Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

“Shade?” she called out, and the dog barked. She followed the sound and found Shade at the top of the narrow stairs.

“Wynn, where are you?”

Chane’s soft rasp carried from below, and Wynn hurried down the stairs.

“Chane?”

“Here.”

She followed his voice around the end of a casement to where he stood scanning the shelves and slowly shaking his head.

“I have found only octagons as lead symbols,” he said. “The only triangles are lower symbols in the columns. I have seen no circles at all.”

Wynn’s worry increased. How was this even possible? The elven archives couldn’t be entirely devoted to the order of Naturology.

“We’ve missed something,” she whispered.

“Perhaps there is another level farther up. We might—”

Chane stopped so suddenly that Wynn looked around in alarm. Then she heard the voices grow louder.

“I swear, Domin, the books were on my desk!” one said in Elvish.

Another voice, crackling with age, replied, “New acquisitions do not just get up to shelve themselves.”

“I unwrapped them with my own hands,” the first returned. “It is not often that the Suman branch sends anything our way. When I saw how old they were, I locked my chamber and came for you.”

“Yet no one else knows of a delivery,” the old one said sharply. “And your desk is bare of even the wrapping paper. Someone has been—”

“Where is she?” demanded a third voice.

Wynn shivered in the following pause. The newcomer’s voice, filled with such cold disdain, was familiar. She covered Chane’s hand, closing his fingers over his crystal as she smothered her own.

“Premin?” the old one replied. “For whom are you asking?”

Wynn scurried silently between the casements toward the light she’d seen upon first entering. When she peeked around the last shelves into the open space of tables ...

Premin Gyâr stood inside the entrance, and a pair of gray-robed elven sages faced him, their backs to Wynn. In the open door behind Gyâr stood two shé’ith that Wynn had never seen. Just how many of the patrollers had the premin requisitioned?

She pulled back to find Chane behind her, his hand on his sword. In the half darkness, he mouthed something at her.

Another way out?

She shook her head and leaned close to whisper, “Let me do the talking.”

Chane’s eyes widened as he grabbed her arm.

“You, look to the next level!” Gyâr commanded. “And, you, start searching in here.”

Chane began to pull Wynn away, but she shook her head at him. There was no way to escape. The longer they dragged this out, the worse it would end. Gyâr had come so urgently—and yet late. That meant he hadn’t been the one to draft the letter to bait her. Otherwise, he’d have been waiting and watching to catch her before she got in.

Someone else had sent her the pass.

Wynn barely finished that thought when she stepped into the open, feigning bafflement as best as she could. She never got out any falsely innocent question as to what was going on.

“You are under arrest!” Gyâr spat immediately, his tight features breaking into a mask of rage. “Shé’ith, here ... take them!”

An elderly cathologer spun about, along with his younger counterpart. The old one stared, stunned, at the sight of Wynn. She recognized him as the elder sage who’d advised her in the meal hall. Was he the master archivist?

Wynn heard Chane’s blade slide from its sheath. Before she could turn, both shé’ith drew their sweeping blades in the same swift motion. Shade’s snarl rose behind Wynn.

“Wait!” she cried out, sidestepping into Chane’s way and grabbing Shade’s scruff. “What is this about?”

“Do not confound your offense with more deceit,” Gyâr answered. “One of the guards below came to ask about the pass you showed them, since they were never told of such.”

“Yes, I have a pass ... with a council seal on it,” Wynn confirmed. “It was delivered to me this evening. I assumed—”

“Give it to me,” he said, striding forward. “I do not know how you forged it, but—”

“I forged nothing,” Wynn countered, fishing the letter from her pocket. She’d barely extended it when he snatched it from her hand.

“I would never have entered without proper authority,” she added.

Gyâr’s expression dulled as he studied the letter. His gaze hung the longest at its bottom, where the council seal was stamped. Confusion briefly broke the anger in his near-yellow eyes. He flipped the letter, glancing once at the wax seal on the sheet that had enveloped it.

Wynn knew one thing.

The council’s imprint at the letter’s bottom was no forgery. Whoever had sent it to her had—or had gained—access to the council’s official seal.

“How is this ... ?” Gyâr began weakly, then his voice sharpened as he fixed on her. “Who issued this for you?”

“I assumed it came from you,” she lied. “Since an apprentice metaologer brought it to our room.”

The premin’s tan face appeared to pale, and he closed another step. Wynn felt Chane’s hand settle on her shoulder, his fingers tightening. Both shé’ith tensed.

“A metaologer ... to your room?” the premin asked. “Which apprentice?”

“I don’t know your people,” she answered. “I don’t know who it was.”

Wynn became reluctant to mention that it had been a woman—probably a journeyor—or to provide any description at all. Whoever had made that pass, possibly someone in Gyâr’s order or the premin of another, may have used the young metaologer as an unwitting tool. That person might be a hidden ally or just another enemy trying to further hinder and malign Wynn. She wasn’t about to risk incriminating the wrong person until she was certain.

Gyâr’s anger surfaced again as he glanced at the elderly archivist watching all of this closely. Some inner frustration seemed to keep the premin from getting out whatever he wanted to say. If the pass was real, the premin certainly couldn’t have them arrested—or worse—in front of witnesses.

“Journeyor,” the old archivist said to Wynn, stepping forward. “What are you seeking in the Naturology archives? For your calling, I would think you would want the southwest of our five spires.”

“The southwest spire?” she echoed.

“Yes ... for the Cathology archives.”

Wynn felt ill.

She’d asked the young initiate in the courtyard for directions to the archives, and the girl had pointed around the redwood ring to the closest way to the closest spire. There was a reason why every casement here had symbols that all began with an octagon.

Five orders and five spires, or five archives for each order, and she’d picked the wrong one.

“Witless” Wynn Hygeorht, the madwoman of Calm Seatt’s guild branch, had done it again.

Even now she didn’t know which of the other four held the archives for Metaology, marked with a circle for Spirit. She wasn’t about to ask, for they were all beyond her reach. Her mysterious pass had been confiscated, more of the Shé’ith would be guarding every spire’s entrance, and she’d again drawn too much attention.

Her stomach began to hurt.

“Tell me who brought you this letter,” Gyâr demanded. “What did he look like?”

Wynn feigned confusion. “I only remember a dark blue robe. I was too surprised when I saw the letter, thinking it had come from you.”

Gyâr took a long, slow breath, and froze in indecision.

“Put those swords away,” the old archivist admonished, gesturing to the guards, and then turned his disapproval beyond Wynn. “You, too, young man. There has been enough irreverence here for one evening.”

Wynn felt Chane’s hand leave her shoulder as he sheathed his blade. The elder archivist stepped past the premin toward Wynn.