Wynn had never taken pleasure in the death of anything. But for the first time she might have felt what Magiere had when a murdering undead's body burned to ash.
The shadow shape in her spectacles' dark circle began to fragment. Pieces of it spread like smoke in a whirlwind. Its illusory body began to break up as its scream continued to tear at her ears.
A black flash erupted before Wynn. The wraith appeared to burst apart in the night.
All sound ceased, and the sudden silence made her flinch.
It was gone. All she saw through her shielded sight was the crystal, almost too bright to look upon, even wearing the spectacles.
Wynn wiped the pattern from her mindand the crystal winked out.
Pure blackness came. She couldn't wait for the spectacles to readjust, and she clawed them off her face, keeping her gaze fixed ahead.
There was nothing where the wraith had stood.
Farther out, Shade groveled on the cobblestones, rubbing her eyes with her forepaws. Rodian's horse backed away, thrashing her head, and her rump hit a shop's porch post. She was snorting in panic, her eyes blinking and wild.
Wynn turned around in time to see il'Snke collapse.
Rodian gasped for air and couldn't see clearly. His sight was washed with colored blotches left by the sudden light from the crystal atop Wynn's staff. When his vision began to clear, he saw her.
But the black-robed mage was gone.
Rodian began to remember what Wynn and Nikolas had spoken of. That the murderer was...
Whatsome malignant ghost? How could he accept that?
He gasped for air again and could only watch as Wynn ran for the scriptorium. The wolf limped after her, weaving as it shook its head.
Rodian's shoulder burned and yet felt icy within. The figure had barely touched him, but he felt so weak he couldn't even try to stand. A scraping sound caught his attention.
Il'Snke dragged himself up. The Suman looked terrible, pale even for his dark skin, and he glistened with sweat in the street's dim light.
"It is all right, Captain," il'Snke said weakly. "It is over."
The sage had been working with Wynnnot with the black figurebut it didn't matter.
Nothing was all right.
Garrogh was dead, and Rodian didn't know if Lcan had survived. And he still had to explain everything to the city minister and the royals of Malourn.
He had to explain it to himselfand he didn't want to.
What could he possibly say?
Something solid bumped his shoulder with a snort. Rodian was still looking at the haggard Suman as he gripped Snowbird's halter, needing something solid and real to hang on to.
Wynn rushed the scriptorium window, staff in hand, and grabbed the sill. She stood on tiptoe to see through the broken shutters.
"Chane!" she called.
The scriptorium's front room was too dark, or perhaps her eyes had suffered too many sudden changes of light. Either way, she barely made out the counter's dull shape and the darker hollow of the workroom's open door.
Had Chane taken cover in timeor had she burned him again?
A whine made her look down.
Shade hopped closer, limping as if her right shoulder hurt. Wynn dropped down, holding on to the dog. For such a young majay-h, Shade had done so welllike her father, Chap.
"Here," a hoarse voice rasped.
At the sound of Chane's voice, Wynn ran for the shop's front door. It was unlocked, but as she stepped in with Shade hobbling behind, Chane had already retreated to the counter and slumped against it to the floor.
Wynn hurried over and knelt beside him. Only a bit of light from the street reached through the open door, and his face wasn't clear to see.
"Are you hurt?" she asked. "Were you burned?"
Chane groaned as he pushed back the cloak's hood. "No, not burned."
The earlier burns on his face were almost healed, but he didn't seem well at allweaker than she'd ever seen him.
"The wraith?" he asked.
"Gone. Domin il'Snke held it somehow. Its form broke apart... dissipating in the light. It was fully gone when I put the sun crystal out."
He only nodded with effort.
"The guild is safe," she added, expecting some response. "And so are the texts."
Chane said nothing to this.
Wynn guessed the pain in his eyes had little to do with his injuries, visible or otherwise. His hand with the ring was braced flat on the floor no more than an inch from hers, but she didn't reach for it.
What would become of him now?
He was a killer, a monsteraside from a wishful, would-be scholarand one of the few here whom she could trust with her life.
"Chane, I've been thinking... about the scroll's poem... and about"
"Journeyor Hygeorht..."
Wynn raised her head at a masculine, hollow voice beyond the counter.
"Move away from him!" the voice added in a slow, even demand.
She scrambled to her feet, disoriented, and Shade began to growl.
Someone stood in the doorway to the scriptorium's back workroom.
His head was covered by a large round object that seemed darker than the room, and his form was draped in black cloth.
"No!" Wynn breathed, pointing the staff's dormant crystal at it. "You... you're gone! You were burned to nothing!"
The dark figure stepped forward. Heavy boots clomped against the shop's wood floor.
A ribbon of dim street light slipped sideways across his head as he neared the countertop's flipped-open section.
Master Pawl a'Seatt gazed at Wynn from beneath a wide-brimmed hat.
Shade's growl was tinged with a pealing tone, as if she might howl again, but wasn't certain whether she should. It was the same confused tone Wynn had heard in the guild hospice as she sat with Nikolasas Pawl a'Seatt had appeared there with Imaret.
The scribe master pushed aside his cloak's edge and braced his left hand on the counter's edge. The wood creaked under his grip.
Chane struggled up, dragging his sword in one hand. As he stumbled back toward the open door, he grabbed Wynn's shoulder and jerked her along.
"Get out!" he rasped.
Pawl a'Seatt flipped the cloak's other side.
Wynn glimpsed a sword hilt protruding above his right hip.
It was too long, too narrow for any sword she'd ever seen, as if the blade's tang had been directly leather-wrapped instead of first fitted with wood for a proper hilt. The pommel was too dark for steel, even in the room's night shadows.
"What's happening?" she asked, about to look to either Chane or Shade.
Pawl a'Seatt lifted his hand from the counter and pulled on his blade's hilt. "I said get away from that thing... journeyor."
The strange blade slipped free.
"Undead!" Chane rasped. "Wynn, get out!"
She glanced at him, but what little light crept in only silhouetted him from behind. She couldn't see his face.
"Listen to Shade!" he urged. "Listen to her!"
"Move away," Pawl a'Seatt repeated coldly, and stepped through the counter's opened top.
At first Wynn thought she saw a long war dagger in his hand, like the one given to Magiere by the Chein's, the Burning Ones.
But no, this blade was larger, longer, almost the size of a short sword. Where Magiere's was made of the silvery white metal of Anmaglhk weapons, the one in Pawl a'Seatt's hand was nearly black, as if made from aged iron.
It was well more than a handbreadth wide above the plain bar of its crossguard. Each of its edges tapered straight to the point. But those edges were strangely rough in an even pattern.
Wynn squinted and saw that it was serrated.
Shade's noise remained constant, like mewling beneath a continuous shuddering snarl, but she didn't rush at the scribe master. Wynn put a hand on the dog's back as she stared at Pawl a'Seatt's face.