wanted and why. Besides Shade, who else did she have?
Her whole world had shifted in two days, from her being nearly alone to having two companions, each carefully watching along the dimly lit streets. She felt almost as she had in company with Magiere, Leesil, and Chap—almost.
As she slipped across Old Bailey Road to the wall, she glanced both ways for any sign of patrolling city guards. The road was empty, so she urged Chane left along the wall toward the bailey gate, keeping herself between him and Shade.
At least bluffing her way out of the keep provided one advantage: The guards at the portcullis didn't know who was a real sage or not. A fictitious domin named Parisean sending a «wolf» to escort a delayed scribe meant Shade might get back in on her own. If the dog pestered the guards enough, they would simply open the portcullis and let her in. Once Wynn was inside—if Chane could get her inside—she could go to the courtyard and bring Shade into the dormitory.
Shaded trotted close, brushing against her leg, and a memory appeared in Wynn's thoughts.
She saw through Shade's eyes and found herself peering across a large dark room filled with barrels and bundles lashed to the floor and walls. No, not a room, but the belly of a ship. And she saw Chane on the hold's far side. He opened an old chest, glanced inside, then looked about as if something were missing therein.
Another memory came of Shade watching Chane from the shadows as he moved about the ship at night.
'You were both on the same ship?' Wynn whispered.
Chane glanced back at her.
'Shade says you were both on the same ship.'
'How…?' And he glanced warily at the majay-hì. 'I will tell you everything later. First we must get inside and out of sight.'
But those flashes from Shade left Wynn wondering more about her disparate pair of companions.
'Why doesn't Shade sense what you are?' she whispered. 'She is like Chap, and her kind hunts yours.'
Chane didn't answer at first. It still struck Wynn as odd that Shade hadn't turned on him the night they both came to her aid against the wraith. Since taking Shade in, Wynn constantly monitored her own thoughts—or rather her memories. The majay-hì's dependence upon memory-speak meant there was no way of telling when or if Shade might dip into her mind for rising memories. Wynn didn't want Shade to learn the truth about Chane at the wrong moment.
Chane stopped and held up his left hand, spreading his fingers, but Wynn still didn't understand.
'The ring,' he whispered. 'Welstiel made it long ago… called it the 'ring of nothing. I took it before Magiere finished him. It seemed to protect him from Magiere's and Chap's awareness. He was also able to shield those he touched, perhaps expand its influence further through his skills.'
Wynn swallowed hard and quickly suppressed rising images of Magiere speaking of Chane's actions within the orb's cavern. He'd used his sword to slice off several of Welstiel's fingers. In the aftermath, Wynn had wanted to believe Chane was trying to help Magiere. She hadn't truly believed it even then, and now…
Disgust must have surfaced in her expression.
'I could not have escaped the castle without it,' he said defensively. 'You asked, and I told you—far more than you have said concerning your staff and its crystal. I assume you went to great lengths to acquire it— yes?'
Wynn mutely pushed him onward.
They came within yards of the bailey gate, framed by its two small barbicans. It was shut tight, and Wynn flattened against the wall.
She couldn't step out and open it to let Shade through—not in plain sight of the portcullis guards. Shade would have to draw one of them down. Wynn couldn't think how to explain this with memories.
Then Shade ducked around her and headed out.
'What is that animal doing?' Chane hissed.
Shade paused before the gate, looking back, and a memory rose in Wynn's head… her own memory of running the other way along the inner bailey wall.
'Come on,' Wynn whispered, and pulled on Chane's arm. 'She knows what to do.'
When Wynn reached the bailey wall's southern turn, Shade's first barks filled the quiet night. The dog was drawing attention to herself. Hopefully one of the guards would let her back inside.
Chane stalled and looked back along the wall. A strange, wary tension flooded his features at the dog's noise.
Wynn jerked him onward. Creeping around the wall's bend, she watched for city guards in the open road.
'So… what do you have in mind for us?' she asked.
'To scale the wall,' he answered, and before she blurted out disbelief, he pointed along the wall's southeastern side. 'Get to the corner where that jutting barbican joins the wall.'
Wynn looked ahead. A shallow inward corner existed where the bailey wall bulged outward in a wide half- round shape, like a small tower. In older days, when the royals' ancestors lived here, soldiers and archers could've stood atop that open barbican and fired along the wall's outside. Should enemy forces have breached the original outer bailey wall, now broken into remnants, this would be the last line of defense against a direct assault upon the keep.
Wynn scurried along the wall's base and ducked in beside the barbican's outward surge. As Chane joined her, she tilted her head back and peered upward.
The tops of the wall and barbican were beyond the height of a footman's pike, as any sensible fortification should be. She could still hear Shade barking in the distance.
'Now we climb,' Chane said, and unshouldered his pack. 'You first.'
Wynn glowered at him. 'No one can climb this.'
He withdrew a coil of narrow rope from his pack, but there was no weight or hook on either end. Obviously it was just something he still carried from his travels rather than part of any carefully considered plan. He began making a large loop in one end, and Wynn couldn't believe they were going to try this.
Chane collected rope coils with the loop. He glanced both ways along the road, stepped away from the wall, and flung the gathered rope upward.
The rope uncoiled, but its end barely cleared the barbican's wall through a space between two rising ramparts. Chane huffed in irritation. Wynn didn't know why until he pulled on the rope, and it all came tumbling down. She realized that he was trying to loop one of the ramparts.
'Did you even think this through?' she whispered.
'I do not recall you offering a plan of your own.'
She wasn't sure what angered her more—his half-witted scheme, or that she couldn't think of a better one.
Chane crouched against the wall and drew his sword. Before she could berate him again, he pulled off his cloak. He wrapped it around the blade and cinched the material tight by knotting the rope around the sword's midpoint. Wynn watched as Chane flung his muffled makeshift anchor, and then flinched at the dull thump somewhere above.
And that was all she heard.
Wynn straightened, looking off toward the rounding of the wall's southern corner. Shade had stopped barking.
Chane stood with the rope's end in hand and looked off the same way. 'Is she in?' he whispered.
'I don't know. Maybe,' she answered, and Chane scowled at her. 'I think she needs a line of sight to… Oh, never mind, just hurry up!'
Chane pulled on the rope, and it drew taut this time.
Wynn crept along the barbican curve but didn't make it far enough to peer around. The soft clomp of boots on cobblestone carried along the street. She quickly sidled back along the wall, waved at Chane, and jabbed a finger back the other way.
Chane glanced once and couched low. He hooked a thumb in the air over his shoulder, pointing toward his own back. Wynn went wide-eyed and glanced up the wall.
