Барб Хенди - First and Last Sorcerer

For Wynn, time seemed difficult to measure since destroying the specter. Some moments had stretched endlessly while others had passed in a wink. After most of her companions had left the battle site two nights before, she—along with Shade, Ghassan, and dormant Chane—had spent the day in that hidden cellar room where they’d intended to trap the specter’s host.

She’d found herself unable to openly thank Ghassan, though she was grateful for his help where Chane was concerned. The domin’s assistance in getting Chane down the stairs and into hiding, and then sitting vigil with her and Shade all day, had somewhat restored Wynn’s trust in him after all of his deceptions.

Unlike the others, Ghassan seemed to accept Chane as a useful member of the group and did not view him as a necessary “evil.” But when Chane rose at dusk that night, Wynn had been unsettled by the ease with which they all left that other house.

The bodies in the street were gone, as was that of the specter’s host. No imperial guards were present. Other than the broken shards of glass on the ground, the street and market looked as if nothing had happened.

Wynn’s wariness toward the last “sorcerer,” a fallen domin of the guild, rose again. But in the face of all that still lay ahead, she’d thought better of asking Ghassan anything as they returned to the tenement sanctuary.

Everyone had been quiet since then, though Wynn still wondered about the bodies. Had Ghassan simply blotted those from anyone’s awareness, just as his sect had hidden this place she was in? Or had they been cleared away somehow ... by someone?

She looked down at Chane, thankful that he hadn’t been burned by her staff.

Brot’an again sat cross-legged in the main room’s front corner. Wynn couldn’t see him clearly beyond the table and chairs in her way, but he was likely sleeping sitting up again. Or maybe he was just pretending. Ghassan had made a bed from floor cushions in the sitting area and appeared to be sound asleep. Only Osha was awake.

He sat in one chair and stared blankly at a glass cup framed between his palms on the table. Since Wynn’s return, Osha hadn’t said a word to her. She wasn’t certain why, but that hurt her.

No one had discussed what was to come next. They were all numb from what it had taken to destroy a thousand-year-old sorcerer. In truth, Wynn couldn’t stop dwelling on this. Now it felt too easy though it hadn’t been.

Shade whined softly, and Wynn absently stroked the dog’s back as she looked down again at Chane’s handsome face. She’d gotten over the sight of him like this, considering he always looked ... dead. His red-brown hair hung in jagged layers against the pillow, and now he looked peaceful. But again troublesome thoughts wouldn’t leave her in peace.

None of them had uncovered the specter’s true agenda.

According to Ghassan, it had infiltrated the highest level of the Suman court. Why? What did it want there? Perhaps to influence the empire, but to what end?

This didn’t fit its obsession with Magiere to the point of torturing her about why she had come here. But he had been a servant of the Ancient Enemy.

Khalidah was gone, and the truth might never be learned.

The lack of answers weighed upon Wynn as she peered toward the sheet-curtained bedchamber. In there, an orb still lay in its chest. All of the Enemy’s minions who’d crossed her path had been seeking one of those. That was why she and Magiere had come here.

Had Khalidah come to the empire for that reason as well?

The thought made her even more anxious.

Patting Shade’s head, she whispered, “Stay here.” She got up and quietly crept around Ghassan toward the bedchamber.

Much as she didn’t want to disturb anyone in there, she felt the need to check.

She pinched aside the sheet curtain to peek in and saw Chap lying asleep before Wayfarer on the far bed’s edge. The girl’s arm was wrapped over his shoulders. Leesil and Magiere were still tucked away in the nearer bed. Wynn crept in slowly.

She knelt before the chest on the floor between the two beds, pulled the pin in its latch a little at a time, and lifted the lid. Weatherworn hinges squeaked, and she froze, holding her breath. Once certain no one had awakened, she pushed the lid up and drew aside a fold of canvas over the chest’s contents.

There it lay: the orb of Spirit.

Slightly larger than a great helm, its central globe was as dark as char, though not made of any stone she’d ever seen. Its surface was faintly rough to the touch, like smoothly chiseled basalt. Atop it was the large tapered head of a spike that pierced down through the globe’s center, and the spike’s head was larger than the breadth of a man’s fist. Its roughly pointed tip protruded through the orb’s bottom somewhere below in the chest.

Both spike and orb looked as if fashioned from one single piece with no mark of separation hinting that the spike could be removed.

Wynn knew it could be through the use of a thôrhk, one of the handles ... an orb key.

She reached in to brush one such key with a fingertip.

That circlet, broken by design, was made of some unknown ruddy metal. It was thick and heavy-looking, with a circumference larger than a helmet and covered in strange markings. About a fourth of its circumference was missing by design. The two open ends had protruding knobs pointing inward across the break, directly at each other.

Those knobs fit perfectly into a groove running around the orb spike’s head. Once inserted, the spike could lift out, thus opening the orb and releasing its power.

Wynn had never attempted such a thing, nor did she plan to.

The previous few desperate years had centered upon locating all five orbs to keep them hidden from the Enemy’s minions. Now there was only one left.

She carefully closed the chest, looked both ways to be certain everyone was still asleep, and crept out of the bedchamber. In the main room’s back corner, Shade raised her head, her ears upright, and Wynn put a finger over her lips to keep the dog quiet.

There was another arcane object related to the orbs that she’d found.

Wynn inched into the main room’s back. Chane had earlier moved her belongings out of the bedchamber and nearer to his. She crouched to dig into her own pack.

Osha was the only one who appeared to be awake, but he didn’t pay her any attention. It was common for her to dig into her own belongings in the morning, and she kept her back to him now as she withdrew a small object wrapped in cloth and flipped the fabric open.

In her hand rested a slightly curved piece of ruddy metal. It looked sound for appearing so old, was little longer than her palm was wide, and about as thick as two of her fingers.

This device had been cut centuries ago from the key—the handle, the thôrhk—created for the orb of Spirit.

Wynn had tried to tell Magiere of its existence, but this wasn’t a simple tale and would require a good deal of explaining. During her time at Beáumie Keep in Witeny, she had met some of the most unique people of her life.

Aupsha had been part of an ancient sect following some unknown edicts of a long-forgotten “saint,” for lack of a better term. Supposedly that someone had been real and managed to steal the orb of Spirit. The saint’s followers and their descendants kept the orb hidden in the mountains above the great desert for who knew how long. Aupsha had been less than open but swore her people wished only to keep the orb from the wrong hands; their purpose was to guard it.

Sau’ilahk, the wraith, killed Aupsha’s entire sect, much as the specter had done to Ghassan’s. Aupsha had followed Sau’ilahk in secret to Beáumie Keep by using the tool Wynn now held.

Wynn turned that bit of metal over, still studying it.