"I did not expect their dialect to be so different," Wynn said, "until I heard these elves speak. It is no wonder Chap and I have problems communicating… beyond his frustration with language. If only I could dip into that messy head of his, in the same way he sees and uses other people's memories."
Magiere didn't answer. No one had come to their quarters after Sgaile took Leesil away. She hardly considered him or his companions to be friends, but it was strange that not even Leanalham had looked in on them.
"Do not start pacing again," Wynn said. "If the elves wanted Leesil dead, none of us would have made it this far… nor would Sgaile have gone through so much to guard us. Our bodies would have vanished like any other curious human who came looking for this land."
How blunt the little scholar had become. A far cry from the soft-spoken sage Magiere had met back in Bela.
"I know," Magiere said. "It's just that lately Leesil has been so-"
"Erratic, pig-headed, idiotic, obsessive-"
"Yes, yes, all right," Magiere interrupted.A far cry indeed.
Wynn smirked slightly, her strange new stylus scratching out the next symbol. Just how many letters were there in Elvish?
Magiere hadn't bathed, wanting to be ready the instant Leesil and Chap returned. But she did change her clothing, tossing aside the elven attire for a pair of dark breeches and a loose white shirt. It was warm enough to leave off the wool pullover, but she had strapped on her hauberk again. It made her feel more secure-more like herself.
She closed her eyes.When all of this was over and done, perhaps Leesil might find his old self again. The one she'd fallen in love with so reluctantly at first. And if he didn't-she still couldn't see any day ahead of her without him.
The doorway curtain wafted inward, bulging up from the ground, and Chap slipped in under its hem. The curtain swung aside, and Leesil entered right behind the dog. Magiere was on her feet before the fabric settled into place.
"Are you all right? Did you see your mother?"
One look at his face answered both questions.
"What happened?" Wynn asked, and set aside paper and quill.
"He wants a bargain with me," Leesil answered flatly, and Chap issued a low rumble. "Most Aged Father wants the names of every Anmaglahk who might have a connection to my mother. If I get him those names, he'll release her."
Of all unsettling possibilities, this wasn't among the imagined worries that had run through Magiere's head.
"What makes him think any of his butchers would talk to you?"
"Because I'm Nein'a's son."He looked up, eyes sad and distant. "But he's lying. No matter what I do, I don't believe he'll release Nein'a-or us. You should've seen him…"
His eyes squinted and his mouth tightened as though he'd tasted something stale and bitter.
"Why go to such lengths?" Wynn asked. "By bringing you here, he has clearly alienated his people, even some of his caste. He must be desperate."
"Who better to hide from the Anmaglahk than an Anmaglahk?" Leesil retorted. "I think he's already exhausted his own means. I'm guessing my mother's refused to tell him anything in all these years. And I think he suspected my grandmother, but she's beyond his reach now."
"Chap, careful!" Wynn snapped. "I am not done… You are slobbering all over the pages!"
Chap was pulling Wynn's papers off the ledge seat, and Wynn couldn't keep up with him. He dropped them on the ground, separating the sheets with his nose, and began pawing theElvish symbols.
"Ancient Enemy," Wynn translated.
They'd heard this from him before outside of Venjetz, when he'd tried to explain that it was Eillean's skull, notNein'a's, that Leesil carried. And that Neina, Eillean, and perhaps even Brot'an, had some hand in a conspiracy surrounding Leesil's birth and training.
Chap continued, and Wynn shook her head in puzzlement. "He spelled out…'il'Samar'… or as close as he could."
The name snapped a memory in Magiere's head.
She and Chap had closed on Ubad within a forest clearing near the abandonedvillageofApudalsat. Enormous spectral coils of black scales had appeared in the dark between the wet, moss-laden trees.
"That's the name Ubad cried out before…" Magiere couldn't finish.
Looking at Chap with that memory in her head made her shiver. The dog had gone intoa frenzy at the sight of those coils, which had seemingly come to Ubad's plea. They didn't answer the old man, but instead spoke to her, Magiere, in a whispering hiss of a voice.
Sister of the dead… lead on.
And then Chap had torn out the necromancer's throat.
"What do you know about this?" Magiere asked of Wynn.
"It is definitely Sumanese. Samar is obscure, meaning conversation in the dark, or something secretly passed. And 'il' is a prefix for a proper noun… a title or name."
Wynn shook her head with uncertainty and perhaps a taint of fright.
"Back in Bela, Domin Tilswith showed me and Chane… a copy of an ancient parchment believed to be from the Forgotten. I cannot remember the exact Sumanese wording, but it mentioned something called 'the night voice'. Perhaps… from what you told us of Ubad in that clearing…"
Magiere wasn't listening anymore. The name that Ubad had cried out echoed in her mind. And then came a piece of the vision that her mother's ghost had shown to her.
Her so-called half brother, Welstiel, walked alone in the courtyard of their father's keep. As Magelia came upon him, he whispered to himself in the dark… or in answer to a voice no one else heard.
Chap struggled with how much he should tell them-and how to manage complex ideas with only a few sheets of large Elvish letters. The idea that Most Aged Father had been alive during the ancient war seemed too much for the moment. There was no telling what Leesil, or even Magiere or Wynn, might do in this strained moment if they knew.
Leesil and Wynn were little help with their tangled debate and speculations, and Magiere seemed lost within her own thoughts. For now, it was enough that they learned of an enemy that was known by many names in many places-and that Magiere was never as far from its reach as she might assume. Chap knew better.
As he was about to bark for their attention, the room blurred slightly before his eyes. It was more like a waver in the living wood of the wall. Then it was gone an instant before he fixed upon it.
Chap shook his head and looked about. Nothing had changed, yet he had felt something. Elation and then anxiety rose in him.
Had his kin finally come?But surely not in the presence of others, especially those in his charge?
They would not reveal- themselves so explicitly to mortals. He sensed no echo within his own spirit that marked their presence and shook off the strange sensation. There was nothing here, and he was being foolish. Even so, the disruption left him restless. He padded to the outer doorway and stuck his head through its curtain.
Osha looked down curiously at him from the doorway's far side. Chap ignored him, and searched the trees.
There was no sign of Lily, and she had not been waiting when he emerged from Most Aged Father's home. Something about this place-and that one great tree-frightened her. It frightened all themajay-hi, and they would not come near. Lily had only come to try to drag him from it.
He heard a soft whine and raised his ears.
The barest hint of creamy white showed beneath a bush of lilacs beyond one domicile tree. Between its lower branches, two crystalline eyes stared back across the open space at Chap.
Lily hid where she might not be noticed. For all her fear of this place, she had come back and silently watched for him.