Chane closed his eyes indulgently, his thoughts drifting forward…
In Malourne, across the western ocean and the next continent, lay the founding home of the Guild of Sagecraft. Educated men and women would walk old and sound stone passages in robes of light gray. What libraries and archives they would have, tables full of scrolls, parchments, and books, all lit by the glow of cold lamp crystals.
He saw himself there.
Red-brown hair clean and combed behind his ears, he studied an ancient parchment. Not a carefully scribed copy, but the original, unearthed in some far and forgotten place.
The familiar scent of mint tea drifted into his nostrils. He looked up to see Wynn walking toward him, carrying a tray. She offered a soft smile only for him. Her wispy brown hair was woven in a braid down her back, and her olive skin glowed in the crystal's light.
She set down the tray with its two steaming cups. He wanted to smile back, but he could not. He could only drink in the sight of her face. She reached out and touched his cheek softly. The warmth of her hand made him tremble. She sat beside him, asking him questions as her eyes roved the parchment. They talked away the night, until Wynn's eyelids drooped little by little as she grew too sleepy. In that still and perfect moment, he lingered between watching her sleep and carrying her to her room.
Chane's horse neighed wildly. He opened his eyes at the first growl, and the vision of Wynn vanished.
Downslope between the wind-bent trees, wild dogs approached. He had neither heard nor smelled them while lost in wishful fantasy.
Six dogs, their eyes on him and the horse, snarled as they wove closer through the sparse foliage.
Most were black with hints of brown and slate gray, but each bore patches of bare skin where their fur thinned from starvation. Yellow eyes were glazed with hunger, and their ribs showed beneath shrunken and sagging skin.
The horse tossed its head and tried to retreat, sending stones tumbling downslope.
Chane snatched the reins and reached across the saddle for his sword slung from the saddle horn. He wondered how the dogs survived this far up with so little to eat. He closed a hand on the sword's hilt, and the two closest dogs charged for the horse's legs. Chane ducked away from the bucking mount as the lead dog sprang.
Its forelegs hooked across the horse's shoulders, and its teeth clacked wildly for a grip. The second dog charged from the front, snapping at the horse's legs. The horse screamed and reared. Before Chane could swing at either dog, another snarl sounded from behind him.
A skeletal dog was in midleap when he turned. He sidestepped and swung.
His longsword bit halfway through its neck.
The animal hit the slope and slid, smearing earth and rock with spattering blood. Another dog collided into Chane's back, and he toppled facedown.
Teeth closed on the base of his neck as his horse screamed under the growls of other dogs.
Chane released his sword and rolled, pinning the dog beneath his back, but it did not let go. He felt his skin tear as he wrenched his elbow back. The dog's jaws released with a gagging yelp at the muffled crack of its ribs. Chane turned onto his knees, pinned the dog's head, and shattered its skull with his fist.
His horse was down. Four remaining dogs tore savagely at it, and the mount's weak cries reduced to gasping whimpers.
All the dogs suddenly stopped and fell silent. Their bloodied muzzles lifted in unison.
Welstiel stood beyond them, the reins of his horse in hand. His expression was marred with livid disbelief.
"Why did you not stop them," he demanded, "instead of rolling about yourself like some rabid mongrel?"
"I was stopping…" Chane answered in his nearly voiceless hiss. "There were too many to get all of them quickly enough."
"You are Noble Dead," Welstiel said with disgust. "You can control such beasts with a thought."
Chane blinked. "I do not possess that ability. Toret told me that ourkind develop differing strengths-given time. That is not one of mine."
Welstiel's disgust faded, and he shook his head. His resignation made him look older.
"Yes… it is." He studied the dogs and then Chane's chest. "Do you still wear one of your small urns?"
Chane grasped the leather string slick with his own black fluids still running down his neck. He pulled it until a small brass urn dangled free of his shirt.
Welstiel stepped closer and the dogs remained still as he passed. "Leave one alive to take as a familiar. It can track ahead and perhaps aid in our search."
He turned away, glancing once at the dying horse with a weary sigh.
It was a sound Chane always found strange to hear from an undead, even when he did it himself. They breathed only when needing to speak, and a sigh was but a habit left over from living days.
"We'll walk and use my horse for the baggage," Welstiel said. "Collect what remains of your horse's feed, and roast its flesh to store for your new familiar."
Chane picked up his sword. It all sounded sensible and rational, but the scent of blood was thick around him. His hunger stirred, though he had no need for sustenance.
Dog and horse-lowly beasts-but the mount had served Chane, and the pack only sought to survive. He understood that, and it left him strangely disturbed as he skewered the first dog with the tip of his blade. Even at its yelp, the others just stood there, waiting to be slaughtered.
He did not pick or choose and merely killed the dogs one by one within reach, until the last stood cowering before him. He closed his eyes and imagined once more…
A quiet place in the world where Wynn's round face glowed by the light of a cold lamp crystal. Her eyes drooped in sleep over the parchment, and he reached out for her…
Wynn returned with Chap and Lily to the barrier woods. The silver deer was gone, but the remainder of the pack ranged about.
Her face and hands stung from scratches, and her left leg ached, but she limped along. These injuries seemed paltry compared to the majay-hi found broken and dead beneath the birch's branches. The steel-gray female had come for her as the Fay tried to drag her out to her death. Now her twin brother wandered listlessly among the trees, barely in sight of the others.
Of all things Wynn had faced, from vampires to Lord Darmouth and his men, the Fay's sudden wrath terrified her most. It was so unexpected.
Before discovering Chap, she had considered the Fay to be little more than an ideological personification of the elemental forces that composed her world. In knowing Chap and coming to believe in what he was, she had thought the Fay benevolent if enigmatic, much like him.
They had killed a majay-hi because she had heard them and learned how they had used Chap.
The world now made far less sense to Wynn.
Chap stepped up to the brambles filling the trees of the barrier woods. He ground his paws into the earth. Wynn did not need mantic sight to guess what he did.
She had seen the silken vapor of spectral white fire rise around Chap as he faced his kin. When he turned on them to defend her, his body had flashed and blinded her for an instant. His kin had fled in fear.
He annoyed her so many times with his doggish behavior, slovenly and gluttonous habits that made it difficult to remember what he was. When he chomped a greasy sausage, she did not see how anything descended from the eternal could be so… disgusting.
But he was Fay-and now outcast. Perhaps traitor as well to his eternal kin, though they deserved no better.
Chap clamped his teeth upon a bisselberry vine, and Wynn watched in chilled fascination.
Round berries receded to flowers and then to small buds among the vine's broad leaves and long thorns. Leaves shrank in size and thorns shortened as both faded into light green stems. The vine's branching parts withdrew as they shrank in size.