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Her strangely shaped eyes narrowed, and her lips parted in a silent snarl over clenched teeth. She began to shake as her fingers hooked like claws.
Say the name! Chap shouted into Wy
Wy
From the column of words beside the door!
"Li… kun…," Wy
The woman froze, and her feral expression softened.
Wy
The woman's eyes opened fully. Confusion washed anger from her face.
Her gaze flitted over the walls, wandering among patches of black scribbles, until she appeared to grow dizzy and stumbled. When she turned fully around, her back to Wy
She crumpled, her delicate hands dragging down the column of a name written so many times. When she reached the floor, she twisted about to squat with her knees pulled up against her bare chest.
Do not move, Chap warned. Do nothing to disturb her for the moment.
Wy
Was she trying to speak? If so, her voice did not come.
"Volyno?" Wy
Enough! Chap warned.
Strands of black hair tangled over the woman's face as she lowered her head. Her crystal irises fixed upon Wy
In their frightening depths, Wy
Chap remained poised before Wy
In this castle of Magiere's dreams, he had hoped to learn more concerning what memories the Fay had stolen from him, and why they had done so. He also believed he might find answers to questions concerning Leesil and Magiere, and their future-and the forgotten conflict and an enemy of many names.
Now all he could do was watch this ancient monster crumple into her insanity.
This place was old-older perhaps than any stronghold in the world. He felt how devoid of life these walls had been for centuries or longer. And this white thing might be older still.
No longer trying to speak, the woman watched Wy
Your voice… spoken words shocked her, he told Wy
Wy
He was only guessing, and yet he loathed the notion of dipping into the crazed thing's memories.
She has been alone for so long that she had forgotten the sound of words. It seems she knows only what is written.
Wy
Talk to her… and I will try to catch any of her memories.
"Are you sure?"
Do it… while she remains sedate.
Wy
"Wy
The woman tilted her head like a crow, or perhaps more like a hawk.
Chap cautiously slipped into her mind. He saw nothing, as if she had no memories at all to rise in her thoughts.
Try the other names again.
"Who is Volyno… or Has'saun?"
At the second name, a wild barrage of broken images erupted in the woman's head.
Flickering white faces passed among other sights-cold peaks, an endless desert, a cowering goblin hammering at stone, massive iron doors, a pale headless corpse on a stone floor… the maelstrom made Chap sick.
Her name… again!
Wy
The woman's mouth gaped. She lunged forward onto all fours, and her black hair dangled with stray ends brushing the floor. A hoarse rasp issued from her throat. Something in the sound mimicked the way Wy
"Li'kan?" Wy
The undead studied the sage in fascination and crept forward across the floor.
Chap shifted, ready to lunge into the woman's face, but she slowed, hesitating. She lifted one hand and reached out to Wy
The undead stretched out one narrow finger, the digit slipping through the side of Wy
To the sage's credit, she did not flinch, remaining frozen in place- even as the finger pulled down over her lips. When it passed her chin and retracted, Wy
"Are these your writings?"
Calm sanity vanished once more from Li'kan's face.
She clutched her own arms, scratching herself with hardened white nails. The wounds closed so quickly that barely any black fluids seeped out. Harsh, rapid hisses poured from her throat. But no matter how fast her small mouth moved, her voice would not come. Chap could not make out what she tried to say.
Li'kan thrashed in frustration, turning circles on all fours like a dog.
Wy
He feared the undead no longer possessed real memories, or that after so long alone, they had faded beyond her mind's reach.
Chap steeled himself and slipped again into Li'kan's mind.
Wild blurs of images, lacking any sound, passed through a mind that was no longer rational. Then a flash of something massive, with coils of black scales, rolled and slid in a dark place. Behind it, he saw a brief glimpse of natural stone, as in an underground space. Then the image vanished, replaced by one of Chap himself.
No, a large wolf-but it had the strange crystal sky-blue eyes of a majay-hi.
An ancestor of the breed from long ago, exactly like those Chap had seen in Most Aged Father's memory. Li'kan remembered one of the original born-Fay, who had come into the world during the forgotten war.
"Il… sa… mar…," she rasped, and then her grating hiss trailed on.
Il'Samar-the only word of her voiceless gibberish that Chap could catch.
Why would she think of born-Fay-or any Fay-and then the enemy of many names?
Chap recoiled, pulling from the undead's mind, but he still wondered that she had no memory of anyone speaking-until Wy
Li'kan, this walking shell of death, could write, though not coherently. But spoken language had been lost to her for so long that she had forgotten even the sound of her own name.
Magiere felt an undead's presence all around her, but not like ever before. It seeped from the rocks and snow and air, with no origin she could fix upon-and the pull within her pressed her to go on, upward.
She smelled blood in the cold air's light breeze.
Osha leaned into the black space in the cliff's wall and cried out, "Sgailsheilleache!"
Sgaile ran past Magiere. She took off on his heels with Leesil close behind. Before they reached Osha, he collapsed, his knees sinking in the snow.
A rocky chute rose up through the gully's stone wall, and at its bottom lay a still form slumped against one side.
"Kurhkage!" Sgaile whispered.
The corpse of the tall elf had only scar tissue for one eye, and the other was still open wide. A light scattering of snow had collected on his tan face, and a white cloth partially covered his open green-gray cloak. But the chest of his tunic was dark with frozen blood around a gaping hole where the ends of shattered ribs protruded.
Leesil hissed something under his breath, and Magiere spun about.
He'd stopped short on the gully's open floor, and the trail he'd broken in the snow ended where he stood. But something more had rolled ahead of his feet, something that he'd accidentally kicked from under the snowfall.
Blood on the head's ragged neck stump had frozen into red ice crust from the clinging snow.
"A'harhk'nis!" Sgaile exhaled the name and shook his head in disbelief.
"How?" Osha moaned, and then slipped into Elvish.