Барб Хенди - First and Last Sorcerer

When Chap and his companions had been brought to judgment, the one called Domin Ghassan il’Sänke had been present in the high glass-dome chamber. And in the streets this night, Chap had been unable to dip a single surfacing memory in that man.

It was as if this domin, no longer dressed as a sage, was not truly present ... just like Chane ... just like the gray-robed figure who had come to their prison cell.

By the time Wynn finished with Magiere and had tended Leesil, Chap, and Leanâlhâm—no, Wayfarer—they were all too exhausted to eat much. She had to stop Wayfarer from drinking too much water and making herself ill. Osha helped settle them in the two beds, but Wayfarer panicked at being left to sleep alone in the second bed. Chap jumped up and settled beside the girl, and Wynn dropped on the floor at the foot of Magiere and Leesil’s bed. Osha stood by the room’s entrance, facing outward.

It wasn’t long before Wayfarer drifted off. In the silence, Wynn realized that since her arrival at the sanctuary Osha hadn’t said a word to anyone, at least as far as she’d heard. He hadn’t even looked at her unless he had to, and she wanted to ask ...

Leave him alone.

Wynn looked over at Chap lying on the second bed’s edge with Wayfarer fast asleep behind him. Before she could speak ...

No ... not until he wishes to speak of it, if he does.

That was even less help, and what was ... it ? She grew more worried as she peered at Osha.

There were other important things to discuss, though not in here, so she got up as quietly as possible, but not quietly enough. Osha glanced over his shoulder at her.

His long face lacked any expression, and that troubled her even more. With a quick wave to Chap, Wynn slipped out of the bedchamber, and both Chap and Osha followed. Rounding the partition, she found Ghassan at the table speaking in a low voice to Brot’an. Chane was listening to them from nearby.

There was too much here that Wynn didn’t know, from whatever numbed Osha to the core to what had happened to Shade while she and Chane led the guards on a wild chase. Wynn stepped in beside the table and, without greeting Brot’an, faced Ghassan.

“How long will the imperial guards keep searching for us?”

The domin settled back in his chair. “It will escalate, as your companions drew intense interest. At the moment, this does not matter, for while we are in here we are beyond finding.”

“Guards not only hunt us.”

At Osha’s sudden broken Numanese, Wynn swiveled enough to spot him standing beside the folding partition. Before she asked what he meant, his gaze shifted away from her, and his expression filled with anger.

Wynn followed that gaze to the back of Brot’an’s chair.

Osha fought a wince as Wynn looked back at him, but he remained focused on that closest chair. It was hard to remain still while so smothered in his self-loathing and loathing for the greimasg’äh.

“What?” Wynn asked quietly.

Osha slipped into his own tongue. “Ask him ,” he rasped, sounding almost like Chane.

Wynn turned toward that nearest chair, but before she could ask anything ...

“The loyalists followed Magiere,” Brot’ân’duivé answered without leaning out into Osha’s sight.

Osha looked to Wynn and saw anxiety beneath her calm olive-toned expression.

“So the anmaglâhk really are here in the capital?” she finally asked.

“What is this about?” Ghassan cut in.

It was too much for Osha, and he was not relieved when Brot’ân’duivé explained. After that, Ghassan turned on Wynn.

“You omitted telling me that your friends are hunted by assassins,” he accused. “It makes sense now, but you have no concept of the risks taken tonight by others who—”

“I did tell you!” Wynn interrupted. “That first night you brought us here. Or at least I wondered ... after you told us you’d seen two people at the palace who looked like Osha. These loyalists—that team of assassins—should have been left behind up north.”

“More happened along the way,” Brot’ân’duivé said. “But the loyalists may no longer be a concern. I eliminated Dänvârfij this night.”

“And what or who is that?” Ghassan demanded.

Osha’s stomach clenched as the greimasg’äh explained dispassionately. Osha had not known Dänvârfij well, but even as less than friends they had been connected by death and loss in their lives.

“Fréthfâre is a cripple,” Brot’ân’duivé continued, “and Léshil severely wounded Én’nish. Rhysís is the only able one left among three, and he will have to tend to the other two.”

That last name struck Osha hard; it gave him a face out of memory for the one he had murdered.

“Two ... not three,” he whispered.

Wynn’s attention turned to him, as did the domin’s. Even the greimasg’äh leaned out around the back of his chair, but it was Chane’s reaction that fixed Osha for an instant.

The undead straightened with narrowed eyes. He glanced once at Wynn. When he looked back again to Osha, he slowly nodded.

That Chane guessed and approved of what Osha had done did not help. When Osha looked away, his gaze met that of the greimasg’äh. He felt the sudden urge to add more scars to that old face, if he could.

“We are waiting for the rest,” Brot’ân’duivé said.

Osha kept to his own tongue rather than struggle with another in relating the least of what had happened ... and why it had happened. Wynn watched him as the greimasg’äh translated for the others, and she looked at him with something between sadness and sympathy. Perhaps she knew how sick he felt inside.

However, Osha expected at least the greimasg’äh to question him.

Brot’ân’duivé turned out of sight, settling to face the domin’s puzzled frown. “Then only two remain, and they are ineffectual, thus removing any concern.”

Osha hoped Wynn saw what else this meant.

If loyalists were no longer a threat to Magiere, Léshil, and Chap, then the greimasg’äh’s presence was pointless. Osha bore enough guilt and regret over having left Leanâlhâm in that traitor’s care, though the others had watched over her.

Ridding themselves of Brot’ân’duivé might amend that, if not the taint of what Osha had done this night.

“Wynn ...” Brot’ân’duivé said slowly. “You remained in Calm Seatt to seek another orb. So ultimate success or failure are the only reasons for you to have come here.”

Wynn froze at the sudden change of topic, and silence hung for too long. Chane inched a little toward her slightly, shaking his head. Osha knew that warning was pointless.

The greimasg’äh had not asked a question, so he had already guessed the truth.

“Yes, we found another orb,” Wynn answered.

Brot’ân’duivé betrayed no emotion at all; Wynn’s answer was half of the reasoned assumptions he had already calculated. There was another orb within this place rather than hidden away like all others, and by count, a final one yet to be found. He half listened as she summarized the finding of the orb of Spirit.

She finished, “We have it with us in—”

“Shut up, Wynn!”

At Léshil’s command from somewhere off behind Osha, Wynn twisted to face that direction. What she would have said or not mattered little to Brot’ân’duivé.

The orb was here.

What mattered more was that whoever took possession of it might partly control the acquisition and use of the other three and the finding of the fifth. That was the true point to consider, and Léshil had grown cunning enough to know this.

Brot’ân’duivé ignored the predictable argument that ensued somewhere behind his chair. It would break the moment Wynn countered Léshil with her own needs and plans. Brot’ân’duivé had grown concerned that this group was now too large, but other factors now weighed against changing this.