Dog in the Dark

Chapter Eight

Back on the deck of the Cloud Queen, Chap had watched Magiere and Leesil head into Berhtburh for the night. He didn’t begrudge Leesil a night ashore or Magiere time alone with her husband. The suggestion on her part had actually been a relief, for she’d sounded like the Magiere of earlier days.

Brot’an was there as well, watching the pair depart.

“I am going below,” he said in Elvish, a statement that dared Chap to challenge him.

Chap didn’t even growl; someone needed to remain aboard to keep watch on the old assassin. By way of answer, he headed for the aftcastle door in indifference, as if he, too, wanted nothing more than a nap in his own cabin.

Brot’an followed him to the bottom of the steep steps, and as Chap padded to the cabin he shared with Leesil and Magiere, he heard Brot’an move on toward the one he shared with Leanâlhâm.

Chap did not actually enter his cabin. Instead he remained outside the door. Rising briefly on his haunches, he pawed down the cabin door’s handle as if attempting to open it.

The door cracked open with a rattle from the handle. When Chap heard the other cabin door close, he waited for two breaths. Certainly Brot’an was listening for another door to close.

Chap rose on his haunches, gripped the door’s handle in his jaws, pushed on the frame with one paw to jerk the door shut. It closed loudly as if shoved from the inside. He waited until muffled voices rose in the other cabin, and then he slinked back to the stairs. Climbing those steep steps without a scrape of claws on wood was tedious.

The Numan sailors on deck had grown accustomed to the sight of him, enough so that none called to the captain or mate when he appeared. Only a few glanced his way as he crept to the aftcastle’s right side, away from the boarding ramp, and searched for a place to hide.

He wriggled into a small space between and behind two large water barrels until his rear end bumped the ship’s rail wall. With a clear view of the ship’s ramp, he settled to wait.

Evening fell into full darkness, but if need be, he would lie there all night. Now and then he peeked out. More sailors drifted off below deck until only two remained on watch, playing cards near the forecastle. Apparently the captain considered Berhtburh a safe port.

The full moon was large in the sky, and after a while Chap’s eyelids drooped. They snapped open again when the aftcastle doorway creaked open. He quickly narrowed them so that any stray light catching his crystal-blue irises would not betray him. Holding his breath, he peeked around one barrel.

A tall form walked quietly toward the ramp down to the pier.

Brot’an was up and about in the night.

Chap never believed for an instant that Brot’an would remain aboard only to keep watch over Leanâlhâm in their cabin. Both sailors at the forecastle looked up from their cards, but they knew the passengers and likely assumed the tall elf, like Magiere and Leesil, was headed into town.

Chap held his breath until Brot’an was down the ramp. Then he scurried across the deck and watched the shadow-gripper head up the pier. A rumble rose in his throat as he hesitated in following.

Leanâlhâm was still so wary of human strangers. What if she left her cabin during the night to find herself with no one but the sailors aboard? It seemed unlikely, and Chap trusted that Captain Bassett and the first mate could handle any problems that might arise. And he had to find out what Brot’an was doing.

As Brot’an stepped off the pier’s base, Chap slunk down the ramp. He stayed in the ship’s shadow until the anmaglâhk master turned north along the waterfront. Fortunately few people were about at night, and he had little trouble avoiding being seen. Three dockworkers were too drunk in their merriment to even notice him rush by along the warehouses. He hurried to catch up as Brot’an continued straight out of town and disappeared into the trees along the rocky shore.

Chap slowed at the fringe of the woods, listening and sniffing until he picked his quarry’s scent. Curiosity grew even before he tracked the old one to a clearing no larger than a wagon.

What could Brot’an possibly want out here?

The shadow-gripper stopped before a spruce tree, tilted in its growth by years of coastal winds. He dropped to one knee on the damp ground near its trunk and reached inside his tunic to grope for something.

Chap crept as close as he dared, until he stood poised behind trees leaning opposite ways and peered through the wedge of space between them. He tried to see what was in Brot’an’s hand, but the shadow-gripper pressed the object against the spruce’s trunk and held it only with two fingers.

Through the darkness, Chap made out part of a tawny oval shape trapped against the bark by Brot’an’s hand. It appeared to be a smoothly polished piece of wood.

Then Brot’an began to speak. “Are you there? Answer me. I do not have much time.”

Chap tensed at the query, thinking he had been spotted, but Brot’an remained on one knee with his head down; he looked at nothing. Chap glanced about, seeing no one else among the trees. To whom was the old assassin speaking?

Brot’an spoke again, and this time clear relief replaced his normally guarded tone.

“I am glad to hear you and that you are well, but much has happened—”

He stopped, as if interrupted, and then ...

“Cuirin’nên’a, let me finish! Your son is safe, and I watch over him, but Léshil and his purpose are not our only concern. We are still followed by the team Most Aged Father sent, and I do not know how far behind they are. Do not risk exposing yourself, but if you hear word through our underground—anything passed from Most Aged Father to his loyalists—learn more if you can. Tell me whatever you uncover when I contact you again.”

Chap’s eyes were locked wide and unblinking at what he heard. Brot’an had placed a small oval of wood against a tree and appeared to converse with Leesil’s mother ... a continent away. But Chap could hear only Brot’an.

How was this possible?

He remembered what Magiere had told him of the story Brot’an had shared with her, of how Brot’an had received a message, though the old assassin had been inside Gleann’s tree dwelling and no messenger had come. And now there was that small bit of polished wood.

Was it the key? Did it have something to do with this particular tree? Did the type of tree matter?

However Brot’an accomplished this feat, he could communicate over great distances. This was difficult to imagine, but Chap had seen stranger things among the an’Cróan, such as their living ships, the Päirvänean.

“There is more,” Brot’an added and then paused. “Yes, Leanâlhâm is with me, but Osha has separated from us ... by his choice. I believe he stayed in Calm Seatt with the young sage Wynn Hygeorht.”

He paused even longer, perhaps listening to a reply. When he spoke again, his tone was somewhat harsher.

“No, you are wrong! He is not an unknown variable, though we do not know his true place in what will unfold. But Osha can be trusted, even on his own. He will never give us away.”

Brot’an paused again, and his voice softened. “I am right in this. Now you must stay safe. If possible, use our inside agents to learn what you can of this team that follows me. I have eliminated half of them and know some that remain, but until the rest are delivered to our ancestors, you must try to gain any hints of what they relate to Most Aged Father. You will hear from me again when I can get away from the others.”

Brot’an’s eyes closed briefly, and he slumped as if wincing in pain or some deep sorrow.

It all left Chap wondering what Leesil’s mother had said.

“Yes, still ... always,” Brot’an whispered, perhaps confirming something, and he finished with, “In silence and in shadow.”

Chap swallowed back a growl at that litany. No matter how Brot’an dressed, no matter whom among his own caste he murdered, he was—and always would be—anmaglâhk.

Brot’an’s hand slid tiredly off the spruce. He tucked the oval of tawny wood back into his tunic before he rose.

Chap belly-crawled in against the base of a tree as Brot’an passed right by where he hid.

Returning toward the waterfront of Berhtburh, Brot’ân’duivé walked purposefully through the rocky shore’s woods. He could not stop thinking of all that he had left back home, all he had left Cuirin’nên’a and the other dissidents to face without him.

His adamant response to her questioning of Osha’s trustworthiness had surprised him. Even he did not truly know what lay ahead for the young man. Pausing, he put his hand against a tree to give himself a moment to just breathe.

Osha was not a dissident, Anmaglâhk or otherwise. He was also not one of Most Aged Father’s inner circle of loyalists. Osha appeared to fit nowhere in the scheme of things that could be clearly perceived.

Brot’ân’duivé did not like unknown factors or being left in the dark. Perhaps it was best that Osha had disobeyed and remained behind with Wynn Hygeorht. Perhaps this was somehow intended.

Brot’ân’duivé no longer regretted having been forced to take Osha from his people. Not after it was clear that Most Aged Father would turn loyalists against other anmaglâhk in pursuit of his goals. Osha would have been caught in the middle.

Closing his eyes and feeling his age bearing down on him, Brot’ân’duivé leaned harder against the tree. The weight of it was as heavy as his fatigue on that night he had stepped into the heart-root of the ancient oak where Osha was alone and “counseled” by Most Aged Father....

Brot’ân’duivé never glanced back to see whether any sentries still standing followed him. He rapidly descended the steps into the earth, but he questioned the wisdom of a recent decision.

Upon arriving in Crijheäiche a full day ago, he had considered pressing on via the Hâjh River to Ghoivne Ajhâjhe on the coast. If he had, he might have intercepted Osha before the young one reached Most Aged Father. But he had not known whether Osha would be brought by barge or on foot at a run through the forest. So he had waited, and it had not been as long as he had expected.

By the time one of Brot’ân’duivé’s dissident anmaglâhk came to him out in the trees beyond Crijheäiche, Osha was already approaching the settlement by barge. Brot’ân’duivé had not been quick enough to intercept the barge before it landed, and though exhausted, he now descended into Most Aged Father’s domain in full haste.

Osha had no idea what had happened in his absence, that the caste was divided in more ways. Even among the Anmaglâhk there had been a handful of active dissidents for many years before Brot’ân’duivé had joined them after Léshil’s birth. Now there were others—the loyalists, as he called them—who swung the other way in secret as well.

These fanatics had become more than a counterfaction to the dissidents.

The dissidents among the people—anmaglâhk and not—disapproved of Most Aged Father’s using the caste to start civil wars and seed political discord among the human nations. More than a thousand years ago, it was said—mostly by Most Aged Father—that the Ancient Enemy had used and harnessed humans and then turned them against the allied forces.

Most Aged Father believed that enemy would return—was returning.

Directing the human nations’ suspicions upon each other was no longer about turning their curious eyes away from the people’s territories. It had become something more.

Most Aged Father sought to decrease the humans’ numbers before that enemy rose again.

Brot’ân’duivé harbored no love for humans. Neither did he believe in some subtle attempt at genocide. What would happen should any powerful faction among the humans learn of the new goal of the Anmaglâhk, the loyalists?

Retribution.

Most Aged Father’s paranoia endangered his own people, but the loyalists among the Anmaglâhk followed him in this, even unto turning upon their own caste. Among the few clan elders who sympathized with the dissidents enough to be warned by them, none were yet alarmed enough to openly pull down Most Aged Father.

Yet more of the people at large were beginning to silently, secretly take sides.

Brot’ân’duivé did not know where all of this would lead. He knew only that Most Aged Father was mad and must be removed. But more than this, if the Ancient Enemy did return, it would only drive the people to fear. And they would turn to Most Aged Father for protection.

Then there would be no end, no limit, to what they would let him do.

The answer was not a matter of killing one or the other. Both the Enemy and Most Aged Father had to die ... at the right moment. And if the Enemy died by the hand or intent of a half-blood, an outsider, neither human nor an’Cróan could claim that victory in turning their remaining ire on the other.

As to Most Aged Father ...

Brot’ân’duivé emerged into the large earthen chamber of the great oak. Hearing an angry, reedy voice, he headed straight for the opening into the heart-root chamber.

“You must have learned more, my son,” Most Aged Father pleaded. “You were there when she found the artifact!”

“No, Father, I was not there when Magiere found ... what she called an ‘orb,’” Osha answered in a strained, exhausted voice. “I did not even see the place from where she took it. I was injured and lay unconscious in an ancient library, while Wynn tended—”

“But after—later—you must have seen it! What did it look like? What is its purpose?”

Brot’ân’duivé stepped into the heart-root, and Most Aged Father’s milky eyes fixed instantly upon him.

Any feigned sympathy beneath the ancient one’s fervent questioning vanished as his eyes widened slightly. Shock was then replaced by a glint of hatred.

Osha looked up in equal surprise from where he knelt upon a cushion.

“Greimasg’äh?” he breathed.

Brot’ân’duivé saw the strain on Osha’s face. Had the young one even been given rest or food after the long journey here?

“My elder son,” Most Aged Father cut in, eyeing Brot’an. “You have not been called. I am receiving a report. Leave us until we are finished.”

An order, not a request, but Brot’ân’duivé was far past pretending to follow either.

Juan’yâre suddenly appeared at the heart-root’s opening; alarm twisted his bland features.

“Father, should I have him removed?”

Brot’ân’duivé contemptuously ignored the new Covârleasa. “By all means,” he told Most Aged Father, “call a few of our brethren down and have them try to remove me.”

Most Aged Father hesitated at that taunt. The prospect of attempting to physically remove a shadow-gripper would end only in humiliation—if not death—for those who tried. Word of it would spread too quickly to be contained.

Brot’ân’duivé saw all of this reflected in the old one’s eyes.

“No, my Covârleasa,” Most Aged Father said. “Your concern is admirable but misplaced. Leave us.”

With clear reluctance, Juan’yâre backed out of sight.

Brot’ân’duivé immediately gestured for Osha to rise.

“Where is Sgäilsheilleache?” he asked.

The question’s suddenness had its intended effect, and Osha’s strained expression twisted into pain.

“Dead,” he answered weakly. “I burned his body and performed the rites.”

“Osha!” Most Aged Father cried in alarm. “You were not to speak of this yet.”

Brot’ân’duivé merely stood there as Osha’s words fell on him like a sudden chill. Sgäilsheilleache represented that which could not be replaced: an anmaglâhk, neither dissident nor loyalist, who put the people and their ways before all else. He defended both in action and in self—in all ways and at any cost.

This is what it meant—should have meant—to be Anmaglâhk. To take back the way of life of his people from any who would steal it from them.

“How?” Brot’ân’duivé asked.

“A greimasg’äh ... Hkuan’duv ... came after us,” Osha answered, and anger began leaking into his voice. “He demanded Sgäilsheilleache take the orb from Magiere and surrender it. Sgäilsheilleache refused to break his oath of guardianship. They fought and killed each other in the same instant.”

Brot’ân’duivé stood there in silence. One of their highest, a shadow-gripper, had gone after one of the caste. Of all the things he feared hearing here, this had not been among his speculations. This could have only happened because ...

He looked long and hard at Most Aged Father, but the old one met his gaze without a twitch or blink.

Sgäilsheilleache had killed a greimasg’äh in single combat, in defending one of the oldest of the people’s ways. How much more could he have become? How much had they lost in his death?

For an instant Brot’ân’duivé succumbed to a silent rage. If Hkuan’duv had survived, it would not have been for long.

“Brot’ân’duivé!” Most Aged Father snapped. “This information is not to be spread, even among our caste. Not until they have been prepared for such tragedy.” His voice turned coldly polite. “And of course your wish is always to serve the needs of your caste as well as the people.”

Brot’ân’duivé studied him. “Is Osha under arrest?”

“Arrest?” Most Aged Father echoed, feigning surprise. “Of course not. He is simply giving me his report.”

“Then let us both hear anything further. As a caste elder, who should be informed when a member returns without his team, I would be most interested.”

Brot’ân’duivé played a dangerous game and knew it. Most Aged Father had not finished his interrogation but would certainly have no desire to continue it with a witness who could not be dismissed. It was a long moment before the old one answered.

“I think we are finished here, for now.”

Brot’ân’duivé half turned, gesturing Osha toward the exit.

“How far will you take him?” Most Aged Father asked, and Osha halted in the opening, looking back.

“He is hungry and tired from his journey,” Brot’ân’duivé answered. “He is in pain from having lost his jeóin. I will take him wherever he needs to go, for without proper rest, grief might drive him to purge it, and its cause, with the wrong people.”

This veiled threat made the obvious clear. If Most Aged Father interfered further with Osha, Brot’ân’duivé would make the truth of these events known to all.

“Very well,” Most Aged Father said slowly.

Brot’ân’duivé gripped Osha’s arm and turned to usher the young one out of the heart-root.

“Osha, my son,” Most Aged Father called out, “I meant to ask about a book which Dänvârfij saw in your possession ... written in our tongue with a human scrawl. Can you tell me what it is?”

Brot’ân’duivé felt the muscles in Osha’s arm clench. The insinuation in Most Aged Father’s voice was like a stench in the chamber. Brot’ân’duivé did not look back, but he watched as Osha turned his head.

“It is ... it is nothing, Father,” the young one stuttered out. “A gift, a token given to me by a human woman.”

Most Aged Father tutted like an amused parent. “A gift? I hope you have not taken to consorting with this woman. May I see the token?”

Brot’ân’duivé felt the sinews in Osha’s arm tighten harder, but the young one’s voice turned lighter this time when he replied.

“It is personal to me, Father. May I go now?”

In that instant Brot’ân’duivé knew that since the last time he had seen this most inept of anmaglâhk, Osha had somehow learned to lie. It might have saddened those who knew his unique innocence in all things, including service.

It only sharpened Brot’ân’duivé’s curiosity about this book.

“Of course, my son,” Most Aged Father answered. “Go and rest and heal your wounds.”

Taking the lead, Brot’ân’duivé pushed Osha out and led the way toward the stairs. He did not see Juan’yâre along the way. Halfway up the steps, he whispered back to Osha.

“We are leaving Crijheäiche now. Are you able to travel?”

“As far as you can get me from here,” came the answer, and then, as they neared the top, “Greimasg’äh?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Brot’ân’duivé raised his eyes in the woods north of Berhtburh’s waterfront and wondered what had pulled him from this memory. Something, a living presence in the night.

He felt it like a shift of air not quite a breeze. Carefully maintaining his fatigued demeanor, he looked out to the ocean, and then turned all the way around, as if at a loss for where he would go next.

In that turn his eyes never focused on any one thing.

He took in everything that passed through his field of sight. He saw nothing, but he knew he was not wrong. Something was out there watching him.

He strode away toward the waterfront. No one could follow him for long if he chose not to allow it. But he did nothing to lose whatever, whoever, was there. Not until he neared the first warehouse before the piers.

Turning into the broad cutway at the warehouse’s far end, he emptied his mind completely and let shadow swallow him even as he broke into a jog. Amid the total inner silence, he heard nearly mute steps following him.

At the cutway’s rear, he turned right into the adjoining alley, rushing one block south behind the warehouses to the next side street before turning back to the waterfront. He stood there at the corner, watching along the warehouses by the light of dim lanterns.

Something darted out of the previous cutway, as if having lost track in following him. It looked both ways and finally froze, peering straight at Brot’ân’duivé.

Chap stood glaring at him; lantern’s light shimmered on the majay-hì’s fur as his hackles rose. What light sparked in Chap’s crystal-blue eyes soon caught on his near-white teeth as he snarled.

Had the majay-hì overheard anything out in the woods?

Brot’ân’duivé was too tired to care and did not have the energy for any more of Léshil’s and Chap’s insistence upon treating him like an enemy. He simply walked away, casually heading out along the pier to the Cloud Queen.

The following dawn, Chap stood waiting on deck for the first sign of Leesil and Magiere’s return. He had little to tell them, and it seemed the war to extract any truth from Brot’an was to be fought in feints and skirmishes rather than in outright battles. But there was one thing, one name spoken in the night, that Leesil would want to hear.

Cuirin’nên’a—Nein’a—his mother.

Worse, Chap instinctively knew that when Brot’an had paused in the woods to lean against the tree, he had been pondering something weighty. Try as Chap had, again he could not dip into the old shadow-gripper’s memories. It was becoming infuriating. Upon returning to the ship last night, Brot’an had simply gone to his cabin and not come out again.

Amid the people milling on the waterfront and piers, Chap spotted a head with pitch-black hair bobbing through a cluster of hawkers. He did not see sparks of red in those tresses until ...

Magiere pushed through, with Leesil behind her. She actually smiled for an instant before looking back to make sure she had not lost him. They looked happy.

Chap hesitated at ruining that. But it was not to be, as they climbed the ramp with Leesil now grimacing at boarding the ship again.

“How was your night?” Leesil asked. “All quiet?”

—No—

Chap watched tension flood Leesil’s tan features. Magiere stepped in at Leesil’s side and caught his expression. That one moment of relief, maybe happiness, that Chap had seen in her from afar instantly vanished.

“What happened?” she demanded. “Is Leanâlhâm all right?”

—Leanâlhâm—is fine— ... —Brot’an—left—the ship—last night— ... —Come—

Magiere winced at the rush of words but nodded. Chap repeated for Leesil as quickly as he could find the memory-words to match. Leesil was the first to head below.

Chap followed with Magiere, and once inside their cabin, Leesil dropped on a bunk’s edge as Magiere closed the door and then joined him.

“What happened?” she asked.

Chap hesitated. Calling up the right memory-words would be laborious. He chose to raise the words for Magiere and let her tell Leesil. That especially might be best when it came to the mention of Cuirin’nên’a.

—Brot’an—left—the ship—and—headed—into the woods—

At a soft knock on the door, Chap’s snort gave way to a growl. The door cracked open before anyone called out, and Leanâlhâm peeked in.

“You are all back,” she said, appearing relieved.

Had she thought Chap was off the ship as well? He took one look at her face, and his exasperation vanished. She had been in her cabin all night with no one but Brot’an for company.

“May I come in?” she asked shyly.

“Of course,” Magiere answered, though she frowned with a quick glance to Chap. “Next time we make port, you should come with us. You need to get off the ship whenever possible.”

At that, Leanâlhâm looked less relieved.

Chap knew it would not be wise or kind to shoo the girl out in order to relate what little he had learned. He needed only three words easily found in both Leesil’s and Magiere’s memories.

—Later—but—soon—