Barb Hendee: In Shade and Shadow

Elias thought he saw long fingers wrapped in shredded strips of black sackcloth.

The shadow figure drew closer, seeming to grow in height.

It didn't lean down"6"n't lea for the cast coins, and he heard no footfalls in its approach.

"Help!" Jeremy screamed. "Someone… guards! Help us!"

But Elias couldn't take his eyes off the figure towering over him.

Its cloak folds spread, seeming to climb the alley walls. He heard Jeremy pound on wood, maybe the back door of some shop. But he was shuddering even before the air turned frigid.

The smell of dust choked Elias, just as an overpowering scent of strange spices thickened in his head.

Wynn Hygeorht knelt on the narrow bed of her small stone chamber and stared out her window. She watched the square inner courtyard of the first castle of Calm Seatt, home of the Guild of Sagecraft.

A few sages came and went in yellow pools of light cast by hanging lanterns and the torches on the gatehouse's inner wall. The last sages reached the great double doors at the courtyard's rear and slipped from sight into what had once been the feasting hall in bygone days.

Wynn crawled across her bed to the floor, and settled cross-legged upon a braided cloth rug.

She was not exactly hiding. Rather, she called her recent tendencies a "preferred privacy."

But in the two seasons—summer and autumn—since her return, she'd shied away from her brethren more and more. At times she even wished she were still on the arduous long journey that had brought her home to the king's city in Malourné. And though the Farlands lay half a world away, her memories of the eastern continent were still so clear.

A plate of green grapes and a fluted tin mug of water sat on her bedside table. She sighed, deciding to do something more constructive than wallow in the past.

Wynn closed her eyes, clinging to the image of water within the mug.

Nearly two years had passed since she'd first attempted a small thaumaturgical ritual. She'd tried to give herself mantic sight in order to see the element of Spirit in all things—an arrogant choice, considering she was no mage. Her companions at the time, Magiere and Leesil—and Chap—had been desperate to track an unfamiliar undead. And Wynn had succeeded in her small ritual, helping her friends save a village, but the repercussions still plagued her.

As a journeyor sage, but one with no new assignment and few duties, she had too much free time. She spent some evenings secretly working to expand the ever-present taint of the mantic sight still trapped within her. To date, she'd had very limited success—and one quite painful mishap.

Wynn held to the image of water as she evoked a memory of Chap… that wise old Fay-born dog now gone from her side. Focusing upon his image had assisted her more than once in summoning mantic sight. She thought of his brilliant crystal blue eyes, his shimmering silver-gray fur, and even the derisive way he licked his nose at her. As a Fay, an eternal entity of the elements, Chap had chosen to be born into living flesh.

In the form of a majay-hì, the rare breed of guardian wolf-dogs found in the Elven Territories of the Farlands, he had watched over Leesil and Magiere—and Wynn. And then he left her. She missed him in more ways than one.

The only times she had sure control over her lingering mantic sight was in his presence. But tonight she wasn't seeking the element of Spirit.

With the image of Chap and that of Water lodged in her mind, Wynn opened her eyes… to nothing.

Just her room, her little table-desk piled with scattered books, paper, and quills… and the plate of grapes and mug of water on the bedside stand. All of it was lit by the glow of her cold lamp's crystal.

Wynn slouched, and her back thumped against the bed's side.

Whenever she awakened her mantic sight to Spirit, that element showed as a blue-white mist permeating all things, strongest where life existed but thinner where it waned—or where it never was—for the five elements were part of all things, living or inert.

And a few times she'd seen black spaces amid that mist.

Places where there was no Spirit at all, or perhaps its unknown opposite. Permeating mist would shift ever so slightly, flowing into those voids—to be swallowed by the presence of a Noble Dead.

Wynn wasn't certain how Water would've appeared compared to Spirit, but obviously she wouldn't learn tonight. Then a thought occurred: What if she evoked sight of Spirit, as she'd done a few times, and then tried to shift it to something else?

Wynn closed her eyes once more.

In a small inn within the Warlands of Leesil's birth, she'd sat alone with Chap in their room. It was in the early days, when her malady was still a mystery. With that memory of Chap's face, Wynn recalled the feel of his fur, her fingers curled in his thick coat, and she opened her eyes again.

Nausea welled in her stomach.

The room turned shadowy beneath the overlaid off-white mist just shy of blue.

Everything, even the stone walls, became doubled, as if variegated blue-white shapes of things overlaid and overwhelmed their real forms. She'd grown accustomed to the queasiness and the vertigo, but they were no less unpleasant for being familiar. Luckily she hadn't eaten yet, and she glanced at the bedside table.

Strongest in the grapes' small nodules, the mist waned within the table's wood and the bed's wool blanket. Only a thin trace showed within the stone walls and the tin of the fluted mug. When she glanced down at her own hands, Spirit glowed strongest within her living flesh.

To see the element of Spirit was part of her curse, if and when she could make it come at all. But if she had to accept this condition as more than just a malady, she needed more from it.

Wynn lifted her eyes to the fluted mug, whispering, "Give me… Water."

Nothing happened—then a flicker passed. Or had it?

Was that color shift real? Did the blue-white in the grapes melt for an instant… to blue-green… to a deep teal?

The mist's color surged into cascading shifts as vertigo swelled in Wynn's head.

Blue-white swirled to a yellow-white. She hadn't seen such a color before. Then it turned rapidly to dark amber-red.

Wynn sucked in a sharp breath. "Oh, no… not again!"

The mug's shape overlaid with deep black, for the water it held chilled the tin vessel. A dim umber-red blotch covered the bed's blanket, showing the remnants of her body heat from kneeling upon it.

Once before Wynn had briefly glimpsed the element of Fire.

She panicked, flinching away, and turned too quickly. Before she could shut her eyes, her gaze lit upon the desk—and the glow of her cold lamp's crystal.

Searing pain welled through nausea and vertigo, spiking through her eyes into her skull.

Light was a manifestation of Fire.

Wynn grabbed her aching head. Tears leaked through her clenched eyes, as if she'd stared into the sun, and swirling blotches of color played across the backs of her eyelids. Vertigo sharpened, and she knew mantic sight was still with her. She dared not open her eyes.

The last time she'd seen Fire, half the night passed before her altered sight faded on its own.

A knock sounded at her door.

Wynn whimpered under her breath. "Ah, damned dead deities… not now!"

She nearly fell over as she shifted. Her head ached so badly she found it hard even to think. A baritone voice called softly from beyond the door.

"Wynn, are you up?"

"Oh, no," she whispered.

The one person in this place who even knew of her malady stood outside. And he was the last person who should see her in this state. He would know exactly what she had been up to.

"Wynn, I can hear you," the voice called, strangely accented and already less than patient. "Enough solitude. Open up!"