Барб Хенди - The Night Voice

He had placed similar sprouts more than once before at the great tree’s bidding. The branch might hold at bay whatever still lingered in this place, but it could not be held so forever: like its parent—or its grandparent, Chârmun—it had to live and take root.

As Ore-Locks leaped atop the tailbone, Chuillyon regained his feet and did not wait to ask. Spotting the waterskin tied at the back of the dwarf’s belt, he grabbed it and jerked it free.

This was only the first need.

Then he felt and heard a great crack of stone. He did not want to see from where that came and ran on, following Wynn as the dwarf dropped her on her feet beside the half-blood.

Chuillyon pulled the skin’s stopper as he came in behind Leesil.

Leesil looked up as the others came in around him, but Chane was missing. For some reason, that panicked him, and he looked back over his shoulder. Ore-Locks dropped Wynn on her feet, blocking his view, and then Chuillyon crouched beside him, a waterskin in his hands.

“You must want this,” the elder elf nearly shouted, for the noise in the cavern kept growing. “The branch is a living thing, and you are its caretaker. It will know what you feel for it.”

What in seven hells did that mean?

Chuillyon shoved the waterskin at him. “Take it, for you must do this! That sprout—that branch—was not bestowed upon me.”

Leesil didn’t hesitate, though he wasn’t fully certain what would happen. There was no soil here; only hard, dark stone beneath the branch’s bottom end.

Chap shoved his head in and looked up at him.

—Now!—

Leesil upended the waterskin, pouring its contents over the branch with his other hand.

Was that all it would take?

Small root tendrils sprouted from the branch’s base. They curled like animate limbs. The hissing rose to the sound of a hurricane, deafening in Leesil’s ears. A shudder in stone made him lose his footing. He dropped to his knees, holding the branch in place.

“Wynn—light!” Chuillyon shouted.

Wynn understood without seeing, for she had to. She was exhausted and in pain, and hoped Chane had done as she asked.

Something damp and long pushed in under her free hand and licked it.

—I am still here and will grip the staff to do what I can—

Wynn felt the staff jostle and jerk slightly, and she gripped it with both hands, hoping whatever Chap did might help.

“Wynn!” Chuillyon shouted.

She whispered the words aloud, hoping that would help.

“Mên Rúhk el-När ... mênajil il’Núr’u mên’Hkâ’ät.”

Chap twisted his head to one side and bit down on the staff. He did not wait for Wynn to begin, and once again called upon all Elements, ending with his own Spirit.

He heard Wynn’s whisper, and the staff lit up with the strength of the sun. He shut his eyes tight against the glare.

Leesil flinched as the glare washed over him. He had to duck his head and squint as he looked down, and just before he saw, he heard stone crack again.

The branch’s roots expanded and punched into the cavern’s floor. As stone cracked, he heard the hiss become a wail, tearing at his ears. Those tendrils from the branch coiled and snaked into fractured openings in stone.

Silence fell so suddenly that every muscle in his body clenched.

“Less!” Chuillyon shouted, and then lowered his voice. “Too much, Wynn, too much light.”

Chap appeared at Leesil’s side before the light began to soften, bit by bit, and then he realized the next problem. Wynn could not hold the crystal lit forever.

—She ... will not ... need ... to do so—

Leesil looked aside, but Chap was only staring at the branch. Other than rooting by the base and tendrils, it looked much the same. Was it truly still alive? Would it grow to something more that would end everything that started here?

And exactly how did Chap think the staff’s crystal could go on without Wynn?

Chap turned and was almost blinded by the staff’s crystal. Only Wynn’s eyes were fully open, for she would never see what was done here. For an instant, this pained him more than he could bear, but she was not the one he needed now. Chap dropped his head, half closing his eyes, as he stepped around behind Wynn.

When he had line of sight to Ore-Locks, the dwarf had one hand raised, shielding his eyes.

—Can you ... plant ... the staff ... into stone?—

Ore-Locks’s black-pellet eyes shifted to fix on Chap.

—The staff ... must touch ... the branch ... forever—

Then he looked to Wynn, who was always so much easier to speak to.

—Let Ore-Locks lead you by the staff, but do not let go until I tell you—

That Ore-Locks—or any stonewalker—was here at all was blind luck. Then again, how much else of what had led them to this moment seemed that way? The dwarf had been gifted an orb by the flesh descendants of “that which consumes” and befriended by one of the Enemy’s tools, an undead. And a half-blood had been given a descendant of “that which nourishes.”

There were some things even a Fay-descended would never know.

There were some things he could only hope would work now and forever.

Ore-Locks carefully led Wynn closer to the branch. Leesil shifted where he knelt but kept his grip as he squinted at Chap. As Ore-Locks knelt and slid his grip on the staff down to its bottom end, Chap looked to Leesil again.

—Branch ... and ... staff ... together—

Leesil took a loose hold on Wynn’s staff as Ore-Locks set its base against the branch. He watched as the young stonewalker, a guardian of the dead, sank one broad hand into stone along with the staff’s base. Ore-Locks withdrew his hand with an audible sigh.

Leesil waited, half looking up with barely open eyes, though he did not look as far as the crystal. Instead, he looked to Wynn’s grip.

Chap huffed once—and Wynn let go.

The crystal’s light dimmed to a softer glow and held steady.

No one said a word. Everything was too quiet until ...

“And that is that,” Chuillyon half whispered.

Leesil wasn’t certain he believed this.

“What about the orbs?” Wynn asked.

Twisting about, Leesil looked toward the cavern’s entrance and barely made out the nearest chest. Closer still were the bodies of Brot’an and Ghassan, and somewhere beyond those chests, Chane must have hidden himself in the dark.

Leesil looked back to Ore-Locks.

“Can you sink the orbs as well? Hide them in stone?”

Ore-Locks’s eyes widened. He looked down at the branch resting against the staff, and then up again. He nodded once. “Yes.”

“Not all of them,” Wynn said. “One ... you know the one ... should be placed next to the branch, Spirit trapped forever with Spirit.”

Leesil didn’t understand that and was suspicious for a moment. Then again, he didn’t really care. So long as the other four couldn’t ever be used again, the one would be close to worthless, and no undead would ever reach it beneath the ignited staff.

“Then I’m guessing Chuillyon can get us out of here the same way you came in,” he said.

Chap answered first, before Wynn could speak.

—Yes ... he left his ... sprout ... with ... Osha and Wayfarer—

“We’ll need to throw a cloak over the sun crystal long enough to get Chane out first,” Leesil said.

No one answered him.

He rose, looked all around, and listened. Now there was no other sound in this place but his own slow breaths and those of the others. It was too quiet and still after so much and so long. He looked everywhere again for the shadow of a serpent or dragon in the air, but there was nothing.