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And each line was only one word.
The symbols differed, yet they always recorded two syllables or sounds.
"Li… kun…," she sounded out, and glanced at Chap. "Do you know this term?"
More than a word, I think…
Wy
Chap slowly turned his head. He sca
I think it is her.
Wy
"If those shadow animals have not entered by now, perhaps they will not."
No, they only keep us in. Chap stood up and padded across the room, studying the walls. Can you read any of it?
"Not truly. I know some of the languages, and some of the symbol sets are familiar. But many do not match the language they are used for."
She rubbed the crystal harder, and held it close to the patch beside the shelves.
"Old pre-Numanese tongues… and edan, an older Elvish system," she whispered.
Can you read it? Chap repeated, his tone impatient in her head.
"I told you no!" Wy
Try another wall.
She looked about and spotted smaller writings above the desk's remains. As she crossed, she tried not to step on the old parchments stuck to the floor by years of dried humidity. Holding the crystal close, she traced lines of marks, careful not to touch them.
"This word… looks like tribal Iyindu-old Sumanese-and part of it is in the correct letters."
What does it say?
"Give me a moment!" Wy
She struggled to sound it out in her head. The middle characters were too faint. She sighed in frustration. But the begi
Wy
"Il'Samar!" Wy
What? Chap shoved in beside her. Where do you see this?
Wy
"Samar" was obscure, meaning something like "conversation in the dark." And "il" was a common prefix for a proper noun, sometimes used for titles as well as predecessors in a person's lineage. The old necromancer Ubad had cried out this name as Magiere and Chap closed in upon him in Droevinka.
Wy
Now she understood the word with the faded middle, and she went over and over that sentence, trying to pick out more, but it was so badly worn.
" 'Guardian'… no, 'guardians for'… something that is 'unmaking'… and then il'Samar."
Wy
"That is all I can follow. Is she… this woman, one of these? Welstiel spoke of ancient ones guarding whatever treasure he sought. By the look of her, she is undead, but that would mean…"
All the wall writings appeared to be in the same hand, though Wy
She sca
"Bite this open for me."
Chap began gnawing the hardened hide strip. What are you looking for?
"Other writing… in other hands."
The leather tie cracked in Chap's teeth, and Wy
The i
And she saw them.
At least three different people had recorded entire pages in this volume. Unlike the wall writings, these passages were coherently scripted in one matching language and letter system at a time. How old was this sheaf?
"There are other guardians," she whispered, growing frightened again. "Perhaps two or three. How long have they been here?"
No… she is now the only one.
Wy
I sense only her… I ca
Wy
She has been alone… for longer than we can measure. And even before the others were gone… I would guess she has been here since…
"Since the war," Wy
Wy
How many languages can you read?
She squinted, making a mental count. "Well, my own tongue, Numanese, and some of its earlier predecessors… um… classical Stravinan, Belaskian of course, and the Begaine syllabary of my guild… general Dwarvish and one of its formal variants… Elvish-modern and ancient scripts, including the edan, though I have not fully grasped the variation used by the an'Croan. Some Sumanese, but not much of its older derivations or the desert-"
Wy
She held the crystal closer. "This page is very old Sumanese-Iyindu, I think-and the handwriting does not match what is written on the walls. I learned a bit of the modern dialect, but I have little grasp of the lesser-known desert dialects."
Wy
She sat back, lowering the crystal into her lap, and Chap huffed, wrinkling his snout in frustration. A flicker in the archway drew their attention.
The translucent outline of a shadow wolf showed against the lighter dark in the corridor. The entire animal was soot black, even its eyes. All thoughts of language fled from Wy
The wolf remained in the doorway, but something pale approached behind it-and walked straight through the beast into the small chamber.
Wy
Slender as a willow and barely taller than Wy
Wy
"Chap, those knobs and the metal," Wy
The woman lunged a step at these words, and Wy
The deceptively frail undead stared at Wy