Barb Hendee - In Shade and Shadow

The steps scraped and clicked, like a small or short-legged person hurrying to keep up with someone else. But she heard no one else.

Beyond the undead that Wynn had seen or learned of, she knew little about the Noble Dead. Called the Vneshené Zomrelé in native Belaskian—or upír , or even vampyr in Droevinkan—the term referred to an undead of the most potent nature. Unlike ghosts or animated corpses, they retained their full presence of self from life. They were aware of themselves and their own desires, able to learn and grow as individuals in their immortal existence.

And her peers would think her mad if she said such a thing out loud.

But all this was recorded in her journals. No doubt all involved in the translation project had read them.

As a girl she'd sometimes assisted Domin Tilswith with his research in Numan folklore and legend. She'd enjoyed her master's dabbling, up to a point. It often left her wondering why he'd become a cathologer, instead of joining the Order of Metaology, like il'Sänke. Tilswith's fascination would've been better served that way. She remembered the day he mentioned an old term— àrdadesbàrn .

It meant "dead's child" in one of the pre-Numanese dialects, the child of a living woman and a recently deceased man. She'd forgotten that bit of nonsense from her days as an apprentice, until later, when she had met Magiere.

"Ghosts and walking dead…" she muttered, " àrdadesbàrn and dhampirs…"

Wynn stepped out of the bailey's south grove, headed toward the wall's gateway across from the massive gatehouse.

If Domin Tilswith could find references to the àrdadesbàrn , what else might be waiting in the catacombs below the guild, unread and untouched for years? What vampire could enter a scriptorium covertly, have to leave it by force, and could feed without leaving a mark?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a skittering outside the bailey wall.

A memory rose sharply in Wynn's thoughts. She stumbled midstep and froze in place.

Crouched behind a water trough at night, in a small river town of Magiere's homeland, Wynn had seen everything before her permeated with the blue-white mist of Spirit. That first time she'd raised mantic sight by dabbling in magic, she'd watched a pale undead come up the main road through the town.

Vordana.

Grayed, emaciated flesh stretched over the bones of his face and hands, and filthy white hair hung in mats out the sides of his cowl. His white shirt-front beneath the soiled umber robe was stained dark by old blood.

And the mist of Spirit in all things seemed to drift toward Vordana.

Beneath his filmy white eyes and pallid skin, Wynn had seen no translucent blue-white mist. Only darkness, as if his whole form were a void that no light could penetrate. Those drifting trails of Spirit within all things were slowly swallowed into him.

Vordana had fixed upon Leesil.

Leesil buckled to his knees as his life began to drain away into that undead, though Vordana never even touched him.

Wynn snapped to her senses in the castle's inner bailey as a cold gust of wind pulled on her cloak and hood. The clicking outside the wall came and went, again and again, as if someone paced in agitation.

Like paws on stone, claws catching in the cobble.

Wynn stared up wide-eyed to the wall's top. She gasped in a breath and ran for the gateway.

"Chap!" she cried. "Are you there?"

The gates were open, and she raced out into the Old Bailey Road.

There was no one in sight, let alone a dog. She spun about, looking both ways, then ahead down the Old Procession Road. She raced down that main way, skidding into the intersection with Wall Shops Row.

"Chap!"

All around, people went about between the shops. Three finely dressed gentlemen stood talking before a poster board where the day's recent news was nailed up. A city guard atop a black horse leaned slightly aside as he checked in with two local constables. A dowdy woman in drab attire pushed through a small gathering to elbow her way into a confectionery.

A carriage midstreet came on a bit too fast.

Wynn quickly backpedaled before the paired horses ran her down. And her back thumped into someone tall and solid. That somem" lid. Theone grabbed her by the shoulders from behind.

"Are you all right, miss?"

She spun about, face-to-face with a tall, clean-shaven young man in a thick wool cap and coat. Through the coat's open front she saw a canvas workman's apron filled with the tools of his trade—a leather crafter. A young woman in a pleated bonnet peered around his side and frowned at Wynn.

Wynn looked about the street, filled with patrons out and about for a noon meal and errands. Something brushed harshly against her leg.

Wynn stumbled again as another clear memory filled her head.

Chap…

She saw through his eyes as he ran the dark streets of Venjètz, Leesil's birthplace, but this memory was much hazier than the last. Details of sights and sounds were missing or indistinct. But she could almost feel his rage as he and Leesil hunted… a vampire.

Suddenly the undead vanished from Chap's awareness. He'd been hunting on senses alone, and his quarry simply wasn't there anymore.

"Mama, did you see that?"

Wynn shivered as her head cleared.

The young woman in the bonnet sighed. She grabbed the arm of a little boy, who was dressed much like the tall young man. Blueberry stains encircled the boy's mouth, and the remains of a turnover were clutched in one hand. With the other hand the boy pointed down the road.

"It was bigger than me!" he said.

Wynn looked through the people along the street, her heart pounding.

"Miss?" said the young father. "Do you need help?"

Wynn stared blankly up at his worried frown. His wife now tried to get their other two children's sticky hands off the shopwindow. Wynn backed away from the family and peered through the busy street.

She saw no sign of silver gray fur or crystal blue canine eyes. No dogs at all, let alone the one she ached to see.

The young father shook his head and turned to help his wife with the children.

"Chap!" Wynn shouted again, her voice quickly weakening. "Chap… please… please come."

Wynn felt so suddenly alone on that busy street that she wanted to sink to her knees and weep. By the time she felt tears on her face, other people were looking at her in passing.

If anyone from the guild saw her now, they wouldn't need rumors and spiteful hearsay to think she'd gone well beyond witless. She backed away from hesitant glances and fled back toward the bailey wall's gate.

Why was this happening to her? Why did she hear claw clicks and then wallow in yet more disturbing memories? First of an undead who drew life force from a distance, and then of another event whhe ther evere a vampire seemed to vanish.

Was she going mad? Were High-Tower and Sykion and all the others right about her? Had all she been through in the Farlands driven her into obsession?

In her travels with Magiere, Leesil, and Chap, she'd encountered only one Noble Dead who could drain life without breaking skin—Vordana, also a sorcerer. To Wynn's best knowledge, his rise from death had been unique. Unlike a vampire, he wore a tiny urn that trapped his spirit and kept his corpse animate.

But Vordana had fed upon a defenseless river town merely by being present within it, draining life without touching anyone.

Wynn hurried through the gates and up the stone path.

She wasn't mad.

What she'd lived through in the Farlands was real. And now did some creature like Vordana hunt sages and whatever lay hidden within the texts? If she wasn't allowed to see those ancient works, there was still the wealth of the guild archives in the catacombs.