Of all unsettling possibilities, this wasn't among the imagined worries that had run through Magiere's head.
"What makes him think any of his butchers would talk to you?"
"Because I'm Nein'a's son." He looked up, eyes sad and distant. "But he's lying. No matter what I do, I don't believe he'll release Nein'a-or us. You should've seen him..."
His eyes squinted and his mouth tightened as though he'd tasted something stale and bitter.
"Why go to such lengths?" Wynn asked. "By bringing you here, he has clearly alienated his people, even some of his caste. He must be desperate."
"Who better to hide from the Anmaglahk than an Anmaglahk?" Leesil retorted. "I think he's already exhausted his own means. I'm guessing my mother's refused to tell him anything in all these years. And I think he suspected my grandmother, but she's beyond his reach now."
"Chap, careful!" Wynn snapped. "I am not done... You are slobbering all over the pages!"
Chap was pulling Wynn's papers off the ledge seat, and Wynn couldn't keep up with him. He dropped them on the ground, separating the sheets with his nose, and began pawing the Elvish symbols.
"Ancient Enemy," Wynn translated.
They'd heard this from him before outside of Venjetz, when he'd tried to explain that it was Eillean's skull, not Nein'a's, that Leesil carried. And that Neina, Eillean, and perhaps even Brot'an, had some hand in a conspiracy surrounding Leesil's birth and training.
Chap continued, and Wynn shook her head in puzzlement. "He spelled out... 'il'Samar'... or as close as he could."
The name snapped a memory in Magiere's head.
She and Chap had closed on Ubad within a forest clearing near the abandoned village of Apudalsat. Enormous spectral coils of black scales had appeared in the dark between the wet, moss-laden trees.
"That's the name Ubad cried out before..." Magiere couldn't finish.
Looking at Chap with that memory in her head made her shiver. The dog had gone into a frenzy at the sight of those coils, which had seemingly come to Ubad's plea. They didn't answer the old man, but instead spoke to her, Magiere, in a whispering hiss of a voice.
Sister of the dead... lead on.
And then Chap had torn out the necromancer's throat.
"What do you know about this?" Magiere asked of Wynn.
"It is definitely Sumanese. 'Samar' is obscure, meaning 'conversation in the dark,' or something secretly passed. And 'il' is a prefix for a proper noun... a title or name."
Wynn shook her head with uncertainty and perhaps a taint of fright.
"Back in Bela, Domin Tilswith showed me and Chane... a copy of an ancient parchment believed to be from the Forgotten. I cannot remember the exact Sumanese wording, but it mentioned something called 'the night voice.' Perhaps... from what you told us of Ubad in that clearing..."
Magiere wasn't listening anymore. The name that Ubad had cried out echoed in her mind. And then came a piece of the vision that her mother's ghost had shown to her.
Her so-called half brother, Welstiel, walked alone in the courtyard of their father's keep. As Magelia came upon him, he whispered to himself in the dark... or in answer to a voice no one else heard.
Chap struggled with how much he should tell them-and how to manage complex ideas with only a few sheets of large Elvish letters. The idea that Most Aged Father had been alive during the ancient war seemed too much for the moment. There was no telling what Leesil, or even Magiere or Wynn, might do in this strained moment if they knew.
Leesil and Wynn were little help with their tangled debate and speculations, and Magiere seemed lost within her own thoughts. For now, it was enough that they learned of an enemy that was known by many names in many places-and that Magiere was never as far from its reach as she might assume. Chap knew better.
As he was about to bark for their attention, the room blurred slightly before his eyes. It was more like a waver in the living wood of the wall. Then it was gone an instant before he fixed upon it.
Chap shook his head and looked about. Nothing had changed, yet he had felt something. Elation and then anxiety rose in him.
Had his kin finally come? But surely not in the presence of others, especially those in his charge?
They would not reveal- themselves so explicitly to mortals. He sensed no echo within his own spirit that marked their presence and shook off the strange sensation. There was nothing here, and he was being foolish. Even so, the disruption left him restless. He padded to the outer doorway and stuck his head through its curtain.
Osha looked down curiously at him from the doorway's far side. Chap ignored him, and searched the trees.
There was no sign of Lily, and she had not been waiting when he emerged from Most Aged Father's home. Something about this place-and that one great tree-frightened her. It frightened all the majay-h, and they would not come near. Lily had only come to try to drag him from it.
He heard a soft whine and raised his ears.
The barest hint of creamy white showed beneath a bush of lilacs beyond one domicile tree. Between its lower branches, two crystalline eyes stared back across the open space at Chap.
Lily hid where she might not be noticed. For all her fear of this place, she had come back and silently watched for him.
Chap glanced up at Osha, but the young elf had not noticed her. He wanted to run beside Lily through the wild forest and let nature's ebb help him decide what course to follow.
He knew he should stay and help his companions consider this shackling bargain with which Most Aged Father tried to bind Leesil. Magiere and Wynn were also in danger here as unwanted outsiders. And in some way, great or small, this was all bound together by the hidden whereabouts of Nein'a. Chap's companions desperately needed to gain some element of power here.
Nein'a's location was the crux of it all.
If they only knew where she was imprisoned, that would remove a good deal of Most Aged Father's hold on Leesil.
Chap heard Wynn half-shout behind him, "This is futile! We will not figure this all out tonight."
"It's all we have to work with," Leesil growled back. "And I'm tired of waiting."
"Stop it, both of you," Magiere said. "Leesil, come take a bath and let it rest for now. I can't even think anymore."
Chap looked out to Lily hiding among the white lilacs. He caught her memories of the two of them running with the pack-and alone by themselves.
Unlike her, Chap could read and even recall and use another's memories within line of sight, but he could not send Lily his own without touching her. There was something he must tell her... something she and her pack needed to help him do.
He had no time to tell his companions and have them argue over it.
Osha still watched him, so Chap turned away from Lily as he slipped out.
He trotted down toward the riverside bazaar, hoping she would circle through the forest and follow. When he cut between a canvas pavilion and a stall made of ivy walls, she was waiting for him.
Lily slid her muzzle along his, until they each rested their head upon the other's neck.
Chap rolled his face into her fur and recalled Lily's own memories of her time with her siblings under the watchful eyes of her mother. He sent his memory of tall Nein'a and a young Leesil together.
He was not as adept as her kind with this memory speech, and his limitation was frustrating. He had "listened" in as Lily and one of the steel-gray twins did this. Memories came and went in such a quick cascade. Whenever she spoke to him, the images were slow and gentle in simple sights, sounds, and scents. She understood he needed time to learn their ways and always showed him patience.
Chap repeated the parallel memories of mother and child. This time, when he called the one of Nein'a and young Leesil, he pulled away Leesil's image, leaving Nein'a alone. He then recalled Lily's memories of her pack hunting in the forest, and did his best to mingle it with his own memory of the tall elven woman.
The last image he sent was one stolen from Most Aged Father-a memory that had now become his own. Cuirin'nen'a, in a shimmering sheot'a sheot'a wrap, sat in a glade clearing beside a basket of cocoons. wrap, sat in a glade clearing beside a basket of cocoons.
Lily grew still beside him. She sent him no memory-talk. She nudged his muzzle with her own and took off, out of the settlement and into the forest.
Chap raced after as Lily cut loose a howl. Somewhere in the distant trees, the pack answered.
"Where's Chap?" Wynn called out.
She sat alone on her ledge bed with the occasional splash coming from the bath area at the room's rear.
"At least one of us can get out of here for a stretch," Magiere grumbled from behind the curtain.
Wynn was a bit uncomfortable with Magiere and Leesil back there together, with only that gray-green fabric providing privacy. And with all the arguing over Most Aged Father's bargain and Chap's few troubling words...
She climbed to her feet. "Why would Chap slip out without telling us?"
"Who knows?" Leesil called back. "Stick your head out and call him, but don't go wandering about."
Wynn left the two of them to talk-or whatever they did in there. She pulled the outer doorway curtain aside and looked out, but Chap was nowhere in sight. Neither were Sgaile or even Osha. She stepped out for a better view.
There were no elves in sight, and Chap was gone. Both worried her.
Wynn took a few more steps, looking up and down the lane of cultivated trees. To her far left she could just make out the silent and still remains of the dockside bazaar.
"Chap?" she called in a harsh whisper.
Chap rushed into a gully behind Lily. Ahead, the pack waited by a tiny stream. The black-gray elder lifted his head from lapping water gurgling over stones.
Chap had not expected the pack to be so near, but they must have gathered to wait on Lily. As he approached beside her, the majay-h circled about with huffs and switching tails, one by one touching heads as they passed her or him.
Spry bodies surrounded him with warmth. One yearling colored much like himself charged playfully and butted Chap with his head. Chap shifted aside.
He rejoiced in their welcome, but urgency kept him from languishing. He was neither certain how they could help nor how he could ask. Lily seemed to understand but would the others? On impulse, he pressed his head to hers and again showed her the stolen memory of Nein'a's hidden prison.
Lily stayed against him, listening until he finished, then darted away.
She brushed heads with the large black elder. An instant later, the male turned and touched a passing steel-gray female, the other twin. The rest joined in, and Chap watched the swirling dance of memory-talk as it passed through the pack.
The elder's crystal blue eyes turned upon Chap.
The old one tilted his gray muzzle, and then hopped the stream and scrambled up the gully's embankment more fleetly than his age would suggest.
Lily trotted back to Chap and pressed her head to his. He saw a memory of the two of them resting beneath a leaning cedar after a long run. It seemed he was to wait-but for what?
Chap's frustration mounted, still wondering if the pack truly understood what he needed.
A rolling, moaning howl like a bellow carried through the forest. It came from the direction where the elder had disappeared.
Lily brushed Chap's head with a memory of running as the rest of the pack charged off. He followed her up the embankment and through the woods. When he cleared the close trees, he saw the elder.
The black-gray majay-h stood on a massive cracked boulder jutting from a hillside of sparse-leafed elms. The pack remained below, and he appeared to be waiting and watching for something. The elder glanced upslope over his shoulder, and Chap stepped back from the boulder's base to see.
Branches of a hillside elm appeared to move as if drifting through the trees. Two eyes high above the ground sparked in the half-moon's light and came downslope into clear sight.
Head high, the silver-gray deer descended, coming up beside the grizzle-jawed old majay-h. Its tineless curved antlers rose to a height no man or elf could reach. The shimmer of its long-haired coat turned to pure white along its throat and belly. Its eyes were like those of the majay-h, clear blue and crystalline.
The deer slowly lowered its head with a turn of its massive neck.
Lily nudged Chap, pushing him forward.
Chap did not understand. Was he to go to this creature?
She shoved him again and then darted around the boulder's side. She stood waiting, and Chap loped after her. Before he caught up, Lily headed upslope, and he followed. At the height where stone met the earth slope, she stood aside and lifted her muzzle toward the silver deer.
Chap hesitated. What did this have to do with finding Nein'a?
Lily pressed against him. Along with a memory echo of the tall elven woman he had first shown her, Lily showed him something more-a memory of the pack elder touching heads with one of these crystal-eyed deer.
Chap froze as the deer swung its head toward him.
He could not have imagined this creature might communicate in the same way as the pack. A tingling presence washed over him as he peered into the deer's eyes.
It felt so vague... like one of his kin off at a distance. And yet not quite like them.
The majay-hl were descended from the first born-Fay, born into flesh within wolves. Over many generations, the majay-hl had become the "touched" guardians of these lands.
But there were others, it seemed, as Chap had almost forgotten.
Within this deer, the trace of its ancestry was stronger than in the majay-hl, the lingering of born-Fay who had taken flesh in the form of deer and elk.
Chap crept forward to stand below the tall creature-this touched child of his own kin. It stretched out one foreleg and bent the other, until its head came low enough to reach his. Chap pressed his forehead to the deer's, smelling its heavy musk and breath marked by a meal of wild grass and sunflowers. He recalled the memories of Nein'a that he had shared with Lily.
The deer shoved Chap away, nearly knocking him off his feet. It stood silent and waiting.
What had he done wrong?
Lily slid her head in next to his, muzzle against muzzle. Images-and sounds-filled his mind.
A majay-hl howling in the dark. An elven boy calling to another. Singing birds, jabbering fra'cise fra'cise, and the indignant screech of the tashgalh tashgalh he had trailed out of the mountain tunnels. he had trailed out of the mountain tunnels.
Chap grasped the common thread. The deer wanted a sound. He approached as it lowered its head once more.
With the image of Nein'a in the clearing, Chap called forth a memory of her voice... and that of any who had ever spoken her name.
Nein'a... Cuirinnena... Mother...
Wynn scurried around a domicile tree closest to the forest's edge. She still did not know why there was no one on guard outside, and she could not find Chap anywhere. But as she turned to go back before being discovered, she heard footsteps.