Through Stone and Sea ndst-2

by Barb Hendee

  Another reskynna was in the underworld, one of true blood.

  "Follow me," the duchess shouted. "Obey me!"

  Quickened footsteps followed.

  "Duchess, please don't," Wynn called.

  "Get out of my way!" the duchess snarled.

  "Remain where you are! All of you!" the elder Stonewalker countered.

  They were breaking in chaos and fear, and Sau'ilahk slid into the passage.

  Light diminished and shifted beyond the passage's opening, as if the two crystals were being moved. Illumination faded toward the cavern's far side, where he had first entered. Was Wynn, or even the duchess, on the move? Then he spotted Chane and Shade as they rounded a far column.

  The wolf wheeled, staring straight at him, and its bellow pierced the air.

  Sau'ilahk flew into the cavern as the crystals' light vanished. The only adversaries remaining were all six Stonewalkers, and they circled around him.

  "Seal it in!" shouted the elder.

  Sau'ilahk could not allow them to interfere with his task, his salvation from Beloved's wrath. And he still had hope of stealing Wynn or the duchess to learn of the texts.

  The Stonewalkers raised their hands, their palms out… .

  Sau'ilahk blinked through dormancy to the cavern's far side and fled.

  Wynn raced through the passages after Reine and the captain, with Chuillyon obscuring a clear view of them. She knew where they were headed and glanced back once. Chane was close behind, and she heard Shade's scrambling claws farther back.

  But it all felt wrong.

  Intuition and reason told her that Chane's awareness and Chuillyon's warning were both right. The wraith was still near. After all it had done to follow her, it would not give up so easily. If Stonewalkers couldn't stop or hold it, even slow it, there would be only one defense left for a dead prince.

  Wynn wasn't certain that even the staff's crystal would work. In these tight spaces, all the wraith had to do was slip into a wall, wait for her to weaken and for the sun crystal to go out. It could come again—and again.

  Doubt told her that she should've stayed with the Stonewalkers to face it.

  As Reine reached the turnoff toward the prince's chamber, a shout echoed from behind them. Chuillyon halted and turned, blocking the way, and Wynn heard the duchess's footfalls fading ahead.

  "What?" Tristan called from beyond the elf.

  "Take everyone onward!" Chuillyon ordered.

  "No!" Wynn countered. "You can't stand alone against it … if it doesn't just slip past you!"

  Chuillyon grabbed her tunic collar, ignoring Chane's warning hiss, and jerked her past himself.

  "Go, and keep your staff ready. The chamber is the safest place now. I will delay or hinder it if possible … move!"

  Wynn stared at him in disbelief. How could the prince's chambers be safer than anywhere else?

  But Chuillyon's intense gaze was set in conviction. Wynn backed down the passage as Chane and Shade came through. The captain remained for an instant.

  "What are you doing?" he asked.

  "Take them onward, Tristan," the elf insisted, and he stepped out into the main passage, heading back the way they'd come.

  The captain backed down the passage.

  Shade turned, taking two slow steps toward the exit into the main passage.

  Wynn grabbed the dog's neck fur and locked eyes with Chane. They had to remain together in whatever they chose to do. Did they stay to fight, or fall back, knowing the wraith would likely get past and follow? What did Chane want to do?

  "We go," he said.

  Wynn thought she heard Chuillyon's whisper echoing to her as she pulled Shade and ran on ahead of Chane.

  Sau'ilahk rushed into the underworld's main cavern and paused. He looked all ways for a lingering hint of light from a sage's crystal. He saw nothing but the orange glow of dwarven crystals on phosphorescent walls.

  Sensing life in the mountain's dense depths was more difficult than in the open, and he was so weary. Hunger obscured his awareness—and Stonewalkers would come at any instant.

  An unintelligible whisper reached him, and he turned.

  It came from the mouth of the underworld's main passage. Had his prey run for the lift? If they reached further help above, it could slow him more. He surged into the main passage.

  A white form stood only a stone's toss down the way.

  The elf had his hands clasped, his eyes closed. His thin lips barely moved in a narrow face so calm and serene. Sau'ilahk heard a whispering like prayer—or was it more like a nearly voiceless song?

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

  One life, even so old and spent, would still serve Sau'ilahk's need. He flew at his prey.

  The elf's large eyes opened without surprise.

  Sau'ilahk slammed against invisible resistance and shuddered as if struck.

  It was not the same as the Stonewalkers holding him in this world, barring him from dormancy. He felt as if he had become wholly solid in an instant. He clawed toward the elf beyond his reach, and resistance grew—like being submerged in mud.

  "No farther, Sovereign of Spirits, by Chârmun's presence," the old elf breathed. "You end here … Sau'ilahk! We have your true name … for an epitaph no one will ever read. This time, you will be forgotten!"

  Sau'ilahk faltered—did this withered old one know him from somewhere?

  The elf's clasped hands, with fingers laced, clenched tighter.

  Sau'ilahk's thoughts went numb as he looked into his adversary's eyes. Those amber irises appeared to shift hue, brightening to the tawny glistening of bare wood. Every bit of distance Sau'ilahk gained, he lost more quickly, leaving him more drained. And his true quarry was getting farther beyond reach.

  Did they have an escape route wherever the other reskynna was hidden? Any moment, the Stonewalkers would find him again. They would bind him from dormancy as the elf held him at bay. And then …

  This delay had to end!

  Two side passages lay beyond the elf, one toward the ocean and the other landward. Which way had Wynn and the duchess taken?

  Sau'ilahk shifted left to the passage's landward side. When the elf stepped to block him, he rushed the passage's seaward side.

  Everything went dark.

  He tried to veer left again inside the mountain's stone, but that hidden pressure still stalled his advance. He surged deeper to the west, deeper into the unknown, his awareness of sight and sound still blinded. As he tried again and again, the resistance began to weaken.

  He found the limits of the old elf's reach.

  Sau'ilahk broke through, pushing onward in silent darkness, but he wallowed in the mountain's bowels, trying to find his way out.

  Wynn had lost sight of the duchess as she ran for the prince's chamber, but she could still see the captain ahead. What had become of Cinder-Shard, Ore-Locks, or the other Stonewalkers—or Chuillyon?

  The captain swerved through an open door near the passage's dead end.

  Wynn heard a high-pitched screech rise inside the chamber as she raced for the door.

  Chane grabbed her arm from behind. Without a word he pushed past, sword in hand, and lifted its broken tip as he entered. In spite of everything, what Wynn saw through the opening still shocked her.

  Tristan threw his sword aside and leaped off the pool's rear ledge. The blade clanged against the wall as he splashed down and thrashed toward the commotion at the pool's gate.

  Prince Freädherich had one hand latched upon a gate bar as he fought to get Danyel off his back. A line of blood ran down the young bodyguard's left cheek, as he struggled to pin the prince's free arm. Reine was soaked as she pulled at her husband's grip on the gate. Tristan closed from behind, wrapped his arms around the prince, and wrenched the young man around.

  Wynn couldn't believe Freädherich's state. He barely resembled the lost man she'd first seen in this chamber.

  Shirt torn by his struggles, he craned his
head back. His features contorted in horrid misery as he tried to cry out. But his voice broke, and he choked as if drowning, even as he gasped for air. When his frantic eyes opened, they were nearly fully black. His face, his skin, was paler than before—and tinged beneath with the taint of teal.

  That taint was almost the color of the sea people.

  The duchess collapsed against the gate. Wet hair matted to her forehead, neck, and cheeks. She was too wet for her tears to show as she sobbed.

  Wynn began to suspect what had driven Reine to let the world believe her husband was dead—and why she silently suffered lingering suspicion as his murderer.

  Reine couldn't think as Frey twisted within Tristan's hold. In the worst times in memory, the hints of Frey's change had come and gone with the tide. And now …

  Danyel waded to the pool's edge, catching his breath as he wiped blood with the back of his hand. Reine realized he'd dropped her comb with the white metal teardrop in the water and it was floating. Danyel scooped it up.

  "They came," he said, panting. "They tried to open the gate. I shut them out, but …"

  Frey thrashed halfway around toward the bars, but Tristan's hold wouldn't break.

  "Must go—go now!" Frey choked out. "They wait … for me … and it is coming!"

  The pool's chill broke through Reine's anguish.

  How did he know what was happening? How had he learned of the black mage? She swiveled, backing toward him as she looked down the tunnel beyond the gate, and then quickly closed on her husband.

  "No, we can protect you—"

  A splash and clank pulled her around again.

  Two male Dunidæ stood beyond the bars. One had his white spear tip tilted toward the lock's outer side. He pushed with the spear, and the gate swung inward through the water.

  At the sight of them, Frey began choking as if he were drowning in the chamber's dank air.

  They had come, and Reine reached back, flattening a hand against his chest.

  "Highness?" Tristan asked, panting.

  She stared at the visitors. Her other hand slipped unconsciously to the saber's hilt.

  "It must … not … find me," Frey whispered.

  Reine looked up into her husband's face. His black eyes almost broke her again, but she saw his full recognition of her. He struggled to speak, as if his throat hurt with every word.

  "It speaks … to the enemy," he gasped out.

  She knew this fear that he mentioned. The families, hers and his, had feared for generations what might come again.

  "You … are my world," Frey said so softly with effort. "And I … cannot lose … that world. I must hold … our oldest alliance."

  His glistening eyes were so fully black—or perhaps such a deep aquamarine that they seemed so in the dim chamber. He lifted his face toward the Dunidæ in the tunnel and then returned to her.

  "I must survive if … my world … is to survive."

  Reine shrank, muffling a sob, as three creases split on each side of his throat. They flexed like the gills of the Dunidæ. He choked hard, and they quickly closed.

  Sorrow drove Reine into panic with the fright of losing him, and this fed her anger. The cascade of emotions overwhelmed her like an ocean swell, until she couldn't see any shore to swim for.

  He grew still, no longer trying to break free.

  "Frey?" she whispered.

  He didn't need any shore to swim to. She couldn't watch what she had to do and closed her eyes.

  Reine pulled Tristan's hands until he let go of Frey.

  She felt her husband's fingers on her cheek, sliding upward, until her soaked hair dragged against the shallow webbing between them. His mouth pressed on hers, his lips too chilled, and then his touch was gone.

  She heard only a soft splash in his wake.

  "Highness!" Tristan shouted.

  Reine blindly held out a hand to stop him. She couldn't even look when she heard the gate clang shut. She stood there, growing more numb by the moment.

  Frey was gone, free, safe—and she had nothing left.

  Wynn watched a once-dead prince vanish into the dark tunnel. Of all things, she thought of Leesil.

  Born of an elven mother and a human father, he was one of the few mixed-race beings she'd ever met. Yet here was a man of royal blood bound by the tides of the deep ocean. There was only an old name and long-lingering rumors among her people.

  reskynna—the Kin of the Ocean Waves.

  Tales of their obsession with the sea went back many generations, though the accounts varied so much they were little more than gossip and folk legend. What had happened—when had it happened—that the reskynna carried within them the blood of the Deep Ones? The mere thought of such an ancient mating seemed impossible.

  Wynn thought of Reine, whose marriage to a prince of a neighboring country affirmed a long-standing alliance. Wasn't blood also a like bond? Was the one within the Prince even older than that of Faunier and Malourné? Did it go back to the very war against an enemy she hadn't yet come to understand?

  She had blundered in here, leading the wraith to the haven of this secret. She had endangered allies mistaken as adversaries in the pursuit of her answers. Even as Shade began rumbling and then snarling, finally lifting her voice in a keening yowl, Wynn couldn't stop looking into the darkness beyond the iron bars.

  There was nothing left to see.

  "It is coming," Chane warned, as Shade's noise grew deafening in the chamber.

  Even the captain thrashed to the pool's edge and grabbed his sword as the other guard climbed out.

  But Wynn kept staring across the pool at the duchess.

  They had no time for pity.

  "Wynn!" Chane snarled.

  She stiffened, blinked, and shoved her hand in her pocket, pulling out the large pewter-framed glasses.

  "Get the duchess," she told the captain. "Chane and Shade will hold off the wraith for me to prepare—and stay out of our way! If it touches any of you, you're dead."

  The captain glared at her, then turned to Danyel. "Give me the comb and take the duchess into the other room."

  Tristan went straight for the door to the outer passage and grabbed hold of it to slam it shut.

  "Don't!" Wynn ordered as she jerked the sheath off the staff's crystal. "Chuillyon or anyone else won't be able to get in."

  "And a closed door will not stop the wraith," Chane added.

  The captain hesitated, then closed the door only partway. He returned to the pool's edge. He took the comb from Danyel and leaned over, stretching out his hand.

  "Highness!" he barked.

  The duchess didn't even raise her eyes as she sloshed over and let him pull her out.

  Chane urged them off with his broken blade. The captain took Reine into the far chamber and guarded the archway while Danyel stood a few paces farther out front. To Chane's relief, Wynn abandoned her useless concern for these arrogant Numans and focused on their task. She put the glasses over her eyes.

  "Get it as far inside as you can," she told him. "Then bolt for the other room. Don't wait, Chane; just go!"

  "I will," he answered.

  But not until the last instant—not until he was certain she had finished preparing and could ignite the crystal. Since their arrival in Dhredze Seatt, nothing had gone the way he—or she—had envisioned. Here and now, Chane could do what no one else could—face another Noble Dead, regardless of its unique state.

  Shade's voice dropped to low mewling, almost that of some large cat. She began pacing along the chamber's far wall beyond the half-open door.

  Chane glanced quickly about, searching for the best positions. He pointed Wynn toward the pool's ledge, farthest from any wall without stepping into the water. He backed partway toward her, giving Shade room as he watched.

  If Shade did sense the wraith's direction, she could harass it when it appeared, and he was free to flank it from either side. If she was wrong, he would be ready to take it first, and let her box it in.

&
nbsp; Shade suddenly stopped. Charcoal fur rose on end along her neck and shoulders, and Chane slid his sword back into its sheath.

  "Get ready," he warned.

  Shade backed along the pool's edge.

  A patch of wall blackened.

  The stain quickly spread upward and downward and then bulged. Shade's jaws clacked as the wraith pushed through at the pool's far side. Its black robes began floating on the air.

  Chane leaped from the ledge to the pool's far side, boxing the wraith as he heard Wynn begin whispering. He swung his hand straight at the wraith's cowl.

  It instinctively flinched aside, nearly sinking into the wall, and Shade rushed it from the other side, snapping and snarling.

  Wynn's repetitious whispers grew to a voiced chant.

  The wraith halted, its cowl turning at her voice. That black opening swung quickly both ways, as if taking in the whole chamber.

  Chane could not let it rush Wynn, and swung at the cowl again with his other hand.

  The wraith vanished, sinking into stone, and Chane's hand slapped against damp wall as he heard Shade's jaws snap closed. He quickly pivoted, watching the whole chamber as Wynn's voice stopped.

  "Shade?" Wynn whispered, and glanced at Chane.

  The dog turned about, sniffing the air with her ears pricked up. She raced past Chane, pacing back between the chamber door and the ledge Wynn stood upon.

  "Where is it?" the captain shouted from inside the far chamber.

  And the black-robe winked in, directly before the archway.

  Danyel drove his sword at it, but in the same instant, its hand reached out, passing through his chest.

  Chane bolted around the pool as Danyel's blade's tip slipped out the back of the black cloak. Shade charged, snapping at it from behind. Wynn spun, aiming the staff and chanting once more as Chane ran by her.

  The wraith vanished.

  Chane skidded to a halt behind Shade, both of them snarling in frustration.

  Danyel just stared blankly at them.

  Chane did not notice how pale Danyel looked until the young guard simply crumpled.

  "Danyel!" the duchess shouted.