The Story Continues

Candi lifted her clear penetrating eyes to meet Kavia’s questioning look. Kavia shifted her posture under the weight of Candi’s eyes, but neither flinched nor lowered her eyes. She and Candi had known each other long and Kavia understood that if she lowered her eyes, her question to Candi would remain unanswered. It was the way of the Lukos and, as such, must be borne in friendship. Sitting calmly, Kavia waited for her answer.

On silent feet, Candi padded back towards the doorway she where she had entered the Hall and disappeared through it. Almost instantly, she had returned and was again resting her silken muzzle in Kavia’s lap along with something else that she had brought with her from the other room. Kavia reflexively reached her hand toward the gleaming small bundle that now lay in her lap, but drew her hand back quickly when a rumble like distant thunder came from Candi’s throat.

“Well now just how do you expect me to look at what you’ve laid in my lap, if I can’t pick it up? If it’s so dangerous, I trust you’d not have brought it into the Keep in the first place! It’s not like you to play this sort of game and even if it were, I don’t have time for such shenanigans today of all days! What is it you want, Candi?”

The she-wolf drew back her lips in an expression that appeared to be half grimace, half snarl, then reluctantly withdrew her head from Kavia’s lap. Kavia could now see what had been brought to her. She gasped, then reached out with a trembling hand to touch it. She took the burnished silver medallion in her hand, closed her eyes and uttered a fervent prayer as she turned it over in her hand.

“By all that is and was or ever will be hold, let this not be what it seems.”

As she finished speaking, Kavia opened her eyes and looked down nervously at the medallion. Her suspicions and worst fears were confirmed when she saw the 7 wolf signet of the Shayene. Kavia’s eyes glazed over and her hands went limp. The medallion slipped from her fingers and hit the floor by Candi’s paws. Instantly, Candi raised her head and let loose a soul-chilling howl. In her room upstairs, the Crone, too, began to wail an eerie melody that wound itself around and through Candi’s howl. Everyone in the Keep stopped what they were doing, transfixed by the sounds and frozen. The torches and candles began to flicker, spluttering, then fading and hissing into darkness. As the last torch went out, Candi picked up the medallion, laid it in Kavia’s lap, and slipped, wraithlike, out of the Keep.

The Crone’s aged voice cracked and faltered, then she too became silent. Her eyes never left the window and she was the only one to witness Candi’s departure. As the wolf reached the outer wall of the Keep, she stopped and looked up towards the Crone’s window, bowed her head, then disappeared.

Abruptly the candles and torches spluttered and came back to life and everyone returned to their tasks without any awareness that something had gone awry. To be sure, there were a few who were bothered by a niggling feeling that something was amiss, but they managed to convince themselves that it was just the excitement of preparing for Joia’s return.

Kavia started as if she had caught herself daydreaming and got to her feet quickly. When she did, the medallion fell out of her lap and onto the floor. She reached down to pick it up.

“What’s this? Some piece of junk that the cleaners overlooked, I’ll wager. You’d think that with the extra 75 people we brought in to help this week, they could manage to get just one room clean! Like as not, this is some paste jewelry that one of their children uses to play Shayene with.”

Kavia turned the medallion over in her hands, but saw nothing unusual about it. There may have been something engraved on it once, but it was of the softest pewter and whatever the engraving had once been was totally indistinguishable any more. Absentmindedly, for her head ached dully, Kavia slipped the medallion into an apron pocket and went off in search of the Radiants, the cooks and her husband. They all had important roles to play in the evening’s festivities, and Kavia meant to make sure that everyone was prepared. Woe be to anyone, her husband the KeepMaster included, who Kavia found lacking in his or her preparations! The Shayene was coming home tonight, her beloved daughter, and nothing, but nothing would dare to mar the occasion – Kavia would see to that! But first, she thought she might go up and visit the Crone and see if something could be done to ease the pressure in her head.