Барб Хенди - The Night Voice

Dropping to one knee, he faced Chap. “We have to hide the orbs here.”

At first, Chap did not react, and then he snarled and huffed twice for “no.”

Chane bit back a sharp retort and tried to explain himself. “After the lift, we must take a tram through the mountain, arriving in a station deep behind the largest market cavern in the whole seatt. Then we make our way outside and up to the temple of Bedzâ’kenge—‘Feather-Tongue’—in the Bay-Side settlement. That is where we seek Mallet, head shirvêsh of the temple, who knows me and is my contact with Ore-Locks in the underworld of stonewalkers.”

Chap had ceased snarling but still glowered at him.

“I cannot carry all of this myself, nor do I think we should hire help. The dwarves are a curious people. But there is a safe place here near the port. Only stonewalkers know of it besides Wynn and me ... and she would agree with me.”

Chap’s left jowl curled at that last comment.

“We can move more quickly this way,” Chane rushed on, “and have fewer concerns. When we again take to the sea, sailing south to Soráno, the chests will be close at hand aboard a ship, but we must hide them for now.”

Chap was silent and still for a long moment, then turned his head and tilted his nose toward Chane’s first pack. Chane retrieved the talking hide and rolled it out, and Chap began pawing it.

Where?

“I will show you. It is where Wynn, Shade, and I first breached the underworld.” At another rumble from Chap, he added, “It is not easy to find for those who do not know it exists. I swear the orbs will be safe.”

When Chap did not argue or respond, Chane slung both packs over his shoulders. He stacked the chests with the orbs of Fire and Water and attempted to heft them both. At first he struggled to even stand.

Together, they were almost too heavy even for him. Once standing, he could barely see over the top chest but thought he could at least get far enough down shore to be out of sight of the port.

“Leave the empty chest here. It will be easy enough to carry with us.”

Without waiting for agreement, Chane made his way through the port to the shoreline.

Salt water crashing on the rocks soon enough sprayed his boots and then his pants as he carefully worked his way north, blindly but carefully traversing the uneven rocks underfoot. He did not—could not—look back to see how Chap fared. Instead, he looked for the familiar landmark: a long rock backbone hiding an inlet below the mountain’s sheer side.

Finally, he spotted it.

Setting down the chests, he slipped and dropped hard on one knee. After a moment to clench away the pain, he pivoted to see a not quite thoroughly soaked majay-hì.

“Wait here with the orbs,” he said.

At best, Chap might have sighed, though the surf’s noise drowned this out.

Chane needed to make certain the tunnel was still there. For all he knew, the stonewalkers might have sealed it after it had been breached by an undead, a precocious sage, and a black majay-hì. After climbing up the rock backbone and down its other side, he reached into his pocket for the cold-lamp crystal Wynn had given him. When he rubbed it against his cloak, the friction ignited its soft glow, illuminating the inlet’s overhang but not the dark space beyond it.

He worked his way along the cliff wall and under the overhang. Nothing he did now could be seen from the shore. Soon, he found the round opening at the back of the overhang, no more than a shadow in the rock until he stepped directly in front of it. He had to duck to step inside.

The curved floor inside was smoother than the inlet’s bottom, for the tunnel was fully round like a great stone pipe piercing the mountain’s base. It had been excavated long ago, and algae and remains of other dried growths spread halfway up its curved sides.

He could stand upright, though his head brushed the tunnel’s top, and the path widened farther in until he could touch either side with outstretched hands. The gradual incline increased imperceptibly, until he no longer walked in shallow water, and then he saw a grate—or rather a gate.

Vertical bars filled the tunnel from top to bottom, their frame mounted in the circumference by massive rivets. The last time he came here, he had bent several bars to gain access; now those were straightened with no sign they had ever been otherwise. Regardless of safeguards restored, all that mattered was that the tunnel’s mouth had not been sealed and the chests could be placed high enough to remain above the high tide.

Chane returned to the shore and found Chap still waiting ... and still glowering.

“It is as I remembered, except for some repairs,” Chane said. “We can store the orbs within the tunnel, out of sight, as no one comes here.”

Though he sounded confident, something else troubled him. The tunnel had originally served as a passage to the locked chamber of a half-mad prince, both protected and imprisoned by the stonewalkers.

Now though, the stonewalkers had no reason to come out to the tunnel’s mouth. Chane pushed these concerns from his thoughts.

“Wait a little longer, and I will show you,” he said to Chap.

Holding the cold crystal in his teeth, he hefted the chest with the orb of Fire and returned to the tunnel’s first gate. There he placed the chest and hurried back to Chap for the chest containing the orb of Water.

“Come,” he said.

Chap followed, and by the time they reached the gate, the dog was fully soaked. He approached the bars, cocking his head in sniffing, and even bit on one, as if to test it. Then he peered between the bars up the tunnel.

As Chane set down the second chest, he found Chap watching him and rumbling softly—clearly not liking this arrangement.

“If you have thought of something better,” Chane replied, “then say so.”

He already knew the answer.

Chap huffed twice for “no.”

“You could stay here and guard them yourself ... while I go on alone.”

Chap only growled.

Chane turned back to leave the tunnel. He had taken only three steps when he heard the matching click of Chap’s clawed strides.

Chap followed Chane back down the rocky shore to the port. His instincts tried to pull him around to go back after the orbs, not that he could have without Chane. And he was not letting that undead go after the third without him.

It took little time to reach the port now that Chane was unburdened. The vampire stopped long enough to retrieve the third chest and then continued through the port to the far end. He turned a corner inland, and as Chap followed, Chane was already climbing a ramp up to a gate.

As Chap approached, a wild-haired dwarf in a knee-length, black-furred vest strutted out of a nearby booth. In truth, Chap had little experience with dwarves. Contrary to tales on the eastern continent, they were not diminutive. Though shorter than humans, they look almost twice as wide. This full, black-bearded one’s head reached the middle of Chane’s chest.

He appeared undaunted by the tall, pale human before him and grunted in Numanese, “How far?”

“To the top,” Chane answered.

Confused, Chap looked upward, for he saw no other choices in the dark. He did not like facing the unknown in any dealings with Chane, who seemed to know exactly what he was doing.

The vampire set down the chest, pulled out a faded pouch, and opened it. He removed two large, thick rounds of iron with holes in the center. There might have been some form of engraving or stamp on them, but Chane dropped the pieces into the attendant’s broad hand.

The attendant’s bushy eyebrows lifted. He quickly stowed the coins in a pocket Chap hadn’t seen in the thickly furred vest and then stepped rather lively to the “lift” gate and pulled it open. Chane picked up the empty chest again, balancing it on his left shoulder in order to keep his right hand free.