Барб Хенди - First and Last Sorcerer

“Please, Chap,” Wynn whispered. “Stop it!”

Chap fell silent, though he remained facing Osha with his hackles bristling.

Wynn took in the sight of Brot’an standing behind Osha. The old shadow-gripper carried a large pack over one shoulder and a travel chest in his hands. In the dark, his ashen blond hair looked gray, though some remaining white-blond would have shown in daylight. She barely made out the four scars skipping across his right eye.

Brot’an’s gaze passed over everyone in the alley and came to rest on Leesil and the weapon in his hand.

“Do you intend to use that?” Brot’an asked softly.

“Get out of here,” Leesil spat. “You left us to those guards on the docks!”

To Wynn’s surprise, Brot’an’s brow might have wrinkled in the dark. “Yes ... and no,” he answered.

Wynn struggled forward in the narrow space, hurrying to get between them. “This is not the time, and we’re still missing Shade and Chane!”

At that last name, Leesil turned on her instead of Brot’an, his mouth half open.

Wynn flinched away from Leesil’s stare and glanced back. In the alley’s back end, Magiere was slumped to the ground with her head hanging where she leaned against the building. Wynn pushed past everyone to the narrow path’s front.

Peering around the huge shrine’s corner, at first she saw nothing. She grew frantic and even thought to go out and search. In a half-conscious step, she froze.

Down the way they had come, part of a building’s dark silhouette appeared to bulge for an instant. That blackness separated and stalked out into the street.

Wynn almost ran out as first Shade and then Chane came toward the shrine, but something was wrong.

Shade was limping.

When she reached the shrine’s outer wall, Wynn could no longer keep back. She ducked out, scurrying to Shade, and dropped to her knees in relief. She put her arms around the dog’s neck and held on for an instant as Chane closed on both of them.

“It is all right,” he said. “We were not followed. Most of the guards out so far are to the west, where Shade drew them.”

“What happened?” Wynn asked.

Chane hesitated.

—Not ... now—

Wynn started at those memory-words.

With her hands still on Shade, she peered at the dog. As she was about to argue or ask about the limp, Shade wormed around her and headed for the path leading to the alley behind the shrine. And still Chane said nothing.

Wynn should have told them—him—how much she valued what they’d done. Instead, she rose up to follow Shade and, turning, found both Brot’an and Leesil watching around the corner. Shade slipped past them behind the shrine, and Wynn thought of Magiere.

It seemed Wynn was forever trapped by the hatred, or worse, that so many here had for one another.

Chap and Leesil wanted Brot’an gone. Leanâlhâm—or Wayfarer, wherever that name had come from—felt abandoned and betrayed by Osha, who in turn had his own reasons for hating the anmaglâhk master. Then there was Chane ... and Magiere.

Ghassan’s little hidden sanctuary, still a ways off, would make everything worse, once they were all packed in there.

The domin stepped out from behind the sanctuary before she could enter.

“There are too many to travel together,” he said, looking less than pleased. “I will take the escapees and perhaps Osha by another route. You will follow the planned route with the others. If you arrive before me, use the pebble as I taught you. And this time do not leave again for any reason.”

Wynn felt Chane hovering silently behind her. On top of everything else, he didn’t care for the domin. She had her own different doubts about Ghassan, but she nodded to him.

“Give us a brief head start,” she said.

Én’nish sat in the single chair of their small, shabby room with her small hands clenched upon the side of the chair’s seat. It was long past when either Rhysís or Dänvârfij should have returned.

Fréthfâre sat on the bed off to Én’nish’s right. The two had never felt the need to fill silence with meaningless words and often passed half a day or night without speaking. This did not mean they were content.

Again Én’nish peered around at the faded gray walls and cobwebs in the high corners. A wave of sadness struck her as she thought of home in the vast an’Cróan forests half a world away. When she closed her eyes, she saw its bright green trees, the deeper greens of the underbrush, all splashed with color from wildflowers, fungi, clear streams, and moss-coated clearings. She imagined the taste of proper grain bread baked in communal ovens and sweet juice from peeled bisselberries fresh off the bush.

Self-indulgent thoughts were not suitable to an anmaglâhk.

Én’nish could not stop herself.

“Too much time has passed,” Fréthfâre said, breaking the silence.

Én’nish started from her wandering thoughts. “I know.”

The two so different in nature were often left to guess what was happening beyond this room ... this filthy, dark room that stank of humans. Not long in the past, Én’nish had burned with such rage that she was aware of little beside her own hate. And now ...

She knew fear but did not understand it. Not fear of death, for no anmaglâhk feared that.

Her wound should have healed—had healed—and yet she still could not fight. Her body no longer functioned with the ease she had once known. What would become of her? She had never desired to be anything other than anmaglâhk. She was not like Fréthfâre, whose counsel and leadership was still valued by Most Aged Father.

Én’nish had always been a tool for her caste.

“What should we do?” she asked.

“If you are able,” Fréthfâre answered, “then go. Check in with the others and report back.”

Én’nish sat rigid in the chair. Since arriving in this city, she had not been given any task. She had been left to feel useless.

“Yes, I am able to ...” And she trailed off, suddenly cold without the heat of rage. “What is wrong? Do you have a feeling?”

Fréthfâre was given to dark forebodings that often proved true. “Perhaps,” she finally answered.

Én’nish wanted to ask for more, but no words would come.

“Go,” Fréthfâre repeated. “But be cautious.”

After a blink of hesitation, Én’nish pushed up to slip out the window and climb to the roof. She could still walk and climb, but she could not run far. The speed she once so depended upon in battle had abandoned her.

That filled her with regret and self-loathing. She would have given anything for rage once more. Anger had kept her alive and fueled her with purpose.

Without that, what was she?

Bracing, she leaped to the next rooftop and landed soundly on its edge without wavering. It was not a long jump, but for an instant she reveled in this. Crossing that roof and another and another, she leaped again and again. She tried not to think on Fréthfâre’s foreboding, but she had not even reached the imperial grounds when she knew something had gone wrong.

The shouts of men rose from the streets below. She flattened to crawl to the rooftop’s edge and peeked down. Five imperial guards in gold sashes appeared to be conducting a roaming search. Two more came running, carrying a blanket between them overburdened with something long and heavy.

It looked like a covered body.

The one at the blanket’s front began prattling in Sumanese and was harshly questioned by one among the five. Én’nish spoke so little Sumanese that she could not follow what they were saying. By tone and gesture, the five were more than agitated by what the two related. More shouts rose from the south down the street.