“Fire!” a voice shouted out in the passage.
Osha pushed at the door, but Chane raised a hand. “No danger,” he barely whispered, and already the steps of running feet had passed the door’s far side. “The flame will go out.”
Then he regretted having explained it at all.
Chane dug inside his shirt and pulled out a cold-lamp crystal. It was a spare that Wynn had given him in their journey to find the orb of Earth, but he did not ignite it yet. Opening the door slightly, he heard the guard descending the stairs, and then came mute voices from somewhere below. He quickly slipped out, and, as he was unable to stop the elf, Osha followed him.
The situation rankled Chane as they hurried up the passage the other way to find another route to the lower floors.
Sau’ilahk was alone in the small stone chamber with the orb.
Hazh’thüm had already removed the body of the other guard—the one Sau’ilahk had drained of life—and the duke had been carried away to his private chamber above in the keep. It was inconvenient for Sau’ilahk to have sacrificed one of his small contingent, but it had been necessary to recover from the orb’s unexpected influence. If nothing else, the remainder of his servants would be that much more cowed into obedience.
What mattered most was whether the duke would recover.
Any effects upon his flesh could be dealt with once the process was complete. Sau’ilahk dwelled instead on the almost-certain presence of Wynn Hygeorht.
Why was she here, and what had truly called her to the keep?
He had to know, and in thinking, he gazed at the orb. The act he had in mind would cost him much of the energy sapped from one guard—not as much as the fully opened orb had taken from him—but there was little choice if he was to remain undetected until he learned more.
Floating to the chamber’s center, Sau’ilahk focused inward.
In midair, he envisioned a glowing circle the size of a splayed hand for Spirit. Within this he formed the square of Air, and in the spaces between the nested shapes, he stroked glowing sigils with his thoughts. He fixed upon this grand seal for his first conjuration as a small part of his energies bled away in a passing wave of weariness.
He needed something more than what one element could provide, for Air only recorded sound and so would be worthless in the night when everyone was asleep. He needed something capable of sight, capable of slipping through stone rather than limited to following passages.
A silent breeze grew inside the chamber.
Sau’ilahk called the breeze into the seal’s center. The room’s temperature did not change, but the pattern’s center space warped like air over a searing desert at noon. That nearly invisible distortion held its place, and he solidified one hand to cage it in his fingers. Then he conjured yet again for the element of Fire.
A yellow-orange glow began emanating from within his grip.
Next came Spirit, for the necessary connection with it, though this would also give it a will and make it harder to control. And last came Earth....
Exhausted, Sau’ilahk slammed the servitor into the chamber’s stone floor.
The square for Earth via Stone rose in umber lines around his splayed hand and then the blue-white circle for Spirit as he embedded a fragment of his will. More glyphs and sigils of iridescent white filled the second pattern upon stone.
All the glowing marks in his sight vanished as he whispered in thought, Awaken!
A glow rose in the stone beneath his hand and began to rush about as if light swam beneath the chamber floor. He closed his fingers like hooks, and he straightened, making a motion as if drawing something to the surface.
The floor bulged like a bubble erupting from gray mud.
One glowing eye like molten glass winked at him as his servitor heaved its oblong body out of the floor and stood up on four three-jointed legs of stone that ended in sharp points.
Go!
It skittered up the chamber wall and sank through the ceiling above him. Sau’ilahk lost all sight of the orb’s chamber as his servitor swam through the keep’s stone.
Here and there, darkness broke as it surfaced upon the ceilings of passages, rooms, and chambers, one after another. He saw through it, catching sight and even sound as a servant here or a guard there went about duties late into the night. Not one ever looked up to spot the small monstrosity that submerged back into the ceiling and moved on through the keep.
The duke had not been present when the “guests” had been housed, but there were few spaces in this small place for such. Sau’ilahk had already wandered the keep himself in the last quarter of some nights. He guided his servitor to the third floor and the only spare chambers he had found with beds.
When the servitor surfaced again, he looked down at a young male with white streaks in his hair. Over the end of the bed lay the gray robe of a sage. Something about this one struck Sau’ilahk as familiar. As if struck by some recurrent nightmare, the young man murmured and gasped in his sleep.
Sau’ilahk drove his servitor across the ceiling and through the wall to the next room.
It was empty. Though someone ... perhaps two people were clearly lodged here. Two cloaks hung on pegs near the door. Two packs, one near the other, were at the foot of one bed. A bow and quiver with black-feathered arrows, as well as something long wrapped in canvas, lay on the floor beside the bed nearest the door.
Sau’ilahk stalled too long in looking about the room. Where were the occupants, considering how late into the night it was? He finally drove his servitor on to the next room.
The servitor froze upon the ceiling as Sau’ilahk succumbed to pure hatred.
Wynn Hygeorht sat on the floor below and watched the black majay-hì pace about. Neither was doing anything comprehensible, and nothing in the room offered a clue as to why they were here. And she was garbed in a midnight blue robe.
Sau’ilahk had no idea why, and he did not care. There was no doubt that the previous room housed the undead called Chane and likely the unknown Lhoin’na who had come with them. But if so, where were they?
A sudden wave of weariness overtook Sau’ilahk. He was being drained too much in maintaining a continuous connection to his servitor, and he would need his energies for the next night to come. Once he had finished his work here and achieved his long-awaited desire for living flesh ...
Wynn Hygeorht would never leave this keep alive.
Osha continued after passing through the archway at the back of the passage. He led the way, with the undead creeping too close behind him. It stood to reason that there would be stairs somewhere else on this level of the keep.
“There,” Chane whispered, pointing past Osha. “A landing.”
Squinting in an unlit passage, Osha took several more steps before he saw it. He flinched at a sudden pale light rising behind him and looked back to see a crystal, much like the ones that Wynn carried, in Chane’s hand. It was glowing softly.
Chane stepped ahead.
Osha was admittedly relieved not to have the undead at his back, and admittedly his unwelcome companion could walk in relative silence. So far they had heard no one raise an alarm, and as long as any guard returning to the guest quarters’ passages did not look into the second room, they would not realize anyone was missing.
Chane quickly descended all the way to the main floor and then paused as he closed his hand over the crystal. Osha listened as well and heard no movement or voices. Carefully Chane stepped out, rounding quickly into a wide passage, and then Osha heard something.
Chane halted, and they both listened for a moment.
Osha heard the distant, muted sound of waves breaking on a shore.