To Chap’s shock, Magiere turned away.
She stumbled off, first back to the place she’d fought Qahhar, and she picked up something from the ground. Then she kept on instead of turning back.
Chap sat up, barking at her, until the pain and coughing were too much to bear. He tried to raise memories in her of home, or forests, or anywhere but here. She didn’t stop, and soon vanished amid the falling snow. He huddled next to Leesil and listened to his oldest friend’s shallow breaths, and he tried to lick Leesil’s face, anything to rouse him. In the end all Chap could do was grab the shelter’s hide with his teeth and try to pull it up over both their heads.
He lay there, knowing where Magiere had gone. It seemed too long until the sled rocked under a sudden weight dropped on its front end.
Chap wriggled his head out from under the tarp.
There was Magiere, lashing down the second orb along with Qahhar’s thôrhk. Her falchion was back in its sheath; as to the Chein’âs dagger always carried at her back, he did not know. She dug under the tarp and into one of their packs, and took out her spare shirt to shred it in her teeth. As she wrapped it tightly around Leesil’s torn forearm, Chap made out her face.
Her irises were pure black again.
Even the bandages ended up stained with black smears from her hands. She had been cut as welclass="underline" there were smears of blood on her hands and upper face. As she worked on Leesil, Chap’s fears only grew worse.
Close to her now, he could not see an open wound anywhere on her, even where the bloodstains were thickest.
When she finished, she stood there, no longer shuddering in the cold, though he could still see sickness and revulsion in her face. She reached out to gently push his head down and pull the cover over him and Leesil ... without looking at either of them.
Chap lay wondering what Magiere could be doing now. And then the sled lurched, turning and turning, until it began to slide along its rails. He took one last look.
Magiere was out beyond the sled and pulling it by the remains of the rigging. Chap wondered from where she’d found the strength—and then he did not want to know.
“Port of Chathburh ahead!” called a sailor from the crow’s nest.
Chap stood with Magiere watching him as if this time it was she who caught his memories.
“So, there was another guardian,” Brot’an reiterated. “You have said you acquired the second orb, but did you kill this guardian?”
Magiere dropped her eyes and swallowed.
“Yes,” she answered flatly.
If only that had been the end, had been the worst of it for her ... for all of them.
“Nothing’s going to prepare you, Brot’an,” Magiere half whispered, “nothing, if we have to face something like that ... thing again.”
Chap wanted her to stop, for if he had his way, Brot’an would not be there if and when they found a fourth orb. But he raised no memory-words in her mind.
“And Chap later hid both orbs?” Brot’an asked. “How and where?”
—No—more— ... —You’ve given—him—enough—
Magiere didn’t look at Chap. Neither did she confirm Brot’an’s assumptions or give him anything else. The truth was, she didn’t know where. Instead she closed her eyes briefly.
“We’ll reach port soon,” she said. “I’m going to tell Leesil and Leanâlhâm.”
Abruptly Magiere pushed off the rail. Brot’an said nothing more nor tried to stop her.
As she passed, Chap waited for any acknowledgment from her, but it never came as she descended below. And when he turned back, Brot’an was watching him.
Magiere had given the old assassin all he would get. With a twitch of his jowls, Chap headed below.
Brot’an would never learn where those orbs were hidden, not ever. Chap would see him dead first.
Chapter Twelve
Brot’ân’duivé was standing on deck when a short while later Léshil and Magiere appeared out of the nearest aftcastle door. Léshil was overburdened with baggage.
“We don’t need both packs,” Magiere admonished. “We’re staying three nights at most.”
“It could be longer,” Léshil countered with hope in his voice.
Leanâlhâm cautiously crept behind them out of the aftcastle door. She hung back upon spotting human sailors rushing about to moor the ship. Several waited around the cargo hatch as another above rigged the boom and tackle for whatever goods would be exchanged in port.
In spite of all the hectic activity, Brot’ân’duivé still dwelled upon what little Magiere had told him. Obviously she had kept back something burdensome that Chap knew as well. Some of what she had said, from the guardian with minions, both potent enough to trouble Magiere and Chap, to the initial resting place of another orb amid a cavern of ice, hung in Brot’ân’duivé’s mind. That device they all knew now was the orb or anchor of Fire. Yet Brot’ân’duivé was no closer to anything more useful.
Forewarned, perhaps, about what dangers might wait with the next orb, he still had gained nothing about the function of these devices or how they were once used in service to the Ancient Enemy. And what danger did they pose, should Most Aged Father claim even one of them?
There was little relief in the fact that the patriarch knew of only the first orb and had even less knowledge of it than Brot’ân’duivé did. Why had the Enemy scattered the five orbs so far and placed such guardians upon them a thousand years ago? Why were those guardians the most potent of the humans’ undead?
Brot’ân’duivé needed to know more, including what had happened for Magiere to change in not-so-subtle ways since she had left his homeland. He could hardly force the issue if he wished for her—if not Léshil or Chap—to believe he was here to protect her. Asking outright about the orbs’ ultimate purpose, if she even knew, would only put her on guard. Besides, in truth, if any of them did know, it was most likely the majay-hì.
Chap was a source of information far beyond Brot’ân’duivé’s reach.
The sailors finished mooring the vessel, and he watched a team of four prepare to lower the ramp as his traveling companions drew near. Leanâlhâm, her breaths quickening, stared at the city beyond the waterfront.
“Are we going into ... into that?” she whispered.
The port of Chathburh was large, perhaps as much as Calm Seatt. While its waterfront was more spread out than the one on the Isle of Wrêdelyd, it was as busy, if not more.
Crowded piers did not appeal to Brot’ân’duivé, either, but the sight of Leanâlhâm’s nervous eyes left him surprisingly worried over her state of mind—and her future. For better or worse, she had become his responsibility.
She could not be in true mourning over Osha, as he was not her mate. That sadness would pass, but she was failing to adjust here. She had no wish to return to her people and, considering her association with him, there was possible danger if she did. Soon he would be embroiled in a desperate and uncertain purpose in trailing Magiere to another orb. Judging by what little he had learned so far, Leanâlhâm should not be there if—when—that happened.
Magiere stepped onto the ramp’s head, tugging along a reluctant Leanâlhâm.
“Hold on!” Léshil called, dropping all three packs and crouching to dig through one. “We’re at Chathburh, right? I think I remember Wynn giving me something to help us here.”
At mention of the young sage, Leanâlhâm hurried back to hover over Léshil.
Magiere raised an eyebrow. “From Wynn? Such as what?”