“They are treacherous, my lady,” Aupsha said. “The Lhoin’na cornered me with questions he should not know to ask, and this sage”—she jerked sharply on Wynn’s face—“did the same with your counselor.”
Sherie’s normally pale face went white, and she turned toward Nikolas. “Is that why ... why you were being so kind? To separate us so your companions could go at my staff one by one?”
“No!” Nikolas answered, shaking his head so hard that his streaked hair swung.
“Then what are they really doing here?” Sherie demanded. “Why did you bring them?”
“Everyone stop!” Jausiff called in a booming voice that belied his age.
Even Shade ceased snarling and settled to a rumble as Jausiff followed up with a labored sigh.
“My lady,” he added, turning to the duchess, “please dismiss the captain and his men ... and lock the door. We have matters to discuss in private, and Aupsha may have misread the situation.”
Sherie fixed her regal glare on him, and Wynn watched as mixed confusion and doubt passed across the duchess’s face.
“Please, my lady,” Jausiff urged.
Sherie barely turned her head to speak over her shoulder. “Captain, take your men and wait outside.”
Holland hesitated with a glance at both Osha and Aupsha before he obeyed.
Without moving, Sherie commanded Nikolas next: “Lock the door.” Once he did so, she turned her scrutiny back on the master sage. Clearly she felt betrayed but was uncertain whom to hold responsible.
“And now?” she asked, though there was a slight tremor in her voice.
“Aupsha, release the journeyor,” Jausiff said. “And you, Master Elf, put that blade away. Both of you disarm—now!”
Osha’s eyes were moving in watching anyone present. He still hesitated when the hand came away from Wynn’s mouth, though he looked directly at her.
“Do it, Osha,” she said.
She watched his jaw clench as he lowered the dagger. The blade’s edge at Wynn’s throat released some of its pressure. Osha’s large amber eyes widened as some incensed fury twisted his long features.
“You ... bleed!” he hissed.
Osha raised his blade again and took a step as Shade’s jaws clacked around a snarl.
Wynn and Sherie shouted in the same instant.
“Put it away!”
“That is enough!”
Osha froze and Shade stood her ground. Only when the blade’s edge fully left Wynn’s throat did Osha reluctantly put the dagger behind his back. It was a moment longer before he revealed an empty hand. Despite losing his Anmaglâhk stilettos, he had somehow rigged the dagger to be drawn and returned to concealment as needed.
Wynn touched her throat where it stung, making it worse. Her fingers came away with a smear of blood. Even then she could barely move in trying to catch her breath.
When Aupsha sidestepped toward the door, Sherie shouted, “Do not move!”
Aupsha froze, and to Wynn it appeared that Jausiff was not the only one whom Aupsha served. There was far more collusion here than she would have first guessed, but it appeared that not all of them knew everything about ... whatever this was about.
“What is happening here?” the duchess demanded of the elder sage.
“A moment, my lady,” he answered, and his gaze hardened as he studied Wynn. “Before we proceed, you will prove to my satisfaction that you are who and what you claim to be, a true sage and a cathologer. Succeed ... and we continue speaking in here. Fail, and the duchess will call the guards back in.”
Wynn had lost control and realized she would have to play Jausiff’s game. Worse, she and everyone but Chane were now trapped in this room. If she failed, someone would soon enough find Chane “dead” in the guest quarters. After that, being thrown out of the keep would be the best and least likely outcome for failure.
Before she could even agree or disagree with the terms, Jausiff shot the first question at her.
“Who is the assumed creator of the symbolic system used to catalogue and shelve texts in the guild’s libraries and archives?”
Wynn raised one eyebrow. The youngest apprentice of any of the five orders could answer this.
“Kärêm al-Räshìd Nisbah,” she answered. “It was his own system as an imperial scholar, and used in the libraries of the Suman Empire some six hundred years ago.”
Jausiff said nothing, and then, “If I needed to search the archives for Spirit by Air, what symbols would I seek and what texts would I find?”
This was a more complex question, suited to a journeyor, for even apprentices were not generally allowed in the archives. The guild’s emphases of orders were often represented by geometric symbols associated with the prime Elements of Existence: Spirit, Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. In turn, any works that fell into an order’s fields of endeavor were marked and shelved by those symbols. Columns of such symbols on casements, and even on some shelves and texts, were used to classify, subclassify, and cross-reference their subject matter.
“You would look for a square above a circle,” she answered, “where you would find material on myths and legends shelved by delineation of historical context.”
This time he nodded once. “How many lexicons are there at the Calm Seatt guild for the pre-Numanese dialect of Êdän?”
Wynn almost answered “two” but stopped herself.
Êdän was pre-Numanese, yes, but it was an elven dialect no longer spoken and not a precursor to modern Numanese. So old, in fact, that it predated the Lhoin’na tongue and even the old dialect of the an’Cróan, Osha’s people.
A trick within a trick that only an advanced journeyor of Cathology might know, but still Wynn wondered....
Jausiff likely hadn’t visited the guild for many years, probably since before her time. Shortly after she achieved journeyor status, the Lhoin’na guild branch had gifted a second, updated Êdän lexicon to High Premin Sykion. Jausiff wouldn’t know this.
“One,” she answered.
He took a step back toward his desk. “It seems you are what you claim to be.”
“I told you,” Nikolas said irritably.
“Seems!” Jausiff repeated as he turned and snatched a book off his desk. “As to who you claim to be, through whom you serve ...”
In his hand was one of the texts Wynn had brought to him; she knew it by its cover.
The Processes and Essence of Transmogrification.
Wynn grew nervous again, not knowing what Jausiff was up to now. She hadn’t even finished skimming that book, let alone studied it enough to answer any questions about its content.
“You said three questions,” she challenged.
He ignored her. “Where would I find this text—by its subject matter—shelved in the library?”
Wynn stalled, though she knew the answer. That text wouldn’t be found in any openly accessible library. He would know this as well, because of the person who had received his request for it ... through whom you serve.
No, mentioning Premin Hawes wasn’t the real point.
Jausiff was apparently as paranoid as Wynn about sharing anything with anyone. No one in collusion with any minion of the Enemy would do all of this in sharing information. And that actually made Wynn trust him a little more.
“Well, where is it shelved ... in the library?” he repeated.
“It isn’t,” she answered. “Such a text would only be in the archive under the control of a domin and master archivist ... or in the private holdings of a domin—or premin—of Metaology.”
The old sage dropped the book on his desk with a thud and, with a scowl and snort, he nodded once to the duchess.
Lady Sherie was not so easily assured. “Someone explain what is happening here!”