Барб Хенди - A Wind in the Night

The premin’s eyes came back to Wynn’s face.

“I cannot accompany him,” the premin added. “I have too much ... There are preparations to finish for the pending expedition.”

Wynn started slightly. She knew exactly what “expedition,” as Hawes had told her of this guild secret in confidence. Some factions of the guild’s upper ranks were planning to launch a journey to the eastern continent, back to the Pock Peaks to the library of the six-towered castle, where Wynn had found the ancient texts. She’d brought back only a small fraction of what existed there.

This was beyond foolhardy for a pack of defenseless sages!

Magiere and Leesil had locked away a thousand-year-old Noble Dead—one of the first thirteen called the Children—in a cavern beneath that castle. Wynn had no certainty that the undead called Li’kän had not escaped, or would not.

Hawes had mentioned that the documented reason for the expedition would simply be to help expand and stock the small but growing guild annex in Bela, on the west coast of the eastern continent. However, Wynn suspected that Premin Hawes was working in quiet ways to ensure that the expedition never took place.

Wynn noticed that Shade had slipped around to her other side and now sat staring in the corner between Hawes’s old armchair and the back wall’s closest bookcase.

“Shade,” she whispered, patting her leg.

The dog looked up, glanced once more into that hidden corner, and finally sidled over next to Wynn.

“You will go with Nikolas,” Hawes said suddenly. “If there is a connection between the messenger and the other who breached the Stonewalkers’ realm ...”

The premin never finished, but Wynn knew what was expected of her, what she had wanted in the first place: to go with Nikolas and find any trail to anyone after the orbs. She was then caught off guard by a strange sight.

Premin Hawes’s eyes wandered again, and her smooth brow wrinkled so slightly. It was the closest thing to worry that Wynn had ever seen on the face of the premin of Metaology.

“Of course I’ll go,” Wynn said, “with my companions. I’ll need them.”

Hawes actually flinched, which made Wynn do so as well, as the premin came out of whatever deep thought had distracted her.

Premin Hawes was definitely not her usual self this night, and she pointed to a bulky oiled canvas satchel on her desk.

“There are the requested texts for Master Columsarn’s eyes only,” she said, “though you should familiarize yourself with them. You will have to watch over Nikolas in whatever lies ahead.”

Wynn nodded as she picked up the satchel, but before she could turn to leave, the premin continued.

“Domin High-Tower and Premin Sykion are worried about Nikolas’s state. He has physically recovered from the assault by the wraith, but there are concerns. I should have minimal trouble gaining permission for your leave of absence, since you are now under my charge and will be on an errand for me, traveling to the same destination as Nikolas. High Premin Sykion will likely be glad to have you off someplace else.” She rose, stepped to the desk, opened a drawer, and took out a pouch. “I will arrange passage on Nikolas’s ship for the three of—”

“Four of us,” Wynn corrected. Whether she wanted Osha along or not, she couldn’t see how she could leave him behind.

“As you wish.” Hawes returned and handed over the pouch. “There is enough for your travel expenses when you land.”

Wynn looked inside the pouch. There were far more coins than any stipend she had ever received—would have received—from the guild.

“Premin ... this is your own money. I cannot—”

“Take it,” Hawes ordered. “I have no need of it, and this is too important a matter.”

The premin gestured toward the short three-step passage to the door. Wynn nodded and turned to leave as Shade stepped out ahead of her. They had barely walked out into the courtyard when Wynn halted and turned to Shade.

“Anything?” she asked.

Shade shook her head, a too-humanlike response.

Wynn sighed, though she hadn’t truly expected Shade to succeed. The dog couldn’t catch actual conscious thoughts. But like her father, Chap, if Shade focused on someone, she could pick up fleeting memories rising in anyone’s mind, so long as she wasn’t distracted in nosing about.

There were very few people Wynn had ever encountered who could hide surfacing memories from Shade. Chane was one, but only because of the brass “ring of nothing,” stolen from Welstiel Massing, Magiere’s undead half brother, that he wore.

Premin Frideswida Hawes was another.

Much as such subterfuge was ungrateful, considering all that Hawes had done, Wynn needed to know as much as she could about what was going on inside her guild branch ... and anything the premin of Metaology might be hiding.

—Satchel ... more ... books—

Wynn started slightly at Shade’s memory-words. “I have it, and ... what other books?”

Shade slipped in close and tucked her nose under Wynn’s palm. At that touch a memory rose in Wynn’s mind, and it wasn’t her own. This was something unique that Shade could do only with Wynn.

Wynn—Shade—sat off to one side and peeked behind Premin Hawes’s armchair, as she had moments before in the study. In that hidden space between the chair and the bookcase’s end was a large drawstring sack rather than an actual satchel. The way it bulged with square edges suggested there were possibly books inside of it. Many such.

Shade pulled her nose away and sat staring up. The image vanished instantly.

—Other ... satchel— ... —Other ... books—

Wynn was lost as to what this meant. The only books needing packaging were the ones she held, so what were the others for? Then she thought of the expedition.

—Many spaces in ... shelves— ... —Missing ... books—

Wynn wasn’t certain what Shade meant. Among supplies to be taken to the little guild branch in Bela, situated in a decommissioned city guard barracks, there would be many newly copied texts to increase its holdings. Those would be packaged in crates for the long journey across this continent and the eastern ocean. Such books wouldn’t come from any private library of ...

Wynn turned, staring at the door that led back into the storage building ... and to the stairs leading down to the laboratories and Premin Hawes’s private study.

“Oh, no,” she whispered.

Premin Hawes had packed books from her own library. There was only one reason for that: she was going with the expedition. That meant that she had failed to stop the other sages from launching the journey.

Wynn grew frantic, trying to think of a way to warn everyone off of this foolishness. But even if she did, that would reveal she knew something she wasn’t supposed to know. And there was the messenger, the invader into the dwarves’ underworld, and Nikolas, and all of whatever was now rising around her search for an orb.

Why was it that no matter what she did, there would always be a price?

After Wynn had gone off to speak with this Premin Hawes, Osha returned to the solitude of his room to get away from Chane. Though he had said little during the exchange between Wynn and Chane, he had understood the magnitude of what that undead had recounted.

Something was about to happen. Osha simply did not know what. So he waited, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his room. His mind had just achieved a state of stillness when he heard light footsteps in the passage outside.

Someone knocked on his door.

Osha rose fluidly and reached the door in one long step. It would be Wynn, as only she ever came to see him.