Through Stone and Sea ndst-2

by Barb Hendee

  She was buried alive.

  In terror, she tried to scream, but her mouth couldn't open. Even her jaw and lips wouldn't move. Her lungs began to burn, wanting to expel used-up air.

  "It will pass quickly," someone said.

  That sudden voice in the silence made her flinch in panic, and she collapsed. Her left arm felt instantly strained, but the darkness began to lighten.

  "Breathe," someone ordered in a gravelly voice. "Open your mouth and breathe, fool!"

  Wynn did so, in one tearing, heaving gasp. She grew faint, but something held her up by her left wrist and wouldn't let go.

  "Do not succumb to what you feel, or it will linger!"

  Wynn opened her eyes.

  In the dimly lit dark, Cinder-Shard was watching her. Her left shoulder ached, and she finally realized he held her up by her wrist. The few items she'd brought lay on a damp floor of dark stone below her buckled legs. She struggled to regain her feet.

  "Let go of me," she said, but it came out hoarse and broken.

  "Not until you can stand," he answered.

  Ore-Locks stepped into view, blocking off more of the surroundings.

  "The first time is the worst," he said, "though few have ever traveled this way."

  Wynn wheezed and coughed, and Ore-Locks glanced at Cinder-Shard, as if in concern. She finally planted her feet firmly on stone.

  "She will recover," Cinder-Shard said.

  When he released her wrist, her arm flopped numbly against her side.

  "Come for me when she is finished," he added, stepping around her.

  Wynn slowly wobbled around, still shivering, but all she saw behind her was the cave's rough wall. Cinder-Shard was gone, and she was alone with Ore-Locks.

  "Why did he … bother coming," she got out between breaths, "if you're staying?"

  "I cannot yet take another with me … as he can."

  Wynn began to breathe normally and turned back, trying to make out her surroundings.

  She found herself inside a large, slanted pocket of rough stone. The ceiling was low, but she could stand upright. And half blocked by Ore-Locks's bulk was a pool near the cave's left side.

  There were no other openings besides the pool in the floor, its water likely held down by air pressure of the pocket itself. She had no indication of where or how far she might have come—only that she was still under the earth and near the ocean, by the smell of the water.

  She froze upon seeing what waited at the cave's far end.

  Three small chests were stored in a space below a set of short stone tiers. Something very familiar lay on the first deep shelf. It was a sheaf of stiff hide plates bound between two squares of thin, mottled iron. It was the first text that she and Chap had discovered, the night Li'kän had caught her amid the blizzard and dragged her to the ice-bound castle.

  Wynn was still in too much shock to even feel relief. Digging in her pocket, she pulled out her crystal. It didn't even start to glimmer upon her chilled hand.

  She rubbed it clumsily, until its light began to grow. When she bent slowly to retrieve her fallen items, Ore-Locks was quicker and picked them up. She took them, ignoring him, and stumbled across the cave. She was halfway to the shelves when she heard a soft splash.

  Wynn teetered as she turned.

  Rippling rings spread on the pool's surface as a white-tipped spearhead rose at the center of the water. It was quickly followed by a row of spikes upon a hairless, teal-tinged scalp.

  Large, round black-orb eyes broke the surface, and Wynn stared eye-to-eye at one of the sea people.

  In the crystal's light, she saw the slits for a nose and translucent membranes spread between the ridges of head spikes. He rose enough to expose webbing between clawed fingers, and between the spikes running along the outsides of his forearms. His stomach muscles appeared strange, different somehow, and he had no navel.

  Then his lipless mouth parted slightly over interlocked needles of teeth. Without distinguishable irises, it was impossible to follow his gaze until he actually turned his head toward Ore-Locks.

  Ore-Locks crouched and patted the floor, nodding. The sea man sank until the water covered the slits of his throat and his mouth—but not his eyes.

  "Why is it … he … here?" Wynn asked.

  "He is a guardian," Ore-Locks answered. "I cannot speak to him, but I reassured him that your presence is sanctioned."

  "Who are they … and where are they from? Why did they come to the prince?"

  Ore-Locks left her, heading to the shelves. "Where do you wish to begin?"

  Wynn hesitated, still watching the hairless head of webbed tines and those round black eyes. She backed away toward the shelves.

  "Bring all three chests out, so I can use one as a desk," she said, buying a few moments.

  Until seeing this place, she'd entertained a few notions. Perhaps she could steal a few crucial pages or even one whole text. Or maybe she might spot another way in—or at least gain some sense where the texts were located, so she could find them on her own and retrieve them.

  None of this would ever happen.

  Only a Stonewalker could bring her and take her back out. She'd bought her way in here on a bluff, and now she needed to produce results. Her heart pounded in her rib cage.

  "Haste is necessary," Ore-Locks said, sliding out the first chest. "We do not know when the … the spirit—"

  "Wraith," Wynn corrected.

  "Yes, as you say … and we do not know when or how it will return."

  "I'm well aware of that. This isn't like looking up something in a library volume. Just get the other chests out. Search for freshly scribed folios of translations so far."

  Ore-Locks dragged out the second chest.

  "And the codex," she added. "It's a large volume laced together with waxed string. I need something to help decipher the originals, and their order, without my …"

  Wynn went silent as she opened the first chest.

  "What?" Ore-Locks asked. "Did you find it?"

  Resting atop the piles therein were five volumes she hadn't seen in half a year. Their soft leather covers were lashed closed with wrapped leather laces. They looked rather worn and even travel-weary to her eyes.

  "My journals," she whispered. "My stolen journals!"

  Ore-Locks peered into the chest. "You wrote those?"

  When she didn't answer, he turned away and hauled out the third chest.

  For a moment all Wynn wanted was to gather those five leather-wrapped volumes, leave this place, and hide them where no one could take them from her again.

  "Is this it?" Ore Locks asked.

  Wynn looked up.

  He held up the thick codex where he crouched. Inside the third chest were piles of bound sheaves, translations like the ones she'd seen at the guild. There were so many—but maybe she'd forgotten how much work had been done. It had taken her a whole day to just scan quickly through them.

  "What about this other one?" Ore-Locks asked.

  "What other one?"

  He reached into the chest and held out a thinner volume than the first—but it had the same temporary wax stitching.

  "Give it to me!"

  Wynn snatched it from him and slapped it open upon the chest's edge. Inside were entries of completed or ongoing translation work, like the ones she'd seen in the first volume that day in the catacombs. She looked at all the sheaves, even a few folios, stacked inside the third chest.

  "Valhachkasej'â!" she cursed.

  Thoughts of Sykion—and especially High-Tower's resentments toward her—began to build until she stammered in anger.

  "You … you two … !"

  Wynn couldn't think of anything vile enough to call them. She was holding a second codex.

  They hadn't shown her everything. Only what they thought she'd believed was all the work so far, just enough that she might lean their way, in their urgency to keep all of this a secret.

  "What is wrong?" Ore-Locks demanded.

  Wyn
n tried to regain her self-control. "Nothing," she hissed.

  "Truly? You are this upset by nothing?"

  She wasn't about to explain herself to him. He and Cinder-Shard had both expressed opposition to the translation project in High-Tower's study. She doubted he would empathize with her bitterness. But more important for now, she had more to work with—more translations—to help her fight her way through the original texts.

  Wynn dug through the second chest to gain an idea what it held, as well as the first, which had contained her journals. She set those aside for use and looked up to the shelves filled with all the varied books, tomes, and sheaves she'd taken from Li'kän's library.

  "What was it like," Ore-Locks asked, "the place where you found these?"

  Her mind flashed back to that long, sleepless night. She and Chap had carefully chosen what seemed important, readable, or merely sound enough to take from among a wealth of decaying sources. Her friends had helped her carry away so little compared to what they left behind, now half a world away.

  "Older than you can imagine," she answered. "So old the only guardian had forgotten the sound of speech … or her own voice."

  Wynn shook off the memory of that naked, deceptively frail undead with slanted teardrop-shaped eyes like no breed of human she'd ever seen.

  "Stop bothering me," she said. "I need to work."

  Ore-Locks stepped back as she began pulling out translation sheaves and folios and made a quick mental account of the other two chests' contents. They contained the more frail volumes versus the ones on the shelves. Where should she start first?

  At present, information concerning the wraith was most dire. It seemed to have targeted folios mentioning the Children, the Reverent, and the Sâ'yminfiäl—the Eaters of Silence. From Wynn's encounter with Li'kän, she knew it was possible that minions of il'Samar, Beloved, the Ancient Enemy by whatever name or title, still existed to this day.

  Cinder-Shard had called the wraith the "dog" of Kêravägh—the Nightfaller.

  Apparently he believed it was, or had been, a servant of the enemy. Li'kän, Häs'saun, and Volyno had been three of its thirteen Children, all Noble Dead but vampires. So if the wraith was a servant as powerful as they were, she reasoned that it may have been someone just as important. Perhaps someone who'd once held a position of note as part of one of the other two groups.

  But Wynn had little idea what the titles "Reverent" or "Eaters of Silence" actually meant. All she had were lists of names from one day of reviewing the translations. She'd found only hints that the Reverent might be a religious order.

  For survival—for credence in being here—she first had to find solid information for Cinder-Shard and the duchess. Second, she needed answers for herself on anything regarding Chane's scroll, and thereby any mention of Bäalâle Seatt.

  She almost glanced back at Ore-Locks, growing sick inside at the thought of that thing—that lone tomb—separated from the Fallen Ones. Then it dawned on her that of all the Stonewalkers, if she must have a guard, Ore-Locks might be the most useful.

  His eyes had lit up at mention of Bäalâle Seatt, though she hadn't fully known why at the time. Perhaps, his interest was a way to gain his compliance, if and when she needed it.

  Third and last, with little time for it, she hoped for any mention of an ancient elven sanctuary.

  Chap—as well as Magiere—had caught some of Most Aged Father's oldest memories from the time of the Forgotten. He had seen Aonnis Lhoin'n—First Glade—the place where no undead could enter. The place the Lhoin'na had left hidden in plain sight since that time.

  Members of the elves' guild branch sometimes visited the one in Calm Seatt, yet not one had ever mentioned the great age of First Glade. At its mention, Chuillyon had feigned ignorance, according to Chane. Why would they keep this a secret?

  Wynn needed to know. If the undead could not enter the glade, then such a place, such a haven, might be indispensable in days to come.

  "Why do you hesitate?" Ore-Locks said. "Is something missing?"

  Wynn realized she'd sat too long doing nothing. "No, I'm deciding where to begin."

  "Were the texts not in your possession for some time? Did you not study them on your journey home?"

  "Not enough," she whispered. "My domin, Tilswith, suggested I wait to rejoin my peers—more experienced cathologers. It made sense … because I was a naive girl! But I don't think even he expected the texts to be confiscated."

  As soon as her mouth closed, she regretted telling him anything.

  Yes, she'd perused some of the works on that journey. Curiosity had gotten the better of her more than once. But events in the Farlands had been fresh in her mind, along with losses. Some days of the journey, the texts had been too much of a reminder of what their acquisition had cost.

  Then she remembered something she and Chap had chosen.

  Wynn stood up, searching the shelves. When she couldn't find it, she dug in the chests. In the second, she found a flat volume, its two hide-coated wood covers held on with gut-thread lacing grown brittle with age.

  Wynn looked more carefully at it.

  Someone had removed the old lacing and rebound the volume with fresh, waxed hemp string. The cover had been rubbed with something that had revivified the leather, though it was still terribly marred by age. When she and Chap had chosen this one, she hadn't yet known about the scroll.

  Ore-Locks appeared at her side, apparently unable to stay out of her way.

  "Why that one?" he asked.

  Like Cinder-Shard, he opposed the guild's project, but now he showed quite a bit of interest in the texts themselves.

  "Because it may have been written by one called Häs'saun," she answered. "Another forgotten minion of a forgotten enemy. He was part of a group called the Children—all vampires, another kind of Noble Dead besides the wraith. In Calm Seatt, the wraith seemed especially interested in folios concerning them."

  Ore-Locks watched with intensity as Wynn opened the thin volume. She'd tried for so long to tell her superiors the truth of these texts. She felt dull surprise that Ore-Locks didn't even question her words.

  "What was Häs'saun's reason?" he asked.

  High-Tower would've roared for silence.

  "Three vampires," she said, "along with followers, took what we call an ‘orb' all the way to the Farlands. In its highest desolate range, the Pock Peaks, they built a castle. Their purpose seemed to be guarding the orb."

  "For what? What does it do?"

  "We don't know."

  Her denial was true. Magiere, Leesil, and Chap had all offered varying accounts of what happened in the underground cavern that held the orb. But when Magiere had accidentally activated or "opened" it, the orb had consumed all free moisture within reach.

  Water dripping upon the cavern's walls, bleeding down from ice above being heated by the cavern's fiery chasm, had rained inward all around into the orb's burning light. And Li'kän had been there for centuries, in a place with little or no life to feed on. The orb had somehow sustained her.

  Ore-Locks frowned. "If only three went to these Pock Peaks, what of the others? You said there were thirteen of these … Children. Where did they go?"

  "That may be what the wraith wants to learn."

  Just as she did, especially since it had taken a furious interest in Chane's scroll.

  "Now let me read," she said.

  Ore-Locks folded his hands behind his back and turned away in silence.

  Wynn closed the third chest. Using it as a makeshift desk, she placed Häs'saun's text upon it. She retrieved the second codex, for if what she suspected was true, she needed to know if other translations came from work noted in the first one. Again she found references to sections in numbered volumes, but how was she to know which ones those were?

  She idly flipped through Häs'saun's thin text, until she spotted an inked note on the upper inner corner of its back cover. It was marked as volume two.

  Turning back to the second codex,
and opening the thicker first one as well, she scanned both work schedule listings. Volume numbers between the two schedules were erratic, so the codices weren't sequential. In fact, dates of work overlapped all the way back to the first moon in which she'd arrived home. Some unknown criteria had been used to determine what translation work was entered into which codex.

  Wynn didn't need to check further. They'd hidden the second codex from her. Translations she'd already seen wouldn't include those from volumes listed in it.

  She immediately began pulling texts off the shelves, saving the fragile ones in the third chest for last, and searched for work entries or more volume marks. There were unseen translations to go through, but she wanted the originals at hand as she did so. She looked once to the sheaf of hide pages between old iron squares.

  A tip of a parchment strip peeked out of its far side.

  Wynn tugged it lightly, until its end was visible, showing it was marked as volume seven. She remembered that reference from the first codex and the translations she'd already seen. Then she came to a bundle on the second shelf wrapped in brown felt cloth. Upon unwrapping it, she remembered it well.

  Atop a short pile of petrified wood planks was a strip of parchment marking this collection as volume one. It made sense that this text had been worked on early. She carefully placed the slats on the chest beside Häs'saun's thin volume. She'd chosen them, having identified the author as Volyno, the last of Li'kän's trio.

  Each of the seven planks was a forearm's length and two handbreadths wide. They were covered in faded ink marks she'd recognized when she'd found them. Volyno often wrote in Heiltak, an ancient writing system and a forerunner dialect of contemporary Numanese. Wynn was most familiar with it.

  She set aside the volume marker and gently separated the top three planks. The first was ragged at the ends, decayed and disintegrated long ago. She scanned what remained, searching for anything that caught her eye. Halfway down the third plank she spotted one oddity—a Sumanese term rendered in Heiltak letters.

  Sâ'yminfiäl—the Eaters of Silence.

  "What?" Ore-Locks asked.

  Wynn hadn't realized she'd sucked in a breath too quickly. "Nothing," she answered.

  She traced backward from that term and came upon mention of "thirteen" and "Children." She cracked open ink, dipped her quill, and started reading again from the plank's rotted top.