?

He sighed. He entertained a good deal of respect from Malourné’s royal family. But for generations, the family had always favored the guild.

“Sir?” Lúcan asked, a hint of bitterness in his tone.

Rodian didn’t even look up, though he almost crushed the letter into a ball.

“Find Lieutenant Branwell and meet me at the stables,” he instructed. “Bring Angus and Maolís, as well. I’ll have the horses saddled.”

“Yes, sir,” Lúcan answered, not even asking where they were going or why.

As the corporal strode off down the corridor, Rodian studied the young sage dressed in a dark, dark blue robe—a metaologer. He didn’t care for the company of sages—well, most of them—but he wouldn’t send one off alone on foot at night.

“Come with me,” Rodian ordered. “You can ride with us.”

The sage stepped away. “I can see myself back, Captain.”

Typical. Rodian frowned; sages isolated themselves from “common” folk, regardless of the guild’s public works and charitable institutions. As he turned to step out and close his office door, he suddenly felt lost as his gaze lingered on the other letter, across the room on his desk.

It had come two days ago, and he still hadn’t answered it.

All the burdens here kept him from doing so. His father would have understood. In part, a father’s pride was why Rodian took his duty as seriously as his faith in the Blessed Trinity of Sentience. But his uncle had sent this letter.

How could Rodian say—write—that he couldn’t come home now? Not even to pay last respects at the grave of his adoring father.

Rodian shut his office door.

Without a glance at the sage, he led the way down the corridor and out into the open courtyard. The sage headed off for the gatehouse tunnel, and Rodian promptly strode for the stables. Upon stepping through the large stable doors, he found Branwell already saddling his huge roan stallion.

Half a head taller than his captain, with a clean-shaven head as well as jaw, Percier Branwell looked twice as wide and at least six years older. His red tabard had been specially tailored to fit his broad shoulders.

“I passed Lúcan heading for our barracks,” the lieutenant said. “He told me we were riding out. Where to?”

Rodian didn’t answer. Promoting Branwell had been the correct choice; he was a competent, experienced veteran of the regulars who could read and write. Had Rodian chosen anyone else to replace Garrogh, discontent would’ve sprouted among his men. But Rodian didn’t care for Branwell, didn’t trust him, and never had.

Percier Branwell was among those whose resentment was rather open concerning Rodian’s early rise in position, to the point of making speculations on how it had been achieved.

Turning away, Siweard Rodian headed for his white mare, Snowbird.

“To Old Procession Road, to the sages’ guild,” he finally answered, still wondering what he was about to ride into.

Chane slipped silently downstairs, peeked out the barracks door, and found the courtyard empty. Several options ran through his mind.

As Wynn had suggested, he could make his way through the keep to the new library, as its back met the bailey wall’s rear. Slipping out a window and dropping over the twenty-foot wall was not a challenge for him, and he knew the path well enough. But the chance of being spotted was high if he tried going through the keep this early at night.

He had no idea what might result if he was spotted. He was only a guest here, but with Wynn under constant suspicion, the council’s mistrust might also spread to him and anything he did. Not to mention, the very fact that she had been banished to her room, with a guard at the door, gave him pause.

Chane glanced toward the gatehouse tunnel, framed by its two small inner towers. Of three old portcullises along the tunnel’s length, only the outer one was ever used by the sages. Its controls were likely in one of the outer gatehouse towers, but he had no notion of which side. The other side would be unmanned.

He could go there, climb to the two-story tower’s top, and risk a jump down into the bailey. But if he guessed wrong about which side to enter, he might run into more sages, and his sudden appearance would cause alarm.

Another worry had nagged Chane since agreeing to flee the guild. Wynn had refused to leave with him because she feared losing her resources here. She did not know that he faced the same unfortunate prospect. There were means here that he needed, as well. Chane considered the risk of one stop before making his escape.

Across the courtyard lay the northwest building, flush with the keep’s wall. A passage had been built through the wall behind it that connected to a newer building in the bailey. This was where the guest quarters, his quarters, lay. But in the sublevels below that building was something more useful to him. The guild laboratories were in the first and second subfloors there, along with the office or study of Premin Frideswida Hawes of the Order of Metaology.

Chane stepped quickly across the courtyard and through the northwest building’s central door. But just as he pulled the door closed behind him, voices drifted up from below. Slipping into the first chamber on his left, he rounded its upward stairs to hover at the top of the ones that descended below. The pair of voices floating up the stairway grew slightly clearer.

Chane recognized only one: that of Premin Hawes.

“The need is critical now,” she said. “Besides the archives, the passageways here, and the main corridors of the keep, where else have you managed placement?”

“Placement isn’t the issue,” a frustrated female voice answered. “Can’t you explain to Premin Sykion how long it takes to create even one of these?”

“That isn’t her concern,” Hawes answered. “You will place more eyes as quickly as possible. Requisition anyone and anything you need. I will handle the cost. Do you understand?”

A long pause followed, and then, “Yes, Premin.”

“I’ll check in later. Prepare a detailed report on how many are still under construction and those that have been distributed.”

The voices fell silent. One pair of footsteps upon stone began growing fainter.

Chane tensed, ready to run should another pair of steps come toward the stairs. When he finally heard the second pair, they were brief, followed by the ringing thud of a closing metal door. He stood there, wondering....

What was meant about “eyes,” “construction,” and “distribution”? According to Wynn, the sage’s cold-lamp crystals were made here in the lower levels. What were the metaologers making now and to what purpose?

Time pressed upon him, and he had a more urgent reason for coming here.

Descending, Chane found the first sublevel’s passage empty but for the six handleless iron doors, three on each side, and a portal at the far end on the right. He stepped quickly and quietly to the last one still ajar and nudged it inward a little farther.

“Premin?”

If she was inside, there would be no mistaking his maimed voice and who had come. She would be unable to ignore him, as she might ignore someone knocking. Light footsteps sounded against stone, and the door was pulled open wider.

For an instant, Chane’s gaze caught on what lay beyond the narrow inner passage that was barely three strides long. All he could see were shelves pegged in the chamber’s left wall in line with the entryway. The rest of the room, which opened up to the right, was hidden. Those pegged shelves were filled with books; plank-bound sheaves; and narrow, upright cylinders of wood, brass, and unglazed ceramic.

Then he looked down into Premin Hawes’s piercing hazel eyes.

They had not seen each other since the previous autumn, when Chane had left with Wynn to journey south to the Lhoin’na, this continent’s elven people. With Hawes’s midnight blue cowl pulled back, her cropped ash gray hair bristled across her head. Any lines of her true age were faint in her even, small features. Below her small mouth, her jawline narrowed to the soft point of her chin. She might have caught some men’s attention if not for her stoic demeanor and severe, penetrating gaze.

“Master Andraso,” she said with no inflection.

She was the only one who called him that. Then again, Chane rarely spoke to anyone but Wynn. Hawes’s eyes watched him without wavering, and she showed no surprise at his arrival. In the brief times that Chane had interacted with her, nothing ever seemed to catch her unawares.

“Forgive the intrusion,” he apologized, and then quickly wondered why, as he had never been given to apologizing, even in his mortal life. “But ... I am leaving for a while ... tonight. I wished to speak with you first.”

A flicker of something, though it was not surprise, flashed across Hawes’s face. It vanished with a brief twitch of her left eye.

“Leaving? Why?”

This question was unexpected, and Chane had no intention of telling her more.

“I am taking city lodgings, rather than burden the guild further as a guest.” Before she pressed him, he went on. “I wanted to know if you have continued with one of the ... the projects we discussed.”

“The healing concoction?” she returned bluntly.

Neither subtlety nor manners would help Chane here, and he simply nodded.

Hawes shook her head slightly. “It would be pointless, as I don’t have the components.” She cocked her head slightly. “You’d best come in.”

Chane was uncertain how much he should tell—show—the premin of metaology.

She turned down the short entryway, and he stepped inside and closed the door. When he followed her, in three strides, her study filled his view. He had been here several times, always wishing for a stolen moment to explore it.

Stout, narrow tables and squat casements were stuffed with more texts, as well as odd little contraptions of metal, crystal, glass, wood, and leather. A rickety old armchair of worn blue fabric was stuffed into the back right corner beyond the messy, dark, and aged desk that contained a dozen or more little drawers. Atop the desk’s corner sat a dimming cold lamp next to an array of brass articulated arms that each held a framed magnifying lens.

“How much have you gained in this pursuit?” Hawes asked.

Again Chane wavered, but he would learn nothing if he kept his progress from her. She was the only one capable of helping him, though he had no idea why she did so.

Unshouldering one of his packs, he pulled out a book with which they were both familiar: The Seven Leaves of Life. It was only two leather-covered flats with one long sheet of old paper between, folded back and forth into seven panels. To this he added two small, cloth-wrapped bundles.

Hawes looked at the latter as he laid them on her desk and unwrapped the first. Its contents riveted her attention, but for only an instant. The strange gray mushrooms had gray caps that spread in branched protrusions, each branch splayed and flattened at the end in a shape a little like a leaf.

“Muhkgean,” Hawes said, clearly needing no confirmation from Chane. “These dwarven mushrooms will do no good unless you’ve managed to ...”

Her gaze shifted to the other small bundle.

Chane pulled open its cloth.

Tiny pearl-colored petals—or leaves, judging by their shape—shimmered like silvery white velvet in the cold lamp’s light, though they were as delicate as silk. The remaining stems and leaves beneath them, though wilted, were a dark green, nearly black even in the light.

“Anamgiah ... the Life Shield,” Hawes whispered, and then looked up at him. “Where did you get these?”

“In the open plain on the way into the Lhoin’na’s forest and their capital. I did not steal them. They grow wild there.”

Why did he feel the need to defend himself? It was none of her concern where he had gotten them.

“Can you assist me now?” he asked. “Give me further instructions to make the concoction in the text?”

This time, he wanted something conclusive, something he could put into practice. His own body was nearly indestructible; Wynn’s was not. He needed anything that might keep her whole and sound, no matter the cost.

Hawes glanced at the book in his hand, and her brow creased. “I don’t ... Healing is not one of my fields. Premin Adlam would be more able—”

“No.”

Besides Wynn, he trusted no one here with this exploit other than Hawes, and he barely trusted her. He had not even told Wynn of what he was doing.

“I was not suggesting that you go to him for assistance,” Hawes said, and a bit of annoyance slipped into her tone. “But he knows more of these matters than I.”

She looked down at the two open bundles for a long moment, and then held out her narrow hand without even looking at him.

“Leave the book and the components with me,” she instructed. “I will look into testing the process.”

“No.”

Hawes’s head barely turned, but her nearer thin eyebrow arched, and her gaze could have struck like a winter cold snap.

“If you thought to manage this yourself,” she said evenly, “you would not have come to me. I will keep your secret and provide you with the result of my efforts. In exchange, I will take a portion of these components, not more than a fifth, for my own interests.”

Chane’s throat tightened. He feared—no, more than feared—leaving one of his precious books, as well as these rare ingredients. There was no telling how soon he could reenter this place, but she was correct in one thing: if he did have any notion of how to attempt what was written in this text, he would not be standing here.

And strangely, Hawes’s attempt to bargain made him less reluctant. She would gain something from this, as well.

“Agreed,” he rasped, and laid the book in her hand, which had not lowered or moved since she had extended it.

“Where will you be staying?” she asked.

He would not go that far, and shook his head. “I will contact you in a few days.”

A long pause followed, and then she nodded.

Chane wanted to thank her but did not know how. So he simply turned and left the study, closing the door behind him. Taking the stairs two at a time, he made his way out and stepped into the courtyard. His thoughts once again turned over which route he should use to get out of the guild. He had taken only six steps into the courtyard before he stopped cold.

Four sages stood before him, two wearing brown robes and the other pair in the midnight blue of metaologers. They were not gathered as a group but spread in an arc, all facing him. One brown-robed sage was a small, pretty woman. Chane had never spoken to her, but through Wynn he knew who she was. Ginjeriè was the youngest sage ever in the Order of Naturology to be appointed as a domin.

“Please stay where you are,” she told him, and the two metaologers stepped forward.

They were waiting for him. How had they known he was coming? Had someone seen him go inside?

“Is there a problem?” Hawes’s voice sounded behind him.

Chane glanced back and found her standing outside the door he had just exited.

“No, Premin,” Ginjeriè said, bowing her head slightly. “Premin Sykion wishes to speak with this man. We were sent to bring him.”

Chane wanted to wince. The Premin Council knew he had returned, and he was being called before them, likely to give his own account of the long journey south with Wynn. Both he and Wynn had expected them to corner her first, though not quite in the way it had been done. The situation had suddenly changed again. Perhaps in questioning him first, they thought to gain something to trip her up.

Chane glanced back at the other four sages.

Could he refuse to go? Unless he had broken a law, the council had no legal hold over him. But he guessed that the council had not been adhering to the law of late, and the fact that two of the four sages were metaologers struck him as suspicious.

He would avoid hurting a sage for almost any reason; he had self-sworn this upon returning tonight and while waiting for Wynn. Flawed as the guild might be, those who lived, worked, and studied here were still far above the common cattle of mortals.

Yet he still carried the scroll.

That meant everything to what Wynn saw for the future. He could not allow himself to be hauled before the Premin Council, or, worse, to be locked inside a room by Hawes’s potent thaumaturgy. He knew firsthand what she was capable of.

Chane tensed as the two metaologers took another step, and he heard Hawes approaching from behind.

Wynn waited in her room for Dorian to return with Shade, but sitting still grew too much for her. She began taking stock of her belongings, wondering what to hide should the council decide to confiscate anything. Not that she had many places to hide something in this little room.

She’d already passed the content of all her old journals to Shade via memory-speak and then burned them. Memory-speak was as easy as talking for Shade, and she never forgot anything once it was soundly lodged in her understanding. She was the perfect vessel for secrets that no one could open, even if someone ever figured out that she held them.

Wynn’s one remaining journal contained only convoluted encryptions of a few key notes to help her as needed. Even sages fluent in the Begaine syllabary would need a long time to decipher it. But there were other items here that Wynn feared losing.

In the far corner beyond the door, a long staff leaned against the wall. Its upper end was covered in a leather sheath a half foot long and bound in place by a cinched cord, making it easy to pull free in an instant. Beneath the covering was a crystal like no other, for unlike those used in cold lamps, this one produced a light like the sun.

The sun crystal was all Wynn had besides her knowledge and wits in facing the undead. But, really, where could she possibly hide a staff in this little, sparsely furnished room? Even if she did, any search would uncover it quickly enough.

“Please stay where you are.”

Wynn froze as she heard those words in the courtyard outside. Surely it had nothing to do with Chane. Plenty of time had passed—enough that he could’ve twice over reached the library’s window and the keep’s back wall. She rushed to her window and peered out, and her breath caught at the sight below.

Down in the courtyard, Chane faced four sages, with Premin Hawes coming up behind him. One of the sages was Domin Ginjeriè, a gentle young woman who most often tended to the initiates. Ginjeriè said something but spoke too softly for the words to reach Wynn. What was Chane doing still inside the courtyard? And why had Ginjeriè intercepted him ... with others present?

The two metaologers took another slow step, not toward Chane but to either side of him. Wynn’s small fingers pressed against the sill’s stone as she realized they were going to try to take Chane. And if he fought back ...

Premin Hawes waved one hand in a sweep, and both metaologers halted. Ginjeriè took a half step, but Hawes cocked her head slightly, uttering something that made Chane spin around toward her. Ginjeriè appeared to hesitate and then bowed her head. Wynn couldn’t hear anything that was said, but the young domin of Naturology turned away with the other sage dressed in brown. Both headed toward the keep’s main doors.

Reduction in the numbers around Chane didn’t relieve Wynn—quite the opposite. Premin Hawes had dismissed everyone but the metaologers. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t good. Was Hawes up to something she didn’t want anyone but her own order to know about? Or did she simply wish to ...

Wynn whirled around, looking about her room for any options. Metaologers were certainly not defenseless, though they rarely displayed abilities in plain sight. Chane was facing only three, but Hawes was worth a dozen of them. The last time Wynn had been called before the council, Hawes had driven and shut out Chane with barely two gestures.

Chane could be in serious danger.

About to run for her door and try to get to the courtyard, Wynn glanced out the window again. Movement near the keep’s main doors caught her eye.

Shade came trotting out as a frustrated Dorian held the door, and then he rushed after her. Both of them halted when they spotted the others in the courtyard. Wynn hesitated, as well, in watching.

Leesil crouched in an alley’s mouth across the road that looped around the guild’s grounds. Magiere and Chap were close behind him. From his vantage point, he studied the keep’s front in wondering how they were going to help Wynn—if Wynn was in any real danger.

His stomach growled and he tried to ignore it. Chap was probably hungrier than he, as none of them had eaten since breakfast. In their haste to reach the city and Wynn, they’d pressed hard, expecting to find food, beds, and even a bath waiting for them. None of that had been forthcoming.

At present, they had no lodgings at all. In addition to the travel chest, they were still carrying their packs, and Leesil didn’t care to be so weighed down amid a possible crisis. He twisted about in his crouch, but Magiere now stood above him, her gaze wandering over the keep in the dark.

“Magiere ...” he began, lost as to how to best suggest the obvious. “Maybe we should—”

The sound of multiple hooves on cobble cut him off, and Chap quickly shoved in beside him as they both peered up the road.

Five riders appeared from out of the mainway that led directly into the city, and they were heading toward the bailey gate. All wore red tabards and swords. The leader rode a white horse. Likely they were armored, though Leesil couldn’t be certain from a distance.

“Constabulary?” Magiere whispered, echoing his own silent question.

Leesil didn’t think so, not by their uniforms and mounts. Those were too military for civilian constables.

“Something else,” he answered.

Perhaps they were a special unit attached to the city or the rulers here. But again, why had they shown up at the sages’ castle in the middle of the night? This place was filling up with too many things they didn’t understand, and it was no place to go snooping about until they did.

Leesil glanced back along the cutway. He gestured to the main road, away from the bailey gate toward where the castle road’s southern corner met a side street. A faded sign in dim lamp light read LEAFUL STREET. At least he’d learned enough Numanese to read it.

When he slipped out, heading toward it along the near side of the looping road, Magiere and Chap followed without a word. When they reached the meeting of that side street, Chap slipped ahead, but Magiere grabbed Leesil’s arm and jerked him around.

“Wait. Where are we going?” she whispered. “I thought you were just moving us farther back.”

He didn’t pull away but kept his voice firm. “To find an inn. We need food, a place to store our gear, and time to figure this out.”

“We’re not done here. We should at least check all sides and get the lay of it.”

“That wasn’t just some local constabulary,” he argued, and he looked back at Chap, who waited for them. “Did you pick up any memories, especially from the leader on the white horse?”

Chap studied them both, and finally huffed once. Leesil’s mind instantly flashed to numerous memories. Chap could show Leesil only his own memories, so at first he wasn’t certain of their meaning as an answer to his question.

First came an image of a tall young man in Voldran armor. He rushed out of a city gate with his men to defend peasants fleeing for the city across the border in the Warlands, Leesil’s birthplace. The second memory, farther back in time, was more to the point.

Over a chain vestment, a tall, beefy, bulky man wore a white surcoat emblazoned with two sea hawks, the royal crest of Belaski, far across the world. Upon the table sat his helmet, which had three ridges, the center one rising from a nose guard and decorated with a plume of feathers. With a blunt nose and a mass of dark brown curls that hung from his head, he had eyed Magiere a little too affably for Leesil’s taste.

It was Captain Chetnik of the city guard in Bela.

Leesil scoffed and turned to Magiere. “Chap thinks they’re military, a contingent for the city’s safety and law enforcement ... like Chetnik, back in Bela.”

Another memory rose in Leesil’s head. He saw Wynn ... and then the rider on the white horse. Leesil looked back to Chap.

“That one knows Wynn?” he asked in surprise. “The one on the white horse was remembering her?”

Chap huffed once again for “yes.”

Magiere released Leesil and stared up the road toward the bailey gate. That was enough for Leesil, and he reached for her arm. She jerked it away at the first touch of his fingers.

“Did his memories seem threatening ... angry?” she asked without turning.

Again, Chap hesitated, but he huffed twice for “no.”

Although relieved, Leesil wondered about Chap’s pause. Was Chap just saying this to keep Magiere in check? Leesil waited, but Chap raised no more memories for him. Then the loud, creaking sound of the rising portcullis carried down the street, suggesting the contingent was being allowed inside.

“This is more than we can deal with,” Leesil said, and stepped in close at Magiere’s side. “We won’t figure it out by skulking here in the dark.” He carefully gripped her hand. “We need to find lodgings, stow our gear, eat something ... and talk in private.”

Magiere still gazed up the road toward the gatehouse, but then dropped her head with an exhalation. She didn’t argue again.

Leesil looked to Chap for support. “Agreed?

Chap immediately huffed once and wheeled to head off down Leaful Street.

When Leesil pulled on Magiere’s hand, she resisted slightly before giving in.

Chane stood flanked by two metaologers as Premin Hawes stepped wide around him.

She gestured once at her subordinates with a flip of her hand. Both halted their creeping, watchful approach and sidestepped toward each other. All three stood directly in front of Chane, but this made him more wary, not less, than when they had tried to flank him. It was more disturbing than when Hawes had dismissed those two naturologists, leaving him alone with only metaologers. And Hawes now stood in his way.

“Premin,” he rasped carefully. “I have no wish to speak with the council. I am only a guest here, and as I told you, I am off to seek lodgings elsewhere.”

Her hazel eyes did not blink. “If the council wishes to speak with you, it would be best for you to come with us.”

Chane caught the underlying threat in her words. She had dealt with him once before and with little effort on her part. That she stood just barely beyond a weapon’s reach, so poised and calm, truly unnerved him.

He gauged the distance of the sage off to her left. If this came down to violence, he would have to put all three of them down very fast. Of the three, he would have to disable Hawes first. The other two might be dangerous enough, but not like her. And his own skills in conjury, mostly by ritual, were paltry and slow compared to what he had seen of her thaumaturgy by spellcraft.

A movement off to the left caught Chane’s eye.

Shade trotted out of the keep’s main doors and stopped at the sight of him. The guardian sage behind her did the same. That was all Chane needed—another unknown metaologer. Shade’s head shifted suddenly, and she stared in turn at the two sages flanking Hawes. Her jowls pulled back once in a quick, silent snarl.

Chane did not know what worried him more: that Shade might assault a sage or that she had a reason to do so beyond what he could speculate. Had she seen something surface from the sages’ memories? He must be in greater danger than he realized.

Shade’s hackles began to rise as she turned her full attention on Premin Hawes, but the other sage behind the dog crept closer and raised a hand in the air.

“Premin!” that one called out in warning.

Chane’s hand dropped to his sword hilt.

“Open up!” someone else shouted.

The sharp command echoed out of the gatehouse tunnel and was followed by the clanking of the chains and gears for the outer portcullis. Both Chane and Hawes quickly glanced down the tunnel.

This was Chane’s only chance. He tried to think of a way to signal Shade, to tell her what he would do, and hopefully she would do nothing to make things worse.

Without warning, Shade shot forward, leaving her escort behind as she rushed the sage on Hawes’s right.

Chane bolted for the gatehouse tunnel, pulling his dwarven longsword. He focused all his effort on speed as he breached the tunnel’s mouth, his eyes on the rising portcullis.

“Captain!” Hawes shouted from behind him. “Watch out!”

In the instant it took for those words to sink in, Chane saw something between the portcullis’s upright beams. He caught a glimpse of men in red tabards on horseback, and the lead horse was pure white.

There were mounted Shyldfälches, city guards, on the other side of the rising portcullis.

Wynn gasped, her feet seemingly stuck, as Shade charged a metaologer and Dorian lunged after the dog. Premin Hawes turned toward the disturbance, and then Chane broke away, racing into the gatehouse tunnel. Wynn heard the premin’s sharp shout of warning.

Captain Rodian had come, and Wynn came to her senses. She ran out her door, down the passage to its end stairs, pushing herself to reach the courtyard before anyone went after Chane.

Chane was almost to the portcullis when he spotted the boots of three guards hitting the ground as they slid off their horses. There was no choice but to fight, and there were too many in his way to be careful about it.

Shade suddenly bolted past him, barking and snarling.

Chane almost stalled as she charged under the rising portcullis, snapping savagely at the white horse’s legs as she passed. There was no time for him to consider how she had gotten away from those sages or why she had not stayed behind for Wynn.

He ducked his head, lunged under the rising portcullis beams, and found himself face-to-face with the white horse. It was stomping and sidestepping after Shade’s passing, and atop the mare sat Captain Rodian.

“You!” Rodian shouted at the sight of Chane.

Shade’s snarls and the shouting of the other guards seemed to come from all around. Behind Rodian was a bald city guard, still mounted. All that Chane could think of was to put the captain off before the others overwhelmed Shade.

Chane lashed out and punched the captain’s horse in the face.

Wynn flew out the barracks door into the courtyard, and the eyes of all four metaologers turned to her. She made a dash for the gatehouse tunnel, but barely halfway there, something jerked hard on the back of her downed cowl. The cowl’s base cinched against her throat, choking her as she flailed to a stop.

Even as she gagged, struggling to pull free, the grip on her cowl was released as someone tried to grab her more solidly from behind. Light-headed and panicked, Wynn reacted without thinking.

She stomped back, trying to hit her assailant’s foot, and missed. Her sudden rearward shift backed her up against someone tall. She twisted hard as the grip latched onto her cowl again.

Wynn wildly lashed back and upward with her little fist. It collided with someone’s face, and her hand went numb in a shock of pain.

“Enough!”

At Premin Hawes’s command, the air blew upward around Wynn like a storm.

A harsh crack sounded as the horse whipped its head aside from Chane’s fist. The animal reared, and all the captain could do was clench his reins.

Chane ducked around the horse and saw Shade throw herself at one dismounted guard with a young face and steel gray hair. When the man raised his sword, Chane veered toward him, but Shade instantly changed course.

She clipped the guard’s knee with her shoulder. The man staggered, about to topple, as she bolted for the open bailey gate. Without bothering to make sure the man went down, Chane followed.

Another guard charged into his path. Before the man’s blade cleared its sheath, Chane brought his sword down, aiming with the flat of his blade.

It struck the man’s head and glanced off to hammer into the hollow of his collarbone. The guard tilted under the force and dropped to his knees.

“Angus!” another guard shouted in alarm, running to help.

Chane barreled into him. Something sharp sliced across his upper arm as he threw the man off. Hunger rose to eat the pain, and Chane ran out the bailey gate. But he was at a loss when he spotted Shade.

The dog was halfway up the road to the north at a full run. All Chane could do was chase after Shade along the bailey wall.

Wynn’s robe thrashed about her, pulled and whipped by an impossible, sudden wind. That and her wild swing knocked her off balance. She went tumbling onto the courtyard’s cobblestones. Immediately scrambling to all fours, she looked for Chane in the gatehouse tunnel but then stopped, frozen by another sight.

Beyond Dorian, who crouched holding his nose, Premin Hawes was coming closer.

The open fury on the premin’s face would’ve been daunting enough. But though her midnight blue robe thrashed, the whirling wind didn’t topple her. Wynn heard the barracks’ windowpanes rattling in the storm.

Hawes stepped purposefully forward, as if she were the eye of a small hurricane. Even the other two metaologers in the courtyard backed toward the keep’s main doors, their wide eyes locked upon the premin as they tried to shield their faces from the wind.

Wynn did so, as well, too afraid to even scoot away as Hawes neared. She had never seen any strong emotion displayed by the premin of metaology. Those fierce hazel eyes, and even her short, bristling hair waving in the storm, were enough to freeze Wynn in place.

Hawes slowed to a halt, not quite between Wynn and Dorian. The wind died so suddenly, it made Wynn shudder.

“We do not act like common thugs,” the premin said quietly, though a shout would have been less frightening. “We do not turn against our own ... like this.” Then her voice cracked like thunder, “Get up, both of you!”

Dorian obeyed instantly, as did Wynn, but she peered down the tunnel.

There was no sign of Chane or Shade. Instead, there was a somewhat chaotic group of five Shyldfälches, several trying to pick themselves up. Captain Rodian was on his feet, attempting to calm his horse as he shouted orders.

“Lúcan! Branwell! I want him alive!”

Wynn had never seen Rodian so openly angry. He normally kept his emotions in check, almost as well as Hawes. Wynn knew she was in deep now.

Premin Hawes grasped Wynn’s arm and strode toward the tunnel’s mouth. To Wynn’s frustration, the premin’s grip was like an iron shackle.

“Captain!” Hawes shouted. “Call off your guards. That man is not your concern here.”

Rodian turned from Snowbird and stared up the tunnel.

Chane nearly flew down Old Bailey Road toward the west tower, not slowing until he rounded the bailey wall’s curve below the tower and cleared another block deeper into the city. He had not chosen this path, following as Shade led the way. At the block’s far end, beyond the buildings outside the remnants of the keep’s old outer bailey wall, Shade wheeled to a stop.

Chane caught up and looked back for pursuers. He stared down the empty street, waiting for city guards to round the corner of Old Bailey Road. But they never came. Glancing down, he saw Shade peering the same way, and he slipped his sword into its sheath.

What was she doing here, and why had she run out of the gate? With Shade outside the guild, Wynn was completely alone.

“Go back,” he ordered. “Find a way inside and stay with Wynn.”

She huffed twice for “no.”

“Shade!”

She turned on him with a growl and drew back her jowls in warning. To date, Shade had been fiercely protective of Wynn. She barely tolerated him except for the few occasions they had been forced to work for the same purpose.

“We cannot leave her alone in there,” he said more calmly.

Shade ceased snarling and just looked at him with her crystalline blue eyes. She finally huffed once for “yes.”

Chane did not understand. Was that “Yes, we have to leave Wynn alone”?

In frustration, he fingered the brass ring on his left hand. That small bit of metal, which he called his ring of nothing, protected him from anyone or anything detecting his presence or anything about him except by normal senses. This included masking his nature as an undead. Unfortunately, it also dulled his senses, and hid any memory from a majay-hì like Shade. He could not even call up memories to help him communicate with her while he wore it.

Even when he took it off, their communication was limited to Shade, in turn, calling up only memories she had seen within him. And because of the ring, Shade had glimpsed very few of those. It was not the same as Wynn’s singular ability to communicate with Shade through memory-speak. The dog could share her own memories, or even the memories of others that she had glimpsed, with Wynn.

More unfortunate, with the ring off, Shade fully sensed Chane for what he was. The majay-hì were natural enemies of the undead, and somewhere in this city was another like Shade.

Along with Magiere and Leesil, Chane had to worry about Chap. He was reluctant to expose himself even for a short while. By Wynn’s accounts, Chap was more potent and aware than any other majay-hì in existence. But he saw no other option.

Chane held up his hand so Shade could see what he was about to do. He always warned her before removing the ring of nothing. Her lips curled up in distaste, but she stood waiting as he slipped it off.

The world shimmered in Chane’s eyes and his senses sharpened in the night. He could hear an insect crawling up the shop wall nearest to him. He could smell the life pulsing within the city, and it was a relief, like being unchained.

The beast stirred inside him, roused by the scents of life in Chane’s nose.

Shade snarled softly as she looked him in the eyes, and he suddenly saw a flash of memory.

He was standing on the docks the night they had returned from their southern journey back to Calm Seatt. Before he had gone off to escort Ore-Locks in taking the orb into hiding, he had handed Wynn the scroll.

Chane heard his own voice from that night as he clearly told Wynn, “For safekeeping.”

The memory faded.

He found himself further back in time, when he had crouched with Wynn in front of a city stable. She unrolled the scroll and looked at its blacked-out inner surface for the first time. This moment was from when he had first arrived in the city from halfway across the world in his search for her.

Chane had seen enough, and slipped his ring back on as he looked down at Shade in the dark. She was not protecting him, and she had not abandoned Wynn so easily. Sometimes, Shade understood Wynn far better than Chane gave her credit for.

Shade was protecting the scroll.

“All right,” Chane said, knowing he would never change her mind. “Come.”

Once again, he was acutely reminded that Shade was more than just an exceptionally intelligent beast. She had her own agenda, at least where Wynn was concerned. So long as they shared that, a truce between one majay-hì and an undead would continue.