Barb Hendee - Through Stone and Sea

"Wynn!"

Chane's raspy voice brought some comfort, and Wynn quickened her pace. He trotted to meet her. Noble Dead he might be, but he was always there for her.

"Did Ore-Locks come?" he asked. "How was it at the smithy?"

"Brutal," she answered. "I may have lost him, even more than Sliver."

He shook his head. "How?"

Wynn briefly recounted what had happened, and then asked, "And you?" "The duchess returned," he answered, "as you guessed. She is lodged at an inn off Breach Mainway, near the market."

Wynn took a deep breath, though her relief was small. At least one thing had worked out this night. They might yet follow the duchess and learn more of why she was here. In turn, perhaps something useful would come of that.

"Come," Chane insisted. "I will show you … before we return to our lodging."

He led the way back up the curving tunnel.

Wynn was tired by the time they approached Breach Mainway, but Chane suddenly stopped short of the end chamber. He turned sharply, staring past her down the curve, and Wynn followed his gaze.

She saw nothing but the tunnel's curving dark walls. Shade had stepped beyond them but returned to Wynn's side.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

Chane's brow furrowed. He looked all around, as if uncertain what he searched for.

"I thought I heard something," he whispered. "A click on stone."

He stepped farther downslope, looking beyond the curve.

"Shade would've heard it too," Wynn said. "It was probably just an echo of her claws on the floor."

Chane glanced over at her and then turned back. Wynn fell in beside him as they stepped out into Breach Mainway.

This level looked much like the one above, where the station was. Or at least, it did until she walked into a section where the ceiling rose out of sight. A gigantic gash lunged upward into the mountain above. She'd never noticed that before in all their hurrying about.

As they reached another left-side passage, Chane stepped close to the mainway's wall. Peeking down the side tunnel, he pulled her across to its right side.

"The third frontage on the left," he whispered, and pointed the way.

Wynn peered in. About to step around for a better look, she caught sight of a flash of chestnut hair that made her freeze.

The duchess stepped out of a shop farther down the way. She carried what looked like a thick, bulky comforter and headed up the passage with one of her bodyguards. With so few others about, her voice carried all the way to Wynn.

"This should help old Chuillyon," she said. "He hardly sleeps at all on these hard dwarven beds."

The bodyguard didn't answer, and they turned into the third frontage, exactly where Chane had pointed.

"Earlier," he whispered, "her boots and cloak's hem were soaked with seawater. I could smell it."

"Seawater?" Wynn whispered.

Her head began to pound. She and Shade still hadn't eaten. But a memory stolen from the duchess, of a strange room with a grate beyond a pool, pushed itself up in Wynn's head.

As if someone else had forced it there.

Wynn glanced down and found Shade watching her.

Something had moved in that dark adjoining space beyond the grated pool's chamber.

"We should return to our inn," she said quietly. "Arrange for supper and then talk." Looking up at Chane, she added, "We have to change tactics … again."

Wynn paid the innkeeper for two bowls of chowder and carried them back to the room, closing the door with her hip. It was good to be alone with Shade and Chane for a little while. She set one bowl on the floor for Shade, who hungrily lapped it up, and then sat on the solid dwarven bed.

"You should eat too," Chane said, settling on the bed's end.

She was too weary to argue—or too preoccupied to eat. While Shade finished, Wynn reiterated all that had transpired with Ore-Locks. Chane listened carefully, then shifted a bit closer.

"You did as well as you could," he said. "You lured him out and may have offered something he wants, though he would not … trade for it. It reasons that he would place loyalty above personal desire, if he holds his calling above his family. Perhaps in dwelling on it, he may yet reconsider."

His reassurance changed nothing, but it made her feel less defeated.

"I may have broken their family," Wynn whispered.

"That is nothing. Families are destroyed every day—and some do not deserve to be saved."

His coldness stunned her. She knew almost nothing about Chane's past.

"Do any of your family still live?" she asked.

"My father, as far as I know." He looked away. "Viscount Andraso of Rùrik, halfway up the peninsula from Bela toward Guèshk. My mother took her own life shortly after I encountered Toret, my maker, who was also called Ratboy. Considering my father's treatment, death was a blessing to my mother."

Wynn was dumbstruck, uncertain what to say. Another notion occurred, perhaps to avoid his last words.

"When your father … passes over," she asked, "won't you inherit his title, lands … fortune?"

Chane laughed without smiling. His maimed voice made the sounds come out like quick, hoarse pants.

"Toret took my meager wealth, for all you saw that he owned in Bela. I am the only heir of the Andraso, but the dead don't inherit from the dead. And even if … I doubt I would be recognized by the nobility."

"Well, if I muck up my next idea," Wynn said, "you might at least have someplace to run when I end up in a Calm Seatt prison."

Chane's eyes narrowed. "What are you up to now?"

"In a moment," she said, glancing at Shade.

Shade had finished supper and was trying to lick the last taste from the bowl. Wynn snapped her fingers, and Shade raised her head. With one hopeful look at the bowl, the dog padded over to butt Wynn's hand with her snout.

Wynn slid her fingers over Shade's head and closed her eyes, passing memories of Duchess Reine. She followed this with bits and pieces of the dripping corridor that she could remember—the one leading to the chamber with the iron grate half-submerged in a pool of seawater.

Shade echoed the image back, and much more clearly.

"I'm seeing through Reine's memory, through her eyes," Wynn said quietly for Chane. "She is down so deep the walls are constantly damp and glistening, and the only light I've noticed is the glow of minerals coating the walls."

She began describing all she'd seen: how Reine had gone to the chamber with the pool, how it was locked, and about the side chamber Reine had never entered. She most carefully described the half-filled dark tunnel that stretched outward beyond the iron grate.

Wynn kept her eyes closed, focusing on sharp details that Shade provided. She felt the bed's stiff, padded layers flex as Chane shifted even closer.

"A pool filled with seawater … from a tunnel?" he asked quietly, but his voice was filled with urgency. "Fresh seawater?"

Wynn let herself sink deeper into Shade's stolen memory. She breathed in as if she were Reine within that moment, and the scent of brine filled her nostrils.

"I think so. The water seems clear and clean, not fetid, though its too dim in the chamber to be certain. It just smells like the sea. Strangely, though the chamber itself is damp, it doesn't smell moldy."

With her eyes still closed, she asked, "Do you understand what I'm thinking?"

Chane didn't answer, and Shade moved forward through the memory.

So deep inside Reine's recollection, Wynn felt sudden anguish. Again she heard something move in the dark side chamber, as before. She opened her eyes, still holding Shade.

"Clever girl," she murmured, and then turned to Chane. "This place that the duchess went to … it must be in the Stonewalkers' underworld."

"Another guess," he countered, but he rose and began pacing the room. "Wherever it is, the tunnel may connect to the open sea … and the shore."