The Night Voice (40 page)

Magiere slowed upon hearing someone ahead coming upslope in the dark. And that someone stopped in three steps upon spotting her. Osha backed away and quickly turned.

“Stop!” Magiere ordered.

He dropped his head. She went for him, and when he heard her, he tried to walk off again.

She grabbed the back of his cloak and jerked him to a stop. When he refused to turn and face her, she forgot pretending that she was as unhealed as the others. Throwing an arm around him, she pulled him against herself.

“You listen to me,” she began softly.

• • •

Back in the camp, Leesil fidgeted and forced himself not to pace again, but he still kept looking off to where Magiere had vanished in the dark.

—Leave . . . her . . . alone—

He turned about to fix Chap with a stare.

—What she does . . . is necessary—

Leesil turned toward the open darkness again, though Magiere was long gone.

—The worst wounds . . . are not . . . of flesh— . . . —Healing his . . . will heal . . . hers—

Maybe Chap was right, if she found Osha.

“So, we are done,” Wayfarer whispered. “And everyone goes home, at least most.”

She sat staring into the fire.

“There is a place for all,” Chuillyon said, speaking to the girl, this time with his typical soft smile. “When I return the Shé'ith, I will take you to—”

“No,” Leesil cut in, also speaking to Wayfarer. “You're going home, to a real home.”

She looked up at him. “I do not have a home anymore.”

“Of course you do! You're coming with us.”

Everyone around the fire fell silent. Even Wynn raised her head. Shade's ears pricked up, and Chap hauled himself up with a dog's grumble.

Wayfarer's eyes were locked on Leesil.

“If I don't convince you,” he added, “I'll never hear the end of it from Magiere. And if you're around, maybe you can keep that mangy mutt clean.”

Chap growled and wrinkled his jowls.

• • •

Magiere tightened her arm around Osha every time he tried to pull free. He still hadn't said a word.

“You stopped me when no one else could!” she told him. “No one else could've done what you did, made that shot . . . or I wouldn't be here.”

She felt him shudder.

Magiere half pulled, half stepped around Osha. When he turned his face away, she took hold of it, though he was taller than she was. She forced him to look at her.

“You saved me,” she added, more softly this time. “Don't you ever think of it another way.”

There'd been too much harm done because of her. He'd suffered more than most would for skills that no one else had. Certainly Brot'an, if he'd been there, could've taken that shot, but only Osha had done so with any thought for her life.

He'd missed her heart and still stopped her. An anmaglâhk wouldn't have bothered. No matter what he thought he'd lost, he was better than they were.

Osha finally looked at her, his eyes glassy. Before his tears fell, and she couldn't stop the same . . .

“Come on,” she added gruffly, “or they'll start talking about us being out here alone so long.”

At that, Osha blinked, making one tear, but his eyes then widened in shock.

Magiere sighed. Leesil was the funny one, and she just wasn't any good at it.

“Oh, forget it,” she grumbled, jerking him around to push him ahead.

By the time they'd neared the camp, they could already hear Leesil.

“What?” he half shouted. “That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard you come up with.”

“It has to be that way,” Wynn countered. “We have to be certain.”

Magiere stepped around as Osha slowed. Chane stood behind Wynn, dour as ever. Ore-Locks was eyeing Chane, not Wynn, and he didn't look happy. Chuillyon was the only one who appeared to contemplate whatever Wynn had said that set Leesil off.

Strangest of all, Chap was still and silent—and that worried Magiere the most.

“What's going on?” she demanded.

Leesil threw his hands up, bit off something foul before he said it, and coughed an exhale instead. He jabbed a finger at Wynn.

“She wants to stay here . . . in the mountain!”

Magiere stopped in her tracks and felt her own mouth drop open.

“What?” she finally got out.

“I must,” Wynn continued calmly. “If the staff goes out, someone must reignite it. That can be only me.”

Magiere was still numb, and any outrage wouldn't come out. Leesil got to that before she did.

“You can't stay out here,” he snarled. “There's nothing to eat, there's no water, there's no—”

“I'll manage,” Wynn interrupted.

“And I will stay with her,” Chane added in his rasp.

Another shocked silence came and went, though not without Osha stepping past Magiere to look between Wynn and Chane.

“Oh, that's even better!” Magiere finally erupted, fixing on Wynn and forgetting any sorrow for her friend's loss of sight. “And where are you going to find enough livestock for him if you can't feed yourself? A moon at most, and he'll be hunting again.”

Chane's answering rasp was more pronounced. “I have no need to hunt. There is one orb still exposed. It will sustain me . . . as I have not fed—in any way—since before we even arrived in the empire's capital.”

“We'll be all right,” Wynn said. “What would happen otherwise if the crystal goes out? We must stay to make certain it remains lit. There's no one else who can do so.”

Magiere couldn't find another argument, and as Leesil said nothing, he was at a loss as well. Even Osha didn't make a sound and just stood there. But to Magiere, the pain on his face was evident until he looked to Chane.

Everyone knew the unspoken contention between those two concerning Wynn.

Wynn had made a choice. She's chosen to remain here, and she'd chosen Chane.

But in addition to Osha, there was another affected by Wynn's choice.

Magiere carefully glanced aside and found Wayfarer watching Osha. She hoped the girl didn't see this as an opportunity. Leesil would've already told her where she was going, where her home was now—with them. But Osha would not forget this moment for a long time to come.

If Wynn wouldn't be swayed, then something had to be done for her survival. The sage had already lost too much for what had to be done. A few ideas came to mind, though they might involve a small breach concerning Althahk's demand for secrecy.

Still, that would have to wait as well.

Magiere reached out, grasped Osha's shoulder, and pulled him around. “Take the tent with Wayfarer and Ore-Locks.”

He barely looked at her, not saying a word.

“Be packed and ready in the morning,” she added. “You're going home—to our home—or I'll come after you again.”

Osha walked off, and Magiere waved Wayfarer after him. She wasn't certain of the latter choice but didn't want him to be left alone.

“Ore-Locks,” Leesil said, “we need to talk about some . . . arrangements in the morning.”

“He and I have already spoken,” Chane interrupted. “If you have considerations we have not thought of, those are welcome.”

Magiere eyed Leesil, wondering whether he'd had notions similar to hers where Wynn was concerned.

“I would appreciate it,” Wynn began, “if all of you stopped
fussing
! I am not half as incapable as everyone keeps assuming.”

Magiere couldn't remember how many uncomfortable pauses had passed, but there was another one. How they could part this way, even if there were plans as yet so that it wouldn't be forever?

“Chuillyon,” Magiere said.

The elder sage, who'd been watching in uncomfortable silence as he sat near the fire, looked up and blinked in surprise.

“You'll be needed in what we have in mind,” Magiere added, exchanging a glance with Leesil. “I'll tell you more tomorrow.”

Chuillyon frowned in puzzlement. “Very well.”

“And Shade,” Wynn began, catching all off guard, but then her voice began to falter, “you are going with them . . . little sister.”

“Wait, what?” Leesil cut in with a step.

Even Magiere had assumed Shade would stay with Wynn—and Chane. Wynn ignored Leesil, but Shade was already up on all fours, as was Chap.

“You have to go, Shade,” Wynn added.

The dog's ears, though pricked up, flattened as Shade gave a mewling growl.
She began barking, even snapping, but Wynn dropped off the stone she sat on and grabbed for Shade's head. Fresh tears flowed down Wynn's cheeks.

“You need to have a life of your own,” Wynn said. “It's not here in the heat and sand. Go with Wayfarer and your father. At least, you'll have trees, rain, forest . . . and I believe we will see each other again, somehow.”

Magiere then noticed Chane.

He looked down upon Wynn and Shade with an expression she couldn't have imagined on his face, the face she'd see more than once turn into the bloodthirsty monster that he was inside.

Was that sadness?

The sight hit her hard as she thought on how the past few years had changed them all. Here they were at the end of it—the trials and battles they had never asked for, never wanted.

It was finally over.

Shade pulled out of Wynn's hold. A strange mewling whine shook her all over. She turned and raced off toward where Osha and Wayfarer had both vanished into their tent. Chap just watched after his daughter for a moment and looked back to Wynn, who crumpled upon the ground in tears. Chane knelt beside her.

Battles were done, but there were still wounds being inflicted. Hopefully, time could heal those as well.

Chane raised Wynn up and started to see her off to their tent.

Ore-Locks cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I—I will look in on the younger ones.”

“I think I shall retire as well,” Chuillyon said.

Both went off.

“Come on, Chap,” Leesil said, heading for their tent, and then he looked at Magiere.

She nodded silently and turned to follow. Leesil lifted the flap, Chap crept in slowly, and Leesil looked up. Magiere faltered upon spotting something else beside that tent.

“In a moment,” she said.

Leesil frowned but nodded and slipped inside.

Magiere stood paused over her falchion. There was no other blade like it for what it could do to the undead. She picked it up, began to draw it slowly, and stopped before a three-finger breadth of the blade showed. Then she turned as Chane was about to duck inside a tent behind Wynn.

“Wait,” Magiere called.

Chane froze without flinching, though he eyed the sword and then her. Magiere slammed the falchion back into its sheath and threw it at him across the camp. Stunned, Chane straightened in dropping the tent flap as he caught the weapon.

For a moment, Magiere couldn't speak.

“Just in case,” she said finally, “should something come looking for what we left in the mountain. I won't need that blade anymore.”

Before he could say anything, she turned and swatted her way into the tent.

Inside, with the cold lamp she'd left there now dimming, Leesil lay on his back upon a bedroll with his head propped against Chap's shoulder. Both had their eyes closed in exhaustion.

If they were actually asleep, she didn't want to wake them, and if not . . .

Magiere dropped and crawled in, putting her back against Leesil's chest and her head up against Chap. Nothing more needed to be said, though she heard Leesil whisper, whether asleep in exhaustion or not.

“Home . . .”

C
hane stepped to the chasm's edge beneath the mountain peak at the easternmost end of the Sky-Cutter Range. Wall-mounted lanterns with alchemically heated cold-lamp crystals lit the half cavern around him. Their light still could not reach the chasm's far side as he stared numbly along the cable-suspended bridge that spanned the wide breach.

The stench of lamp oil filled the air around him.

On the chasm's far side, along another hidden tunnel, was another cavern where grew a new child, or grandchild, of Chârmun among a skeleton of huge bones. The bridge was not the only transformation made beneath the mountain over the past thirty years. Other comforts had long ago been arranged for the two guardians who lived here—himself and Wynn.

Ore-Locks with his stonewalker brethren, Chuillyon and several more legitimate white sages, and a select few of the newer green order had all contributed. There were gifts and other support from the small number of allies who knew what had happened here.

Ore-Locks had also seen to safeguards for the way in and out of the peak, and there were now multiple, connected chambers nearby, cut into the mountain's stone to serve as a home. The youngest stonewalker had been a good friend, the likes of which Chane never thought he would have.

Tonight he stood alone with Magiere's falchion in hand, staring across the bridge. Since that long-past night when she had tossed this weapon at him, he had never drawn the blade that had once taken his head.

But he did so now and stepped out along the bridge, sword and sheath in his hands.

The rope cabling was inspected and repaired as needed each year. It swayed a little, and yet he did not need to grip the braided rope railings. The earliest nights beneath the mountain were still fresh in his memory, when he had escorted Wynn to check the sun-crystal staff.

On their first visit, she had felt her way onward without him. Without sight, she did not trust just touching the staff to know if the crystal was still lit. She draped her cloak over it and called out to him, and only then did he dare enter.

The sun crystal was still glowing—it was always still glowing.

Over time, they guessed this must have been the influence of Chârmun's child, tree and sun crystal sustaining each other.

After that first visit, Chane remade some physical protections that he had once used—along with a potion to fight off dormancy—in protecting Wynn during daylight hours. With his body fully covered, he could accompany her to check on the crystal. Once they entered the cavern, she still threw a cloak over the top of the staff, as even his covering would not protect him for long. Although Chane knew they did not need to fully enter the cavern to see that the crystal glowed, Wynn insisted on making a full check of the staff and tree. Perhaps it helped her feel she was fulfilling her duty.

It was several years before Wynn willingly missed even one night's visit to the tree.

Over time, the new grandchild of Chârmun grew more and more immense.

Chane could imagine it even now, as he walked the chasm's bridge, though he would not go to see it this night or ever again.

Its branches nearly reached that cavern's walls, though under the canopy
it was difficult to tell if it had reached the ceiling higher above. Even while wearing the “ring of nothing,” Chane had always felt it prodding him, trying to uncover what he was. Through that tree, all but Ore-Locks and his kind visited this place, and others were brought by white sages of Chuillyon's previous order.

Chane stepped off the bridge into the far half-cavern landing, but he went no farther. Instead, he leaned the falchion and its sheath against one of the bridge's upright anchor posts. About to turn back, he hesitated, peering toward the landing's rear. He barely made out the passage leading to the cavern of immense bones caught in the great tree's spreading roots.

Two cold-lamp crystals were mounted in plain holders on the bridge posts. He took out the nearest above the falchion, rubbed it furiously for light, and replaced it before heading back.

He crossed the bridge again and paused upon reaching the other side, remembering.

In their early time here, going to the tree had always left Wynn somber. On several occasions she had resisted his help in the return and blindly felt for a grip on the braided railing.

Her frustration had grown worse—and dangerous—in that first year after so many visits to the staff. The sun crystal she never saw for herself was what had taken her sight. Perhaps in her blindness, she never knew how much of that he saw in her face.

Chane had not foreseen the lengths to which this would drive her.

Or at least he did not until one night when the white sages had come through the tree to deliver seasonal supplies. As always, they helped him move crates and baskets across the bridge, taking the previous empty containers with them. After a brief parting, he took a moment to assess the stores and discovered a pouch of roasted chestnuts crusted with cinnamon and nutmeg.

At the prospect of anything that might cheer Wynn, he left everything else and hurried off with the pouch.

A short ways up the passage, he had turned into an opening excavated by
Ore-Locks and others. Therein were the chambers he shared with Wynn. They were filled with cushioned chairs, a few orange dwarven crystals for heat, a small scribe's desk for himself and his journals, and shelves with odd things and many books that he read to himself or her. By the end of that first year, they had the comforts of a true home beneath the mountain.

But Wynn was nowhere to be seen that night. Though not exactly worrisome, it was odd. She always settled for the evenings in this outer chamber. He stepped onward toward the back of the room, and as he was about to open the heavy curtain within another opening, he heard the whispers.

Quietly, he pulled the curtain aside.

Wynn knelt on the stone floor at the bed's foot, having pushed aside a thick rug. By her whispers, he knew what she was doing, but he hesitated at breaking her focus. He feared some worse mishap if he interrupted.

What had she been thinking?

Without true sight, how could her mantic sight ever show her even the Elements within all things? The taint in her from a thaumaturgical ritual gone wrong so long ago could do nothing for a blind woman. He had never felt so restrained in helplessness, waiting for her to fail.

Wynn stopped whispering.

She pitched forward, caught herself, hands braced on the floor, and gagged. Then Chane dropped the pouch as he charged for her.

He dropped to his knees, and she collapsed against him, breathing too fast and hard.

“What are you doing? Why?” he asked softly.

Her head toppled back, struck his shoulder, and her eyes opened wide. He watched those brown irises shift more than once, pause, and shift again about the chamber.

She slapped a hand over her mouth as her eyes clamped shut. Her other hand slammed down on his folded leg, and her small fingers ground into his thigh. He felt nothing in his worry—except shock.

In the brief moment Wynn's eyes had opened, they had moved more than once about the chamber.

She had
seen
something
.

Her eyes opened again, and he thought she might sicken again. Then she looked up at his face so near to hers.

“Chane?” Wynn whispered.

He should have made her stop then and there, but he could not.

Obviously she had been toying with this in secret whenever he went hunting lizards and desert rodents to supplement their supplies. Or when he was working to improve his meager conjuring, which eventually moved from fire to water for their additional use. Given her loss of sight, he had never thought she would try this, for how could mantic sight work if she could not see?

But it had, and more than this, she blinked twice. For an instant, her expression cleared of sickness, and she smiled at him. It was not the last time he would have that aching joy. So long as he wore the ring, there was one thing—one person—that did make her head ache in vertigo when she looked upon Spirit or any other elemental component of the world.

She would see him, only him, as he truly was.

Even so, he could not stop her from suffering in her tampering. Seeing elemental Spirit in her surroundings was all that she had. How could he deny her those brief moments of independence?

Now, standing at the near side of the chasm—and in that memory—Chane went numb again, and yet he could not stop remembering.

Wynn had found a way to see, now and then, and even for the price, she was much happier. She and Chane had a life together.

At night, they walked out under the moon and stars. In the seasons and years that followed, they studied languages, history, culture, and more from texts she or he requested from visiting sages. They drank tea brought from any corner of the world that sages could reach. They played board games and cards, ones they had always known and even a few new ones.

There were true visits as well—for more than just assistance in maintaining their vigilant existence.

Magiere, Chap, and Leesil came once a year, at least, with the aid of the white sages.

Chuillyon, likely with Leesil's convincing, had planted his small sprout from Chârmun in the royal grounds of Bela in Belaski on the eastern continent. Both were rather discomforted when asked how, and neither was very forthcoming. It was a short journey up the coast from Miiska to Bela, but this would have to be planned for the right time when the white sages came to the new “branch” of the guild in that city. They were necessary to send anyone else through or send them back.

On those visits, Wynn was overjoyed to see her three friends. Chane made an effort to be civil, and Magiere reciprocated. Chap ignored him, and Leesil was occasionally sociable.

After a few years, Chap came less frequently.

Leesil said Chap—and Shade—had moved on to an'Cróan lands to live full-time with the one they called Lily. Both majay-hì had already been going there regularly before then, though Chap still returned to Miiska as often as he could arrange. Eventually, Chane heard that Osha and Wayfarer had followed that way as well, and on that particular visit, both Magiere and Leesil were distant, as if preoccupied.

This had left Chane wondering, considering that both Osha and Wayfarer had originally fled their homeland as traitors and outcasts.

Time changed even more things, though not always purely in partings. A few more years passed to another night that burned into Chane's memories, never to be forgotten. It had started on the far side of the bridge.

Chane had been up and about that night while Wynn slept. He had come down to sit near the closest side of the bridge while working on a journal.

Another visitor came, though at first he had not noticed. He was distracted when one of the cold-lamp crystals on the bridge's far posts suddenly lit up. It startled him, for it was not time for the seasonal supplies.

A lone figure stood there between the far bridge posts.

Likely female by its small stature, it was shrouded in a long robe with a full, draping hood—both a deep forest green. This was the first time he had seen that color of robe.

With one of his many journals in hand, he snapped it closed and rose to his feet. The figure did not move, even as strange noises echoed faintly out of the passage to the tree's cavern.

Those noises quickly turned to a ruckus.

And still the green-robed figure did not move, even when a tiny furred form raced around it straight onto the bridge. And two more—and another—and another, five in all.

Chane stood staring.

The following pair of pups—brown and gray—pounced on and over the mottled one in the lead. He lurched forward a step, fearful that one or more might tumble over the bridge. They did not even slow their raucous, tumbling race until the first skidded onto the landing before him.

She barely pulled up short before ramming headlong into his boot.

Wide crystal-blues stared up him, but only for an instant. The second one rammed into and over the top of her, and that one did hit his boot. He was too shocked at the sight of them to even move, though he quickly curled the fingers of his left hand, checking with his thumb that he still wore the “ring of nothing.”

The rest of the tiny pack followed, including the last: a black male stalking slowly in on him. Its ears twitched, flattened briefly, twitched again, and tiny jowls pulled back in a hesitant growl.

Chane did not move, even as a cream-coated little female with bark-colored streaks clawed at his shin in sniffing him. A more distant but sharp bark drew his eyes instantly. Halfway across the bridge, a huge black form with crystal-blue eyes led the green-robed sage.

He would have known Shade anywhere, even for the darkness at the bridge's center.

Shade came in growling at the little ones and trying to get them settled. It was hopeless, since she was outnumbered. And the green-robed sage, the first and last visitor among the others, stepped off the bridge, brushing back her hood.

It was Wayfarer.

Beneath her dark green robe, long but split down the front like Wynn's old travel one, the girl was dressed even more like the wild woman, the Foirfeahkan, called Vreuvillä. Multiple tiny braids of hair to either side of her face had strange wooden charms woven into them. Though one-quarter human, she still physically looked the same, as if she had not aged at all since he had last seen her.

Later would come many questions about green sages—who were not just sages—and how they came to be among the an'Cróan. Part sage by Chuillyon's outcast meddling, they also practiced what Wayfarer had learned from Leaf's Heart. But there and then, Chane looked down at one of the few others he had missed for a long time.

Shade huffed at him and stood waiting.

With the noise of the five little ones, it was entirely unnecessary for anyone to go and awaken Wynn. This was not the last time Shade would come, and after that, green-robed sages were sometimes the ones to bring supplies. But of all memories in a life with Wynn, that night was forever lodged in Chane.