The Night Voice (19 page)

Tonight, they could not attract attention from other majay-hì—or Vreuvillä.

By Shade's actions, she clearly knew this, though Chap wondered what she knew about the wild woman's teachings and influence over Wayfarer.
He tried to push aside such worries as they kept on and on through dark, tangled, wild places.

Chap began to lose his sense of time when Shade dove through a wall of foliage. He followed and was soaked by clinging moisture before he stepped out beside her on the edge of a clearing. Across the way stood a circle of aspens amid a soft glow.

Other than that, there was no way to know why this place was kept secret or how it had come to be. He had to trust that Shade knew more than she shared upon realizing what he had intended to do. Now he hesitated in remembering Wayfarer's memory of the priestess standing at the center of the aspens.

He was no . . . whatever she was, but he was Fay reborn in a Fay-descended body.

Chap stalked an arc in approaching the aspens but did not enter. Shade followed behind on his left. He stared about into the darker forest all around.

I am here, come for you! Answer me!

He had done no wrong in not bending to their unspoken fears. They had carved up, torn, and stolen memories at his birth into flesh. They had tried to kill Wynn. He would not cower and grovel before his kin.

A breeze began to build in the forest.

Mulch upon the clearing's floor churned around his paws.

Fallen leaves rose slowly in a column that turned around him and Shade, illuminated by the aspen circle's light. The forest around them appeared to darken even more, and in that dark, branches appeared to writhe in ways the wind could not have caused.

Chap heard his daughter's shuddering growl laced with a whine that did not stop. He waited, listening to the creak of shuddering branches settle into the crackle of leaves. The rustling chatter suddenly echoed and shaped inside his mind.

What now . . . deviant? You failed to keep the sister of the dead safe in ignorance. So what more do you wish to know . . . and ignore?

This had always been their goal, to keep Magiere from any possibility of fulfilling the reasons for her creation: to serve the Ancient Enemy, to lead the undead hordes, and to walk in all lands, even those enchanted against the undead.

His kin did not acknowledge how much she had fought this in using her birthright against the minions of the Enemy.

Still, Chap was uncertain what final purpose she had been intended to serve. Another war upon the world had to be focused upon a goal other than destruction and death for the sake of it.

And then there was what he had sensed within two orbs so far.

He would not let his kin bait him into justifications. Yes, he had his sins, but not the ones they tried to put upon him.

Tonight, he would ask the questions.

What are the orbs—the anchors? How were they created and how are they used?

Only the wind's hiss and the chatter of branches answered him. He pressed on.

What answers—memories—did you rip away from me when I chose to be born?

Gusts blew through the clearing, and though he heard Shade snarl, he did not move or look away from the surrounding trees. The hiss of leaves grew to a crackle as a chorus of leaf-wings buzzed like a hornet's nest in his head.

His kin spoke.

Where is your charge? Have you fallen so far as to abandon her? And now you corrupt your own misbegotten flesh by straying so far from your path!

Chap snarled as he answered.

Do not speak of corruption to me or of keeping those with me in ignorance and from taking any side in what is coming. Now the Enemy awakens again . . . and again you do nothing, as you likely chose a thousand years ago.

There was a pause and then . . .
Leave the enslaved alone.

Chap's thoughts blanked. What did that mean?

The wind began to die. Darkness started to yield to the aspen ring's glow. Branches in the forest settled in silence as the torn leaves fluttered to the earth. Everything fell silent.

Chap rushed to the forest's edge.
Come back . . . and face me!

No answer came. They were gone, and he had achieved nothing—learned nothing. There was only a hint in what might have been a tiny slip.

—Where . . . to . . . now?—

At Shade's memory-words, Chap looked to her watching him. All of this had been another feeble attempt by his kin to sway him to obedience. All that was left was to follow the course he had already set for the others. Tomorrow, they would resupply and then head southeast as quickly as possible.

He answered Shade . . .

—
Bäalâle Seatt—

There was only one thing he had heard that nagged at him—
enslaved.

What did this mean?

• • •

Chane slipped out of his room at the inn.

Leaving Ore-Locks behind, he headed for the great tree arch through which they had first entered a'Ghràihlôn'na. Out on that road, he broke into a jog toward the grassy plain beyond the Lhoin'na forest.

That was the only place he had ever encountered the white flowers called
Anamgiah
, the “life shield.”

Though he had a nearly full bottle of the healing potion—which he hoped was correctly made—he had used up the other ingredients necessary. However, there were still two possible uses for the white blossoms themselves, one being their own natural property to bolster life itself.

As for the second potential use . . . well, he did not care to think on that just yet, but he might never have reason to come here again, and he could not waste the opportunity to gather more of the petals.

Along the way, he passed many dwellings and buildings out among the trees. The moon was bright above, and lights from dwellings high in the trees marked them as he passed. He saw no one, for everyone would be high above, in their homes, this late at night.

He broke into a run once the last of those passed out of sight, and he finally saw a break in the trees ahead. Then he slowed and turned off into the immense trees, weaving through to the plain's edge far away from the road. There, he stopped short of the tall grass and crouched to listen. He heard no hoofbeats nor smelled anything made of flesh in the low breeze. Tonight, he had no desire to be seen or questioned by a Shé'ith patrol.

There was only the scent of the golden grass shifting gently in the dark—
Anamgiah
had no scent.

Still crouched, he looked in all directions one last time and then crept out beyond the trees.

The sensation of a thousand insects crawling over him vanished, and he half closed his eyes in relief. Holding off the forest's fear-laced prodding as it tried to seek out what he was had been so pervasive that its sudden absence was bliss.

Chane crept forward in a crouch, spreading the grass with his hands, but only the tops. He did not dare touch what he sought with his hands. He did not have to go far, and he flinched when moonlight raised a tiny white glare between the grass stalks.

It was almost too bright to look upon as he spread the stalks even more.

A dome of white flowers sprouted with the tan grass. Tiny pearl-colored petals—shaped like leaves—looked as soft as velvet, as delicate as silk. They appeared to glow, though the stems and leaves below and around them were a dark green that would have looked black to anyone without his night sight.

The last time Chane had come to gather
Anamgiah
blossoms, he had been foolish enough in his ignorance to touch the white petals, even to hold one in his palm. That had almost ended him there and then.

Black lines had spread through his hand from beneath that one tiny
flower. They twisted and threaded through his skin where living blood no longer flowed. He felt his skin began to split underneath those marks as they spread up his forearm beneath his shirt's sleeve.

He had begun to grow cold . . . frigid.

Paralyzing, icy pain filled his black-veined hand and quickly followed those worming lines up his arm into the nearer side of his throat and face. He had cried out and then fallen into darkness.

Ore-Locks and Wynn had found him quickly enough, but he remembered little more than agony.

Tonight, he would not make such a mistake again.

He took a pair of well-oiled gloves from Welstiel's pack, put them on, and dug for the tool kit. Opening the kit, he removed the single pair of tweezers it held. Carefully—cautiously—he began harvesting petal after petal and dropped them onto a piece of waxed paper. When he had finished plucking clean seven blossoms, he folded the paper many times and tucked it back into the pack.

Then he stalled, studying the small tool in his right hand.

How much residue from
Anamgiah
might remain on the tweezers and gloves? He could not afford such a mishap again. Using the tweezers, he peeled the cuff with one glove enough to pinch and pull it off, letting it drop. He then did the same with the other glove, but for the tweezers, he dug for a scrap of cloth and wrapped them up in that to store away for later cleaning. Nothing that had touched the petals ever touched his skin.

Just as he was at last satisfied, hoofbeats sounded out in the darkness. Quickly, he slung the pack over one shoulder and backed his way through the tall grass so that he might hide among the trees. Once again, he winced as the sensation of invisible insects crawling over his skin returned.

Dawn was far off, so he had time. He waited for and watched a trio of Shé'ith ride past at a leisurely pace. Only when they were out of sight once again did he head through the trees for the
road.

M
agiere walked through the desert foothills—more conflicted than she had ever felt. She couldn't speak of this to anyone, not even Leesil. Not that he wouldn't listen or care. Of course he would. It simply wouldn't do any good. He couldn't change the situation, and neither could she.

Scouting now seemed futile.

But even if they found the Enemy's hiding place, her hands were tied until they had all five orbs. So they—she—kept searching for any signs of an undead or other servants of the Enemy that might lead them . . . somewhere other than more wandering.

Tonight, the scouting team was larger than normal. Those left behind at camp had become more restless of late. So they'd found a site between foothills with a solid overhang and a deep rear to leave Wynn on her own for a while—at her suggestion. There was little chance she'd be spotted if she kept any light source dim, and she had her sun-crystal staff in case of emergency, though that was good only against the undead.

Magiere now followed Brot'an and Ghassan a short distance ahead, and Leesil strode along beside her. His tan complexion had grown even darker,
and she couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him without that muslin cloth tied around his head and draped down his back.

In a sidelong glance, he caught her watching him.

“What?” he asked.

“You're starting to look like a Suman.”

“What does that mean?”

Magiere shook her head. “Nothing. Forget it.”

Before he could press her further, she spotted Brot'an stopped up ahead. He stood motionless, as if not even breathing. Ghassan had halted as well. Magiere hurried on with Leesil.

An instant later, a familiar hunger built inside her.

Moonlight grew brighter in her eyes. She almost expected Chap to break out in an eerie howl, but he wasn't here. Thinking became difficult as hunger flooded through her and she heard Leesil's steps slow. When she glanced over, she found him staring at her.

Even in just the moonlight, he must have seen her irises had gone black.

Without a word, he hooked the leather string around his neck with one finger and jerked out the topaz amulet. It was glowing. At the extra light, Brot'an glanced back.

The first scream tore the silence of the night.

Magiere's muscles tensed as she was about to charge toward the sound.

Ghassan held one hand up to stop her.

“Wait,” Leesil whispered.

She didn't know how long she could wait, but then Brot'an and Ghassan both broke into a jog onward. Another scream pierced Magiere's ears. Her jaws ached as her teeth began to elongate. Leesil grabbed her wrist, and that was all that kept her from bolting past Ghassan and Brot'an as they followed.

Brot'an ran upslope and dropped to his stomach near the crest. Ghassan dropped beside him, and Leesil had to pull Magiere down.

“We cannot interfere,” Brot'an whispered. “We must let this finish and follow them.”

Magiere choked back a hiss when she saw the slaughter taking place at the base of the downslope. Her night sight exposed five figures with near-white skin and filthy hair setting upon a small group of Suman nomads. Throats were ripped under yellowed fangs. Children were pinned to the hillside's stony exposures. The noise grew as two men with long knives tried to fight back, and both went down quickly. One was torn open at the throat as the other went down, and his scream was cut short in a choke.

Magiere lost all thoughts of anything else. She sprang to her feet, but Leesil grabbed the back of her belt. She barely heard him skid on stone and packed earth as she pulled her falchion and white metal dagger.

• • •

Khalidah watched in alarm as Magiere charged, breaking Leesil's grip on her belt and sending him skidding and tumbling after her. Brot'an was up in an instant. Leesil rolled to his feet and pulled a winged blade as he ran on. Khalidah fixed on the back of Magiere's head as sigils and signs filled his sight.

If the dhampir and her consort, along with that master assassin, did not kill all targets before any could flee . . . there would be a trail to follow. Even if one of Magiere's companions died in this rash assault, in her current state she might still rush after a fleeing quarry—and she could keep up.

That quarry might lead her straight to Beloved, and all of Khalidah's delays to gain the orbs would come to nothing. Worse, if she were somehow crippled or even killed, would others continue or turn away?

Khalidah arose as more lines of light spread around his view of Magiere.

• • •

Rage consumed Magiere as she ran. Her mind was filled only with thoughts of tearing, hacking, and rending the undead. Her speed picked up in charging downslope, and then her legs shook and buckled for no reason.

She stumbled and then toppled as the baked ground and stones vanished before her eyes, as if her night sight had suddenly failed.

• • •

Ghassan fought wildly to regain control of his body as he watched Magiere stumble several times and then fall. Leesil dropped beside her and grabbed her shoulders. Brot'an ducked around them both, watching below for any attention that turned their way.

The screaming faded, the last one cut short to silence.

Ghassan's legs began to move as Khalidah took his body to join the others.

“What happened?” Khalidah asked quietly.

“I don't know,” Leesil answered, sounding panicked. He had dropped his weapon and pulled Magiere up against his chest. “Magiere?”

Her eyes fluttered open, and her irises had contracted to their normal state. She sucked in a loud breath before even seeing her husband.

“What happened?” he asked her.

Magiere blinked several times, looked all around, and ran her hands over her face.

“Perhaps fatigue or disorientation made her lose her footing,” Khalidah suggested, glancing below to see nothing but the mute silhouettes of corpses. “It is too late to do anything. The undead are gone, and we should leave here. Attempting to track them now could only lead us into an ambush. We will wait to pick up the trail at dawn, when most of their kind go dormant.”

Ghassan railed in frustration and impotence. The specter's concern would sound so rational to the others.

Leesil reached for his fallen blade and drew Magiere up as he rose. “Yes, back to camp . . . for now.”

There was nothing Ghassan could do but turn his anger upon Khalidah.

I will see you scattered into nothing.

He heard nothing in reply, not even a snicker in the dark.

• • •

It took only a day for Osha—along with Ore-Locks and Wayfarer—to purchase necessary supplies. Not long after nightfall, he climbed into the remaining space in the wagon's back with Wayfarer, Shade, and Chap. Ore-Locks climbed up onto the front bench. Chane followed him and took up the reins.

“Everyone present?” the vampire rasped.

Chap huffed once to answer, and Chane clicked the reins.

The wagon rolled out of the stable and onto the street. Osha leaned back against a chest to face the wagon's rear. The others with him here in the back were packed in tight among the three chests, the supplies, and all the other gear.

This was all happening too fast.

Only one night earlier, he had walked into the city with Siôrs while wondering how he would spend his time outside of training. Now he was heading off to find an entrance to a fallen dwarven stronghold.

He had not even had a chance to say good-bye to Siôrs and the others or even pay his due respects to Commander Althahk.

Only one thing brought him comfort.

Wayfarer sat nearby, though she did not lean in upon him as she once had. Shade lay close to her, the majay-hì's head across her thighs. Chap lay farthest back near the wagon's rear, his head upon his paws. Wayfarer did not appear daunted by the prospect of another journey through strange places.

This was not the only change he noticed.

In her, Osha now saw . . . confidence . . . though perhaps it was still tangled in doubts. He understood both personally.

As the wagon neared a southern exit from the city and turned onto a road that still ran through the forest, he studied her whenever he thought she would not notice. She even looked different, though he could not decide
if that braided circlet of raw shéot'a strips and soft rawhide clothing were to his liking. He certainly liked the look of her, but at the same time the new attire made her someone he no longer knew.

“Are you sad to leave?” he asked quietly in their tongue, so Chane or Ore-Locks would not overhear or understand.

She cocked her head slightly, watching him. “Not exactly.”

Again, she did not sound like Wayfarer—and certainly not Leanâlhâm of older days. For one, she answered his question directly and did not stare at the wagon bed. He had never heard her speak in such a forthright manner.

And likely that confusion showed on his own face, and so he glanced away.

“I have not learned enough . . . I am not ready to leave,” she added. “But I do miss Magiere and Leesil, and it is also good to have you again.”

In a flash of hope, Osha sought to meet her eyes, but found her looking at Chap. The elder majay-hì huffed at her with one switch of his tail.

Osha hung his head.

Strangely disappointed, though he knew not why, he felt the truth of her words.

He did not feel “ready” in what he had learned either, as he had uncovered no connection between himself, the sword, and the Shé'ith, and no reason why fate would link him to them. Was he sad to leave? He could not be sure. Perhaps had he found a new way to live? Perhaps he would miss Siôrs and the others and even En'wi'rên, though he still had bruises from her instruction. But as to all of this and how it had come to him . . .

It was still because of that sword forced upon him. Could he allow his path to be decided by anything connected to that blade? Finally, he lifted his head to watch the city's southern gate of massive trees grow smaller and smaller.

As he leaned farther back to find a more comfortable position, he discovered Chap watching him intently.

Osha looked away.

• • •

Chuillyon hid in the darker night shadows outside the stable and watched as the wagon rolled away. The dwarf sat up on the bench with the undead while the young would-be Shé'ith, the girl, and both majay-hì were piled in among several chests and sacks of supplies.

What had brought this unlikely group together and brought them here? And why?

He had to know.

He could give them a head start and purchase a horse to follow at a safe distance. This might yield their final destination, at least. But at a distance, he might learn nothing of them or their goals or how such a strange collection of people had drawn together in the first place.

He could go to Chârmun and travel again to Calm Seatt, for though unknown to most, a child of Chârmun grew in the courtyard of its third and now royal castle. From there, he could make a reasonably quick visit to an old friend.

Cinder-Shard might have a few pieces to this strange puzzle.

But Chuillyon had dealt with Ore-Locks and Chane Andraso before. They had even stayed at the Lhoin'na guild branch once—along with Wynn Hygeorht and the charcoal majay-hì. Both the undead and the young stonewalker were tight-lipped and functioned on their own agendas. A trip to Cinder-Shard might prove a waste of valuable time. He might know exactly what Ore-Locks was doing here . . . and he might not.

Also, in the end, it was the two younger foreigners who bothered Chuillyon the most. Those two were more likely the crux of this odd puzzle.

One had been welcomed by the Shé'ith without any of the traditional petitions and preliminary testing. The other had been taken in by that annoying, renegade priestess of outdated practice, who had been a thorn under Chuillyon's robe for decades. Vreuvillä despised the Lhoin'na sage's guild and all those associated with it. She viewed them as having used Chârmun to give
themselves a place of importance in the world. She sneered at the orders of the sages, at their need for ranks and titles.

Why had Vreuvillä accepted the foreign girl?

Chuillyon sighed in frustration; the answer would not be found in Calm Seatt.

That left only his earlier original notion: to visit the world's far side to snoop upon his people's backward cousins, the an'Cróan. Those two younger ones had to have come from there.

So he headed off again through the city. He knew the way to Chârmun so well that he paid little attention to his path, but once he drew close, the night was dark enough in the thickened forest that he risked pulling out a small cold-lamp crystal.

He should have given it back to the guild when he was stripped of his rank and cast out . . . and he had, actually. That he had an extra one, well, it was not his fault if no one asked about that.

Rubbing it lightly in his hands, he held it loosely in a grip to let only a little of its light escape. If Vreuvillä or her pack were about, he certainly did not need such complications. There had been enough already.

Something stood out in the canopy above him.

Tawny vines as thick as his wrist wove their way through the high canopy, some paralleling his path. They were smooth, perhaps glistening from moisture, but he could see a grain in them like that of polished wood.

As he stepped onward, more vines twisted above him, growing broader and thicker the farther he went. Smaller ones appeared here and there, branching off the larger ones. All were woven into the upper reaches of the trees. Soon, they did not glisten as much as faintly glow, as if catching the radiance of the moon hidden from sight farther above.

He used the soft light of these vines to lead him, for he knew they came from where he now traveled. Branches, trunks, and bearded moss were like black silhouettes between himself and a nearing illumination inside the forest itself.