Hopefully it wasn’t Imaret who kept him waiting.
The first two sages murdered last autumn had been friends of hers—one of them in particular. The pair had another close companion at the guild, Nikolas Columsarn, who’d later been attacked. Naturally, shared loss had brought Imaret and Nikolas together, and the young sage had begun spending much of his free time at the shop. Imaret used any excuse possible to go visit him.
For all his quiet, nervous nature, Nikolas possessed a sharp, curious mind. More central to Pawl’s curiosity was the boy’s interest in history. Something about Nikolas Columsarn pulled at Pawl. It wasn’t pity, but rather a driven need to ... protect what was his.
Pawl grew more anxious and wary after each of Nikolas’s visits, lingering longer each night as they pored over papers and books brought from Pawl’s own home library. Attachments of any kind were a danger, and he already had enough of those in managing the shop and its staff, and especially Imaret.
And she still kept him waiting.
He stepped to the back door, reaching for his broad-brimmed hat and black cloak on a peg beside it, preparing to step out and look for the girl. But the back door flew open, and he stopped it with one hand before it struck him.
Imaret nearly fell inside, breathing hard, and cried, “Master?”
She looked about wildly, and Liam followed her in, appearing equally unsettled. Pawl startled both of them as he stepped from behind the door and closed it.
“What is it?” he asked immediately.
Small for her age, Imaret had her mother’s dusky skin and mass of slightly kinky black hair. Liam stood a full head taller than her, and had reddish hair and pale blue eyes. Pawl guessed them to both to be about sixteen years old, although he’d never asked.
“The guild is locked down.” Imaret panted. “It’s under guard. City guard!”
Pawl froze for three of Imaret’s fast breaths. “Slow down ... and explain.”
“We didn’t even get to the courtyard,” she rushed on. “The portcullis was down, and the Shyldfälches are walking the walls, and Nikolas is trapped inside!”
Her words left Pawl anxious, though likely not for the same reasons as her. She wasn’t making sense, and he turned his hard gaze on Liam.
“We weren’t able to deliver our message properly,” Liam added. “We refused to leave, insisting we would stand there until a guard sent word that we were waiting ... and we kept on waiting. We thought they’d let us in, but it wasn’t Premin Renäld who finally came out. It was Domin High-Tower. He didn’t care about the journeyor’s work we should’ve completed, and he said all work on the translation project has been suspended. You’re not to send any scribes until further notice ... from him. And then he just walked off!”
Imaret was still panting, and her face was distraught. Pawl had no time to reassure her, for Nikolas was the least of his concerns. Something drastic had happened if Sykion had halted all work on the translation project. But what would cause her to call in the city guard?
Pawl was now completely cut off ... indefinitely.
“Did High-Tower or the guards give any reason for why this has happened?” he asked.
Both apprentices shook their heads.
“Nikolas hates being locked in,” Imaret said. “He hated it when he was ... when it happened last autumn.”
Nikolas had been assaulted, like several other young sages. Unlike them, he had survived, just barely. He had spent more than a moon in convalescence, and even now was not fully recovered—perhaps never would be.
Pawl could not squelch a flash of pity. Imaret was afraid for the only friend she had left, and he could not let this impede her valued skills. She was more than just a gifted scribe in training. Even at her young age, he had come to depend on her for artistic assignments.
She could reproduce anything she read from memory, character for character, whether she could read it or not.
“Liam, take Imaret directly home,” Pawl instructed. “No deviations. And then do so yourself.”
He looked down at Imaret and placed his wide-brimmed hat on his head. He slung his cloak over his shoulders and began to tie it. She hadn’t argued, but she looked up at him, as if barely restraining an urgent plea.
“I will go to the guild myself tonight,” he told her. “Tomorrow, I’ll tell you what I learn.”
Her dusky little face flushed with relief, and then: “Couldn’t we wait here, until you—”
“Home now,” he said sharply, and then calmed, looking for a rational way to dissuade her. “I already risk censure from your parents for keeping you this late. Both of your families will soon begin worrying.”
Imaret blinked at him, and Pawl had a strange feeling she might argue—not with his reasoning or his instructions, but with something else he had said. She glanced back at Liam and turned away in resignation.
“You’ll ask after Nikolas?” she said, reaching for the door’s handle.
“I will try,” he answered, not willing to make a promise.
Once Pawl had seen off both apprentices, he headed in the other direction—toward the guild’s castle. He moved quickly through the dark streets, wondering if perhaps Imaret and Liam had overstated the situation. Emotion and personal concerns often narrowed the perspectives of the young. Soon he found himself heading up Old Procession Road, and the inner bailey gate lay just ahead. But as he opened the gate, he saw that Imaret’s emotional outburst had been no frightened exaggeration.
The portcullis was closed, and a Shyldfälche in a red tabard peered out at him through the thick, upright beams. Pawl spotted another one heading off along the bailey wall’s southern half.
He approached the portcullis, greeting the guard inside with only a nod. The man was very large, with a shaved head and an overly affected grimace.
“Can I help you, sir?” the guard asked, though his tone hardly suggested interest in doing so.
“I am Master a’Seatt from the Upright Quill,” Pawl said, intentionally pitching his tone to slightly haughty and annoyed. “My scriptorium is engaged in several projects for the sages, yet two of my apprentices were sent away earlier tonight. Please tell Domin High-Tower I wish to speak with him ... now.”
The guard’s expression didn’t change, and he merely answered, “Domin High-Tower has given instructions that he’s not to be disturbed. Come back tomorrow.”
All the bald guard did was stand there, arms crossed, staring out through the portcullis beams.
Pawl stared back in a silent moment of indecision. The guild grounds indeed had been locked down. The work for his shop was the most immediate practical concern, but he had also lost the means to fulfill his own desire. Pressing the matter here and now might only prolong such loss or even make it permanent.
He finally turned back out the bailey gate and up Old Procession Road. But he kept remembering the names he had read in those mixed fragments sent for transcription at his shop.
Vespana, Ga’hetman, Jeyretan ... Fäzabid and Memaneh ... Uhmgadâ, Creif, and Sau’ilahk ... Volyno and Häs’saun ... and Li’kän.
Was she among them?
Patience was a benefit of a long existence, but like anything else, it could be worn thinner than the finest paper.
Magiere allowed Leanâlhâm to help hold her up as they waited in a cutway between two buildings. Chap and Leesil were flattened up against the wall nearer the street, keeping watch. Leesil had managed to retrieve their travel chest, and it rested on the ground beside him along with their packs.
The building at Magiere’s back was some form of tall, three-story inn. Osha had gone around to the front to enter, make his way to the back, and let them all inside, out of sight. But in waiting, Magiere looked down and cupped Leanâlhâm’s face with one hand.