Барб Хенди - The Night Voice

His only purpose had been to keep Magiere—through Leesil—hidden away from her own nature, origin, and purpose.

Now he could not hold in his shuddering whimpers as he looked wildly about the empty clearing. Had Nawyat ever come back to his own flesh, or had that flesh simply perished, still empty in this place? Could a mortal’s mind and spirit ever return once its body was taken by an eternal Fay? Had someone found and rescued him, perhaps for him to only fade and die later? Had he been found only to be buried in hiding and have all of his possessions scavenged?

Chap would never know.

He stood there alone, quaking in the frigid darkness. Cold ate all the way into his spirit, but even that was not enough to numb the pain, to drive out the shame ... and his sin.

The one thing he had done that no one else would ever know.

Raising the pickax, Chane slammed it down again, breaking deeper into the cold-hardened earth. He took up the shovel and began digging again. He tried to call on his inner strength, to let that chained beast—monster—inside him partially awaken.

It did not.

There was no hunger to call it in the close presence of two orbs he still had not found. There was only his own anger to keep him going, as the hole grew.

Where was Chap? Where had that cursed majay-hì, bane of his life, gone to now?

He neither slowed nor rested until his shovel struck something hard, and it twisted in his grip. He stopped and squinted down, but the pit was already knee-deep or more. Not enough moonlight for even his eyes reached its bottom through the tall trees.

Chane leaned the shovel into the crook of one elbow to tear off his gloves and dig into a coat pocket. He pulled out the cold-lamp crystal Wynn had given him and stroked it harshly three times down his coat. It lit up instantly, and he crouched to claw at the pit’s bottom with his other hand.

His fingernails grated across something harder than frozen earth. Setting the crystal up on the ledge of the hole, he crouched again and began scraping away more earth with both hands and the shovel’s head.

Finally, he saw the lightly dimpled but smooth gray-black of an orb. Before long, he had freed it and lifted it, only to nearly drop it.

There at the side of the pit stood Chap.

“Announce yourself next time,” Chane rasped, expecting a response of spite in return.

Chap made not a sound, dropped his head, and stared into the pit. Then he looked to the orb in Chane’s hands.

Its central ball was made from a dark material, char in color rather than black. The surface looked like chisel basalt though it felt slightly smoother than such stone.

Atop it, now that Chane had righted it, was the large head of a tapered spike that pierced through the globe’s center. Spike and orb looked cut from the same piece of stone with no indication that they could be separated. But the spike’s head had a groove running around its circumference that would fit the knobs of an orb key or handle, or what some thought looked like a dwarven neck adornment, called a thôrhk.

Chap huffed for attention and lowered his head to look down into the pit.

Chane did not need to ask. He set the orb on the pit’s ledge and crouched to dig out the next one. When finished, he climbed out and pulled on his gloves and stood there with two orbs at his feet between himself and the majay-hì.

It took far less time to load the orbs into the chests, lock them shut, and gather the tools. All that remained was to haul the chests one by one a reasonable distance from the pit. So Chane did this with Chap guarding the second one that remained behind. Through all of this, Chap made not a sound nor showed any desire or need to communicate.

His absolute silence unnerved Chane. They had what they had come for, so should not Chap express some relief? Once both chests were together again, far from the open pit, the question remained as to which one of them would guard the orbs while the other went for the guide and sled.

Chane had his answer when Chap climbed up and settled to straddle both chests.

Khalidah and the others had walked for half of the night, another night after many along the desert’s fringe below the foothills. In the predawn darkness, he noticed Wynn dragging one foot after the other as if she could barely remain upright.

The sage had shown surprising stamina, but of the five of them, she was the least suited to this seemingly endless trek. More important, since their routine midnight rest, Khalidah had pondered how to preoccupy Magiere and the others so that he could attend to a private task. Wynn’s exhaustion provided the remedy.

In one blink, the dark behind his eyelids filled with lines of spreading light. A double square formed in sigils, symbols, and signs. As his eyes opened, they fixed that pattern upon Wynn Hygeorht. All it took was a soft command at the edge of her consciousness.

Sleep .

She collapsed face forward onto the sand.

“Wynn!” Magiere cried.

She and Leesil ran for the sage, and both crouched as Leesil rolled Wynn over.

“She’s breathing all right,” he said with exhaled relief. “But she’s done in.”

He scooped her up in his arms and rose as if she weighed nothing. Magiere stood up beside him. The worry on her face was clouded by thinly veiled anger.

During the days, Magiere’s hair and skin were still a baffling sight. They had been under a desert sun for so long, and yet her skin retained its pale color. Bloodred tints were always visible in her black hair as well.

She was most certainly marked by Beloved.

In the dark, these traits were not so noticeable.

“Find a place to set the tents,” Brot’an called out, still managing both camels’ leads. “We will make camp early.”

Khalidah still found the hulking, scarred elf an enigma.

Though Brot’an claimed to simply be assisting in Magiere’s search, Khalidah did not believe so and never would. Too often, he caught Brot’an eyeing Leesil. No, that one had another agenda as yet a mystery. But he had revealed something useful earlier on.

Khalidah had been unable to penetrate the master assassin’s mind to any depth, just as with both majay-hì now conveniently elsewhere. There was one anomaly that also matched the same in those annoying beasts. Brot’an had been affected exactly like all the others by the ensorcellment embedded in Ghassan il’Sänke’s sanctuary.

That could be very useful, eventually. He felt Ghassan begin to rage again, but he only smiled briefly.

“I will find us a place,” Khalidah called.

He headed into the foothills. Quickly enough, he spotted one taller hill on the right that would block the sun once it rose ... for a while.

“Here!” he called back.

Soon, the others were busy setting up tents and tending to Wynn—even the aging elf. As they worked, Khalidah studied all of their belongings and supplies as if searching for something.

“Our water is low,” he said, and Leesil looked up for an instant. “If I can find a hidden well, I will return for assistance.”

No one questioned this, as all were too concerned for the sage, and so he slipped away. But Khalidah only searched for a place out of their sight, in case someone followed him too soon. Alone again, he crouched and prepared for another “peek” at Chane and Chap’s position.

The pebble he had given Chane was common knowledge to all involved. It had been meant to help them all find one another again. However, “finding” Chane was what the pebble could do for him. And he had his own vested interest in the success of the vampire and gray majay-hì.

Beyond gathering the orbs through these fortunate and unwitting companions, he had his own search to complete. His first goal was to learn where Beloved awakened. Until that was confirmed, along with the gathering of the orbs, he needed to foster Magiere’s belief that all “anchors” were necessary to face their “Ancient Enemy.” The others would follow her, willingly or not.