Through Stone and Sea ndst-2

by Barb Hendee

  Too many parts were faded, worn, or darkened with age. She'd find those same missing pieces marked in the translation with dots for obscured words or strokes where the count couldn't be guessed. About to check the second codex for what volumes had been worked on in conjunction with this one, she paused upon a sentence fragment.

  … âv Hruse …

  It literally meant "of the earth" or "of earth," but the capitalization meant something more. Was it a reference to Earth, as in one of the five Elements? The sentence's first half was unreadable, as was a short bit that followed. Then she saw something more easily translated.

  … chair of a lord's song.

  It was the same phrase as her own mistaken translation from a term in Chane's scroll. And here it was again, with the same mistake, but written in Heiltak. Il'Sanke's correction had rendered her translation into a reference to Bäalâle Seatt!

  Wynn scanned the second codex and found listings for work complete on volume one—sections one through seven, likely referring to the seven planks. Why this was recorded in the second codex and not the first that she'd been shown?

  Something else nagged at her. She looked between both codices at the handwriting rather than the entries. There were variations in the first, different people recording scheduled or complete work. But the second was written in one hand only.

  It was High-Tower's.

  The implication was clear. He'd been the only one to decide on the work she hadn't seen. How many others, even those involved in the project, were unaware of whatever he was doing—and why?

  Wynn slammed the first codex shut, keeping only the second, and stared at the third plank. The decayed part between the two fragments wasn't long, but she couldn't be certain they were both part of the same sentence. Digging out any completed translation wouldn't help.

  It wouldn't give her useful information to feed Cinder-Shard and the duchess, but she was too obsessed to turn away. When she read onward, other fragments made her neck muscles tighten. Somewhere behind her, Ore-Locks paced intermittently.

  Wynn straightened where she knelt, still second-guessing what she was about to do.

  Without turning, she asked, "Has the duchess ever been down in the Chamber of the Fallen?"

  Ore-Locks's shifting steps stop, instantly.

  "No, not down," he answered. "Your presence there … was unprecedented."

  That brought some relief. Aside from royal involvement in suppressing the texts' existence, perhaps they didn't know about Ore-Locks's true calling.

  "What do you know about Bäalâle Seatt?" she asked.

  A long pause followed.

  "Only the lie that Thallûhearag … Deep-Root … was its final bane."

  Wynn glanced over her shoulder, wishing Chane were here to confirm Ore-Locks's lies.

  "I once heard that everyone there was lost," she said carefully, watching his eyes begin to widen. "It was under siege in the war … and even the enemy's forces didn't escape."

  Ore-Locks tensed, until a vein stood out upon his left temple.

  "Heard?" he whispered, as if he couldn't get a full breath. "Where could you have heard anything of that place?"

  Again, she wouldn't give him any more than she had to. Turning back to Volyno's text, she began reading aloud.

  "‘ … of Earth …' " she began, then tried to fill in, " ‘beneath the chair of a lord's song … meant to prevail but all ended … halfway eaten in beneath.'"

  That last part didn't make sense, but she read onward to what truly mattered.

  "‘… even the wéyelokangas … walk in Earth … failed Beloved's will.'"

  At Ore-Locks's puzzled expression, she explained.

  "Beloved is how the Children referred to the Ancient Enemy, the one your master calls Kêravägh."

  His brow furrowed. "What is wéy … lok … ?" he began, faltering on the word.

  "It's Numanese, my language," she returned, "but so old that few would recognize it. It means ‘war lockers' or ‘war sealers.'"

  Still she saw no understanding in his face.

  "Traitors!" she snapped. "Oath breakers who change sides amid a war, giving advantage to the enemy. And they walked in earth … or stone!"

  "Lies!" Ore-Locks breathed, as his face flushed in anger.

  "They were Stonewalkers!" Wynn shouted back, though obviously he understood. "Your precious Thallûhearag … was Hassäg'kreigi … like you!"

  Ore-Locks took a quick thundering step toward her as the sea man rose in the pool, leveling his spear. Wynn was frightened, but she'd never let it show.

  "Don't even think of threatening me," she warned. "I'd wager Cinder-Shard doesn't even realize all that you are … not by the way he went after the wraith, one of the enemy's own."

  Ore-Locks held his place only an arm's length away. He could kill her quickly enough, but he wouldn't.

  She was playing a dangerous game, one Leesil or even Magiere might have tried: Make an enemy afraid of being exposed for worse than anyone suspected. Wait for him to make a mistake he couldn't erase in the sight of others—and finish him.

  But just how would she do that when the time came?

  "Cinder-Shard is waiting for me," she added coldly. "As is the duchess."

  Ore-Locks paled, anger draining.

  Wynn began to worry. Did he know what she was up to? Then he raised his hand toward the being in the pool.

  That one settled once more, immersed to his slitted throat, just watching her.

  "Return to work," Ore-Locks breathed.

  Wynn stood her ground, not breaking eye contact, until he finally stepped back. Her hammering heart made it almost hard to breathe as she turned away. She was careful to take every step slowly, as calmly as she could, until she knelt before the chest.

  One more question remained, concerning Ore-Locks's brother.

  High-Tower had left home—after his brother—to take service at the temple of Feather-Tongue. In the end, that hadn't been enough for whatever drove him. It obviously wasn't some spiritual calling. He'd abandoned that place for a life in the guild—the life of a "scribbler"—a peculiar choice for any dwarf steeped in oral tradition.

  Wynn looked at the second codex, written entirely in High Tower's hand.

  Certainly others had been involved in its listed translation work, but all under his direction. Was he trying to find the truth of a tainted ancestor—or hiding his family's shame from anyone outside of the guild's walls?

  Wynn returned to Volyno's writing, hoping an ancient Noble Dead could speak across centuries to give her answers. It took longer before her hands stopped shaking, so she could turn to the next plank.

  Sau'ilahk wallowed in dormancy, drained and beaten down until night came again. Awareness slowly returned, as did memories of recent events.

  He had felt his body—as if unwillingly manifested in full—when the dwarf had forced him into the wall. Stone's crush had sent him into terror, and he instantly fled into darkness. But Beloved had been silent amid Sau'ilahk's dormancy, offering no words of assistance or rebuke.

  Those black-clad dwarves—Stonewalkers—had power he did not understand. They had power over him!

  Sau'ilahk wanted to wail his anger, his fear, to rend and tear those who reduced him to cowering flight. He wanted to make Wynn Hygeorht suffer for this. How had she breached the underworld at all?

  He could go nearly anywhere, anyplace he knew of and could remember. She was a witless, confused young woman, even with her staff and its crystal. Impudent Wynn Hygeorht saw herself as his opponent, his equal.

  These Stonewalkers would die soon enough. He would find a way to kill them one by one. But Wynn would be last. Let her watch every ally fall before her eyes. She would die alone, slowly enough to remember the faces of the dead around her.

  A soft hiss entered his thoughts.

  Do not expose yourself—us—and give the sage's rants credence. Remain hidden … keep all in the dark.

  Sau'ilahk's awareness fell to cold stillne
ss at Beloved's words, so filled with new urgency. Was there something more beneath them, as if his god were … panicked?

  He waited to see dormancy's darkness break with the appearance of stars. Each point of light would turn to a glint upon black scales, until those rolled and twisted all around him in turning coils of his Beloved's presence.

  But not a single glint appeared.

  True consciousness began to tingle and stir inside him. With it, rage reawoke. He quickly focused upon memory of the underworld's cavern, trying to scratch together its details and shapes. He had to remember … he had to return there and nowhere else.

  And when chance comes … sever the kin from the sea!

  Beloved's final words pierced Sau'ilahk, flooding his whole being. With them came a wave of hate that drowned his own anger for an instant.

  Sau'ilahk materialized, quaking—and Beloved's fading hatred left only confusion.

  He tried to fathom those last words, but he needed to hunt, to put an end to these centuries of searching—to put an end to that sage. And he found himself at a sudden loss.

  He looked across a deserted cavern of tall and wide dwarven columns—the marketplace. He stood somewhere at its rear, where he had followed the duchess to the hidden entrance into the mountain's depths. He was not in the underworld.

  Sau'ilahk had awoken in Sea-Side!

  With an angry hiss, he turned down the rear tunnel. Why had he returned here? Had he not remembered the underworld cavern well enough—or had Beloved done this? What had his god meant by … sever the kin from the sea?

  Those words worked upon him as he glided along dim passages. Did it mean "kin of the ocean waves"? But the only reskynna here was the duchess, and she bore the name by marriage, not blood. She was not truly one of them.

  Rumbling voices carried from ahead, and he slowed. At the passage's branching, he slipped along its left arc, sinking halfway into the wall. Everything dimmed for an instant, almost taking him to the blackness of dormancy.

  Sau'ilahk fought exhaustion, willing his awareness to clear, and peered around the curve to where the passage straightened. Six dwarves stood before the wall of blocks where the entrance was hidden. A few murmured to one another, as all kept looking along the passage.

  Sau'ilahk sank fully into hiding within stone.

  These were not constabulary. They were armed and fully armored in steel-reinforced hauberks and helms with heavy iron bands. An iron tripod had been placed before them, its basin filled with orange crystals that lit up the space.

  The dwarves had been warned.

  In his current weakness, he could not kill six quickly enough, let alone feed to satisfaction. Was his remaining servitor still within the mountain? Would it be enough for an instant's advantage?

  Beloved had commanded that the knowledge of his return should be hindered. Rampant slaughter and reports of a black figure would heighten any state of alarm. Much attention would turn his way.

  Sau'ilahk did not care anymore. He was tired of hiding within shadows. He needed to kill, feed, and grow stronger with every death.

  The Stonewalkers worked in unison, so he would scatter them like rats in the mountain's bowels. Let them blindly pursue him, uncertain where he might strike next, and he would take them one by one. There would be no more waiting, wandering in frail hope of flesh.

  And he would find Wynn—or the duchess—and torment her until she relinquished the texts' true location. Perhaps he would learn as well the meaning behind Beloved's final demand.

  Sau'ilahk tried calling his last servitor.

  Come to me … come to the target of my intent.

  He fixed upon a point down the passage beyond the dwarves and waited, holding that one spot upon the floor with his full awareness.

  The stone-worm rose there.

  Liquidlike ripples spread through the floor's stone around its trunk. One dwarf shouted, pointing at it, and the others turned that way.

  Sau'ilahk shot across the passage into the far wall and sank only halfway.

  Two dwarves raced toward the worm, one raising a mace to shatter it.

  Sau'ilahk flowed rapidly along the wall, his black-cloth-wrapped hand extending toward the first dwarf's exposed back.

  Left in silence, Wynn ignored Ore-Locks and the sea guardian as she lost herself in research. Switching between chest tops as a desk, she had carefully arranged every text or translation listed in the second codex all around her. Now she tried to find references to the Children, the Reverent, or the Eaters of Silence.

  She struggled through ancient languages and letter systems, some too obscure to fathom more brief phrases. Others were utterly unknown, including a system of ideograms she'd never seen before. Those might've come from Li'kän, perhaps well after she was alone, drifting into madness amid isolation. But Wynn found no further mention of traitors, warlockers, those who "walked in earth," or even Bäalâle Seatt.

  So why had the last been found in Chane's scroll?

  Volyno's work was the easiest to read, but it held little that was useful. She often referred to notes of names taken from direct translations she'd read in the guild's catacombs. She was halfway through another book, its pages made from some thin animal skin. The content was in Iyindu, an old Sumanese dialect, so likely written by Häs'saun. Occasional words were written with characters similar to what she'd learned of Belaskian and Old Stravinan in the Farlands.

  And then she stumbled upon mention of the Reverent.

  That term was recorded in her notes, though this was first time she'd seen it here.

  Wynn ran her fingers over the page's surface. She was holding the actual text from which that translation had been taken, containing that term and unknown names. And here were the names she'd written in the same paragraph.

  Jeyretan, Fäzabid, Memaneh, Creif, Uhmgadâ, Sau'ilahk.

  She still hadn't come across a clear definition for the Sâ'yminfiäl, or the Eaters of Silence. If the Children were powerful servants to the ancient enemy, the offspring of a perceived god, and the Reverent were its priests, then who or what were the Eaters of Silence? She read on and came to a passage concerning Vespana and Ga'hetman, two of the other Children. It seemed an account of a journey.

  It couldn't have taken place after the Children "divided," as mentioned in the scroll. Häs'saun would've been off on his own trek, and therefore couldn't have learned the details. Wynn made out only a few terms, and quickly searched for translations from this text. There were some, but they didn't help much.

  … to the west of the world's fulcrum … [symbols obscured, possible number] long nights from K'mal … Khalidah grew tiresome … though eluded the tree-born … many tainted-blood died … a few filled our ranks …

  The place references were baffling, but she copied everything word for word, even the dots indicating missing or untranslated parts. Some of it was clear. "Tree-born" had to mean the elves, likely ancestors of the Lhoin'na and the an'Cróan. "Tainted-blood" might be humans, and among the dead the few who "filled our ranks" meant only one thing.

  Vespana and Ga'hetman had raised them as undead.

  … were one's forces over and over … by the Sâ'yminfiäl … their mad thoughts consuming weak earth-born minds … waking slumber and … the rituals of Khalidah … that trio with their twisted whispers of thought … promises and fears … the walkers in earth, guided the anchor of Earth … eating up through the mountain's root …

  The pieces hinted at strange things. Wynn lingered most over mention of "walkers in earth" and "guided the anchor of Earth." The latter was baffling, perhaps some siege engine used against the seatt. Whatever it was, it seemed the Stonewalkers had aided in this. But other parts took more time to connect, and when they did, it was so much the worse.

  "Oh, no, no, no," Wynn whispered, and then quickly went silent.

  The rituals of Khalidah … the trio with their whispers of thought … consuming weak earth-born minds …

  Wynn understood what Sâ'yminfiäl, the
Eaters of Silence, meant. They were sorcerers.

  A trio of them had been part of the siege upon Bäalâle Seatt, along with Vespana and Ga'hetman.

  Chane had deduced that the wraith was a conjuror, so it couldn't be one of them. That meant this Khalidah wasn't the wraith. One more name had now moved to one of her three known groups, but it still left too many others unclassified. She had nothing to truly support her notion, but she felt more and more certain that the wraith had served among the Reverent.

  For whatever reason, it—he—was obsessed with seeking where the thirteen Children had gone. But also, much as she was now, had it been seeking what had happened at Bäalâle Seatt?

  She was onto something, but what?

  Wynn returned to Häs'saun's text, struggling with an ancient dialect she hadn't mastered. Almost as cryptic and secretive as the hidden writing in Chane's scroll, what little she fathomed was often condensed. She opened her journal to entries of names taken from the translations.

  Jeyretan, Fäzabid, Memaneh, Creif, Uhmgadâ, Sau'ilahk.

  The wraith had to be one of them. She didn't know what use might come of knowing its name. Perhaps it was just the need to know anything, any scrap concerning her enemy. But it might also help her understand any other references to the Reverent, anything they'd done … anything the wraith knew.

  She read on, catching only every third word and doubtful of her translation, but she used these to guess at the others. She came upon a strange series of fragments that seemed connected.

  … by the priest's jealousy of us … prayers like begging … with Beloved's three-edged boon … the joy of his petty vanity …

  It was the closest she could translate, though she could be wrong. From Domin il'Sänke's comments concerning the scroll, it might be Pärpa'äsea rather than Iyindu, or even some other tongue. But it seemed that one of the Reverent had made a bargain with his Beloved to fulfill a vain wish.

  What could an ancient Noble Dead have that anyone would envy for the sake of vanity? And why had Häs'saun claimed the boon was "three-edged"?