In Shade and Shadow

clean copy. What she can read she recalls with accuracy, but that does not include the Begaine syllabary.'

Unfortunate, but it might still be of use, and Rodian turned down a connected side path.

'Imaret obviously has a mixed heritage. I take it her parents paid for her apprenticeship.'

This time it was Pawl a'Seatt who stared intently. 'I fail to see what this has to do with your investigation.'

'Imaret is a witness,' Rodian countered, 'though after the fact. I need basic information on all involved.'

Pawl a'Seatt's eyes remained fixed and steady.

'Her father was a sergeant in the regulars, now retired. Her mother was an apothecary in Samau'a Gaulb, the capital of il'Dha'ab Najuum, one of the nations of the Suman Empire. They offered tuition, but it was not necessary.'

Rodian stopped scribbling in his journal. 'Unnecessary? Why?'

'As I said, she is gifted. I pay her adequately for—'

'You are training an apprentice for free?' Rodian asked. 'And paying her for her training?'

'Captain,' a'Seatt said slowly, 'several of my employees are still at my shop, but recent events have left them shaken. If you have no more relevant questions, some of them must be escorted home.'

Rodian found this scribe shop owner troubling, one who took on an unusual apprentice without tuition and yet hadn't noticed a missing folio of importance sent off with two young sages. And again he wondered why Pawl a'Seatt had come all the way to the barracks rather than wait at his shop.

'Visits from the city guard are the fodder of rumor,' a'Seatt said, as if catching Rodian's suspicion. 'I prefer this unfortunate business be kept as far as possible from my staff and shop.'

Rodian had heard such excuses before, as if an interview with the captain of the city guard suggested a taint of guilt. Sometimes it did. For now he could think of no further reason to detain this man.

'I regret any gossip,' Rodian offered, 'but the killer or killers must be caught. If… when… I have further questions, I will try to exercise discretion.'

Pawl a'Seatt looked slowly about the office, taking in its scant and orderly fixtures. Rodian thought he saw the man nod slightly to himself.

'Good hunting,' a'Seatt said softly, and then rose and left.

Wynn stepped through the guild's main doors with Nikolas close behind. At panicked whispers, she paused and spotted a small cluster of initiates and apprentices in the entryway. Nikolas's eyes widened in like confusion.

Journeyors were scarce at the guild, as most were off on assignments, but neither did Wynn note any domins nearby. After supper initiates were supposed to be in their quarters if not in the common hall.

'What's going on?' she asked.

Two apprentices turned eyes on her. As they shifted aside Wynn saw Miriam, a stocky apprentice with a cloak draped over her gray robe. Another cloaked apprentice shivered beside her as if they'd both just come in from outside.

'Oh, Wynn,' Miriam said, as if glad to see someone—anyone—of higher rank. 'Domin High-Tower sent us to Master Shilwise's scriptorium to retrieve today's folio… and Master Shilwise wouldn't give it to us! He said the folio was too intricate, and his scribes hadn't finished. He wouldn't turn over unfinished work.'

Wynn was stunned. Nothing sent by the guild was ever to remain overnight. That much, if nothing else, was well-known concerning the translation project.

'What about the drafts?' she said.

Miriam shook her head. 'He said they would finish first thing in the morning, and he kept the whole folio. He shooed us out and locked up his shop! What is Domin High-Tower

'Yes,' Wynn answered wearily. 'Now, you two take off your cloaks. Nikolas, take them to the common hall and get some tea.'

Without waiting for a reply, she headed off for the north tower.

When she finally climbed the curving stairwell to the third floor and approached High-Tower's study, the heavy door was shut tight. He did this only when he preferred not to be disturbed. Wynn grasped the iron handle anyway.

Muffled voices rose beyond the door.

She didn't want to disturb whatever was going on inside, but if she waited the domin would be even angrier at not being told straight off. She'd barely raised a clenched hand to knock when someone inside half shouted—in Dwarvish.

High-Tower's home was Dhredze Seatt, the dwarven city across the bay on the mountain peninsula. The journey wasn't long, but she'd never known him to have visitors from home before. And whatever she'd heard passed too quickly for her to translate.

Wynn stood in indecision. She couldn't leave, but she shouldn't stay and listen either.

'You will stop!' someone roared from inside—or so Wynn thought. And the voice had a strange quality, like gravel being crushed under a heavy boot.

She read Dwarvish quite well, but their written terms didn't change as much as their spoken words. Unlike Elvish, even the old dialect of the an'Cróan, pronunciation of Dwarvish mutated over generations. Yet the dwarves never faltered in understanding one another. When she was a young girl, Wynn's tutor in the language had been High-Tower. She'd enjoyed attempting conversation with him, much as he smirked at her diction.

'It is not within my power!' High-Tower shouted back. 'And unfair of you to ask.'

'Sages—such foolish scribblers!' the first voice declared. 'You will exhume our ruin!'

'Knowledge is not the enemy,' High-Tower shot back. 'And translation will continue.'

'Then you risk betraying your own, to shame and remorse,' a third voice shouted, 'if you let others know what you find.'

Wynn wasn't certain she understood it all correctly, but it was the best she could make out. And that new voice was so much different from the other. More somber and reserved than the first, though equally passionate, it held a strange warning. The first voice demanded that High-Tower put a stop to translating the ancient texts, but the other one seemed less resistant, so long as what the sages learned was shared with only… whom?

Footsteps pounded toward the door's far side.

Wynn scurried down around the stairwell's bend. She heard the door jerk open and held her breath as she peeked carefully around the inner wall's rising arc.

A dwarf stood in the open doorway, head turned as he looked back into High-Tower's study. Wynn caught only his profile.

Wide features, with a dim undertone of gray, were deeply lined as well as flushed in rage. He was old, though he stood strong and tall, at least as tall as Wynn but over three times her bulk. At best guess he had to be well over a hundred years old, as dwarves often made it past two hundred.

He swallowed hard, trapping anger down. And his attire was… stunning—like that of no dwarf she'd ever seen.

Over char-gray breeches and a wool shirt he wore an oily black hauberk of leather scales. Each scale's tip was sheathed in finely engraved steel, and two war daggers tucked slantwise in his thick belt had black sheaths with fixtures to match.

Then another face appeared over his shoulder. Armed and armored like the first, this dwarf had hair of a reddish hue and he was clean-shaven. Something about his face looked familiar to Wynn, though she knew she'd never seen either of these two before.

As the second visitor came up, the first turned back toward the stairwell.

Wynn ducked away, but not before she glimpsed something more.

They both wore thôrhks.

Those heavy, open-ended steel circlets rested upon the collars of their scaled hauberks. Each end knob flanged to a flat surface that bore an intricately etched symbol. Wynn couldn't make it out from a distance, but she couldn't help remembering a thôrhk of ruddy metal given to Magiere by the Chein'âs—when Magiere and Leesil had visited 'the Burning Ones' on the last run to find the orb.

Magiere's open-ended circlet wasn't the same in make as what the dwarves wore. But it had been close