Chane smelled a hint of rancid linseed oil.
A Noble Dead had written on the leather scroll in its own fluids or another's—and then blotted it out with painted ink. But then why had the scroll been kept for so long?
And how would he ever find out, with no way to read beneath the coating?
Chane couldn't reason a way to remove the ink without fear of damaging what lay beneath. So he simply continued with his painstaking restoration until the twenty-seventh night, when the scroll lay completely flat, restored to full pliancy.
He had never been alone before—or perhaps not lonely. The scroll's content, blocked from him, much as he was blocked from Wynn's world, began to conjure renewed thoughts of her.
For a quarter moon he lurked outside the old barracks. All he wanted was one glimpse of Wynn, though he still did not know if he should—could—face her again. But she never appeared. Chane saw Domin Tilswith several times, but he could not reveal his presence to Wynn's old master. Tilswith also knew
A girl in a gray robe like Wynn's ventured out of the barracks' worn door with empty milk bottles bundled clumsily in her arms. And Chane stepped from the shadows.
He did not often speak, hating the sound of his own voice. During his pursuit of Magiere she had once beheaded him in the forests of Apudâlsat. Welstiel managed to bring him back through some arcane method, but Chane's voice had never healed.
In his brushed cloak and polished boots, he looked again like a young affluent gentleman. But still, the girl almost dropped her bottles in surprise.
'I am looking for news of an old friend,' he rasped. 'Do you know where I might find Wynn Hygeorht?'
The girl's brow wrinkled at Chane's maimed voice, but then smoothed as her eyes widened in understanding. Though he took no pride in it, he was aware of how his tall form and handsome face affected some women. She spoke Belaskian with a Numanese accent.
'Journeyor Hygeorht? I'm sorry, but she is no longer with us. When she returned with old texts recovered from an abandoned fortification, Domin Tilswith gave her the duty of carrying them back to the home branch in Malourné. She is gone.'
Chane stepped back.
The apprentice looked at him with more interest, perhaps even compassion.
'You could write to her,' the girl offered, 'though a letter would take a long while to reach Calm Seatt. We do send regular correspondence on the eve of the new moons. I could include yours, if you like.'
He nodded, still backing away, as if the ground began slipping from under his feet.
'Yes… thank you. I will consider that.'
Wynn was gone, left for home across the ocean to another continent—another world.
Chane ambled listlessly through Bela's night streets, paying no heed to where he walked. He found himself at the waterfront, standing before the great warehouses and docks. And he stared out over the bay's night water sparked by a star-speckled sky. The only other light came from sparse lanterns hanging along the double-deck piers or on ships out in the wide harbor.
This was where Wynn had boarded and left for the Numan lands, long gone from any chance to catch one last glimpse of her…
'Sir, will you be wanting tea tonight?'
At the voice, Chane was jerked from his reverie in his room in Calm Seatt. He stepped over and cracked the door.
The corpulent innkeeper, who he assumed was Nattie, stood outside. In the Crown Range north of the Farlands, Chane had picked up the habit of drinking tea. And only recently had he begun going out at dusk to track the folios. The innkeeper sometimes still checked in on him. He always paid his bill in advance, and the grease- stained owner treated him with decent manners, following a request not to knock during the day.
'No, thank you, not tonight,' Chane said, and closed the door.
Time was slipping away, and he had already wasted too much reliving events he could not change. He grabbed his cloak, sword, and packs, then locked the door and left the inn.
No one addressed him as he walked quickly through the darkening streets. Wearing a long wool cloak, he was nondescript. A few drunkards eyed him as they stumbled from a tavern, but they stayed well out of his way. He headed toward the better-lit and — maintained eastern merchant district.
He knew the location of the Gild and Ink, but cursed himself for not leaving the inn sooner. It was a long way off, even if he wasted energy bolting along back alleys. Any messenger sages may have already come and gone with tonight's folio. Yet he had to be certain, and walked quickly until approaching the correct street.
Rounding a corner, he slipped in beneath the eaves' shadows as he approached the scriptorium. The entire street was empty—no lights in the shops he passed, and he heard no voices—and he silently cursed himself again. Then he stopped one shop away, looking at the front of the Gild and Ink.
Chane slowly stepped forward to the scribe shop's corner.
All its windows were dark, like the other shops along the street, but the front door…
Shattered wood shards lay across the cobblestones before the Gild and Ink. In place of the door was only a dark opening into the shop. No scribes, no sages, the shop closed for the night, and someone had broken in…
Chane glanced at the door's remains. No, not in—someone had broken
He crept closer to see inside, but then voices reached him from down the street. Had someone seen this and called for constables? He could not be seen here, especially not now.
Frustrated, wildly wishing to enter the shop and see what had happened, Chane slipped into the shadows, moving quickly away.
Chapter 5
Rodian woke the next morning to knocking on his chamber door, adjacent to his office.
His needs were few—a bed, a basin to wash in, a mirror for grooming, and a chest for extra clothes. After spending long hours at each day's end filling out reports and updating log entries, he felt it best to have his personal space close at hand. He'd chosen an office with an empty adjoining room to convert for personal space.
Rodian sat up quickly, instantly alert. No one knocked this early but Garrogh, and not without a good reason.
The top drawers on both sides had been shoved outward, their locking mechanisms torn from the desk's front. The deeper bottom drawer on each side was still in place. The right was filled with journals or ledgers, but the left was empty.
He crouched and studied the broken desk, running a finger over the top's outer side, and then he glanced at the exposed edges of the desk's walls. He saw no marks of a pry bar, but he hadn't expected to find any. Whoever had done this had been in a hurry—and had strength to fulfill such urgency.
'What was in the folio?' Rodian demanded.
Master Shilwise's tone changed. 'Excuse me?'
'The pages—what did your people copy for the guild?'
Shilwise glanced at his two scribes, who were watching Rodian in equal confusion.
'How would we know that?' one of them asked.
'You were transcribing sages' notes, yes?' Rodian started coldly, and then he calmed. 'I take it what they sent was written in their script?'
Shilwise looked at him in surprise. 'You know of the Begaine syllabary?'
'Can you read it?' Rodian asked.
Shilwise's face tinged slightly pink. 'I fear not. I bought this scriptorium, so my title is master, but it is my business and no more. I hire certified scribes to do the work. I am not… a master scribe myself.'
'Like Pawl a'Seatt?'
