The undead took in Chane's fine cloak and sword and smiled with shriveled lips. His one eye narrowed in concentration. For an instant, Chane felt a pulling sensation from within his flesh; then it vanished.
The corpse stopped smiling.
It looked down from Chane's face to his chest, and Chane followed its gaze to catch the object of its interest. His own brass urn for binding familiars lay in plain view.
You think you can match me… vampire?
The words filled Chane's thoughts.
Through long years of study, Chane knew of few reputed methods of conjury and thaumaturgy that might produce projection of thought. He froze for a moment, at a loss for what to do.
He was facing a sorcerer.
And that meant he was in serious trouble… as was Wynn.
Chane lunged forward and swung, burning up the life energies he had consumed in past nights to bolster his speed and strength. He needed to take the thing's head without warning. The creature ducked under the blade, not even startled. It seemed to know what he planned even as he began to move.
The creature grabbed a smith's heavy iron hammer from the wall and swung back at him. It was not skilled at combat, but the action took Chane by surprise. He stumbled back into the forge, and his hand pressed briefly through the ash into hot coals. He snatched it away at the sound of searing skin.
Perhaps it needed time to cast, as Chane would when the moment came. When it swung clumsily again, Chane backed away, his thoughts turning quickly.
Crafting lines of scarlet light with his thoughts, he visualized them overlaying his view of the creature and began whispering his chant. First the circle, then around it a triangle, and into the spaces of its corners appeared glyphs and sigils, stroke by stroke. He sighted through the diagram's center at the ground beneath the sorcerer's feet.
And he heard the creature's laugh inside his head.
A conjuror? And I worried you might be dangerous.
Suddenly, Chane could not move. He could feel his body, and there was no ridid clench of muscle, but it would not answer his will to step away.
As the last of his incantation rolled off his tongue, he shuddered at what he saw through the diagram in his thoughts.
All the room's fixtures shifted in his sight. He saw the forge that should have been behind him and the smithy doors. He saw himself viewed from the room's far side, as if he looked through the eyes of someone facing him… the eyes of the dead sorcerer.
A flicker of elemental flame ignited from the ground beneath his own feet, instead of his target's.
The creature had slipped into his thoughts, fed him its own sight, and Chane had unwittingly turned his own con-jury on himself. Searing heat filled his boots as the hem of his cloak ignited. And he still could not move.
Then the sorcerer's face contorted, and his mouth opened wide into a silent scream.
The creature's arms twisted around behind his back, reaching, as smoke rose behind him.
Chane felt control return to him. He dropped to the floor, rolling in the dirt to extinguish his cloak. The brief flame he had conjured was already gone, but his breeches were blackened and seared above the tops of his smoldering boots. He scrambled up again, suppressing the pain in his feet.
Wynn stood in the forge room's back corner near a narrow workbench holding an empty crossbow. She leaned against the wall, trying to reload, but her grip kept slipping, and she blinked her eyes repeatedly. A jangling sound pulled Chane's attention back to his adversary, flailing to remove a smoking quarrel from his back.
The sound came from a brass vial on a chain about his neck. It fell into view from the sorcerer's shirt amid his frantic struggle.
Sorcery required no conjuring vessels, so why was this undead wearing one?
On impulse, Chane snagged the dead man's cloak and pulled him around. The sorcerer, shocked by pain from the quarrel, did not respond quickly enough, and Chane grabbed the vial. A hard jerk broke the chain, and he threw the brass urn onto the forge's hot coals. The dead man's expression shifted from pain to horror as the brass began melting.
No! I can't…
The sorcerer lunged for the forge with outstretched hands, and Chane slashed out with his sword. The undead dodged aside, still fixed upon the brass vial. It caved in over the coals' heat, and a puff of vapor was released with a snap. The dead man's one filmy eye opened wide as his mouth gaped. He looked wildly about the room.
A word-or was it a name? — screamed through Chane's thoughts.
Ubad!
Whispering, unintelligible sounds filtered through Chane's mind. Afraid that the undead sought to cast his own spell, Chane rushed him again, but the room filled with swirling clouds of gray. He lost sight of his quarry and couldn't see anything. As he thrashed about, the vapor began to thin almost as quickly as it had appeared, and the clouds vanished.
The sorcerer was gone. There was only Wynn staring at him from her corner before she slumped to the floor.
Her brown eyes wide with disbelief, the image of her oval face hit Chane as if he'd run into a wall. It had been so long since he'd seen her. He stumbled over to drop down beside her on the floor.
"You are burned," she whispered.
There was a sickly pallor to her skin, something brought on by more than fear, and she kept blinking her eyes. Her hands shook as she clung to the crossbow.
"It is nothing that I can't heal on my own," he said.
"Is he gone? Is Vordana gone?"
"Yes, I believe so… though I'm not certain how or why. A sorcerer has no use for conjuring vessels. I hoped it was something he needed to maintain his existence."
Chane reached out to help her up, and she shrank away from him. Her gaze wandered over him as if she were looking for… looking at something on him. He glanced down to his scorched boots and breeches.
"I will be all right," he assured her.
The reality of his presence seemed to dawn upon her. "What are you doing here?"
"I saw that thing coming after you. I couldn't let him-"
She shook her head, brown braid slipping from her hood. "That is not… you know what I meant."
How could he lie to her, keep her from telling the dhampir? How could he find some gladness in her eyes at the sight of him? The only times in his new existence he had been truly content were those sitting at a study table with her, delving into ancient parchments and sipping mint tea. He clung to the truth buried in a half-lie and held out his hand.
"I came after you," he said. "This backward country with its ignorant peasants is no place for you. I have a good horse that can carry us both back to Bela and your guild. I am not what you think, and with your help, we can make Domin Tilswith understand."
Her round eyes widened even more.
"Please. I would do anything you ask," he said, "if we can just go back to Bela and try to live as we did before."
Chane had never begged in his life.
One tear ran down Wynn's cheek. She dropped the crossbow in her lap and put her shaking hands to her head.
"Do you still feed on human blood? Do you still hunt and kill for your existence? Would you stop this for me?"
Chane tensed. How could he make her understand that most mortals were cattle not worth her concern? They meant nothing. Only the few, such as her and Domin Tilswith, truly mattered.
When he did not answer, Wynn wiped her face with her sleeve. She stopped crying but wouldn't look at him.
"Did you see where the others ran off to?" she asked quietly. "Do you know what Vordana did to them?"
For an instant she had shown concern for him, but now her thoughts were for her companions. He had poured out his most honest desire, and she spoke only of Magiere and Leesil and their dog.
"They were panicked. I would guess that creature played their thoughts against them, perhaps buried them in false impressions, even fears."