Barb Hendee: In Shade and Shadow

Wynn turned around in time to see il'Sänke collapse.

Rodian gasped for air and couldn't see clearly. His sight was washed with colored blotches left by the sudden light from the crystal atop Wynn's staff. When his vision began to clear, he saw her.

But the black-robed mage was gone.

Rodian began to remember what Wynn and Nikolas had spoken of. That the murderer was…

What—some malignant ghost? How could he accept that?

He gasped for air again and could only watch as Wynn ran for the scriptorium. The wolf limped after her, weaving as it shook its head.

Rodian's shoulder burned and yet felt icy within. The figure had barely touched him, but he felt so weak he couldn't even try to stand. A scraping sound caught his attention.

Il'Sänke dragged himself up. The Suman looked terrible, pale even for his dark skin, and he glistened with sweat in the street's dim light.

"It is all right, Captain," il'Sänke said weakly. "It is over."

The sage had been working with Wynn—not with the black figure—but it didn't matter.

Nothing was all right.

Garrogh was dead, and Rodian didn't know if Lúcan had survived. And he still had to explain everything to the city minister and the royals of Malourné.

He had to explain it to himself—and he didn't want to.

What could he possibly say?

Something solid bumped his shoulder with a snort. Rodian was still looking at the haggard Suman as he gripped Snowbird's halter, needing something solid and real to hang on to.

Wynn rushed the scriptorium window, staff in hand, and grabbed the sill. She stood on tiptoe to see through the broken shutters.

"Chane!" she called.

The scriptorium's front room was too dark, or perhaps her eyes had suffered too many sudden changes of light. Either way, she barely made out the counter's dull shape and the darker hollow of the workroom's open door.

Had Chane taken cover in time—or had she burned him again?

A whine made her look down.

Shade hopped closer, limping as if her right shoulder hurt. Wynn dropped down, holding on to the dog. For such a young majay-hì, Shade had done so well—like her father, Chap.

"Here," a hoarse voice rasped.

At the sound of Chane's voice, Wynn ran for the shop's front door. It was unlocked, but as she stepped in with Shade hobbling behind, Chane had already retreated to the counter and slumped against it to the floor.

Wynn hurried over and knelt beside him. Only a bit of light from the street reached through the open door, and his face wasn't clear to see.

"Are you hurt?" she asked. "Were you burned?"

Chane groaned as he pushed back the cloak's hood. "No, not burned."

The earlier burns on his face were almost healed, but he didn't seem well at all—weaker than she'd ever seen him.

"The wraith?" he asked.

"Gone. Domin il'Sänke held it somehow. Its form broke apart… dissipating in the light. It was fully gone when I put the sun crystal out."

He only nodded with effort.

"The guild is safe," she added, expecting some response. "And so are the texts."

Chane said nothing to this.

Wynn guessed the pain in his eyes had little to do with his injuries, visible or otherwise. His hand with the ring was braced flat on the floor no more than an inch from hers, but she didn't reach for it.

What would become of him now?

He was a killer, a monster—aside from a wishful, would-be scholar—and one of the few here whom she could trust with her life.

"Chane, I've been thinking… about the scroll's poem… and about—"

"Journeyor Hygeorht…"

Wynn raised her head at a masculine, hollow voice beyond the counter.

"Move away from him !" the voice added in a slow, even demand.

She scrambled to her feet, disoriented, and Shade began to growl.

Someone stood in the doorway to the scriptorium's back workroom.

His head was covered by a large round object that seemed darker than the room, and his form was draped in black cloth.

"No!" Wynn breathed, pointing the staff's dormant crystal at it. "You… you're gone! You were burned to nothing!"

The dark figure stepped forward. Heavy boots clomped against the shop's wood floor.

A ribbon of dim street light slipped sideways across his head as he neared the countertop's flipped-open section.

Master Pawl a'Seatt gazed at Wynn from beneath a wide-brimmed hat.

Shade's growl was tinged with a pealing tone, as if she might howl again, but wasn't certain whether she should. It was the same confused tone Wynn had heard in the guild hospice as she sat with Nikolas—as Pawl a'Seatt had appeared there with Imaret.

The scribe master pushed aside his cloak's edge and braced his left hand on the counter's edge. The wood creaked under his grip.

Chane struggled up, dragging his sword in one hand. As he stumbled back toward the open door, he grabbed Wynn's shoulder and jerked her along.

"Get out!" he rasped.

Pawl a'Seatt flipped the cloak's other side.

Wynn glimpsed a sword hilt protruding above his right hip.

It was too long, too narrow for any sword she'd ever seen, as if the blade's tang had been directly leather-wrapped instead of first fitted with wood for a proper hilt. The pommel was too dark for steel, even in the room's night shadows.

"What's happening?" she asked, about to look to either Chane or Shade.

Pawl a'Seatt lifted his hand from the counter and pulled on his blade's hilt. "I said get away from that thing… journeyor."

The strange blade slipped free.

"Undead!" Chane rasped. "Wynn, get out!"

She glanced at him, but what little light crept in only silhouetted him from behind. She couldn't see his face.

"Listen to Shade!" he urged. "Listen to her!"

"Move away," Pawl a'Seatt repeated coldly, and stepped through the counter's opened top.

At first Wynn thought she saw a long war dagger in his hand, like the one given to Magiere by the Chein'âs, the Burning Ones.

But no, this blade was larger, longer, almost the size of a short sword. Where Magiere's was made of the silvery white metal of Anmaglâhk weapons, the one in Pawl a'Seatt's hand was nearly black, as if made from aged iron.

It was well more than a handbreadth wide above the plain bar of its crossguard. Each of its edges tapered straight to the point. But those edges were strangely rough in an even pattern.

Wynn squinted and saw that it was serrated.

Shade's noise remained constant, like mewling beneath a continuous shuddering snarl, but she didn't rush at the scribe master. Wynn put a hand on the dog's back as she stared at Pawl a'Seatt's face.

Black hair hung straight around his features from beneath the wide-brimmed hat. The faint ribbon of light exposed skin not even close to Chane's pallor. His eyes were brown, though too sharp and bright for the color. They were not the crystalline of an undead.

"No," she whispered. "No, he can't be."

He'd been present when the guild had chosen his scribes as the ones to come work inside the guild. Pawl a'Seatt had come to the gathering before noon, in daylight.

"I will not ask again," he said, but looked briefly out the broken window toward the street, where the conflict with the wraith had played out. "I will not allow even one of these things , let alone two… in my city."

My city? As much as that utterance puzzled her, Wynn was caught by something else.

Pawl a'Seatt knew what Chane was—knew what the wraith was, or had been.

"I tell you, he is an undead!" Chane hissed at Wynn. "Believe me!"

Shade began to physically shudder under Wynn's hand. Wynn side-stepped in front of Chane and pointed the crystal out like a spear's head.

"We were just leaving," she said.

Master a'Seatt shook his head.