In Shade and Shadow полностью

The coating of old ink, spread nearly to the scroll's edges, had lightened with a thin inner trace of blue-white. Whatever covered the words had been made from a natural substance, and even after ages it still retained a trace of elemental Spirit.

Within that space pure black marks appeared, devoid of any Spirit at all.

"I can see them," she whispered.

"What is there?" Chane asked.

"It's Sumanese," she breathed out, trying not to gag. "Old Sumanese… I think."

But those swirling, elaborately stroked characters weren't written as in the other texts. Short lines began evenly along a wide right-side margin. Written from right to left, they ended erratically shy of the page's left side. The lines of text appeared to be broken into stanzas of differing length.

"It looks like a poem," she whispered. "But the dialect… I can't make out what it says."

She tried, but only a few words seemed vaguely familiar compared to what little she knew of contemporary Sumanese.

"Children… twenty and six steps… to hide… five corners?" Wynn mumbled. "To anchor amid… the void."

She skimmed down the page, at a loss over how little she could translate. Those black characters blurred for an instant under her shifted gaze.

"Consumes its own… of the mountain under… the chair of a lord's song?"

The dark marks blurred again, though she hadn't moved her eyes. Wynn's stomach convulsed.

"My journal," she moaned, buckling forward. "Get me something to write on. Quickly!"

Three labored breaths passed before she felt Chane lift her hand and fit a quill between her fingers. She raised her head as he slid a blank sheet in next to the scroll. Wynn began to write, not even trying to read anymore, and Chane guided her hand each time she tried to re-ink the quill's head. She had to keep her sight clear and be certain of each blindly copied stroke.

The «Children» had to be the same as those she'd read of in the translations, but what of "twenty-six steps," "hide," and "five corners"? The only thing she remembered was that Beloved—il'Samar, the Night Voice—had sought refuge when its Children "divided." And she had no idea what "the chair of a lord's song" meant. And how could a «mountain» be under a chair?

Häs'saun was a Sumanese name, and as one of Li'kän's companions perhaps he had written this cryptic work. But why had he hidden it under the ink? Or had someone else done so later? Why hadn't it been destroyed instead of being painted over so that no one could read it?

Nausea sharpened again, and Wynn choked as Chane grabbed her arm.

"Enough," he said. "Whatever you have so far is enough!"

No, it wasn't. She had to get it all, or she might never learn to understand its hidden meaning.

"Wynn, look away!" Chane rasped. "Now!"

She looked up.

He was the same as he had been before her sight came. No white mist or black void overlaid him, and her nausea weakened.

"Twenty and six steps… five corners," she mumbled.

A low growl rose behind her, and Wynn glanced over her shoulder.

Shade's bright form stood upon the bed, but she now faced the other way, toward the wall and its one narrow window. Her snarls kept growing.

"What is wrong with her?" Chane asked.

Shade cut loose an eerie wail.

Wynn had heard that before. There was no other sound quite like it in the world. And it had poured from Chap's jaws—whenever he picked up the presence of an undead.

But Shade was wailing inside Wynn's room, inside the guild.

"No!" Wynn moaned.

Shade spun and leaped off the bed, straight over to Wynn.

The stone wall around the window blackened as it bulged inward.

Chane jerked on Wynn's arm, heaving her across the floor toward the door.

"Run!" he rasped.

Searing pain ignited in his hand as he jerked out his sword.

The majay-hì's yowling snarls battered at his ears as the animal spun about before him to face the bed.

The black figure—the wraith—slid through the wall.

It stood in the bed, as if it were not truly there. As if it were real and the bed was not. Chane looked into its voluminous cowl but saw no face within the black pit of cloth. Then the cowl turned downward, its opening fixing upon Wynn.

Chane raised and leveled his blade, knowing it would have little effect. All he wanted was to catch this thing's attention and distract it long enough for Wynn to get out.

The hood snapped up, and its black-filled opening turned on him. It remained where it stood, the lower half of its robe and cloak penetrating the narrow bed.

Perhaps after their last encounter, it did not wish to touch him again. He could use that. But the dog's noise must have awakened everyone in the building, if not elsewhere on guild grounds.

The figure hung there as if studying him. Beneath the dog's wailing and snarls, a low hiss rose, like whispers too hard to hear. It seemed to come from everywhere in the room.

Chane heard startled voices in the passage outside the room's door.