First and Last Sorcerer

Chapter One

Ghassan il’Sänke slipped through the night backstreets of the empire’s capital. Once a sage in the Suman branch of the Guild of Sagecraft, he made his way silently toward the inland side of the guild’s local grounds. As on previous surreptitious visits over the last moon, he was uncertain what to do when he arrived.

He no longer wore the midnight blue robe of a domin of Metaology, for that certainly would catch anyone’s attention—too risky considering he was now an outcast and sought by both the city and the imperial guards. In disguise, he now looked nothing like the sage of rank that he had once been.

Beneath the hood of a faded open-front robe, his short chocolate-colored hair with flecks of silver was in disarray. Strands dangled to his thick brows above eyes separated by a straight but overly prominent nose. His borrowed clothing of a dusky linen shirt and drab pantaloons was no different from that of a common street vendor.

He turned into the small open market that he passed through on all such visits and headed into a cutway between two shops for a less visible approach to the guild’s complex. In part, he wondered whether such caution was needed. Few people about this late would ever glance his way.

Most of the stalls were closed with their tarp flats pulled down, and all nearby shop awnings had been lowered and shut tight. But he had learned in hard ways to be more cautious than ever before. When he slipped along the cutway, across the back alley, and then neared the next street, a new smell filled his nostrils.

Something rank cut through the alley’s stench.

At the slow click-clop-scrape coming closer, Ghassan peeked out from the cutway’s black shadows. Up the northward stretch of the next street, an old man with a cane of scrap wood shuffled nearer along the sandstone cobble. Wrapped in rags too filthy to show any hint of color in the dark, he dragged his lame foot more than the good one. Of the many unfortunate moments that must have made up this beggar’s life, he slowed in turning his gaunt face toward the cutway’s mouth.

Ghassan’s training was quicker than his caution. With barely a blink, the dark behind his eyelids filled with lines of spreading light. In an instant, a doubled square formed in sigils, symbols, and signs burned brightly. Then came a triangle within that square and another inverted within that, both at the center of the pattern. As his blink finished, he completed his incantation with a flash of thought quicker than spoken words.

The glowing pattern overlaid Ghassan’s sight of the beggar’s face.

The old man blinked as well. He looked about as if having seen something and then second-guessing upon seeing it no more. With a tired sag of his shoulders, he moved on in his click-clop-scrape.

Ghassan waited until the beggar was halfway to the next cross street before silently stepping out. He could have made the old man see someone else in his place, but to wipe his presence from the awareness of one target was much simpler.

Such were the subtleties of sorcery, especially for a master of the third and most reviled practice of magic.

Well past dusk, Chane Andraso stood on deck as a ship maneuvered into dock at the Samau’a Gaulb, the main port city of il’Dha’ab Najuum, one country in the Suman Empire. Arrival after sunset was nothing more than good fortune. Had they docked earlier—considering he was a noble dead, specifically a vampire—he would have had to wait until nightfall to disembark. Now he gazed out over the vast, seemingly endless port with mixed emotions.

He and his companions had sailed south along the coast for nearly a moon. Partly relieved to reach their destination, he struggled to suppress anxiety over what they might face here.

“It’s just as I’d imagined,” said a breathy voice beside him.

Chane glanced down as Wynn Hygeorht stepped to the railing. She was so short she could have stood beneath his chin. Though in her early twenties, she looked younger, or at least she did to him. For a moment, his gaze locked on her pretty, oval face of olive-toned skin surrounded by wispy light brown hair.

With heat lingering from the day, she had packed away her cloak and wore what she often called her “travel robe.” This marked her as a scholar—a “sage”—from the Guild of Sagecraft, specifically its founding branch in her homeland of Malourné, far to the north. Back there, all sages dressed in full-length robes, but this shorter one stopped at her knees. Beneath it she wore pants, tunic, and boots to move more easily. Still, the robe was the wrong color for her.

Not long before, Wynn had worn gray for the order of Cathology, until she had been forced to change orders for a number of reasons. She now wore the midnight blue of the order of Metaology.

Chane was still unaccustomed to this; he would always see her as a cathologer ... a preserver of knowledge itself.

Wynn looked away from the port and up at him. Her gaze ran over his pale face and red-brown hair. A puzzled frown then clouded her expression. Not wishing her to think he was studying her, he turned his attention back to the port that awaited them.

“Isn’t it what you expected?” she asked.

In truth, he had not given this much thought or expected anything in particular. Now, upon their arrival, the place looked too ... foreign.

His night vision was far better than that of the living. By the clear sky and three-quarter moon, he could see that most of the buildings nearest to the piers were only one story high. Many of the structures beyond peaked high above the waterfront buildings. Some had to be huge, by a guess, especially those set farther and farther into the immense capital of the Suman Empire. Every structure within sight was mostly golden-tan sandstone except for heat-grayed timbers and planks or the occasional dyed wall or pinnacled dome with colors faded by the desert sun.

“Do you know where to find the guild’s Suman branch?” he asked in his nearly voiceless rasp. He had once been beheaded by one of Wynn’s past companions and then brought back to his undead existence for a second time by someone else. His voice had never healed.

“I’ve a rough idea,” Wynn answered as she turned the other way and looked to their two companions down the railing. “Shade ... Osha ... the ramp will be down soon. Time to gather our belongings.”

Shade, a long-legged black dog resembling an overly tall wolf, stood only a few strides away. With her forepaws up on the railing, she too looked out into the city. Then, dropping to all fours, she padded to Wynn’s side.

Chane studied Shade’s every movement in concern.

Before this voyage, the dog had been badly injured and nearly killed. Though she appeared fully healed, he still did not want her exerting herself unnecessarily. It was a strange thing for him to care so much for anyone or anything besides Wynn.

Shade, a majay-hì, was a natural enemy of the undead. Yet in recent times she had fought at his side—both with and for him—and not only for Wynn’s sake. He could not help his concern for her in turn.

All such thoughts faded as Chane glanced toward the aftcastle door.

The fourth member of their group had turned to readying the last of their belongings. An exceptionally tall elf with long white-blond hair hefted several packs.

From what Chane understood, the word in the an’Cróan elven people’s language for the man’s name—Osha—meant “a sudden breeze.” To Chane, Osha was a sudden and unwanted interloper who had forced his company upon Wynn. Unfortunately, Wynn did not see things this way, which was all the more irritating to Chane.

In grudging fairness, Chane had to admit that Osha was astonishingly skilled with the long, curved bow strung over his right shoulder. His shots struck with more accuracy than should have been possible. Over his left shoulder was a quiver of black-feathered arrows, as well as a narrow wrapped bundle tied to his back.

Osha raised his head with the usual dour expression on his long, horselike face. This softened only whenever his large amber eyes fixed on Wynn.

“All is ready,” he answered to her.

Though Osha now struggled less with tongues other than his own, Chane had rarely met anyone as inept with languages. He looked away, scowling for reasons besides those concerning the elf.

Around them, sailors tossed down lines to men on the pier, and Wynn suddenly stepped off to join Osha by the small pile of their belongings.

“Come, Chane,” she called without looking back. “You’ll need to carry the chest.”

Following her halfway, his gaze lowered to a travel chest at Osha’s feet. It was much heavier than it appeared, for inside it lay the orb of Spirit. The one called the Ancient Enemy and other names and titles had once wielded that potential weapon in an all but forgotten war upon the world.

The thought of the chest’s contents sharpened Chane’s anxiety. He had brought Wynn all this way, at her insistence, to reconnect her with past companions, but Magiere, Leesil, and Chap were hunters of the undead and certainly did not accept Wynn’s connection to Chane.

They would never accept him either.

More than anything, he feared what might happen should Wynn be forced to make a choice.

“Are you all right?”

Startled, he raised his eyes to find Wynn frowning at him again. He quickly stepped in to heft the chest.

“The ramp is down,” he said. “Let us go.”

Still frowning, Wynn turned the other way and grabbed her staff leaning beside the aftcastle door. It was taller than her head, with its upper end sheathed in leather over the long crystal atop it. She picked up the last pack and headed for the ramp as Shade closed in at her side.

Wynn let out a breathy sigh, perhaps as daunted as Chane over what they would face in the next step of this journey.

“All right, then,” she said without looking back. “Everyone stay close.”

Wynn tried to keep a confident air as she led the way down the pier toward the city. Though she’d come searching for Magiere, Leesil, and Chap, the only way she could think to find them was through one Suman sage of Metaology.

Moons ago, she and Magiere had agreed to split up in the search for the remaining two orbs: Spirit and Air. In all, there were five of these devices, hidden centuries before by minions of the Ancient Enemy. Upon learning of the orbs’ existence, Magiere, Wynn, and their other companions had soon found themselves embroiled in a desperate search to find them all and keep them from the wrong hands. Three had been recovered—and safely rehidden—leaving only two left to locate.

So Wynn had remained up north with her small group to search for the orb of Spirit. Upon finding it, she’d immediately sailed south to reconnect with Magiere, who, in her search for the orb of Air, had taken her group south to this very port, seeking assistance from Domin Ghassan il’Sänke—at Wynn’s suggestion.

The domin had once spent time in Wynn’s guild branch.

Unfortunately, he was unpredictable, perhaps untrustworthy, and always had his own agenda. One couldn’t even guess what he might do or why. Still, when Wynn and her oldest companions in this search had last been together, she couldn’t think of anyone better, let alone able and willing, to help Magiere.

It seemed reasonable that the first person she should speak to would be Ghassan il’Sänke. If anyone might know the whereabouts of Magiere and those with her, it would be him.

As Wynn dodged between passersby on the waterfront, she licked her lips, now drying in the night’s hot air. She was well aware that she didn’t have much to go on in her search, and she turned her attention to the sights and sounds of the capital.

The air of the waterfront was tainted with spices and dust that mixed with the odors of sea brine and masses of people. She wondered how strong the scents might become inside the city’s narrow ways. And if it was this bad to her, it must be so much worse for Shade’s nose.

As if that thought called the dog, Wynn felt Shade press up against her thigh. She glanced down and saw the dog’s ears were half flattened; Shade never liked crowds.

Most of the dusky-skinned and dark-haired people on the waterfront wore light, loose-fitting cloth shifts or equally loose leggings or pantaloons. Wraps upon their heads were done up in all sorts of mounds, short or tall, thick or thin. Perhaps there weren’t as many people as there would be during the day, but there were far more than she’d seen in any port at night during her travels.

Some herded goats or carried square baskets of chickens or birds she couldn’t name. Many spoke to one another, but she couldn’t follow much of what was said. She read the common dialect of Sumanese quite well and even spoke a bit of it, but all languages in common usage tended to evolve like living things. Her knowledge of it was more scholarly than practical.

A number of people glanced at her or her companions, and she could hardly blame them.

Osha towered over everyone, and though he was dressed in brown pants and a simple tunic, his tan skin and large but slanted amber eyes were exotic in this place. Worse was his white-blond hair, which glowed too brightly whenever he passed under an oil lamp.

Chane wasn’t much better, with his pale face and jaggedly cut red-brown hair. Dressed like a traveling nobleman in a well-tailored but well-worn white shirt, dark pants, and high boots, he would likely be fixed upon by any cutpurse around. That is, until they spotted the two sheathed swords at his waist instead of one. Fortunately, his unusual eyes might not stand out as much as Osha’s in passing. Once, Chane’s irises had been light brown, but the longer he existed as an undead, the more they lost their color. When he grew angry or agitated, they turned crystal clear.

Wynn looked down once more at the tall black dog—or wolf—walking at her side. She buried her small fingers into the fur between Shade’s shoulders, mostly for her own comfort.

Who wouldn’t glance at all of them?

Looking into the city, she saw no trees or plant life anywhere, only an endless stretch of light-toned buildings. They stepped off the pier’s landward end and onto the walkway along the shore.

“You know ... where go?” Osha asked in his broken Numanese.

It was easier for the two of them to speak in Elvish, he in his an’Cróan dialect and she in that of the Lhoin’na (“[Those] of the Glade”)—the elves of this continent. But he often attempted either Belaskian or Numanese, either for practice or to be polite.

In the journey’s previous moon, he’d improved a little in both ... sort of.

“Where to go,” she corrected, glancing back at Osha following behind Chane. “From what I’ve read, the guild’s Suman branch is a huge compound with numerous structures located on the capital’s northwest side. If we stay near the waterfront, we should spot it down an inland street.”

Chane frowned, as if he’d expected her to know more—or perhaps because she spoke to Osha and not him.

Wynn turned ahead, taking a slow breath. Dealing with those two in their separate feelings for her, let alone any feelings she had for either of them, wasn’t something she could let distract her right now.

A sandstone arch stretched between two buildings like a gate into the city. Wanting out of the crowd and trying to appear confident, Wynn walked through the arch. When they reached the next street parallel to the waterfront, she turned north again. Along the way, she peered up the side streets, looking for one wide enough that it might reveal their destination.

Shade kept pressed into her leg, and when Wynn glanced back, she noticed that Osha was carrying his own belongings on his back and both of Chane’s packs in his arms. Wynn carried her own pack over her left shoulder, and Chane carried the chest with the orb—which was heavy—but Osha was burdened with everything else. She would have noticed sooner if she hadn’t been so distracted.

And then Chane looked back as well and half turned. “Put one of my packs on top of the chest.”

Osha slowed, keeping more than an arm’s length behind Chane. “I ... fine.”

Chane moved on with a subtle sneer, and Wynn sighed as she headed onward. She’d hoped the two would’ve learned to tolerate each other by now. This quietly hostile competition was becoming annoying.

The mainway was almost as well lit as the waterfront by streetlamps hung high at every intersection. As she’d expected, the smells grew stronger, trapped by still air between the buildings. The scent of jasmine sharpened in her nose, though she saw none blooming along the rows of shops and eateries they passed. It thickened even more as she passed a dark-haired woman in a gauzy wrap and bangles of brass around her neck and wrists.

Even the people here overperfumed themselves; without warning, memory-words rose in Wynn’s mind.

—Too many ... people ... too many ... smells—

“I know,” she whispered.

Shade was no ordinary dog as a majay-hì. She was descended from wolves of ancient times inhabited by the Fay during the Great War at the end of the world’s Forgotten History. The descendants of those first Fay-born had become the guardians of the elves, first the Lhoin’na and then later the separate an’Cróan on the world’s far side. In the lands of the latter, Shade’s homeland, majay-hì barred all but the elves from entering their vast so-called Elven Territories. More than this, and due to a plan hatched by her father, Chap, Shade had traveled across the far ocean and the whole central continent to protect Wynn.

Among a few unusual abilities, Shade communicated with Wynn by raising memory-words in her mind.

“We’ll find the guild soon,” Wynn added, scratching lightly between Shade’s shoulder blades. “We’ll be welcome there and maybe it won’t be so ... scented.”

In truth, she didn’t know what kind of welcome they would receive. As a sage, she should be offered shelter for herself and her companions. But of the few Suman sages she’d met, even fewer shared much about the customs of their own branch. She respected Domin il’Sänke’s knowledge and abilities but didn’t exactly trust him. He had assisted her in the past, but at other times he’d done everything he could to stop her own pursuits.

“Wait, stop,” Chane rasped.

Wynn looked back to find him halted before the side street she’d just passed. He jutted his chin up that street.

“This looks best, if we need to go farther inland,” Chane added.

Wynn nodded and headed for the side street. From what she saw, there were no street signs or markers pointing toward anything, and she grew worried. In order to find Magiere, she needed to find the domin, and to find him, she needed to find the guild. Then she spotted an elderly man with a heavily lined dusky face coming her way, and she tried her best in simple Sumanese.

“Pardon.”

The man stopped, blinked several times, and took in the sight of her companions. Perhaps his eyes widened a little at the huge black “dog,” since few Sumans would have ever seen a “wolf.”

“Guild ... Sagecraft?” she asked in Sumanese, hoping either word came out like a question.

He looked over her short-robe and nodded once. Instead of answering, he held up six fingers and then pointed up the way. Before she could nod, he pointed northward and held up four fingers. Wynn smiled—six blocks inland and four to the north.

“Thank you,” she said, or hoped it was a close equivalent.

He nodded more slowly, with a smile of his own, and continued onward.

Wynn pressed on along the route she’d been given. Before she’d even finished the final four blocks, she saw a low wall beyond and out the end of the street.

“There it is,” she said, though likely the others saw it before she had.

She quickened the pace and soon reached a seemingly endless stone wall stretching in both directions. It was surprisingly short and was probably just something to mark the extents of the grounds and keep the public from wandering in. Standing on tiptoes, Wynn pulled herself up to peek over the wall’s top.

Around a vast courtyard stood numerous enormous buildings of tan stone with ornately peaked rooftops. The courtyard had been painstakingly cobbled with dark brown and red tiles in an arcing diamond pattern. Paths between buildings were well swept and benches had been placed at comfortable intervals. She felt a little daunted at the sight of it all.

These grounds were far larger than those of the Numan branch, which by comparison looked like little more than a squat stone keep tucked tightly inside a four-towered old wall.

“The entrance,” Chane said, pointing.

Following his finger extended along the chest’s side, Wynn indeed saw an opening about forty paces to the right down the wall.

“We’ll have rooms and supper soon,” she assured, leading the way. Much more important, they should soon learn where to find Magiere.

Upon reaching the entrance, she halted before a set of opened iron gates between two immense sandstone columns. Four men—obviously not sages—were stationed inside the columns, and all four turned to stare at her.

They wore identical tan pants of fine fabric tucked into matching tall, hard boots. Dark brown tabards overlaid their cream shirts, and red wraps were mounded atop their heads. Each had an ornately sheathed curved sword tucked into the heavy red fabric of his waist wrap.

Wynn hadn’t expected armed guards. She was staring at them with growing concern when one barked a question in Sumanese. She didn’t quite catch it and shook her head.

“Do any of you speak Numanese?” she asked.

All four guards looked over the visitors with a wariness that bordered on fear of a threat.

Wynn’s worry increased, though she resisted glancing back at either Chane or Osha. She hadn’t heard Chane drop the chest yet, so that was good, but Osha could draw and nock an arrow faster than a man could draw a sword.

Then Wynn heard the sound of packs being dropped on the street stones behind her.

Both men, along with Shade, were far too protective of her. When Shade rumbled at the guards, Wynn clenched her fingers on the dog’s scruff. One guard with a close-trimmed beard took a step toward her.

“I speak your tongue,” he said, eyeing her robe. “What is your business here, sage?”

His accent was thick, but his command of Numanese was sound, and at least he recognized her for what she was. Still, none of the guards stepped aside, and intuition warned her not to mention Domin il’Sänke just yet. This unexpected “welcome” at the gate left her wondering if the domin might be a questionable figure within his own branch.

“I am visiting from the Numan branch,” she answered. “Could you please direct us to High Premin Aweli-Jama.”

Asking to see the branch’s highest-ranking sage was presumptuous but safest. For the sake of good manners, Aweli-Jama would have to offer hospitality to a fellow sage—albeit a foreign one—and her companions.

The bearded guard simply studied her. Then his gaze shifted beyond her, likely to Osha and Chane. He twisted slightly, whispering something to the other guards, and then ...

“Wait here.”

Wynn’s mouth gaped as he turned away and walked across the courtyard. She watched as he entered the beautiful sandstone building straight ahead with six peaks along the top of its roof. Her view was then cut off as the other three guards positioned themselves across the entrance’s opening. There was another strange thing Wynn noted.

Though it was well past dusk, the evening meal couldn’t have finished long before, and yet she saw no one walking the paths of this huge complex. There had to be many sages of all ranks staying on the grounds full-time, especially in a place as big as this.

So where were they? Had a curfew been ordered for some reason?

“What is happen?” Osha whispered in Numanese.

“Happening,” she corrected. “And I’m not certain.” She eased and then squeezed her grip on Shade. “Anything?”

That was all that was needed between them in situations like this. The dog could catch rising memories within anyone in sight and show such to Wynn, so long as they were touching. Wynn waited three breaths, far too long for any sights or sounds to enter her thoughts.

Shade shuddered once beneath her hand and whined in agitation.

At that, one guard lifted a hand to grip the hilt of his sword.

“Easy, sister,” Wynn whispered to Shade. “What’s wrong?”

—Nothing ... is ... there—

Wynn’s confusion increased at these words called up and then reassembled from her own memories of things heard from others in the past. What did Shade mean?

—No ... memories— ... —All ... blank—

Wynn’s breath caught. No one’s thoughts were ever completely blank, at least not at all times. Something was blocking Shade from dipping the guards’ memories. How—or, for that matter, why? No one here could’ve known they were coming, let alone what Shade could do.

Movement across the tiled courtyard caught Wynn’s attention.

Four people walked brusquely toward the gate, and the guard who had told her to wait led the way. Behind him came a tall man hidden within the gray robe of a cathologer, with the full cowl up and shadowing his face from the courtyard lanterns. Last came a more disturbing pair: a stout man and a spindly woman, both robed in midnight blue, like Wynn, for the order of Metaology.

That the high premin was flanked by two metaologers was troubling, especially after what Shade had claimed. As far as Wynn knew, conjury was favored among metaologers of this branch versus thaumaturgy in the Numan branch.

This time, Wynn did glance back ... just in time to see Chane whisper aside to Osha. The chest now sat on the street, along with the packs Osha had carried.

Osha silently nodded to Chane.

“Oh, not again,” Wynn moaned under her breath.

Chane must have sensed something, for anytime those two agreed about anything it meant there would be trouble. Osha shrugged his left shoulder, and his bow slipped off and dropped down his arm. He caught it without even looking, but at least Chane hadn’t yet reached for one of his swords.

“You will not bring that canine onto the grounds.”

Wynn flinched around toward the gate and came face-to-face—or face-to-throat—with the sage in gray. He was tall for a Suman, and both metaologers still flanked him. The four guards had broken into pairs at both of the gateway’s columns.

“Such beasts are not permitted here,” High-Premin Aweli-Jama declared, for that was who he had to be.

Of all the things Wynn expected to hear first, that was not among them.

Other than his accent, his Numanese was perfect, and up close it was easier to see his face. He was likely in his mid-sixties, at a guess, and his gray hair was cropped short beneath his cowl. Dark-toned skin covered a slightly wizened and narrow face with slanted cheekbones. He pressed his hands nervously together, though his expression was unreadable.

“Good evening, High Premin,” she said politely as she stroked Shade’s back. “I am Journeyor Wynn Hygeorht of the Numan branch. This is Shade, who is not a common animal and will harm no one. She travels with me for my protection, as do my other two companions.”

Both metaologers were entirely fixed on her, but she’d been the subject of scrutiny many times before. Both were middle-aged, which suggested they each held at least the rank of domin.

“We have come a long way, and we’re weary,” she added. “If we could only—”

“Why are you here with so much protection?” Aweli-Jama asked abruptly. “Your branch’s council did not inform us of sending a journeyor.”

This grew stranger and stranger.

“I wasn’t aware anyone needed to be informed for a passing visit,” she answered, still not giving him the real reason she had come. In the brief silence that followed, she listened for the slightest sound behind her. Both Chane and Osha were quiet and hopefully hadn’t moved.

Aweli-Jama shook his head in what appeared to be a dismissal.

“Of course not,” he answered flatly, as if her comment was pointless. “I meant that if I had been informed, I could have responded with proper regrets to your premin, who might have informed you. At this time, you and your companions cannot be accommodated based on recent and unanticipated concerns for security. I am sorry you have traveled such a distance, but please seek lodgings elsewhere.”

Without another word, the high premin began to turn away.

Wynn’s jaw slackened until her lips parted. Something here was very wrong ... from guards posted at the gate to Shade’s inability to pick up any memories to Aweli-Jama’s refusing shelter to a journeyor sage of another branch. The metaologers turned to follow the high premin as the guards spread out to block the way in.

Her thoughts raced for something to say that might stall the high premin for an instant. She stiffened when Chane’s hand settled on her shoulder, for she hadn’t heard him close in behind her.

“Do not mention ... the others,” he whispered in Belaskian.

After an instant of confusion, she realized he meant Magiere, Leesil, and Chap, but she had to say something.

“Premin,” she called. “I’ve come to see Domin Ghassan il’Sänke.”

That was the last topic she wished to raise openly, but it was the only thing she could think of in an instant. She had to get in there and find the domin.

“May I at least speak with him,” she went on, and then half lied, “He was one of my tutors when he visited Calm Seatt.”

High Premin Aweli-Jama stopped abruptly, as did the pair of metaologers.

Chane tried to still his mind amid the overriding sense—the stench—of fear emanating from the Suman sages. It was so strong that the beast inside of him, his inner feral nature, strained at its bonds. Fear made the beast hungry for prey, and Chane bit down until his jaws ached.

When Wynn spoke il’Sänke’s name, the sages halted and that stench thickened.

Chane fought to clear his thoughts amid the beast’s snarling.

The high premin spun and fixed on Wynn. For an instant, fear was evident on his lined face. This vanished as his expression became outwardly cold and measured.

“Why do you wish to see him?” Aweli-Jama asked with a slight tremor in his voice.

The metaologers had also turned, one eyeing Wynn, who retreated a step and bumped into Chane. The other looked over everyone with her, one by one.

“As I said,” Wynn answered, her voice wavering. “He was my tutor during his stay in the north. I wish to pay my respects. It would be rude to come all this way without doing so.”

Aweli-Jama’s cold expression remained unchanged, though his voice became even and more controlled. “What exactly is your mission here, Journeyor?” His gaze shifted upward. “One that requires a swordsman and a Lhoin’na archer.”

This high premin would not know that Osha was of the an’Cróan elves from the eastern continent. Chane had no intention of enlightening him, and instead wondered how Wynn would answer. He pushed that aside, trying to clear his head again so he could listen to how the premin would respond to Wynn’s next words.

“No mission, Premin,” she replied. “I’m simply ... journeying to learn about a land and people I’ve never seen for myself. While I’m here, can I not see my old tutor and thank him for his kindness? Why would you force me to be rude in not doing so?”

The premin studied her long in silence, perhaps trapped by the cultural manners Wynn intimated. His expression remained flat, though the stench of fear had not lessened.

Chane eyed the guards. Behind Wynn’s back, he slowly inched his free hand across toward the hilt of his longsword. The two metaologers worried him the most, but if anything happened, Osha could disable at least one while Chane readied to hold off the guards.

“Domin il’Sänke is not in residence at present,” Aweli-Jama said, “but as you are a past student of his”—he half turned, sweeping a narrow hand toward the main building with the six-peaked rooftop—“perhaps we can accommodate you ... until he returns.”

The beast within Chane lurched back in wary retreat; the premin was lying about something.

In the past, he and Wynn had used this odd ability of his. She would ask questions, and behind her, keeping his thoughts still, he would squeeze her shoulder when the beast grew wary or outright vicious. For whatever reason, his inner nature knew when it heard a lie. But the question—and its answer—had been too broken, mixed, and vague to know which part was the deception.

“No,” he whispered behind Wynn, lightly squeezing her shoulder. Then he spoke openly to the high premin. “We do not wish to be a burden and will seek arrangements in the city.”

“There is no need for that,” Aweli-Jama countered. “Journeyor, please bring your companions. We will find all of you some comfort.”

The metaologers eyed each other. Both stepped forward, with the woman positioning herself behind the premin and the man to his left. Two guards nearest to each side column stepped forward to the edge of the street.

This might have looked like they’d made room for the visitors to enter, but not so to Chane. When Shade growled again, Chane slipped his free hand up behind Wynn to close it on the longsword’s hilt.

“Osha?” he rasped without looking back.

“Yes,” came the firm answer from behind and off to Chane’s left.

He knew Osha had nocked an arrow and would cripple the left-side metaologer first. He disliked assaulting sages, but there was a hidden danger here, and Wynn came before all else.

Chane pulled gently on Wynn’s shoulder as he slid his left foot back.

Shade pulled out of Wynn’s grip and sidestepped in front of her.

“There is no need for this,” Aweli-Jama insisted with a tinge of desperation. “If you will simply—”

Wynn dashed around behind, startling Chane, but he kept his eyes on the high premin. All four guards drew their curved swords. The male metaologer’s lips moved as if speaking, though Chane heard nothing.

“Osha!” he rasped.

“No!” Wynn shouted. “Don’t hurt them.”

No arrow struck either Suman metaologer.

In panic, Chane froze over what to do. He would not hesitate to disable or even kill armed soldiers, most like city guards, but sages were another matter. At one guard’s advance, Shade inched forward a matching step, and her hackles rose with her snarl.

Chane was about to order everyone to run when that first guard paused while looking beyond him. A puzzled frown formed on the man’s face.

“Chane, duck and cover!” Wynn cried.

He almost turned—and then her staff thrust out around his left side. The long crystal at its top end was unsheathed, and he swore under his breath.

Chane spun away as he whipped up his cloak’s hem to shield his face.

Osha stalled at Wynn’s order contradicting Chane. With an arrow drawn back, he had shifted his aim to the darkly robed man with a raised hand. He did not wish to harm a sage, but neither would he allow anyone to harm his Wynn.

The premin’s face twisted with alarm as her staff’s crystal lanced out around Chane’s side.

“Chane, duck and cover!”

Osha froze, knowing what would come next but not what to do about it. And too much happened all at once.

Chane whirled away as he jerked up his cloak. All four guards drew their swords. One made a rush forward quicker than the others. Shade lunged to intercept the man.

Osha heard Wynn’s harsh whispers. He did not understand her words, but he knew what they meant. He barely scrunched his eyes shut as her staff’s crystal flashed. Brilliant light, like a sudden noon sun, made his eyes sting beneath his eyelids.

“Run!” Wynn shouted.

Amid the sound of running feet, and just before Osha opened his eyes, he heard Chane utter a grating hiss. Wynn rushed for the packs nearby as Chane snatched up the chest, and Osha saw Shade ram a startled guard in the chest with her forepaws. That man went down, but ...

The male sage in dark blue still had a hand raised and outstretched. Unlike the others, that one did not blink his eyes in trying to clear his sight. He fixed on the dog.

“Shade!” Osha shouted and released the bowstring.

The dog wheeled, racing away after Wynn, as the arrow hit. It struck directly into the sage’s dangling sleeve. Force jerked the man’s hand aside, and he stumbled back in fright and shock.

As the fallen guard struggled to get up, the other three, the other sage in dark blue, and Premin Aweli-Jama were all trying to clear their vision from the flash of Wynn’s crystal.

Osha spun as Shade raced by him. Only one of the packs he had dropped remained on the street stones. Grabbing its strap, he slung it over his shoulder and ran along the wall after the others. Then he heard the premin shouting in his people’s guttural tongue.

The only word Osha understood was “journeyor.” There was only one person the high premin wanted caught.

Wynn and Shade ran on ahead with Chane following, the chest in his arms. On his longer legs, Osha knew it would not take long to reach them—but even while carrying the heavy orb, Chane was just as fast.

Osha hated working with—fighting beside—Chane, as if it was acceptable for that undead thing to be in Wynn’s company. There was no other choice—he would always put her well-being above all else, no matter what it took.

Osha heard running feet coming behind him.

Wynn couldn’t believe—or understand—what had happened as she ran, panting, along the outside of the low wall. She carried her own pack and one of Chane’s. Hopefully Osha had been able to grab Chane’s other pack.

She’d clearly understood what the high premin had shouted to the guards.

“Get the journeyor! I do not care what happens to the others, but bring her back alive.”

The premin wanted her taken prisoner after she’d mentioned Ghassan il’Sänke.

What had happened here and what had the domin done?

Glancing back, she saw Osha and Chane closing rapidly on her as Shade sped out ahead. Back along the wall, the four guards were coming with swords drawn. Chane would kill any one of them if necessary. And then what?

She and her companions would be “wanted” by local authorities, if they weren’t already. All of Chane, Osha, and Shade’s overprotectiveness had pushed everything out of control. If they’d only given her another moment or two, she might have salvaged an opportunity for their greater needs—but no.

The “boys” and her “sister” had done it again.

Fright and fury pushed Wynn faster. When this was over—if they got out of trouble—she’d put all three back in their places ... again. And she couldn’t let herself be captured, not even to save one of them.

She had to find Magiere, Leesil, and Chap. To do so, she had to find Ghassan il’Sänke. He was the key to everything.

“Valhachkasej’â!” she swore as she ran. “Where are you, Domin?”

In truth, Ghassan was uncertain what kept drawing him back to survey the guild grounds. Still, he watched its inland wall and the street along it in both directions. This place was now a danger to him.

If a member of the guild or the city guards spotted him, he would be taken at any cost. Still, he could not rest idle. He returned here again and again, as all other avenues in his search had revealed little to nothing. And he had no choice but to keep out of sight.

A moon ago, he had been arrested, dragged before the imperial court, and faced the imperial presence of Prince Ounyal’am himself, the remaining heir to the empire’s throne. In that moment, Ghassan had not known how many of his secrets had been uncovered.

“Is your high premin correct?” the prince had demanded before all present. “What is this I hear of a hidden sect among the metaologers, including you ... Domin? Is it true that all involved but you are dead?”

The questions had shocked him more than being arrested. Too much was becoming openly known by too many, and it was all true.

Ghassan had been part of a secret sect—a subset within his own order.

It was also true that Prince Ounyal’am knew this long before he had asked.

Conjury was preferred among Suman metaologers versus thaumaturgy in the guild’s Numan and Lhoin’na branches. Ghassan was well versed in conjury and soundly knowledgeable in thaumaturgy; the opposite could also be said of metaologers elsewhere. But that did not account for what else he had learned, starting half a lifetime ago.

He had been taken in by a few secreted among his branch’s metaologers. Among them was a third ideology of magic resurrected for desperate reasons, though its practice was feared and reviled throughout the known world. This sect feared discovery to such a degree that it had no name, for to name it would make it something to be known, sought, and found.

As Ghassan had stood before the imperial prince, he’d known suspicion of “sorcery” was at the heart of everything, including why he had been arrested. For an instant, he wondered if the prince had betrayed him. No one else present knew that the imperial prince was an allied confidant of the sect.

Ghassan decided the prince’s question was not a betrayal.

Prince Ounyal’am was trapped as well, and in danger of discovery; his question was a warning.

All had been lost, and the prince himself could do nearly nothing to help. Further revelations and something more shocking had followed. By an amulet gifted to the prince for his protection, Ghassan heard the prince’s warning thoughts telling him to escape by any means necessary. And so he had.

Now alone in hiding and searching, he feared for the safety of his people ... and his prince.

Not long before his arrest, he had been away on a journey and had returned to learn that a “prisoner” of his sect had escaped. It was from this prisoner, long held for many decades, that the sect had recovered sorcery.

That had cost many lives and much sanity along the way.

And Khalidah had escaped his long captivity.

Once of the triad of the Sâ’yminfiäl—“Masters of Frenzy” during the Forgotten History and later known to a few as the “Eaters of Silence”—Khalidah was now as invisible as a thought. His own flesh had been lost in death centuries before. If one met him now, outside of the ensorcelled sarcophagus of his prison, it would be in one’s own thoughts.

It would be too late to escape him.

That “specter,” for lack of a better term, had killed almost everyone in Ghassan’s sect. A monster of a past age, what some would now call a “noble dead,” was loose among—and within—the people. The nights were the time to fear it most.

Khalidah could survive daylight only while within a living host, but so many days and nights had passed since his escape. Deaths in the capital attested to his continued survival, though there were not enough reports in the empire’s greatest city to raise suspicion. As the last of the sect, only Ghassan knew the signs—or lack of such—in a victim.

And the specter could be within anyone—could be anyone while hiding in flesh, even someone within the guild or the imperial court.

Despite the sect’s precautions to protect the prince, until he replaced his withering and corrupt father, Ounyal’am was in more than just mortal danger.

Ghassan had come to the guild’s grounds tonight hoping to attempt infiltration, but how could he enter without anyone knowing? A compound full of sages, including metaologers, was well beyond blanking the mind of one beggar or a handful of patrolling guards.

City guards stood watch at the grounds’ main entrance and all smaller locked ones. They patrolled the short wall’s inner side at random intervals. They could be managed in small groups with enough foresight, but Ghassan feared conjured protections had also been set in place.

He would not discover those until too late.

The majority of metaologers in the branch had not been part of his sect; this did not mean they lacked skills or power. He could not afford to be caught, especially by them, and a hint of despair took him. Would he truly learn anything of use here, or had he simply grown this desperate?

And again, for the second time this night, a noise disturbed him.

At the sound of running feet and distant shouts, he cared little for a fleeing pickpocket running from a city patrol. Still, he peeked out of the cutway and around the corner of a shoddy tenement ... and froze. He had seen many astonishing things in his life, but none had stunned him as much as what he now saw.

Wynn Hygeorht, in a midnight blue short-robe, rounded the compound’s far corner in a headlong run behind her big black wolf, the majay-hì called Shade. The crystal atop her staff that Ghassan had created for her was fully exposed. She barely hung on to the packs flopping against her shoulders, and their bouncing, swinging weight kept making her swerve and right herself.

Chane Andraso shot around the far corner next, carrying a chest in his arms.

Ghassan almost stepped out and then hesitated. Why were they in flight?

A tall white-blond Lhoin’na appeared next, running after the other three.

Ghassan fixed on that one with a bow in hand and an arrow held to the string. Before he could tear into the elf’s mind, four city guards rounded the corner in pursuit.

Ghassan could not stop a hissing groan.

Who else but Wynn Hygeorht could cause this much chaos any time in any place? But by what, why, and how was she here in his city and homeland? Before he regained composure, both Wynn and Shade flew past. As Chane and the Lhoin’na archer followed, Ghassan quickly looked behind into the cutway for anything of use. He grabbed up a scrap of broken pottery and flung the shard across the street at the guild grounds’ wall.

There was little time for a proper incantation, even in thought. Glowing symbols, shapes, and signs flashed quickly across his sight as his gaze flickered from the tumbling shard to the top of the wall. The pottery shard struck there, and its fragments scattered over the wall in the grounds.

The lead guard skidded to a stop and turned toward the noise.

Ghassan ducked back, barely peeking around the corner with one eye.

“What?” a second guard snapped, stalling near the first.

“Noise ... over the wall,” answered the first as the final two guards slowed.

“Could one of them have gotten over and inside?” asked a third guard.

And the first began cursing as he glanced up the street.

Ghassan waited no longer to see how they might split up. His own quarry was running wild in the streets and would likely lose him in trying to lose the guards. He crept down the cutway and ran north along the back alley, heading in the general direction that Wynn had to have led the others. He could not help cursing as well.

Wherever Wynn went, there came trouble as well. Better to have her under his watch than arrested or loose to get in his way. And why was she even here? By the time he reached the silent marketplace, he heard running feet, and too many to be only guards. He veered across the market into a cutway on its far side, hoping to get ahead of his quarry.

Wynn and Shade shot past the cutway’s far end, and he sped up to lean out just as Chane rushed by.

“Wynn!” Ghassan whispered, loud and sharp.

The Lhoin’na spotted him, dropped the pack he was carrying, and drew the arrow held fitted in the bow.

Ghassan stepped a little farther out, holding both hands in plain sight. He carefully brushed back his hood as he repeated as softly as possible, “Wynn!”

By then, she had stopped, as had her black wolf, and her eyes widened at the sight of him. She did not hesitate and ran to him. Slowing as she approached, her eyes were still wide.

“Domin?” she said on a breath.

Shade rounded in front of her with a quiver of jowls as the Lhoin’na lowered his bow in puzzlement. Chane’s expression was beyond cautious, bordering on dangerous, as he stepped in, but Ghassan could not be bothered about some overprotective vampire.

The sounds of shouts and pounding feet echoed from the direction they had come.

“In here, quickly,” Ghassan whispered, backing into the cutway.

The instant Wynn hurried in past him, the others had no choice but to follow her.

Ghassan remained near the cutway’s mouth as he whispered, “Be still and silent.” When he peeked around the corner, only two guards came running up the street.

“Look in all cutways and alley mouths,” one said to the other.

Ghassan blinked as the first guard neared. In the dark behind his eyelids, strokes of light spread into shapes, sigils, and symbols. Words sounded with greater speed in his thoughts than by voice as ...

He finished that brief blink. The glowing pattern overlaid his sight of one guard drawing near, who looked directly at him. The guard blinked as well, slowed, looked more carefully, and then sighed in disgust.

“Nothing here,” he called to the other, and then he was gone, rushing on in his hunt.

Ghassan waited, shifting his envisioned pattern to the other guard. That one passed by even more quickly than the first. And everyone within the cutway remained silent until all sounds of pursuit faded up the street.

Turning slowly, Ghassan cast another small ensorcellment, this time upon himself. As the darkness in the alley grew brighter in his sight, he took in the small group he had just rescued, finishing upon Wynn.

“Well,” he whispered, “this is unexpected.”

Wynn had no idea what to think. Moments before, she’d been desperate to find Ghassan il’Sänke, and now here he was. Had she somehow conjured him with whispered words during flight? Ridiculous. She had simply been living in desperation and uncertainty for too long.

“Domin,” she began softly, still wary that roaming guards might hear her. “Where did you ... How did you ... ?”

He flipped a hand and shook his head, as if such a thing mattered little. “A better question would be, what are you doing here?” He ignored Chane but fixed his gaze on Osha. “And who is this? Not a Lhoin’na, now that I have a closer look.”

Wynn glanced back and up at Osha. Most people would never recognize that he wasn’t from this continent. Ghassan il’Sänke was not most people.

“This is Osha. He’s from the eastern continent,” she explained, and then rushed on, putting aside a couple of odd things that had just happened. “We’ve come to find Magiere, Leesil, and Chap, who I sent to find you, but ... Why are you dressed like that? Why are there guards on the guild? Where are the people I sent to you?”

She might have gone on, but the domin halted her with a raised hand. “Who?”

Wynn held her breath and then exhaled sharply. The domin had never met Magiere, Leesil, or Chap, but there was no doubt they would’ve found him. Magiere was nothing if not ... well, “determined” was the polite word for it. Something had gone wrong.

Before she asked another panicked question, Ghassan il’Sänke blinked slowly with a shake of his head.

“Ah, yes,” he added. “I believe I did see them ... briefly.”

That panicked Wynn even more—“see” and not “meet.”

The domin, so strangely dressed, nodded.

“I recognized them from the descriptions in your journals,” he went on. Then he paused a bit too long. “Your friends were arrested, along with a mixed-blood girl, and imprisoned below the imperial palace grounds. I never spoke with, let alone met, them.”

“What?” Wynn gasped.

“Mixed-blood?” Osha repeated. “What you mean?”

Wynn glanced at him and then Chane. Magiere had never actually reached Ghassan il’Sänke, never spoken to him. She, Leesil, Chap, and Leanâlhâm had been locked away, but for what reason?

“How long?” Chane rasped.

He and the domin hadn’t parted on good terms the last time they’d all seen one another.

“Perhaps a moon,” il’Sänke answered.

“And you haven’t seen them since?” Wynn asked.

“No.”

Wynn’s panic edged toward frantic. Even the dim light from a lantern up the way in the street hurt her eyes. The walls of the cutway felt too close.

“This can’t be happening,” she got out and then fell in the babbling. “We found another orb, and Magiere was here seeking the last one ... You were to help her. So we brought ours here and—”

“Wynn!” Chane rasped, and even Shade snarled in warning.

Wynn snapped her mouth shut under the fixed stare of Ghassan il’Sänke.

“This is not the place to speak of such things,” he said too calmly. “Come with me. I will take you to a place of safety.”

“Safety?” Chane hissed. “Your high premin would have simply sent us away ... until your name was mentioned. No one is going anywhere with you if—”

“Chane,” Wynn interrupted. “We need to speak privately and not here in—”

“No, Chane is correct,” Osha countered in Elvish.

Before Wynn could argue, Osha narrowed his eyes on the domin.

“You ... hunted?” he said in Numanese. It was less a question than an accusation.

Wynn sighed, exhausted and still panicked as she turned back to the domin. Perhaps his own branch’s Premin Council was seeking him, but the city guards could hardly be after a sage like il’Sänke.

“Just answer them,” she encouraged. “Are you wanted by the authorities?”