Барб Хенди - The Night Voice

A low, rumbling growl built up, and Leesil glanced down at Chap, but the dog still hadn’t called up memory-words in his head. Leesil began to fear that Chap might even be considering Brot’an’s mad notion.

A long moment passed.

Leesil stood there, watching Ghassan in silence and waiting for Magiere, Chap, or anyone to say something.

“Magiere?” Wynn began, and half turned to glance up at Chane, who had his hand on her shoulder. Did she expect answers from the vampire?

Magiere shook her head. “I can’t listen to this anymore, and I can’t—” Breaking off, she strode for the door out of the sanctuary.

Leesil followed her, as he always would.

Wynn watched Magiere and Leesil walk out.

Then she flinched when the door slammed shut, and as the sound faded, Ghassan’s whole sanctuary fell into silence. The domin’s revelations had left her reeling. She knew things couldn’t be left like this, but no plans or decisions were possible without Magiere and Leesil—especially Magiere. She glanced down at Chap.

“Come on,” she half whispered to him. “We’d better go after them.”

“Not alone,” Chane rasped, stepping closer.

Wynn struggled for the best response. Though she would welcome his company, Magiere, Leesil ... and Chap most certainly would not.

“No, it’s all right,” she said, and then looked down to Shade. “Sorry, but you stay too.”

Chane scowled. Shade rumbled and twitched one jowl in clear disagreement. It was hard to tell what the dog disliked more, staying behind or being forced to.

Wynn started for the door and paused before Ghassan.

“You handled that badly,” she said, and then turned her head toward Brot’an. “Both of you. Chap and I will go after Leesil and Magiere ... alone! The rest of you stay here until we get this sorted out.”

With Chap waiting at the door, she hurried onward before anyone could think to argue. Chap had been uncharacteristically silent, which worried her, but there was no way to keep him out of this.

Once outside the sanctuary, she pulled the door closed and watched it vanish. Suddenly, she faced only a dead-end wall with an old window. The battered shutters were open over the alley below, as if the rooms she’d just left didn’t exist and the dingy passage ended at the tenement’s back wall.

The phantasm placed upon the sanctuary by Ghassan and his eradicated sect of sorcerers had kept everyone within safely hidden. He’d given her an ensorcelled pebble that would allow her mind and senses to evade this defense. She’d rarely had to use the pebble, as someone inside could hear her knock and open the door from within. But this end wall and its window, so real to all senses, still made her shiver.

“You lead,” she told Chap. “See if you can pick up a scent.”

She expected him to answer into her head—to at least say something —but he didn’t.

Instead, he turned away silently, and Wynn followed him all the way down the passage and then down the far stairs. At the bottom, he veered away from the front door and headed toward the back door that led to the rear alley. Maybe he’d smelled something to lead him that way, though Wynn couldn’t see how amid the stench of the old tenement or the decrepit district around it. Chap paused at the door, waiting until she opened it.

Wynn peeked out both ways, and there were Magiere and Leesil just to the left. They were both crouched down, leaning back against the alley wall and talking too quietly to hear.

Chap pushed out around Wynn’s legs, and thankfully neither Leesil nor Magiere frowned at the interruption. Leesil was closer, and he eyed the door after Wynn followed Chap, perhaps wondering whether anyone else was coming.

“Just us,” Wynn said quickly.

Leesil locked eyes with Chap, so the dog must have said something to him in memory-words. Even in the darkness, Wynn saw strain—pain—spread across Leesil’s face. Magiere’s expression was blank, almost cold, and she wouldn’t look at anyone.

“We’re not going back in there,” she whispered, almost echoing Chane’s rasp.

Chap circled around and dropped on his haunches beside Magiere. Although Chap was Leesil’s oldest friend, since before Leesil even knew he was more than a dog, lately Chap had been much in Magiere’s company—and confidence. At least since their time in the prison below the imperial palace.

Wynn crouched beside Leesil and leaned out to keep sight of Magiere. “Staying out here won’t change anything.”

Of course this was obvious, but she hated being the voice of reason in forcing Magiere and Leesil into something they didn’t want to do. Wynn had been stuck in this position too many times over the last few years. At the same time, she understood why they—especially Leesil—had to get away from Ghassan and Brot’an. She found some relief in that herself, but their situation was growing more awkward and tense.

“You don’t agree with Brot’an, do you?” Magiere asked. “You don’t want to regather the orbs?”

Wynn clenched her jaw.

“I don’t want any of this,” she answered as calmly as she could. “But you heard Ghassan. The Forgotten War started somewhere near what is now the Suman Empire. If anything he heard is even partly true ... I don’t think we can ignore it. Do you?”

No one spoke.

Leesil hadn’t said anything since Wynn stepped out into the alley, and that made her feel even worse. At times, going through him to get to Magiere was the easier way, but not this time and not when it was about this. He’d always hated what they were doing concerning the orbs, finding, attaining, and hiding them, even more so after Brot’an reappeared in their midst. This time, things would have to work the other way, with convincing Magiere first. So why wasn’t Chap doing something?

“You think it’s that easy?” Magiere nearly hissed.

Wynn stiffened upright at the threat in her voice, but Magiere was fixed on Chap. Wynn expected Chap to snarl or snap in response, but he didn’t. He sat, focusing on Magiere’s face until she finally dropped her head onto her pulled-up knees. Leesil didn’t move.

At least Wynn now knew Chap was trying. When he took something seriously, everyone else had better pay attention, and hopefully Magiere would.

“What do you think we can do about it?” Magiere whispered without lifting her head.

Wynn now wished she were the one who could talk into Chap’s head. He looked right at her, and huffed once for “yes.” It was less than a blink before she guessed it was her turn, so she readied for an onslaught before answering.

“We have to do as Brot’an suggested, at least as a contingency. The orbs might be the only weapons powerful enough to use against the Enemy, if it comes to that. What would become of the world—again—if that thing, whatever it is, really is awakening? If so, we don’t have anything else but the orbs.”

“No!” Leesil shouted.

As Leesil turned on Wynn, Magiere gripped his upper arm and jerked him back. Chap snarled, rose on all fours, and bared his teeth at Leesil. Wynn sat there on the alley floor, shaking.

Magiere had always been the volatile one.

Yet now it was Leesil tipping on the edge of reason, panting in anger. And Wynn couldn’t blame him, for there was a part of her beneath reason that wanted to just go away and hide where no one could find her.

Leesil wrenched his arm out of Magiere’s grip and settled back against the alley wall.

“Stay out of my head!” he snapped, though he didn’t look at anyone.

He didn’t have to. Chap sighed and turned from Leesil to Magiere.

“We gather nothing,” Magiere said, “until we know what’s happening out there ... in the east, in the desert.”