First and Last Sorcerer

Chapter Three

Late the following morning, Ghassan donned a heavier cloak and pulled its hood low over his eyes as he left the hidden sanctuary now shared by his “guests.” On the long walk to the mainway leading to the front gates of the imperial grounds, he kept his mind clear for any warning from his senses—physical and otherwise. He didn’t need to walk so far for his task, but he wanted time alone to think.

What he would ask of Prince Ounyal’am had dangerous ramifications should anything go wrong. As of yet, the precise words for such a request had not come to him, even as he reached the long expanse of the capital’s largest open market.

The mainway to the gates was three times as wide as any other main city street, not that one would guess so at first sight. There was enough room down its center only for a slow-moving wagon—if midday crowds got out of the way.

Ghassan barely noticed the array of fresh foods and imported goods, and the merchants and vendors calling to passersby, including him. The scents of warm bread and olive oil distracted him only once, aside from his stiffening in caution every time someone passed too close. That happened often in the bustling market street. There was not much to eat in his quarters, and he knew he should see about purchasing supplies. For the moment, though, he had other concerns.

Without warning, the crowds ahead began to shift. People moved and cleared a wide path as they looked back along the street behind him.

Ghassan drifted left near a leather worker’s tent before he glanced back, though he kept his head partway down.

Two litters, each carried by four strong servants, passed by on their way toward the main gates. Personal guards surrounded both. Though the curtains of the litters were partially open, the guards’ purple sashes already told Ghassan who was visiting the palace.

Emir Falah Mansoor, second commander of the empire’s military forces, was not often in residence inside the city. Whatever reason he had for visiting now was most certainly not at the request of the imperial prince.

Mansoor’s solution to any diplomatic problem could always be found at the point of a sword. He was of the old ways in his arrogance, believing in the absolute rule of those below by those above in society. No, the emir had not come to see the prince. More likely any report would be made to Imperial Counselor a’Yamin, now that the emperor himself was bedridden and unavailable.

Ghassan was about to turn away when his gaze fell upon the occupant of the second litter: a young woman with her head tilted down. Though long black hair hid half of her face, he recognized her delicate profile and did not have to search his memory for her name.

Mansoor was blessed with five sons and only one daughter—A’ish’ah. Sons could be useful in holding on to power, but a daughter was useful for purchasing more power. And where else could one find more of this than in an unwed prince of an empire?

Ghassan drifted carefully along behind the procession as it approached the main gate and stopped. He kept his head lowered as he watched in curiosity.

Emir Mansoor rattled and clattered in enameled armor as he dropped out of the lead litter. Then he stood basking in the glory of his own self-importance as he waited to be admitted.

Ghassan focused upon the back of the emir’s head and blinked slowly. In that wink of darkness behind his eyelids, he raised the image of Mansoor’s face in his mind. Over that, he drew glimmering shapes, lines, and marks from deep in memory.

A chant passed through his thoughts as his slow blink finished.

The prince must surely take a wife now that the emperor nears death. Ounyal’am will have no choice but to marry before taking the throne.

Ghassan grimaced upon hearing Mansoor’s conscious thoughts. An instant later ...

If only the foolish girl had the wiles of her late mother. Even so, she must be made to try ...

Ghassan took care not to sink too deeply. Searching for more than surface thoughts could arouse a target’s awareness. And he didn’t care to hear much more of the would-be tyrant’s innermost thoughts. What he had heard was no surprise.

Emperor Kanal’am grew weaker every day, at a guess, for no one but the imperial counselor, a’Yamin, or attendants appointed directly by him, had seen the emperor in more than three moons.

At thirty-eight years old, Prince Ounyal’am was the remaining imperial heir and had yet to take a first or any wife. Growing schemes, machinations, and plots among the nation’s seven royal houses had reached a fevered pitch.

How many daughters had been thrown at the prince since his father had taken ill? Emir Mansoor now apparently joined the fray, vying for his A’ish’ah to be the future first empress.

Ghassan turned back down the mainway through the crowds before the gate even opened. He had greater issues to consider and a task he could no longer put off. After only one city block, he stepped between two vendor tents and into a cutway. He went on to the alley running behind the shops hidden by the forest of market stalls. When he spotted a line of water barrels, he crouched behind the last one. Once settled, he reached inside his shirt, grasped a rough chain around his neck to pull it out, and then stared at the dangling, unadorned copper medallion that he always wore close to his skin.

Closing his eyes, he gripped its smooth metal. After moments of hesitation, he opened his eyes, dropped the medallion back inside his shirt, and merely crouched there in silence.

Ghassan needed more time to carefully work out his request to his prince. For what he would ask, somehow the words never seemed quite right.

Prince Ounyal’am stood in the reception room of his private chambers watching three servants prepare a formal tea on a table constructed entirely of opalescent tiles. The chamber was furnished with colorful silk cushions on low couches. Amber sateen curtains stretched from the polished floor to the high ceiling, each held back by golden tassels. Besides the servants, the only other person present was Nazhif, captain of his personal bodyguards.

Ounyal’am did not look forward to this morning’s impending visit.

Of late, he had entertained far too many royals and nobles. All found excuses, urgent needs, and pressing matters to see him. All happened to bring a daughter, a sister, a niece, or occasionally two or even three for company. So many polite manipulations in anticipation of his father’s death had left him mentally weary. And none of these visitors knew he awaited that death more anxiously than any of them.

His reasons were far different from theirs, and ones not even his personal bodyguards knew, except perhaps Nazhif. Unfortunately, he was as much in the dark as every conniving noble with a daughter, etcetera, regarding his father’s condition.

Ounyal’am had not been called to the emperor’s chambers in more than three moons.

Presumably, his father was weakening further and Ounyal’am was expected to take a wife—at least one. As his first duty, a new emperor had to provide a legitimate heir for the security of the empire.

Ounyal’am glanced down at his simple but fine clothing of loose pants made from raw silk, a pure white linen shirt, and a yellow tunic with an open front. These were the simplest fare he was ever allowed to wear. Every item he had worn since his first step as a child had been tailored to fit him perfectly. How many of these young noblewomen would be eager to join him in marriage if he were not the imperial heir?

He often thought that he knew little of women. His mother had died giving birth to him, and he still sometimes felt the loss of her. She would have both loved him and been honest with him ... or at least that was how he imagined her.

All his life, he had been told he was handsome, but he wondered how much of this was flattery. Though small for his people, he had fine and delicate features with a smooth dark-toned complexion. He wore his near-black hair sheered at the top of his collar and always combed to perfection. He had often been called “scholarly” by imperial advisors.

Accurate and polite as that description may have been, he knew it was not always a compliment.

He was not the great warrior that his father had been. Once, a brash court official had referred to Ounyal’am as “bookish.” As a boy of fourteen at that time, he had been hurt, once he realized what that meant.

Showing his pain had been a mistake.

Emperor Kanal’am did not tolerate impudence, for his hereditary line had lasted more than four centuries. When that advisor’s headless corpse fell at Ounyal’am’s feet, cut down by an imperial guard before everyone present, that was the last time he ever allowed blood on his hands—his shoes—through his own carelessness.

Everything about him had to be perfect in the sight of all, but this morning’s visitors would be especially trying. Mental fatigue made him falter when he saw Nazhif pacing before the archways to an open balcony above the palace’s inner grounds.

“Your face betrays your thoughts,” Ounyal’am said too sharply, “as if you had sucked three lemons for your breakfast.”

Nazhif froze for an instant and then bowed his head. “Forgive me, my prince.”

He was a muscular man in his early fifties with a round face and a peppered goatee. A fierce but ever calm warrior, he had commanded Ounyal’am’s personal bodyguard for the twenty-four years ... since the day that headless body had dropped at the young prince’s feet.

Nazhif had never failed to protect the prince’s heart and mind as well as his life. In some ways, he was the father that Ounyal’am should have had and did not.

Four of the prince’s other twelve guards stood outside his complex of chambers—thirteen guards for the pending thirteenth emperor of an empire. All city and palace guards dressed much the same, in tan pants tucked into tall, hard boots, with dark brown tabards that overlay their cream shirts, and red wraps mounded atop their heads. However, the emperor’s hundreds of imperial guards were distinguished by gold sashes, and the prince’s thirteen private guards wore silver ones.

Ounyal’am regained his composure, regretting his harshness to Nazhif. No one enjoyed the company of Emir Mansoor. At a knock at the main chamber’s outer door, the door opened without invitation.

“My prince?”

Ounyal’am tensed with a flash of more than annoyance, though, again, he remained outwardly composed.

“Yes ... Counselor?”

The door swung fully open, and there stood the imperial counselor, Wihid al a’Yamin, in the outer hallway among Ounyal’am’s four hesitant but watchful bodyguards.

“Forgive the intrusion,” the counselor said, “but the emir and his daughter have arrived, and so I thought to announce them with all haste.”

A’Yamin, in his seventies, still had eyes and awareness as sharp as any falcon housed on the imperial grounds. He habitually dressed in tan pantaloons, a cream shirt, and a sleeveless dark brown robe. His white hair was always covered with a red mounded head wrap—like those of the imperial guards. Perhaps he fancied himself a warrior, though he had never served in any military. His face was lined, and he stooped to appear frail, but this fooled no one.

With the failing health of the emperor, the imperial counselor was the most powerful man in the empire.

“How thoughtful,” Ounyal’am managed, as he shifted a few steps for a better view of the corridor. Beyond the counselor and the four of his own guards stood two of the emir’s men. And there was the emir himself along with his one and only daughter.

Ounyal’am quickly turned his gaze away from A’ish’ah.

“Welcome, Falah,” he said, using the emir’s given name.

The emir stepped forward beside the counselor and bowed his head. “My prince.”

“Enter, Honored Emir,” Ounyal’am said, and then looked to a’Yamin. “You may go, though I thank you for your trouble.”

“My prince,” a’Yamin answered in his grating voice. “The emir serves your father well and has my utmost respect.”

Ounyal’am could not help clenching his jaw; of course a’Yamin valued a blunt instrument like Mansoor.

The counselor bowed and backed away before turning down the outer corridor.

“Wait out here,” Mansoor ordered his guards, as if the prince’s own would ever allow them to enter. He waved his daughter in ahead, which was not customary. Nazhif quickly crossed the chamber to close the door behind them, though he remained inside the room.

Ounyal’am faced the emir and his daughter as a different discomfort flooded through him: unwanted guilt. This worsened at the sight of her gaze lowered to the ornate tile floor. Of all the noblewomen thrust at him, she was different.

A’ish’ah was agonizingly shy and perhaps pained even more by how she was used. In past visits, she had barely been able to look up at him, much less try to charm him as others did. And this was partly why he dreaded seeing her most of all among the would-be wives.

Delicately built, she was so short that she had to lift her head to meet his eyes on the few occasions she had managed to speak to him at all. Today, she was dressed in white pantaloons beneath a matching split skirt of floor length. Her sleeveless lavender tunic dropped past her narrow hips almost to her knees. True silver embroidery at the tunic’s stiff neckline showed beneath her long black hair, and both glimmered in the early sunlight flooding through the balcony’s archways behind Ounyal’am.

Emir Mansoor was not known for kindness to his children. He had already disinherited one son for disobedience. A’ish’ah was one more thing Ounyal’am had not needed to worry about this day, but he grew anxious that she might suffer if her father became displeased with her.

“Come. I have had tea and coffee prepared,” he said formally, gesturing toward the table settings and cushions waiting in one curtained corner of the large chamber. “Emir, I understand you have a report on the eastern provinces in Abul.”

This was a thin excuse at best. Officers seldom reported to anyone but the emperor, and now that Ounyal’am’s father was hidden away in his decline, they reported directly to a’Yamin—not to the imperial heir.

“Yes, my prince,” Mansoor answered.

Ounyal’am half turned but purposefully paused, as if at a sudden thought. “Emir, the morning has passed too quickly. The family gardener asked me to approve a new bed of hibiscus he is growing for my father’s upcoming birthday celebration. Would you mind taking refreshment while waiting?”

As expected, the emir frowned, though he certainly would not decline.

Ounyal’am added, “Perhaps your daughter would care to see the gardens for herself?”

At that, A’ish’ah looked up with sudden fright in her eyes.

Singling her out for any private moment with him would be seen as showing her favor. He had never done so for any of the other young women dangled in front of him. As expected, Mansoor’s frown vanished, and he offered a deep nod.

“Of course, my prince,” he answered. “I shall wait upon you here as long as needed.”

At only a nod from his prince, Nazhif reopened the outer door.

Ounyal’am turned and nodded to A’ish’ah in entreaty. Such favor to her would not go unmentioned later by her father. More so to any competitor seeking an imperial alliance through marriage. But at least for this day, she would have nothing to fear from Mansoor. He would be too elated with false aspirations.

A’ish’ah barely glanced up. As she took a small step toward the door, Ounyal’am turned and led the way as was proper. As the pair stepped out and down the corridor, the prince’s four current guards fell in behind, their commander following at the rear.

“Have you seen the gardens before?” Ounyal’am asked.

“No, my prince,” A’ish’ah answered softly.

“They are a respite of mine.”

The palace was laid out in a large square with the rest of the vast grounds spreading around it. Along the rim of the grounds were buildings, such as barracks, stables, a water house, and the like. The highest walls in the empire enclosed everything. The center of the palace proper sported the great domed chamber where audiences were held. Directly behind that was an open outdoor square in which bloomed the imperial gardens.

The emperor had often called it a shameless waste of water.

Ounyal’am loved it and used his personal stipend to keep it funded.

After turning another corner, he paused for Nazhif to step ahead, open another broad door, and then led the way out into the open-air arboretum.

Indeed, the garden required a good deal of water.

Subtle paths of plain sandstone were lined with chrysanthemums, hibiscus, peonies, and even wild roses brought from the northern territories. Between these were interspersed flowering and fig-bearing trees, as well as three ponds with brightly colored carp, a type of large fish said to have been brought from the unknown continent westward across a seemingly endless ocean. Some of the trees had been sculpted in their growth to form shaded archways over the paths.

Ounyal’am had few vices and refused to deny himself this one.

“You are pleased?” he asked.

A’ish’ah slowly nodded, just once, though her eyes were fully wide. She caught him watching her and dropped her gaze again.

“Few would not be pleased ... my prince,” she whispered.

Such a diplomatic answer was disappointing. It should not have been, but it was, and he strolled on.

Behind him, he heard Nazhif’s quickly whispered orders to the other guards. Walking the paths of the garden would make it impossible for his contingent to keep him in their sight. Only Nazhif would follow five steps behind while the others spread out to encompass the gardens and watch all entrances.

Ounyal’am did not like doing this to his men, especially Nazhif, but he needed these moments of release. As A’ish’ah fell in beside him, though a half step behind, he forgot her presence for a moment. His thoughts turned to other matters, for the sight of a’Yamin in the doorway had left him anxious.

Throughout his life he had witnessed the power plays and schemes at court. He had never seen it quite so poisonous as now, when he had become the center of it all as his father lay dwindling in seclusion.

A’Yamin had both the ear and trust of Ounyal’am’s father. He also chose who, if anyone, saw Emperor Kanal’am. The imperial counselor commanded the loyalty of the imperial guard in the emperor’s absence. And all of this made a number of matters ... difficult.

Of course Ounyal’am professed concern for his father; to speak the truth would have been unacceptable—and dangerous. The counselor heard everything eventually. And unless Ounyal’am married at least once, he might not be “acceptable” as heir when his father died.

A struggle would then occur.

So long as the emperor clung to life, Ounyal’am was regent only in title. A’Yamin controlled the empire, and he was not a man who easily relinquished ultimate power. The differences in how they would each rule were stark; there was no room for both philosophies.

Ounyal’am was deeply troubled that religion should even be an issue, as he believed it had no place in government. A’Yamin—and his father—looked to the ancient ways of the “old gods.” In a forgotten time, one of those was said to have sought dominion over the world. The emperor and his counselor believed that time would come again.

They pined and planned for it and would seek favor and power through it.

Ounyal’am did not believe in any deities, though he kept this also to himself.

He barely tolerated the priests who the counselor allowed at court in favor of even the ones who served the newer gods. A theocracy in serving any gods, new or long forgotten and dead, was abhorrent. He had felt so since youth and the day of blood on his shoes, but before that time, the old religion had seemed little more than a dark fantasy.

Then Ounyal’am had met Domin Ghassan il’Sänke.

Somehow the dark-robed domin had entered this very garden to wait for him. Somehow, it happened on one of the rare days he wanted desperately to be alone and had forced Nazhif and the bodyguards to give him some peace in privacy. At first, he had not known all that this sudden appearance had meant or what—rather than who—the domin truly was.

Other secrets—other confidants among a sect of metaologers—had come much later. Perhaps the domin had taken those years to be certain that a young prince was worthy of such trust.

Ghassan il’Sänke expressed concern about “old and potent ones” who had brought about the downfall of the nations before a unifying empire had risen from such ruin. That lost era, for the few who knew of it by scattered legends, was often called the “burning time.” The domin and his sect feared that such a time was coming once more, but a young prince had been able to do little so long as his father lived. In his youth, he had quietly attempted to hamper efforts by any faction to turn back the empire to an ill-fated past. Thankfully, even in his naïveté, he had somehow not bungled into affairs he did not understand.

Later, under the domin’s tutelage, he came to understand a great deal.

Counselor a’Yamin was no fool.

Over the years, a not so young prince of the empire had fewer and fewer allies. There were always reasons for such people to disappear: other duties, a mission ... a fateful mishap. And now all that was left to him were a small contingent of private guards and an outcast domin of an exposed and eradicated sect.

“Are you ... unwell, Highness?”

In a sudden flinch, he glanced down and found A’ish’ah watching him. At that, she too flinched, which caused him to feel more guilt. Perhaps his nervousness and hers shook words from her before he could speak.

“I am ... sorry ... about my father.” She swallowed. “I know what this looks to you, Highness, but he ... he forced me to come ... again.”

Ounyal’am came to a stop and stared at her.

“And I know ...” she whispered, even more quietly while staring down at the path, “I am ... not the one you want.”

All those at court “talked” but so rarely said anything, let alone the truth as they saw it. Truth was vulnerability or a weapon to keep hidden for a fatal strike. He was now stunned by how wrong—and right—she was in her openness.

“You have no wish to be empress, first or otherwise?” he asked, thinking she might shrink away even more at his own honesty. Her black hair shimmered like polished obsidian in sunlight sneaking through the branches above. She was so small and delicate standing there that he almost wished she would never answer ... never put him in a position to hurt her in the slightest way.

“I have no wish to insult you, Highness,” she whispered. “Not with false reasons for being here. Not ever ... my prince.”

He was struck mute amid a growing but complicated need to protect her. That had started in her first visit with her father. She had not spoken to him even once at that time, but he had watched her too much. Over all subsequent visits, she became the only one he wanted ...

Because of this, he would never marry her.

His father and a’Yamin had turned the court into a deep pit of vipers preying upon one another, and this would worsen for years to come after the emperor’s death. When Ounyal’am could no longer forestall taking a wife—and only one, if he could avoid others—it would be someone cold, ambitious, heartless ... and worthy of this court. One more viper cast into the pit—and it must be someone who deserved it.

He could never do this to A’ish’ah. Even if she were willing, he would not let her follow him into that pit.

A strange and sudden warmth grew upon his sternum beneath his shirt. He held back a sigh of frustration and turned down the path. In only a few steps, he spotted the aging but talented master gardener ahead, and with a pause he glanced back toward Nazhif.

“Remain here,” he instructed his guard. And then to A’ish’ah, more gently, “I will return in a moment.”

He hurried away before either could answer, as Nazhif never liked for his prince to step too far out of reach. With his back to them, and only halfway to the old gardener still shearing an herbal bed, Ounyal’am reached inside his shirt and gripped the copper medallion he always wore. As he had been taught, he formed a message clearly in his mind.

Not now, Ghassan. After sunset, I will find a way to be alone.

He released the medallion before any answer entered his thoughts, though he knew the domin would not contact him at midday unless it was important.

Ounyal’am needed at least one moment of peace with the woman who would remain his dream and nothing more.

After the domin left the hideaway for his errand, Osha stood in a patch of sunlight coming through the strange window. And that window was exactly like the false one he had seen in the outer corridor. To see the same view through this window made him question whether it was as false as the other one had been ... just before il’Sänke had opened the “door” into this hidden sanctuary.

But suddenly, he became sharply aware that—with the exception of Shade—he was finally alone with Wynn again.

The undead Chane lay still as death in the back sleeping chamber.

This was nothing new. That thing always fell dormant the instant the sun rose.

Osha had become accustomed to that, though not comfortable with it. On the voyage to this strange hot and dry land, it had bothered—no, disturbed—him that Wynn treated their upside-down routine as normal. For the entire journey down the coast, she had inverted her days and nights to be up while Chane was awake and then to sleep much of the days. If and when she was awake in daylight, she had remained on the busy deck while that thing was still dormant.

As Osha turned, he could not remember the last time the two of them had been alone together.

Wynn was crouched in the cushioned sitting area nearby, trying to unfasten her pack’s flap. Her wispy light brown hair was unbound, and she kept pushing it back. This morning, she had not yet donned her midnight blue short-robe and wore a loose, spare shirt over the top of her pants.

Shade pressed in against Wynn with a grumble, which usually meant the majay-hì wished to communicate something. Wynn lost her balance and, with an exasperated sigh, turned toward the dog.

“Yes, I know!” she said, and then stroked Shade’s head. “Just give me a moment.”

By way of answer, Shade tried to shove her nose under the pack’s buckled flap.

“Stop that!” Wynn pushed Shade’s head away. “We’ll find something to eat soon. You’re getting as bad as your father.”

Shade rumbled quietly at that last comment, exposing her teeth.

Daughters and fathers, sons and mothers—in Osha’s life, he had too often seen them at odds with one another. Apparently, this was also so among the majay-hì, the sacred guardians of his abandoned homeland. But still, none of them had eaten since leaving the ship last dusk.

“We passed two small markets last night,” he said in his own tongue. “Perhaps something more than travel rations can be found in one of them.”

Wynn hesitated and looked up at him. “The domin told us to stay here, out of sight. Unfortunately, he didn’t mention how little was left in the cupboards of this place.”

She tried to sound conversational, but her manner and words were strained. It pained him, for there was a time when she had been more at ease with him than with anyone else in the world.

Roughly two years before, Osha had accompanied Wynn and her companions, as well as his jeóin and teacher Sgäilsheilleache, into the eastern continent’s ever frozen heights of the Pock Peaks. He had helped the best that he could in their search for what he now knew as the orb or “anchor” of Water. At that time, he had been an anmaglâhk in training, and his mentor, Sgäilsheilleache, had sworn guardianship over Magiere, Leesil, Chap, and Wynn.

Osha had stood true to that oath as well, perhaps most especially for Wynn, and this had slowly grown into something more.

Near the beginning of that journey, she had startled him by asking about his life and dreams. No one else had ever done so. Once they began the climb into the snowy peaks, conditions became so grueling that customs broke down for the sake of survival. In the freezing nights within a thin tent for shelter, Wynn had slept against his chest beneath both of their blankets and wrapped inside his cloak to keep warm.

She had been—was—nothing like the humans that he and his people had been taught to hate and fear.

He had scavenged food for her, melted snow and ice for them to drink, and when she felt threatened, she had run to him for protection. It meant something, though he could not find words for it. Later, she tried to teach him to dance at Magiere and Leesil’s wedding, and no one had ever paid him so much notice. When he had been forced to finally leave to catch one of his people’s living ships waiting in hiding near the city of Bela, she came after him to those crowded docks. When they said a final farewell, and he reluctantly turned away ...

Wynn ran after him, threw herself at him, and kissed him.

She then ran off through the crowd.

Osha had no choice but to leave for the ship with a journal Wynn had given him to deliver to Brot’ân’duivé. He and Wynn had gone their separate ways. And even now, so long afterward in this foreign land, he could not forget the press of her small mouth.

Too much had happened since that kiss—too much blood spilled, too much forced upon him, and too much taken from him. Through a mix of forced choices, he was no longer an anmaglâhk. The Chein’âs—the Burning Ones—were a race who lived in the heated depths of the world. They created all weapons of the Anmaglâhk. They had called him to them, and then, for reasons unknown, they had stripped his stilettos and bone knife from him and forced new weapons upon him. First, a sword that he never used, would not touch, but always kept bundled in cloth and out of sight. Second, a set of five white metal arrowheads and a matching handle for a longbow, and these he had later reluctantly learned to use.

Osha’s peace and sense of place had been shattered not long after that kiss upon the docks. He no longer knew who or what he was; though later, after he, Brot’ân’duivé, and Leanâlhâm found themselves on this new continent, a new thought had come to him when they had reconnected with Wynn.

If he could only get her to recognize what they had once been to each other, then he might find purpose again at her side.

When he was expected to leave Calm Seatt and go with Magiere’s group in search of the orb of Air, he had made a secret choice to let their ship sail without him. This weighed on him heavily, as he still regretted having abandoned Leanâlhâm.

But a chance to once more be with Wynn had overridden all else.

Nothing had turned out as he had envisioned. During their separation, many events had also occurred in her life, including the reappearance and intrusion of Chane. Worse, she had come to accept Chane’s help and protection.

The very thought made Osha ill, but there was nothing to be done about it. He had tried to get her to speak of their past and what they had been to each other in the Pock Peaks.

She had changed—and so had he.

She accepted his help, even welcomed it, and was always kind to him, but he longed for something deeper again. The more he wanted this, the more she withdrew, and he did not know why. So he continued to throw himself into her purpose to find the final orb and to protect the orb of Spirit they had found in the hope that she might reach out to him again.

Here, right now, in this invisible hideaway, at least he had her to himself—except for Shade.

“Should we go?” he asked.

Wynn glanced up at him in mild discomfort.

“All right, but we need to be quick,” she answered. “There’s no telling when Ghassan will return.”

He noticed that she had begun referring to the domin by his first name. Perhaps in their current situation, this was more appropriate and he should follow her example? Human customs sometimes escaped him.

As Wynn rose, Osha slipped off his cloak and held it out. “Leave your sage’s robe behind and wear this instead of your own cloak.”

She hesitated, frowning in puzzlement. He waited to be questioned and challenged, but instead she took the cloak from his hand and put it on. He did not bother donning a cloak at all, but again, she did not ask him what he had in mind.

“Come, Shade,” she said, turning away from him.

Emerging from the stairwell into the filthy tenement’s bottom floor, Wynn headed straight for the front door. She hadn’t looked back to see the hideaway’s entrance close and apparently vanish. She didn’t really want to see the passage’s end suddenly become a wall with the same window as in the chamber. There was something wrong about that ... something more than a mere illusion to hide the door.

Even that was half as unnerving as being alone with Osha and wearing his cloak—which was too long and nearly dragged along the ground. She had also left her staff behind at his insistent claim that it would attract attention.

Well, she wasn’t completely alone with him, and at least she had Shade along.

For some time now, Wynn had managed to avoid being isolated with Osha and thereby not given him a chance to dredge up their shared past. Yes, she cared deeply for him, but that was complicated. She had to remain focused on freeing her friends and then finding the orb of Air. And yet, she realized there was some freedom to express concerns now that Ghassan was elsewhere.

As she slipped out the front door behind Shade, she finally glanced back. “Osha? Did you notice that when Ghassan spoke of Magiere, Leesil, Chap, and Leanâlhâm being arrested, he mentioned nothing about Brot’an?”

Osha, in his long stride, closed the distance from behind her, carrying a burlap bag for whatever they found at the market.

“Yes, I noticed,” he answered, though she spotted the slight wrinkle of his brow.

“Why is that? Where do you suppose he is?”

Osha remained quiet at first. Wynn had to look ahead twice to avoid stumbling into Shade.

“It has been several moons since we have seen any of them,” he finally answered, and Wynn looked up at him again. “From what your domin told us, it is possible that the remainder of the anmaglâhk loyalists followed Magiere.” He paused. “Perhaps along the way, Brot’ân’duivé was ...”

When he wouldn’t finish that thought, she did. “Killed?”

Wynn was surprised by how much that notion unsettled her. Brot’an joining their cause had been a mixed blessing. Certainly neither Chap nor Leesil would mourn his loss, but still, the aging greimasg’äh—“shadow-gripper”—had more than once fought his own caste to defend Magiere. His very presence in the past had often given Wynn a greater sense of security, plus ...

Well, she liked him. She couldn’t help it.

“Perhaps he was not with them when they were taken,” Osha added.

“Then why hasn’t he rescued them by now?” she countered.

She couldn’t think of a good reason, and Osha didn’t offer one. If anyone could break Magiere and the others out of prison by stealth or force, it was Brot’an. And if he hadn’t—couldn’t—then ...

Oh, she didn’t want to think what that could mean.

“Wait,” Osha whispered.

Wynn froze, looking about.

“The smallest market we passed last night is around the corner, ahead to the left.”

Wynn exhaled in sudden tension and turned to him.

“Move quickly through the market,” Osha instructed, “and do not linger to be noticed.”

Perhaps she was a little overly annoyed at his unnecessary caution. “Between the two of us, you’re the one who’s going to get noticed! There are not many overly tall, white-blond elves wandering around here.”

“That is why I will not be with you.”

Wynn paused in confusion, and he went on before she could.

“Shade should go with me as well,” he added.

“What?”

“The two of us, together, will draw all eyes. This is also why I asked you to leave your robe and staff behind. You will pass unnoticed, or at least unremembered. Anyone in a midnight blue sage’s robe would be sought for questioning ... after whatever the domin has done.”

For an instant, Wynn was again at a loss for words. Osha almost sounded like Brot’an, and that made her uncomfortable, no matter how much she might like the elder shadow-gripper. And perhaps Osha knew it, for he lowered his eyes, not looking at her anymore.

“What good is it for me to pass unnoticed if you are?” she countered. “We’re all going to have to go out in the open eventually. You will stick out no matter what or when.”

Osha sighed and raised his eyes. “When I am alone, if I wish, I have ... can ... pass unnoticed to most.”

She didn’t like that any better, though this sounded lonely more than anything else. It made her ache inside. Before she said more, Osha stripped off a short rope around his waist, hidden beneath his tunic’s lower half, and crouched before Shade.

“May I ... please?” he asked her, holding out a loop at the rope’s end.

Shade looked up at Wynn and then back at Osha. With a wrinkle of her jowls, she huffed once at him. Osha slipped the loop around Shade’s neck and rose up, still looking at the dog.

“If you would perhaps make yourself ... noticed ... when we pass through?” he asked, closing his eyes briefly and bowing his head to Shade.

Shade grumbled but huffed consent, but Wynn was a little put out. Obviously Osha had thought this through long before saying anything. It was even more off-putting that Shade went along so easily.

“Stay to the outside stalls,” Osha instructed Wynn. “And if—when—others turn to look, do not do so. We will meet you where the market reaches the next cross street, and we will keep sight of you at all times.”

With that, he walked off toward the corner, though Shade trotted ahead to the end of the makeshift leash.

Wynn stood there, still fuming. She was so tired of those around her treating her like ... like she was made of glass! No matter how many times she put them in their place, they just kept doing it.

With a low hiss, she took off for the corner but paused long enough to peek around it. So much the worse, for she spotted Shade and Osha strolling right between the small tents, carts, and makeshift stalls. And worse again, because people did turn to stare at a tall elf with a bow strung over one shoulder and a huge black wolf on a rope leash.

Wynn ceased watching and slipped along the street side, looking for anything they could bring back to eat. From one outer stall to the next, she paused in searching among what was offered. She slowly filled a burlap sack with plump dates, apricots, flat bread, a brick of cheese, and dried goat’s meat. She moved along swiftly in her shopping and, thankfully, also found two leather-capped clay urns of fresh water.

Soon she reached the little market street’s far end.

When she looked about and peered down the left run of the next main street, she didn’t spot either Osha or Shade until she heard Shade’s low huff. Looking the other way to the side street’s far corner, there they were. Both barely peeked around the corner watching her. She hurried across but pulled up short at what she saw in Osha’s hand ... instead of on his shoulder.

The bow.

Wynn went straight to him. At least he hadn’t pulled an arrow and fitted it. He slipped the bow back to his shoulder, took her burdens without asking, and insisted on carrying them for her.

“Oh, come on ... both of you!” she whispered.

Not long after, they returned to the end of that upper passage and Ghassan’s secret chambers. Wynn lost her annoyance staring at the false window that looked out over the street. Getting back inside the hideaway was something she hadn’t done yet on her own. The domin had given her something rather strange to do so.

He had handed her a small stone, the size of a pebble.

Though accustomed to various esoteric tools of metaologers, Wynn had never heard of anything quite like this. Remembering his instructions on how to use the pebble, she dug it out of her coin pouch. It looked like any other she might have picked up off the ground. It was supposed to be used only “just in case.” None of them was supposed to leave until he returned ... unless absolutely necessary.

Well, food was necessary.

From what Ghassan had told her, all she was supposed to do was grip the pebble tightly in her hand until it hurt a little. That it was a pebble instead of something more obvious—more arcane-looking—made her doubt grow.

“Have you tried?” Osha asked from behind. “Do you see the door?”

“No, not yet,” she muttered, and stepped closer to the passage’s end.

One thing she wasn’t going to do was stick her hand through that false window first ... and see it go through, the way Chane had. Nor was she going to use her mantic sight to see the element of Spirit and, if she could, whatever had been done to the end of this passage. Chane hadn’t needed to warn her off from that. It might cost her more than peeking through the wall and getting sick.

“Wynn ... do you wish me to do this?” Osha whispered.

“No.” She gripped the pebble tightly in her hand, until the pressure hurt. That little wave of pain changed everything before her eyes.

The shadow overlay of the door’s frame appeared in the end wall. Its wooden planks were ... ghosts of planks across the view through the window. Low to one side, near the window frame’s bottom left corner, was a plain iron handle with no keyhole in its mount plate, as if locking that door was unnecessary.

And apparently, it was.

Before Chane had retired, they’d stepped aside to speak in private. She’d asked what he’d felt when he inspected the passage’s end, after Ghassan had vanished through it. Chane said he’d felt nothing but the wall and the window.

Exactly what kind of magic could hide something from touch as well as sight?

This was more than an illusion constructed through thaumaturgy and light.

Wynn hesitated as her free hand hovered near that semitransparent iron handle. Then she grabbed it. The handle felt as solid as if fully there. With a quick twist on the handle, she shoved the door open.

The door became suddenly real as it swung inward.

The window around it—through it—had vanished. She saw the other supposedly real window directly ahead at the hideaway’s rear, as if the window had leaped away from her. It was so disorienting that she froze until she heard a creak of metal.

“Stop the door!” Osha ordered.

It was already swinging shut on the force of its springs.

Wynn stopped it with one hand and almost jumped through rather than be caught halfway in. And then she stepped back right into Osha, who was carrying all her purchases. Whatever half-spoken exclamation he started was cut off, for Ghassan stood off to the left near the table and high-backed chairs.

Wynn was caught between hoping the domin had learned something and worrying about being caught outside the hideaway. But he didn’t even turn to look at her.

Ghassan stared down at the floor with his hands folded together behind his back, and his expression was both angry and troubled.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, forgetting everything else. “Has something happened? Did you find no help for Magiere and the others?”

His left eyelid fluttered. “Not now, Wynn,” he half whispered.

He blinked several times as if then realizing he’d spoken to someone. Raising his head, he looked over, and his half scowl vanished in a flattening of his expression.

“Pardon me ... No, I have not failed, only been postponed,” he went on. “I must go out again at dusk, but I will gain assistance to rescue Magiere.” Then he looked past her at Shade and Osha as she heard the door finally close.

“What have you been doing?” Ghassan demanded. “I told you to remain hidden unless it was necessary to flee.”

“We needed food,” Wynn answered. “And I couldn’t find anything in here.”

Wynn wondered what he had been eating. She was under the impression he’d been staying here for some time. And then she spotted a bag not unlike her own behind him on the table.

“I brought some things as well,” he said, looking past her again, likely at the bag Osha was holding. “Bread, goat’s cheese, figs, and some olives.”

Without a word, Osha went to the table and began unpacking their own food. But now Wynn couldn’t stop thinking about Magiere, Leesil, and Chap, and Leanâlhâm.

“You’ll find help tonight?” she pressed. “Some way to get them out of that prison?”

“I begin to see why your own high premin loses patience with you,” he chided. “Still always thinking you know what is most important when you are out of your elements.”

At that, he glanced sidelong at Osha and down to the food Wynn had acquired. Shade came up beside Wynn with a slowly growing rumble. As Wynn settled her hand on Shade’s back, Ghassan took a deep breath and let it out.

“But yes,” he said more evenly. “I will find a way to free your friends.”