Barb Hendee: Sister of the Dead

"Aren't you listening?" Magiere asked. "We're not heading north. First, we go inland to my old home in Droevinka, which means a longer journey than you thought. There are places in my homeland where they don't speak Belaskian, and you'll be the ignorant one. So much for your services."

Leesil saw a strange concentration, or perhaps eagerness, fill Wynn's expression at the mention of Magiere's homeland. The sage's gaze fixed upon Magiere's face for a moment before she spoke.

"All the more to learn of… this continent's people and cultures. Language is my strength as a cathologer, a sage skilled in the nature of knowledge itself. One more to learn is one more benefit of the journey. There is no choice in the matter. Leave without me, and I will only follow you."

Chap groaned, and his furry face wrinkled like Magiere's scowl.

Leesil exchanged glances with Magiere, but neither of them said a word.

Though half-elven, he'd never known his mother's people or learned their language. Wynn might prove useful, once they turned north out of Droevinka. But by the way the stubborn little sage reacted to Magiere's homeward purpose, there was more to Wynn's interests than fabled lands and foreign tongues.

"Let's pack up the wagon and pay the innkeeper," he said. "Save the rest of the talk, as we have to go back into Bela for more supplies."

The barest smile settled on Wynn's lips as she turned toward the door. "Come, Chap. I brought something for you."

As she stepped out, Chap glanced up, but Leesil shrugged. The dog whined and loped after the young sage as Magiere shook her head in disbelief.

Leesil gathered their few belongings, carrying their chest with Magiere's help. Outside by the road, he shivered in the chill autumn air and spotted Wynn's pile of belongings stacked beside the inn's front door. He led the way around the side to the stable, a rickety shake roof on poles that leaned against the inn's weathered wall for support. Crude railings divided its weed-strewn space into stalls, and therein were the two horses for their nearby wagon.

Wynn crouched upon the ground with a large piece of tanned hide rolled out before her. Its edges were cut square, and its length and breadth matched the reach of one arm. On it were rows of elegant and curved markings and symbols, either singular or in groups, and all drawn with ink. Some were organized into columns, and a few groups of symbols like scrawled words or phrases were set off to either side within small circles and squares.

The markings were strangely familiar to Leesil, though for a moment he couldn't remember when or where he'd seen them. Then he remembered Wynn scribbling with chalk upon the floor of the sages' barracks. They'd stumbled upon Chap's little secret, a hint to his true nature as a majay-hi, a Fay in a dog's body. Wynn marked words and letters upon the floor so he could paw out answers to her questions, though the process had proved less than efficient.

Leesil stepped closer, as did Magiere. The hide Wynn had made was more compact and orderly but still as unreadable to Leesil as the chalk all over the barracks floor.

Chap cocked his head and began pawing at the hide.

"Not bad," Leesil commented. "But we need to get on with the day."

"I only wanted to show it to him," Wynn said with puzzlement.

She watched Chap's awkward pawing, and as she tried to catch up, she spoke in the odd lilting and chopped tongue of the elves.

"A 'bithva, Chap? A 'bithva jeannis?"

Chap pawed more symbols, and Wynn followed with her eyes, lips moving silently. The dog stopped, poised on haunches, and looked up at Leesil and then Magiere.

Wynn stood up with her small hands clenched.

"You left him outside… all night?" The words caught in her throat as if she couldn't quite get them out. "How could you? With no food, no water!"

Magiere stiffened and spoke so quietly that Leesil was immediately on his guard.

"Is this what we can look forward to? That mutt gets to use her for his endless whining and begging?"

Chap wrinkled his muzzle; then he licked his nose at Magiere. Leesil hoped it wasn't some kind of gesture, or at least that Magiere wouldn't think so.

"I'm sure it will prove more useful than that," he said.

Despite her outward anger, Magiere rummaged in the back of their wagon until she procured some dried meat and a water flask.

"At least we can question him more easily," she said, and set out strips of jerky and a tin mug of water for Chap.

Leesil wasn't so confident, as Chap hadn't been forthcoming so far. He kept this to himself as he helped Wynn haul her belongings to the wagon. The sage dug in her leather pack to bring out a waxed parchment. When she unfolded it, Leesil smelled the mint before he saw the wad of tiny leaves within.

"I thought we were leaving, not setting up house," he chided.

"I left in a hurry to catch you this morning," she said. "I assume none of us have had breakfast."

Magiere shook her head. "We'll get something in the city while we gather supplies."

"No," Wynn argued, digging out yet another parchment pouch. "I need my tea. We can ask the innkeeper to send hot water to your room. A proper start for the day."

Leesil rolled his eyes and headed back to the inn to see if the old proprietress was about.

"Please ask for three clean mugs," Wynn called out, "so we need not unpack any of yours."

Leesil bit on his lower lip as he shoved the inn's front door open. So much for Wynn needing no coddling-and she'd been with them barely since dawn.

That night, as the sun dropped below the horizon, Chane opened his eyes. His internal awareness was unusually precise, even for a Noble Dead. He fell dormant at sunrise and woke at sunset, but for the first time in memory, he felt a moment's uncertainty of his surroundings. Then he remembered.

He was in a country barn that his new companion, Welstiel Massing, had led them to the previous night. An iron pitchfork, shovel, and hoe leaned against the weathered wall near the double doors, and the place smelled of stale hay, rust, and dried dung. In place of livestock, all he sensed were small lives, perhaps mice, and his own rat curled inside his cloak pocket. Sitting up in the loose pile of old hay, he watched a fat spider above him crawl across a web glistening with evening dew. The egg sac it approached seemed ready to burst with a hundred new lives.

Chane had never awoken in such a place or such a state. He had plotted the death of his own master and creator to achieve freedom. Now he grew nostalgic for his clean cellar room in the lavish home back in Bela, regardless of the servitude and enslavement that had come with it. He pulled his cloak tighter about himself, though he felt no cold. Freedom had its price, so it seemed.

"Welstiel?" he said, voice cracking the silence of the decaying barn.

"Here," a cultured voice answered.

Chane started at the movement in the stall across from him. A figure stirred, arose, and stepped from those deeper shadows and into the open space between the stalls.

As always, Chane sensed nothing of his new companion. Both of them were Noble Dead, both adept in their arcane arts. Welstiel could be seen, heard, and touched, but even to Chane's heightened awareness, nothing of his life force, or rather its lack, could be sensed. Chane did not know how this was so, and that unnerved him further.

Welstiel brushed the straw from his black wool cloak. Of medium height and build, he appeared to be in his early to mid-forties by human standards. He wore his dark brown hair combed back, revealing his most distinguishing feature of two sliver-white patches at each temple. He wasn't wearing his gloves, and Chane's eyes strayed down to the man's one tiny oddity-the missing half of the little finger on Welstiel's left hand.