He sank into her thoughtsand erased the lingering trace of the patterned shapes submerged in her mind.
Wynn went limp and still, moaning softly as she tried to roll over. Ghassan already felt excessive heat fading from her forehead.
"The dog..." she whispered weakly. "Bring..."
She fell unconscious, and the wolf ceased rumbling, staring at her as its ears rose. Then it turned its eyes on Ghassan.
Its jowls curled, exposing teeth, as if warning him away from Wynn.
When he set the staff down, prepared to lift Wynn, the dog lunged at him and snapped.
Ghassan froze as his brow wrinkled in impatience. Wynn needed more care, and his first instinct was to just slap this animal asideor perhaps he should kill it. Tonight had already been filled with enough nonsense.
Some form of nonsense always circled around Wynn.
But the wolf, or dog, puzzled him, as much for its sudden appearance as for its strange form. And when the black-robed mage had come after Wynn, this wild beast had tried to defend her.
He gripped the staff with his right hand, rose slowly to his feet, and swept his left hand across his sight of the wolf. More symbols formed in his mind.
"Halt," he murmured, reaching for the animal's simple thoughts.
It stopped cold, as if bound where it stood.
Ghassan gestured in the air over Wynn, and her body rose off the street. When she reached his waist, he cradled her in his arms, still gripping the sun crystal's staff.
The wolf went into a snarling frenzy.
"Silence!" Ghassan snapped, and reached deeper into the animal's limited mind.
Something in there slapped his mental intrusion aside, as surely as if it had slapped his face. He nearly lost hold of Wynn.
The wolf lurched forward, one slow paw at a time, and Ghassan stared in surprise.
A simple beast should not have resisted his command so easily, let alone feltor respondedwhen he entered its thoughts. He turned away, heading down the road toward the guild. He had no time to deal with getting some strange wolf onto the grounds, even if Wynn wanted it.
The animal's snarls intensified, and he paused, glancing over his shoulder.
It had not kept up, but it still made headway against his will sainhei.
Ghassan sighed. In a quick flash of symbols and a silent chant, he ripped the command from the wolf's mind.
It lunged forward and circled him.
Ghassan hissed back at it, hurrying on, and the wolf hopped aside before it got caught by his boots.
Chane lay on the far side of a leather shop, gritting his teeth in pain. Thin trails of smoke rose from his charred face and hands. It took effort not to whimper and betray his presence as he climbed to his feet and peered around the shop's side.
A tall sage with dusky skin and dark hair knelt beside Wynn's curled form. He was older and wore the midnight blue of a metaologer. Chane remembered him from the night the first two sages were found murdered in an alley.
At least the black figure was gone, and in the company of one of her own, Wynn might be safe for the moment.
The dark-skinned sage picked up the crystal-adorned staff, but when he tried to touch Wynn's forehead the dog lunged at him. What followed cut through Chane's suffering as he watched, to the instant Wynn floated up into the sage's arms.
This man was more than a sage. Chane's amazement succumbed to pain as Wynn's savior headed off, carrying her in his arms. And the dog followed, still snarling and circling.
Chane barely fumbled his sword back into its sheath. He was almost grateful for the Suman's arrival, as he certainly could not carry Wynn anywhere in his present state. He needed to feed, and soon, and he didn't care whom he found. Almost anyone would do, but he continued to watch the retreating deep blue robe.
Chane knew conjury, though he was less skilled than a true mage. Nothing in that art could have raised Wynn from the ground without a telltale signperhaps a geyser of conjured air. He had felt no wind, let alone one powerful and controlled enough to lift her small body from the street.
Thaumaturgy's manipulation of the physical world had better possibilities, but he had never heard nor read of a thaumaturge who could turn a breeze into wind so precisely shaped and with such strength.
This sage had appeared suddenly, in just the right place and moment, barely an instant after the black figure had vanished.
Chane grew anxiousand frustrated with his own weaknessfor there was nothing he could do. Had he left Wynn in the hands of some new and unknown threat living within the walls of her own guild?
Chapter 14
Wynn groaned as she opened her eyes. She found herself in her own bed, in her own room.
She felt as if she had both a fever and a sunburn, and her right hand tingled uncomfortably. When she raised it, her hand and forearm were their normal tone. She remembered falling in the street, burning inside, as if the crystal's light had sunk within...
Wynn sat up too quickly.
Colored blotches spun over her sight, and she blinked against dizziness. How had she ended up in her room, and where was the inky-colored majay-h? And what had become of Chane after the crystal ignited?
She remembered him rushing toward her, but no more, and she had no way to find him. At a grunt and a whine from the room's far corner, her mouth dropped open.
The majay-h lay curled on the floor near her desk. The tip of its bushy tail covered its nose, and its crystal blue eyes stared back at her.
"How did you get in here?" Wynn breathed in wonder.
The dog's tall ears pricked at the sound of her voice. But when she swung her legs over the bedside, trying and failing to stand up, the majay-h lifted its head with a rumble.
Wynn sat perfectly still. "It's all right," she whispered.
Then she realized she wore only her shift.
She scanned the room in panic for her cloak and spotted it draped over the desk's wooden chair. The majay-h rumbled again as she wobbled to her feet. She stumbled over and dug into the cloak's inner pocket. At the feel of old tin, Wynn exhaled and pulled out the scroll case.
It looked the same as when Chane had offered it to hersafe and sound. She tucked it back into the cloak and turned about.
The majay-h watched her intently, ears slightly flattened at her close proximity.
A pitcher of water and a clay mug rested on her bedside table. Ignoring the mug, Wynn retrieved the washbowl atop her chest and filled it from the pitcher. But when she tried to step back across the little room, she made it only halfway.
The majay-h let out a sharper rumble.
Wynn set the bowl down in the room's center. Even as she backed to the bed, the animal didn't move. Its gaze shifted only once to the bowl.
"It's all right," she repeated, but the words made no difference.
Finally the majay-h rose.
Holding its place for a moment, it then padded one careful step at a time to the bowl. Lowering its muzzle to lap the water, it never took its eyes off Wynn. A wave of sadness washed through Wynn as she thought of Chapand the majay-h's ears rose up.
She couldn't help a stab of regret that this four-footed stranger wasn't himnot by its color, let alone that it was obviously female. She remembered the pack that had helped her and Chap find Leesil's mother in the an'Cran's Elven Territories. A yearling majay-h had run among them.
This charcoal-colored female looked about the same age, if Wynn guessed right. But then, she didn't know the life span of the majay-h. Its color was almost as dark as that of the grizzled pack elder. By contrast, Wynn remembered Lily, Chap's beautiful white companion with yellow-flecked blue eyes that looked green from afar. Lily's strange attributes were rare for the wild protectors of those faraway elven lands.