And the smell of Osha’s life thickened in Chane’s fully expanded senses.
He did not need full light to find the bottle in the pack’s bottom, though; desperate for the remaining black-red fluid he had gathered using the brass cup, he fumbled with it in his panic.
Chane almost downed all of the bottle’s contents.
He stopped, for doing so would affect him too much. He had no privacy, and with Osha present—watching—he did not dare become that incapacitated for even a few moments. He took only a sip, and even that was punishing, as he quickly replaced the stopper in the bottle and shoved it into his pack.
“What you do?” Osha growled.
The acrid tang of ground metal and heavy salt coated Chane’s mouth as he swallowed. He did not collapse in convulsions this time, but still a burning like acid filled his gut as concentrated life trapped by the brass cup spread through him. He clenched his jaws and waited for it to pass, though he heard leather squeak before he realized his grip on the pack had tightened too much. And he began to shake.
“Answer!”
Chane ignored the elf and waited for the shallow convulsions to pass. He could still feel the hunger, but he would not drink more and leave himself vulnerable while that forest whelp was present. Finally the beast within him settled to a low, growling complaint.
When he rose and turned, Osha still stood before the door.
Chane had no intention of discussing anything and decided to simply wait for Osha to fall asleep.
Instead of pressing matters, all the elf did was settle on the bed nearest the door and light another of his little candles upon the side table. He leaned back, fully clothed with his boots on, and reclined against the wall behind the bed’s far side. Osha closed his eyes as if resting.
Chane turned away, settling on his own bed in annoyance, which quickly shifted to worry. He had no idea what was happening inside this keep—what had happened moments ago—and the blind ignorance quickly wore on him.
What had caused Shade to claim that she sensed a Fay? What had caused Wynn and the others to fall ill and then recover so quickly? What had left him upon the edge of losing his control to the feral nature that hid within him?
His thoughts drifted back to something Wynn had said earlier ... about a single memory Shade had stolen from the young duke:
Just a flash ... an image of two of those Suman guards standing in front of a door in a dim, windowless passage. Maybe ... maybe underground.
Why would the duke order two Sumans to guard an underground door—if it was underground as Wynn or Shade had claimed? If this door had been the one thing to pass through the duke’s thoughts, then what lay beyond it?
Chane watched Osha, still reclined with his eyes closed, and knew that he would have to wait until the elf fell truly asleep. That had not happened yet, judging by the sound of the man’s forced breathing. The next obstacle would be getting past the guards in the passage. A diversion or distraction was needed if Chane was to seek this door perhaps somewhere below the keep.
To his frustration, Osha opened his eyes a little, glanced at the burning candle, and then closed his eyes again.
Desperation, impatience, and still-nagging hunger goaded Chane.
He rose and went to the door to put his ear against it. Listening for any sounds outside, he heard nothing. He assumed both guards would still be at their posts even after the turmoil, but without peeking outside, he could not know for certain.
“Not yet.”
Chane glanced back to find Osha watching him, and he then looked to the lit candle. Had the elf been waiting—timing—something of his own?
“Do not tell me what to do,” Chane answered.
Osha merely closed his eyes. “If any need go out, I go. I am ... was anmaglâhk. No one see—hear—me.”
Chane hissed before a dry reply. “And how would you get past two guards?”
“I will,” the elf answered, “when time right.”
Chane paced back toward his bed but did not sit. “Fool! Go to sleep.”
Neither of them spoke again for some time. Osha opened his eyes infrequently but always to look at the candle while ignoring Chane. And then, at another, later glance at the candle ...
Osha rose off the bed. “I go.”
Chane was on his feet before the elf finished. “You are staying here, out of my way.”
Osha turned toward the door at the foot of his bed.
Chane almost lunged to grab the elf, but then stopped himself. “And how are you going to get past those guards?”
Soft footsteps rose in the passage outside.
Osha froze, cocking his head.
Chane realized the elf heard them, too, and he took a step. When Osha twisted toward him, he froze. Raising both of his hands, open and empty, Chane slowly pointed at the door. Osha sidestepped to the corner behind the door and then along the room’s side wall. Chane cracked the door open to a sliver and peeked out.
With the door opening inward, and its hinges toward the passage’s back end, he could see along the door to that end of the passage. The guard stood with his back to the far wall and stared straight across the passage.
Chane looked back at Osha and then nodded toward the candle. Osha rounded wide and snuffed out the flame. The passage outside was very dim, and, as Chane pulled the door farther inward, he did his best to keep inside the frame and out of the rear guard’s sight line. When he had pulled the door open enough, he took a quick peek toward the passage’s front end, retreated, and quietly closed the door.
“What you see?” Osha whispered.
Reluctantly Chane told him. “The guard near the stairs is missing.”
Osha nodded. “I overpower guard ... without him know too soon. I move fast; he not ... remember.”
Chane scoffed. “Even so, he might be found when the other returns. And if one of us is found missing, we will be blamed, no matter if he remembers who put him down or not.”
“Then what you do?” Osha challenged, folding his arms.
“A distraction first,” Chane rasped. “Be quiet and let me focus, but be ready to crack the door open.”
He went to his pack and dug out the gloves he used as part of his coverings for withstanding daylight. Returning to the closed door, he focused upon it and then along the chamber’s front wall as he imagined the passage’s end toward the stairs that he had just seen.
Chane stilled his thoughts and held out his right hand with the palm turned up. In his mind he drew lines of light and slowly crafted symbols to overlay his sight. First a circle, then around it a triangle, and he scrawled the needed glyphs and sigils stroke by stroke into the corner spaces between the two. He prepared to aim ... as a small wisp of fire ignited in his palm. Then Chane felt his flesh begin to sear beneath the glove as Osha sucked in a sharp breath.
“Now!” Chane whispered.
Osha stepped in and pulled the door slightly.
Chane crouched, lowering his hand. Throwing the flame was not possible, for it was fueled into existence by only his concentration. Even fire could not hang in the air without something physical as fuel to feed it. But making the flame move might work. When the back of his hand flattened on the stone floor, he shifted his mental pattern slightly into the passage and ...
The flame crept off his fingers and around the door’s frame.
“Close it,” he whispered, and Osha silently shut the door.
Chane clung to concentration as he moved the pattern in his mind’s eye along the wall of the room, parallel to the passage. The bed in the way did not help in that. When his gaze reached the room’s corner, where the passage would turn down the stairs, he heard noise outside. Perhaps the flame had died the instant it was out of his sight.