Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

“As I have said,” Chuillyon answered, “I believe she is looking for a seatt ... which are always built in mountains or a high vantage point.”

“You do not think she will turn back?”

“I do not.”

Sau’ilahk wondered if perhaps against only two, he might take the old one and leave the younger alive enough for questioning.

Shâodh suddenly stood up and stared southward. Tree branches wavered and snapped back, as if something had passed through them. A strange ripple in the night formed three steps inward from that disturbance on the camp’s southern side.

Hannâschi stepped out of the warped air as if from water, the colors and textures of the trees and earth flowing off her.

Sau’ilahk had not seen her do this before. It confirmed she was a thaumaturge, a metaologer among the sages. And she was fairly skilled, if she could bend light to hide herself at night.

“Well?” Chuillyon asked, straightening. “Are they moving? How far are they?”

Sau’ilahk realized the female had been spying on Wynn’s group.

Hannâschi hesitated before answering. “No, they have not yet broken camp, but they will soon.”

“Not yet?” Chuillyon echoed. “It is long past dusk.”

“Come, sit,” Shâodh interrupted, waving Hannâschi forward.

Of the three, she was the most exhausted by far—growing worse over the long nights. Sau’ilahk had noted this was another contention point between the two men. Chuillyon’s annoying jovial nature had turned serious over this journey. However, he politely but more pointedly insisted that they continue.

“The pale one and the dog were out hunting,” Hannâschi said, settling against the boulder at Shâodh’s insistence. “The journeyor and the dwarf found a pile of stones high up on an outcrop. They seemed quite interested.”

“Why?” Chuillyon asked, his brows creasing.

“I could not get close enough to hear. The majay-hì appeared to sense me or pick up my scent.” She paused. “But if we can risk a small fire, I brought something back.”

The two males exchanged quizzical glances.

“Supper,” Hannâschi explained with a smile, opening her cloak to pull out a dead hare.

Chuillyon smiled back, a trace of his former demeanor returning.

Sau’ilahk anticipated when he would catch that old elf alone and unaware. That one would never stand in his way again.

Ghassan il’Sänke had traveled for more than a moon. He stood on a craggy foothill, gazing across the shallow depression before him at what appeared to be a fallen mountain.

The first part of his trek had taken him northward along the coast to the vast range’s western end. There he had turned eastward along the foothills between the peaks and the desert’s northern fringe of dried, dusty earth.

Tracking Wynn by the staff’s sun crystal was limited, for he gained only a sense of her general direction and distance. But she was coming south from the Lhoin’na. By a map copied from the ship captain’s records, Ghassan guessed she was nearing the end of the Slip-Tooth Pass. She would soon enter the range from the northern side, but he was not concerned. He had ample time, and she had a long, hard trek ahead of her.

With his copy of the poem fragment translated for her and the clues that it bore, Ghassan was certain he would find the seatt well before she did—if it existed.

He still wore his midnight blue robe with its cowl to protect him from the bright sun and the freezing nights. But he hadn’t found ample firewood for the past eight days. All he had left to eat was dried flatbread. Water was not so much an issue.

Ghassan had grown up near the desert before joining the guild. Interaction with tribal people who still ranged the dunes taught him the ways to find water where others would see none. Even weary as he was, ever since translating that poem fragment, Ghassan often lingered in memories of his youth.

Allowed to sit “silently” at the evening fire with his grandfather when tribal elders came to visit, he heard many an entertaining though frightening tale—including one about a headless mountain. It was said that for any who found it, the last thing they heard in this world were whispered rumblings in the dark. Then the head of the mountain took form again, but as fire instead of stone. All there were consumed, leaving only ash that blew away in the next dawn’s wind, and the mountain remained headless once again.

That tale had not been so entertaining or frightening to eight-year-old Ghassan. If such noises were the last thing one heard before the peak’s missing head reappeared as fire, then ... ?

“How could anyone have lived to tell of it?” he had whispered to his grandfather, not daring to speak openly, impolitely, before the hosted tribal elders.

Grandfather had smiled brightly. With a wink and pat on Ghassan’s hand, he placed a finger over his wrinkled lips.

Ghassan had not thought of that tale again until after he met Wynn Hygeorht. Now he looked up the base slope of a headless—or “fallen”—mountain beyond, hidden from the desert below by the jagged hills and lower crags.

It must have once been as immense as any other peak in the range. He could almost not see from one side of its base to the other. About halfway up, the entire top half seemed to have caved in. He wondered, if he climbed all the way up, would he find a flat plateau, crumbled hillocks of boulders, or a crater?

“I am here, Wynn,” Ghassan whispered in the cold evening breeze. “I have found it first.”

He rushed downward through the depression to the mountain’s base.

If this was where Bäalâle Seatt had once existed, climbing to its top would avail him nothing. Any higher entrance would have collapsed if the mountain-top had indeed fallen. But if the tales of the “headless mountain” were based on fact, anyone who had come here and lived had never mentioned anything below it. Lower entrances, if they existed, surely would have been found. So did they even exist?

Yes, he was here. He believed he had found the location of the lost seatt.

“But how do I get inside?” Ghassan whispered again on the wind.

Afew nights later, Chane was out foraging on his own. He took relief in being off by himself for a while.

In his mortal days, he had needed a share of solitude. That penchant had increased since the night he rose from death. Though he cherished Wynn’s company, the last two moons in close quarters with others had begun to take its toll.

He still had some acquired life in one bottle, so he was not concerned for himself, but he strode the pass’s western slope, looking for firewood or anything edible for his companions.

They had made good time in the last few nights, and mountains loomed close ahead. But even in darkness, the landscape was bleak, a rocky terrain spare of trees.

He wandered into an open area at the base of a shorn slope where no trees grew among the scattered, loose stones. Only the sharp angles of embedded boulders showed in the dark. He headed toward the straggly trees at the far side, for no game would linger here.

Chane’s boot toe caught on something.

Stumbling forward before righting himself, he looked down at a square edge protruding from hardened ground. He found himself standing on a flat area, and an exposed patch of smooth stone showed where his boot had scuffed away the dirt. He bent over, studying it.

It was smooth—too smooth—and level versus the surrounding slope of dirt. Crouching, he began brushing away more dirt, and soon exposed an edge.

Though the stone was pitted with wear and age, the small patch appeared to be cut square. He began using his old shortened sword to break more of the hard earth. When he had cleared five paces’ worth, he stopped to examine what he had exposed. The entire edge of stone ran straight and square for the whole distance. It might have once been the foundation of a small but heavy building set into the gradual slope. He stood up, scanning the ground around him, and let hunger rise a little to sharpen his night sight.