by Barb Hendee
Shade huffed somewhere nearby.
Wynn's concentration faltered. She pulled both pattern and Chap back into focus. Just as she'd once seen him in her mantic sight, his fur shimmered like a million silk threads caught under blue-white light. His whole form was encased in white vapors that rose like flame.
Moments stretched on. Mantic sight still wouldn't come.
The ache in her knees threatened her focus. She clung to Chap—to memories of him burning bright behind her envisioned circle around the symbol of Spirit. She held on to him like some mage's familiar that lived only in her memory.
Vertigo came suddenly in the darkness behind her eyelids.
"Wynn?" Chane whispered.
She felt as if she were falling.
Wynn threw out her hands. Instead of toppling onto the gritty floor, she felt her palms slap against cold, smooth iron. Startled, she opened her eyes—and nausea lurched upward as her stomach clenched.
Wynn stared at—through—the iron doors.
They seemed even thicker than the glimpse she'd had of both layers. Somewhere nearby, Shade's whimper twisted into a low growl.
A translucent white, just shy of blue, dimly permeated the iron. The doors' physical presence still dominated her sight, but there was more, something beyond them. Pale shadows of a large chamber became visible.
Shade whined so close that the noise was too loud in Wynn's ears. She glanced aside, straight into the dog's dark face—and gasped.
For an instant, Shade was as black as a void.
Wynn quickly realized this was only the darkness of her coat beneath the powerful glimmer of blue-white permeating her body—more so than anything else in sight. Traces of Spirit ran in every strand of Shade's charcoal fur. She was aglow with her father's Fay ancestry, and Wynn had to look away.
"Are you all right?" Chane asked.
She looked at him, using him as an anchor.
He appeared exactly the same, unchanged, but only because of the ring he wore. So long as he wore Welstiel's ring of nothing, he was impervious to anything that might sense or see him as undead.
"Yes," Wynn choked out, and quickly turned back to the doors.
The chamber beyond was no more than inverse shadows, like looking into a dark room, its walls outlined by some inner glow. She scanned about before nausea crippled her and searched for a hint of entrances from other passages.
There were none.
Shade had seen the duchess and the Stonewalkers here. But when the white-clad elf turned, Shade had ducked into hiding. She hadn't seen who had gone in or not. At first, Wynn assumed the duchess and her people had merely gone off another way. But if Duchess Reine had gone in …
The only other fixture Wynn made out within the chamber was a huge circle of darkness upon the floor. The harder she focused, the more she saw the dim residue of Spirit in the stone where the floor ended around a large hole, about four yards wide.
She turned her focus downward to penetrate the floor by whatever blue-white shadows lay beyond it. But stone and iron were dense. In them, Spirit was perhaps the weakest of the Elements. Either that, or perhaps looking through so many pale layers of Spirit outlines was just not possible. She couldn't make out the shaft's depths.
Wynn pondered the rhythmic grinding in Shade's memory. The only thing that could've made that sound was a mechanism—like a dwarven lift and tram. Without other fixtures in the chamber, even chains and gears, Wynn had doubts. Whatever the sound had been, the Stonewalkers were gone. If the duchess had entered, then she must have gone with them.
Why?
"What do you see?" Chane asked.
"A dim chamber … a dark hole on the floor."
Saying even this made her gag against nausea. About to turn away, she noticed something strange to the left.
At first it looked like a stack of rods, perhaps resting on a ledge beside the chamber door. When Wynn stared longer, focusing beyond the framestones' physical shapes, she counted a three-by-four grid of what might be squared iron rods. Behind them were several small round shapes, possibly metal, and vertical struts inside the wall.
This had to be some mechanism for opening the portal, but the wall's outer side was at least a yard thick. Not even Chane could batter a hole to get at the switches. Whoever opened the portal had done so from the inside, but how had they gotten in?
Wynn's strength of will faltered and vertigo overwhelmed her. She shut her eyes and crumpled as strong arms wrapped around her. Shade began to growl.
"Get back!" Chane hissed.
At a clack of jaws, Wynn jerked sideways in Chane's hold. She lifted her head, just barely opening her eyes.
There was Shade, a glistening dark form haloed in blue-white. Her irises burned with so much light they made Wynn's head spin even worse. But the dog ceased snarling.
Shade wasn't looking at Chane; she looked straight into Wynn's eyes.
A sudden memory rose in Wynn's head—not an image, but a sensation. A warm, wet tongue dragging repeatedly over her face, as if her eyes were still closed. They had been closed—at another time—when she'd used mantic sight to track Chap in the elven forest of the an'Cróan.
"Put me down," she whispered.
She tried sinking to her knees, and Chane lowered her.
Shade lunged in so quickly that Wynn grabbed the dog's neck in panic. Shade lashed her tongue over Wynn's face, and Wynn shut her eyes tight, feeling a wet warmth drag over her lids.
Nausea faded as she clutched Shade's neck.
She didn't know how Shade had learned Chap's trick for smothering mantic sight, but when the vertigo finally subsided, despair remained.
"Are you well?" Chane asked. "What was she doing?"
Wynn quietly hugged Shade.
"Wynn?" Chane urged. "Your sight?"
"It's gone," she whispered.
But the iron doors were still closed. There was no other way into that chamber.
"After all this," she went on, "going to Sea-Side, Hammer-Stag's death, seeing the Stonewalkers … we've lost again."
She had hoped Shade's lead might play out and keep her from a crueler plan. Wynn slumped against Shade.
Chane crouched beside her.
"It is not over," he whispered. "I wager Welstiel and I breached as many doors as … Leesil. But we used a mix of intimidation and manipulation. You and I simply have to find another… ."
He never finished, and Wynn sat up, still holding Shade. "What?"
"Ore-Locks!" he rasped. "What a fool I am!"
"What about him?"
His eyes narrowed like those of a predator that had finally cornered its prey. Wynn didn't care for the expression at all.
"You said Sliver told you her brother used to come to the smithy," he went on. "The smithy is on the mountain's other side."
"Yes … and?"
"Stonewalkers came to the amphitheater in Old-Seatt … supposedly without being called. Yet as you pointed out, there is no lift up from Sea-Side to Old Seatt."
Wynn felt some connection emerging but wasn't certain to what. "The settlements are far apart," she returned in confusion. "Mallet says no one ever sees Stonewalkers."
"Do you not see it?" Chane urged. "How do they appear at such distant places without being spotted or using the trams? If they used an access point here, behind these doors, then how did Ore-Locks visit his family? There has to be—"
And they finished together—"another portal at Sea-Side."
"Perhaps one at each settlement," Chane added.
Wynn blinked slowly in self-spite. "I should've reasoned that myself."
"This is not our usual scholarly pursuit." Then he shook his head. "Even if we find another portal, it might be no different from what we have here. No guards, no visible locks or bars … and no way through."
Why did he always do that, make helpful suggestions and then cut them apart? Before Wynn said as much, he rocked back on his heels.
"There is nothing for us here," he said. "But Sliver
's visitation gives us an invitation."
"I've already considered that."
She stood up under Chane's suspicious attention. Another failure tonight, and at another cost—this time Chane's sword. It might not be the last price to pay.
"To Seaside?" he asked.
"We'll need our gear from the temple first."
When she turned about, Shade was already waiting at the passage's first turn. Wynn was too obsessed to give this any thought.
Again, Sau'ilahk waited outside the amphitheater. He had followed Wynn from the temple and watched as the trio entered, but he went no farther. He did not know the interior's layout and feared being seen if he simply appeared in the open floor to get his bearings.
Conjuring even one servitor would cost him too much. His energies were so low that the effort might drive him straight into dormancy. He feared losing Wynn, if she found a way through the doors, but keeping his continued existence secret outweighed all other concerns.
If she did not emerge, he would have to wait until the late hours before dawn and attempt to search on his own. He might still track where she had gone. He also needed to feed, to eat life, and doing so here upon the open mountaintop was risky.
Waiting gnawed at him, but being so close to the end of suffering made it impossible to alter his state of mind. As the moon reached its zenith, muted voices grew inside the closest tunnel, and he pulled back between the buildings.
Wynn stepped out of the amphitheater with her companions.
What had she learned? Had she found a path to this "underworld," whatever or wherever it might be? If so, had she already taken the way and returned? It seemed unlikely.
Sau'ilahk saw no great defeat in Wynn's face as she paced purposefully down the street. He saw no triumph either. With no one else about this late, he easily shadowed the trio along parallel paths. Again, they took the lift back down, but when they reached Sea-Side's station, they paused before the mouth of the great market cavern.
Where was Wynn leading them?
After a brief exchange, Chane left, trotting up the street out of sight. Wynn remained with Shade at the far side of the cavern's entrance.
Sau'ilahk kept his distance beyond the way station. In a short while, Chane returned, bearing three packs. Sau'ilahk suffered a moment of panic.
She was leaving. Had she given up, after all of his efforts to steer her onward?
Wynn turned into the cavern with her companions, and Sau'ilahk's thoughts went blank for an instant. He drifted closer in a staggered glide between side streets. At this time of night, few people milled about the multitiered market. When he reached the edge of the cavern's mouth, Wynn was heading for the tunnel to the tram station.
But why?
He blinked through dormancy as he focused upon a memory of the dark tunnel beyond the tram. Awaking there, he waited nerve-racking moments before she reappeared. The trio headed directly for the platform to Sea-Side.
Sau'ilahk backed halfway into the tunnel wall, watching.
It was a while before a tram arrived. The dog held back, curling its lips, as Wynn attempted to drag it on board. Chane tried to assist, and did, if only because the dog wheeled away from him and, by doing so, ended up inside the car. All three were seated, and the lead car's massive crystal ignited amid belching clouds of steam.
Wynn was going back to Sea-Side.
All this sudden change filled Sau'ilahk with uncertainty. With no time to replenish himself, and too little energy to conjure a servitor to eavesdrop, he had but one choice.
Sau'ilahk followed blindly after the tram as it raced beyond him.
Chapter 12
Near dusk the following day, Wynn stood clinging to the sun-crystal staff before the passage to the Iron-Braids' smithy. Shade sat expectantly nearby while Chane leaned against the wall with his eyes barely open.
They'd arrived in Sea-Side before dawn and procured two rooms at the same inn as their last visit. A decent place close to the station, it was the only one with which they were familiar. They'd slept much of the day, but before retiring, Chane had insisted that Wynn wake him by late afternoon. He believed Sliver would be less trouble if they approached during business hours, and with possible patrons about, she might be less confrontational.
Wynn was dubious about this—and about trying to rouse Chane. He seemed determined to master being awake during daylight while safe beneath the mountain. She'd reluctantly agreed, instructing the innkeeper to knock at Day-Winter in late afternoon.
As she'd anticipated, waking Chane hadn't been easy. He'd been disoriented from the moment she'd finally dragged him to his feet. Now the three of them stood outside the fifth northbound passage off of Limestone Mainway, and Wynn hesitated.
She couldn't botch this again, yet her plan might—would—anger Sliver even more in the end. Of course, she could always walk in and say, "Hello, we're looking for a door to the underworld. Care to show us how your brother gets out?"
Wynn scoffed under breath, and Chane raised his bleary eyes.
"I should've let you rest," she said. "Shade and I can handle this."
"No. I am … better than last time."
That was a lie, but Wynn couldn't think of another excuse. So she stepped into the passage.
The smell of fumes and heated metal grew strong before they even neared the smithy. Peering through the open door, Wynn blinked in surprise. Sliver wasn't alone.
Two male dwarves in char-stained leather aprons pounded upon mule shoes near the open furnace. Each hammer's clang rose above the bellows' hoarse breaths and sent scant sparks showering to the floor.
Sliver stood at a rear worktable examining the shorter and wider of two finished blades, both the mottled gray of fine dwarven steel. She looked impressive with her determined expression, thick red braid, and leather apron—a master crafter engrossed in her trade. She scraped her thick thumb across the sword's edge, testing its keening, and then set it down to inspect its human-proportioned companion.
Wynn cleared her throat. "Umm, hello."
All three occupants looked over, and Sliver's eyes widened.
"Could we have a word?" Wynn asked more nervously than she intended.
Sliver appeared both puzzled and stunned. Perhaps she hadn't expected Wynn to come with news so soon. The smith glanced at the workers before fixing her gaze on Wynn again. Her wide mouth parted.
The workshop's back door slammed open and banged and shuddered off Sliver's worktable.
A wrinkled dwarven woman stood in the opening. Wild white hair hung over the shoulders of a long sashless robe and a shift of faded blue. Shuffling out, she grabbed a worktable to steady herself. Both workers froze, casting wary glances at Sliver.
"Here!" the old woman called, and caught her breath from the effort. "Come, sage … you are welcome in my home!"
That crackling, manic voice made Wynn flush with shame. But Sliver's expression turned vicious. She set down the long sword and moved toward her visitors at a threatening pace.
Wynn tightened her grip on the staff.
Chane and Shade pushed through the door, rounding either side of her. Sliver halted beyond arm's reach, and with one derisive snort fixed her glare on Chane.
"Spare me your display!" she growled, then turned on Wynn. "Move!"
Sliver backstepped toward the old woman.
Wynn advanced, passing the smith as steadily as she could. Shade and Chane followed closely. The old woman wobbled through the rear door and everyone but the workers followed. As soon as they were all in, Sliver slammed the door shut.
Standing in a small room carved from the mountain's stone, Wynn spotted openings on either side near its back. Both were curtained with much-mended wool that had once been blue. Years and too many washings had rendered the fabric a pale slate color. A small hearth with a battered iron screen was set in the north wall, and an old maple table filled the room's center.
Unglazed urns and old iron pots filled scant shelves pegged into the walls
. There was no sign of meat or fish, bread or vegetables. Sliver most likely had been too busy to visit a market, and the old woman looked too infirm to do so.
Wynn ceased looking about. Could she possibly feel any worse for how she would use these poor people?
"Here, sage, come and sit," the old woman urged, pulling out the only chair before she settled on one of three plain stools.
"Mother!" Sliver snapped. "Stop acting like these people are—"
"I'm honored, Mother Iron-Braid," Wynn cut in, nodding politely as she sat.
Shade circled away from Sliver to settle beside Wynn. The old woman barely glanced at the "wolf."
Chane cracked the door open, leaving it slightly inward and ajar. Perhaps he thought a lack of privacy would keep Sliver in check.
The old woman took a long breath, and when it rushed back out, her voice shook. "You have news of my son, of Ore-Locks?"
"Why else would she come?" Sliver crossed her arms, watching Wynn. "So, out with it … and leave!"
Chane tensed visibly at her tone, locking his nearly colorless eyes on hers.
Wynn was too confused to worry about their mutual hostility.
Sliver had visited the temple demanding that Wynn share all she learned, yet now seemed surprised that she'd come. Obviously the smith didn't want her here—unlike the mother. But Wynn's determination faltered at the manic hope in Mother Iron-Braid's eyes.
She sat there, suddenly uncertain of her scheme.
Chane kept watch on Sliver as much as Wynn, but he did not follow the verbal exchange closely. The smith's gaze often twitched his way. Sliver seemed less than pleased that he had cracked the door, but anything that kept her off balance was good enough for him.
Through the opening, something more had caught his eye. Something he had already seen once before, but now had all the more reason to notice. Widening his power of sight, Chane peered through the crack.
By the forge's reddened light, he saw two swords lying on the rear workbench. Both were as plain and unadorned as his own, but these were whole. Beneath their crisp sheen and strange mottling, he spotted not one imperfection—not even a polish-hidden dimple.