There was no livestock out here; there were only the dogs needed to retrieve the orbs.
Running beside the sled on this fifth night, he was too preoccupied, and Chap’s sudden bark startled him. He did not see Chap halt out ahead until Igaluk pulled his team to a stop with a harsh exclamation.
Chane ignored the guide’s barked demand and ran onward, dropping to one knee near Chap.
“Why have you stopped us?” he whispered. “Are we ... there ... here?”
Chap huffed twice for “no.”
Chane was lost for an instant, and as he was about to go for the talking hide, he understood.
“Somewhere nearby,” he whispered.
Chap huffed once and looked toward the sled.
Chane immediately got up and trotted back. He began digging out a pick and shovel they had procured in White Hut.
“What are you doing?” Igaluk asked, wrapping the reins on the sled’s handle as he stepped closer.
“You will wait here,” Chane ordered.
Before the guide could respond, Chane slipped the shovel’s handle through the end handles of two empty chests. He left the third chest in the sled and grabbed the shovel in the middle to lift both chests. Then he dug out the talking hide, stowed it under his coat, and took up the pickax as Igaluk stepped even closer.
“Why?” the guide demanded. “Where are you going?”
Chane ignored the questions. “I will be gone for a while, perhaps most of the night, but I will return. That is all you need to know. And you have our ... my belongings as security for my return.”
Without waiting for more arguments, Chane turned and headed for where Chap stood waiting.
“Go on,” he ordered.
Chap started off, and Chane followed, focusing on nothing but Chap. He paid some attention to the night landscape around him, mostly as a way to ignore the hunger. A long while passed before Chap slowed to a halt, as did Chane. When Chap still lingered, slowly looking about in the dark, Chane set down the chests strung on the shovel’s handle. And still Chap hesitated.
“Are you lost?”
Chap snarled in answer for Chane’s question. No—and yes—would have been the truth. He had purposefully taken a different path from when he had first hidden the orbs. It was not a matter of the guide seeing the hiding place that would never be used again. It was the orbs themselves that he wanted no one else to see ... and perhaps a secret more personal.
Now that he had a moment to get his bearings, he knew where to go for his first stop, and he lunged off across the snow-crusted ground. Sometime later, he slowed to a trot, for he could feel what he sought. Then he realized that he heard only his own steps and slowed to look back.
Chane had come to nearly a complete stop and set both chests on the ground. In the dark, it was hard for Chap to be certain, but it appeared Chane stared somewhere ahead as one of his hands worked at the other. Chap glanced back ahead as well.
Something gray in the night rose high out of the snow: a dome of granite with one side sheared off. And then Chap felt his hackles rise out of control. He heard something drop behind him, but before he could turn, rage swallowed him, followed by the urge to hunt.
“They are here.”
It was all Chap could do to suppress a howl as he swung around at that rasping voice. He fixed on Chane, whose hands were bare, and all Chap wanted was to pull that thing down and tear it ... him ... apart.
Chane quickly slid the brass “ring of nothing” back on his finger, but Chap still stood with teeth bared, eyes narrowed, hackles stiffened, and ears flattened. A peeling hiss like a cat’s warning escaped Chap’s clenched teeth with every breath steaming in the night air.
“My apologies,” Chane said quickly. “I needed to know ... if I could feel them, like the others.”
That was half of the truth; what he needed was to kill the hunger.
It faded as before in the close proximity to an orb, more so now that there were two. And even more in the instant he removed his ring. He had needed to have that sharper flood of relief. A thought occurred to him. Perhaps the reason he had not felt hunger for so long had been less about feeding upon the duke’s body than about traveling in the presence of the orb of Spirit when he accompanied Wynn south.
On this journey north, he and Chap had been sailing without an orb, and his hunger had slowly returned. Now that he was near an orb again, the hunger was gone.
Chap watched him expectantly.
Chane hesitated but then turned his gaze from Chap and crouched to pick up the ax and the empty chests strung on the shovel’s handle. Even as he rose—slowly—he did not look at Chap until he was ready to move on.
With a last grating hiss, Chap turned onward toward the huge half dome of granite.
Chane followed at a suitable distance in regained ease and clarity.
When Chap stopped before the sheered side of the granite dome, he turned and eyed Chane. Then he clawed at the crusted snow.
Chane hesitated again. This was Chap’s prearranged signal for a need of the talking hide when they were alone. Here and now did it mean something else? Was he to start digging on that spot?
With a low growl, Chap took two steps and clawed again on a different spot.
Chane set down his tools, pulled out, and unrolled the hide on the ground. Chap began pawing the letters and words.
You dig. I return soon.
Chane looked up from the hide. “Where are you going?”
Chap turned away and ran off around the granite.
Chane almost called out, not that he could have shouted with his maimed voice. He still quick-stepped back the way he had come to see Chap vanish into the sparse trees, and he stood there even longer in hesitation.
Sooner or later, Chap would return. He would certainly not wish to leave the guide waiting too long into the night. Nor would he leave two orbs in the lone hands of a longtime enemy.
With a grating hiss of his own, Chane turned back to start with the pickax.
Chap raced through the trees, though in the dark everything looked much the same. It took longer than he wished to search out what he sought.
There was no need for concern about Chane and the orbs; the undead’s obsession with Wynn and her wishes would keep the vampire obedient. Still, Chap was torn between turning back and going onward. He had to know—to find—one more certainty, now that he had returned so close to the place of his greatest sin.
He kept running in the freezing night.
To hide the orbs of Water and Fire, he had been forced to do something unspeakable. No one—not even the guide Leesil had hired for him at that time—could ever know the orbs’ last resting place. If only it had been their last place.
Once, he had existed as part of the eternal Fay. When he was born into flesh, his kin had removed many of his memories of his existence among them. So many that only later had he suspected what they had done to him. Upon finally confronting them, he had attempted to fathom what fragments he was missing.
Among those had been the notion of a first sin—their sin ... his sin.
So horrified by it, they had not wanted even him to remember it.
Upon creating Existence itself, a place to “be” other than in their timeless and placeless existence, they had learned they could “be” anything they perceived within this new existence. He had only suspected what that meant. His suspicion must have built itself upon something hidden deep inside from when he had been part of them that they could not extract.
Chap had led that first guide, named Nawyat, and his dog team well past a spot he had chosen along the way. Then he stopped as if for the night. This guide had been simple, kind, and even strangely charmed by a dog—a wolf—like no other.