Through Stone and Sea ndst-2

by Barb Hendee

  She did not seem to expect an answer.

  "It is more than just a spirit, especially by its actions," he said. "If it is a Noble Dead, even my kind are not easily dispatched."

  Her gaze flickered to his throat. Beneath his cloak and shirt collar, he bore the scar around his neck as proof of that point. He too had risen from death a second time.

  "What was that other thing … that leaped at the duchess and the elf?" she asked.

  "I remember scant references to … constructs of a kind, from my earliest studies. Conjured things of the Elements with awareness of their own." He paused and shook his head. "We should survey our surroundings … see if there is anything of advantage."

  "Why is this place so dark?" she asked, stepping past him toward Shade. "The walls don't glow like most of the outer caverns."

  Much as he valued her curious nature, it now wore upon him, like the beast pacing within him, pulling against its bonds in growing hunger.

  Wynn held the crystal out above Shade, illuminating the wide stone stairs, and Chane studied the wall. It was hewn smooth, unlike the caverns. This was a created rather than a natural space. No moisture crept in to coat it with glittering mineral deposits, which seemed impossible at this depth.

  Chane stepped past Wynn. Only a dozen stairs down, Shade scurried into the lead, sniffing every step they took. He had not counted the steps, but too many passed before Wynn's crystal began to expose the chamber's lower reaches. If she had stumbled off that landing, it would have been a very long first—and last—step.

  They passed the stairs' midpoint and circled at least halfway around the outer wall. The chamber was indeed round, though only a third as wide as it was tall. Indistinct forms took shape below, standing around the lower floor. Something in the floor's center caught the light of Wynn's crystal.

  Chane felt Wynn's hand upon his shoulder.

  "I've seen this place," she whispered.

  "When? How?"

  "Shade saw it in Ore Locks's memories."

  She pushed past him, scurrying downward, and Chane hurried to keep up. Before he reached the bottom, the erect forms already looked like mute representations of standing figures. But Chane focused on that shining disk in the floor's center.

  The large plate of ruddy metal, perhaps polished brass, was at least three or four strides across. There were markings upon it. Shade stepped off the last stair and began circling the floor, but Wynn went straight for the closest tall form.

  "Wait!" Chane ordered.

  She stopped short, an arm's length from one strangely shaped, upright black … casket. At least, that was what it looked like. Drawing closer, he saw that it more resembled a stout form of iron maiden, a torturous execution device he had only read of.

  Dull black, perhaps basalt, it was slightly taller but far broader than Wynn—even greater than the breadth of a male dwarf. Narrowing slightly at its base upon the floor, its bulk widened upward, until …

  Chane's gaze came to where the plain figure narrowed into the dull, domed representation of its "head." The raised shape of a riveted band was carved out of the stone, wrapping around at jaw level. Two like bands ran around its "body" at shoulder and thigh height. But he saw no seams along its sides.

  It was carved whole from one solid piece. And between the two lower bands around its bulk was a vertical oblong shape of raised stone covered in engraved characters.

  Chane peered around the chamber.

  Seven basalt forms—trapped and bound in place—faced inward toward the floor's central disk. But between two on the far side he spotted another opening in the chamber's wall. He glanced up, barely making out the landing above. The opening was directly below it.

  Then Shade rumbled.

  Chane was not the only one who did not like the feel of this place. The dog paced around the chamber, remaining equally far away from the tombs and the floor disk.

  "Wynn?" he said uncertainly.

  When she did not answer, he turned back. Wynn was about to touch the oblong of engraved characters on a tomb.

  "No!" he said. "The floor disk first."

  It was the only thing he could think of to stop her. She frowned at him and headed for the floor's center.

  Chane backed up, still eyeing the mute black shapes. When he spun about, Wynn had crouched at the disk's edge, holding her crystal above it.

  It was made of brass, though Chane saw no sign of tarnish. Someone must clean and polish it regularly. Not truly a circle, the octagon's sides were slightly curved outward, causing that mistaken impression. Inside each edge was an emblem like a complex sigil. In the center was a depression, akin to a high-edged bowl sunken into and melded with the disk. One larger pattern rested in its bottom.

  "Arhniká … Mukvadân … Bedzâ'kenge …" Wynn whispered.

  With each strange word, she pointed to a symbol around the outer circumference.

  "These are vubrí for dwarven Eternals," she added in puzzlement. "Eight of the Bäynæ."

  Chane knew little of dwarven saints beside Bedzâ'kenge—Feather-Tongue.

  Wynn flattened her hands upon the disk and leaned out to look into the center depression. Before Chane could jerk her back, she lurched away.

  "Lhärgnæ!" she whispered.

  "What?"

  Wynn scrambled to her feet, turning unsteadily as she looked to all of the basalt figures. She darted around the chamber, examining each oblong panel, finally stopping at one tomb.

  "Sundaks!" she exclaimed.

  "What are you reading?"

  "Avarice … one of the Lhärgnæ," she answered. "Oh, dead deities! They've locked us in with their Fallen Ones!"

  "What does that mean?"

  "Their devils, their demons … cursed ones! Those who represent vice—and worse—by dwarven culture."

  "So, religious representations?"

  "No," Wynn answered. "They were once real, at least as much as the Eternals, though their names were stripped away. They bear only titles, chosen for their singular disgrace."

  "These are not true tombs," Chane countered. "They do not open. There are no bodies here."

  "Then why bother? Why the disk in the floor? Is that something of the magic discipline … conjury perhaps?"

  Chane looked again at the great brass disk.

  Mages did not call upon deities—or saints—in their arts. Formal religions were more widely spread in this part of the world than in his. Most peasants of the Farlands clung to superstitions of nature spirits and dark influences. Some practiced forms of ancestor worship.

  He knew of priests—and others—who claimed to be gifted by higher powers. They had their grand ceremonies and contrivances to dazzle the ignorant.

  "Some priest's supposed ward against the damned," he replied. "It is nothing more than trappings to appease the masses … to control them through their fears."

  He was about to expound further when Wynn rounded on him. "Do the Stonewalkers look like a pack of charlatans to you?"

  "You are a scholar," he answered. "Do not believe in this."

  "Then why did you hesitate when we first entered the temple of Bedzâ'kenge?"

  Chane was struck mute.

  "Yes, I figured it out," she said. "You were afraid of entering a sacred space. We both know there are things beyond reason we never wanted to believe, and still …"

  Chane looked about the chamber. She was alluding to theurgy, the supposed gain or use of power from higher spiritual forces. That was only more priestly aggrandizing—was it not?

  His skin began to crawl, aggravating his nagging hunger. Had he finally stepped into a true sacred space? Was this a prison for a people who believed their ancestors, saintly or otherwise, resided in this world and not some separate realm of the afterlife?

  Chane strode past Wynn to the chamber's only opening. It was too dark to see into the space beyond, until light grew behind him. Wynn approached with her crystal and its light filled a small round chamber.

  One lone fake tomb o
f basalt stood at the back. Why was this one kept apart from the others?

  Chane backed up—until he bumped into Wynn and pivoted.

  "What's wrong with you?" she asked.

  "Besides being locked up?"

  "Yes."

  He could not meet her eyes or give her the answer. "I will check the wall for any more openings, as well as back along the stairs and landing."

  Chane walked away, heading along the wall behind the silent basalt forms. He was not about to tell her of his hunger. They both had enough fears for the moment, and he would not add to hers concerning himself.

  But they had to escape this place, soon.

  Wynn watched Chane walk away and couldn't stop worrying about his colorless eyes. She'd never seen them this way for so long. Something was wrong with him—more than just this disturbing place. But she couldn't force him to tell her.

  She stepped into the small chamber, wondering why this one tomb was kept isolated. And a phrase or two surfaced from the back of her mind.

  Chârmun, agh'alhtahk so. A'lhän am leagad chionns'gnajh.

  She remembered Chuillyon's whisper.

  Chârmun, grace this place. Fill me with your absolute nature.

  What did it mean? Why had he whispered of the tree called Sanctuary at the heart of First Glade, and as if it might answer … his prayer?

  Wynn hadn't forgotten Magiere's revelations from wallowing in the memories of Most Aged Father. Aside from hearing mention of the fall of Bäalâle Seatt, Magiere had relived far more through the decrepit leader of the Anmaglâhk.

  Most Aged Father, once called Sorhkafâré—Light upon the Grass—had been alive during the time of the mythical war. As a commander of an allied army, he'd fled with straggling remainders of his forces before a horde of undead slaughtering everything in the night. They'd rested each day and run in the dark, being picked off all the way to First Glade. Less than half of them reached that place, where they discovered that no undead was able to follow.

  Wynn had always known of First Glade and its great tree, Chârmun. Few people that she knew had ever traveled to see it. She certainly hadn't … yet. No one ever realized that it had been there since the time of the Forgotten History itself, always present; neither the Lhoin'na nor their branch of sages had ever mentioned this.

  It didn't seem possible that they didn't know that First Glade had existed before the war. And this elf with the duchess, dressed like a sage in a robe of no order's colors, had whispered the name of the tree called Sanctuary.

  And its name, which had always been known, took on a greater meaning by what Magiere had told her.

  Wynn pushed such mysteries away as she faced the lone tomb in the small chamber. She wasn't certain she truly wanted to know more of this place, but she couldn't ignore an opportunity to fathom the ways of the Stonewalkers. Not if she had to work through them, and the duchess, to get to what she needed.

  She raised her crystal close to the figure's oblong panel and traced its markings with her finger. It was an epitaph of sorts, but not the kind placed on the marker of a loved one or ancestor. She struggled to decipher archaic patterns constructed entirely in round dwarven vubrí.

  … outcast of stone … deceiver of honored dead … ender of heritage … the seatt-killer …

  The last one almost stopped her cold, and then she reached the bottom and a final vubrí. All of the others she'd worked out made it easier to decipher.

  Thallûhearag.

  As with the tomb of Sundaks—Avarice—and the others, the title was written at the bottom, not the top, as was customary in almost any culture. It was the same term she'd first overheard spoken in High-Tower's chamber, when Cinder-Shard and Ore-Locks had visited and then vanished. All that Wynn had read in the epitaph's archaic Dwarvish clarified the meaning of that title.

  She jerked her finger from the cold black stone, wiping it down her tunic.

  Thallûhearag—Lord of Slaughter.

  Dwarves used that final term differently than in other culture's languages. It referred to killing the defenseless versus carnage or execution of food animals. She tried to understand the few earlier phrases.

  "Outcast of stone" could mean an outcast of the dwarven people. "Deceiver of the honored dead" implied deceased thänæ, and perhaps even their caretakers, the Stonewalkers. "Ender of heritage" was too obscure, but "seatt-killer …"

  Something horrible had happened at Bäalâle Seatt during the war.

  Wynn backed up one step. "Lord of slaughter …" she whispered, "… seatt-killer …"

  She suddenly felt as if she were being watched.

  Wynn looked to the tomb's faceless dome of a head, which was visually gagged by its raised carving of a riveted band. Everyone in that forgotten seatt, including enemy forces, had been "lost," though no one knew how or why. She realized her first translation of epitaph's final symbol lacked the true meaning, for "heritage" was everything to the dwarves.

  "Thallûhearag …" she whispered, "lord of genocide!"

  Shade began to snarl from behind. Before Wynn could turn, the tomb's shadow moved upon the wall.

  "His true name was Byûnduní … Deep-Root."

  Wynn slid back a step at the baritone voice seeming to rise from the black stone. A thick hand entered the crystal's light from behind it and settled upon the tomb's shoulder. Shade lunged in around Wynn with a snap of jaws, her hackles stiffened.

  Ore-Locks stepped from the shadows, his hand sliding down the tomb of Thallûhearag.

  How did he know a name for this mass murderer? The names of the Fallen Ones were washed away by time. How he had gotten in here unseen, or had he simply slipped through stone, like his brethren?

  Ore-Locks raised his eyes to the tomb's head, as if he saw more than that mute form's representation. He placed both hands flat upon its oval plate, as if trying to blot out the epitaph. Melancholy in his broad features quickly turned into cold resentment.

  He glanced sidelong at her, the same way the duchess had in the dangerous moment in the prince's hidden pool chamber.

  Wynn's head churned with frightened notions all wrapped around this dwarf who'd been her only lead to the Stonewalkers.

  "He does not belong here!" Ore-Locks whispered.

  Her breaths quickened until she grew light-headed. His siblings had renounced him for his spiritual pursuit. Sliver's revulsion drove her to keep the source of his calling from their mother. And in High-Tower's study, the domin's venom for his brother had been visceral in his voice.

  "What do you know?" he demanded. "What did you find in those cursed texts? Where do his bones lie … where is Bäalâle Seatt?"

  A forgotten ancestor, obscured from oral tradition, had called Ore-Locks. But it wasn't a Bäynæ or any forebearer of his people as a whole. It was one in a direct bloodline that the Iron-Braids couldn't bear to acknowledge once Ore-Locks had tried to force it upon them.

  She looked at his hand, pressed firmly upon that tomb of the lord of genocide—Thallûhearag.

  Wynn ran out of the small chamber's entrance, screaming, "Chane!"

  Chane was halfway up the stairs, feeling along the wall, when Wynn called his name.

  The beast within him threw itself against the limits of its chains. His hunger broke free amid fear for her safety. His senses widened as he took the stairs three at a time for a few downward strides.

  Chane lunged off the edge into midair. His legs buckled as he landed; he was only half-aware that he crouched upon the floor's brass seal as Wynn rushed out of the opening between the tombs.

  Her crystal's light flooded the space, burning Chane's sight for an instant. Shade bolted out next, snarling. The sound heated Chane's frenzy.

  Something moved in the dark opening. Bits of it glinted in the crystal's light.

  Chane rushed in, grabbing Wynn's shoulder. As he jerked her behind himself, the drive to hunt became tangled with his need to protect her. Something had entered this place—something he might kill and feed upon. Then he heard
Wynn gasp.

  Chane whipped his head around and went rigid.

  The cold lamp crystal lay on the chamber floor.

  Wynn stared at him, eyes wide with shock, as she gripped her shoulder. Torn bits of felt from her tunic stuck out around her small fingers. A thin scent of blood began to permeate the chamber's stale air.

  Chane choked on a surge of hunger. It burned cold in his throat, and he heard Shade snarl directly behind him.

  "Shade, come!" Wynn called.

  He shuddered so hard, clenching both hands against the spasm, and backstepped away from Wynn. He shook his head and mouthed, No, over and over, but when his lips silently parted, Wynn flinched.

  Chane clamped his mouth shut, hiding the change in his teeth.

  The barest creases formed on Wynn's brow over her narrowing eyes. There it was again—that fear in her face, backed by wary anger. The same as on the night she had seen him emerge from a scribe shop's window behind the wraith.

  "Wynn …" he rasped, but did not know what else to say.

  Shade circled wide around him, taking a position in his way, as Wynn crouched to retrieve her crystal.

  Chane gazed into its light, causing pain in his widening sight. He wished it would sear him.

  "I did not come to harm you."

  Chane twisted back at the deep voice.

  Ore-Locks stood between two tombs before the opening. The red-haired Stonewalker was dressed in a hauberk of steel-tipped scales, with two wide black-sheathed blades lashed to the front of his belt. He did not advance but only watched those before him, as if waiting for a response.

  For an instant, Chane wanted to vent all his anguish on this one.

  This dwarf had frightened Wynn, caused her to cry out … caused Chane's momentary loss of control. The beast inside him began to wail, and he ground his jaws, beating the monster into submission.

  Chane stood shuddering as he glared at Ore-Locks.

  "No one has ever breached our underworld," Ore-Locks said, fixing on Wynn. "So you are not what you seem. Did you guide that black spirit here?"

  "Of course not!" she answered.

  Chane knew something of what had passed between these two in the Iron-Braids' home. Ore-Locks would hardly consider Wynn a friend.