Beneath that brilliance was Shade's own shape and dark color. Her Fay-imbued body glowed more powerfully than anything around Wynn. But where Shade's father had been a blaze of fiery silken threads for fur, Shade was a wolf of night overlaid with a burning aura that hurt Wynn's eyes.

Shade lowered her head, her eyes like blue gemstones held before the sun, and her wet nose touched Wynn's cheek. So close to Wynn's face, Shade's light grew too intense, and Wynn flinched her head the other way.

Chane filled up her sight.

Wynn recoiled from him and then stared in shock.

Back when she'd first summoned mantic sight in Pudúrlatsat, she'd seen shadows. Small ribbons of black had flowed through Magiere's living flesh. And Vordana, the walking corpse of a sorcerer, had been pure blackness within. All the mists of Spirit had drifted toward him like an ebbing tide to be swallowed within his inner black silhouette.

And Chane…

He'd come for her when Vordana had cornered her in the town's smithy. She hadn't seen whether the mists were swallowed into him as well. But he'd been so black within, so devoid of elemental Spirit, that she could barely make him out in the forge's darkness.

But now he was just Chane.

There was no darkness, no shadow copy of his flesh—and no ghostly duplicate of blue-white mist permeating him, either. He looked exactly as he had before she began straining to call up mantic sight.

"Are you all right?" he demanded, crouching low to study her face, her eyes. "Did it work?"

His appearance, so untouched by Spirit, worried Wynn. She glanced at his left hand braced upon the floor.

The ring was gone.

She didn't remember seeing him take it off, and he wouldn't have, if it hid him from Shade's awareness. Nausea rolled through Wynn's stomach, and she clutched her mouth.

"Yes… it worked," she managed to get out.

Her doubled view of the world made her so dizzy and sickened. She wondered if she would be able to see anything in this state as she panned her gaze to the scroll.

It was not completely black anymore.

The coating of old ink, spread nearly to the scroll's edges, had lightened with a thin inner trace of blue-white. Whatever covered the words had been made from a natural substance, and even after ages it still retained a trace of elemental Spirit.

Within that space pure black marks appeared, devoid of any Spirit at all.

"I can see them," she whispered.

"What is there?" Chane asked.

"It's Sumanese," she breathed out, trying not to gag. "Old Sumanese… I think."

But those swirling, elaborately stroked characters weren't written as in the other texts. Short lines began evenly along a wide right-side margin. Written from right to left, they ended erratically shy of the page's left side. The lines of text appeared to be broken into stanzas of differing length.

"It looks like a poem," she whispered. "But the dialect… I can't make out what it says."

She tried, but only a few words seemed vaguely familiar compared to what little she knew of contemporary Sumanese.

"Children… twenty and six steps… to hide… five corners?" Wynn mumbled. "To anchor amid… the void."

She skimmed down the page, at a loss over how little she could translate. Those black characters blurred for an instant under her shifted gaze.

"Consumes its own… of the mountain under… the chair of a lord's song?"

The dark marks blurred again, though she hadn't moved her eyes. Wynn's stomach convulsed.

"My journal," she moaned, buckling forward. "Get me something to write on. Quickly!"

Three labored breaths passed before she felt Chane lift her hand and fit a quill between her fingers. She raised her head as he slid a blank sheet in next to the scroll. Wynn began to write, not even trying to read anymore, and Chane guided her hand each time she tried to re-ink the quill's head. She had to keep her sight clear and be certain of each blindly copied stroke.

The «Children» had to be the same as those she'd read of in the translations, but what of "twenty-six steps," "hide," and "five corners"? The only thing she remembered was that Beloved—il'Samar, the Night Voice—had sought refuge when its Children "divided." And she had no idea what "the chair of a lord's song" meant. And how could a «mountain» be under a chair?

Häs'saun was a Sumanese name, and as one of Li'kän's companions perhaps he had written this cryptic work. But why had he hidden it under the ink? Or had someone else done so later? Why hadn't it been destroyed instead of being painted over so that no one could read it?

Nausea sharpened again, and Wynn choked as Chane grabbed her arm.

"Enough," he said. "Whatever you have so far is enough!"

No, it wasn't. She had to get it all, or she might never learn to understand its hidden meaning.

"Wynn, look away!" Chane rasped. "Now!"

She looked up.

He was the same as he had been before her sight came. No white mist or black void overlaid him, and her nausea weakened.

"Twenty and six steps… five corners," she mumbled.

A low growl rose behind her, and Wynn glanced over her shoulder.

Shade's bright form stood upon the bed, but she now faced the other way, toward the wall and its one narrow window. Her snarls kept growing.

"What is wrong with her?" Chane asked.

Shade cut loose an eerie wail.

Wynn had heard that before. There was no other sound quite like it in the world. And it had poured from Chap's jaws—whenever he picked up the presence of an undead.

But Shade was wailing inside Wynn's room, inside the guild.

"No!" Wynn moaned.

Shade spun and leaped off the bed, straight over to Wynn.

The stone wall around the window blackened as it bulged inward.

Chane jerked on Wynn's arm, heaving her across the floor toward the door.

"Run!" he rasped.

Searing pain ignited in his hand as he jerked out his sword.

The majay-hì's yowling snarls battered at his ears as the animal spun about before him to face the bed.

The black figure—the wraith—slid through the wall.

It stood in the bed, as if it were not truly there. As if it were real and the bed was not. Chane looked into its voluminous cowl but saw no face within the black pit of cloth. Then the cowl turned downward, its opening fixing upon Wynn.

Chane raised and leveled his blade, knowing it would have little effect. All he wanted was to catch this thing's attention and distract it long enough for Wynn to get out.

The hood snapped up, and its black-filled opening turned on him. It remained where it stood, the lower half of its robe and cloak penetrating the narrow bed.

Perhaps after their last encounter, it did not wish to touch him again. He could use that. But the dog's noise must have awakened everyone in the building, if not elsewhere on guild grounds.

The figure hung there as if studying him. Beneath the dog's wailing and snarls, a low hiss rose, like whispers too hard to hear. It seemed to come from everywhere in the room.

Chane heard startled voices in the passage outside the room's door.

Short-lived relief at the wraith's hesitation washed away in panic. What would this thing do if startled sages came running in? Not only did he have to get Wynn out of its reach—he had to draw it away before more sages died.

Snarling and snapping, Shade wove across the floor before Chane. The wraith drew back and lashed down at the dog with one cloth-wrapped hand. Chane quickly swiped his blade at the hood.

The sword's tip passed through, not even ruffling fabric. Shade yelped as the wraith's fingers grazed her shoulder.

She stumbled away toward the desk, pulling up her left foreleg.

Wynn rose up onto her knees, scrambled to the corner by the door, and latched both hands around the staff.