Captain Amjad glowered at his passengers, but Magiere could swear she saw something of a smile before he turned away. Was he simply looking forward to selling his cargo?
“Oh, dead deities, finally!” Leesil said, not really noticing the captain.
He hefted his pack and hoisted their travel chest as he headed toward the ramp.
Wayfarer stalled, casting a final look at Saeed. As with previous good-byes, she didn’t say a word. Perhaps she didn’t know what to say, though, as Magiere watched, the girl nodded slowly to Saeed, and he returned the same with another smile.
Chap nosed Wayfarer along, and when they all reached the ramp’s bottom and the pier, Magiere ushered the girl directly in front of herself. Chap trotted up to join Wayfarer, who slipped the makeshift leash around his neck for their usual deception. Brot’an stepped in at Magiere’s side as his large amber eyes shifted in looking everywhere. And Leesil led the way.
The hot, dry air was soon laced with spice, mixing with the odors of sea brine and sweaty people. It was as if one mass of smells was being used to mask the other, and Magiere wondered how strong the scents might become inside the city’s narrow ways.
Most of the dusky-skinned and dark-haired people in the crowds wore light, loose-fitting cloth shifts or equally loose leggings or pants. Wraps upon their heads were done up in all sorts of short or tall, thick or thin mounds. Some herded goats or carried square baskets of chickens and other birds she couldn’t name. Many people spoke to one another, but Magiere couldn’t follow a word being said, though at a guess it sounded as though not all of them spoke the same tongue.
She began perspiring into the shirt beneath her hauberk. Out ahead, Leesil tugged at his collar with his free hand.
“We’re going to need some other clothes,” he muttered.
Magiere saw no trees or plant life anywhere, only an endless stretch of light-toned buildings. The travelers stepped off the pier’s landward end and onto the walkway along the shore.
“Do you know where to go?” she asked Brot’an.
“Yes, Saeed was clear. For now, we walk a few streets inland.”
Their small group had gone only a few steps when Leesil halted. Even from behind, Magiere saw him tense and look slowly around. She grew instantly wary, following his gaze. What she saw she didn’t like.
Beneath a wind-scarred sandstone arch, like some gate into the city between two buildings, about a dozen men stood watching her and the others intently. Each of them was dressed the same, in tan pants tucked inside tall boots, dark brown tabards over cream shirts, and red scarves tied around their heads. All wore curved swords in ornate sheaths tucked into heavy fabric waist wraps and peaked steel helmets polished to perfection.
Leesil’s head turned again as he looked, likely for any option of retreat, back the way they had come. Magiere did the same.
Up the pier, before the Djinn’s ramp, Captain Amjad watched them as he appeared to be talking to three more of the uniformed men. There was one sailor with him as well, and Magiere thought it might be the one who hadn’t returned from that small trading station.
“Left now, and out of sight,” Leesil whispered.
The armed men up the pier were already advancing. As Magiere turned back, she spotted the ones ahead clearing the archway ... and then clusters of more to the left and right, pushing through the crowds.
She reached for her sword as she looked for the best position to protect Wayfarer, and something more made her panic sharpen.
Someone was missing, though he couldn’t have slipped around her.
Brot’an had vanished.
Wynn knelt beside Shade, who still lay silently on a small, rickety bed at the inn in Oléron. It had taken the previous night, the following day, and until well past dusk before they reached the small port where they’d first hired the team and wagon. Osha and Chane had traded off in driving during their onward rush—in which Chane had lain dormant during the day under a cover of canvas in the wagon’s back. Osha stopped them only briefly during the past day to rest the horses.
And even now Shade hadn’t regained consciousness.
“Please, wake up,” Wynn whispered far too many times to count.
She took a soaked rag from a bowl of freshwater she’d gotten from the innkeeper. Again she tried to squeeze a bit of water into Shade’s mouth. If Shade didn’t revive soon to drink or eat ...
Wynn shuddered and pushed aside the rest of that thought.
Along the journey she’d forced Chane to tell her everything that had happened—including everything he hadn’t planned to tell her. She still wondered how the wraith could have taken Karl Beáumie’s body. At that, she glanced at the trunk sitting beyond Shade’s bed in the room’s rear corner.
Everything Wynn learned of the orbs only made their true purpose more uncertain and the need to hide them forever that much greater. But hiding one wasn’t so easy.
Once they’d gained room at the inn, Osha and Chane had started arguing about how and where to hide the orb of Spirit. Perhaps their bickering was aggravated in part by frustration, for none of them knew how to help Shade. Wynn had carefully cleaned Shade up as much as possible and then used the last of any healing salve she still possessed to tend the minor and more visible wounds. The dog never even flinched in pain.
Of course Chane wanted to turn over the additional orb to Ore-Locks and the Stonewalkers. Osha vehemently countered that Aupsha had already discovered that there was an “artifact” hidden in the dwarven underworld. Even when Chane pointed out that Aupsha couldn’t get anywhere near that orb, Osha remained unconvinced—and so was Wynn. Their incessant arguing finally drove her to push them both out of the room, and they’d left in silence.
Wynn again tried to squeeze a little water between Shade’s jaws, but most of it ran out to soak the bedding. She collapsed on the bed’s edge and stared at Shade until she finally closed her eyes and reached out blindly to slip her fingers in Shade’s neck fur.
So many had been hurt or lost along her way; yet losing someone dear wasn’t something she’d been prepared to face. And not Shade—never Shade—and not so slowly and cruelly.
And nothing was finished yet.
Magiere, Leesil, and Chap—and Brot’an and Leanâlhâm—were searching for the last orb. If they found it on their own, would that even be the end? Worse, Wynn now had a device made from an orb key that might make finding the last orb easier.
But it was now dormant ... useless ... and she couldn’t go back to the keep to speak with Jausiff.
There was no telling what had happened there after the keep guards returned. Chane seemed certain that Nikolas was safe with the duchess and his father until the young sage found his own way back to the guild. Even then there would be questions from his—and Wynn’s—superiors.
And what of Aupsha? Where had she gone? There was too much risk of her coming after the device and the orb if Wynn tried to go back.
Even returning to Calm Seatt and the guild was now a severe risk. Eventually the duke’s body would be found. If by chance she arrived before word of all that had happened, sooner or later her superiors would hear of the death of a nobleman in an allied nation. Then there was more of her “meddling,” all under of the guise of a sage in the wrong order, in critical affairs and secrets of a war to come. Without any proof of what had really happened concerning the orb and Sau’ilahk—without revealing the orb itself—what could she possibly say in her own defense?
The last time she’d gone afoul of her superiors would pale by comparison. The best of outcomes would end with her being cast out once and for all. Even Premin Hawes, if she were still at the Numan branch, wouldn’t be able to circumvent that. And more likely Wynn would end up in a cell under the rule of the city guard, if High Premin Sykion had her way. More and more it seemed that perhaps turning the orb over to Ore-Locks was the only option to keep it safe ... before Wynn faced anything else.