“Yes.” Glad for the shift of focus, she approached to place the satchel on the table. “Premin Hawes sent everything you requested.”
“And a few things more,” he said dryly while opening the delivery. “I did not expect an emissary from the guild, and certainly not some hired sword and a Lhoin’na archer. Did Premin Hawes have a reason for not sending the texts with my son?”
Wynn had faced down her own superiors more than once and had lost any tolerance for intimidation, subtle or not. This master sage exuded an unusually strong presence, and, in truth, he was not wrong. Premin Hawes had exceeded his precise request.
Searching for an answer, Wynn fell to a half-truth. “Nikolas seemed ... hesitant to return home, perhaps distraught. Given the rarity of some of these texts, the premin thought it best if one of her order transported them, and with proper protection for the remote destination.”
Jausiff’s eyes narrowed. The explanation was plausible, and since he knew everything of Nikolas’s past, he would believe in his son’s reluctance to return. The aging sage’s intense gaze drifted downward over Wynn’s midnight blue robe.
“You must be a very trusted student,” he said. “Perhaps one of the premin’s most favored, to be given such a task.”
“Of course.”
“You could have no better teacher, then. And you’ve studied under her for years in the order of Metaology?”
Wynn swallowed. “Yes.”
Where was the old sage going with all of these questions that weren’t really questions? Something was wrong, and she needed to turn her own questions on him instead.
And then Jausiff slipped the first text out of the satchel. For one blink, lines of age softened on his face as he looked at it. It brought Wynn a stab of pity. How lonely he must be here, so far from the guild’s archives and library to fulfill his needs and wants. Here there would be few if any scholarly chats with peers.
When he opened the text in his hands, Wynn again saw the title on the cover:
The Processes and Essence of Transmogrification.
“It has been many years since I’ve perused this,” he said. “Of course under Hawes, you must have read it at least once. Can you refresh my memory on the sections relating to the mutation of flora?”
In spite of his conversational tone, Wynn knew she was in danger. He was not some lonely scholar seeking discussion. He was testing her, and she had no way to answer. Until recently she had been in the order of Cathology, devoted to the preservation of knowledge—and she had never read the text he held.
“I read it once a long time ago,” she replied.
Jausiff’s gaze rose slowly from the opened book. “Yes, some sages have better memories than others.” He laid the text down, picked up another, and opened it, and again Wynn caught the title.
The Three Aspects of Existence.
“Now, this one Hawes has students turn to regularly,” he continued. “Even apprentices of other orders study it. Do you agree that it is the three Aspects, and not the five Elements, in which we find the strongest grounding for the magical ideologies? And what about the processes—spell, ritual, and artifice—used across all three arts? Do those hold a stronger connection than the ideologies to the Aspects ... at least for you? Of course, there’s the whole misnomer about cantrips being simple spells. Certainly you’ve come to that realization, for as far as you have progressed ... Journeyor?”
Wynn kept her eyes on the text. Except for the most basic practices of thaumaturgy, and one botched ritual that still plagued her with mantic sight, she knew next to nothing about magic. And certainly she didn’t know enough for a passing philosophical debate under the master sage’s sudden barrage.
That hesitation ruined Wynn. Jausiff snapped the book shut and rounded the cluttered table more quickly than he should have as he closed on her.
“You are no student of Frideswida Hawes, and perhaps not even a sage. What are you doing here in your little masquerade? And how did you come by these texts and my son’s company?”
“I assure you, I am a sage,” she stated flatly, meeting his eyes and trying not to waver. “You can ask your son, if you—”
“I am not blind—yet—girl! My son obviously knows you, accepts that you claim to be a sage, but that does not explain the robe you wear. Nor is it enough for me!”
“Nikolas and I ... we’ve become friends ... at the guild,” she stumbled on. “Until recently I was a journeyor of Cathology. I applied to change orders less than a moon ago and was very recently approved ... by Premin Hawes herself.”
“That is the extent of your story?”
“Not a story but the truth.”
He pointed to the texts on the table. “And Premin Hawes entrusted you to bring me those, particularly the first volume? I do not think so. At least one is only for the eyes of masters, domins, and above! Which is partly why I asked that they be sealed from my son’s eyes.”
For a sick old man he stepped much too swiftly past her, though she barely had time to note this before he jerked the door open. And there was his missing cane, leaning against a casement’s end behind the door.
“Nikolas, come,” he called, and then glanced back at Wynn. “Thank you for your service. Since your duty is complete, there’s no need to linger. You can return to ... your new order in the guild.”
Wynn went numb at being so quickly undone and dismissed. With little choice, she collected herself and left, passing Nikolas just outside the door. Poor Nikolas still appeared lost, confused, and likely worried about his father. The last of those concerns was unnecessary, from what Wynn had seen.
Jausiff was no sick, frail old man, so why had Nikolas been called home?
Shade’s tail was barely out the door when it shut.
Wynn flushed for a moment before she could even ask, “Did you catch anything useful?”
—No ... memories— ... —from old one ... Not ... slip ... once—
Wynn ran her hands over her face. The old sage had even outdone Shade. Now they were both suspected by one of the few here who might have some answers. This had become a terrible blunder.
—I try ... when ... he ... not know ... see ... me—
Wynn dropped her hands and looked down into Shade’s crystal-blue eyes. Those broken and halting memory-words, and Shade’s reluctance for language, often distracted from how much Chap’s daughter had begun to comprehend human ways strange to her. Wynn ran both hands over Shade’s large head and down her neck, and then looked to the door shut tight against her. She heard muted voices inside the master sage’s chamber, but she couldn’t make out what was said. Perhaps Jausiff might tell Nikolas things he would tell no one else.
She and Shade were still alone in the passage, and, after brief reluctance, Wynn crept closer and crouched before the door. Hoping to hear what transpired inside, she leaned close to the keyhole.
“Father, you ... you tricked me into returning?” Nikolas stuttered. “You are not ill at all, are you?”
“I had my reason for deception, out of concern about the duke. You saw the changes in him, yes?”
After a long pause, “I saw ... something.”
“He has locked down the keep,” Jausiff continued, “and some sense of normalcy must be reestablished. The duchess and I thought a guest—a reason to force him to play host—might help bring him back to himself. We could think of no one but you for whom he would open the gates.”
“Me?”
Another pause followed, and Wynn imagined the aging counselor nodding.
“I know I promised that you would never have to return here,” Jausiff went on, “but will you, to assist us? The duchess needs you.... I need you. Nothing else that we have tried has reached the duke, and now he might be shaken enough to respond to his childhood friend. He always trusted you.”