He would make no promises.
Chane snapped the reins, and both horses broke into a trot, heading out the gates and down the slope along the road. He looked ahead through the dark for Shade, as the dog would never go far from Wynn.
They were barely out of sight of the keep when Wynn made a change.
“Osha, take the reins and drive,” she said. “Chane, back here with me.”
“Why?” Chane asked.
“Just do it!”
Osha climbed over the bench, and Chane handed off the reins to join Wynn. He found her awkwardly removing the sheath from her staff while still holding the strange piece of ruddy metal. Once the sheath was off, and the staff’s long crystal was exposed, she began digging one-handed through his pack and pulling things out at random.
“What are you doing?” he rasped. “What good will your staff be against—”
“Look at this,” she said, holding out the piece of metal. “It’s part of an orb key or handle.”
Chane looked up from her hand. He was not certain what this meant, but he did not care for it.
“Aupsha’s people had a key for the orb stolen from them. They cut it into pieces so it could never be used with the orb ... but they did something else to it ... somehow.” And she looked up at him. “It’s activated now, and so long as someone holds it, this piece of key can be used to point the general way to an orb ... and not just the one the duke has. I know this because Aupsha was the one who broke into the Stonewalkers’ realm in tracking the wrong orb.”
Chane was momentarily stunned. Before he could form a question, Wynn turned back to his pack and pulled out his gloves, mask, and glasses.
“When you found the orb of Earth in Bäalâle,” she went on, “Sau’ilahk had gotten ahead of you. You found that the orb was still there, but you didn’t find a key handle. When Magiere returned from the Wastes, she had a key to match the orb she found there, yet the orb in Bäalâle had none. We couldn’t figure out why Sau’ilahk left the orb of Earth, but perhaps it wasn’t the orb he really wanted. Maybe he took the key instead ... and maybe he knew how to make it work in another way.”
Chane did not like what she was hinting at. “No ... Neither I nor Shade have sensed an undead in this place.”
“Maybe he’s kept enough distance. Maybe you couldn’t sense something through the keep’s stone ... or down below it. But who else could have taught Karl how to tamper with an orb ... or might have a key to open one?”
Chane wanted to dismiss all of this, but he could not. He had not bargained for carrying Wynn into another confrontation with the wraith. Perhaps she was wrong.
Wynn put everything else she had pulled out back into his pack until all that remained in her lap were his gloves, mask, and scarf, and the original pair of dark-lensed glasses that had been made with her sun-crystal staff.
“Get these on and pull up your hood ... and be ready,” she said.
Chane sighed, a habit left over from life. He did as she asked, for once he was completely covered, Wynn could freely ignite the sun crystal as necessary, and he could withstand its arcane light for a short while.
The possibility that she might need to use the sun-crystal staff stripped away all comfort in being prepared. Then something more occurred to him.
“If Shade senses an undead, she will ... go berserk. She might try to attack alone and drive it off before it senses you. That is what I would do in her place.”
Somewhere out in the dark Sau’ilahk could be with, trailing, or awaiting Duke Beáumie.
Wynn leaned forward. “Osha, faster!”
Chane pulled his gloves on and reached for the mask.
Chapter Nineteen
Sau’ilahk sat on a wagon bench while Guardsman Comeau drove the team of horses down the inland road. The coastal wind blew relentlessly at his back and made him wish he had thought to bring a cloak. What a strange thought that was after centuries of never feeling any physical sensation.
A heavy oil lantern rested between himself and Comeau and provided some light. Under the bench, behind his feet, was a small locked chest filled with gold sovereigns of Witeny—the Beáumie family treasury. And around his neck hung the orb key he had stolen from a forgotten dwarven seatt and learned to use to find the orb.
Three Suman guards, including Hazh’thüm, rode in the wagon’s back, where the orb was stowed in a small trunk beneath a tarp. The other three jogged behind the wagon, followed by four mounted keep guards, including Lieutenant Martelle.
Those last four, along with Comeau, believed they accompanied their duke, Karl Beáumie.
Sau’ilahk had purposefully chosen to turn inland and take the long way around through the duchy to the nearest port. There would be less chance of encountering anyone presumptuous enough to question the “duke” traveling by night with a contingent.
The magnitude of what Sau’ilahk had accomplished slowly began to sink in.
He possessed flesh again, which would soon need proper care, as well as the mending of any effects inflicted upon it by the orb. The extent of his success so far was almost overwhelming. Still, a few doubts and worries nagged at him.
For one, he had left Wynn Hygeorht alive.
That choice galled him, though he had seen no way to kill her before leaving. With his new body, he could not slip through the keep’s stone to take her life in the night, even if he had ordered her isolated from her companions. Nor, as the duke, could he simply have her executed, for others present would question such an act and likely speak of it later to others. The guild would hear of her death eventually, and for now he needed to remain an inconsequential noble in a nation that had abandoned its monarchy.
He was also uncomfortably uncertain about how much of his previous nature remained at his command now that he had taken living flesh. He had not considered this carefully enough in his maddened desire. Besides his ability to feed upon the living, how much else could he still do?
And last but foremost, what of Beloved?
Sau’ilahk no longer needed to slip into dormancy each dawn, only to suffer dark restlessness in the coils of his god until the next dusk—or so he assumed. Against all unknowns, he could accept other losses in exchange for that. Oh, yes, he would still serve his god, but only for his own return to power.
Looking down, he studied the unmarred left hand inside its black glove. As of yet, he had not wanted to examine the other deformed one too closely, though he would find a way to mend it soon enough. As the wagon rolled along, his thoughts turned to other things.
Using his teeth, he removed the glove from his left hand and rubbed his fingertips together. The hand was perfect, slender but strong. After a sidelong glance at Guardsman Comeau, attentively managing the wagon’s horses, Sau’ilahk reached down and flattened that hand upon the side of the bench.
There was one thing he could test now, in the dark, when no one would see.
Applying his will, as he had once needed in order to make his hand solid, he pressed against the bench’s side. Almost instantly he felt his fingers and palm sink as if pressing through mud instead of wood. Pressure soon mounted. He felt wood press around his flesh and begin to crush it.
Sau’ilahk jerked his hand from the bench.
“Something wrong, my lord?” Comeau asked.
Sau’ilahk saw only puzzlement in the young guard’s face. “No, merely a sliver from the old wood. I will tend it later.”
Comeau nodded, turning his attention back to the reins.
Sau’ilahk cradled that one perfect hand in his lap. It was enough to know he could still alter himself, though inversely from what he had once required when taking phyiscal action as only a spirit. Perhaps when sated on more life, he might come and go as he once had, unlimited by physical barriers. As with other things, learning more of what had changed would have to wait.