The sword.
She wondered where he’d gotten the bow that she’d seen him use with shocking skill ... a skill he’d never displayed in those early times she’d been with him. But she’d never seen him nock an arrow with a white metal head.
“I am packed,” Osha answered, though he’d not moved from where he sat.
Chapter Nine
The port of Oléron was small compared to others Chane had seen: it was not even large enough to boast a harbormaster’s office. Even at night, it looked shabby and unnoteworthy. A knot formed in his stomach as he led the way into its smattering of structures, for he kept thinking back to the moment when he’d opened that cabin door.
Wynn’s expression had betrayed something like guilt as she stood inside with Osha. What could she have to feel guilty about? A small part of Chane wanted to know. The larger part did not.
At Nikolas’s vocal yawn, Chane looked down at his side.
The young man had circles under his eyes that had grown darker with each passing day. Clearly the homebound sage was exhausted and not sleeping well. Nikolas looked around at the little town, which must be familiar to him. There was nothing exceptional about Oléron to Chane’s eyes; yet Nikolas appeared haunted by the sight of it.
“I can’t re-remember if there’s an inn ... here,” he stuttered.
Chane glanced back at Wynn following behind him, and she frowned. She, too, caught Nikolas’s misconception, and she stepped ahead with Shade at her side. As Osha tried to follow her, Chane sidestepped in the way.
His distrust of Osha only continued to grow.
“We need a wagon and horses,” Wynn began, “to get started on our way to Beáumie Keep.”
“Tonight?” Nikolas asked, a squeak of shock in his voice.
“Yes,” Wynn answered. “You know about Chane’s ... skin condition.”
Chane looked away at the small dwellings and faded shops. For some reason Wynn’s mention of a “condition” bothered him, as if he had some weakness that others had to accommodate. He could see that Nikolas needed rest.
“Chane cannot be exposed to sunlight,” Wynn went on. “I told you we needed to travel by night once we reached land.”
“Yes, but ...” Nikolas stammered, “but I didn’t think we’d do so the instant we landed.”
Until recently Chane had been able to resist falling dormant during the day through the use of an inky violet potion—though he still had to remain protected from direct sunlight. But he had used the last of that draught back in Calm Seatt and had been unable to prepare more. One primary ingredient was a rare flower that in his native tongue, Belaskian, was called “dyvjàka svonchek,” or “boar’s bell.” There was a superstition that only wild boars and other hearty beasts could eat it and survive. It was deadly, and a difficult component to acquire.
So for now he was stuck falling dormant the instant the sun rose. Chane spotted a possible small tavern or inn up the central street, little better than a wide dirt road. He quick-stepped to touch Wynn’s shoulder before he pointed out the place.
“Take everyone there to rest,” he said quietly. “Give me your travel orders and enough funds for a wagon and horses, and I will find a stable or livery here ... somewhere. You speak with the inn’s owner and see if there is fresh food to purchase somewhere for the journey.”
She nodded, and he immediately felt a little better. They had traveled long ways together since he had found her again. She knew that she could rely on him.
Wynn halted, as did everyone else, as she swung her pack off her shoulders. She handed her staff to Chane and began digging in the pack.
“Do you want Shade to come with you?” she asked, pulling out a small black leather pouch.
The pouch bulged more than Chane expected. “No, keep Shade with you.”
Chane trusted Shade to protect Wynn—and Nikolas—more than he trusted that sulking elf.
“I will not be long,” he called in his harsh rasp as he headed up the street.
It wasn’t long into the night before Wynn was aboard a wagon heading south down a rough coastal road. The moon was bright, and, while sitting beside Chane on the wagon’s bench, she looked out and over the cliffs at the ocean. White-foam ribbons of waves below lapped toward the rocky shore.
Chane had insisted on driving, and Osha, Nikolas, and Shade were all in the back.
True to Chane’s claim, he had procured a sturdy wagon and a team of young bay geldings. Even better, the stable master had acknowledged the letter from Premin Hawes as a domin of the guild, and agreed to hire out the wagon and team instead of expecting a full purchase. The guild was well trusted in such things, and Chane signed for the property with the promised return of both wagon and horses once they returned to Oléron.
All things considered, the journey had gone well so far.
If only Nikolas didn’t appear to dread his homecoming so much.
If only Chane and Osha would at least try to tolerate each other.
If only Osha weren’t suffering from mysterious burdens placed upon him by the Chein’âs.
In the last of all that, Wynn hoped that once Osha had told her everything, she’d understand the changes in him and why he—and Leanâlhâm—had come all this way with Brot’an. Instead she was now even more confused.
“Are you all right?” Chane asked.
Wynn turned to find him looking down at her. Her expression must have given away her worries.
“Yes,” she answered too quickly. “I’m only wondering what we’ll find at this duchy.”
Though she said this to put him off, perhaps it was better to push down the issues with all of her companions and focus on the tasks to come.
It seemed that a messenger—either a tall woman or a slender-boned man—wearing a black cloak and a mask and gloves had brought a package with a letter for Nikolas from his father. Therein was another sealed letter, the content of which Nikolas didn’t know, for Premin Hawes. The premin had then packaged several suspicious texts—one on transmogrification—as requested for delivery to Master Jausiff Columsarn upon his adopted son’s return to Beáumie Keep in Witeny. And the old master sage had also mentioned to Hawes that something was wrong with the young duke of the keep, and there were unexplained changes in the land, people, and even wildlife and livestock in the surrounding villages.
The nature of those texts, especially that one, left Wynn wondering what was happening in the villages ... or to the duke, a childhood friend of Nikolas Columsarn.
And then, one night after the double letter arrived, someone matching the description of the messenger had somehow breached the dwarven underworld.
That interloper had been stopped only upon reaching the wall through which Wynn had been taken through earth and stone to see the ancient texts she had brought back from the far eastern continent. That hidden place, accessible to only the Stonewalkers, was also where Ore-Locks had hidden the orb of Earth.
If the messenger and the would-be thief were the same person, how could she—or he—possibly be connected to Nikolas’s father? And how could that someone know where the orb had been hidden?
It still bothered Wynn that she’d been forced to set aside locating the orb of Spirit. But this possible attempt to steal the orb of Earth was more pressing, and so Premin Hawes had sent Wynn after their only lead.
Glancing into the wagon’s back, she saw Osha sitting cross-legged with his back against the wagon’s left sidewall. Shade lay right behind the wagon’s bench with her eyes half-closed. Nikolas had drooped where he sat, flopping sideways onto two stacked packs by the wagon’s right wall.