Barb Hendee - Through Stone and Sea

"What?" Tristan barked.

Exchanged glances passed between the four thänæ as they watched Cinder-Shard. The master Stonewalker's tension appeared to spread among them. They followed his roving glare—as did Reine—and Chuillyon moved closer to her.

Cinder-Shard rolled his massive shoulders and shook his head.

"Nothing," he muttered. "Let us go."

Reine willed herself numb as she followed him onto the lift.

Sau'ilahk listened intently outside the door. The soft grating of sliding metal was followed by stone grinding out a rhythm—like the gears of a dwarven lift. When all noise died, a gravelly voice rose. It did not belong to anyone in the entourage.

A dwarf, most certainly, but that voice pulled a twinge from Sau'ilahk, as if he still had true flesh and muscles that could spasm. So few words, but that voice made him anxious. He faltered, uncertain why, and then heard the lift's grinding begin again.

Sau'ilahk could not bear ignorance. He pressed his cowl slowly through the door until the blindness of submerging in wood faded. He glimpsed beyond the door, then quickly drew back. It was enough to leave him astonished, hopeful, and frustrated all the more.

Duchess Reine descended through a central shaft in the chamber's floor. All her companions were with her, as well as some elder dwarf in dark attire.

Sau'ilahk had found the duchess's entrance into the underworld, and the texts waited somewhere below. But more guards stood within the chamber.

His patience thinned.

The two outer guards would be found sooner or later, but living ones left behind would quickly betray an invader's presence. Four thänæ could never harm him, but he could not kill them all before one raised an alarm. Already weakened by conjury, he lacked strength to fill the chamber with conjured noxious mists.

And the duchess was slipping away.

Sau'ilahk slid back from the door. Was his one glimpse enough? The shaft lay directly inward. If he could only keep a straight course, he could reach it.

Follow , he whispered to his servitors, and he sank through the end chamber's floor.

The lift settled at the shaft's bottom, and all Reine could do was retain her composure. Cinder-Shard opened the gate, but she barely took two steps before he paused, blocking the way.

The grizzled master peered down the rough passage ahead. Far away, past where the path split in three directions, Reine saw dim phosphorescence in one natural cavern at its end.

Cinder-Shard spun about toward the lift, glanced up the shaft over Reine's head. He then lowered his gaze, scowling in uncertainty. He spun back to stare down the way ahead.

Danyel and Saln both put their hands to their sword hilts. Tristan remained still, watching Cinder-Shard. But the master Stonewalker said nothing. He finally stepped off the platform, turning to usher Reine out.

"Do we have your leave to continue?" she asked, hoping he might offer a hint for his behavior.

"Of course," he said absently. "You know the way. … My thoughts go with you."

More pity.

"Thank you," she answered coldly, hoping he said no more.

At the tunnel's branching, Cinder-Shard followed the main path, but Reine turned left, to the west. Somewhere in this direction, beyond the mountain, lay the ocean and a rising tide.

"What was that about?" she whispered to Chuillyon.

The tall elf shrugged with a lazy roll of his large amber eyes. "I could not guess. Perhaps the old tomb tender has spent too much time in silence down here."

Tristan said nothing—probably because he had nothing to say. He, Danyel, and Saln brought up the rear. This was one of the few places where the captain never required that he take the lead, entering the unknown before her.

Reine made her way as Chuillyon dropped back behind her.

This side tunnel was nearly as old as the first castle of Calm Seatt, and its walls grew damper the farther she went. Tiny beads of water glistened dully upon their faint yellow-green phosphorescence. She heard soft, erratic patters as the droplets fell. But the tunnel grew dimmer the farther she went. Entering the passage's last leg, she stopped before a lone door, and Chuillyon pulled out his cold lamp crystal.

The stout wooden door showed signs of decay. Rust stained the hinges pinned into stone with steel spikes. The door would need replacing again in a year or two.

Reine peered at the handle and the lock plate with no keyhole. Only an oval of the white metal domed slightly from the plate.

She reached up and pulled one sea-wave-shaped comb from her hair. In its back was a small spot of white metal, as if a silvery molten teardrop had fallen there to bond with the mother-of-pearl. She placed the comb's back side over the lock plate's white metal oval. The steel bolt instantly grated away into the wall.

Reine shifted her other comb to hold back her falling hair. As she cracked open the door, she handed the first comb to Chuillyon. When he turned to pass it to the captain, she stayed his hand.

"Keep it," she said.

"You do not wish me to come with you?" he asked.

"Just … wait out here. I'll call if I need anything."

"But the goods we purchased … Should you not—"

"Later, Chuillyon."

"Highness—"

"Leave me be!"

She slipped inside, shutting the door. With her hands pressed against the damp wood, Reine heard and felt the bolt slide back into place. The sound still made her stomach clench, no matter how many times she heard it. All of this had begun a moon after she'd been found drifting alone in the boat—the night she had lost Frey.

Reine leaned her forehead against the door, and looked down at another white metal oval on the lock plate's inner side. Twice per year, the highest tides were the worst.

She always left the one comb with the white metal teardrop behind, locking herself in. Without it, only Chuillyon—or Cinder-Shard—could let her out. Nothing could escape this place. She rolled her head upon the door and peered toward the rough opening in the far-right wall.

The space beyond it was nearly pitch-black.

Reine took a long breath, straightened, and headed for that opening. She tried not to look upon the pool's invading seawater, even as she stepped along its rear stone shelf. Too many times, she'd stared blankly across it at the iron gate, waiting for something to come. Half-submerged by the rising tide, the gate, its every detail, had already been branded into her mind. So much so that it had worn away even her fear of the ocean. This "cell," as she'd come to know it, had been excavated so long ago that not even Cinder-Shard knew when.

The tide's welling stench intensified, making it hard to breathe, as Reine stepped into the adjoining dark chamber. She reached out and slid her hand along the opening's inner right side. Her fingers caught on tiny crisp edges, and she stroked them three times.

Dim light rose from the thumb-size crystal resting on a ledge. It was a small gift she clung to in this place, passed to her privately by Lady Tärtgyth Sykion, high premin of Calm Seatt's sages. Reine peered about the space.

A blend of fixtures turned the place into a tight and cluttered cross between a sitting room and a study. Its major furnishings were a small scribing desk, a wooden couch with aging cushions, and a book-laden stone casement chiseled into the opposite wall. She'd tried to soften its nature with tapestries, blown-glass fishing floats of varied hues and such, but nothing changed what it was.

There was no end in sight to this repeated torture, and still she refused to give in. She glanced reluctantly to the right. There was another opening in the sitting room's rear.

"I'm here …" she said flatly, but bitterness leaked in when she added "again."

She heard the rustle of fabric from that next room. That one didn't even have the dim glow of phosphorescent walls. Uneven shuffling footfalls upon stone echoed from it.