In Shade and Shadow

"Good hunting," a'Seatt said softly, and then rose and left.

Wynn stepped through the guild's main doors with Nikolas close behind. At panicked whispers, she paused and spotted a small cluster of initiates and apprentices in the entryway. Nikolas's eyes widened in like confusion.

Journeyors were scarce at the guild, as most were off on assignments, but neither did Wynn note any domins nearby. After supper initiates were supposed to be in their quarters if not in the common hall.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Two apprentices turned eyes on her. As they shifted aside Wynn saw Miriam, a stocky apprentice with a cloak draped over her gray robe. Another cloaked apprentice shivered beside her as if they'd both just come in from outside.

"Oh, Wynn," Miriam said, as if glad to see someone—anyone—of higher rank. "Domin High-Tower sent us to Master Shilwise's scriptorium to retrieve today's folio… and Master Shilwise wouldn't give it to us! He said the folio was too intricate, and his scribes hadn't finished. He wouldn't turn over unfinished work."

Wynn was stunned. Nothing sent by the guild was ever to remain overnight. That much, if nothing else, was well-known concerning the translation project.

"What about the drafts?" she said.

Miriam shook her head. "He said they would finish first thing in the morning, and he kept the whole folio. He shooed us out and locked up his shop! What is Domin High-Tower

"Yes," Wynn answered wearily. "Now, you two take off your cloaks. Nikolas, take them to the common hall and get some tea."

Without waiting for a reply, she headed off for the north tower.

When she finally climbed the curving stairwell to the third floor and approached High-Tower's study, the heavy door was shut tight. He did this only when he preferred not to be disturbed. Wynn grasped the iron handle anyway.

Muffled voices rose beyond the door.

She didn't want to disturb whatever was going on inside, but if she waited the domin would be even angrier at not being told straight off. She'd barely raised a clenched hand to knock when someone inside half shouted—in Dwarvish.

High-Tower's home was Dhredze Seatt, the dwarven city across the bay on the mountain peninsula. The journey wasn't long, but she'd never known him to have visitors from home before. And whatever she'd heard passed too quickly for her to translate.

Wynn stood in indecision. She couldn't leave, but she shouldn't stay and listen either.

"You will stop!" someone roared from inside—or so Wynn thought. And the voice had a strange quality, like gravel being crushed under a heavy boot.

She read Dwarvish quite well, but their written terms didn't change as much as their spoken words. Unlike Elvish, even the old dialect of the an'Cróan, pronunciation of Dwarvish mutated over generations. Yet the dwarves never faltered in understanding one another. When she was a young girl, Wynn's tutor in the language had been High-Tower. She'd enjoyed attempting conversation with him, much as he smirked at her diction.

"It is not within my power!" High-Tower shouted back. "And unfair of you to ask."

"Sages—such foolish scribblers!" the first voice declared. "You will exhume our ruin!"

"Knowledge is not the enemy," High-Tower shot back. "And translation will continue."

"Then you risk betraying your own, to shame and remorse," a third voice shouted, "if you let others know what you find."

Wynn wasn't certain she understood it all correctly, but it was the best she could make out. And that new voice was so much different from the other. More somber and reserved than the first, though equally passionate, it held a strange warning. The first voice demanded that High-Tower put a stop to translating the ancient texts, but the other one seemed less resistant, so long as what the sages learned was shared with only… whom?

Footsteps pounded toward the door's far side.

Wynn scurried down around the stairwell's bend. She heard the door jerk open and held her breath as she peeked carefully around the inner wall's rising arc.

A dwarf stood in the open doorway, head turned as he looked back into High-Tower's study. Wynn caught only his profile.

Wide features, with a dim undertone of gray, were deeply lined as well as flushed in rage. He was old, though he stood strong and tall, at least as tall as Wynn but over three times her bulk. At best guess he had to be well over a hundred years old, as dwarves often made it past two hundred.

He swallowed hard, trapping anger down. And his attire was… stunning—like that of no dwarf she'd ever seen.

Over char-gray breeches and a wool shirt he wore an oily black hauberk of leather scales. Each scale's tip was sheathed in finely engraved steel, and two war daggers tucked slantwise in his thick belt had black sheaths with fixtures to match.