Barb Hendee - Through Stone and Sea

Wynn caught the unmistakable spark in his eyes at that last mention. She saw hunger there, and maybe some strange thirst for relief. For the first time, she wondered if he'd given her something to bargain with.

"I can read some of the languages in those texts," she rushed on. "Take me to them … and perhaps I can learn what really happened. I know Bäalâle is not a myth."

Another bluff, for she didn't know any such thing. All she had was Magiere's account of a single mention of a fallen seatt in the memories of Most Aged Father. That, and a cryptic reference found within the obscured verse of Chane's stolen scroll.

What she truly needed was to learn where Beloved's thirteen Children had gone and why.

The wraith had selectively murdered for this knowledge. More important was how the Night Voice … Beloved … il'Samar was connected to it all, past, present, and future.

Wynn sat in the forge's dim light, looking into the black eyes of a Stonewalker, the one and only who might help her.

Ore-Locks dropped her hand and stood up. As he straightened, his eyes seemed too dark for even a dwarf.

"You know no such thing," he said. "It is only myth … unless proven otherwise."

Wynn's hope withered. She'd had him for an instant and then lost him.

"Regardless of what you think you heard from my lips," he added, "my sect has sacred oaths. Fragile trusts and faiths you do not understand, even among your guild. I will not be the one to shatter them … not for the misguided guesses of one wayward sage."

Ore-Locks looked at the hearth room's door. His lips parted, but he never said a word. Instead, he turned and strode out of the smithy.

"You won't shatter them," Wynn insisted, scrambling to her knees. "You might even serve them all the better if—"

"I serve the honored dead," he returned without looking back. "Go home, Wynn Hygeorht. I pray to the Eternals that no more harm comes to you … nor that you bring further to my own."

Ore-Locks vanished, leaving Wynn kneeling on the floor with a silent Shade.

Once the duchess reached Breach Mainway, Chane worried about trailing her farther in the open. But she turned down the very next southward-side passage. He rushed to the tunnel's mouth, pausing a moment before peering around the corner.

Several large frontages carved from the passage's stone looked much like other shops and businesses. Perhaps even an inn in one case, since both dwarves and humans lingered out front, coming and going from that third establishment down the way. This made sense. At least some inns or common houses would be near a major market.

The duchess stopped before that third frontage, with its wide, heavy doors propped open. Captain Tristan was the first up the two steps, glancing inside before ushering her in. The rest followed, ducking their heads to clear the low doorway.

Chane leaned back against the mainway's wall. Wynn had been correct. Duchess Reine was not lodging with the Stonewalkers but in a place very near where she could reach them. How and why was another matter. Why had the Stonewalkers allowed her to accompany them at Hammer-Stag's funeral?

Surely she did not need to check on the texts, if some arrangement existed for the Stonewalkers to look after their safety. So what had she been doing in the time between now and when Wynn and he had been escorted out?

At least he now knew one place to pick up the duchess's trail.

Chane headed off along Breach Mainway. It was a long way down to the Iron-Braid smithy. His own task complete, he broke into a trot, hurrying to see how Wynn had fared with hers—the far more difficult one.

Wynn gathered her things and numbly headed out of the smithy. When she stepped into the narrow passage, Ore-Locks was nowhere in sight. A part of her couldn't believe what she'd just done to the Iron-Braids. Another part knew she'd had no better choice. Too much was at stake.

But Ore-Locks had spurned her just the same.

Wynn shuffled back toward Limestone Mainway, remembering the look in Ore-Locks's eyes at the mention of Thallûhearag—and then Bäalâle Seatt. He wanted to know more of the latter; that much was clear. But she couldn't mistake the conviction in his voice. He would never break the oaths of his sect, even for his own desires. She had played an all-or-nothing game … and she had lost.

She felt sick inside, and then Shade barked.

Wynn was too tired for whatever the dog wanted, but Shade wouldn't stop.

She barked twice more and halted, pawing the passage's stone floor. Her crystal blue eyes sparked in the limited light. The mainway lay just ahead, and it was early enough that other people would still be about.

"What now?" Wynn asked.

Shade dropped to her haunches and rubbed the side of her head with a paw.

Wynn sighed and crouched down. Obviously Shade had another memory she insisted on sharing.

Touching the dog's neck, Wynn whispered tiredly, "Show me."

The passage vanished.

She saw Ore-Locks rising upon the platform through the domed chamber's white metal portal. The image faded instantly, and Wynn guessed that Shade was simply identifying Ore-Locks. Just as quickly, she found herself staring through the smithy's workroom, and Ore-Locks stood in its outer doorway.

Wynn heard her own voice say, Who is Thallûhearag?

The smithy vanished.

That brief memory had been one of Wynn's own, but the rapid changes were making her dizzy. Still uncertain what Shade was trying to tell her, Wynn found herself standing in a dark cavern.

A greenish phosphorescence tinged the rough, glistening walls. Stalactites and stalagmites joined together in concave, lumpy columns. Odd twisted shadows played over and between them. In a few steps, Wynn realized the walls' own glimmer caused everything to throw multiple shadows every which way.

She understood the purpose behind Shade's chain of memory-speak. Her own question in the smithy's hearth room had triggered a memory in Ore-Locks.

Wynn—or rather Ore-Locks—walked through the cavern's dim glimmer. Now and then, natural openings appeared, leading off to other places, but he never glanced aside enough for Wynn to get a peek into any of them.

Everything flickered to black—then returned.

The surroundings had changed. A rough stone path still wove in and out of adjoining caves and pockets. Two more flickers, and Wynn guessed that Ore-Locks's scattered memory had raced onward in skips rather than tracing a complete path. Something caught her attention for an instant.

In one place, out of the corner of her eye—Ore-Locks's eye—she thought she saw standing figures. They hid in the cavern's dim recesses among the lumpy, bulging columns and half-formed mineral-laden cones protruding from the ceiling. But those mute figures remained still as statues. The only sounds were the scattered patter of drips and the echoes of Ore-Locks's heavy footfalls. Then he stepped upslope toward a ragged opening ahead.

Half-hidden behind a rising stalagmite, something passed on the left as she stepped out of the cavern.

Wynn stiffened for real. Had that been a face shaped in glistening wet stone?

The memory shifted and altered. Wynn stood before an arch filled with age-darkened iron. It looked just like the triple-layered portal in the amphitheater at Old-Seatt, but smaller. Again, the memory wavered, as if Shade hadn't been able to follow or comprehend what Ore-Locks was doing.

The archway was now open.

The space beyond was so dark that Wynn couldn't see anything except a flight of stairs arcing downward along a curved wall. She took only four steps and stopped—or Ore-Locks stopped—going no farther into the depths.

She couldn't see how far down the stairs went, but far enough that any floor below wasn't visible over the stairs' outer edge. The curved wall to her other side was smooth and perfect. This wide space wasn't natural and had been carved out. But what was down there?