A large oval of shimmering metal, taller than himself, was embedded in the far wall.
Taking shallow breaths in the heated air, he crossed to it. Raising the torch in his left hand, he ran his gaze downward over the metal. His eyes followed the barely visible razor-straight seam. The oval appeared to be split down the center into two halves, but he saw no handle or way to open them. Orange-yellow torchlight glimmered on their perfect, polished surfaces, a bleached silver tone too light for steel.
The portal was made of the same material as his tools and weapons of an anmaglâhk.
Osha stared at it as he thought back to when Brot’ân’duivé had forced him into this journey.
Once in the cavern, you will know what to do. And when you reach the portal of the Burning Ones’ white metal—
Osha had cut off the greimasg’äh and not allowed him to finish. Here and now there was no need, for this was not his first glimpse of the doors. The first time he had come here, he had been allowed to remove his blindfold once he stood in this stone chamber. The path here was kept a secret, but all Anmaglâhk were trusted enough to bear witness to what came next.
Osha reached up his left sleeve with his right hand and pulled a stiletto from its hidden sheath. Reaching out, he touched the blade’s matching metal to that of the portal.
The portal split down its hair-thin line as it began to open....
“Wynn, are you out here?”
Osha fell silent, looking up as Wynn jumped slightly at Nikolas’s call. She barely saw Osha drop his head, and then he called out before she could.
“We here.”
Frustration washed through Wynn, and then anger, as she watched Osha’s expression close up. It had taken so long to find the right moment to get him to tell her the missing gaps in his past ... to tell her what had changed him so much.
Nikolas came walking over.
His hair wasn’t combed, and he had dark circles under his eyes.
Still angry with him for interrupting, she felt suddenly guilty. At least he was out of his cabin.
“I knocked on your door, but no one answered,” Nikolas said. “I couldn’t lie there in that bunk any longer, and I ... I was hungry. Maybe that’s good, as I haven’t felt that since ...”
Wynn knew the rest: since the letter from his father had arrived. She tried to smile, to hide any resentment at the interruption.
“It is a good sign,” she confirmed as she rose, though Osha hadn’t moved. “I have a friend who can’t keep any food down while on a ship.”
Wynn held one hand down to Osha. It took another moment before he looked up—at her hand and not her. After a few blinks he rose, though he didn’t take her hand. And she looked once more to Nikolas.
“Chane is resting, but we’ll get Shade and head down to the galley and find some breakfast.”
With a quick nod, Nikolas headed off for the door in the aftcastle wall, but when Osha took a step to follow, Wynn touched his arm. Stoic and silent, he looked down at her.
“Later,” she whispered, “and ... thank you.”
She forced her hand into his and pulled him along.
Chapter Six
By the middle of the same day that Wayfarer had convinced her companions to allow her to take some kind of action, she and Chap stepped out of the harbormaster’s office and looked all around the port of Soráno. She was thankful that, before doing a blind search, Chap had insisted they stop at the office to check on new arrivals. To Wayfarer’s great surprise, they now had more of a plan than she had anticipated.
Since Magiere’s earlier morning visit to the harbormaster, two ships had arrived, both heading south for il’Dha’ab Najuum. One was a private Numan trader out of Drist called the Falcon. The other was a Suman cargo vessel with a strange name she could barely pronounce, the Djinn, arrived from the south to exchange standard goods and then return to the Suman Empire.
“Should we try the Numan vessel first?” she asked softly, gripping the end of a rope.
The rope’s other end was looped around Chap’s neck, and again Wayfarer almost apologized for all of the indignities that had been forced upon him.
Not long ago, at his insistence, she had finally begun calling him by that name. The idea of forcing a name on any creature, let alone a sacred one, had been—was—abhorrent. But she did wish to follow his guidance, and he wished to be called by that name. At the moment, however, he hardly looked like a sacred majay-hì.
Then again, she did not look like herself, either.
Wayfarer took some of the blame for this, for their disguises had mostly been her idea. If only she had realized how far Léshil was going to take her suggestion.
He had insisted that she stuff wads of extra clothing beneath her own to make her look fat. The greimasg’äh had then tasked her to learn to walk like an old, feeble woman. Léshil added an oversized cloak, purposefully made filthy, and a gnarled stick for a walking cane that he had scavenged from somewhere in the large inn.
Getting to the port in that stooped, hobbling fashion had left Wayfarer with an ache in her lower back. But the poor majay-hì ... Poor Chap was in a much worse state.
He was covered in so much crushed and powdered charcoal that he was almost completely black. And of course he paused often to scratch. Wayfarer more than once warned him to stop or he might reveal his true colors instead.
Worse again, Léshil had wrapped up Chap’s muzzle with leather straps to make him appear dangerous to others, so they would keep away. And the straps’ ends were tied at the back of his head to pin down his ears. Léshil had also arranged this so that Wayfarer could give a hard jerk on the straps’ ends to free Chap’s jaws in an instant, should she require protection.
The poor majay-hì—Chap—looked like an untamed beast caught in the wild by savages.
“The Numan ship?” she whispered again in the language of her people, so no one nearby on the busy waterfront might catch even one word.
—I think not— ... —the Suman first—
Chap’s suggestion made her stomach feel cold.
Wayfarer had tried to hide her sadness at being forced away from the Cloud Queen and the only two friends she had made in this strange human world. She did understand that Magiere was pursuing an important purpose and that they must move on as quickly as possible. However, talking to people in Numanese was difficult enough without the thought of trying to interact with even more foreign Suman sailors.
Chap did not seem to notice her discomfort and went on.
—The Numan vessel came ... from Drist— ... —Its crew ... and captain ... may have heard of ... an altercation there— ... —A cargo vessel ... raided after dark ... by people ... with ... a large wolf— ... —If the captain ... heard ... descriptions—
“Yes, I know,” Wayfarer answered with a sigh.
She glanced left and right around the edges of her too-big cloak’s hood. There were so many people in the crowd pushing about along the waterfront, and she wondered where Brot’ân’duivé might be hiding in all of this. He would not lose track of them, no, but that was both comforting and distressing. Never in her life had anyone watched her quite like the greimasg’äh did. He might view her as an orphan who had become his responsibility, but the lengths he went in meeting that assumed responsibility did not extend beyond making sure she was fed and sheltered and constantly watched.
Osha had been her only true friend on the long journey from her homeland, but he had chosen to remain behind in Calm Seatt ... with Wynn.