Through Stone and Sea

by Barb Hendee

“The main tunnel,” she finally answered. “Maybe it will lead to some way down.”

  At that wild guess, they were off once more.

  A single row of sculpted-based columns stretched along the avenue’s center. The structure of Oblique Mainway was plain but astonishing, not only for size and supports but for the chaotic structures that lined it.

  Shops and stalls were carved into or built out of the side walls, but their spacing, shape, and size had no discernible pattern. Between one with wide double doors and another with an archway blocked by a garnish of braided drape was a third with a vertical set of three windows—triangle, square, and hexagon. Even those were obscured with curtains. Occasionally, vendors’ stalls of wood or canvas surrounded a column, but nearly all along the way were closed for the night.

  There was no one who appeared to be a resident to ask for directions. The farther they went, the fewer passersby scurried off their own way. More than half of those kept to the other side of the center columns once they spotted Shade.

  Wynn was thankful that Shade kept quiet, but she couldn’t help noticing the near absence of humans. Even without Shade, that alone made her and Chane stand out.

  “If we cannot find guidance,” Chane said, “then we should secure lodging. Tomorrow, more people will be about. We cannot visit these Iron- Braids in the middle of the night, if manners are valued here.”

  “I want to at least find where they live, and you can’t be out during . . .” She paused when he glanced sidelong at her. “Oh . . . I suppose you can down here.”

  The thought hadn’t occurred to her before. Underground, shielded from the sun, Chane wasn’t limited by daylight.

  “Let’s look a little longer,” she added.

  They finally reached the end of the shops. Farther on, the tunnel emptied into a tall, domed chamber somewhat wider than the mainway. Four slimmer columns supported its ceiling, and narrow passages spidered outward around it. Thick steps on both sides climbed upward into stone. On the cavern’s far side, one broad tunnel continued onward in a gentle downward slope that arced left.

  Wynn heard someone walking toward them.

  It took a long time for the figure to enter the mainway’s light. An ancient dwarf in a faded gown hobbled into Oblique Mainway, leaning upon a walking rod. Her hair was so thin that her age-speckled scalp showed through it all around. Gnarled wrinkles over her features all but obscured her small eyes. In her stoop, she might have been shorter than Wynn, but was twice as wide, with a large mole on her wrinkled cheek.

  “Old mother,” Wynn said, a respectful phrase learned from Domin Tilswith, “we are looking for the Iron- Braids. Could you help us?”

  The elderly dwarf raised her milky eyes, but her voice was clear as she shook her head.

  “I only recently came to live down below . . . with distant relations. . . .”

  She trailed off somberly. Perhaps she’d lost her immediate family and been reduced in circumstances enough to fall back on relatives in the underside.

  “Could I ask,” Wynn began, reluctant to press, “where do you and yours reside? It might be near where I can find those I seek.”

  The old woman took a slow, haggard breath, answering in Numanese. “Go all the way down to yillichreg Bâyir . . . Limestone Mainway. Look for the cheag’anâkst called Kìnnébuây. It stays open all the time.”

  “Cheag’anâkst?” Wynn repeated, trying to decipher the term. “A greeting house?”

  The old woman nodded. “The locals there may have heard of your friends.”

  “Thank you,” Wynn replied.

  She wanted to say more, or offer trade for welcome advice, but the old woman had already hobbled onward.

  “What is this . . . greeting house?” Chane asked. “A tavern?”

  “Not exactly,” Wynn replied. “I’ve never been in one. It’s closer to an eatery, lodge, and gathering place all in one.”

  “Then a common house.”

  She shook her head. “Dwarves have another word for that. And such places are for family or clan only, not outsiders.”

  She looked across the wide end chamber to where the tunnel began its downward curve. She’d hoped for more specific directions before going into the depths. Without a word, Wynn trudged onward, and Chane and Shade paced her on separate sides.

  A few small crystals were set in the walls along the gradual downward spiral. In a while, another wide tunnel with a single row of columns shot off in what she assumed was the same direction as Oblique Mainway. She stepped through the end chamber to the first crystal- mounted pylon. The new tunnel wasn’t Limestone Mainway.

  Here, the look of the shops and structures were much the same as above. She peered back to where the curving tunnel joined the right side of the end chamber. On the left, its gradual spiral continued downward. And they were off again. . . .

  Down to the next level, and the next, and yet again, but none of the names upon the first pylons depicted the symbols for Limestone Mainway. The lower they descended, the fewer crystals lit the spiraling tunnel, until there were none at all. Wynn took out her small cold lamp crystal and rubbed it briskly to provide light.

  She stepped out through yet another end chamber, but this time, the curving tunnel didn’t continue on its far side. It was the last place to look. Sure enough, the first column was marked for Limestone Mainway. It was nothing like Oblique Mainway far above.

  Perhaps it had been named for the shots of limestone that ran through the wide tunnel’s walls. There was an ocher dinginess to the whole place. It was brightly lit, as were all the main tunnels, but none of the excavated shops here were smoothly finished. All looked hastily cut for their space, with no thought for appearance. Some fronts were even made of old timber and piled stone. Dust and grime had built up in the crevices around column bases and where the mainway’s walls met the floor.

  And the only place with any signs of life was hard to miss.

  A dingy banner too dull to read from a distance hung above a wide, plain arch with no door or curtain. Yellow light spilled out across the mainway’s stone, as did a loud, raucous noise of deep voices that echoed in the tunnel.

  Wynn took a step, eager to find someone to direct her. Chane’s hand settled on her shoulder, and she looked up. He studied the greeting house’s entrance, and a twist of distaste spread his thin-lipped mouth.

  “I do not like the sound. You do not belong anywhere so . . . common.”

  Wynn shrugged off his hand. “Don’t be a snob.”

  She reached the doorway and stepped inside before he could catch her. There she paused as Chane and Shade pushed through. At first she couldn’t see clearly through all the pipe smoke swirling in the air and the numerous bodies packed around the tables. Wynn coughed and her stinging eyes began to adjust.

  The room was large and dauntingly crowded. Dwarves of all shapes and walks of life sat drinking from large mugs of wood or clay rather than pewter or tin. Some tugged on short and squat clay pipes, sending rolling ribbons or great blasts of gray smoke up to the arch- supported ceiling. At the room’s center, the only open and clear space, a large dwarf paced around a wide circular stone platform one step in height.

  Some of crowd called out, cheered, or banged their mugs, but all eyes remained fixed on the one pacing dramatically before them.

  He was quite stout but also tall for his kind, with steel- streaked ruddy hair and a curly cropped beard a slightly darker hue. A well-crafted chain vest covered him over a quilted leather hauberk. Steel pauldrons and couters protected his shoulders and elbows. Two war daggers were sheathed at his hips, and a double-sided war ax was sheathed upside down on his back, so he could draw it instantly over either shoulder.

  “And then?” someone called out in Dwarvish. “What then, Fiáh’our? Finish already!”

  Wynn glanced toward the voice, but couldn’t spot the speaker. When she looked back at the warrior upon the platform, her breath stopped at one final detail of his attire.

  A sliver
y thôrhk hung around the dwarven warrior’s thick neck.

  Its ornate loop, looking as if made of braids, was thicker than two of Wynn’s fingers. Traditional flanged knobs, each as big as a sword’s pommel, were mounted on its ends resting below his collarbone. But in place of round domes, those ends protruded like butt spikes on the hafts of war axes.

  Not just a warrior—this was a thänæ, marked in honor with a thôrhk. What was he doing drinking and telling tales in an underside greeting house?

  His voice was low and loud, like rolling thunder.

  “After the goblin raid on the village of Shentángize, no one dared step beyond the stockade at night. I had no choice but to set out . . . with only my ax for company.”

  The audience roared, banged mugs, and slapped the tables in anticipation.

  “What is happening here?” Chane whispered.

  Wynn remembered he didn’t speak Dwarvish. She tried to explain but stumbled over the storyteller’s name. Its components were simplified truncations of dwarven root words.

  “Uhm . . . Stag . . . Battering. . . . no, Hammer-Stag. He’s a thänæ, a paragon among his people for virtuous accomplishments.”

  “Paragon?” Chane rasped in disbelief. “That bellower?”

  Someone snorted, and Wynn flinched around to meet pellet black eyes. A dwarf seated an arm’s length away tilted his head with an angry glare. He slowly set down his mug.

  “Apologies!” Wynn spit out quickly in Dwarvish. “My friend is an uncouth foreigner . . . out of his element.” She turned on Chane, switching to Belaskian in a sharp whisper. “Keep quiet, before you start something! Dwarven virtue differs from human cultures. He is telling them a story of his exploits.”

  “That is not virtue,” Chane hissed, “only bluster.”

  “I found no tracks,” Hammer- Stag continued, and his low conspiratorial tone brought the room to attentive silence. “But I could smell their passing.”

  He paused near one table. The room remained silent as he stepped off the platform.

  Hammer-Stag reached across the nearest table. He dragged the mug of one patron slowly toward himself, as if waiting for its owner to object. But that dwarf and all others remained quietly still. Hammer-Stag hefted the mug, took a long gulp, and slammed it back down.

  Wynn had no idea what this meant, but his audience roared as he returned to the platform.

  “So, I tracked them,” Hammer-Stag went on, tapping the side of his broad nose.

  Chuckles and snickers rose briefly, likely at some jest concerning the stench of goblins.

  Wynn stopped listening. Solving the mystery of the thänæ’s presence here wouldn’t help her find the Iron- Braids, and Chane’s elitist contempt was only going to get them in trouble.

  Standing close, Chane looked down and gave her a short, sharp shake of his head.

  “Some of these people must live nearby,” she whispered, ignoring his suggestion that they leave.

  Quietly, Wynn slipped forward, trying not to interrupt the thänæ’s story.

  “Excuse me,” she whispered between a pair seated on the outskirts. “Could you tell me where the Iron- Braids live?”

  Dwarves were usually willing enough to help a lost stranger. If one of them knew anything, perhaps a quiet response would be enough.

  The male to her right dropped his jaw in shock, and then gritted his teeth as if she’d committed some terrible offense. He spun back toward the platform, crossing his arms and pretending not to see her. Others at the table grumbled and followed suit.

  The thänæ glanced over but didn’t break stride in his tale.

  “When the first three came, I took two heads at once!” he called loudly. With one hand, Hammer-Stag whipped the ax off his back into a level arc. It passed swiftly before those nearest, as if severing heads right before their eyes.

  A cry of triumph rose in the crowd, and Wynn sighed. Clearly she’d chosen the wrong table, and she moved farther toward the back wall near the entrance.

  “Pardon me,” she whispered to a small group in the leathers of laborers. “Could you please—”

  She was cut off in a gasp as someone grabbed the back of her robe and cloak.

  Wynn was up on her toes as she headed unwillingly toward the exit. Shade burst into a loud snarl, and Chane began pushing toward Wynn, his expression darkening. Her heart sank as she flailed her hands before her, trying to wave them both off before this all ended badly.

  Chane still had his hand on his sword hilt as Wynn’s heels hit the floor. She spun about, wobbling a bit under her pack’s weight, and came eye- to-eye with a wide-faced woman.

  “If you want to act like a rude little turnip,” the female warned in a baritone voice, “then at least be silent like one!”

  The dwarven woman straightened and brushed off her muslin apron.

  Chane looked about uneasily as a dozen irritated patrons turned in their seats. Shade stayed put and ceased snarling as the woman proceeded back through the tables. Although the thänæ never paused in his telling, his squinting eyes turned once in Wynn’s direction.

  “Then the pack was upon me!” Hammer-Stag shouted. “I thought to face fifteen or twenty of the half beasts, but they poured from the forest’s dark spaces by the scores. . . .”

  Wynn rolled her eyes.

  Scores? Hardly! A rare pack of goblins had been known to raid far settlements beyond Malourné’s eastern reaches. No more than a dozen had ever been seen at one time. Her frustration grew.

  Someone here had to assist her, for where else could she go asking at this time of night? But no one seemed willing to speak during the thänæ’s tale. By his overly dramatic manner, he might go on until dawn.

  Chane jerked his head toward the door.

  Wynn sighed and nodded, fighting down annoyance at the open relief on his face. For a homeless wanderer, he was such an elitist.

  “I swung over and over,” Hammer- Stag called, “cleaving the first ten who reached me. But in my brazen courage, choosing to face them alone, I was outnumbered by the beasts. I knew I would die there . . . but I would take many with me on my way to our ancestors.”

  He paused again, and as Wynn turned to leave, she heard him gulp from another mug.

  “Then a white-skinned woman with wild black hair came at me out of the dark.”

  Wynn stopped and shivered as if dropped in a frigid river.

  White-skinned . . . black hair . . . wild . . .

  An image of Li’kän’s pale, naked form rose in her mind. Magiere had locked that ancient undead in the orb’s cavern below the ice-bound castle . . . the place from which Wynn, with Chap’s aid, had gathered the same texts she now sought.

  Li’kän was one of the thirteen “Children” of the Ancient Enemy of many names . . . perhaps one of the first vampires to walk the world in the time of the Forgotten. Had she escaped? Was that monster loose, somehow crossing the world to this continent?

  “She shouted at me in the Numans’ tongue to ‘give room,’ ” the thänæ exclaimed.

  Wynn spun in confusion.

  Li’kän had been fascinated by the power of speech, but she’d been alone for so many centuries that she’d lost her own voice.

  “Her blade was long and broad,” Hammer- Stag went on. “Single- edged, and too weighty for her stature, but she wielded it as if it were light as a scribbler’s quill. Sparks of bloodred ran in her tresses.”

  Wynn teetered on her feet. The thänæ was speaking of Magiere!

  “Before I knew where the pale one came from or why, she charged in at my side. . . .”

  Wynn shoved Chane aside, rushing back between the tables.

  “Then came a silver wolf, taller than its kind, rending its way to give me aid. . . .”

  Wynn’s mouth opened, but she couldn’t get a word out. Now, he spoke of Chap and tears welled in her eyes.

  “And last, an elf with blunted ears dropped from the treetops and bolted in faster than I could—”

  “Where?” Wy
nn cried, shoving forward toward the platform. “Where did you see them?”

  Sudden silence filled the greeting house.

  Hammer-Stag stopped midsentence, looking at her, and then gasps and curses exploded all around.

  Wynn froze in place. She’d just committed some terrible breach, but she didn’t care.

  “Where?” she shouted more firmly.

  “You broke my tale!” he barked, but his haughty tone was as overly dramatic as his telling. “Have you no manners . . . puppy?”

  Then his gaze shifted aside and down. Wynn heard Shade’s rumble as the dog pushed in beside her. Hammer-Stag straightened. As he stared, his broad face filled with stunned puzzlement. The crowd’s hostile grumbles grew again into loud, derisive shouts.

  Wynn cringed. But Hammer-Stag had spoken of Magiere, Leesil, and Chap. She was desperate to hear more, no matter what else she’d come here for. And she had just offended the locals, who might have helped in either pursuit.

  “I . . . beg your pardon,” she said quickly.

  She couldn’t be sure anyone heard amid all the noise. Chane’s hand closed on her arm from behind, but she jerked free, trying to think of some way to serve all her desires.

  “I came seeking the whereabouts of the Iron- Braids,” she shouted. “But your tale was so engrossing that I spoke out of turn. Please go on. What happened next?”

  Hammer-Stag blinked again. His astonishment at Shade vanished.

  “Too late!” he shouted, and then snorted like a bull, swinging his arm to silence the crowd. “The tale is broken, the mood gone! So you must have a better one to take its place . . . if you wish to barter.”

  “What is he saying?” Chane demanded.

  Confusion overtook Wynn, and she waved him off. Too much was happening, and she kept her eyes on the thänæ.

  “Barter?” she asked. “Barter for what?”

  “This is the way you seek my aid . . . our aid?” he challenged, smoothly changing to Numanese as he gestured to the gathering. “Do you think me some servant to fulfill your demands? Fair trade is our way, and rightly so, here and now. If you find my tale wanting, enough to cut it off, then tell me—us—a better one!” He smiled with a knowing wink to the crowd, spreading his massive arms wide. “Perhaps one of your own worthy exploits.”