Dog in the Dark

PROLOGUE

An overly tall, slender woman walked out the southern gates of the city of Calm Seatt. She made her way in a slow, measured pace toward the roadside trees that led out among the open fields and farms. The hood of her forest gray cloak was up and forward, but a sleepless night had left strands of her white-blond hair dangling to waft in the breeze. She pushed those strands back inside her hood, exposing one slightly pointed ear.

Any who might have peered into that hood would have paused at the sight of slanted oversized eyes with large amber irises in a darkly tanned face too narrow to be human. They would have thought her one of the Lhoin’na, the elves of this continent, but her home was half a world away in a place that humans there called the Elven Territories.

Dänvârfij—Fated Music—had forgone the usual forest gray face wrap always worn by her caste. No one here would know her as one of the an’Cróan, an elven people of another continent. She shared leadership of a team of the Anmaglâhk, guardians of her people, though others would call them spies and assassins. They had traveled across the world for nearly a year in relentless pursuit of a purpose given by their caste’s own patriarch, Aoishenis-Ahâre—Most Aged Father.

And tonight Dänvârfij had utterly failed at that purpose.

She could not blame her team—only herself—as she knelt before the branch-bare base of a maple tree. Her hand trembled as she reached under her tunic’s front and withdrew an oval of smooth tawny wood no bigger than her palm. It was the last and only word-wood left to her team, grown by elven Shapers from Most Aged Father’s own tree home half a world away.

Dänvârfij reached out and pressed the word-wood against the maple’s trunk as she whispered.

“Father?”

This was what all devoted anmaglâhk called him.

I am here, Daughter.

Most Aged Father’s voice filled Dänvârfij’s thoughts with an instant of welcomed calm. Even this quickly dissipated under the shame of what she had to tell him.

“Our quarry has escaped,” she said. “I have failed.”

For so long, no replying voice filled her thoughts. Each time she thought to ask whether he was still there for her, she faltered.

Escaped how?

“By ship,” she answered quickly. “They managed to elude us. A human questioned at the port revealed they are bound for a place called the Isle of Wrêdelyd.”

Again long silence raked her nerves raw, stirring more shame.

How many remain of your team?

“We are now six, but Rhysís is injured.”

Can he travel?

“Soon.”

Do not delay. Leave him behind if necessary.

She almost counseled against this but remained silent.

Your purpose is unchanged. Find a ship and follow your quarry. Retrieve the artifact or its known location from the monster ... Magiere. Torture her, and Léshil, for anything regarding the artifact’s purpose. Then kill them and all who are with them. No one else, especially the traitor, must ever learn of this device, whatever it might be.

“Yes, Father.”

And regardless of anything else, the traitor must die.

Dänvârfij faltered. The thought of again facing one of the few remaining greimasg’äh—a “shadow-gripper” as one of the most skilled among her caste—was something neither she nor those with her wanted anymore. Half of those who had first set out with her had died by this greimasg’äh’s hand in the past year.

Brot’ân’duivé must die. Do you understand?

It was too long before Dänvârfij mustered the calm to answer. “Yes, Father.”