Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

They cannot. Cling to me against the madness.... Come to me.

“Silence!” he snarled. “You are nothing but more of this plague upon my people.”

I am only with you since my coming. I hold this piece of calm, of silence, anchored within you.

“Get out!” he shouted, forgetting all caution.

I am what gives you this respite, free of what eats at all others. You already cling to me for this.

“You are the worst of what has come! Leave me alone!”

The leaf-wing seemed to fade, but not completely. It was still there, somewhere, holding off the gale. But the moment of near silence left Wynn lost as to what any of this meant.

Then kill me ... if you can.

That one crackling utterance smothered Wynn’s despair and stoked fear in its place. What was that voice trying to do in goading Deep-Root? Then she heard a loud, wet smack.

Deep-Root whirled about as a thrum rose through him from the cave floor. Wynn felt it as she spotted the shadowed form of another stonewalker in the next cave opening. He had just slapped his hand against the stone.

She’d seen that before in the underworld of Dhredze Seatt, but she’d never known how the Stonewalkers’ signal for alarm truly worked. It was like a rapid quake running through her, and she could actually follow its sound through stone to its origin.

Heavy boots struck the cave floor, and Deep-Root turned again.

Yet another Stonewalker rushed at him from out of a cave wall.

I wait beyond the farthest place to fall. Can you live long enough to reach it?

Deep-Root bolted, and Wynn heard the shouts of his pursuers echoing through the caves of the Honored Dead. He ran straight through calcified columns and walls of wet stone, swerving each time he reappeared to leap into another wall. And then one time, the blackness of stone didn’t pass in a wink—it went on and on.

Wynn felt her lungs might rupture before she—he—took another breath.

What was the “farthest place to fall”? Or was it truly a place one could go?

Besides Deep-Root, there was one thing lower than this worst of traitors; that was the enemy—Beloved, il’Samar, the Night Voice. Was it speaking to him, toying with him through a false protection from the madness that ate through this seatt amid a siege? Where were those other whispers coming from?

Blackness broke, and Deep-Root exhaled, though not with the exhaustion Wynn suffered in the stone. It didn’t affect him at all. Perhaps it didn’t affect any Stonewalker. He turned in the near dark, feeling along the wall.

His hand settled on something made of crisp angles and smooth surfaces, and he stroked it once. Amber light rose all around.

Wynn looked upon the Chamber of the Fallen.

Deep-Root’s eyes locked on something that was wrong in this place—or was wrong to him. A great gash showed in the hall’s far end—exactly like the one Wynn had found. But he hesitated, stiffening, as if he had never seen it before.

“I am coming for you!” he threatened, walking slowly, watchfully, toward the gash. “I will tear you out of my head.”

And I have been waiting ... since I came for you.

Wynn didn’t want him to go anywhere near that gash. Something inside there was trying to use this murderous traitor for its own purpose. One malevolent force was manipulating another in this place, and she could do nothing to change it.

Deep-Root leaned through the gash, looking up and down the tunnel beyond it.

A heavy footfall echoed through the chamber, and he began to turn.

“Hiding among the Fallen?” someone shouted. “Running to your own ... you traitor!”

The pound of their boots echoed like war drums. Three stonewalkers charged down the hall between the great basalt coffins.

Deep-Root fled into the gash, at first turning left. But something there glowed in the dark, like coals heating up under a harsh breath. He whirled and ran the other way down the raw tunnel—the direction that Wynn had gone herself.

She heard the footfalls and shouts of the others now in the tunnel. Deep-Root halted, listening to them coming nearer. He took a step toward the rough sidewall.

A soft, red glow rose in the tunnel’s distance behind him.

Wynn heard a crack like breaking stone echo down the tunnel. Again and again it came, faster and faster, as it drowned out the pounding echoes of heavy boots. Three silhouettes of stonewalkers up the tunnel halted and looked back.

A hissing roar hammered Wynn’s—Deep-Root’s—ears and made the stone vibrate. Deep-Root sucked a breath as flame erupted up the tunnel.

It engulfed those three silhouettes before he could shield his eyes against the glare. Screams rose and were quickly smothered by crackling fire, and then the roar faded. Wynn saw one broad form aflame throw itself at the wall. It didn’t pass through but toppled back, crumpling like the other two. She watched them come apart like cinders under a hot blaze.

The blast died away, and the only light left came from burning bodies and the scant flickering flames clinging to the floor, walls, and ceiling, as if they’d been splashed with oil. Beyond the dwindling flames, something came striding forward. The tunnel shuddered under its heavy, rhythmic steps.

Its head appeared, its jaws widening slightly.

Deep-Root looked up into the black orb eyes of a gí’uyllæ, an all-eater.

This was the all-but-forgotten word of his people for these winged reptiles. Wynn had other names for it, equally little known among other races, like ...

Wêurm ... thuvan ... ta’nên ... dragon.

This one was so much larger than the one Wynn had faced. Its back scraped the ceiling, grinding off bits of rock. Deep-Root reached for the tunnel wall as he lunged.

No, not this time.

His hand rammed painfully into stone and did not pass through. He didn’t look back, but ran down the tunnel, away from the burning remains and deeper into the dark.

Wynn hadn’t expected this place to be so similar to what she’d found, no matter that this beast was even more futile to fight. A part of her wanted it to catch her—to catch him —even if this was only a memory. Whatever happened, it would change nothing.

But if it did catch him, it wouldn’t know of her. If he died would she die with him while locked in this memory?

Deep-Root slammed hard against stone in the dark. Wynn lost all feeling from his body for an instant. When awareness returned, he groaned upon the tunnel floor, reaching for his face. Touching his head only brought more pain.

Frail red light slowly lit the tunnel’s dead end.

Deep-Root rolled over, scrambling up as he drew both daggers. Wynn didn’t need to feel anything from him to know how much fear filled him now.

There was the dragon, filling the whole tunnel as its spittle dripped flames upon the stone floor. It just stood there, watching her—watching Deep-Root—as the chaos of the gale whispers grew to a storm.

Listen!

That leaf-wing crackle barely lessened the gale. At first, Wynn heard nothing, and Deep-Root wouldn’t turn his back on the creature. Even if he were foolish enough to attack, his blades could do nothing to it.

They come. Listen ... hear them and know ... all here are lost.

The voice took away the gale’s edge, making its cacophony of whispers grow distant, as if pushed back beyond the rough walls. Wynn felt a vibration beneath her feet.

Deep-Root hesitantly crouched, keeping his eyes on the dragon. He laid down one blade and flattened his hand on the stone. That vibration grew stronger, echoing through him. To Wynn, it was like listening to stone crack under some tool; it kept cracking and breaking and tearing without pause.