Barb & J C Hendee Noble Dead 07 In Shade and Shadow (v5.0)

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A faint odor tickled his nose. Not vinegar and linseed oil, but something else
just beneath that.
Chane sat up.
With fresh life filling him, his skin prickled lightly at dawn� "!s approach.
He heard someone out in the inn� "!s front room dump a log on the hearth. Chane
drew air deeply through his nose.
He got up and went to the stool he used for a worktable, carefully lifting the
scroll.
He� "!d never before noticed the scent beneath the solution� "!s pungent odor.
Or perhaps the solution, permeating and softening the hide sheet, had
revitalized something else. With the room� "!s air cleared and his senses
opened fully, he lifted the scroll, sniffing its black coating repeatedly.
At first he could not place the thin trace, but it sparked a memory.
In that lost mountain monastery of the healer-monks, called the Servants of
Compassion, he had fought with Welstiel and bitten into his undead
companion� "!s leg. As Welstiel� "!s black fluids seeped through his breeches,
Chane� "!s mouth filled with a taste like rancid linseed oil, and he smelled it
as well. . . .
That same odor rose faintly from the scroll� "!s blackened surface.
There had been worn and jumbled writings on the ice-crusted castle� "!s walls,
made with the fluids of an undead. The same scent had lingered thinly around
the writing.
Urgency made Chane� "!s hands shudder, until the scroll quivered slightly
beneath his fingertips. He recognized the scent, not from the ink coating
itself, but from something hidden beneath that blackness.
Chane smelled a hint of rancid linseed oil.
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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 what
he was. Finally, one evening he could stand the ignorance no longer.
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.
� SI am looking for news of an old friend,� " he rasped. � SDo 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.
� SJourneyor 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.
� SYou could write to her,� " the girl offered, � Sthough 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.
� SYes . . . 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. . . .
� SSir, 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,
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following a request not to knock during the day.
� SNo, 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 out.
He crept closer to see inside, but then voices reached him from down the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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