by Barb Hendee
Chane was not certain, but it appeared the water in the tunnel had already risen slightly.
"Look here," he said, holding the crystal above the gate's plate.
Wynn crept closer, wide-eyed as she studied it.
"Have you seen this metal used like this before?" he asked. "Do you know how it is operated?"
"Chein'âs metal again?" Wynn shook her head. "I've only seen it used for portals and some weapons, such the Anmaglâhk's, Leesil's new blades, and Magiere's dagger."
Chane had seen these weapons for himself in the castle of the white undead.
"Oh, and the head of my elven quill," she added.
"A lock of some kind," he returned. "But we do not have time to guess its function without a place to insert a key … if we had one."
"Magic?" she asked. "You know conjury. Can you see or sense anything?"
"It does not work that way, by my experience. Magic cannot be sensed, even if I were a full mage. That is wishful folklore and nothing more. And in artificing, not all mages mark an object. In alchemically created items, component materials are sometimes imbued before or during preparation and assembly."
Wynn scoffed. "I've felt something whenever I've called up my mantic sight."
"That was not magic you felt. Rather the impending change in the natural order of existence, the change within yourself. Did you feel anything when you first held or used the staff with its crystal?"
"No," she admitted, then sighed through her little nose. "Well, we're no worse off for it."
Shade pushed in and shoved her muzzle between the bars, peering beyond it. Chane held out the crystal through the gate. As far as the light reached, he saw no sign of the tunnel's end. He worried about Wynn's already worn condition, especially in not knowing the tunnel's full length. He needed to get her beyond the water's reach before it rose further.
"I will break through," he said.
He handed off the crystal to Wynn as she leaned her staff against the tunnel wall. Then he stripped off one pack at a time, switching the pry bar and sword between his hands. As Wynn took the packs, he hoped she could keep all three above the water. He restrapped the sword to his back as she slung one of his packs over her shoulder. She stumbled briefly under the added weight but clutched the second pack in her arms as she kept the crystal extended for light.
"Both of you stay back," he said.
The two most feasible ways through were either to pry at the lock side until the bolt snapped or bent, or attempt to lever out the hinge pins. The latter would take considerably longer, as the pins' heads were hammered, sealing them in place.
Chane set the pry bar's beveled end into the space beside the lock plate. He put his back against the wall on the same side and pushed the bar outward with all his strength.
Iron creaked and groaned under the pry bar's steel.
Pain stopped mortals from injuring themselves. He had no such limitation, so long as he retained enough life energy. He had not exerted much since his last feeding, but that had been a while ago. Still, there were only two gates, and he could easily last long enough for that.
Chane watched the space widen between the lock panel and the outer frame, but the bolt within the crack never moved.
"Crystal …" He grunted. "Bring it closer."
Wynn's feet splashed as she shuffled in with her burdens. But the crystal's light shifted enough to pierce the narrow space.
Chane threw his full effort against the pry bar. Though the gate shifted slightly from the frame, the bolt still did not move. Rather the lock plate moved to expose a bit of it, and its metal had a sharp glint.
The bolt was thick steel, not iron.
"Odsúdýnjè!" Chane hissed in his native Belaskian. He released all effort and slumped against the wall.
"What's wrong?" Wynn asked. "Why did you stop?"
Chane slowly shook his head. "The bolt is steel … and not attached to the lock."
Wynn's brows gathered in puzzlement.
"The bolt comes out of the wall," Chane tried to explain, "and into the lock plate. I will never pry the gate out far enough for the lock to slip free of it. There is not enough give between frame and gate."
"What about the hinges?" Wynn asked.
Chane looked back down the tunnel at the softly undulating seawater. "No, that would take too long."
"Then bend the bars."
Even Shade could not worm her head between those. Chane scanned all the way around the gate's circumference.
"The steel pry bar should hold," he answered. "But the iron bars are thicker."
Frustrated, he clutched one upright bar in silence.
"Heat," Wynn suggested. "You can conjure fire around one bar, make it more pliable."
Chane shook his head. "I cannot make conjured flame defy the earth and hang in the air … no one can."
"Then what? There has to be something!"
There was, now that the idea had been broached. But it was not something he was comfortable trying, considering Wynn's past reactions to the origin of his brass ring. He tucked the pry bar under his arm and unlashed the flap of his pack in Wynn's arms.
"What are you looking for?" she asked.
Chane pulled the etched steel hoop out of Welstiel's belongings.
"Where did that … come …" Wynn began, but trailed off, and she raised her eyes in accusation. "More of Welstiel's toys? Just how many of that madman's things did you take?"
"Everything he had," Chane returned flatly.
He had no time to deal with Wynn's distaste. He was not even sure that what he had in mind would work. The hoop's outer circumference was encircled with one etched black line no more than a hair's breadth. Similarly delicate and swirling marks and symbols covered the rest of it. Though it had the feel and weight of steel, a faint scent of charcoal rose from its etchings.
Chane stepped to the gate's center.
Crouching below the cross strut, he slipped the pry bar's end through, along one iron bar's side, and then reached through and hooked the loop over its end. The hoop slid down, resting against the gate's bar.
He had barely fathomed the hoop's operation. Whereas Welstiel had called up intense heat within the item, even handled it while hot, Chane could barely get it to glow. And once it was activated, he dared not touch it, always waiting long, until it cooled enough to pick up.
Chane waved Shade back as Wynn watched in silence. With a hoarsely whispered chant, he traced his index finger around the hoop and jerked his hand back.
Red pinprick sparks rose within the hoop's marks. They spread until all the etchings glowed like the coals beneath a fading fire.
"Is it doing anything yet?" Wynn asked.
Chane carefully touched the gate's bar in contact with the hoop. Barely any heat had penetrated. He needed more. But how?
He made a blind choice.
Dropping his free hand into the water, he drenched it. He then raised and extended his index finger as he began to chant again.
"No, it's too hot!" Wynn warned.
Chane quickly traced his finger another time around the hoop. A sizzle of water rose from the contact. He felt his fingertip begin to sear as he finished and thrust his hand down into the water.
The hoop's marks glowed with a sudden intensity. Red light became ruddy orange.
Pronounced heat radiated upon Chane's face. He heard Wynn suck in and hold a breath as he repeated the process, once, twice, three times more. The scent of seared flesh became distinct in the air. With his hand submerged the last time, Chane let hunger rise enough to eat away the small pain.
The hoop's markings turned pale orange-yellow, and the pry bar's steel began to grow hot.
He untied his cloak and wrapped a corner of it around the pry bar's nearer end. Even with protection, he felt heat grow beneath his grip. Vapor began to rise off the wet wool, but he focused only upon the gate's bar in contact with the hoop.
The barest dim red had spread into the black iron. He tipped the pry b
ar forward.
The hoop fell on the gate's far side and hit the water with a sharp hiss. As a cloud of steam erupted on its impact, Chane threw all his force against the pry bar's cloak-wrapped end.
Without a wall to brace his back, his boots slipped on the tunnel's submerged floor, but the one heated bar bent away from its nearest neighbor. He twisted back, levering the other way. The other central bar barely gave, but the heated one bent a little more.
"That's enough," Wynn said. "You've got it."
Chane pulled the pry bar out and splashed water against the gate's heated bar. Once it stopped steaming, he knew it was safe enough to pass through. He tossed the pry bar to the other side and took his packs from Wynn. He held hers as she struggled through the widened space, and then Shade wriggled after her.
Chane passed Wynn's pack and staff through. When she was ready, he shoved his own belongings through the tight space. Getting through himself was more trouble, and he ended up soaked to the shoulder on his left side. The last thing he did was fish out the pry bar and use it to hook the hoop out of the water.
The etchings still glowed. Not as brightly as when he had dropped it, but more than in the first pass of his finger. He had not yet learned how to dispel its heat and would have to carry it on the bar for now. He crouched down a bit.
"Warm yourselves," he said, nodding to the hoop.
Wynn waved Shade closer, though the dog was hesitant. Both took a moment of much-needed heat. Then Chane noticed the water on this side of the gate.
It reached above his ankles.
When he looked up, Wynn was staring up the tunnel. With a nod from her, they resettled their gear and moved on. Shade took the lead, and Wynn stayed close behind on Chane's right, holding the cold lamp crystal as he kept the dimly glowing hoop suspended ahead of him. It was a while before their feet stopped splashing, and they were walking on only damp floor. More than once, Chane glanced back, listening.
"What's wrong?" Wynn asked, watching his face.
"You and Shade are cut off," he answered. "If we reach a dead end, you cannot get back out until the tide recedes. It will be too far to submerge and swim."
Wynn grew very still. Perhaps she finally caught what he heard—the soft shift of the undulating ocean creeping up the tunnel.
"Come on," she breathed.
Chane pressed forward, but it was not long before they both heard Shade's growl, followed by a huff and a snarl. They quickened their pace until the crystal's light illuminated the dog ahead.
Chane nearly groaned.
Just beyond Shade was another gate.
Beyond that, the tunnel stretched into the pitch-dark distance.
They were nowhere near its end or the final gate Shade had seen in the duchess's memory. And the tide was still coming.
Sau'ilahk patiently waited in a dim side passage beyond the turn to the Off-Breach Market. A narrow place, it was little more than rear access to a few shops carved into the mainway.
Wynn had vanished beyond his reach, but he did not care. She and her companions had likely embarked on another pointless foray. He had overestimated the sage's intelligence, but she had served one purpose in the last few nights: Sau'ilahk had found a better link to the texts' whereabouts.
Duchess Reine Faunier, reskynna by marriage, would go below tonight. He would follow, finally gaining a way to the underworld.
Come, he whispered with thoughts.
An orange-red glow rose in the passage's side wall.
His stone-spider surfaced, its single glass-lump eye radiating bloodred. It clung there, watching him, as ripples spread in the rock beneath each point of its four legs. Another ripple snaked along the floor. This one rose at his feet.
It broke the floor with more ripples in stone, arching upward like a rope-size worm of rock-plated segments. Its round mouth oscillated, tasting the air that filled its limbless body.
Neither of these two was the one he had sent to track the duchess.
He had left more than one corpse in the seatt's forgotten corners in order to call and keep all of his compound servants active. At halfway to midnight, a curling twist of black smoke rolled in under the lip of the passage's ceiling. It spread along the high stone, clinging to that surface in its progress, until it hung above Sau'ilahk's cowl.
It gathered itself into a mass, and like black steam, it spread over his cowl.
Each of his trio of servitors was endowed for its special purpose, couched within a spark of sentience. The spider of Stone, Fire, and Air could see and hear. The worm made of Stone, Water, and Air could smell and taste. And the smoke, that blending of Air, Fire, and Spirit …
Show me, he commanded.
It curled over his cowl, into its opening. Within the black robe—within Sau'ilahk's incorporeal form—it spread.
The passage vanished from his awareness.
He looked down upon the wide columned tunnel of Breach Mainway from high above, hanging somewhere within the great crag by which it had been named. Below, the duchess and her people turned into the passage toward Off-Breach Market.
Sau'ilahk, submerged in his third servitor's recordings, drifted out of the high crag, curling along the passage's ceiling, and followed. The market was closed, empty and quiet, but the duchess passed all the way across to one rear tunnel. He followed inward, wafting along the new path's side wall.
The duchess walked amid her entourage with slow, sluggish steps.
No one spoke. It was a strange, silent procession.
Sau'ilahk's servitor flowed down the wall and surged forward along the dark passage's floor. It—he—spread around the rear guards' clomping feet and gathered about the duchess's smaller ones. All Sau'ilahk could see in the servitor's recording were the swish of the elf's white robe and the pounding of the captain's boots. But he felt …
Fear clung to Duchess Reine.
More than that, there was the pain of loss. Two emotions matched and joined to Sau'ilahk, as if one led to the other and back again. She feared the loss might repeat, all the worse for it.
Sau'ilahk did not understand and wished someone had spoken during his creation's surveillance. Anything to illuminate this clinging odor of dread and remorse might have proved useful.
The duchess coughed, slowing. Ahead, the elf's footsteps drew to a stop.
Sau'ilahk's smoke servitor slipped away along the floor. As it rolled up the side wall to the ceiling, he saw the duchess turn with her hand over her nose and mouth. The elf sniffed the air twice and wrinkled his long nose as he looked up and down the passage.
"Someone passed this way with an open torch," he said. Before he expressed more, she waved him onward, and the procession continued.
Soon, Sau'ilahk saw a passage wall of cut stones roll inward after five touches from the duchess. He would not need to deal with the passage as she had.
Banish!
The smoke within him thinned to nothing. He no longer needed that one and, unlike the other two, it could not swim through stone to keep pace with him. He now knew where to go and carefully envisioned his destination.
Follow, he commanded, and winked through dormancy.
Sau'ilahk reawakened before the passage wall, its fitted stones returned to their proper place. He waited only long enough for his two remaining servitors to catch up.
Wynn clenched her chattering teeth. Her feet were numb inside her boots as she slogged through knee-deep water. Shade's breath, like her own, echoed in the tunnel in shudders. Wynn tried not to look back too often.
The encroaching tide gained on them every time they stopped to face yet another gate. So far, Chane had broken through five more. Though these hadn't been as stout as the first, it took him longer each time. He hadn't used the hoop on the first three. When he did so for the last two, it took him longer to bend the heated bars. She worried that even his strength wouldn't hold out if they ran into another. The last one had taken great effort, and he'd faltered three times.
Wynn couldn't fathom wh
y the Stonewalkers bothered creating and maintaining this hidden way if it needed to be so impenetrable. Every gate had an oval of Chein'âs metal in its lock plate.
She forced one foot after the next, with no idea how much time had passed. It felt as if they'd been struggling up the freezing tunnel for half the night. She and Shade were now trapped by the tide. But all that mattered, if—when—they made it through, was locating the texts.
"Have you been counting?" Chane suddenly asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.
"Five gates … since … the first," she managed between shivers.
"Paces," he corrected.
Wynn sighed in exhaustion. "More for me … your legs are longer."
"We have traveled almost a league, at a guess."
She didn't need to hear that.
"Do you need to rest?" Chane asked, glancing sidelong at her.
He stopped walking. His face looked even paler in only her crystal's light, and the anxiety on it was smothered under a wrinkle of anger.
"Your lips are blue!" he hissed, and then shook his head. "This was foolish … foolish! I never should have allowed this."
"You? Allow?"
How many times had she reminded him that this was her mission? Even if he found the texts on his own, he certainly couldn't read most of their content.
Shade whined up ahead. Much as Wynn empathized with Shade's suffering, she couldn't stop shaking herself. Shade huffed twice more.
Chane turned and took a few more steps.
"Odsúdýnjè!" he cursed.
Wynn didn't have to ask. She sloshed forward and peered around his side … at another gate.
Sau'ilahk watched from a far vantage point as Duchess Reine stepped into the lantern-lit end chamber of the downward-curving tunnel.
The two dwarven guards above in the entrance room had not been an issue. He had simply pushed his cowl through the wall of moving stones until he saw the hidden space. He quickly withdrew before the guards noticed a subtle change of shadow on the inner wall. That brief glimpse had been enough to judge distance and position for whatever space lay beyond the door within.
