In Shade and Shadow

Shade backed toward the door, and Wynn retreated, backing Chane along until she'd gotten him onto the outer steps. Only then did she withdraw the staff and its crystal.

Master a'Seatt followed slowly, his hard gaze still fixed on her. He didn't close or strike, only maintained the same distance between them.

Wynn stumbled as she retreated down the shop's steps. She wasn't about to turn her back on this man—whatever he was.

Pawl a'Seatt stopped in the doorway.

Even as Wynn went to retrieve il'Sänke and Rodian, the scribe master never took his cold gaze off of her.

Chapter 20

D

awn was a ways off when Ghassan il'Sänke climbed the steps to his quarters above the guild's workshops. He had never been so tired nor wanted to be alone more than now. He knocked briefly before entering.

A glowing cold lamp rested upon his desk. By its light, Wynn sat on the floor looking calmly at the scroll's blackened surface, with Shade lying beside her.

"Wynn," he said in warning, "you have not called your—"

"Mantic sight?" she finished. "No, I'm too exhausted. Whatever is left in the scroll can wait."

Through the room's rear open door, Ghassan barely made out someone upon his bed. Wynn's vampire lay still in the dark bedroom, though Ghassan did not know whether the undead actually slept. Chane had been injured in the conflict, although he bore no physical wounds. Wynn insisted they bring him back and that Ghassan get them all inside without detection. It had been tricky, not letting either of them know how the guards out front were suddenly gone from their post yet again.

Once Chane was put to bed and¦fro Wynn slumped upon the study's small couch, Ghassan had left them for a while. He had a more unpleasant task to face.

Now, as he closed the door, Wynn spoke up before he could offer an explanation of his whereabouts.

"You went to speak with High-Tower and Premin Sykion," she said, "about what happened tonight."

He sighed. "Yes, and I thought you would be asleep by now."

"Did they believe you?"

"Unfortunately, yes," he said, "though they have only my word… and yours. But we have broken more guild rules than I can name."

"What do you mean, 'unfortunately'?"

Ghassan did not want to explain, but it was better that she knew. "I would guess they have believed you all along."

The opened scroll began quivering in Wynn's hand.

"What you know," he said, "are things that no one outside our walls should ever learn."

Wynn stared up at him. She looked beaten down. In having been denied for too long, outrage flushed her olive-toned cheeks.

"They treated me…" she began, choking on her words, "like an imbecile, like an insane little child!"

"They could not afford the panic," he countered. "Or subsequent denial and denouncement of the guild, should others believe you—or learn what might be in those texts. Truth would not hold against the beliefs of many that the world has always been as it is."

"What about the captain?" she snapped. "He survived… he knows!"

Ghassan sighed again and shook his head. "True, he now faces a crisis of faith, but not as much as you assume. The history taught by his religion, so much like secular perspectives, is false… but the philosophical teachings of the Blessed Trinity of Sentience are still sound. If he can distinguish that, then he may realize he has not truly lost anything.

"But by his example, we should not be so forthright with those who do not wish to know, do not need to know. The guild is safe for the moment. Translation can continue in a more expedient fashion."

"Yes, the project," Wynn whispered spitefully, and lowered her head.

Ghassan still found her to be a puzzle. She knew far too much, yet always remained determined to do what was right, no matter the personal cost. At the same time, she did not really want to thrust the truth in everyone's face.

Wynn Hygeorht simply wanted acknowledgment from those who already knew. But she had received the exact opposite from the very people and way of life she cherished. It was stranger still that upon the edge of such dangerous times, Ghassan almost trusted in her judgment.

"You struggle over more than just the illusory blindness of your superiors," he said.

Wynn picked up her journal on the floor, the one in which she had scribed words from the scroll.

"This," she whispered, and held up the scroll as well. "I think you know—or suspect—more than you've said."

"It's no more clear to me than to you," he answered. "All poetic metaphor, simile, and symbolism."

And his instinct to silence her forever returned.

Even a rumored hint of such abominations as the wraith, and what it might represent, would create panic beyond control. Suspicion and paranoia would grow, along with heated denial and possibly open conflict between differing ideological factions. Ghassan had seen such things before within his homeland and the Suman Empire at large. But Wynn had served an essential purpose tonight. Perhaps that purpose was not yet completely fulfilled.