The Children in twenty and six steps seek to hide in five corners
The anchors amid Existence, which had once lived amid the Void.
One to wither the Tree from its roots to its leaves
Laid down where a cursed sun cracks the soil.
That which snuffs a Flame into cold and dark
Sits alone upon the water that never flows.
The middling one, taking the Wind like a last breath,
Sank to sulk in the shallows that still can drown.
And swallowing Wave in perpetual thirst, the fourth
Took seclusion in exalted and weeping stone.
But the last, that consumes its own, wandered astray
In the depths of the Mountain beneath the seat of a lord’s song.
Wynn went on. “The Children were the first physical manifestation of the Noble Dead—vampires—somehow created by the Ancient Enemy ... thirteen of them. The ‘anchors’ are the orbs, and you can see from the poem that there are five—one associated to each of the classical elements. At the war’s end, the Children split into five groups and scattered to hide the orbs.”
“You said you translated this?”
“Some of it, but Domin il’Sänke corrected much of it for me.”
“Il’Sänke?” Hawes repeated with a subtle bite in her voice.
“The poem itself is in an ancient Sumanese dialect ... Pärpa’äsea, I think he said.”
The premin peered between the paper and scroll. “What poem? What does this blotted-out scroll have to do with any of this?”
Wynn realized how much more she’d have to reveal about herself if they were to continue.
“The poem itself is written in the fluids of one of the Children ... beneath a black coating of ink.”
Hawes raised only her eyes, and Wynn felt like she’d just alerted some sharp-eyed predator to her presence.
“How did you read what was written therein?” Hawes asked quietly.
Wynn glanced at Chane.
“The short version,” he said.
Wynn ignored whatever criticism he implied.
“I made a mistake a few years ago,” she began. She described how she’d ended up with mantic sight, able to see traces of the Elements—or at least Spirit—in all things.
“You dabbled with a thaumaturgical ritual?” Hawes asked. “What irresponsible fool taught you that? And yes, I know the particular one you used.”
Wynn didn’t want to go farther down that path. “The taint of it remained stuck in me, and now I can call up mantic sight at will.”
“But not end it,” Chane interjected.
“Trouble,” Ore-Locks muttered. “Nothing but trouble.”
Wynn ignored them both. “I am able to see—”
“The lack of Spirit within the characters beneath the coating,” Hawes finished. “Because the words were written in the fluids of an undead ... fluids taken from a body that no longer had the potency of true life ... and something even beyond a lack of Spirit.”
Wynn fell silent. Domin il’Sänke wasn’t the only one who’d underestimated the premin. It hadn’t struck Wynn before how much Frideswida Hawes truly knew, but it made sense. No one of lesser ability could’ve become a master, and then a domin, let alone a premin of metaology.
“Yes,” Wynn confirmed. “But I can’t maintain the sight for long, or it overwhelms and sickens me.”
“You are fortunate it hasn’t been the death of you ... in mind, if not body,” Hawes uttered. “Had I known, I would have removed—”
“No!” Wynn cut in. “It’s all I have to get at what we need.”
“And how did you learn to call it up at will?” Hawes demanded.
Wynn hesitated.
“Il’Sänke!” Hawes whispered. “That deceitful ... What else did he teach you?”
Wynn had never seen the premin so unguarded in her emotions. “He tutored me on how to control the sight—that and how to ignite the staff.”
Hawes appeared to calm, though her demand left Wynn puzzled and worried. She wondered what else the premin thought Ghassan il’Sänke had taught her. She had long suspected there was no affection between the premin and the Suman domin, and il’Sänke’s underestimation of Hawes’s thaumaturgical abilities seemed to be at the core of it.
Had she been wrong? Was there something greater than that between those two? However, none of it mattered now.
“We’ve recovered three of the orbs,” Wynn explained. “There are—”
“Three?” Hawes repeated.
Wynn closed her mouth. Explaining all this was taking more time than she’d imagined.
“Yes. You know of the first found in the castle through my journals of the Farlands. There are still two left to locate. If I call up my sight and copy more of the poem, can you help decipher it?”
Hawes looked down at the translated poem and the first stanza.
“That was the ‘anchor’ of Water, in ‘exalted and weeping stone,’” she whispered, as if speaking to herself. “And you found the next in Bäalâle Seatt, the one of Earth, which ‘consumes its own.’”
Wynn grew frightened. No one but those who’d gone with her to Bäalâle should know that. She looked quickly at Ore-Locks and found the dwarf carefully watching the premin.
“Where was the third found?” Hawes asked.
“In the Wastes, up north ... perhaps in the ice, though I haven’t learned much more about it.”
“In other words, someone else—not in this room—found it. Perhaps even one of your trio of evening visitors that were ejected.”
This was getting to be too much, and still Wynn could do nothing but wait.
Hawes studied the poem again. “‘That which snuffs Flame’ is obviously for Fire, and ‘water that never flows’ is obviously the ice of the Wastes ... hence your third orb. What remains are Air and Spirit.”
Wynn only nodded. Though she’d already guessed which three orbs they’d acquired, having these conclusions confirmed—and knowing for certain which two were left—provided some needed certainty. But to have Hawes say so, reading it here and now, as if the conclusions were so obvious ...
Wynn worried about how much the guild had gleaned from the ancient texts.
“And every metaphor describes the destruction of an Element,” Hawes murmured.
Wynn had thought so, as well. Much as she agreed, something more now seemed missing by the way Hawes stared at the translated parts of the poem.
The first orb Magiere had carelessly opened, and Leesil and Chap had described all of the underground cavern’s clinging moisture raining inward into the orb’s light. The memories of Deep-Root in ancient Bäalâle Seatt that Wynn gained from the dragons had hinted that the orb of Earth was used to tunnel in under that seatt.
“I’ve suspected they were five tools for such use,” Wynn said. “I’d imagined they could be used as weapons, each of the five.”
“No, not weapons,” Hawes whispered. “Not five ... but one ... altogether.”
Wynn was immediately lost, even as the premin looked up at her.
“Reason it through,” Hawes instructed. “What would happen to any target as the focus of all five orbs, as each one obliterated an elemental component?”
Wynn realized the answer but couldn’t speak it.
“The target would cease to exist,” Chane whispered for her.
“A’ye!” Ore-Locks added in shock.
“In theory,” Hawes confirmed, lowering her gaze to the paper once more. “Think of what power was required to create them. It is ... unimaginable.”
Wynn heard Shade begin to rumble, but she didn’t need that warning. She watched Hawes as the premin rambled on, seemingly lost in thought.