Barb Hendee: In Shade and Shadow

Those three robed sages—man, woman, and dwarf—slipped from sight around the road's gradual curve. And the cloaked figure pulled back his hood, letting raggedly cut red-brown hair swing freely around his narrow, pale face.

Chane Andraso stood high in the dark, staring after Wynn.

But she was beyond his widened sight as much as beyond his reach.

Ghassan il'Sänke lingered outside the main archway of the guild's common hall, watching the commotion play out. Half this branch's population was now crowded into that large space. A small sea of initiates in tan robes pressed in toward the mammoth hearth at the hall's far end. Among them were the teal, cerulean, gray, midnight blue, and sienna of apprentices and perhaps a few journeyers of the five orders. Domins and masters of the guild were present as well. And the thrum of agitated voices echoed out over Ghassan.

He had no wish to answer questions, either those of the premins or the curious and fearful gathered about. High-Tower could face that task. The dwarf's sharp brevity, though unsatisfying to some, might quell morbid fascination and fear among the guild's populace. And more likely, High Premin Sykion would not let things go too far. Discussion of unpleasant details would be held until privacy was achieved.

But still, Ghassan wanted to know what was said—and thought.

And how much anyone suspected regarding the deaths of two young sages and the missing folio of passages from the ancient texts. How would the sages of this guild branch react?

Frustration cracked his self-control in a sharp exhale.

If only he had found a way to remove the texts and taken them to his branch far south. These Numans were ill-suited for protecting the ancient writings, regardless that this was the guild's founding branch. Compared to his own branch, this castle was still a tiny place in the world.

High-Tower was hard to spot amid the crowd, but he was somewhere near the hearth. Wynn would be close by as well. Then one of the dwarves' broad hands rose above the thickened forest of cowled heads as he bellowed for silence.

Ghassan pitied him—almost.

The stout domin was the perfect example of a solid, pragmatic dwarf, who preferred each day's schedule to follow an ordered and efficient regimen. The potential for chaos in the hall would be torture for him—as much as for those behind him.

All five of the Premin Council, leaders of the five orders, stood scattered along the great hearth's front ledge.

Premin Sykion looked uncomfortable, even a little shaken. She raised a narrow hand, echoing High-Tower's gesture, and her reedy voice lowered the rumble in the hall.

"Please, we have told you all we know. We hope to learn more tomorrow. But for now there is nothing more."

Some of the crowd drew back, taking up seats at benches and stools, while others drifted toward the exits with low and fervent murmurs.

At more than sixty years, Sykion was as slender as a solitary palm tree on a grassy shore, and perhaps slightly bent like one under the wind of a gathering storm. The gray robe of a cathologer suited her serene demeanor, as well as did her long and braided silver hair. Il'Sänke respected her position but otherwise had no opinion of her. As premin of cathology at Calm Seatt, and high premin of the branch's council, she had been the one to request his extended stay.

Môdhrâfn Adlam, premin of naturology, stood closest to her. At a break in the crowd il'Sänke saw a handful of brown-robed apprentices gather near him, as if seeking his protection.

Ghassan snorted.

Môdhrâfn's given name meant "proud raven." Odd as it was for a Numan name to refer to an animal, he supposed it suited the head of naturology here, those who studied the natural world. Still, «prideful» would have been a better translation.

"How did they die?" young Nikolas asked, his voice trembling.

Ghassan hadn't even noticed him before. In general, Nikolas Columsarn never warranted much note. He was usually hiding in some corner with hunched shoulders, like a mouse watching for a cat. As he had been now, before stepping into sight around the archway's side.

High-Tower cleared his throat. "The captain of the guard has made no determination, but with no visible injuries… it appears they may have been poisoned."

"Poisoned?" a clear voice called too loudly.

There was a hint of contempt behind its fear, and Ghassan shifted his gaze to Wynn.

She stood just beyond High-Tower at the hearth's left end, her arms crossed as if she were cold.

Domin High-Tower glared at her. "No one needs to hear any more of your nonsense!"

He had tried to say this under his breath, but the words still carried. Wynn straightened and held High-Tower's eyes with hers.

"They weren't poisoned," she said. "Even so… whoever killed them took a folio completed this day at Master a'Seatt's shop. What did you send to have copied? What was in those pages?"

"Their deaths had nothing to do with their task!" High-Tower snapped. "Some thug killed them, and merely took anything found."

"A common thug… using poison?" Wynn returned coldly. "Where's the sense in that?"

Premin Sykion stepped along the hearth toward Wynn.

"You are tired and overwrought, my dear, and it grows late." She looked around at the remaining hesitant faces. "Everyone should rest. There is nothing more to discuss."

Sykion's hazel eyes grew sad in her gaunt, lined face.

"A great tragedy happened tonight, but as Domin High-Tower suggests, we may yet learn it was a random act that took our brothers from us."

Muttering softly, the last of the initiates, apprentices, and masters began to break apart, heading out in small groups. Some passed Ghassan on their way to the front double doors and the courtyard, off to their quarters elsewhere.

Premin Sykion gently steered Wynn toward the main archway.

Ghassan had noted more than once how the premin handled Wynn's outbursts—with sympathy and compassion, versus High-Tower's fuming frustration. But the premin's method had done more to discredit Wynn than the dwarf's ever had. Perhaps Sykion did pity Wynn—as some poor, addle-minded girl, not up to the journey her domin had given her in a faraway land.

But Wynn did not inspire sympathy in Ghassan.

She made him anxious, almost wary, and fear was unusual for him.

He watched Wynn approach, her olive features defeated and disturbed. What did she know, and how much? She stopped when she saw him standing beyond the arched entrance.

"You didn't even come in?"

"I was not needed."

"They're all fools," she whispered. "And yet I'm the witless one? Tell me… if you're the last sane person in a world of blind lunacy, what does that really make you?"

Ghassan saw no point in playing at intellectual conundrums.

"Is it not possible that Elias and Jeremy were poisoned?" he asked. "Can you not grant that much?"

Wynn's small mouth tightened, and Ghassan thought she might accuse him of being a fool as well. For in a world of fools, the sane and rational were always labeled idiots and madmen.

"I suppose," she said low in anger.

He nodded once. She passed him by, heading silently toward the entry chamber and the great doors.

Ghassan took two silent steps after her, just enough to take him beyond sight of anyone still in the common hall. And he blinked slowly.

In that sliver of darkness behind his eyelids, he raised the image of Wynn's face in his mind. Over this he drew the shapes, lines, and marks of blazing symbols stroked from deep in his memory. A chant passed through his thoughts more quickly than it could have passed between his lips.

Poison indeed! Blindness… all of them blind to what I know!

Ghassan il'Sänke finished his blink as the cacophony of Wynn's conscious thoughts erupted in his mind.