The Night Voice

Chapter Four

Days slipped into nights, until Chap nearly lost count as various ships carrying him and Chane sailed north up the entire continent. One evening, as the sun dipped lower, he stood on the deck of a small ship in the chill air and looked out at a snow-crusted shoreline.

All land in sight appeared glazed, frosted, or frozen, but he knew where he was, as he had been here before. He focused on a coastal settlement ahead along the shore.

“White Hut!” a sailor called from the bow.

Dusk was near, though the captain would not force him to disembark until Chane awoke. Though it had grated on Chap at first, he had grown reluctantly accustomed to playing Chane’s “dog” after so many days and nights.

In the early part of the journey, he had wondered how Chane would manage long-distance travel since he fell dormant the instant the sun rose. Yet this had proven surprisingly easy. Chane simply told any vessel’s captain that he suffered from a skin condition and could not be exposed to daylight. Odd as it sounded, no one questioned him. Some, such as the first mate of this ship, had even expressed sympathy.

The journey so far had passed without incident. From the Suman port, they sailed directly to Soráno, where Chane had proven useful. He already knew where the caravaners camped beyond the city and quickly found one group loaded up for a journey to a’Ghràihlôn’na—“Blessed of the Woods”—and the central settlement of the Lhoin’na.

Chane had offered both Osha’s and Shade’s services as caravan guards in exchange for passage. He paid Wayfarer’s fee in coin.

While Chap would never admit it, he would not have managed this so easily on his own. After that, all that remained was a somewhat painful good-bye to Wayfarer and to Osha as well. His panic at leaving them to a foreign people and land did not pass quickly. He had to trust that Shade and Osha would guard the girl as much as possible in whatever she would face. He still believed her safer in this than in following Magiere and Leesil.

Parting from Shade had been painful in a different way, and at best civil.

There could be no reconciliation after what Chap had done to his unborn daughter, left behind long ago, and the only glimmer of what little trust might now exist between them was one he had not recognized at the time.

Often during the voyage’s first part, Wayfarer could not stand remaining in the cabin she shared with Osha and Chap himself. Shade always slept in Chane’s cabin. One day, Chap had gone up on deck to find Osha sitting on the cargo hatch’s edge with Wayfarer at the rail nearby.

Shade was there next to the girl.

With her forepaws on the rail as she too looked out over the water, she must have heard or sensed something. Shade glanced back once at Chap and returned to watching the ocean with Wayfarer. At least Shade had accepted the girl as her new charge, but something more did not occur to Chap until later that day.

Shade had left Chane unguarded.

Whether she believed her father would not act against Chane, or that no one would, considering he was now necessary, Chap would never know. Chane did check in with everyone whenever he rose after dusk. Those were tense times at best, but there were others late at night that only Chap noticed.

While he lay half asleep on the end of Wayfarer’s bunk, he had often heard Chane’s cabin door open. Then came bootfalls in the outer passage ... mimicked by a set of clawed paws.

Chane did not need to be guarded at night. That any majay-hì kept company with an undead was unsettling. That she, his daughter, did so by choice burned him with anger and pain, but he swallowed both and kept silent.

Later, upon seeing the young trio off with a caravan, there had been little more than plain acknowledgment from a daughter for a father; more than she had ever shown him, though less than he wanted.

Then ... when Chap had reboarded with Chane, it was just the two of them. They took to one cabin so as not to waste what coin was left. They had little to say to each other and even more limited methods with which to say it. Along the journey north, it had been necessary to change ships twice.

Chane had proven himself frugal, retaining enough coin for their return journey. Before leaving the others, everyone had shared and separated their differing coins. The total proved worrisome until Ghassan contributed a surprising amount, which he claimed comprised the secretly amassed reserves of his sect. Magiere could be prideful over anything she considered “charity,” but even she said nothing when all was thrown in and divided.

Along the journey, Chap had watched Chane carefully, ready to take him down if he showed any inclination to feed upon the ship’s crew. This never happened, though, which left Chap wondering about how often a vampire needed to feed. Perhaps they could survive for longer periods than he would have thought. He had no intention of asking. Wynn had once assured Magiere that Chane fed only on livestock. Neither Chap nor Magiere believed this, and there was no livestock aboard the ships they occupied.

Now he stood on deck as White Hut came into view.

The sun dipped below the horizon as the vessel anchored offshore from the trading station, as there were no docks. Shortly after, the aftcastle door opened.

Chane emerged in a heavy cloak. Sometimes it bothered Chap that he no longer felt any instinctual impulse to snarl in the undead’s presence. Because of Chane’s brass ring, it was also unnerving not to sense when Chane came near unless Chap saw, smelled, or heard him approach.

“We have arrived?” Chane asked as he approached the captain.

Captain Nellort was a bulky, grisly man who wore a variety of patchwork furs. Strangely enough, he smelled worse when he was not bundled up.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “It’s White Hut.”

“Will you be sailing onward?”

“No, this is our last landfall,” Nellort answered. “We never go farther north than here.”

Chane hesitated, and Chap grew anxious. They needed as quick a return as possible once the two orbs were recovered.

“Why not?” Chane asked.

The captain pointed ahead. “Winter’s coming. The sea will start to freeze for leagues out from shore. Only Northlander longboats travel where nothing but the ice shifts and flows ... and can crush anything that can’t be dragged over the top of it.”

Chap let out a hissing breath, though no one noticed. If only they had headed north at least half a moon earlier. Now they would have to find yet another ship ... or rather wait for one to head up north this far.

Chane nodded to the captain. “I need to hire a guide, sled, and dog team.”

Chap turned a quick glare on Chane. Had the vampire bothered to ask him, he could have provided this information.

“Well, White Hut’s the last stop up here,” Nellort said. “You might find a guide and team still willing to head out. You’d do best to look for a Northlander. Most speak passable Numanese, though you’d be wise to keep two eyes on any you hire.”

Chane merely nodded.

Then he commandeered a few men to assist him and went below while Chap remained on deck. Sailors were already stacking crates along the deck to off-load before the trading post’s skiffs arrived, and none looked his way. They had already grown accustomed to him not bothering anyone. By the time Chane returned with the two men, he had both his packs and hauled one empty chest. The sailors brought the other two, and Chap spotted the longboat skiffs coming closer. The captain put Chane and Chap on the smallest to be put ashore before the cargo was loaded.

With two square sails furled to single cross poles on stout masts, the long boat felt narrow and wobbly compared to a Numan ship. It was still easily half the length of the vessel they had left. When the prow nudged to a halt on shore, Chap leaped out, clearing any water. Chane followed and then helped to off-load the chests.

And there the two of them stood as the longboats went back out for cargo.

Chap looked up at Chane with a quick rumble, as if to ask, “Now what?”

Dropping to one knee, Chane dug through a pack and withdrew the rolled goat hide covered in letters and words Wynn had inked on it. Chane rolled out the hide.

“How did you, Magiere, and Leesil hire a guide?” he asked.

This method of speaking was slow, but it worked. Chap pawed out the answer.

Main big hut. Ask.

Chane looked toward White Hut. Even from a distance, both of them could see a plank over the door with unrecognizable characters. Black smoke rose from the haphazard chimney made from large bits of now-blackened bark. The rest of it was a dome of sod, as if it had been dug into or made into a large hillock.

“There?” Chane asked.

Chap huffed once for “yes” and began pawing at more words and letters. Chane again followed along.

“How will I carry the chests?” he asked, and then peered along the shoreline. “Wait here.”

Torches and two lanterns were enough for both of them to spot two boys skipping stones out into the ocean. Chane approached them and held out a coin, likely a Numan one. He pointed back to the chests near Chap, mimed the act of picking something up, and pointed to the large sod dome with the bark chimney.

The boys exchanged a few words, the taller one smiled and reached for the coin, and Chane raised it out of reach. He twisted aside and extended his other arm toward the chests. The slightly shorter boy rolled his eyes and led the way.

Neither balked at the sight of Chap, as they likely saw him as only a big sled dog. Most of those were descended in part from wolves. The boys each hefted a small empty chest, and Chane slung both packs over a shoulder as he grabbed up the third one by an end handle.

All four made their way toward the main hut.

Once inside the sod dome, the boys were paid, and they hurried back out.

Though it was not cold inside, Chap shivered. Memories of everything that had happened the last time in the wastes rose up. On his previous visit, this place had been the beginning of a long nightmare.

Oil lamps upon rough tables made a glimmering haze in the smoky room. Stools and a few benches surrounded these on the packed dirt floor between the long, faded plank counter atop barrels and the crude, clay fireplace in the back wall.

The whole place was crowded.

Perhaps thirty people, mostly men, all dressed in furs or thick hides, sat, stood, or shuffled about. More than a few sucked on pipes or sipped from steaming clay and wooden bowls or cups. Most wore their hair long, and it shimmered as if greased. All had darkly tanned skin for humans.

The sight of every one of them made Chap cringe, for one that he saw only in memory was not present. Would he find ... see that one—that body—when he went for the orbs?

Chap quickly pushed this aside, not wishing to think of that name, let alone a face.

No one looked much at him though many glanced sidelong at Chane, who looked out of place with his near-white skin and red-brown hair. A few glanced toward the place’s entrance as if the boys were still there. Perhaps Chane’s transaction in coin rather than trade with those two had drawn attention.

Chap stepped forward, gauging the men at the tables. Chane followed a half step behind and let him take the lead here. Finally, Chap fixed on a lone man smoking a long-stemmed pipe and taking short sips from a dark clay mug.

He was perhaps thirty years old, though he looked worn for that age, with a round face and thick black hair. He wore a shabby white fur around his shoulders. His boots were furred but well-worn. A heavy canvas pack was propped against the legs of his chair, immediately within reach. He was obviously used to being on the move.

His hands were calloused and scarred.

Chap dipped the man’s mind for any rising memories. At first, he saw nothing ... except maybe an echo of himself. Then came an image of dogs running ahead of a sled.

Chap huffed once for “yes,” and Chane stepped immediately ahead.

“Pardon,” Chane said. “Do you speak Numanese?”

The man looked up from his mug. “Some.”

“I wish to hire a guide with a sled.”

The man studied Chane’s face.

Chap had known Chane back when his skin had not been quite so translucent. His eyes had once held more color too, a deeper brown as opposed to their light brown, almost clear appearance now. The longer he existed as an undead, the more these changes became apparent.

Chane ignored the guide’s scrutiny and held up a pouch. “How much?” he asked, implying he already knew the man’s trade. The man set down his pipe and gestured to a chair across the table. Chane sat. Chap positioned himself at the table’s open side between the two.

“I am Igaluk,” the man said. “How far inland do you travel?”

Chap and Chane had discussed this at length while on the last ship.

“Five days inland, southeast, and then five days back,” Chane answered.

Again, the man studied him. “So you know exactly where you go?”

“Yes.”

“Then why do you need a guide?”

Chane’s expression didn’t flicker. “I do not. I need someone with a sled and dogs.” He paused long enough to drop the pouch on the table with an audible chitter of coins.

Chap wrinkled his jowls, for that action and small noise would attract unwanted attention.

“And someone who does not ask many questions,” Chane added.

Igaluk shrugged. “I can take you.”

When discussion turned to price and needed supplies, Chap turned his attention to the rest of the room in watching for undue attention by anyone present. One awkward moment pulled his attention back to the bartering.

“Tomorrow ... night?” Igaluk asked sharply.

“Yes, as I said,” Chane countered. “Shortly past dusk.”

This was followed by Chane’s familiar explanation of a “skin condition.” There was the added complication that he also required a thick canvas tent with an additional tarp over it, which went well beyond the normal. When traveling on ship or in civilization, protection from sunlight was not difficult. The wilderness was a different matter.

These odd requirements made Igaluk’s dark brow wrinkle, though in the end he agreed.

With a nod, Chane rose. “I will meet you here, outside, tomorrow after full darkness.”

He turned toward the counter, and Chap followed. Chane then stopped to crouch as if picking something off the bottom of his boot. Glancing aside, he looked into Chap’s eyes.

“I will purchase the tent myself,” he whispered. “Then we set camp away from this place. Once daylight comes, you must keep watch and make certain no one approaches ... us.”

The bizarre nature of their situation suddenly struck Chap. He was to spend the following day guarding an undead—the same as ... the same one as his daughter.

With no other choice, he huffed once. As Chane rose and stepped to the trading post’s counter, to acquire what he needed, Chap’s mind drifted to the nights ahead. He knew precisely where he had hidden the orbs of Water and Fire. Something else might still be there as well. For in hiding those, he had done something unforgivable.

He had needed to take the body and mind of his last guide on that journey. Without hands of his own, there had been no other way to bury the orbs in secret. He now clung to that necessity—that justification—to do more and perhaps worse than was necessary.

Far to the south, Leesil crept along the nighttime sands of the Suman desert just below the foothills of the Sky-Cutter Range. They’d left Magiere, Wynn, and Brot’an back at camp at least half a league behind, as only he and Ghassan needed to reach a well the fallen domin claimed he knew of. They both carried two large, empty waterskins.

Stealing water out here was more than thievery, worse than murder. It meant the deaths of many in taking something that so many needed to survive. They would both be killed if caught, and although Leesil knew they had no choice, he didn’t like this. He also didn’t like depending on anyone except Magiere or Chap ... or even Wynn, sometimes.

Worse, without Ghassan, he wouldn’t have known what to look for, and he still wasn’t certain. Wells were always hidden in some way as the most precious possession of a family, clan, or tribe. These peopled killed any but their own in order to get more if they ran out. Or at least that was what Ghassan had said. And yet the ex-domin knew where to find such, or at least where to look.

“There,” Ghassan whispered, pointing over the rock crest behind which they crouched.

Leesil looked carefully but spotted nothing.

“That cluster of small stones,” Ghassan added. “See how three larger ones are on top ... and would not be naturally? Someone put them there and kicked dust and dirt on them to hide any sign of the change.”

Once Leesil saw this, he recognized it for what it was. He and Ghassan had been forced to steal from eight other wells along the journey. Somehow—though Leesil didn’t know how—their luck had held. The key to thievery was to know what you wanted, take it quickly, and then get out.

Leesil didn’t hesitate.

With one last look about, he vaulted the rock crest, scurried light-footed down the gradual slope, and then ran for the three stones and crouched low. After another look around, he began removing stones, finding only dirt beneath them. For an instant he even thought of using the cold-lamp crystal Wynn had loaned him.

He wasn’t that desperate yet, for the light might give away their position.

Carefully, he began spreading and probing the parched, dusty earth with his fingers. And there was something there. He felt a hard but flexing semi-smooth surface and brushed part of it clear. Though it was hard to see in the dark, this wasn’t the first time he’d touched that kind of hardened leather.

Leesil found the edge of the thick, leather plate and flipped it quietly off to stare down into a black hole in the packed earth. There was no rope, bucket, or urn to lower. That would’ve made it easier for thieves. Or at least any who found this place and were unprepared.

Leesil softly clicked his tongue three times. The domin rose from hiding beyond the crest and hurried toward him. Leesil began unwrapping the leather-braid rope from around his waist.

Before he’d even finished, Ghassan bound the rope’s loose end to one waterskin’s loop handles. He then dropped a stone into the skin’s wide mouth to help it sink. Once Leesil finished unwrapping the rope’s other end, Ghassan dropped the skin into the hole.

Leesil lowered the rope until its tension slackened for an instant and then let it sink.

“Keep watch,” he whispered.

He was well armed, and Ghassan had his own methods of defense. Between the two of them, they could probably handle six or seven men. The danger was in being caught by a larger number. And out here, any group they’d spotted had been larger than that. They’d hidden from all of them.

In the desert, there were no stragglers or twos and threes. Larger numbers were the only way to survive.

The skin quickly grew heavy and was hard to draw up. Ghassan assisted him, and once the first skin was out of the hole, he tied it shut below the handles with a leather thong. And the next—and the next—skin was lowered.

Ghassan rose slightly and watched all around as each skin was dropped in. They both wore light, loose clothing, including dusky muslin over-robes and similar cloths bound around their heads to drape down their backs. This helped them blend into the landscape unless they moved suddenly.

Leesil’s mind flowed backward as he felt the last skin reach the waterline.

This journey already felt too long. They’d been delayed in the imperial city while Ghassan fussed over choices of supplies and necessities, particularly food that would last in the heat.

They’d also purchased tents, blankets, lanterns, and oil, even though most of them carried a cold-lamp crystal. On the day of their departure, Ghassan had told them to meet him outside the city, and then he’d vanished. Upon arriving at the agreed meeting place, Leesil, Wynn, Magiere, and Brot’an ended up waiting longer than Leesil liked.

When the ex-domin finally arrived, he was leading two camels. In a rush, they’d strapped the orb chests and supplies on the beasts and set off immediately after dark.

Leesil had always wondered exactly how Ghassan procured those expensive pack animals, but he never asked. At least they hadn’t had to carry the chests and supplies themselves.

The days that followed became monotonous amid the constant tension of trying to track something—without really knowing what—while not being seen or tracked themselves. And even when they’d gotten across the blistering sands and reached the foothills of the Sky-Cutter Range, there wasn’t much relief to be had.

The heat, even after dusk in the shadow of the peaks, kept increasing the farther east they went. They slept at midday, avoiding exertion, and then again at midnight. This kept on until Leesil lost count of the days and nights. And even so, by Ghassan’s reckoning of the new emperor’s reports, they hadn’t gone far enough east to scout for anything.

Along the seemingly endless slog, Leesil often wondered about Chap, his oldest friend, as well as Wayfarer and Osha among the elves. It still seemed madness that they’d split everyone up this way.

Leesil hauled up the last filled waterskin. While he rewrapped the braided rope around his waist, Ghassan tied shut the last skin and checked the others. There was nothing left to do but take up two each and sneak away for the long trek back to camp.

Leesil peered all around in the night. It appeared no one had seen or heard them ... again.

Ghassan started off, taking a few steps and looking back, but Leesil lingered looking—and listening—all ways in the dark.

“Well?”

The domin’s sharp whisper shook him into action, and he stepped off under the straining weight of two full waterskins. This was the ninth well they’d raided without being spotted or caught, and yet they weren’t even as far east as they needed to be.

Leesil began wondering how long this much luck would last.

Chane jogged beside the rushing sled with Chap out ahead and Igaluk running behind with the dog team’s reins. In this way, the only weight the dogs pulled was that of the supplies, equipment, and empty chests loaded on the sled.

The ground was frozen hard with enough crust and snow in most places for the sled. Winter up here came early, and the air was frigid.

Chane wore multiple layers beneath his cloak and hood along with gloves and a heavy, furred coat. Though he did not feel the cold, he was still susceptible to it. Without a beating heart, there was a greater risk of freezing than for a living man. Once, on a journey into the eastern continent’s Pock Peaks, he had been careless.

One of his hands had begun to freeze solid.

He never forgot that night and remained vigilant. Four nights had passed, and halfway into the fifth, each night seemed colder than the last.

A few times, Chap had changed course out ahead and altered their path. Each time, Chane instructed Igaluk to follow. If this seemed bizarre to the guide, he said nothing and had so far lived up to his bargain without unnecessary questions. But the days held even greater concerns for Chane.

He ordered Igaluk not to enter his tent, citing a need for privacy. Chap had always been on watch just inside the tent’s entrance, but this gave Chane no ease—quite the opposite.

Shade filled his thoughts in the moments before he could hold off dormancy no longer. The two of them had become trusted allies, even when separated from Wynn. And now, instead of her, he had an enemy who had hunted him more than once, lying within his tent and watching over him as he fell dormant and helpless each day.

When Chane rose again, the nights were always the same.

Chap was still watching, as if never having gone to sleep, and Chane’s thoughts turned to Wynn. He imagined her in the desert with the others—with Magiere—hunting for unknown undead. He shared that fear with no one here, and something more now plagued him in this fifth night.

He was hungry ... again.

Chane had promised Wynn that, so long as he wished to remain in her company, he would never again feed on humans. Since then, he had fed on only animals, usually livestock. Then another change came, but he had not told her of this one.

In their search for the orb of Spirit, they had traveled to the keep of an isolated duchy without knowing what they would find. In a single night, they learned of an orb hidden in the keep’s lower levels; the orb was being guarded and used by a wraith who was an old threat to Wynn.

The wraith, called Sau’ilahk, used that orb to transmogrify a young duke’s body.

After a thousand years as an undead spirit like no other, Sau’ilahk regained flesh.

But only for one night.

Chane’s only companion in the final hunt had been Shade. When they caught Sau’ilahk in the guise of the duke’s flesh, the wraith struck down Shade, and Chane thought her dead. He lost control, pinned the man, bit through his neck, and bled him to death. He fed from a body possessed by a thousand-year-old spirit who had served the Ancient Enemy.

Since that night, he had felt only a twinge of hunger a few times.

Those quickly passed, and he had feared and then hoped this change might last. While on the sea voyage north, he had felt that twinge twice again. Perhaps it had lasted a little longer than before, but now ...

It would not stop, and it was more than a twinge.

There was no livestock out here; there were only the dogs needed to retrieve the orbs.

Running beside the sled on this fifth night, he was too preoccupied, and Chap’s sudden bark startled him. He did not see Chap halt out ahead until Igaluk pulled his team to a stop with a harsh exclamation.

Chane ignored the guide’s barked demand and ran onward, dropping to one knee near Chap.

“Why have you stopped us?” he whispered. “Are we ... there ... here?”

Chap huffed twice for “no.”

Chane was lost for an instant, and as he was about to go for the talking hide, he understood.

“Somewhere nearby,” he whispered.

Chap huffed once and looked toward the sled.

Chane immediately got up and trotted back. He began digging out a pick and shovel they had procured in White Hut.

“What are you doing?” Igaluk asked, wrapping the reins on the sled’s handle as he stepped closer.

“You will wait here,” Chane ordered.

Before the guide could respond, Chane slipped the shovel’s handle through the end handles of two empty chests. He left the third chest in the sled and grabbed the shovel in the middle to lift both chests. Then he dug out the talking hide, stowed it under his coat, and took up the pickax as Igaluk stepped even closer.

“Why?” the guide demanded. “Where are you going?”

Chane ignored the questions. “I will be gone for a while, perhaps most of the night, but I will return. That is all you need to know. And you have our ... my belongings as security for my return.”

Without waiting for more arguments, Chane turned and headed for where Chap stood waiting.

“Go on,” he ordered.

Chap started off, and Chane followed, focusing on nothing but Chap. He paid some attention to the night landscape around him, mostly as a way to ignore the hunger. A long while passed before Chap slowed to a halt, as did Chane. When Chap still lingered, slowly looking about in the dark, Chane set down the chests strung on the shovel’s handle. And still Chap hesitated.

“Are you lost?”

Chap snarled in answer for Chane’s question. No—and yes—would have been the truth. He had purposefully taken a different path from when he had first hidden the orbs. It was not a matter of the guide seeing the hiding place that would never be used again. It was the orbs themselves that he wanted no one else to see ... and perhaps a secret more personal.

Now that he had a moment to get his bearings, he knew where to go for his first stop, and he lunged off across the snow-crusted ground. Sometime later, he slowed to a trot, for he could feel what he sought. Then he realized that he heard only his own steps and slowed to look back.

Chane had come to nearly a complete stop and set both chests on the ground. In the dark, it was hard for Chap to be certain, but it appeared Chane stared somewhere ahead as one of his hands worked at the other. Chap glanced back ahead as well.

Something gray in the night rose high out of the snow: a dome of granite with one side sheared off. And then Chap felt his hackles rise out of control. He heard something drop behind him, but before he could turn, rage swallowed him, followed by the urge to hunt.

“They are here.”

It was all Chap could do to suppress a howl as he swung around at that rasping voice. He fixed on Chane, whose hands were bare, and all Chap wanted was to pull that thing down and tear it ... him ... apart.

Chane quickly slid the brass “ring of nothing” back on his finger, but Chap still stood with teeth bared, eyes narrowed, hackles stiffened, and ears flattened. A peeling hiss like a cat’s warning escaped Chap’s clenched teeth with every breath steaming in the night air.

“My apologies,” Chane said quickly. “I needed to know ... if I could feel them, like the others.”

That was half of the truth; what he needed was to kill the hunger.

It faded as before in the close proximity to an orb, more so now that there were two. And even more in the instant he removed his ring. He had needed to have that sharper flood of relief. A thought occurred to him. Perhaps the reason he had not felt hunger for so long had been less about feeding upon the duke’s body than about traveling in the presence of the orb of Spirit when he accompanied Wynn south.

On this journey north, he and Chap had been sailing without an orb, and his hunger had slowly returned. Now that he was near an orb again, the hunger was gone.

Chap watched him expectantly.

Chane hesitated but then turned his gaze from Chap and crouched to pick up the ax and the empty chests strung on the shovel’s handle. Even as he rose—slowly—he did not look at Chap until he was ready to move on.

With a last grating hiss, Chap turned onward toward the huge half dome of granite.

Chane followed at a suitable distance in regained ease and clarity.

When Chap stopped before the sheered side of the granite dome, he turned and eyed Chane. Then he clawed at the crusted snow.

Chane hesitated again. This was Chap’s prearranged signal for a need of the talking hide when they were alone. Here and now did it mean something else? Was he to start digging on that spot?

With a low growl, Chap took two steps and clawed again on a different spot.

Chane set down his tools, pulled out, and unrolled the hide on the ground. Chap began pawing the letters and words.

You dig. I return soon.

Chane looked up from the hide. “Where are you going?”

Chap turned away and ran off around the granite.

Chane almost called out, not that he could have shouted with his maimed voice. He still quick-stepped back the way he had come to see Chap vanish into the sparse trees, and he stood there even longer in hesitation.

Sooner or later, Chap would return. He would certainly not wish to leave the guide waiting too long into the night. Nor would he leave two orbs in the lone hands of a longtime enemy.

With a grating hiss of his own, Chane turned back to start with the pickax.

Chap raced through the trees, though in the dark everything looked much the same. It took longer than he wished to search out what he sought.

There was no need for concern about Chane and the orbs; the undead’s obsession with Wynn and her wishes would keep the vampire obedient. Still, Chap was torn between turning back and going onward. He had to know—to find—one more certainty, now that he had returned so close to the place of his greatest sin.

He kept running in the freezing night.

To hide the orbs of Water and Fire, he had been forced to do something unspeakable. No one—not even the guide Leesil had hired for him at that time—could ever know the orbs’ last resting place. If only it had been their last place.

Once, he had existed as part of the eternal Fay. When he was born into flesh, his kin had removed many of his memories of his existence among them. So many that only later had he suspected what they had done to him. Upon finally confronting them, he had attempted to fathom what fragments he was missing.

Among those had been the notion of a first sin—their sin ... his sin.

So horrified by it, they had not wanted even him to remember it.

Upon creating Existence itself, a place to “be” other than in their timeless and placeless existence, they had learned they could “be” anything they perceived within this new existence. He had only suspected what that meant. His suspicion must have built itself upon something hidden deep inside from when he had been part of them that they could not extract.

Chap had led that first guide, named Nawyat, and his dog team well past a spot he had chosen along the way. Then he stopped as if for the night. This guide had been simple, kind, and even strangely charmed by a dog—a wolf—like no other.

It had been so easy to abuse simple Nawyat’s trust.

Chap invaded and took control of the man’s flesh while temporarily abandoning his own. He needed hands to dig frozen earth and to bury the orbs in secret. And when he had returned to camp ... returned to his own body ...

Nawyat lay within the tent, staring blankly up at nothing. He barely breathed.

Try as Chap had, he could not find one memory in the guide’s mind. He lay there beside Nawyat, trying again and again to find something of the man inside that husk of flesh. With Magiere and Leesil waiting down the coast, he was forced to leave.

He had enacted the sin, the first sin, of the Fay: domination—utter and complete—in mind, body, and his own eternal spirit.

Chap halted and stood in the same clearing where he had stolen Nawyat’s flesh. The place was bare, filled only with crushed snow. He could not even see sunken lines where a sled might have passed more than a season ago. Chap raced about, tearing up crust with his claws in search of any sign of that previous camp he had fled.

He couldn’t find anything.

He had broken with his own kin, the Fay, upon learning how much had been torn from him at his birth into flesh. Piece by piece he put together that they had wanted him to be simple, controllable, and viable as a tool. Had he agreed to this before separating from them?

His only purpose had been to keep Magiere—through Leesil—hidden away from her own nature, origin, and purpose.

Now he could not hold in his shuddering whimpers as he looked wildly about the empty clearing. Had Nawyat ever come back to his own flesh, or had that flesh simply perished, still empty in this place? Could a mortal’s mind and spirit ever return once its body was taken by an eternal Fay? Had someone found and rescued him, perhaps for him to only fade and die later? Had he been found only to be buried in hiding and have all of his possessions scavenged?

Chap would never know.

He stood there alone, quaking in the frigid darkness. Cold ate all the way into his spirit, but even that was not enough to numb the pain, to drive out the shame ... and his sin.

The one thing he had done that no one else would ever know.

Raising the pickax, Chane slammed it down again, breaking deeper into the cold-hardened earth. He took up the shovel and began digging again. He tried to call on his inner strength, to let that chained beast—monster—inside him partially awaken.

It did not.

There was no hunger to call it in the close presence of two orbs he still had not found. There was only his own anger to keep him going, as the hole grew.

Where was Chap? Where had that cursed majay-hì, bane of his life, gone to now?

He neither slowed nor rested until his shovel struck something hard, and it twisted in his grip. He stopped and squinted down, but the pit was already knee-deep or more. Not enough moonlight for even his eyes reached its bottom through the tall trees.

Chane leaned the shovel into the crook of one elbow to tear off his gloves and dig into a coat pocket. He pulled out the cold-lamp crystal Wynn had given him and stroked it harshly three times down his coat. It lit up instantly, and he crouched to claw at the pit’s bottom with his other hand.

His fingernails grated across something harder than frozen earth. Setting the crystal up on the ledge of the hole, he crouched again and began scraping away more earth with both hands and the shovel’s head.

Finally, he saw the lightly dimpled but smooth gray-black of an orb. Before long, he had freed it and lifted it, only to nearly drop it.

There at the side of the pit stood Chap.

“Announce yourself next time,” Chane rasped, expecting a response of spite in return.

Chap made not a sound, dropped his head, and stared into the pit. Then he looked to the orb in Chane’s hands.

Its central ball was made from a dark material, char in color rather than black. The surface looked like chisel basalt though it felt slightly smoother than such stone.

Atop it, now that Chane had righted it, was the large head of a tapered spike that pierced through the globe’s center. Spike and orb looked cut from the same piece of stone with no indication that they could be separated. But the spike’s head had a groove running around its circumference that would fit the knobs of an orb key or handle, or what some thought looked like a dwarven neck adornment, called a thôrhk.

Chap huffed for attention and lowered his head to look down into the pit.

Chane did not need to ask. He set the orb on the pit’s ledge and crouched to dig out the next one. When finished, he climbed out and pulled on his gloves and stood there with two orbs at his feet between himself and the majay-hì.

It took far less time to load the orbs into the chests, lock them shut, and gather the tools. All that remained was to haul the chests one by one a reasonable distance from the pit. So Chane did this with Chap guarding the second one that remained behind. Through all of this, Chap made not a sound nor showed any desire or need to communicate.

His absolute silence unnerved Chane. They had what they had come for, so should not Chap express some relief? Once both chests were together again, far from the open pit, the question remained as to which one of them would guard the orbs while the other went for the guide and sled.

Chane had his answer when Chap climbed up and settled to straddle both chests.