Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

It raised its arms in some sort of silent salutation or in triumph, and its sleeves slipped down, exposing thin arms, hands, and fingers all wrapped in black strips.

Ghassan did not want to believe his eyes. He and Wynn had burned this thing to nothing in the streets of Calm Seatt.

And yet here it was.

Sau’ilahk rematerialized in the tunnel before a huge archway at its end. He slipped through to find himself in the half-destroyed remains of a great cathedral cavern. Its immensity left him startled, as did its depth beneath the range.

Column fragments larger than cottages and piles of rubble lay everywhere. There were fewer remains here than in the tunnel. He suspected some dwarves on this level had made it to the trams and escaped before whatever had happened that shattered and burned this place. The bones on this side of the cave-in must be from stragglers trapped by the catastrophe that had come.

He looked up, imagining the crushed levels above. Judging the seatt’s possible population by this central cavern’s size and the openings around it, tens of thousands must have perished up there. But Sau’ilahk gave them no thought.

His shifting, incorporeal form wavered, as if shivering with excitement as he raised his arms. At least Beloved had not lied in this. He was inside Bäalâle Seatt, and after all these centuries, he would find his heart’s desire.

Ghassan struggled with what he saw. In his mind, the wraith had been destroyed and was long gone. That failure now changed everything.

What did it want? If it wanted Wynn dead, she would be. Ghassan forced himself into a calmer, better-reasoning state. It must have followed her and then slipped ahead. Then a greater fear crept into his thoughts.

He had been tracking the sun crystal’s position, but that did not mean Wynn was still carrying it.

Fear turned to panic. What if someone else possessed the sun crystal, and he had been tracking the wrong person? Worse, what if he had been tracking Wynn, and the reason the crystal had stopped moving was because the wraith had killed her?

The black-robed creature began wildly searching the cavern, racing from place to place. Ghassan just watched. At the moment, there was little else he could do.

Sau’ilahk raced through downed columns and all about the cavern, uncertain what to look for. Where would the orb have been hidden?

Several archways in the east wall all led to cave-ins. Flying back out, he drifted up into the heights, following the multilayered upper walkways. Nothing came of it. He began to realize that although he had reached Wynn’s destination first, he possessed no knowledge of this place. He wanted to weep when the only option taunted him.

He would have to wait on Wynn yet again.

In truth, he had no idea if she was any more informed than he. But the insipid little sage always wormed her way forward, inch by inch. The prospect of being so close and still dependent on her made him writhe.

Sau’ilahk settled to the cavern’s floor.

The dog might sense him more easily in this open place. He could not allow that, so he drifted to the cavern’s far side. Slipping behind one remaining, erect column, he peeked around its immense base.

Sau’ilahk watched the entrance, sickened by his hope that Wynn would come soon.

Ghassan closed his eyes, raising sigils amid patterns in his mind. Any noise might betray his presence to the wraith, and he focused inward. As he lifted one foot from the rubble, his will held him up, and he floated silently to the floor behind the toppled column.

Hiding was not difficult among the debris, and he slipped along to crouch behind the remains of the broad steps he had passed. Peering out, he spotted the black spirit behind another great column, but the creature’s attention appeared focused on the archway through which it had entered.

If the wraith was here, hiding and watching, it could only be waiting for Wynn. Hope fueled that belief, as Ghassan could not battle the wraith alone. He needed to stay alive to counter any further damage Wynn might unleash in coming here. Again he considered revealing himself to her if—when—she arrived.

They had confronted the wraith together once before. If he could hold it, she could burn it, but obviously that had not lasted the first time. Remaining hidden still offered the better chance of uncovering her purpose.

Without warning, the wraith began moving again. It drifted back into a passage on the cavern’s southern side. Within the span of a few breaths, Ghassan heard voices coming, and his gaze locked on the great northern archway.

Wynn stepped into a massive cavern, and her gaze slowly rose into the heights.

The dome’s sheer size and the level of destruction were overwhelming. Her companions were equally stunned. Even Ore-Locks turned in a circle, as if trying to take in everything at once. How could this enormous place not have collapsed when the mountain fell?

Chane and Shade kept close to her as they moved inward. Wynn was so mesmerized that she stepped over piles of shattered debris without seeing them.

“Look,” Chane said, pointing down. “These are better preserved.”

Not catching his meaning, Wynn glanced down.

Thick skeletal remains lay to her right, half-covered in remnants of decaying armor and corroded blades exposed by rotted sheaths. One still wore an ax on his back, and a tarnished thôrhk lay among the shattered bones of his neck. Another skeleton, perhaps a woman, lay a few paces ahead, her bones still bearing a ring with a dark blue stone and a necklace of metal loops.

As when Wynn had walked the long tunnel from the cave-in, she suffered a returning sense of loss and sorrow. The scale of death here was too much to hold in her thoughts for long, and she wondered what Ore-Locks felt—thought—standing amid what his genocidal ancestor had done here.

Did he feel anything? He appeared merely entranced by the daunting visage of this lost city of his people’s forebears.

Wynn couldn’t help asking, “How can this be intact if the entire upper peak collapsed?”

Still gazing upward, Ore-Locks answered, “We are deep ... much deeper than I realized. Thousands must have lived here, but why would so many choose to live this far down?”

Chane started to speak, but Wynn held up a hand to stop him. Ore-Locks wasn’t looking at either of them, as if he’d forgotten their existence. For once, his guard was down as he absorbed the mysteries here. She wanted to hear more from him.

“They must have excavated deeply between levels,” he went on. “So deep that the stone between them helped shield the lowest levels. The peaks on either side may have dispersed some of the downward force.” His voice became almost too quiet to hear. “But whatever happened shook the entire mountain.”

Wynn began to feel ill. None of his speculations changed anything. Pushing away the horrors of a forgotten time, she focused on her purpose in coming here. There was an orb to be found, but where would it be hidden in a place of this size?

As far down as they were, she believed the orb would have been placed even deeper—at the lowest place possible. How were they to find a way down in this much destruction?

Chane had crouched, examining the skeleton with the ax and the thôrhk; it was an odd, morbid sight watching his passive and silent study. Before she could call him away, he whispered to himself.

“The ends are not spiked ... this was not a thänæ under one of the warrior Eternals.”

His eyes turned to the ax, and his brow wrinkled. For a moment, Wynn was startled that he even pondered such things, but her own curiosity was piqued.

“Are there marks on its end knobs?” she asked. “If so, can you make them out?”