Through Stone and Sea ndst-2

by Barb Hendee

  Whatever the items were for, the elf stroked the parchment as if marking off acquisitions. Wynn slipped behind a candle maker's booth, close enough to hear them.

  "Extra bread loaves would not be amiss," the elf said in his lilting, reedy voice. "Best not tax our hosts' resources, if we are to be down there several days."

  Wynn stiffened, lifting her head a bit too much. They were heading below to the Stonewalkers—for days, it seemed—and she would lose them!

  "I'm aware of the time," the duchess answered. "With every passing year, I can almost feel the highest tide coming."

  A breath's pause followed.

  "But yes," she said, "let's see about bread … and perhaps dried fruits."

  They all headed back toward the market's entrance, where vendors of food and dry goods had set up their stalls. Wynn wove her way around the market, glancing twice toward its rear and the passages leading into the level's outer reaches.

  She could think of no way to remain unnoticed in following, once they headed off for the hidden entrance to the underworld. But after acquiring several loaves, the captain turned and escorted the duchess toward the market's exit to Breach Mainway.

  Wynn slipped along behind the booths one path over. As the entourage neared the exit, the duchess spoke again.

  "We have everything reasonable we might need. Please make certain I'm not disturbed until tomorrow night. I need … time."

  "Of course," the elf answered, and they all left.

  Wynn didn't follow, knowing they now headed back to their inn. Apparently the duchess was holing up until tomorrow night. She would then go below for days. How many, how long—and why? There seemed no reason for it, and the only thing that came to mind were the ancient texts.

  Wynn racked her brain for any way to spy on the duchess inside the inn. She needed to learn what Reine was doing here, and how she and the royal family were connected to the Stonewalkers. If they guarded the texts, and could somehow move them to and from the guild every day—over a distance of three days' shore-side journey—what purpose did the duchess serve here?

  Wynn couldn't think of a way to find the answers—not without getting herself arrested. There was no point in lingering.

  Grimacing, Wynn headed back to her own inn.

  Chane awoke and lay quietly for an instant, uncertain where he was. The previous night filtered back into his thoughts. He rose quickly, swinging his legs over the bed's edge, and looked around, still dazed from dormancy.

  "Shade?"

  She was not present, but then how could she be? He had barely reached the inn on the edge of dawn, just in time to bolt into his room and fall dormant upon the bed. His clothes had dampened the blankets, as he had not bothered to undress. He picked up his cloak and left. The instant he stepped outside, he called out.

  "Shade!"

  Outside the inn, two husky-looking dwarves glanced his way, but Chane did not care. He looked for Shade, at a loss for how to find her, let alone whether she had yet returned.

  The last of evening activities still filled the port. Another ship had docked far out on one pier. Its strange curled prow and central row of towering triangular sails caught his attention. Long ship's oars were raised upright along its rail.

  Dwarven dockworkers were hauling huge bales and barrels down the pier from the vessel. Among them were short and dark-skinned Suman passengers or crew in long, flowing vestments and cloth head wraps. Though they stood a head taller than the dwarves, they were not as tall as Wynn's Suman confederate, Domin il'Sänke.

  The night was even darker than the last, the moon still hidden behind the peninsula's high peak. Tomorrow, it would be invisible, even when it crested—a new moon. As the night was his world, he used to pay more attention to such things. Right now, he did not care.

  "Shade?"

  A low huff reached his ears.

  Chane twisted left at the sound, and Shade came padding down the street. To his surprise, he felt a pang of guilt that she had been locked out all day. But she trotted right past him.

  "Shade?"

  The dog kept on, heading for the main road—the one that led to the lift.

  "Get back here!" he called.

  Shade paused at the corner, looking over her shoulder at him, and then slipped out of sight.

  Chane bolted back into the inn and ran for his room. After retrieving his packs, he tossed coins on the counter for the innkeeper, waiting only long enough to see that they were sufficient. Then he rushed out.

  When he rounded the corner, there was Shade, sitting at the bottom of the loading ramp.

  A pack of dwarves with cargo and a pair of Sumans in garish colors approached. All of them stopped at the sight of a "wolf" in their way.

  "Dhêb!" snarled a full-bearded Suman.

  When the man reached for the hilt of an arced sword cradled in his waist wrap, Chane pushed through.

  "She is mine!" he said, stepping in front of Shade. "She will not cause any trouble."

  One dwarf with hair cropped to bristles grimaced at him. He whispered something to his closest companion, who in turn spoke directly to the pair of Sumans, presumably in their own tongue. Chane glanced back.

  Shade wandered up to the lift under the suspicious eyes of what had to be the stationmaster. The dwarf stood silent, holding the gate open. Shade boarded with a disgruntled rumble and squatted in the platform's rear corner.

  Chane stood looking at her in frustration while one Suman argued fervently with his dwarven companions. Finally, Chane boarded, stepping in next to Shade, still wishing he could somehow demand an answer. Dockworkers loaded up the platform, piling bales and barrels and crates to such width and height that Chane grew nervous about the weight. He glared down at Shade.

  Had she found anything or had she given up, insisting on returning to Wynn?

  Amid the fuss her presence too often caused, he had no way to find out. He would have to bear the ride up before this belligerent beast gave the answer to Wynn.

  At the first bell past supper, Wynn sat on her room's floor holding the scroll's case in both hands. The duchess wasn't going anywhere tonight, and she felt at loose ends.

  For two seasons at the guild she'd often sought little more than privacy. Being alone was her only relief. But a third night on her own in the seatt suddenly left her lonely. She felt strange, even incomplete.

  With some reluctance, she admitted to herself that she missed Chane and Shade, that she worried for them in finding their way among the dwarves. Chane didn't even speak their language. And Shade …

  Wynn began to feel spiteful again.

  She had some choice words for that troublesome adolescent. There would be no more stubborn nonsense about words where Shade was concerned. Loneliness didn't break under righteous anger, but it felt like a weakness or a fault within her. She had a purpose to fulfill at any cost, even alone, if need be.

  Wynn grasped the scroll case's cap but hesitated at pulling it off.

  In the ice-covered castle atop the Pock Peaks, the first time she had seen this scroll, Li'kän had nearly ripped it off the shelf of the decaying library and shoved it at her. Wynn had thought Li'kän simply wished for her to read it aloud. Now she knew that was impossible.

  That deceptively frail white monster had some other intention, considering the scroll's black coating over its writing. But Wynn hadn't seen inside the case that night. Li'kän dropped it, and later, Chane had found and taken it.

  Why had Li'kän tried to give her this scroll case?

  Wynn pulled off the pitted pewter cap and removed the contents.

  The scroll itself was an ancient piece of hide, made pliable once more by Chane's painstaking efforts. But it was unreadable—at least by normal means. The inner surface was nearly black all the way to the edges, covered in ink that had set centuries ago.

  Wynn carefully flattened it on the floor.

  The words beneath the coating had been scripted in the fluids of an undead. Though ink and hide retained tra
ces of the five Elements of Existence, those fluids would always be devoid of, or the negative aspect of, one—Spirit. Through her mantic sight, she could see what was missing as much as what was there. She'd already once glimpsed the ancient Suman characters beneath the coating.

  This was how she'd begun her translation work back at the guild, memorizing as many of the Sumanese Iyindu characters as possible before her sight made her too sick. With Chane's aid, she'd jotted down those phrases and translated what she could. Domin il'Sänke had later assisted with corrections.

  Reaching for her pack, Wynn pulled out her journals, her elven quill, and a small bottle of ink. If tonight would be spent in more solitude, she might as well do something useful. The poem hidden on the hide had been written by one of Li'kän's companions, either Häs'saun or Volyno. More likely Häs'saun—a Suman name.

  Wynn reviewed her notes on the few phrases she'd glimpsed in the scroll:

  Children … twenty-six steps

  To hide … five corners

  To anchor amid … the void

  Consumes its own

  Of the mountain under … the chair of a lord's song

  Domin il'Sänke had corrected her translation of min'bâl'alu—"of a lord's song." What she'd thought was prepositional was actually an obscure Iyindu syntax with no comparison in her native Numanese. By context, it was pronounced differently than what was written, sounding like "min'bä'alâle." As well, the term maj'att—"chair"—should actually be translated as a general "seat" of any kind. Stranger still, its correct spelling didn't end with a doubled "t," as found in the scroll. The combined changes produced a startlingly familiar though all-but-forgotten Dwarvish term approximated in an ancient Sumanese dialect.

  Min'bä'alâle maj'att … Bäalâle Seatt.

  At the guild, she'd been given one day's access to translations so far completed. Through a very long day, and later realizations, she had uncovered other possible hints of meaning behind the poem's strange metaphors.

  "Twenty-six steps" didn't refer to a distance but rather thirteen pairs of feet, thirteen individuals traveling. Wynn still didn't know what "five corners" meant, but she'd learned who the thirteen had been … or were.

  Ancient vampires, perhaps the first Noble Dead of the world, called in'Ahtäben—the Children—had numbered thirteen. They'd served their Hkàbêv—Beloved—another term for the unknown being or force in the war of the Forgotten History. She knew other terms in varied Suman dialects for this forgotten enemy of many names, such as in'Sa'umar and il'Samar… .

  The Night Voice.

  Wynn had also uncovered names for at least five of the Children of Beloved. Li'kän, along with her missing companions, Häs'saun and Volyno, were among them. She only hoped, considering the white undead's long, inescapable isolation, that the latter two were somehow gone from this world. But there were others to account for, including a pair named Vespana and Ga'hetman.

  So far, "to hide" what wasn't clear, but the Children had scattered near the end of the war. In the frozen castle an "orb"—for lack of a proper term—had been discovered. But where had the other ten Children gone, if any still existed, and why hadn't they accompanied Li'kän and her companions? What had "consumed its own" beneath lost Bäalâle Seatt? And more immediately, why had the wraith committed murder for the translation folios?

  The wraith had attacked Wynn on several occasions, after Chane had brought the scroll to her. Had it known what was hidden therein?

  Perhaps she'd overlooked something in her one brief glimpse of the scroll's content. But attempting to see the poem again meant raising her mantic sight. Tonight, she didn't have Domin il'Sänke or Chap—or even Shade—to help rid her of the sight, should something go wrong.

  Wynn sat there, staring at the scroll's blackened surface and teetering between sensibility and overwhelming desire. As usual, curiosity tipped her one way. She set the scroll aside, extended her right index finger to draw a mental circle upon on the floor, and—the door burst open.

  Chane rushed in behind Shade. Both halted at the sight of the scroll and Wynn's finger poised over the floor stones.

  "What are you doing?" Chane demanded. "Are you trying to summon mantic sight all alone?"

  The odor of the sea filled the room from her returned companions. Chane's clothing was stained in faint white shadows of dried salt, though much of him still looked damp. His hair was a mess, as was Shade's crusted charcoal-colored fur.

  Shade crept over, sniffed the scroll, and wrinkled her jowls. Her glittering eyes narrowed on Wynn—the suspicion there was too much like what Wynn remembered from Chap.

  She searched her companions' faces, caught between relief and trepidation over their venture.

  "Did you find it?" she blurted out.

  Chane scowled, matching Shade's disapproval over what they'd caught her doing.

  "Maybe," he answered, and glared at Shade.

  Wynn went numb. "What does that mean?"

  "What are you doing?" Chane repeated. "I thought to find you near the market or the duchess's inn."

  "Pointless," she answered, rolling up the scroll and tucking it back in its case. "Reine has retired until tomorrow night. Everyone with her is apparently waiting for something. They're going back down for days. I have no idea what's so special about tomorrow night."

  "The new moon," Chane said, and before she asked, he shook his head. "Something I noticed while onshore. The moon will be invisible tomorrow night."

  Wynn pondered this, though it didn't seem to mean anything. Stonewalkers would rarely see the sky or the moon.

  "Never mind … did you find a way in or not?"

  "Ask her," Chane replied, jutting his chin toward Shade.

  Wynn blinked rapidly. How could Shade know but not Chane? Upon seeing her confusion, he explained all, up to the point when Shade led him back to the lift.

  "She clearly wanted to return to you," he added.

  Wynn put aside Shade's sneaky reluctance for language and crooked a finger at the dog.

  "All right, you," she said. "Out with it, now!"

  Shade approached and Wynn reached for the dog's face. At the touch, she raised a memory that Shade had shown her—of the grated opening beyond a sea pool in the sealed chamber that the duchess had visited.

  In answer, Wynn's head swam with new images, scents, and sounds.

  The smell of the sea was overpowering, as if it clogged her whole nose. She felt cold and damp all over. Even high up the shore's slope, the surf's spray kept hitting her. Her feet hurt, as if she'd been walking barefooted—bare-pawed—on broken stone all night.

  Inside Shade's memory, Wynn looked down upon rock as she sniffed her way along the shore. Wet crags, cracks, and crevices glittered in her sight. She—Shade—glanced up.

  The sky over the ocean was dimly lit. Dawn wasn't far off, though the sun couldn't have yet crested the eastern horizon beyond the mountain. Only Shade's superior sight allowed Wynn to see as much as she did. She felt and heard herself whine, and the sound was so frustrated and tired.

  In the distance, too far off, she made out the port by its tallest buildings and the few moored ships. Instead of dipping her muzzle in continued search, Wynn turned back toward the port. Her pace quickened as much as shifting rocks would allow.

  Wynn's own frustration and misery mounted on top of the memory. She let her hands drop from Shade's face at her own weak whisper.

  "No … no."

  "What did she find?" Chane rasped.

  Wynn was too crestfallen to face him. Shade had found nothing. But when Wynn tried to lift her head to answer, Shade huffed. The dog dipped and wriggled her muzzle until Wynn's fingers slid down her neck.

  The memory began again.

  Down the shore, the port seemed nearer, but not by much. And Wynn—Shade—climbed higher up the shore to pass over a deep inlet. Then she stopped, pricked her ears, and listened. The sound of the water below seemed wrong.

  She heard the undulating sea breach the inlet'
s shallows, and she crept dangerously close to look down. Waves broke out near the inlet's mouth, and below, she couldn't quite see the inlet's back.

  A second memory flashed over this moment, from sometime much earlier during the night.

  Wynn saw an inlet from along its southern-bordering rock ridge. At the back was a wide overhang barely a few feet above the water. She—Shade—listened as the water hit the cave's back somewhere in that deeper dark.

  Then she was back in the previous memory.

  She stood atop the overhang, and the sound had changed. It echoed. Not the soft reverberation of water undulating against the cave's back, as in that second overlaid memory. It was more rolling and extended, amplified in the space below.

  The water in the inlet was shallower now, revealing the inlet's rocky floor.

  Wynn scrambled across the inlet's top and down the backbone. She didn't stop until she was all the way along its inner slope and staring into the inlet. At low tide, the overhang was now well above the water's shifting surface. The change of the waves' sounds increased, becoming clearer. Wynn leaped off the backbone's edge into the cold water.

  She sank chest-deep as all four paws fought for sure footing, and she heard …

  A soft trickling, water flowing … out between sluggish inward surges.

  She froze, waiting as water rolled inward, rising halfway up her hips and soaking her tail. When it receded, again she heard the hollow echo of water trickling out—as if from a deeper space.

  Wynn lunged in beneath the dark overhang. When her nose finally struck the back wall, she recoiled, snorting and shaking her head. The dim light of predawn wasn't enough to see, but the water was now only halfway up her legs. She nosed carefully along the rough stone until … it wasn't there anymore.

  Wynn—Shade—pulled back, startled, but the echo of trickling water was now loud in her ears. She glanced back to get her bearings and found she had shifted far to the right of the overhang's opening. Whatever space she'd found would never even be seen from outside.

  She extended her snout.

  Poking about, she found an opening's edge. One careful paw step after another, she crept inward.