Барб Хенди - The Night Voice

In the brief moment Wynn’s eyes had opened, they had moved more than once about the chamber.

She had seen something .

Her eyes opened again, and he thought she might sicken again. Then she looked up at his face so near to hers.

“Chane?” Wynn whispered.

He should have made her stop then and there, but he could not.

Obviously she had been toying with this in secret whenever he went hunting lizards and desert rodents to supplement their supplies. Or when he was working to improve his meager conjuring, which eventually moved from fire to water for their additional use. Given her loss of sight, he had never thought she would try this, for how could mantic sight work if she could not see?

But it had, and more than this, she blinked twice. For an instant, her expression cleared of sickness, and she smiled at him. It was not the last time he would have that aching joy. So long as he wore the ring, there was one thing—one person—that did make her head ache in vertigo when she looked upon Spirit or any other elemental component of the world.

She would see him, only him, as he truly was.

Even so, he could not stop her from suffering in her tampering. Seeing elemental Spirit in her surroundings was all that she had. How could he deny her those brief moments of independence?

Now, standing at the near side of the chasm—and in that memory—Chane went numb again, and yet he could not stop remembering.

Wynn had found a way to see, now and then, and even for the price, she was much happier. She and Chane had a life together.

At night, they walked out under the moon and stars. In the seasons and years that followed, they studied languages, history, culture, and more from texts she or he requested from visiting sages. They drank tea brought from any corner of the world that sages could reach. They played board games and cards, ones they had always known and even a few new ones.

There were true visits as well—for more than just assistance in maintaining their vigilant existence.

Magiere, Chap, and Leesil came once a year, at least, with the aid of the white sages.

Chuillyon, likely with Leesil’s convincing, had planted his small sprout from Chârmun in the royal grounds of Bela in Belaski on the eastern continent. Both were rather discomforted when asked how, and neither was very forthcoming. It was a short journey up the coast from Miiska to Bela, but this would have to be planned for the right time when the white sages came to the new “branch” of the guild in that city. They were necessary to send anyone else through or send them back.

On those visits, Wynn was overjoyed to see her three friends. Chane made an effort to be civil, and Magiere reciprocated. Chap ignored him, and Leesil was occasionally sociable.

After a few years, Chap came less frequently.

Leesil said Chap—and Shade—had moved on to an’Cróan lands to live full-time with the one they called Lily. Both majay-hì had already been going there regularly before then, though Chap still returned to Miiska as often as he could arrange. Eventually, Chane heard that Osha and Wayfarer had followed that way as well, and on that particular visit, both Magiere and Leesil were distant, as if preoccupied.

This had left Chane wondering, considering that both Osha and Wayfarer had originally fled their homeland as traitors and outcasts.

Time changed even more things, though not always purely in partings. A few more years passed to another night that burned into Chane’s memories, never to be forgotten. It had started on the far side of the bridge.

Chane had been up and about that night while Wynn slept. He had come down to sit near the closest side of the bridge while working on a journal.

Another visitor came, though at first he had not noticed. He was distracted when one of the cold-lamp crystals on the bridge’s far posts suddenly lit up. It startled him, for it was not time for the seasonal supplies.

A lone figure stood there between the far bridge posts.

Likely female by its small stature, it was shrouded in a long robe with a full, draping hood—both a deep forest green. This was the first time he had seen that color of robe.

With one of his many journals in hand, he snapped it closed and rose to his feet. The figure did not move, even as strange noises echoed faintly out of the passage to the tree’s cavern.

Those noises quickly turned to a ruckus.

And still the green-robed figure did not move, even when a tiny furred form raced around it straight onto the bridge. And two more—and another—and another, five in all.

Chane stood staring.

The following pair of pups—brown and gray—pounced on and over the mottled one in the lead. He lurched forward a step, fearful that one or more might tumble over the bridge. They did not even slow their raucous, tumbling race until the first skidded onto the landing before him.

She barely pulled up short before ramming headlong into his boot.

Wide crystal-blues stared up him, but only for an instant. The second one rammed into and over the top of her, and that one did hit his boot. He was too shocked at the sight of them to even move, though he quickly curled the fingers of his left hand, checking with his thumb that he still wore the “ring of nothing.”

The rest of the tiny pack followed, including the last: a black male stalking slowly in on him. Its ears twitched, flattened briefly, twitched again, and tiny jowls pulled back in a hesitant growl.

Chane did not move, even as a cream-coated little female with bark-colored streaks clawed at his shin in sniffing him. A more distant but sharp bark drew his eyes instantly. Halfway across the bridge, a huge black form with crystal-blue eyes led the green-robed sage.

He would have known Shade anywhere, even for the darkness at the bridge’s center.

Shade came in growling at the little ones and trying to get them settled. It was hopeless, since she was outnumbered. And the green-robed sage, the first and last visitor among the others, stepped off the bridge, brushing back her hood.

It was Wayfarer.

Beneath her dark green robe, long but split down the front like Wynn’s old travel one, the girl was dressed even more like the wild woman, the Foirfeahkan, called Vreuvillä. Multiple tiny braids of hair to either side of her face had strange wooden charms woven into them. Though one-quarter human, she still physically looked the same, as if she had not aged at all since he had last seen her.

Later would come many questions about green sages—who were not just sages—and how they came to be among the an’Cróan. Part sage by Chuillyon’s outcast meddling, they also practiced what Wayfarer had learned from Leaf’s Heart. But there and then, Chane looked down at one of the few others he had missed for a long time.

Shade huffed at him and stood waiting.

With the noise of the five little ones, it was entirely unnecessary for anyone to go and awaken Wynn. This was not the last time Shade would come, and after that, green-robed sages were sometimes the ones to bring supplies. But of all memories in a life with Wynn, that night was forever lodged in Chane.

Shade had brought her children to meet her “sister” ... and Chane himself.

Where else might a mortal sage and a vampire find peace and contentment without judgment? He did not need to feed, with the orb nearby, and she had everything she required. They had each other most of all.

More years passed.

Chane had once imagined a life with Wynn in the Numan branch of the Guild of Sagecraft. This life was close enough—better—but as he now stood staring at the empty bridge, there were other nights he wished to tear out of memory.

The first had not registered upon him until too late.