Something brushed against his leg. He spun, pointing his staff and breathing heavily. Nothing but the empty hallway.
"Bastun…" a voice said in his ear, a cold breath blowing on his neck.
He cursed and swung his staff. It passed harmlessly through the air. Spells formed in his mind as he turned and waited. His heart and mind raced.
A glint of light just around the bend in the hallway caught his eye, and a childlike face peered at him, its eyes bright and piercing before disappearing around the corner.
Cautiously, he followed. The whispering voices continued, growing louder and harsher. Somehow, he felt he had done this before, like a past dream unfolding in waking life.
A narrow passage appeared, and he just caught sight of the misty edge of what seemed to be a tattered dress disappearing into the darkness. Weeping, screaming, and whispering, the voices pressed in upon him. They touched upon his thoughts, his emotions, and he felt theirs, a forced empathy that blurred his vision as unchecked rage blossomed within him. He ran.
Spells became tattered remnants of arcane passages that he tried to grasp, but they slipped through his thoughts like grains of sand. The direction of the path felt right, though he did not recall it on any of the old maps. The voices sought entrance to his mind, and he cried out as he approached the edge of the corridor. Cursing the limitations of his memory, he stepped into the passage.
The voices stopped, leaving him light-headed. His hands still shaking, he breathed a sigh of relief.
A small flight of steps descended into the shadow, and he made his way down slowly, searching for any sign of the spirits at the edge of his light. At the bottom, the last step gave way beneath his boot and he stumbled. The sound of stone grating against stone followed him as he fell. His staff clattered away from him as he struck the floor, causing the shadows on the wall to dance as its light spun and bounced.
Pushing himself up, he reached for the staff and stopped. At the light's edge stood the translucent form of a little girl, perhaps no older than seven or eight. Her dress was stained and torn, her dark hair blowing in some unfelt wind as she watched him with eyes as bright as new-minted silver coins. The grinding sound of stone stopped, and he glanced over his shoulder to see a new wall blocking the path behind him.
Flickering shadows brought his eyes back to the staff. The little girl was gone and the light from the staff was swiftly fading, leaving him alone and lost in the dark.
Thaena stood straight and firm. She issued orders to her men, fortifying the entrance hall as best they could. She kept her eyes focused and full of the steel expected of a wychlaren, but she could not tear her gaze away from the body.
Though she'd refused to remove the ruined mask, the hath-ran's hands-dotted with the first few spots of age and rough with years of grinding spell components-suggested she was roughly ten years older than the ethran. Glimpses of pale skin between cracks in the mask made Thaena's knees weak and her stomach turn. Absently, her hands reached for the mask over her own face, assuring herself that they could not see, should not see, how frightened she was.
The mask was the guardian of emotion, demanding respect and submission to the wychlaren rule, but like the hathran before her, it was a target for their enemies. Thaena cultivated the anger that rested in her gut, saved it and nourished it with the scene around her. Fury was the only thing that would keep her standing, keep her moving and leading until the Creel were ousted from the Shield.
Her gaze betrayed her determination though, constantly returning to the body of her sister.
She knelt solemnly, drawn to the hathran-as if by seeing every detail, perhaps she could keep it from happening again; as if she could keep death at bay by spying its true nature in the wounds of the dead. Folding her hands across her lap, she bowed her head as if intoning a ritual. It was a show for the berserkers, using what they called the vyrrdi, the mystery of the wychlaren, to allay their fears.
One of the hathran's hands rested close her knee, a red scratch running across the wrist, a fingernail broken. The scratch traveled up the arm, growing deeper as it neared the elbow- i
"I once watched over the body of a hathran."
Thaena flinched, startled by Anilya's voice. "I–I have no intention of discussing your-"
"Not one that I had slain," Anilya interjected and knelt just behind her. "But one that had taken me under her wing, in Rashemen."
"In Rashemen?" Thaena asked. "You were an ethran?"
"Yes. Many years ago-more than I care to admit."
"How did-how did she die?" Thaena asked.
"We were investigating reports of a Thayan spy near Mulsantir," Anilya said. "We discovered him, along with others, gathering information about our defenses for the zulkirs. They were prepared for us and fought like madmen. My hathran was cut down by the arrows of Thayan assassins."
"I am sorry," Thaena said and meant it.
Anilya edged closer to Thaena's side, looking sidelong at her through her dark mask and its darker covering of sigils. "You could say I've moved on since then."
Thaena looked back to the body. The scent of smoke lingered in Anilya's presence, bringing to mind the bodies raised by her magic. She could trust the durthans hatred of the Creel, but Thaena knew she was far from trusting the durthan herself.
"I was to be made hathran soon after that. The othlor would have sent me to the Urlingwood for the ceremony, but I refused. I wished to extract answers from the Thayan spy, make him tell us what he knew, how much he had told to his masters, and use him to strike back against Thay. And they refused me."
"So you left?" Thaena asked, though she expected Anilya's answer.
"Not right away," the durthan replied, "but I certainly never made it to the Urlingwood. Not while I thought there was more that could have been done-could still be done-for Rashemen."
"Then why the durthan?"
"Because they know the power that our land holds must be protected."
"The wychlaren are quite capable of-"
"Defending? Maybe, for a time perhaps." Anilya leaned forward, catching Thaena's eye. "But for how long?"
"We have done well enough so far," Thaena answered, though in the back of her mind her reasoning felt flimsy. She broke the stare, pretending to watch the western doors for the return of Duras.
"Defense is well and good, but our enemies still exist, still want what is not theirs." The durthans voice was softer but carried a passion that Thaena could not deny. "As long as we tolerate the existence of our enemies we will see no end to useless deaths such as these."
Anilya pulled from her belt a small smooth stone and laid it upon the lap of the hathran, whispering quiet words before rising to her feet.
"Imagine this chamber as the whole of Rashemen, Thaena. Should we defend this meager hall alone and leave all else to barbarians and outsiders? Or do we venture forth and make war before war comes to claim us?" She turned to leave and added, "And what boundaries can one place on war?"
The scent of smoke remained in the air for several breaths after Anilya had gone.
Thaena pondered the durthans words. Looking again at the hathran, broken and lifeless, all spark of the power she'd possessed gone, Thaena found anger much easier to accept. Of course they would track down the monsters that did this, lay down their bodies alongside the dead they had taken, but she wondered how long before the next attack, the next incursion on wychlaren territory.
She imagined her own body lying on a cold stone floor, being watched over by an ethran, and wondered what she would say to that young girl if she had power to say anything. Leaning closer to the hathran, she studied the stone Anilya had left with the body. Smooth and oval, colored with flashes of silver and streaks of green, it was beautiful and hauntingly familiar. Her eyes widened as she realized where she had seen such a stone-lying on a shelf beside her mother's bed. It had been a gift from a passing hathran.