Barb Hendee: In Shade and Shadow

"It's no more clear to me than to you," he answered. "All poetic metaphor, simile, and symbolism."

And his instinct to silence her forever returned.

Even a rumored hint of such abominations as the wraith, and what it might represent, would create panic beyond control. Suspicion and paranoia would grow, along with heated denial and possibly open conflict between differing ideological factions. Ghassan had seen such things before within his homeland and the Suman Empire at large. But Wynn had served an essential purpose tonight. Perhaps that purpose was not yet completely fulfilled.

She opened the journal, scanned the scroll's copy page, and pointed to a brief string of ancient Sumanese, perhaps Iyindu and Pärpa'äsea. Her finger traced one haphazardly translated phrase.

"Can you guess at this at all?" she asked. "What is 'chair of a lord's song'?"

With a tired breath, Ghassan took the journal from her.

If Wynn's hasty strokes were accurate, the script indeed appeared to be Iyindu, both an old dialect and a writing system little used anymore in the empire. Fortunately it was not Pärpa'äsea, which was more obscure. But he did make out one error.

"You have the last of it wrong," he said. "It is not prepositional but an objective possessive adjective, a form not found in Numanese. The first word is not 'chair' but 'seat, so it would read…"

Ghassan paused, studying Wynn's attempt at translation, and then he looked down to the corresponding Iyindu characters. The word "maj'at" meant "seat," but the final character of Iyindu script had been doubled. Had Wynn copied it wrong as "maj'att" ?

"Fine," Wynn said, "so what does 'seat of a lord's song' mean?"

"Seatt," il'Sänke whispered, adding the sharpened ending of the last letter.

Wynn straightened, craning her neck, but she could not see and so scrambled up to peer at her scroll notes.

"Seatt?" she repeated. "Like in 'Calm Seatt'… or Dhredze Seatt, the Dwarvish word for a fortified place of settlement?"

Ghassan frowned. "Possibly… but the other part of your translation needs correction as well. Iyindu pronunciation changes according to case usage, though the written form of words remains the same."

Wynn huffed in exasperation.

"You translated based on 'min'bâl'alu, " il'Sänke continued, "which is not just a song but an ululation of praise for a tribal leader. In this case, and declination, the spoken pronunciation would be "min'bä'alâle."

Wynn stiffened, as if in shock.

Ghassan wondered if she was all right. Before he asked, a breath escaped her with a near-voiceless question.

"Bäalâle Seatt?" she whispered.

Ghassan had no idea what the truncated reutterance meant.

The phrase kept rolling in Wynn's mind.

"Do you know this term?" Domin il'Sänke asked. "Something you have heard?"

Oh, yes, she'd heard it twice before.

She'd never seen it written, except when she recorded its syllables in Begaine symbols within her journals of the Farlands. Even then, she knew the first part of the term wasn't Dwarvish as she knew it. If il'Sänke had read that one brief mention in her journals, he wouldn't have remembered it among the stack she brought home.

The first time Wynn heard of Bäalâle Seatt was from Magiere.

They'd reached the glade prison of Leesil's mother in the Elven Territories, and Magiere lost control of her dhampir nature. Most Aged Father had somehow slipped his awareness through the forest and into the glade's trees. He witnessed everything. At the sight of Magiere, appearing so much like an undead, terror-driven memories surged upon the decrepit patriarch of the Anmaglâhk. Magiere lost her footing amid the fight and touched a tree. Through that contact she'd slipped into Most Aged Father's remembrance.

Lost in his memories, Magiere heard one brief passing mention of a Dwarvish term.

Most Aged Father, once called Sorhkafâré, had been a commander of allied forces and alive during the war of the Forgotten History. He received a report of the fall of one "Bäalâle Seatt," and that all the dwarves of that place perished, taking the Enemy's siege forces with them. But no one knew how or why.

Wynn peered at the scroll. Here was that place-name again, hinted at in the obscure hidden poem of an ancient undead.

And the second time she'd heard the name of this forgotten place was far more recent.

A pair of black-clad dwarves—the Hassäg'kreigi , the Stonewalkers—had spoken of it as she eavesdropped outside of High-Tower's office. Then they were simply gone when she entered to speak with the domin.

And the wraith had come at her twice, wanting this scroll as much as any folio it had killed for.

"I need more!" she demanded. "You have to finish translating what I copied so far!"

"Wynn, no," il'Sänke said. "We finally have a moment's peace. This can wait until tomorrow, after we—"

"Now!" she insisted. "I need more so I can go to High-Tower for assignment. Something happened among the dwarves during the Forgotten History, and I'm going to Dhredze Seatt across the bay. It's the only place to begin and to find out what happened, or where…"

Wynn trailed off, for il'Sänke was shaking his head.

"In the morning," he insisted, but by his following pause, she knew there was something more.

"We both go before the premin council—in the morning," he explained.

Wynn had nothing to say to this. What could one say when one's way of life was about to end? They were going to cast her out.

Did it even matter anymore? Yes, if she were ever to see the translations again, or the original texts she'd taken from Li'kän's library. None of the council knew of the scroll, but that by itself wasn't enough, even when or if it was fully translated.

"Sleep for a while," il'Sänke said. "We will rise early to eat. Facing the council's formal summons is not good on an empty stomach."

Wynn stood there numb as he retrieved the old tin case from the floor and slipped the scroll away.

"And Wynn," he added, his tone colder, "remember that whatever you have learned must be guarded… only for those who can intellectually comprehend—and face—its truth. It cannot be shared elsewhere."

Dropping on the couch, she looked up at him with her serious brown eyes.

"I know," Wynn answered. "I think I truly do know that now."

At dawn Rodian sat at his desk, exhausted and ill. He should've rested, but throughout the night's remainder he'd tried over and over to write his report. Most of those dark hours had been spent merely staring at a blank sheet of paper.

He was driven to finish it, even beyond his own strength.

Upon arriving at the barracks, he'd gone to his room and looked in a mirror. A few thin strands of light gray ran through his hair, and more laced his trim beard. Remembering what had happened to Nikolas, Rodian wondered how he was still even conscious and on his feet. Perhaps the brief touch he'd received was less than what the young sage had suffered.

And now he sat poised with quill in hand, trying to find words to explain it all to the royal family, via the minister of city affairs. The threat to the guild was over. The murderer had been destroyed. Yet what could he possibly say of the details?

What would the minister think upon reading of a black spirit that killed by touch as it sought out texts supposedly written by other «undead»? And all of it concerned a war that most believed never happened. Indeed, what would the duchess or Princess Âthelthryth have to say if he wrote such words? They trusted him to maintain order, peace… and sanity.

Rodian choked on a dry throat and sipped some water.

Garrogh was dead, and young Lúcan was unconscious in the infirmary with a fractured leg, looking little better than young Nikolas. They deserved to have the truth told, even if it would never be believed.