Barb Hendee - In Shade and Shadow

Wynn heard soft voices several shelves off and headed quickly to the library's back wall. She reached the nearest window and peered out the finest panes the dwarves could make.

The new library was constructed behind the main keep at the back of the inner bailey. It filled the space all the way to the bailey wall. Wynn could see that the drop down to the wall's top would be easy, but the rest of her plan might prove more difficult.

She tucked the staff under one arm and propped the window open as quietly as she could. Climbing upon the sill, she clung to the window's frame for an instant before she hopped outward. Her knees buckled as she dropped atop the bailey wall's walkway; it was a little farther down than it looked. With one backward glance, she hurried along the old battlements.

Wynn rounded the eastern tower and headed onward, taking the chipped and faded stone steps below the southern tower into the orchard of barelimbed maple trees. She crept through the barren gardens toward the bailey gate before the gatehouse tunnel.

In getting this far, she'd successfully bypassed the closed outer portcullis. All that remained was to open the bailey gate. None of her peers or superiors would be outside, so she should be able to slip away without being seen. Slowly she crept to the edge of the nearest barbican framing the gate and peered out.

"Ah, no," she whispered.

Two of the Shyldfälches stood just outside the portcullis. She hadn't heard of Rodian placing guards to watch over the guild, and she backed into hiding. Chane was waiting, but she had no idea how to get out unseen. Ghassan il'Sänke stepped to the library's window and watched as Wynn sped off along the wall. His grip tightened on the sill when he saw the staff in her hand. He shook his head and waited until she rounded the wall's turn beyond the eastern tower.

He had followed her, apprehensive of what she was up to and where she was going. In his long life, very little surprised him anymore. But earlier today he had been shocked upon learning that she had been granted access to the translated pages and the codex. She was neither mature nor experienced enough in the dangers of knowledge for such a thing. Then again, neither were some of the domins and masters of this branch.

Ghassan had seen the few ancient Sumanese passages he had been asked to help translate. That information alone had to be kept hidden at all cost. Still, he wondered what was in the rest of those folios, and perhaps even envied Wynn's special indulgence. Somehow it must have been facilitated by the meddlesome captain of the city guard.

What would happen if this knowledge, this Forgotten History, became known to the common people? So many ideologies and beliefs had eradicated what little was known of civilization's birth—and death—in the world. Or rather its fragile rebirth since that long-forgotten war few believed had ever happened at all. It was best left that way, even for what might lie ahead.

After supper he had planned to write another letter to his comrades at the Suman branch. Then he overheard someone mention a private message delivered for Wynn. He shadowed her, removing his presence from her mind, all the way from her room and through the library.

Ghassan briefly closed his eyes. Glimmering strokes and marks took form in patterns across the backs of his eyelids.

As an incantation slipped through his thoughts, he stepped off the windowsill, floated down to the wall's top, and walked quickly off after Wynn. He caught sight of her as she rounded the southern tower and headed along the keep's front.

But then she stopped, hiding near the closer barbican of the gate—for two of Rodian's men had been posted before the gatehouse. Ghassan watched her go back into hiding, and he frowned in indecision.

Perhaps he should just leave her with no way out. Let her abandon this covert journey and go back to her room. But then he would never learn what she was up to. Touching her thoughts might suffice, but her erratic mind often required wading and waiting for things to become clear.

Ghassan rubbed his eyes. He would have to get her off guild grounds himself. Closing his eyes again, he altered the patterns, lines, and sigils in his thoughts and then focused on the two city guards… on their senses… their hearing…

"What was that?" one asked suddenly, and looked northward along the inner bailey. But the other was already running, and the first took off behind him.

Wynn peeked out at the voices. She stepped into the open and stared to where the men disappeared beyond the western orchard and tower. She just stood there.

"Oh, please! Just go!" Ghassan whispered.

Finally she rushed out and slipped through the bailey gate.

Ghassan gave her a moment, watching her over the wall as she headed south. Then he descended directly into Old Bailey Road and followed.

Chane crouched at the stable's rear corner, uncertain what he would say to Wynn. And the smells of dung, old leather, and straw rose around him.

The horses inside had already been fed and settled for the night. No one would come out back after dusk. This was the nearest and safest place he knew of for a private word without having Wynn walk too far at night. Something… someone besides him was after the folios—and it had fixed upon Wynn outside the scribe shop.

Chane had brushed out his cloak and combed his red-brown hair, which had once hung to his shoulders. More than a year ago, in Venjètz, Welstiel had cut it jaggedly to disguise Chane for a ruse played on Magiere. The hair would never grow back. He pushed a loose strand behind his ear, closing his eyes briefly.

Wynn would come, but how could he explain his actions, driven by obsessions that he did not fully understand?

He watched the street from along the stable's side. Across the way he could just make out the tops of the guild's keep towers above shops, inns, and one eatery across the street. Then movement pulled his gaze back down.

Wynn stepped into sight on the street, wearing a brown cloak over her gray robe.

She gripped a walking staff taller than herself, and the two hands' length above her head was sheathed in leather. She halted, reached into her pocket, and pulled something out. When she flattened her hand against her wool robe and rubbed brusquely, Chane knew it was her cold lamp crystal. Faint illumination filtered through her fingers, and he stepped quickly along the stable's side to its front corner.

Wynn halted midstreet, staring at him. Faint lines of concentration creased her forehead.

An ache swelled in Chane's chest at the sight of her oval face within her robe's raised cowl. Wynn embodied what little he held worthwhile in this world—all the things he could never have. She finally came toward him, stopping a few paces off, well beyond his reach.

Something about her face was different, not in her features but in her expression. She seemed older, too serious, and poignant. All Wynn's youthful curiosity, her wonder and innocent passion… it all seemed gone from her soft brown eyes.

But so long as he saw no fear, he could bear anything else.

"I did not kill them," he rasped in Belaskian. "Any of them! I would never harm a sage."

Watching her flinch made him hate the sound of his maimed voice more than ever before. But her reaction to his words was far more important.

"I believe you," she whispered, yet as her gaze searched his face, he still saw doubt. "Why did you send for me?"

Blunt and to the point, but she certainly had many other questions. Why was he here, halfway across the world, and how was he involved with the folios' thefts? But she had not asked him any of this. She treated him like a stranger, and the ache in his chest became a pain.