Chap watched Brot’an’s broad back and wondered how to rid himself of the aging assassin. No matter the end result, Brot’an had intentionally used Leesil again, and Magiere this time, in a ploy of his own. And what angered Chap more was that Magiere still seemed willing to keep company with Brot’an. She believed Brot’an’s thin excuse—an obvious lie—that he was here to protect her and her “purpose.”
Chap settled upon the deck and lowered his head upon his paws.
The crux was that he did not yet know Brot’an’s true agenda. He needed that to prove to Magiere that Brot’an served only himself. He needed to learn Brot’an’s every secret, all the reasons why he was truly here. And worse, Chap remembered what Wynn had secretly revealed to him concerning the orbs.
Wynn was now under the protection of a premin named Hawes. And Hawes had theorized, from the way the first discovered orb of Water had eaten the moisture from the icy stone cavern in which it was found, that each orb by its Element might be able to do the same. Everything in Existence was composed of those metaphoric Elements, and if all orbs could be used at once and focused on one chosen target ...
Chap did not want to imagine what could be done with such a “weapon” as that. He kept eyeing the back of the old assassin, who was now at war with his own caste ... with Most Aged Father.
Brot’an could never be allowed to lay a hand on a single orb, or use one to go after the others that had already been retrieved. Brot’an could not be there when the next orb was found, though until its location was known, removing him was not possible. Not until he’d been stripped of every secret.
Until then Chap lingered in the dark.
What was in a name? Everything.
Brot’ân’duivé had not always believed this. The life of an anmaglâhk balanced upon the invisible shifting line between life and death, whether it was that of one’s self or another. Pragmatism was required in all things within silence and shadows.
Even in youth, when he had first gone before the ancestors, he had no interest, let alone belief, in omens, portents, and fates. That had come later, under the tutelage of Cuirin’nên’a’s mother, Léshil’s grandmother ... his beloved Eillean. But she had only nurtured what was seeded in him on the night he went for name-taking in the ancestors’ burial grounds.
All who went in youth took a name by what they experienced there. The ancestors had not appeared to him as they had to Sheli’câlhad. The ancestors had not spoken to him as they had to Léshil ... Leshiârelaohk. All he had seen ... was a dog.
A great mastiff with a near-black coat, so dark he did not see it at first, came snarling out of the shadowing oaks surrounding the tawny glowing tree called Roise Chârmune. A broad, iron-spiked collar was buckled around its thick neck—it was a human war dog.
And he was afraid.
In a lunge, it snapped at him, kept coming, until it drove him away from the tree of his people’s ancestors. Then it twisted and rolled upon the earth in a snarling mass until it tore the collar off and left it lying on the ground.
The mastiff came at him again.
He fled backward, farther and farther, until he stopped between the ringed oaks. It lunged in close enough to snap at his face in a sudden rise upon its hind legs.
Awash in fear, he refused to yield any more ground.
The mastiff turned away. It went to Roise Chârmune, curled up with its head upon its huge paws, and went to sleep.
None of this made sense, and he crept in on the dog below the tree; he was close enough that it could have pulled him down and killed him.
The mastiff opened its eyes without a sound, looked up at him, and he froze.
He did not dare take his eyes from its dark ones as he watched for any sign of an attack. Then the mastiff, with the glow of the tawny wood upon its dark coat, raised its great head and eyes to Roise Chârmune.
The mastiff settled into a peaceful sleep ... as if it had served its purpose.
He had not understood what it had meant. Back then the dog seemed only the shadow of a father who had vehemently denounced his choice to seek a place among the Anmaglâhk. Not even that would turn him from a life of service, and he chose a taken name out of spite.
Brot’ân’duivé had not known then what was in a name.
A name had ... purpose.
Leanâlhâm, the Child of Sorrow, had become Sheli’câlhad, To a Lost Way. What that meant had yet to be seen, needed to be seen, regardless of the fact that she now hid behind the name of Wayfarer.
Osha, the Sudden Breeze, had fallen from the ways of the Anmaglâhk and bore a sword of a strange make, though it had been created from the same metal as the weapons and tools of an anmaglâhk. And with that, he had also returned with a handful of black feathers, now fletched to his arrows’ shafts, and five arrowheads made of the white metal.
Even this Brot’ân’duivé did not yet understand.
But he knew his name.
Like the mastiff that turned upon him, he had turned upon his own and been branded a traitor by his own caste. Like the mastiff, he guarded something more precious than himself in breaking free of his master.
Most Aged Father, that worm that ate the wood of his people, remained among them while Brot’ân’duivé had been driven from them.
Still, this, too, had a purpose.
Somewhere there was a way to end that sickness, that thing who would end his people for no other reasons besides paranoia and madness. There was no cost too high to stop that.
Brot’ân’duivé, by his taken name, would follow this course, alone if need be and cast out like ... the Dog in the Dark.
EPILOGUE
On the same night that Leesil, Magiere, and Chap escaped from Calm Seatt to sail for the Isle of Wrêdelyd, Wynn Hygeorht returned to the Guild of Sagecraft and took refuge in the main library. She missed her three friends—and Osha and Leanâlhâm—but greater concerns wouldn’t let her rest.
The others had gone in search of the orb of Air. Her task was to remain and use the guild’s resources to locate the orb of Spirit.
She hadn’t parted on good terms with Magiere, let alone Leesil or Chap, for she’d accepted the protection and companionship of a Noble Dead, Chane Andraso. Magiere might never understand or forgive that choice. The rift left Wynn with a weight she had to put aside.
Chane had proven his worth time and again. She wouldn’t part with him now simply because he was undead or even because of unforgiveable things he had done in his past. Not even Shade, a majay-hì sent to guard her against the undead and worse, would have asked that of her now.
They had a final orb to locate and retrieve.
But upon returning to the keep this night, Wynn had badly needed a moment to herself—or perhaps with just Shade. Wynn longed to sit among the books of the library in a moment of quiet relief ... as if she were just a sage again. So she’d made her excuses to Chane, and he had politely agreed. Maybe he’d wanted time to himself as well. Now she sat in a chair on the first floor of the library, with Shade at her feet.
Wynn was supposed to be searching the most recent maps of the Numan Lands and beyond—in case she, Chane, and Shade ended up traveling by land. All she did was lean down and stroke Shade’s charcoal black head.
Solitude with only Shade wasn’t as comforting as she’d hoped.
Shade whined and licked her hand. —Wynn—safe—now—stay—here.
“For a little while,” she answered.
She wasn’t up to arguing with Shade again, so she picked up her elven quill off the library table and tried to focus on one map laid out before her. There were a number of routes through Witeny and Faunier, but in her research she’d run into several issues. The shortest ways weren’t necessarily the quickest, and it all depended on where and when one passed through.