Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

Ghassan slouched upon the bunk’s edge. Mujahid’s assignment was critical, but more critical was why Wynn had shown up at the Lhoin’na branch. Likely she sought those same archives for good reason, but the message she had brought had cut off both her and Mujahid.

What should I do? Mujahid asked.

Keep me appraised of Journeyor Hygeorht’s activities. Without access to search for what we need, you will continue reporting to me, and only to me, so long as your group remains there. You will report anything you learn concerning the Lhoin’na Premin Council.

Yes, Domin.

And especially , Ghassan added, everything you can learn concerning Premin Gyâr.

Mujahid fell silent.

Is there a problem?

The journeyor of Metaology did not answer immediately. When he did, Ghassan felt the trepidation carried by two words.

No, Domin.

Ghassan let the medallion fall against his chest and sat silent.

Mujahid was frightened of Gyâr, as he should be, though there was no real danger. The Lhoin’na premin of Metaologers was manipulative, ambitious, cold, and cunning, and a bigot. But Gyâr would never overstep guild protocols too far if he caught a “foreign” journeyor snooping about.

Ghassan tucked away the medallion and returned to the open deck. He leaned over the rail, looking ahead for any sign of a harbor along the coastline. As yet, there were none, and he traipsed back toward the aftcastle.

“Captain,” Ghassan called out. “Please make landfall at the first opportunity. I must disembark.”

Chane awoke to scuffling and hushed voices. He swatted off the blanket and sat up.

Wynn and Ore-Locks were busy about the guest quarters, gathering belongings. Shade watched from the other ledge bed with her nose on her paws. At Chane’s sudden movement, Wynn glanced over.

“We have our own rooms,” she said. “I told Mujahid we’d be out by now.”

Before Chane even straightened his rumpled shirt, Ore-Locks grabbed the chest. Chane hefted his packs and swords. He was still groggy and beginning to wonder what had happened while he lay dormant. Wynn’s manner was not only brusque; her expression and whole demeanor had changed.

He saw no relief in her face in gaining their privacy, let alone in having reached her destination. She looked strained, and her brow suddenly furrowed over some unknown thought. A trace of anger marred her soft features.

“I am hungry,” Ore-Locks said.

Chane realized it had been more than a day since the dwarf had eaten anything besides apple slices. Hopefully, Wynn had found something for herself and Shade.

But then he found himself distracted as he stepped out into the passage.

Since entering the Lhoin’na forest, he had felt watched, continually prodded, as if something unseen sought him out. Now he stood inside of a living place. Much as the ring dulled his awareness and hampered his heightened senses, he dared not take it off until they left this land.

Wynn nodded ahead down the passage and looked to Ore-Locks. “Those two doors on the right. Soon as we’re settled, I’ll show you the meal hall.”

She opened the nearer door and held it for Chane. Ore-Locks seemed about to argue, but dropped the chest by the door and headed off to the next one. Chane entered and found the room identical to the one they had left—minus Mujahid’s paraphernalia. After Wynn and Shade followed, he waited until he heard Ore-Locks’s door close. He then dropped the packs, quickly slid the chest inside, and closed himself away in privacy with Wynn.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Wynn sank on the far bed ledge. Shade crawled up beside her, though it was a tight fit, and nosed Wynn’s hand.

Chane’s head had not fully cleared, and perhaps the nagging prod of the forest’s presence wore on his patience, as well.

“Wynn?”

She raised only her eyes to him. “The archives have been shut.”

Chane took a quick step. “What?”

She recounted everything from when she awoke to the two Shé’ith expelling a pair of Suman sages. Chane turned aside and dropped down hard on the opposite bed ledge.

“Armed guards? You told me it is impolite to openly carry weapons inside a guild branch.”

“It is,” she answered dryly. “And yet.”

No doubt something in Wynn’s delivered message had caused all of this, though it seemed extreme to cut off everyone just to keep her out.

“Has this ever happened in Calm Seatt?” he asked.

“I don’t know of this ever happening at any branch,” she answered. “Domin Tärpodious oversaw categorical restructurings, when holdings in some sections outstripped space. But he closed off one section at a time, not the whole archive.... And no city guards or constabularies were called in.”

Wynn appeared to grow weary before Chane’s eyes. She ran her hands over her face, pushing back her hair, looking small and defeated. Even the anger drained from her features. Chane began to fume in her place.

Why did Wynn’s own superiors keep going to ever greater lengths to hinder her? The twisted world at large had never been worth Chane’s concern. Now he saw the same taints inside the guild. If not for Wynn, he would have had no part of it anymore. That dream of a better life in her world almost died within him.

“When did this happen?” he asked.

“Just after lunch.”

“What did you do all afternoon?”

She got up and went for her pack, digging out a new journal.

“Their public library was open, so I took a look, for the sake of it. Sometimes things don’t get put back where they belong, out of sight.”

This was the Wynn that Chane knew, never leaving any possibility unexplored.

“Did you find anything?” he asked.

“No.” She laid the journal on her bunk and began turning pages. “But I copied bits of an old map. It’s crude, but might be useful. I don’t dare ask for a scribed copy, or request to take it off grounds for the work to be done elsewhere. I’m probably being watched.”

Chane got up to join her, standing to one side as he looked down at the journal. It was a simplistic line sketch of the region at large. It showed general areas south all the way to the nearest part of the Sky-Cutter Range separating Numan nations and free territories from the southern desert. Wynn pointed to a blank vertical strip between columns of inverted wedges for unnamed mountains.

“This is called the Slip-Tooth Pass,” she said. “It ends at the northern side of the range. It isn’t enough to go on, but if I can’t gain some hint to Bäalâle Seatt’s whereabouts, it’s the shortest and clearest path to the range.”

Chane shook his head. “That range is at least a thousand leagues long, probably much more. It would take a year to search even that nearest part of it. We must get into the archives.”

Shade hopped off the bed, rumbling in agitation as she squatted. Perhaps she understood and did not care for Chane’s suggestion.

“How?” Wynn asked. “I’ve gone over everything I can think of, including you drawing the guards off for me. All notions lead to you getting arrested ... and all of us being expelled.”

“Ore-Locks could slip through one of the walls.”

Wynn shook her head. “I don’t think stonewalkers can pass through wood—only earth and stone, maybe metal. And Ore-Locks isn’t as skilled as his elders. When I was taken to the texts in Dhredze Seatt, he stood guard, but he had to wait for another to retrieve me.” She paused. “Besides, I don’t trust him in there on his own.”

Chane scowled at this. He trusted his own newfound instinct for deceit, though of late, it seemed to vanish at times. But at their first real meeting with Ore-Locks in the Chamber of the Fallen, his sense of deception had been acute. Chane had not sensed a lie when Ore-Locks had denied Wynn’s insinuation that the dwarf served some traitorous ancestral spirit.