Barb Hendee: Through Stone and Sea

"Highness, please," the captain demand. "You must remain—"

"Stand off, Tristan!" she ordered. "If the mage can't be contained, I will not leave him alone."

Sau'ilahk fixed upon those words. The duchess feared for someone's safety—someone elsewhere in the underworld. But his own fears were growing.

In the next day's dormancy, he would be alone with his Beloved. His impudent disobedience would bring suffering amid failure to serve his own need. Could he find a way to appease his god and lessen his punishment? Beloved's cryptic warning filled his thoughts.

When chance comes … sever the kin from the sea!

Whom did the duchess fear for above all others?

Sau'ilahk suddenly understood the possibility stretched between duchess's slip and Beloved's demand.

Another Âreskynna 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 Âreskynna 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.