Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

Sau’ilahk lowered and thrust his incorporeal hands through the road. He sank his arms nearly to his shoulders, feeling in the earth for any drop of animate life.

Be it a worm, a burrowing beetle, or a grass grub, when he touched something, that small spark of life vanished into him. They were no more than that drop of water in a dune. But he persisted, sweeping his arms slowly through earth. He worked his way into the field at the road’s side, blades of tall grass passing through him. And once he touched something else.

A sting of cold rushed through Sau’ilahk.

He jerked his hands out of the earth, still aching and burning from whatever his fingers had passed through. What was buried down there that caused him this discomfort? Even if he sank his cowl into the ground, he would not see it, and he had too little energy to solidify a hand with which to dig. But it had felt like ...

That cold burning that had torn at him from within whenever his hand had passed through Chane Andraso.

This made no sense, and he returned to foraging carefully for more tiny lives. He reached deep this time, and worked his way farther into the field. He swept his way along through the grass, its blades not even bending in his passage, until ...

Sau’ilahk’s shoulder swept through a dome of flowers, and his shriek became a wind that tore the grass around him. In retreat, he nearly passed through another cluster of blooms before he lurched the other way. He burned inside, the sensation like shudders and dizziness, though he had no flesh.

He stared down at white velvet petals, shaped like leaves, as they began to darken, turning dull yellow at first. They withered to an ashen tan and died, crumpling to the earth and blowing away to catch in blades of grass.

Sau’ilahk slowly turned as he scanned the plain in all directions. What was this place with such hidden blights that could hurt him?

It was somehow familiar. Not as if he had been here, but perhaps something he had heard of once. As eternal as he was, his mind was no more immune to forgetfulness than that of any living being. Over a thousand years, no one continued to remember everything that they once had. Memories faded, particularly ones that seldom came to use.

Still starving, Sau’ilahk slipped carefully back to the road, avoiding any domes of flowers. There was no time left to ponder them, or what he had felt under the earth. Dawn was near, and with what little life he had gained, he still had to find the caravan. Once he had fed properly, he would have little trouble remembering this place to reawaken here after the next dusk.

He would lure and enslave a more natural servant—something that could move within the Lhoin’na lands. If he could not find the one life of Wynn from afar, the one unlife of Chane Andraso might more easily bring the sage back under his scrutiny.

Sau’ilahk fled up the dirt road like roiling streams of black vapors in the dark.

Wynn opened her eyes at the sound of a nearby whine, and then she flinched to see a bark-covered wall a hand’s length from her nose. She lurched upright and away, nearly falling off the bed shelf she lay on. She spun about, wrestling out of the blanket.

For an instant, she thought she’d awakened in an an’Cróan tree home. Shade sat fidgeting on her haunches as she whined, but Wynn was still lost for a moment.

The bed wasn’t a raw shéot’a cloth mattress stuffed with straw and wild grass. It was fitted with heavy linen. She was in a room at the guild branch of the Lhoin’na. As she swung her legs over the bed ledge, her head filled with a rush of memories.

She saw the guild keep’s rear grove, the forests on the way to Dhredze Seatt, and the wild woods they’d encountered on their present journey. More and more wild places popped up in Wynn’s own perspective, showing Shade scurrying off into the brush.

“Yes, yes,” she said. “Just ... give me a moment.”

Poor Shade needed to go out quite badly. But the next rush of memories showed a variety of meals.

First was the guild hall, then her room, complete with all the smells that didn’t fit well together. A late breakfast of dried salt fish at the temple of Feather-Tongue mixed with a greasy sausage bought in a dwarven market.

—outside ... food ... outside, outside—

Wynn grabbed her head. “Shade, stop it. I’m coming, already.”

A large umber-glazed washbasin sat beside the room’s teardrop-shaped door. She’d set it there last night for Shade, filling it from its matching water pitcher. The basin was completely empty.

“Did you drink that whole bowl?”

Shade spun off her butt, and scurried to the door.

—outside, outside, outside—

With a groan, Wynn hauled herself up. A heavy gray curtain covered the room’s small window, though a little light filtered around its edge. She wasn’t certain of the time of day. At the room’s far side, Chane lay stretched out on another bed ledge, completely covered, a blanket pulled up over his head.

Barefoot in only her shift, Wynn hastily wrapped herself in her robe and tiptoed to the other inner door. She cracked it open and found Ore-Locks snoring away in the adjoining room. He’d stretched out on the floor, likely unable to get his bulk onto a bed ledge. He’d been living on Chane’s schedule since their caravan trip began and would likely sleep half the day.

Wynn quietly shut the door, and Shade’s whine shifted to a discontented rumble.

“Hold on,” she whispered as she reached for her clothes draped over the travel trunk.

She’d been too exhausted last night to do anything but crawl into bed, but now she took clearer notice of the room. Stacks of books, loose paper, and leather satchels were scattered about haphazardly. Mujahid wasn’t particularly orderly for a sage. Two unlit, half-burned candles sat on the small table, along with a crucible and a mortar and pestle.

Wynn picked up one book. Its flaked, gilded title, written in exaggerated elven script, read The Wells of the Elements , by Premin Glhasleò ácärâj Jhiarajua Avcâshuâ. She vaguely recognized the name.

Premin “Gray Light” or “Dusk Light” had been one of a few metaologers to become a high premin—and the only such among the Lhoin’na. About three hundred years ago, he’d been criticized and suspected by his peers for his manic interest in the arcane. He’d died in bed at only seventy-two, after eating a plate of mushrooms. It was recorded that he’d gathered them himself, so theories of foul play were dismissed.

Wynn lifted a finely crafted parchment from the desk and scanned its Elvish writing. It was a conservative treatise on the hazards of thaumaturgical practices involving elemental Spirit. What, exactly, was Mujahid researching here?

Suddenly, Shade growled, bit down on Wynn’s robe, and jerked, making her stumble back. Wynn dropped the book and page on the table. Shade’s urgency also left her feeling a bit too nosy. Whatever Mujahid’s reasons, he’d been generous with his rooms, and she shouldn’t take advantage.

She pulled on her formal, full-length robe and retrieved the sealed message entrusted to her. Then she paused to scavenge a scrap of paper and a small charcoal stick. She scrawled a quick noted in Belaskian for Chane, telling him she’d try to be back at dusk.

“All right, come on,” she said softly.

Wynn barely opened the outer door when Shade squirmed through and bolted out in a ruckus of scrabbling claws. Wynn rolled her eyes and followed, not bothering to call after the dog.

The narrow passage didn’t exactly resemble a hallway—more like a strange, bark-covered, organic tunnel. Taller than it was wide, it burrowed through the place in a gradual curve ahead. Tall, teardrop-shaped doors, no two ever alike, were spaced sporadically along both sides. Wynn finished the arcing downward slope, reached the flowing stairs, and followed them downward.