Meet me behind the stables south of the guild's grounds.
I need to speak with you.
The ragged note wasn't signed, and it was written in Belaskian, not Numanese. Even so, she would've known the handwriting anywhere.
Wynn didn't blame herself, but she knew she had to be part of the reason he'd traveled here. Even after all this time, she found her feelings toward him were conflicted. She just stood breathing for a few moments, rereading his brief note.
Of course she would go—if only to find out why he had come all this way and broken his promise to leave her alone. And she had to know of his involvement in the deaths and thefts, and what he'd been doing in Master a'Seatt's scriptorium, holding that folio.
Wynn looked up as two apprentices walked out the main doors and headed across to the southside barracks, where her own room was located. She couldn't get out the front gate, and she still needed a few things before she faced Chane.
She waited long enough for the pair to reach their own quarters, then hurried inside and upstairs. Reaching her room, she closed the door and leaned against it. Reading the note again, she remembered the first time Chane had come to the guild in Bela—the handsome young scholar. And then the night he'd appeared in Apudâlsat's dank forest, and she watched in horror as Magiere cleaved his head from his neck. And last, atop the Pock Peaks inside Li'kän's library, his features taut and rigid as he promised…
Those words had brought pain—and relief. His reappearance rekindled both.
Wynn took the crystal from her cold lamp and pocketed it before opening her small trunk to retrieve a warm cloak. Climbing to her feet, she spotted something else.
The staff leaned in a corner, the sun crystal atop it covered in the protective leather sheath.
Under Domin il'Sänke's tutelage, she had tried to ignite it only once. The best she got from it was a soft glimmer, and that had cost her. When it winked out, she felt as if she'd been hauling some heavy burden for ten leagues without water. And the next day she had been so tired that she could barely get up to eat.
Magic, even artificed permanently into an object, was no wonder to idly enact with quaint words and a flourish of fancy gestures. It was dangerous, taxing, and costly. She knew as much from the plague of her mantic sight. But still, even a glimmer of light with the nature of the sun might be enough if Chane could no longer be trusted.
She stared at the staff for a long moment of indecision, then grabbed it and headed out. In the outer passage she paused in frustration.
How could she get out of the keep, let alone unseen? There was only one possibility, and it was risky. Sighing, she headed for the stairs and out to the courtyard.
She tried to keep the staff close, wrapping the folds of her cloak around it, and hoped she didn't run into il'Sänke. He always seemed to
No one was in sight among the nearest tables or tall bookcases, but that might not hold once the evening meal ended. She hurried for the central stairs up to the top floor.
She'd spent little time in this building since her return. It was well organized and a welcome place for study and research. But it didn't hold the wealth of knowledge to be found in the archives. Generations of sages would enjoy the wide library's open design, with windows allowing in natural light during the day, so unlike the excavated catacombs below the guild. Premin Sykion constantly sought to improve it.
Long rows of oak shelves, attached stoutly to the ceiling, stretched out before Wynn. Specially designed cold lamps were mounted in the stone walls on small iron bases shaped like the bottoms of oil lanterns. Within those bases, t kthold he guild metaologers replenished treated fluids that generated a low heat. This fed the lamps' crystals, so there would always be light here.
Wynn heard soft voices several shelves off and headed quickly to the library's back wall. She reached the nearest window and peered out the finest panes the dwarves could make.
The new library was constructed behind the main keep at the back of the inner bailey. It filled the space all the way to the bailey wall. Wynn could see that the drop down to the wall's top would be easy, but the rest of her plan might prove more difficult.
She tucked the staff under one arm and propped the window open as quietly as she could. Climbing upon the sill, she clung to the window's frame for an instant before she hopped outward. Her knees buckled as she dropped atop the bailey wall's walkway; it was a little farther down than it looked. With one backward glance, she hurried along the old battlements.
Wynn rounded the eastern tower and headed onward, taking the chipped and faded stone steps below the southern tower into the orchard of barelimbed maple trees. She crept through the barren gardens toward the bailey gate before the gatehouse tunnel.
In getting this far, she'd successfully bypassed the closed outer portcullis. All that remained was to open the bailey gate. None of her peers or superiors would be outside, so she should be able to slip away without being seen. Slowly she crept to the edge of the nearest barbican framing the gate and peered out.
'Ah, no,' she whispered.
Two of the Shyldfälches stood just outside the portcullis. She hadn't heard of Rodian placing guards to watch over the guild, and she backed into hiding. Chane was waiting, but she had no idea how to get out unseen. Ghassan il'Sänke stepped to the library's window and watched as Wynn sped off along the wall. His grip tightened on the sill when he saw the staff in her hand. He shook his head and waited until she rounded the wall's turn beyond the eastern tower.
He had followed her, apprehensive of what she was up to and where she was going. In his long life, very little surprised him anymore. But earlier today he had been shocked upon learning that she had been granted access to the translated pages and the codex. She was neither mature nor experienced enough in the dangers of knowledge for such a thing. Then again, neither were some of the domins and masters of this branch.
Ghassan had seen the few ancient Sumanese passages he had been asked to help translate. That information alone had to be kept hidden at all cost. Still, he wondered what was in the rest of those folios, and perhaps even envied Wynn's special indulgence. Somehow it must have been facilitated by the meddlesome captain of the city guard.
What would happen if this knowledge, this Forgotten History, became known to the common people? So many ideologies and beliefs had eradicated what little was known of civilization's birth—and death—in the world. Or rather its fragile rebirth since that long-forgotten war few believed had ever happened at all. It was best left that way, even for what might lie ahead.
After supper he had planned to write another letter to his comrades at the Suman branch. Then he overheard someone mention a private message delivered for Wynn. He shadowed her, removing his presence from her mind, all the way from her room and through the library.
Ghassan briefly closed his eyes. Glimmering strokes and marks took form in patterns across the backs of his eyelids.
As an incantation slipped through his thoughts, he stepped off the windowsill, floated down to the wall's top, and walked quickly off after Wynn. He caught sight of her as she rounded the southern tower and headed along the keep's front.
But then she stopped, hiding near the closer barbican of the gate—for two of Rodian's men had been posted before the gatehouse. Ghassan watched her go back into hiding, and he frowned in indecision.
Perhaps he should just leave her with no way out. Let her abandon this covert journey and go back to her room. But then he would never learn what she was up to. Touching her thoughts might suffice, but her erratic mind often required wading and waiting for things to become clear.
Ghassan rubbed his eyes. He would have to get her off guild grounds himself. Closing his eyes again, he altered the patterns, lines, and sigils in his thoughts and then focused on the two city guards… on their senses… their hearing…
