of freshly scribed parchments.
Master Shilwise never noticed the darkness within his shop's front room intensify as something bulged inward
A figure in a black cloak and robe wavered and then vanished. Its transparent form reappeared, wavering yet again, as if struggling to become real. Once wholly solid, it slid silently along the floorboards, through a stand bearing a displayed book, and into the rear workroom.
And still Master Shilwise was poised unaware above the parchments—until he shivered. The air had turned suddenly chill. He spun around, and his eyes widened as a hiss filled the workroom to its rafters.
'Reverent One!' Shilwise whispered, and swallowed hard. 'I'm relieved to see… I heard that you were…'
'Destroyed?'
With that one word, the hiss became a voice surrounding Shilwise. And the black figure went on.
'Or had you simply hoped so?'
The question seemed to coil about Shilwise, squeezing him with frigid cold.
'No!' he whispered, shaking his head. 'I would never. You've been more than generous for what you've asked of me!'
'And still, no one suspects?'
'That I can read the sages' symbols?' Shilwise finished. 'No, not even my own scribes. And with the way you ransacked my shop' — and a touch of bitterness leaked into his voice—'I'm the last person anyone would suspect to have ai®en ded you.'
The black-robed figure floated closer. Shilwise quickly slipped out of its way.
It approached the table, and its large, sagging cowl tilted downward over the parchments. Hands and fingers wrapped in frayed black cloth extended from the robe's sleeves and gripped the table's edge.
For an instant Shilwise thought he saw the table's wood through one of those hands.
The black figure wavered, its whole form turning translucent.
'Are you… all right?' Shilwise asked.
The visitor ignored this question. 'All of them are here?' it asked, still looking upon the parchments.
Shilwise nodded. 'All the extra copies I made, in plain language… both from what my shop processed, and what you acquired from other scriptoriums.'
'And what of the female journeyor?'
'I don't know,' Shilwise answered. 'I've heard nothing. And you asked me to have her watched only two days ago.'
'Has your spy learned anything of use? Where are the original texts?'
'Only hints and whispers, Reverent One.'
'Hints of what?'
'Something concerning dwarves,' he answered, 'some visitors glimpsed once or twice on guild grounds, wearing dark gray or black attire. But they weren't actually seen coming or leaving; they were just there. But… now that Pawl a'Seatt is the only one working for the guild, I'm uncertain how to proceed.'
The black figure appeared to sag, one hand slipping through the table, and then it straightened.
'Reverent One?' Shilwise asked, uncertainty thick in his voice.
'No… you have been fully hindered and can go no further.'
The hand that had slipped lifted up.
Shilwise watched as those wrapped fingers extended before the black cowl's opening. Some effort seemed to be applied, for the hand became solid once more. It lowered but slowed before reaching the table… and shot straight for his throat.
Shilwise's face twisted, eyes and mouth widening to their limit.
All that came from his throat was a strangled gargle, then a choke, and not another sound. He tried to claw at the figure's wrist, to break that grip. His hands kept slipping straight through the figure's arm, and merely thrashed in the air.
No one else was there to watch the color fade from his flesh and hair, nor look into his eyes as his irises whitened as well. There was no one to watch the figure's form solidify as Shilwise's life faded completely. When it released its grip, the scribe master dropped straight to the floor.
Shilwise's body twitched briefly in a last spasm, like a bloated, pallid frog.
And the figure flexed its seemingly solid fingers.
The hiss rose again in the room, filled with strange relief. Its hand settled upon the sheets, carefully turning them one by one. Then its noise laced with frustration. What it sought was not here—there were only names no one should know…
The figure's cowl turned toward th³urn'3'e ashen body left crumpled on the floor. Its purchased servant could not be found in this condition. The city guard and officials already believed the 'sage killer' was dead and gone. And better to stay dead—though that twisted double meaning brought it no humor. No one could know it had not been so easily finished, at least until it found the young journeyor, misfit among her own kind. She might yet lead it to the texts, and to what any of this had to do with 'dwarves.'
As it reached for the oil lantern on the table, more names scattered across the pages made it stop.
The figure snatched up the lantern and slammed it upon the floor next to Shilwise's body.
The black figure turned over the last sheets, gathering up the stack as flames began to spread across the floorboards. But as it headed for the workroom's rear, it paused again with its cowl tilted down over the parchments.
One name had been missed in its hurried scan—one on the very first sheet—and a moan threaded in its hiss.
The sound rose above the fire's crackle until the rear window's pane rattled. The black figure shattered that window and pulled the parchment stack through the opening as it slid out through the shop's rear wall.
That one name had been kept hidden, as carefully as himself, for a thousand or more years.
His name… Sau'ilahk.
THE RANKS OF THE GUILD OF SAGECRAFT
