Of Truth and Beasts

by Barb Hendee

  Chane stood stiff. Without Ore-Locks, he could not pass through stone and would be forced to dig his way back to Wynn by himself. Once a path was opened, no matter by whom, Wynn would continue on. Perhaps she would need Ore-Locks down there. Chane hated that thought but could not ignore it. He looked up the sloping cave-in to the tunnel’s high ceiling.

  “Near the top.”

  Wynn heard scraping sounds long before she saw stones tremble amid the rubble. She had unpacked the cart and sat on its forward corner with Shade at her feet, wondering how Chane and Ore-Locks fared on the other side.

  She wished she could somehow convince Shade that retreat was not an option. With undeads like Welstiel and Sau’ilahk willing to murder to find these orbs, the few like Wynn, who knew the truth, could not stop, no matter the cost.

  Shade whined and put her nose against Wynn’s hand but didn’t pass any memories or words. Perhaps she had nothing to say.

  “Wynn, move back.”

  Wynn stood up at Chane’s barely audible rasp coming from the rubble. She quickly backed along the cart’s side, calling Shade along.

  A bulge broke in the cave-in. Stones and earth tumbled down. Chane’s dirt-caked hands began carefully pushing out more debris until he squirmed through an opening and slid downward on his stomach. He stood up before her, filthy from head to toe.

  Wynn saw no victory in his faintly brown eyes.

  “Start passing me the supplies,” he said. “I will bring you two through last.”

  Wynn noticed his right hand was bleeding, black fluid turning dirt into dark mud stains on his fingers. Regardless of his doubts on this journey, he always managed to get her through to the other side.

  Wynn held out her sun crystal staff and one of the packs, and he took them.

  Sau’ilahk waited down the tunnel until Chane pulled Wynn and Shade through the cave-in. He managed to remain patient only long enough for safety, and then blinked himself through. He was too eager to learn what lay ahead beyond the cave-in, and drifted forward at a distance behind Wynn heading farther along the tunnel. The sight of dwarven bones along the way filled Sau’ilahk with hope.

  Large, dead crystals in the walls grew closer and closer to each other, and the skeletal remains grew more numerous, until he saw one dwarf piled on top another. In places, rubble partially filled the tunnel, half burying some remains. Finally, he grew rash and closed the distance enough to hear the faint voices of his quarry.

  Sau’ilahk froze when he spotted Wynn ahead, and quickly pulled back. The last thing he needed was for the dog to sense him.

  “We’re close to the seatt, aren’t we?” Wynn asked.

  She sounded distraught, and Sau’ilahk wondered if all the bones upset her. These dwarves had died long, long ago, and her feeble pity was wasted.

  “Yes, we must be,” Ore-Locks answered.

  Sau’ilahk swelled with relief. Yes, he agreed so vehemently that he could no longer wait. He slipped to the tunnel’s other side, looking ahead around its gradual curve, and let himself fall into dormancy. As he winked out of existence, he held that glimpse of the tunnel’s distance in his consciousness, though he was as blind as Wynn regarding what lay ahead.

  He rematerialized somewhere beyond her and rushed on before the dog might sense him. Quickly enough, he found himself inside what must have been the tram station at the tunnel’s far end. Of course, there were no trams here; they had all been abandoned centuries ago at the range’s northern side. He briefly looked at the empty, grime-coated stone platforms before seeking an exit.

  Rather than the multiple tunnels leading from the stations at Dhredze Seatt, here only one huge archway led Sau’ilahk into another tunnel straight ahead.

  Chuillyon’s arms felt like lead as he pumped the handle. After so many days of powering this dwarven cart, every muscle in his body hurt. His thoughts kept drifting back to his days of travels with Cinder-Shard.

  The two of them had tromped the countryside or rowed boats for days without stopping. But that time was long past. He had spent too many years dabbling in politics and diplomacy. However, though much younger, Shâodh was not faring much better on the pump’s other end. His long face and high forehead were flushed from exertion.

  When they had first come across this cart, realizing where and how Wynn’s group traveled, Chuillyon had cautioned against moving too quickly, for fear of revealing themselves. He soon realized that overtaking Wynn was less of a concern than keeping up with her.

  Ore-Locks was a dwarf, and Chane was quite possibly an undead. Between those two, they outdistanced Chuillyon at an incredible rate. Hannâschi often offered to spell Chuillyon or Shâodh. Though her offers were genuine, she could not provide much help.

  In his life to date, Chuillyon had known a number of elven women who were quite strong. But Hannâschi was not one of them. Her strengths lay in other areas, so Chuillyon worked with Shâodh to keep from falling too far behind.

  Upon spotting the engine crystal removed from a tram back at the station, he realized what Ore-Locks had managed. Chuillyon had found no way to break another crystal loose for his own cart. He and his had to rely on superior vision and cold lamp crystals for light.

  His arms were nearly giving out, and he reluctantly decided to call for another rest. Hannâschi turned from looking ahead—over the top of the metal box—before he said a word.

  “Slow down,” she said. Looking forward again, she shouted, “Shâodh, the break!”

  Without hesitation, Shâodh released his pump handle and grabbed the break lever, pulling back hard.

  Ahead, Chuillyon saw what had alarmed Hannâschi. Before they would even hit the packed rubble, they were going to smash into another cart on the tracks. He struggled to reach Shâodh, but the pressure of the cart slowing so rapidly forced him to keep hold of the pump handle.

  Shâodh strained, crying out once with effort, and the cart slammed to a halt. Its platform’s rear end bucked upward, and Chuillyon fell across the pump handle. He heard another impact against stone before he could right himself. Upon impact, the other cart had rammed forward into the rubble.

  Shâodh jumped away from the brake, taking hold of Hannâschi and pulling her up.

  “Are you all right? Were you hurt?”

  “No . . . I mean, I was not hurt,” she answered, sounding a bit shaken.

  Chuillyon dropped off the cart and left them both for a moment. There was a hole through the top of the cave-in.

  “Shâodh, can you sense any life?” he called back.

  With one last look at Hannâschi, Shâodh climbed off the cart and came forward. He briefly examined the cave-in, and the skin over his cheeks tightened. He closed his eyes, a soft, thrumming chant rising from his throat, and then he fell silent.

  “I sense nothing,” he said. “They must have passed here too long ago. They have a good lead on us.” He glanced sidelong at Chuillyon. “You wish to press on, to crawl through to the other side?”

  Chuillyon walked back to the cart for his pack. “Certainly,” he said, attempting to sound cheerful. “They have already done the work for us.”

  Ghassan il’Sänke had been inside the mountain for at least eight days, possibly more. There was no way to be certain as he searched. From one dead end or cave-in to another, he had tried to climb higher into the seatt’s upper remains. He soon realized this was impossible.

  All levels above the one he entered had been lost when the peak collapsed. As of yet, he had not discovered any passable tunnels downward. A few times he had been hopeful, only to reach another cave-in and then work his way back up. Tonight he stumbled onto a broad passage, easily as wide as a city street.

  Broken fragments of pylons lay all along the way, but there was room to pass or climb over the debris. Though he made good time, it was difficult to keep his bearings in this ancient maze. He was almost certain he was near the center of the mountain when he saw a large archway ahead, and quickened his pace. Upon stepping through, he was not prepar
ed for the sight that waited. The word “vast” was so insufficient.

  The massive, sculpted cavern could have held a sizable village, perhaps a town. He walked forward slowly, looking around in wonder. At this depth, he was standing in an architectural impossibility. Enormous, crumbling columns some ten or more yards in diameter held the remnants of curving stairways on their exteriors. Three of eight columns were still fully erect, reaching to the high, domed ceiling perhaps sixty to seventy yards above.

  There were several massive cracks in the ceiling, though the light of Ghassan’s crystal was not strong enough to fully illuminate those heights. Walkways ran around the walls at multiple levels, and broken landings at certain points showed where causeways had once spanned between the columns.

  He passed the ruins of a great stairway that had once led upward into stone. Perhaps it had joined to levels above connected to the tiers of walkways. Losing all sense of time, he strolled on until he came to his senses at another huge archway on the cavern’s far side.

  With no wish to leave yet, he climbed one of the countless piles of broken stone to the top of a column fragment lying on its side. In frustration, he crouched and looked about.

  So far, Ghassan had found nothing of significance to explain Wynn’s desperate trek here—besides the astonishing fact that this place was not a myth. But she was not seeking some archaeological wonder.

  Something about this cavern offered him comfort. He could not place his finger on exactly what until he realized that it was the only place he had seen that reminded him that other people had once lived and breathed here. Even the calcified, tragic skeletons scattered about served as reminders. Some appeared to have been too wounded or trapped by falling rubble to have escaped.

  Poor souls. He could not imagine what horrors had happened in this place.

  He looked around from his vantage point, still in awe of his surroundings. This seemed a good spot to wait—the only one, really. This was not only the heart of the seatt . . . this was the seatt, or all that was left of it. Whatever path Wynn traveled, it would lead her here.

  He had earlier sat in meditation to track her position. She was closer, but her speed had slowed, possibly stopped, and he wished he knew why. He still had not decided what to do when she arrived. Should he join her on the pretense of offering aid, or simply give her complete freedom and then follow to watch what she did?

  The first option offered more control. No doubt he could convince her that he had learned enough from the part of scroll he had translated to find her here. Wynn did not trust many people, but she trusted him, to a degree. He alone had helped her when no one else in her own guild branch would. He had made the sun crystal staff for her and fought at her side.

  But joining her meant she would be guarded in her actions. Perhaps the second option was the one to more quickly uncover her secrets.

  He was so deep in self-debate that at first he did not notice the disturbing sensation creep over him. Like an uncomfortable tickle, when it broke through, he knew he had felt it before. He slipped over the column’s far side, crouching on the rubble he had used to climb up.

  Darkness in one far archway shifted suddenly, as if those shadows awoke to life.

  A black figure drifted from the opening, garbed in a flowing robe and cloak. Both garments shifted and swayed, though the cavern’s air was still and stale. Ghassan saw only more darkness inside its voluminous, sagging cowl where there should have been a face.

  It raised its arms in some sort of silent salutation or in triumph, and its sleeves slipped down, exposing thin arms, hands, and fingers all wrapped in black strips.

  Ghassan did not want to believe his eyes. He and Wynn had burned this thing to nothing in the streets of Calm Seatt.

  And yet here it was.

  Sau’ilahk rematerialized in the tunnel before a huge archway at its end. He slipped through to find himself in the half-destroyed remains of a great cathedral cavern. Its immensity left him startled, as did its depth beneath the range.

  Column fragments larger than cottages and piles of rubble lay everywhere. There were fewer remains here than in the tunnel. He suspected some dwarves on this level had made it to the trams and escaped before whatever had happened that shattered and burned this place. The bones on this side of the cave-in must be from stragglers trapped by the catastrophe that had come.

  He looked up, imagining the crushed levels above. Judging the seatt’s possible population by this central cavern’s size and the openings around it, tens of thousands must have perished up there. But Sau’ilahk gave them no thought.

  His shifting, incorporeal form wavered, as if shivering with excitement as he raised his arms. At least Beloved had not lied in this. He was inside Bäalâle Seatt, and after all these centuries, he would find his heart’s desire.

  Ghassan struggled with what he saw. In his mind, the wraith had been destroyed and was long gone. That failure now changed everything.

  What did it want? If it wanted Wynn dead, she would be. Ghassan forced himself into a calmer, better-reasoning state. It must have followed her and then slipped ahead. Then a greater fear crept into his thoughts.

  He had been tracking the sun crystal’s position, but that did not mean Wynn was still carrying it.

  Fear turned to panic. What if someone else possessed the sun crystal, and he had been tracking the wrong person? Worse, what if he had been tracking Wynn, and the reason the crystal had stopped moving was because the wraith had killed her?

  The black-robed creature began wildly searching the cavern, racing from place to place. Ghassan just watched. At the moment, there was little else he could do.

  CHAPTER 22

  Sau’ilahk raced through downed columns and all about the cavern, uncertain what to look for. Where would the orb have been hidden?

  Several archways in the east wall all led to cave-ins. Flying back out, he drifted up into the heights, following the multilayered upper walkways. Nothing came of it. He began to realize that although he had reached Wynn’s destination first, he possessed no knowledge of this place. He wanted to weep when the only option taunted him.

  He would have to wait on Wynn yet again.

  In truth, he had no idea if she was any more informed than he. But the insipid little sage always wormed her way forward, inch by inch. The prospect of being so close and still dependent on her made him writhe.

  Sau’ilahk settled to the cavern’s floor.

  The dog might sense him more easily in this open place. He could not allow that, so he drifted to the cavern’s far side. Slipping behind one remaining, erect column, he peeked around its immense base.

  Sau’ilahk watched the entrance, sickened by his hope that Wynn would come soon.

  Ghassan closed his eyes, raising sigils amid patterns in his mind. Any noise might betray his presence to the wraith, and he focused inward. As he lifted one foot from the rubble, his will held him up, and he floated silently to the floor behind the toppled column.

  Hiding was not difficult among the debris, and he slipped along to crouch behind the remains of the broad steps he had passed. Peering out, he spotted the black spirit behind another great column, but the creature’s attention appeared focused on the archway through which it had entered.

  If the wraith was here, hiding and watching, it could only be waiting for Wynn. Hope fueled that belief, as Ghassan could not battle the wraith alone. He needed to stay alive to counter any further damage Wynn might unleash in coming here. Again he considered revealing himself to her if—when—she arrived.

  They had confronted the wraith together once before. If he could hold it, she could burn it, but obviously that had not lasted the first time. Remaining hidden still offered the better chance of uncovering her purpose.

  Without warning, the wraith began moving again. It drifted back into a passage on the cavern’s southern side. Within the span of a few breaths, Ghassan heard voices coming, and his gaze locked on the great northern archway.

 
; Wynn stepped into a massive cavern, and her gaze slowly rose into the heights.

  The dome’s sheer size and the level of destruction were overwhelming. Her companions were equally stunned. Even Ore-Locks turned in a circle, as if trying to take in everything at once. How could this enormous place not have collapsed when the mountain fell?

  Chane and Shade kept close to her as they moved inward. Wynn was so mesmerized that she stepped over piles of shattered debris without seeing them.

  “Look,” Chane said, pointing down. “These are better preserved.”

  Not catching his meaning, Wynn glanced down.

  Thick skeletal remains lay to her right, half-covered in remnants of decaying armor and corroded blades exposed by rotted sheaths. One still wore an ax on his back, and a tarnished thôrhk lay among the shattered bones of his neck. Another skeleton, perhaps a woman, lay a few paces ahead, her bones still bearing a ring with a dark blue stone and a necklace of metal loops.

  As when Wynn had walked the long tunnel from the cave-in, she suffered a returning sense of loss and sorrow. The scale of death here was too much to hold in her thoughts for long, and she wondered what Ore-Locks felt—thought—standing amid what his genocidal ancestor had done here.

  Did he feel anything? He appeared merely entranced by the daunting visage of this lost city of his people’s forebears.

  Wynn couldn’t help asking, “How can this be intact if the entire upper peak collapsed?”

  Still gazing upward, Ore-Locks answered, “We are deep . . . much deeper than I realized. Thousands must have lived here, but why would so many choose to live this far down?”