Who is this figure in the black robe with cloth-wrapped hands?
Wynn’s breath caught as Chap’s words erupted in her head in every language she knew. She twisted about, staring at him, and he was on his feet, inching toward her.
“What’s wrong?” Leesil asked.
Wynn swallowed hard when she met his hard, worried eyes. Even Magiere sat upright, her old scowl of suspicion returning. Even so, Magiere’s pale face was lovely. Her long, black hair with its bloodred tints was tucked back behind her ears. Leesil, however, was still studying Wynn, and he frowned.
“I see,” he said. “It’s been so long, I forgot that Chap can jabber right into your head.”
Wynn didn’t relax one bit, annoyed at herself for not being more careful. Indeed, she was the only one with whom Chap could truly “talk.” She couldn’t even begin to wonder how these three had fared without her to give Chap a convenient voice. She eyed Chap sidelong, for his question still hadn’t been answered.
Instead, Wynn quickly stilled her thoughts, banishing all images of Sau’ilahk from her mind, for memories of him could lead to those of someone else....
Her more recent traveling companion, Chane, might already be back from escorting Ore-Locks to Dhredze Seatt—back from hiding the orb of Earth in the last great stronghold of the dwarves. Wynn didn’t need these three old friends learning of Chane’s presence right now. Chane was a physical Noble Dead, a vampire, and Magiere, Leesil, and Chap all hated him, perhaps more than any other undead they’d already finished off.
Wynn needed time to think of a way to explain a great deal, and without Chap overrunning her with questions based on whatever he caught in her errant, rising memories. There were larger issues at stake that needed—
“Journeyer Hygeorht! Why is this animal wandering unattended about my archives?”
Wynn shuddered at the sound of Domin Tärpodious’s aged and crackling voice echoing through the archives. He must have stumbled upon her dog, Shade, somewhere near his chambers. As she stepped toward the alcove’s near archway, Chap’s voice rose again in her head.
We cannot be seen down here.
“But why? When—”
“Uh-oh,” Leesil whispered.
Wynn’s eyes widened. “What did you do?”
Not now. We will discuss our ... hastened entry later.
Before Wynn could ask Chap what he meant, Magiere snatched up the darker thôrhk and tossed Leesil his cloak. She got up too quickly and had to grab the stool before it toppled. Chap hurried by her toward the alcove’s far arch, rumbling at Leesil as he passed.
“It was nothing, honestly,” Leesil whispered, in his usual feigned innocence. “And completely necessary.”
After that, he glanced at Wynn and put a finger across his lips in warning just before Magiere jerked him out the alcove’s far side.
“Wynn?” Tärpodious called out, much closer now. “Get this beast under control! And why was the archive door left unlocked?”
Wynn’s eyes narrowed, but Leesil was already out of sight when she hissed under her breath, “Leesil, I’ll shove those lockpicks where you won’t get them until you ...”
She quickly calmed herself, turning back to the archway.
“Yes, Domin. I’m here,” she called out. “I was just busy in the books and didn’t notice Shade had wandered off. I’ll be right there.”
“Well, be quick about it. Premin Sykion is waiting in her office to speak with you.”
Wynn slumped against the archway’s side. “Valhachkasej’â!”
Sykion was the last person she wanted to deal with tonight, but at least she’d stopped old Domin Tärpodious from coming all the way to the alcove. Now ... she just had to get her friends out of here.
One thing at a time.
Hiding in the back passage, Leesil raised an eyebrow as Wynn uttered his own commonly used elven curse.
“You’re a bad influence, as usual,” Magiere whispered.
This time, he did look at her.
“Me?” he returned. “You think I’m the influence of concern here?”
There was no humor in his voice this time. After everything that had happened to them, she was the influence that worried him most of all. Since finding that second orb, she’d changed. Yet even after that, they—he—had been so close to putting an end to all this and going home.
It would have taken only Wynn’s assuring Magiere that nothing more had been learned—nothing more could be learned—about the orbs. Never mind that they’d found another and that Chap had hidden away the pair. Those cursed lumps of stone could stay wherever they lay, forever. But no ...
Wynn just couldn’t shut up, even once, when it mattered most. The sage had nosed her way into something more, something worse, that Magiere would never let go. There would be no dragging Magiere away now.
Without another word, Leesil stepped back into the alcove.
“I don’t believe this!” Wynn whispered at him as she gathered up her belongings and the strange staff. “You’re here less than a quarter bell in the night, and I’m already in more trouble—and I don’t need your help with that.”
“Trouble?” Leesil returned. “When did you ever need help with that? What have you gotten yourself into this time?”
Wynn straightened, and her mouth gaped.
Leesil immediately regretted his words. Wynn was like a little sister to him. It just wasn’t in her nature to sit still for long—or to stay out of anything that caught her attention. If it were, she’d never have joined him, Magiere, and Chap in the first place. Tonight, she’d been so glad, so relieved to see him, and he’d just taken out his long-pent-up frustrations on her.
Moving toward her, he began, “Wynn, I didn’t mean to—”
But before he could finish, she suddenly jumped a little, her expression aghast, and she turned on Chap.
“What?” She exhaled at him, and then her voice rose above a whisper. “Don’t you take his side. You have no idea what I’ve—”
“Quiet, all of you,” Magiere insisted. “Save it ... at least until we’re out of here.”
Everyone went silent at that, even Leesil, though he wondered exactly what Chap had said to the little sage.
Magiere started to glance about, and Leesil followed her attention in puzzlement. She looked around the alcove, through its archways, at the books on the table, and then fixed on Wynn.
“I know you must’ve been working on those texts,” Magiere began quietly. “The ones we hauled out of the Pock Peaks along with the first orb. I need to know anything else you might have learned about the orb—I mean orbs. Or even about these servants of the Ancient Enemy that you mentioned.”
Leesil sighed, long and heavy. The last thing he wanted was Wynn pushing Magiere onward in this obsession. Yet on the journey north, even he’d imagined Wynn finally having the chance to live as the scholar that she was, spending her days digging through all those texts. He’d tried to tell himself that they’d done her a favor by leaving her behind.
But Wynn fell strangely still and mute, perhaps growing a little pale as Magiere went on.
“Before we leave,” Magiere went on, “grab anything you’ve uncovered, or any of the texts themselves. I—we were hoping you could help figure out what these orbs are, what they do, especially now that you’ve told us there are five of them.”
Wynn flinched, and to Leesil’s surprise, she looked stricken.
“Oh ... oh, Magiere,” she faltered. “No, I don’t ... I was never allowed ... The texts aren’t here. They were taken from me as soon as I arrived.”