Of Truth and Beasts

“I’ve never seen it before,” she answered. “But it was once a lavish inn for wealthy patrons. When the owner passed away, there was no heir and no one bought it. It became city property, left in disrepair for many years, until the guild finally purchased it for almost nothing.”

Wynn scanned the front of many windows, appearing well satisfied.

All Chane saw was a nondescript building that had been too hastily stained without the boards being properly stripped and cleaned.

“The front parlor should be part of its library,” Wynn added. “I’ve heard it’s well designed to serve our needs.” She stepped up onto the porch landing and knocked at the front door. “Hello?”

Though well into the evening, it still was not late. The second bell for quarter night had not rung until they were off the piers. Chane assumed someone would still be awake, and he was not wrong.

The door opened, and a short, middle-aged woman in a teal robe looked out. Taking in Wynn’s gray, short robe, she smiled pleasantly. Chane wondered if Wynn might be better treated where no one truly knew her.

“Journeyor Hygeorht of Calm Seatt,” Wynn introduced herself, “with a message for Domin Yand. Do you have rooms to spare?”

“Of course,” the woman answered, waving them all inside. “I’m Domin Tamira. The annex is never but half full. You can take your pick of rooms on the top floor. Have you had supper?”

Wynn and the domin continued chattering away as Chane stepped in, though Shade pushed past, hurrying after Wynn. Ore-Locks came last. They all passed through the wide foyer and into a comfortable sitting room filled with old, overpatched armchairs and small couches, along with bookcases stuffed with volumes, some as old and worn-looking as the building itself.

Chane backed around Ore-Locks to the parlor’s entrance. “Wynn?”

The domin’s thin eyebrows rose at his maimed voice, and Wynn paused in her chatting.

“Yes?”

“I will go out ... for a few missing supplies and return in a while.”

She tensed slightly before nodding. “Yes. Find me when you’re done.”

Chane set down the travel chest and pulled off his own pack, leaving it by the door with his old sword. He kept Welstiel’s pack over his shoulder.

“What could we need at this point?” Ore-Locks asked, watching him closely.

The ship’s crew had seen to their meals on the voyage. They had not delved into their supplies.

Chane ignored him and left.

Sau’ilahk materialized in a cutway beside a fishmonger’s stall down the street from the old building. He had kept his distance along the way, so that neither Chane nor Shade would sense him. As Wynn knocked, a domin of Conamology had answered.

Sau’ilahk knew of guild annexes, though he’d never bothered with one in his centuries. What could Wynn possibly seek in this out-of-the way place?

He had not risked getting close to the ship to hear anything she might say, and tonight was his first safe opportunity. His only method was through a servitor—a minor but complex elemental with enough awareness to be his eyes and ears. He cleared his thoughts, preparing to exert energy into conjury.

The annex’s front door opened again, and Sau’ilahk paused.

Chane stepped out alone and strode off inland along an adjoining street.

In brief moments in Dhredze Seatt, Sau’ilahk had clearly sensed Chane as an undead. Other times, as now, he seemed more like a solid apparition—seemingly not there to Sau’ilahk’s senses, and yet somehow there to see, hear, or even touch.

Sau’ilahk hung in indecision, wondering whom to spy on: Wynn or Chane? He finally blinked to the corner, spotting Chane moving on with a steady gait.

Chane picked up his pace when he breached the city’s inland edge. Trotting into the surrounding farmlands, he let his senses widen fully. Even with the brass ring on, somewhere ahead he smelled life, alone and isolated. Perhaps it was his hunger that overrode the ring’s dulling of his senses.

He kept on, losing track of time, and wishing to be farther away before attempting what he had planned. Traipsing through a copse of near-leafless maples, he peered out over a fallow field to a small, thatched barn. Smoke drifted lazily from the clay chimney of a nearby cottage. He silently closed on the barn, pausing, listening for anyone nearby before entering.

It was a poor little place, with only three cows stabled inside. The nearest one had a black face and tan body. Kneeling on the hay-strewn floor, he dropped Welstiel’s old pack and dug inside it to pull out an ornate walnut box.

Chane opened the box to study three hand-length iron rods with center loops, a teacup-sized brass bowl with strange etchings, and a white ceramic bottle with an obsidian stopper. All rested in burgundy padding. He slipped back in memory to the first time he had seen Welstiel use the cup.

They had been starving in the rocky, jagged wilderness of the Crown Range north of his homeland when they came upon an elderly wandering couple huddled by a campfire. Chane had wanted to lunge, but Welstiel stopped him with a warning.