by Barb Hendee
“My lady,” Chuillyon said, “did you hear me?”
Reine looked up into his triangular, tan elven faced lined softly with age.
“Pardon?” she said.
“It is time,” he answered softly. But as he took a step to lead her on, he paused and became still.
“What?” she asked.
Chuillyon blinked, pivoting his head quickly, and gazed down the outer passage. Reine turned, wondering if they’d been followed. Chuillyon’s feathery eyebrows twisted, one cocking higher than the other. With pursed lips, he suddenly smiled and shook his head.
“I’m just getting too old,” he muttered. “The mind wanders, I suppose.”
Yes, old Chuillyon was becoming a bit odd at times.
Reine forced down all feeling, hardening herself. She stepped through with him, not glancing back as the triple iron doors closed behind her.
“We can’t follow yet!” Wynn whispered. “Not without Shade.”
Chane scowled down at her.
It was difficult to speak without being overheard. The stands were emptying as the public filed up and out of the amphitheater, but handfuls of dwarves were now carrying tables and benches onto the floor for the impending wake. Wynn tried to keep out of their way as she looked about for Shade.
She couldn’t stop thinking of Hammer-Stag’s pale face. It hinted too much about how he had died. Unless some other Noble Dead, another vampire other than Chane, were here among the dwarves . . .
“Who was that woman?” Chane asked.
“A royal of Malourné!” Wynn took a breath and tried to calm herself. “The duchess—I mean, Princess Reine, widow of Prince Freädherich. She did everything possible to hinder Captain Rodian’s investigation—and to keep Premin Sykion in control of the texts. If she sees me here . . .”
Wynn trailed off at Chane’s frown.
This was difficult to explain. He hadn’t been in the middle of the murder investigation, as she had. More than once she’d run into the blockades set by the duchess for her family, keeping Wynn from getting anywhere near the texts.
What was the duchess doing here? And where had Shade gone?
“Coming through!” a young dwarf called, holding one end of a heavy table over his head.
Wynn hopped aside, tugging Chane out of the way. Had Shade picked up something in her thoughts, some rising memory? Had she gone looking for the Stonewalkers on her own? If so, which way had she gone?
Wynn didn’t know—didn’t believe—the dog was accustomed enough to civilization to seek anything but a direct path after her quarry. She looked about, trying to spot other openings in the side walls below the stands, and then her attention caught on Mallet.
The old shirvêsh was busy with monks from other temples, and Wynn wasn’t certain about protocol. The banquet was intended for family, close friends, and any other thänæ appropriate. They would eat and drink amid a telling to celebrate Hammer-Stag’s final honor in death. But from scant bits she could overhear, Mallet was making his farewells.
“He’ll be leaving soon,” she whispered. “And we’ll have to leave with him!”
Chane straightened to his full height, looking all around.
“There,” he said, jutting his chin over his shoulder. “Follow me, slowly.”
He backed toward the floor’s side and another opening near the tunnel where they’d first come in. Wynn followed him.
Together, they drifted along the wall amid busy preparations. When they reached the opening, Wynn ducked in ahead of Chane. She found herself in a dim chamber without internal light. She could barely make out the shadowy outlines of square openings in its other three walls.
“Oh, seven hells!” she swore.
Which way would Shade have gone, if she’d come this way at all? Wynn dug her cold lamp crystal out of her robe’s pocket and rubbed it once to get light.
“Keep that covered,” Chane said. “We do not want to attract attention.”
Wynn bit her tongue at his needless reprimand. With the crystal couched between her palms, she stepped farther into the chamber.
Stout wooden doors were set deep in the openings ahead and to the right. Both had iron bar handles but no locks. Even so, could Shade know how to open them, let alone close either? Impossible. But the arch on the left was doorless.
Wynn headed through it, finding herself at the bottom of a short flight of stairs. At the top, a narrow passage turned right. Overall, this path headed toward the stage, not away from it. She squeezed the crystal in one hand and spun away, slumping against the dark chamber’s side wall.
“This is pointless,” she said. “We should wait for Shade to reappear.”
Chane hung by the room’s entrance, watching outside. “What if Mallet misses us?”
“We’ll tell him we were looking around and got lost.”
Chane glanced at her in frustration. “This could be our only chance. How often does a thänæ die?”
How often indeed?
“I can’t let the duchess see me!”
Losing track of Shade was her fault. Bit by bit, her continual failures were destroying their chances of ever getting a lead on the texts.
Chane returned to watching out of the chamber’s entrance, leaving Wynn alone in turmoil. Then he snapped his fingers once. She straightened as he gestured outside. Shoving the crystal in her pocket, she drew closer.
“There,” he whispered, “at the tunnel where we first came in.”
Wynn leaned slightly against the arch’s other side.
Shade’s head peeked out of the tunnel as she swiveled it, looking around the amphitheater floor.
“Shade!” Wynn called as softly as she could. “Here!”
But the dog didn’t seem to hear. All the bustle of setting up the wake made too much background noise.
A sharp, piercing tone made Wynn jump and turn.
Chane uttered another brief whistle. Wynn turned back in time to see Shade’s ears stand up. As Shade looked over, Wynn crouched, waving to the dog around the entrance’s side. Shade slunk along the side wall, all the way to the chamber’s entrance, and Wynn dropped to her knees in relief.
“Where have you been?” she demanded, grasping the dog’s face.
Shade’s pink tongue flipped quickly out over her nose.
A barrage of images hit Wynn so suddenly she wavered on her knees. She saw clearly through Shade’s eyes.
At first, she saw the Stonewalkers carrying Hammer-Stag’s body through the exit off the stage. Then she saw herself standing on the amphitheater floor, talking to Chane. It was unsettling, as if she’d become disembodied, a spirit of herself watching herself. Then she was moving away, weaving through a forest of stout dwarven legs.
When she reached the wall, she began examining low drainage openings, but they were too small to crawl into. Even stranger than this experience through Shade’s eyes was the strong feeling that accompanied these memories. She could feel Shade’s desperation, her need to search.
Then the floor began to rush past beneath her charcoal-colored paws.
She headed back for the tunnel through which they’d first entered. Instead of continuing to the outside street, she turned at the first side passage. She trotted in the same direction that the Stonewalkers had traveled upon leaving the stage and suddenly slowed to listen.
Distant footfalls on stone echoed faintly from down the passage. She quickened her pace to track them.
She padded down corridors, turning at intersections and creeping down stairs, always listening for heavy booted feet, until finally, she peered around a corner. Wynn could smell earthy, musky sweat and leather, as if her nose were shoved right into it. But the closest people she saw were . . .
Halfway down the passage, on the left side, the duchess and her entourage stood near a wide arch in the side wall. Stonewalkers stood beside them, bearing Hammer-Stag’s litter.
Wynn couldn’t tell what they waited for, but then she heard metal grinding on stone. When it
stopped, the Stonewalkers carried the litter through the arch, vanishing from sight. The duchess and her companions remained.
Wynn found herself watching the back of a tall, white-robed elf. When he turned around with a frown, his slanted almond-shaped eyes searching, she quickly backed around the corner and lost sight of everyone.
The grinding came again, echoing softly down the passage, but she remained in hiding. Suddenly everything blurred for an instant as she—as Shade—rushed around the corner and down the passage.
A pair of iron doors were closing deep inside the arch as they slid out from the sides. She caught only a glimpse of Cinder-Shard before the portal clanged shut.
A blur followed, as if the memory skipped quickly forward in time.
Wynn felt cold metal against her ear as she leaned her head, her muzzle flattened against the doors. From inside came another sound like metal on stone, but different—rhythmic, and softly pounding, like quick, even steps. It grew louder, closer, and then stopped altogether.
She heard voices beyond the doors.
One was higher in pitch than the others. It had to be the duchess. But why had she gone in with the Stonewalkers? She’d paid her respects and left with them, but Wynn assumed that was only to avoid being caught in the crowd. Hadn’t she gone her own way?
Everything went dark.
The memory ended so quickly that Wynn tottered on her knees. She wrapped her arms around Shade’s neck, her thoughts reeling with all that she’d seen and heard.
News of Hammer-Stag’s death couldn’t have reached the duchess so quickly in Calm Seatt. So why was a member of the royal family here among the dwarves? How had she known the thänæ, and had she gone with the Stonewalkers, or passed beyond those iron doors along some other route?
Wynn leaned back, holding Shade’s face, and whispered, “Clever girl!”
“What?” Chane asked.
“She saw where they went,” Wynn answered. “At least the doors they passed through somewhere beyond the stage. If we can get through them, perhaps we can follow their trail.”
She hadn’t seen how the iron doors functioned, but maybe Shade had missed something.
Chane was studying both of them.
“Can she lead us there?” he asked.
“Right now? Tonight?”
Though eager, Wynn wavered with doubt. The amphitheater’s floor was filling with dwarves who would feast and drink late into the night.
“Wynn?” a deep voice called out.
She leaned around Shade’s tall form and looked out of the chamber’s entrance. Shirvêsh Mallet wandered among the tables, searching, and he didn’t look happy about doing so.
“Do not call to him,” Chane whispered. “We cannot pass up this opportunity.”
Wynn was tempted to agree, but she couldn’t.
“We can’t alienate him anymore. We may need his aid. If we can’t find a way to follow, he’s our only link to learn what happened to Hammer-Stag . . . and maybe why the duchess is here. She seems favored among the religious castes of the seatt.”
Wynn stood, about to leave. Chane opened his mouth to argue, but she shook her head. He closed his eyes in resignation, and she stepped out into plain sight.
“We’re here,” she called.
Chane stepped out as well as Mallet closed on them, his bushy white eyebrows raised.
“What are you doing in there?” he asked.
Wynn searched for a quick answer. “Giving you a little time with the others. I know Hammer-Stag was dear to you as well, and we didn’t want to intrude.”
Mallet’s expression softened. “Never mind such things. I have said my farewells, and we should leave the family and friends to their feasting and telling.”
“Of course,” Wynn agreed, glancing at Chane.
Mouth tightly set, he followed as they headed out.
CHAPTER 10
Sau’ilahk waited in the night, sunken halfway into the wall near an alley’s mouth. The amphitheater was too crowded to approach or enter, even by slipping through its stone. He did not know the place; certainly not enough to wander its back ways, seeking some hidden vantage point. But he longed to see the Stonewalkers for himself—and if the meddlesome little sage had uncovered anything of use.
Killing the thänæ had cost him more than he could have guessed, nearly draining him of all the life he had consumed. He had taken dwarves before, and as difficult as it was, it had never been this costly. In two days of recuperation, he could barely conjure a few servitors of Air to monitor the amphitheater’s exits.
How many times had he thrust his hand through Hammer-Stag’s chest? He could not even count, and still the blustering dwarf would not die. In the end, what vital life Sau’ilahk consumed, touch by touch, was a fraction of what he lost in effort. Now he stood exhausted, waiting for any sight of Wynn.
Evening passed into deep night. Finally, dwarves began emerging from the amphitheater’s settlement-level tunnels and higher arches, descending stone stairs and out into the streets. They spread and scattered, talking amongst themselves, or marched on in somber silence.
Sau’ilahk watched for Chane, who would tower over these short, stocky people. Dwarves kept coming, but there was no sign of the tall undead. Panic began to set in, which only made Sau’ilahk angry.
Wynn must have been witness to the final rites, but what if she did not come out? And he had not seen any Stonewalkers enter. Had he made a mistake? If they had come and gone another way, had she gone after them? Could he risk slipping inside to look for her?
Sau’ilahk hung in indecision. Then the air rippled before him as one servitor appeared.
It emitted three soft tones like a reed whistle and then vanished with a pop of air.
Sau’ilahk flowed up the building’s side, drifting from one rooftop to the next. Before he reached the third entrance on the amphitheater’s near side, he spotted a dark form on the street below.
Shade padded ahead, hurrying out of a crowded intersection. Wynn jogged after the dog and then paused for Chane and a white- haired dwarf in an orange vestment to catch up.
Sau’ilahk held his place on the rooftop. Even here, the dog might sense him, but would not likely look upward. He let Wynn and her companions pass on.
Two other dwarves in orange vestments came down the steps from the amphitheater’s next high entrance. They fell in beside the white-haired one, and Wynn slowed, dropping back a few paces with Shade and Chane. She hung close to Chane, and her lips moved, as if she were engaged in quiet conversation beyond the hearing of their dwarven companions.
Sau’ilahk desperately wanted to hear what she said.
He stilled his mind, calling to his remaining servitors. The air around his head warped and swirled as they joined him. Banishing all but one, he focused his reserves to recommand it and fixed the image of Wynn in his mind.
Target the gray-clad one. Remain above the target. Absorb all sound. If the target reaches the temple . . .
He faltered, so tired that he was not being concise. His mindless creation would not comprehend such references.
If the target passes inside stone, then return to me. Reiterate all sound and banish.
The ball of distorted air sped over the roof’s edge and up the night street.
Once Wynn was well on her way, Sau’ilahk followed along the rooftops. At every alley or side street, he watched for her passing along the main avenue. When she slipped beyond sight again, he sped onward, staying ahead of her. He kept changing his position and orientation, in case the dog became aware of his presence.
When Wynn reached the way station, the old dwarf stepped into the crank house building, walking through it to the lift’s landing. Wynn followed through the opening in a wall . . . made of stone.
Sau’ilahk could have shrieked in rage as his servitor came rushing back. Wynn passed out of the building’s other side, boarding the waiting lift with the others. But she was no longer talking with Chane while in the close company of t
he three dwarves.
The servitor began to replay what it had gathered, gruff dwarven voices low and dull behind Wynn’s and Chane’s whispers.
“No, it’s too crowded!” Wynn said. “We’ll go back tomorrow night.”
“The trail will be cold,” Chane rasped.
“Shade may have found a door to their underworld. It has to be where they went . . . where they would take Hammer-Stag. We don’t need to track them. Shade can lead us there.”
“Come along, young Wynn,” a deep voice called. “No lagging on such a cold night.”
The servitor popped and vanished.
It had recorded so little, but enough. The dog had found a way to this “underworld.” Whatever it was, Wynn believed the Stonewalkers had gone there. Tomorrow night she would return to follow them.
But how had the animal gathered or relayed such information?
The answer could wait. Wynn had finally learned something useful! The cost of killing one dwarf had played out to some small satisfaction. As Sau’ilahk mulled over the best strategy for the following night, his form wavered in the darkness. Or rather the world began to dim as dormancy threatened to take him.
Sau’ilahk had exhausted his energies more than he realized. He cursed his useless excuse for a form. But if—when—Wynn located the texts, he might finally learn the secrets of Beloved’s Children. Somewhere in the world, one of the Anchors of Creation waited in hiding. Once he found it, he would have flesh again after an age of searching.
Sau’ilahk faded, and his last conscious thoughts tumbled back through centuries past. . . .
Sau’ilahk, master conjuror, first of the Reverent and high priest of Beloved, trekked up the mountain’s craggy base to a place far above the desert. The day’s heat lingered into night but never bothered him, even in his black robe.
As he passed, minions bowed their heads, from scattered packs of goblins with yellow eyes and repulsive speckled canine faces to the rare hulking locatha, reptilian abominations half again the height of man. Even his own people, from their desert tribes, showed him obeisance.