Barb Hendee: Through Stone and Sea

Chane stopped, forcing Wynn to pause.

"Even in a straight line, that will take days … nights," he replied, watching the mountain's glowing maw.

"No," she countered, and patted her leg to call Shade back. "We'll make Sea-Side before dawn."

Chane glanced doubtfully at her. "It is fifteen, maybe twenty leagues away. Nothing moves that fast."

Wynn wasn't sure how to answer. All she had were Domin Tilswith's brief descriptions, and his assurance that dwarven trams were the fastest way from one settlement to another.

"You'll see," she said. "It would take longer to stand in the cold and explain."

An exaggeration, but she'd never actually seen the trams for herself.

Shade fidgeted in the street, ducking sideways whenever someone passed too near or cast a suspicious glance at a tall black wolf standing with two humans.

"Come on," Wynn said. "I'm guessing scheduled departures will be fewer after dusk."

Chane sighed, casting a sour glance at the cargo lift. Now full of fishmongers and others with late cargo, it rolled over the landing's lip, out of sight, and down the mountain. Wynn grabbed his sleeve and tugged him onward. But when they rounded the great frame stones of the mountain's mouth, Wynn's jaw went slack at the spectacle.

A thinned forest of sculpted columns the size of small keep towers rose to the high domed roof of this smooth, chiseled cavern. The chaos of vendors, hawkers, peddlers, and travelers filled the open spaces. All forms of goods were being traded at carts and stalls and even makeshift tents. Everything from meat pies and tea to small casks of dwarven ale and honey-coated nuts were bartered for by dwarves on their way home for the night.

In the avenues between the columns, more large glowing crystals steamed atop stone pylons, as in the streets outside. Smoke from portable braziers and steam escaping around crystals filled the great cavern with a hazy orange-yellow glow.

"Oh … my," Wynn whispered.

Chane turned a full circle as Wynn recovered from shock. She cast about, trying to figure out which way to go.

Standing near the entrance's side, she couldn't see clearly through so many people, columns, and pylons. She did spot the tops of four large tunnel archways around the cavern's back, heading deeper into the mountain. But which one did they need?

The back of her right knee buckled as something shoved hard against it.

Wynn found Shade cowering behind her and put a hand on the dog's head, passing memories of their quiet times in privacy, but she still felt Shade's panicked rumbling.

"This is madness," Chane rasped. "Which way do we go?"

Wynn followed his gaze into the cavern's heights and was immediately daunted again.

More tunnel openings filled the dome walls above, though these were smaller than those at floor level. And there were more people as well. Stone walkways the size of narrow roads passed between arch-supported platforms surrounding any column's upper reaches. Those paths eventually ended in more tunnel mouths at varied levels up the cavern's walls. Carters and peddlers as well as others hurried along the high paths amid large steaming crystals mounted in iron brackets upon the columns.

So many voices, footfalls, and hawkers' calls amplified off the cavern's stone. In the rumbling din, Wynn's head felt like a beehive had been dropped into her skull.

The whole place was like every open market in Calm Seatt packed into one giant hole in the mountain. There were too many choices, far more than she'd imagined.

"Not above," she finally got out. "The trams have to be easily reached by cargo coming up the mountain."

Wynn looked about for loaded wagons or carts that might point the way, but she saw none. Then she glanced back toward the way station outside. That was due east, and Sea-Side was roughly west by southwest. She rose on tip-toes, scanning about. One major tunnel seemed headed in the right direction. Shrugging her pack higher, she gripped her staff and Shade's scruff and pushed through the crowd.

"Prunnaghvíâh! " a gruff voice called above the noise. " Prunnaghvíâh chûnré!"

Someone was offering venison sausage for barter, and Wynn thought of Chap's taste for greasy foods. Shade suddenly lurched, pulling Wynn off course.

"Whoa!" she cried. "Shade, stop … Shade!"

Wynn stumbled in a rush as Shade's nose bobbed through the crowd. They broke into an open space with a cart-rack of smoke-cured meats and dangling sausages. Behind it stood an old male dwarf in a lopsided leather cap, and Wynn jerked Shade back with a groan.

Shade's anxiety was overcome by her nose and stomach, just like her father. But it brought Wynn to her senses and the obvious remedy to their predicament.

"Stay here," she told Chane.

"Why?"

"I'll ask directions." And she passed her hand over Shade's head.

Wynn sent a quick memory of when she'd made Shade sit and wait while loading baggage during their bayshore journey. Then she hurried for the meat vendor.

"Which way to the tram … to Sea-Side?" she asked in a rush.

The dwarf started. He pushed back the leather cap on his half-balding head and frowned just a little. Wynn regained her manners. Information was bartered just like goods among the dwarves, but there were ways around the complication.

"How much for a small sausage link?" she asked.

"What you trade?" he returned in broken Numanese.

Wynn hesitated. Dwarves didn't use coins like humans. They gauged them by the metal's bulk value, preferring more useful ones like copper and iron, or even steel. None of these were used for coins in human cultures, but dwarves sometimes took such from nearby cultures, especially Malourné, to be used in commerce with humans.

Wynn had nothing to trade and fished out her coin pouch, offering up a silver penny.

The vendor groaned as if it were a burden.

"I just arrived," she explained. "It's all I have … and I offer it in whole."

At that the dwarf chuckled.

"Too much," he replied, and bent over.

Hefting a loop of braided lanyard strung with punched disks of steel, copper, and a few of brass, he untied it. He sorted out two larger copper disks and traded these for the penny.

Wynn had no idea what they were worth.

The vendor handed over a sausage couched in a brown oak leaf made supple with some kind of oil. He pointed to the very tunnel she'd headed for.

"All ways to all seatt places," he said. "Stay right when branch come."

"Vuoyseag! " she uttered in thanks, and rushed back to Chane. "Come on; I know the way."

While she wasn't looking, Shade snapped the sausage out of her hand, leaf and all.

"My fingers!" she yelped. "You little … You will not turn into some pig like your father, I warn you."

The sausage was gone. Shade lolled her tongue, trying to spit out the shredded leaf.

Chane pulled the pack off Wynn's shoulder before she could stop him. He bundled it under his arm, slinging his own pair over one shoulder.

"Lead," he said, "and take us out of here."

Wynn grabbed Shade's scruff and pushed toward the second tunnel from the left.

Sau'ilahk rose from dormancy, his slowly returning awareness filling with one clear memory.

He could "awaken" to any place distinctly remembered, and he fixed upon the shadowed space with the fir tree beyond the temple of Bedzâ'kenge. He was instantly startled by sight of Wynn and her companions heading across the street and down wide steps. But he clearly heard her use the words "way station."

Sau'ilahk sank briefly into dormancy, focusing upon another clear memory.

This time he materialized inside a poorly lit alcove of one access tunnel into Cheku'ûn's great market cavern. He had been here before in his searches. Other quarry had passed this way, ones he had followed over the years, decades … centuries… .