The Night Voice

Chapter Nine

Osha once again headed toward the barracks of the Shé’ith on the outskirts of a’Ghràihlôn’na, the great city of the Lhoin’na, though he did not want to. His days here were like a mist-laden sleep caught between a dream and a nightmare. And he could not awaken until Leanâlhâm—Wayfarer—chose to let him, wherever she was. He so rarely saw her now.

The two of them and Shade had traveled with a caravan as far as a fork in the inland road, where they were directed to take the northward path. Leaving the caravan, they had traveled on foot. Where that path finally broke from the woods, they halted before an open, grassy plain.

Tan stalks with traces of yellow-green gently shifted in the breeze. For a moment, Osha had forgotten his bitterness at the sight of the forest beyond the plain.

The trees were so immense; perhaps more so than in the homeland he had lost. Welcome as the sight was at first, it then left him so sad. It was not his home, that of his people. Wayfarer had finally pulled him onward with Shade lagging behind, and they took a few steps along the road through the plain.

The sound of hoofbeats grew louder before Osha stopped and spotted three riders headed their way at a gallop. He pushed Wayfarer back behind him as Shade rounded forward on his other side.

The two rear riders held their reins in one hand and gripped long wooden poles in the other. The leader appeared to hold only a bow in his free grip.

Osha quickly shrugged his own bow off his left shoulder and into his hand, but he did not draw an arrow yet. As the riders raced nearer, he made out their hair and eyes.

Oversized and teardrop-shaped—like those of his own people—their amber-irised eyes sparked now and then in the light of the falling sun. Their triangular faces looked much like those of his own people, though perhaps not as darkly tanned. Instead of white-blond hair, their sandy and wheat-colored hair was pulled up and back in high tails by single silver rings at the back crown of their heads. They had the same ears as his own kind.

Garbed in tawny leather vestments garnished with swirling patterns of steel that matched the shoulder armor, each bore a pale golden sash diagonal over his chest. When they were near enough, Osha saw the long, narrow, slightly curved sword hilts protruding over their right shoulders.

Shade rumbled, and Osha dropped his other hand to shoo her back.

He knew exactly who these riders were by the illustration in the sages’ book that Wayfarer still carried. However, to see the Shé’ith with his own eyes was something else.

The riders neared to a stop before all three dismounted. The two leveled their poles as the third, the leader, closed in. Any stern challenge on that one’s face faltered at the sight of the trio before him.

Osha could understand that. To have two foreign “elves” arrive in the company of a majay-hì would be startling—certainly not a common sight. He expected suspicion, harsh questions, and no immediate belief of the answers. It would have been the same from the guardians of his own people—the Anmaglâhk—before Brot’ân’duivé and Most Aged Father seeded war among the caste.

But there were no questions, not at first.

The leader, whom Osha would later know as “Commander” Althahk, stared at a black majay-hì with strangers who looked much like his own people. After one wave of his hand, the other two raised their poles, dropped the butt-ends on the earth, and stood waiting.

“Are you in need of assistance?” he asked.

Or at least that was what Osha could make out.

He had trouble following the strange pattern and pronunciation of some words. But he had expected a different dialect and did his best to communicate. It was not long before he, Wayfarer, and Shade were escorted along the road. Althahk walked beside them, leading his horse, and sent the other two Shé’ith back to patrolling.

Such a welcome was perhaps a relief to Wayfarer, though Shade seemed indifferent. To Osha, it meant little. And yet it was the beginning of his seeing the stark differences between these people and his own.

Althahk took them onward to the city. As they finally passed through a living arch of two trees grown together high above, the sight beyond almost made Osha think of turning back.

Cleared stretches for paths were “paved” with packed gravel and stone slabs. Gardens and alcoves of flora flowed around countless buildings—rather than living-tree homes. Tendril vines with glistening green leaves and flowering buds climbed immense trees ... with more “made” structures and “made” walkways in their heights.

Earthbound buildings constructed of cut timber and stone were startling compared to the one port settlement of his own people. The an’Cróan did not build cities; they lived in—with—their land and did not dig, chop, cut, and change it like this place. He could understand and accept that humans did so, but not people supposedly like his own.

As Osha walked the main path, Wayfarer whispered to him in pointing out countless gardens overladen with heavy blooms. Every bit of space possessed nurtured—controlled—areas that stood out from their surroundings as ... unnatural.

When Althahk paused and pointed down a side path—another with stone paving—he mentioned finding them lodging. Instead, Osha asked to speak to him alone and told Wayfarer and Shade to wait. He stepped off before the commander even acknowledged the request, though Althahk caught up quickly and redirected him down another side path.

Osha looked around for anyone who might be watching and then pulled the long, canvas bundle off his back and unwrapped it.

Althahk stared without expression.

Osha had already learned his sword was like that of the Shé’ith, though his was made of Chein’âs white metal the commander would have never seen before. He did not know how these other guardians of another people earned their weapons. That was, if they earned such things at all.

Althahk raised his eyes to Osha. “What is this?” he asked. “And where did you get it?”

Osha did his best to explain without revealing much concerning the Anmaglâhk, the Chein’âs, the Séyilf, and ... too many other things.

Althahk listened in silence and remained so for a while after Osha finished. If he was not satisfied, it was difficult to tell.

“What do you seek here?” the commander then asked.

This was the moment Osha dreaded. It was difficult to even say, as he held up the sword.

“To remain among you—the Shé’ith—long enough to understand what this means.”

The large eyes in the elder’s face were too much like those of the great and most honorable Sgäilsheilleache, Osha’s deceased teacher.

“That is wise,” Althahk finally said.

After this, Osha explained Wayfarer’s purpose in coming here. On that same day, the commander took them deep into the forest.

At one point, Shade stopped, looked all around, and then sank on her haunches and began to howl. When Osha asked the majay-hì to stop and move on, Wayfarer grabbed his arm as she looked all around the forest. The girl trembled with fright but stood her ground as if waiting.

“The sacred one knows who is coming,” Althahk said. Raising his eyes from Shade, he gazed in only one direction.

Osha followed the commander’s gaze and heard noises in the undergrowth immediately.

A steel gray female majay-hì shot out of the undergrowth and halted.

Osha remained perfectly still, even as Wayfarer stepped around behind him. Were the majay-hì here as different as everything else in this land?

The female studied everyone tensely, as if prepared to act. She was obviously the scout, for Osha could hear the rest of the pack moving all around but out of sight. And Wayfarer pressed up against his side so that he could feel her trembling as she watched the steel gray female.

He knew what she feared from all of that one’s kind except for Shade and Chap—she feared that they would sense her human blood and reject her as not one of “the people.” She had once told him this fear in secret.

The female swung her head to look back into the brush-thickened trees.

A wild-looking woman pushed out through the leaves with another majay-hì, a mottled-brown male, at her side.

She was small for either a Lhoin’na or an’Cróan, and little taller than an average human woman. Her hair was dark brown—like Wayfarer’s—but with silver streaks. Those locks were bound back by a circlet band of braided green cloth, which might be made of raw shéot’a by its dull shimmer.

Osha did not know Lhoin’na knew how to make such cloth.

The woman’s complexion was dark enough to be that of an an’Cróan. This had to be the one that Wynn had called Vreuvillä.

“Leaf’s Heart” was the last of the Foirfeahkan, whatever that meant. Osha had never heard of such a caste, clan, or calling. There was no such word among his own people.

More majay-hì began coming into sight all around the clearing.

The woman settled a narrow hand upon the head of the mottled-brown male, and she looked down at him as if startled. When she raised her wide eyes, they shifted to someone slightly to Osha’s left.

On instinct, Osha swung his bow arm back to push Wayfarer farther out of sight.

The wild woman’s gaze hardened at him but turned again to Wayfarer.

Vreuvillä’s wild eyes widened and became glassy, as if tears might come. Her lips trembled once. Osha had seen that look on others, those who found something they thought gone forever. He did not like that look aimed at Wayfarer.

Neither did Shade, who crept out with hackles rising.

Vreuvillä’s pained and relieved gaze dropped to Shade with puzzlement and then ... recognition. Her frown returned as she looked to the commander with a slow sigh.

“How often do you let fate shove you about?”

That was the strangest question Osha had ever heard.

“I could hardly resist,” the commander answered, “as you would know.”

At the hint of a smile altering his stern expression, Osha glanced back to Vreuvillä and felt certain she did the same for an instant. There was something more than mere familiarity between these two.

What was happening here?

Vreuvillä looked once more to Osha’s left.

“Please ... come out,” she said softly.

Softness was not something Osha expected from this woman. He felt Wayfarer shift outward around his side. He tried to hold her back, but she grabbed his arm and held it off. At the sight of her, the woman slowly approached.

Osha watched carefully as Vreuvillä reached out, touched Wayfarer’s arm with only her fingertips, and closed her eyes so slowly, she might have been falling asleep.

When she opened them again, she whispered, “You wish to stay?”

Wayfarer nodded. “For a while.”

It troubled Osha to leave her with a strange woman and a pack of majay-hì. But this was why the girl had come, supposedly, and at least Shade would be with her. With one glance up at him, Wayfarer stepped off and followed the wild woman. Shade caught up, pushing in front between Wayfarer and Vreuvillä.

Both girl and dog looked back at Osha more than once.

He suddenly could not tolerate this. But at his first step, a grip closed tight on his bow arm.

“No, not yet,” Althahk warned, all hint of humor gone. “Come with me.”

Osha returned to the city and spent a restless night in an inn. The following day, Althahk took him to the barracks and introduced him to a group of five: three men and two women.

“This one will train with you,” he told them.

Without question, they accepted him.

The first day had involved nothing but a long walk through the forest. They finally camped somewhere on the forest’s edge beneath its immense trees. At least with those sentinels, though even taller than the ones of his homeland, he had one more moment of ease ... until he looked to the open, grassy plain beyond. It seemed like the same one he had first crossed upon entering this land.

And there were horses out there grazing.

When he asked about them, the smallest of the trainees—later known to him as Yavifheran—answered, “For later, when they think you are worthy.”

That set him on edge, and he eyed the horses: only five, as his inclusion in this group had been unanticipated.

There was not one day that followed when he was free of guilt over leaving Wayfarer and Shade with that unknown woman. And he felt more guilt than any sense of peace he felt with these others out in the wild. Though his skill was poor as compared to others of the caste, his anmaglâhk training aided him in what “games” were played for stealth, surveillance, hunting, and tracking.

From early on, not one of his new companions could match him with a bow.

More than one asked why he looked hesitant before—and angry and sad after—he fired an arrow and never missed his mark. He could not answer, for they would never understand. Praise for his skill only made this worse.

By looking in their eyes, he knew not one of them had ever killed in battle.

Especially not Siôrs, who was lighthearted and not a deep thinker. But of the five, Osha found Siôrs’s company a tonic sorely needed, for Osha himself had come to think far too much. Unfortunately, this broad-shouldered Shé’ith trainee also gave Osha new turmoil. Siôrs was forceful in teaching Osha the horse, and then the pole ... and finally the sword.

Each proved difficult for different reasons; the last was the worst, but riding came first.

The idea of sitting on the back of and attempting to control another being was abhorrent to him. That “she” had a name put upon her by someone was troubling, even though he had become accustomed to such things in the human world. This was even worse when Osha realized she was something more than the horses he had previously encountered.

En’wi’rên—“Wild-Water”—threw him off violently the first three times he hesitantly tried to mount her. The last time he hit the earth, she came at him. He rolled and scrambled away as her fore-hooves slammed and broke the forest floor, though nowhere near enough to have struck him.

She stood there, threw her head, and snorted.

“Oh, blessed green!”

Osha started at that moaned shout. There stood Siôrs among the others, all watching him.

“Stop treating her as if she will break!” Siôrs called with too much drama.

Even reed-thin Mehenisa looked astonished—or aghast. By her slight build, anyone might have thought her unsuitable to such a rough life. Ulahk and Kêl, cousins by human terms, were trying and failing not to snicker. Yavifheran, the youngest member, if judged by his size, watched with more disapproval than anyone else.

“Do you think the commander would send us out with untrained companions?” Siôrs asked as if the answer were obvious, and he flipped a hand toward En’wi’rên. “She is already a warrior and guardian, a full and true Shé’ith because—”

Yavifheran backhanded Siôrs across the arm, and Siôrs stopped short, as if he had almost made a slip.

Osha was too stunned by something else to give that much thought. A horse, not only named, held equal—no, superior—status among those present who trained to be Shé’ith?

Then who was En’wi’rên’s true rider?

“Show her respect, not your doubt!” Siôrs barked at Osha. “She has earned that more than any of us. Mount her knowing she will be there—always!”

As if to illustrate, he turned, charged straight at the horse, and leaped in the last instant.

Siôrs’s hands braced on the horse’s back as he vaulted and swung one leg over to land astride En’wi’rên’s back. Though she shifted, clearly that was a brief adjustment for the sudden passenger. Siôrs never even touched the reins.

“See?” he said, spreading his arms wide. Siôrs then swung his far leg over, slid off the horse’s back, and landed lightly on his feet.

En’wi’rên looked at Osha with her big black eyes, snorted at him, and shook her head.

Osha burned with embarrassment and stifled anger.

But it was the last time he disrespected En’wi’rên, no matter how much he abhorred riding another being. It was not that last time he fell, though that came later—again and again—in training with the pole or “mercy’s lance.”

He had difficulty learning to both feel and anticipate how En’wi’rên compensated for his mistakes while sparring on horseback. Most of his first falls were not from being knocked off her by an opponent’s lance across his midriff. He tried to pay more attention—to listen—to what she taught him in her movements. Less often did she have to save him, if possible. And then he still took a lance across the chest too many times.

En’wi’rên always stood silently, waiting each time until he picked himself up.

The worst came last, when he finally held that sword forced upon him. It was like touching the very thing that had taken everything he wanted when he had become Anmaglâhk. It was an unnatural, hateful thing; the seeming purity of the white metal blade mocked him. Everything about its use made this worse.

He understood striking from a distance with the bow, and even the return of the same from an enemy. With a small blade, though he could match few of his former caste, and never his teacher, the great Sgäilsheilleache, he also understood the bone knife’s hook, the stiletto’s hidden flash and speed, the strike and sweep of leg and arm, hand and foot, so close to an opponent that they were one.

But the sword ...

Constantly shifting at a distance beyond touch and yet well short of an arrow’s flight seemed impossible to master. How many times did he suddenly freeze in finding Siôrs’s sword—or that of one of the others—resting flattened upon his shoulder near his neck?

Too many times to count.

What little peace Osha found in the forest began to wither.

At night, in trying to sleep, he was too often tortured by thoughts of Wynn. Not only for the pain of wanting her and the pain of her sending him away, but in imagining her in a barren desert and in danger without him.

As well, he wondered what had become of Wayfarer and Shade.

There had been times when Wayfarer had sent Shade to find and assure him. Even fewer times had the black majay-hì agreed to guide him to Wayfarer, and always in a place that could not be where she stayed with that wild woman. Even when he did manage to see Wayfarer with Shade’s assistance, she was slowly becoming someone he no longer recognized. She treated him more and more as almost a stranger.

Several times, he left the others on foot to try to find her himself, though he never succeeded, and when he returned ...

The others’ worry, irritation, and anger were quite open. That cut him more than expected, and he did not know why. After having once abandoned her to Brot’ân’duivé and the others, he should have been relieved if not glad of her growing self-reliance. He was not.

There came a time when only Shade seemed glad to see him, and she was the only one he saw. Those were the only moments he found peace anymore, for she lingered longer and longer with him when Wayfarer did not come. The sight of a black majay-hì coming for him, and shying away from anyone else, puzzled the other trainees, though they never asked about this.

Finally, a dawn arrived when Osha tried to count how many had come and gone in the time of his training. He could not. Another dawn came when the others decided—or knew—it was time to return to a’Ghràihlôn’na. The journey back took longer than it might have, for the horses—including En’wi’rên—were gone that morning when he rose. Perhaps that had been the signal to the others.

It was dark by the time they arrived in the city, and Osha wondered what he would do now. All of his new peers had families here, and he had no one.

“You will stay with me,” Siôrs said, as if it were fact. “My mother loves guests.”

Osha did not know how to refuse politely. He had grown fond of Siôrs but would not be comfortable in an unfamiliar Lhoin’na family. He was still trying to find the right words as they approached the barracks when Althahk came striding out of the large stable nearby.

The commander’s expression was so stern that the entire group stopped and bowed their heads.

“Osha!” Althahk barked, ignoring the others. “Come!”

Osha blinked, startled, uncertain how to respond. After a quick glance at Siôrs, who only shrugged, Osha hurried after the commander. Althahk had already turned toward the stable, his boots cutting the ground in long, hard strides.

Osha grew more alarmed in catching up. Before he could ask, they reached the open doors of the stable, and the Shé’ith commander stopped.

“These claim an acquaintance with you,” he said. “I know two of them, and I told them it could not be true.”

Lost and confused, Osha peered into the stable. Chap and Chane, as well as a red-haired dwarf, were all standing before the backside of a wagon with three chests in its bed. The dwarf was familiar, for Osha had met him briefly in Calm Seatt when he assisted with their original escape from that city. He could not quite remember his name, though the dwarf appraised him with thinly veiled dislike.

All the recent past days and nights of training vanished in an instant as Osha saw the three chests in the wagon. Full reality returned as he looked to Chane, who nodded once.

“You know them?” Althahk demanded.

“Yes,” Osha answered. “Yes ... I know them.”

“Go and collect Wayfarer and Shade,” Chane said without greeting. “Chap and Ore-Locks will go with you. I remain to guard ... our wagon, and as soon as we resupply, we are leaving.”

Osha went numb amid confusion. It was not that he wished to stay, but as of yet, he had gained no answers to his questions:

Why had the Chein’âs forced the sword upon him?

Why had they linked him to the Shé’ith?

Chuillyon sat feeling sorry for himself at his usual table in a public house on the edge of a’Ghràihlôn’na. Once he had been the head of a secret order of the Lhoin’na branch of the Guild of Sagecraft. He had dressed in white robes and commanded subtle but real power. He had been a great scholar ... and more.

Now he sat drinking wine each night at the same table. Perhaps as a vain tribute to his former life, he wore a long black open robe over his simple pants and tunic. Black as the opposite of white was too much irony, though likely no one else would see it that way. No one noticed him much at all, for he always remained aloof.

How long had it been since he had chosen to secretly chase after Wynn Hygeorht into the bowels of lost Bäalâle Seatt? He had gone without permission or even guild knowledge, and one of his own acolytes had been killed. Another acolyte from a different order, but devoted to him, had been gravely injured. And upon his return, Chuillyon had been stripped of all positions and cast from the guild. Though he had mentally accepted this outcome, he had certainly never come to terms with it.

Then, an echo of Wynn Hygeorht had appeared two moons ago. He had been out walking in the city when that arrogant Althahk came in without his companions, but with three others.

Shé’ith always traveled in threes when ranging in their duties. Althahk alone escorted two foreign “elves” ... and a charcoal black majay-hì.

Shade, unique upon sight as Wynn’s companion, was utterly unmistakable to Chuillyon.

He remained frozen in place, watching from a distance. What was Wynn Hygeorht’s wayward majay-hì doing here—and without the troublesome if endearing little human sage?

Strolling behind and off to the side, he closed on them enough to hear what might be said. The tall male and the short female spoke quite strangely. They were not Lhoin’na, which meant they had come a long way from that other place so few knew of on this side of the world.

But he knew.

Oh, yes, Chuillyon had occasionally traveled that far, considering that Chârmun, the great sacred tree of his people, had a “child” in the an’Cróan’s ancestral burial ground. Yes, this was simple enough information to acquire if one knew what he could do and how.

Wynn Hygeorht as well had spent several years on the eastern continent, though he had not known her then.

Chuillyon had long foreseen the growing darkness ahead. In concern, he had counseled sages, nobles, and royals secretly. Warning signs both light and dark heralded its coming nearer. And considering Wynn’s black companion was involved and now here ...

He followed the trio that day, remaining out of sight as they first entered the forest. To his confusion and shock, Shade and the girl went off with Vreuvillä, that mad recluse who worshiped Chârmun and lived among majay-hì. But not before he caught a glimpse of the strange girl’s eyes.

Even from a distance in the forest’s shadows, those eyes were a strange, vibrant green instead of proper amber. After Shade and the girl were gone, the commander escorted the lanky young male to the barracks of the Shé’ith, where he was sent off with initiates likely in training.

None of this made any sense.

However possible, Chuillyon spent as much time as he could spying on them. Not so much with the girl, for it was quite difficult to get close with a pack of majay-hì always about. He did learn their names—Osha and Wayfarer—though at least once, the young male made a strange slip and almost called the girl something else.

And as with the girl’s eyes, there was something strange about the young male as well.

Osha apparently possessed a Shé’ith sword not given to him by the Shé’ith.

Every time Chuillyon learned another tidbit, it gave him fits of aggravation. Not quite as bad as with Wynn Hygeorht, but still ...

Tonight, at the inn, he stared into a full goblet. He had not taken a single sip.

The obvious was unavoidable if he wanted any slim chance to figure out more about these two strange young ones with Shade. He certainly could not approach Althahk or Vreuvillä; doing so would eventually be heard of by the guild. Perhaps it was time for another surreptitious foray into the lands of the an’Cróan, such a backward people distantly related to his own.

There was a problem with that as well.

Highly placed sages of his suborder had learned to use Chârmun—“Sanctuary”—and its few “children” about the world as portals from one to another. No one would do so lightly; well, all right, he’d sought Chârmun’s assistance a bit more than anyone else had. And now, even though he was not highly placed anymore, nothing could take that ability from him.

However ... outcast, disgraced, and worse, if he was caught doing so, he did not want to know what would happen. Well, he did think banishment was the next possibility, but they would have to catch him first.

There was a legend reaching back to the beginning of the Forgotten History. An ancestor of the Lhoin’na—and the an’Cróan—had been a leader of the allied forces in the Great War.

Sorhkafâré—“the Light upon the Grass”—took a cutting from Chârmun and left with those who would follow him. Some of the first Fay-born, including wolves whose descendants would become the majay-hì, joined him too. He led them across the world to establish a new territory on the eastern continent. There he planted that cutting, which became Roise Chârmune—the “Seed of Sanctuary”—at the heart of what would become those ancestors’ burial ground.

Chuillyon knew this legend was true.

With Chârmun’s assistance, he had briefly sneaked into that land a few times over many years. It seemed he would have to do so again for more serious snooping about.

Finally resigned, he rose and left the common house, leaving behind the full goblet. Heading through the city and out its northern side, he entered a path that led out into the thickest part of the central forest. He knew the way so well that he did not have to watch his steps. But as he drew closer to Chârmun’s clearing, he slowed to approach with care and peeked carefully around each turn in the path. He listened to the forest as well before sneaking onward.

The last thing he needed was to be caught here, and not just by members of his former caste or the Shé’ith. As he spotted Chârmun’s faint glimmer through the forest, he heard voices behind him along the path.

“Are we nearly there?” a deep, annoyed voice demanded in Numanese.

Chuillyon froze and looked about for any place to hide.

“Yes, nearly,” answered another. “Chap, you should lead. I have already failed to find where we must go.”

Chuillyon knew that voice and ducked off the path. Momentarily tangled in leafy, damp vines, he thrashed into the dense undergrowth, hoping no one heard. There he crouched behind a dank, moss-coated oak.

An instant later, Osha pushed through along the path.

Chuillyon was quickly distracted by someone else.

A red-haired male Rughìr, or dwarf, followed closely behind the young an’Cróan.

Chuillyon recognized the dwarf, though a name escaped him. He had seen the same one in Wynn’s company on her visit to his land, just before he had tracked her all the way to lost Bäalâle Seatt. And last down the path came a tall, mature, silver-gray majay-hì.

This was rather disconcerting, aside from Wynn’s own black companion. Just how many Fay-born had taken to wandering the world with outsiders?

Once the trio passed by and were a little ways down the path, Chuillyon slipped out of the brush more carefully than he had slipped in. It was not hard to follow them, considering the grumbling of the dwarf, who constantly swatted aside branches and vines that got in the way of his wide body.

What business did these three have so close to the presence of Chârmun?

Chuillyon crept after them.

Wayfarer sat with her legs folded to one side upon the mulchy ground. With Shade beside her, she looked up through a break in the forest’s canopy at a clear, starlit sky. And here in this place, there were always majay-hì within sight.

She had grown more accustomed to them via Shade’s guardianship and comfort. Sometimes they still reminded her of their kind in her lost homeland who had spied upon her and had likely done so for years before she was aware of them. She no longer feared that.

Wayfarer had never seen—dreamed—of anything like this place.

Strange bulging lanterns of opaque amber glass hung in the lower branches of maples, oaks, and startlingly immense firs. If one looked closely into the trees’ thick foliage, tiny trinkets and other odd items could be seen bound to their limbs by raw threads of shéot’a, something the Lhoin’na used to make shimmer cloth. All of those trees loosely framed a broad gully with gently sloping sides that stretched ahead.

Decades of leaf fall had hampered much undergrowth, leaving the way clear for the most part. Yet, ivy still climbed over exposed boulders and around and up evergreens. Bushy ferns grew here and there, breaking through the mulch that now crackled under loping, scurrying paws.

A pack of five adult majay-hì, along with four pups, engaged in their own form of communication all around her. Of course, the young ones were less interested in “talking” and more interested in who could stay the longest atop their rolling, running pile of little bodies. All dashed about past one another in rubbing heads, muzzles, or even shoulders ... for they spoke with their own memories.

It was a language like no other.

Wayfarer had been learning it ... hearing it ... seeing it in her own mind. It now took only the barest touch of fingertips in fur.

Should she wish, Wayfarer could have reached out and touched them as they ran past. Flashes of their memories would be shared with her. If not for Shade guiding her, rather than Vreuvillä, this might have been terror rather than a revelation. But once it sank in, it changed everything.

Vreuvillä had said as much in a strange way. “They will prepare you.”

Wayfarer had not known what that meant. Prepare her for what? Then later, she did not care.

She had once believed herself an outsider, reviled and spied upon by the majay-hì of her own lost homeland. When they had come near her, hiding in the bushes and staring, she had thought this indicated their judgment that she did not belong.

How wrong she had been.

Majay-hì here were of all the colors she had known and feared. There were mottled brown, silver gray, near-black ones, and more. But there were none so black as Shade or any white like Shade’s mother, the one Wynn had named Lily.

The white majay-hì—Chap’s mate and Shade’s mother—had set Wayfarer on the path to this place through a terrible journey.

It had taken a while, but Shade occasionally joined the others in their touching memory-talk. Not right now, though. Wayfarer leaned over and rested the side of her face against Shade’s neck. Almost instantly, a word rose into her head out of her own memories—in Magiere’s voice.

—Dinner?—

Wayfarer sighed and pressed her face deeper in Shade’s fur. Even for all of the memories shared, she had come to like Shade’s “voices” in her head almost more.

“Soon ... not just yet,” she answered, the answer somewhat muffled.

Even Shade was such a complication, though Wayfarer had grown to need her desperately. Shade was “sister” to Wynn, ally of Chane, and even friend to Osha. Perhaps in another time and place Wayfarer might have shunned Shade as she had Osha.

Facing Osha amid all else in this new place while he still thought longingly of Wynn was too much. And so, slowly, she had cut herself off from him.

Wayfarer rolled her face out of Shade’s neck to gaze down the gulley.

At its nearer end stood a vast fir tree with a trunk nearly as wide as a tower of the keep where Wynn had once lived in Calm Seatt. The hint of a dark opening showed in its bare base, closed off by a hanging of dyed wool in that doorway.

Wayfarer had been unsettled by the “made” structures of a’Ghràihlôn’na—after her initial awe had passed. Here, she found comfort within a living tree like those of her own people, even as a temporary home. The wool curtain shifted, maybe from movement inside the tree, and a muffled voice called out.

“Wayfarer?”

“Yes,” she called back.

Vreuvillä emerged from the tree dwelling, a circlet of braided raw shéot’a strips binding back her silver-streaked hair. Wayfarer had taken to wearing the same.

She had also cast aside old clothes for ones like the elder Foirfeahkan. She now wore pants and a long-sleeved tunic, as well as high soft boots, and a thong-belted jerkin, both made of darkened hide. There was also a pleated, thick wool skirt of dark forest green split down the front that could be bound around her waist as needed. She rarely wore that, as she did not like how it got in her way.

“Supper is ready,” Vreuvillä said, striding closer as some of the pack shifted and circled in around her.

“Is it so late?” Wayfarer asked, sitting upright. “I should have helped.” They normally ate well past dusk and into the night, and she always helped with everything.

“I would have called if help was needed,” Vreuvillä said bluntly before Wayfarer could apologize.

Such brusque responses—sometimes before a question was even asked—had become almost normal. At first, Wayfarer had found the Foirfeahkan woman rather sharp. But this was just her way, and she had opened a new world before Wayfarer’s eyes.

That new world had not always been comfortable and was often confusing.

Vreuvillä explained that the Foirfeahkan were—had been—a spiritual sect reaching back before what humans called the Forgotten History. And even farther and farther. Vreuvillä did not know how far back they began.

From what Wayfarer understood, the priestess was the last of them.

Their ideology was animistic, another strange word with which Wayfarer had trouble. They believed in the spiritual—ethereal—of this world rather than a theistic focus common to the outside world. They believed—somewhat like the an’Cróan but more—that Spirit itself was of this world forever and not from a separate realm. More confusing at first, the life of Existence had a heart, a center, a “nexus,” which was another word that Wayfarer had never heard in any language.

Chârmun—“Sanctuary”—was the center of all.

It was called so because its presence was why the Lhoin’na forest was the last place where the Ancient Enemy’s darkest forces could not enter during or since the Great War.

The tree grew in all its mystery and beauty in what others called “First Glade.” The true place of that name to the Foirfeahkan was somewhere else nearby. Wayfarer had gone to look upon Chârmun many times, though she had often needed Shade to help find her way through the forest. At first, she had been frightened, and even Shade had been reluctant.

In a hidden, remote place in her own people’s forest stood another sacred tree of a similar name—Roise Chârmune, the “Seed of Sanctuary.” Its clearing was the last resting place for the ashes of the first an’Cróan ancestors. Only the most honored dead of their people were allowed to have their ashes laid in that place. And most others only visited there once in their lives for a vision by which they took their final name.

Though Vreuvillä revered Chârmun, as the last Foirfeahkan she did not truly worship it. She saw it as sacred in being integral to everything, as were the majay-hì and other Fay-born. Because of this, she could share memories with the majay-hì ... as could Wayfarer now. “How” was still a puzzle, and, though it was never said, Wayfarer often wondered about Vreuvillä’s physical appearance.

The priestess looked in some ways like an an’Cróan or a Lhoin’na and yet neither. This was mostly because of her dark hair—like Wayfarer’s—but there was something more.

Was Vreuvillä also of mixed blood?

Was it the same with all past Foirfeahkan?

Vreuvillä never spoke of this, even when asked, though from other things, Wayfarer knew there could be no form of heritage for this calling. All who had become Foirfeahkan did not inherit it; they came to it, as she had now done. In that, her taken name before the ancestors had better meaning.

Sheli’câlhad, “To a Lost Way.”

And even that was not the final naming, according to her new teacher. Vreuvillä once mentioned that all Foirfeahkan took a name by their new calling. It was a name of their own choice. Even so, Wayfarer wanted no name but the one she now had, created for her by Magiere, Léshil, and Chap.

At first, she had not known what to expect in coming here, but after initial explanations, Vreuvillä did not spend much time with instruction. Rather, she encouraged Wayfarer to simply exist and feel what was real for herself.

“Commune among the majay-hì,” she said, “and with First Glade ... the true one ... when the need calls you. These will teach you far more—more quickly—than can I. And after that, there is even more.”

At first, and only at night, when even the trees slept, Vreuvillä had taken her to the true First Glade. It was a clearing with a broad circle of slender aspens at the far side. Those trees looked no different from others of their kind, but perhaps they were too pristine for a wild place. Within their circle, the grass was low and clean. And when Vreuvillä breached that circle to stand at its center surrounded by the aspens, her hair suddenly glistened as if she had stepped into a spring dawn.

Silver streaks in her locks turned almost white. Her amber eyes sparked as she raised her face upward. The majay-hì paced softly around the tree ring.

On that first visit and others later, Shade always remained at Wayfarer’s side.

The priestess spread her arms low to the sides with palms forward and whispered in a tongue difficult to follow. It sounded like an’Cróan or Lhoin’na but perhaps older. That Vreuvillä heard or felt something answer her was clear, for it was the only time all traces of harshness vanished from her face.

But Wayfarer had neither seen nor heard anything, and Vreuvillä never explained.

Wayfarer had gone to this First Glade several times with only Shade. Though she tried to copy what Vreuvillä had done in clearing all thoughts from her mind, nothing happened. She felt nothing and heard nothing each time; ask as she did, Vreuvillä only answered, “You will receive an answer when they think you are ready.”

And when Wayfarer asked, “When who thinks I am ready?”

“That is part of the answer you will receive.”

There were too many nonanswers like this.

Days and nights passed much the same, except for “listening” to majay-hì memories in Shade’s company. In that, she was almost at peace in forgetting things she had yet to understand. Freedom was hers for the first time among the pack, until Vreuvillä mentioned something else.

Wayfarer pressed about why the Foirfeahkan lived isolated from the world, and the priestess hesitantly whispered ...

“Jâdh’airt.”

Wayfarer frowned. Much as that sounded like a word of her people, it made no sense. Her only guess was something like “an overwhelming desire.”

Vreuvillä’s jaw clenched, and walking away, she uttered in a low voice, “The true wish.”

Again, that was not enough. Other than being just a youthful nothing, it did not seem such a horrible thing. Wayfarer headed after the priestess.

“How is that different from just ... a wish for something wanted?”

Vreuvillä slowed but did not look back. “Nothing can be created or destroyed in such a way. Only changed ... exchanged.”

Striding on, she had offered nothing more.

Tonight, Wayfarer pressed all such things from her mind. She was glad for the company of Vreuvillä and the pack, and in this moment, she was determined to think only of following the priestess back to the dwelling—and eating dinner together.

The two of them had taken only a few steps when ...

A leggy, light brown majay-hì ahead to the left whirled from watching over tussling pups. She lunged down into the gulley and stared toward the far end. In less than two breaths, others of the pack stopped and turned.

Wayfarer did so as she heard Shade rumble shortly. Something shook the low branches at the gulley’s far end.

A silver-gray majay-hì pushed out through the brush.

“Chap!” Wayfarer shouted, running to him.

There had been a time he was so sacred, she did not dare touch him. Then there was a time when she would but was still in awe of him. And later, even needing him curled up beside her at night, she found the old reverence was still there.

Now she skidded in, fell to her knees, and threw her arms around Chap, nearly knocking him over and sending both of them tumbling. Much as she had come to adore Shade, she had missed the one who nurtured her earliest self-discoveries.

“Oh, Chap!” she cried again, even as he grumbled at her. “You are safe ... safe!”

—Yes ... I missed you too, but enough ... Wayfarer, enough!—

She had barely sat back, determined not to cry, when the brush beyond Chap rustled and tree branches parted.

Osha emerged into the gulley’s end, and Wayfarer’s body clenched.

He stopped just beyond the trees, looked her up and down, and then dropped his gaze.

A part of her still clung to him. Another part found him a distraction for the mix of resentment, betrayal, and longing she still felt toward him. This was why she had stopped going to see him a moon ago.

Wynn had sent him away, but Osha still kept her with him ... inside.

Chap shoved his head into Wayfarer’s shoulder.

—Not now ... There is much to do—

She should have reveled in the sound of memory-words in her mind from him.

Some of the pack were closing in, a few rumbling softly. None of them knew him, but they knew he was not one of them. She never had a chance to show them.

A wide and stout form with loose red hair thrashed out of the trees behind Osha.

Even at night by the glowing lanterns, Wayfarer recognized him. He was a friend of Chane’s who had helped them escape from Calm Seatt. Osha stepped closer behind Chap, watching her again. Even before she realized what all of this meant ...

—We have ... the three orbs—

“Where is Chane?” she asked Chap.

“Back in the city, guarding our cargo,” Osha answered.

Wayfarer looked up once to see the scowl on his horselike face. And then Vreuvillä appeared, standing over Wayfarer.

“What is the meaning of this overly late visit?” the priestess demanded.

“Forgive us,” Osha answered. “It was necessary.”

His use of the Lhoin’na dialect had improved.

Wayfarer ignored him and focused on Chap. In recent days, she had worked with Shade on something new. The sharing of memories involved more than mere images, sounds, and touch and smell. There were emotions connected to them.

Wayfarer had shared memory after memory of Chap with Shade, his daughter, showing that daughter how Chap had protected her, befriended her, given her comfort. She hoped this might ease some of Shade’s own resentments toward her father.

Now Wayfarer twisted on her knees away from Vreuvillä and looked back. Shade had stepped forward within reach, likely out of habit, for they needed touch to speak her way. She did not approach her father, though at least she was not bristling with hackles raised.

Shade huffed once at her father.

Chap stared back at her, wide-eyed and motionless, perhaps afraid to do anything to ruin even so little acknowledgment.

Wayfarer turned the other way and looked up at Vreuvillä, though she never got out a word.

“Yes, I see it is time,” the priestess said, her voice tight as if restraining something. “And you are done learning ... at least what you are.”

Wayfarer rose up and nodded.

“You will come again to finish,” Vreuvillä said quietly, “when there is time again.”

Wayfarer could only nod, swallow hard, and look around the gulley at its lanterns and all of the majay-hì. This was not her home; that would be somewhere else with Magiere, Leesil, and Chap when all was done. And still ...

She had known this was coming and did not like it.

Hidden among the trees and dense foliage, Chuillyon absorbed all that he saw and heard. It was almost too much, even for missing pieces that left him frustrated.

After gathering her belongings and saying short good-byes, Wayfarer left with Osha, the dwarf, and the silver-gray majay-hì, and Shade as well.

Yes, I see it is time.

The vexing priestess’s words were the crux, but time for what? In a long life in the light of Chârmun, Chuillyon hated the darkness of ignorance most of all. And he was going to do something about that.