Barb Hendee - Through Stone and Sea

"Enough," she whispered—but in Ore-Locks's deep voice. "Please leave me be."

Wynn shivered, locked inside his memory. She was in the Stonewalkers' underworld.

"You called me," Ore-Locks whispered. "I came to that calling … to serve. But I have learned no more. I cannot save you … free you."

Whom was he speaking to and what did he mean by … "save you"?

"No one will believe or remember," Ore-Locks continued. "I beg you … please, leave me be!"

Everything faded.

Wynn knelt in the passage, her fingers clutching Shade's face.

"No, there has to be more!"

Shade just whined, flattening her ears dejectedly. This was all she had caught. Like her father, Shade dipped only memories that surfaced—whatever rose in a person's conscious thoughts. But Ore-Locks had known what was there in the depths, in speaking to whomever or whatever.

Wynn rocked onto her heels. Was there something down there that called Stonewalkers to a life of service? The evening had ended, and that stolen memory had begun with a question.

Who is Thallûhearag?

And Sliver had spoken of a "false" ancestor.

Wynn couldn't fit it all together, but as she stared at the smithy door, she wondered how the Iron-Braids had come to such a low state. How many generations had existed this way and why? She didn't see how this helped with her own pursuit, but the memory left her pondering one person.

Ore-Locks still might be the one to help her—if she found a way to understand the memory Shade had stolen. Together, she and Shade headed out into the Limestone Mainway.

At dusk, Sau'ilahk willfully awakened from dormancy and coalesced in a shadowed side passage across from Wynn's chosen inn. It was the last place he had followed her, when she and her companions left the tram the night before. Before sunrise had forced him into dormancy, he had slipped deep into the settlement's back ways. In that desolate place, he had drained one young dwarven female caught by surprise and dragged her body into a storage chamber filled with dust-coated crates and barrels.

That one life had been strong and still brimmed vibrantly within him.

Sau'ilahk waited outside of Wynn's inn, but no one came or went. Where else might she have gone, or had she even returned from her day's wandering? He mentally recounted her visits to Sea-Side and blinked into dormancy, envisioning one place. He reemerged in the end chamber of Limestone Mainway on the lowest level and peered at the greeting house where Wynn had first met the warrior thänæ.

Why had she come back to Sea-Side? Was she seeking more concerning Hammer-Stag's death? Again he waited, sinking almost fully into the side of the end chamber's arched opening.

Business was done for the day, but Limestone Mainway still bustled with dwarves. Frustrated, he blinked out again and materialized in a dim passage beyond the Iron-Braids' smithy.

Sau'ilahk quickly conjured, hiding himself in another pool of light-banishing darkness. He heard nothing within the smithy. Then he caught a glimpse of movement, and he looked down the passage, toward the exit leading into the mainway.

Someone short, in a long robe, huddled low beside a black form.

Wynn stood up, patting Shade's head.

Sau'ilahk had wasted energies, but he slipped from his conjured darkness, letting it fade. Wynn had visited the smithy, but he was too late, missing whatever had taken place.

Where was Chane?

Wynn must be close to something, if she returned to previously visited locations.

Sau'ilahk watched her slip into the mainway, and then he glided quickly to the passage's end and halted. Too many people still wandered about for him to follow her, but he could not continue in ignorance. He needed to hear—to see—what she said and where she went. He pulled back into the passage, steeling himself and shutting out the world.

Air for sound was not enough. Fire, in the form of Light, was needed for sight, but its emanations could betray the servitor's presence. It had to be encased with Earth as well, as drawn from Stone. But a base servitor of multiple elements, in three conjuries, would cost him dearly. And a fourth conjury had to intertwine with the others. His creation would need a hint of sentience, though this would make it less subservient.

Sau'ilahk began to conjure Air first of all.

When its quivering ball manifested, he held it and reached out. Caging the warp of Air with incorporeal fingers, he began conjuring Fire in the form of Light.

A yellow-orange glow began to radiate from within his grip.

Sau'ilahk forced his hand corporeal and slammed the servitor down into the passage floor.

He was only half-finished. The last two conjuries had to come simultaneously while he held the first pair firm. Around his flattened hand, a square of glowing umber lines for Earth via Stone rose in the passage floor. A circle of blue-white appeared around that as he summoned in Spirit and inserted a fragment of his will.

The spaces between the shapes, glyphs, and sigils of white grew iridescent, like dew-dampened web strands as dawn first broke. He called upon his reserves, imbuing his creation with greater essence. It would be birthed closer to the edge of sentience, to serve him better.

Sau'ilahk's hand began to waver in his sight. Everything faded black for an instant. Exhaustion threatened to drag him into dormancy. He exerted more will to remain present, and he straightened, lifting his hand from the floor.

All glowing marks upon the stone vanished.

He whispered only with his thoughts. Awaken!

Another glow rose beneath the passage's floor.

Mute and pale yellow, it shifted erratically, darting about as if something swam through stone beneath the passage's floor. Sau'ilahk raised his hand higher, fingers closing like a street puppeteer toying with strings.

The glow halted. The floor bulged above it, like gray mud about to belch a bubble of noxious gas. And the light emerged—and winked at him.

A single eyelid nictitated with a soft click of stone as it closed and opened over a lump of molten-formed glass. Its oblong stone body holding that glass eye surfaced next and rose. Three small holes on either side of that mass were marked by small rippling warps of air where it would take any sound it heard. It stood up on four legs of thin rock, each three jointed, with pointed ends. Where those ends touched the floor, small ripples spread in rings, like those created by an insect shifting nervously upon a still gray pond.

Then it bolted for the passage wall.

No … no return for you … until I wish it!

The stone-spider skittered to a halt and began to quiver. Whirling around, that lump of glass eye opened wide, fixing upon him, and its light shifted to hot red. The servitor dashed straight at him.

Sau'ilahk curled his fingers, crushing their tips into his palm.

Obey!

The stone-spider halted, and quivers turned to shudders as that one eye burned with conscious rage.

Sau'ilahk sank his awareness into it.

Everything tinged red in the dim passage. Darker still was a black form of gently writhing cloak, robe, and cowl. He saw himself through the servitor's singular eye.

Very good … Follow the gray-clad one beyond the passage's end, but remain out of her awareness. You will not return until I recall you. Now go!

Sau'ilahk opened his clutching fingers, and the servitor rushed the wall once more.

It shot upward and across the passage's ceiling. Faint ripples in the stone marked its passing, like a fisher-spider darting across water.

Sau'ilahk watched it scurry out of the passage's top, and he drifted closer to the exit.

The walk back along Limestone Mainway seemed longer than Wynn remembered. But as she passed the greeting house, someone called from the mainway's end chamber.