by Barb Hendee
Duchess Reine’s eyes widened just barely, as if she’d heard something of keen interest—and Wynn knew she’d said too much.
“Your promise to Domin High- Tower will be kept,” the duchess answered. “You will pass your message directly to his brother.”
An awkward silence followed. Wynn used every ounce of self- control to keep her expression relaxed. Her seemingly successful bluff was vaporizing with each long moment.
A familiar grinding began to grow in the chamber. Wynn had heard it only in Shade’s memories.
She glanced upward to the ceiling’s large opening but saw nothing. When she lowered her gaze, Shade had crept to the edge of the white metal floor portal. With her ears flattened, the dog then backed away.
The portal’s center hairline split.
Its two halves began sliding smoothly away beneath the floor. A stone platform slowly rose, filling the opening as it came level with the chamber. It held only one occupant.
Ore-Locks stepped off, looking annoyed.
His thôrhk hung around his neck, but otherwise, he wore only dusty char-gray breeches and an untucked shirt. Red hair hung loose to his shoulders, as if he’d been engaged in something that required little attention to appearance.
“My lady?” he said. “Is something wrong? Why did you not just come down?”
His tone suggested resentment for the summons.
“Forgive us, but . . . something else required that we wait here.” The duchess half turned toward Wynn. “This young sage says she has a message from your brother, and she was entrusted to tell no one but you. I could not ignore this and I brought her here.”
Ore-Locks looked Wynn up and down.
“From High-Tower?” he asked.
Wynn swallowed hard. This wasn’t how she expected things to play out. She’d hoped upon spotting the duchess that she might make it all the way to the Stonewalkers. Now she was stuck with nothing more than another lie.
“In . . . in private,” she stammered.
Ore-Locks’s brow wrinkled. He closed on her, taking her firmly by one arm.
Chane took a step, but Wynn shook her head, warning him off. Shade trotted after as Ore- Locks pulled Wynn out through the chamber’s entrance. No one stopped the dog, though Wynn thought she saw Chuillyon watching with too much interest.
“Please wait inside,” Ore-Locks told the outer guards, and once they’d stepped in and closed the door, he faced her. “What message is so urgent that my brother sends a little sage all the way from Calm Seatt?”
He was so close that she smelled his breath—dusty, yet dank at the same time. Most male dwarves wore beards, but he was clean shaven. His mouth was a wide slash like Sliver’s, but his black eyes reminded her of High-Tower by shape rather than the common dwarven color. Somehow Ore- Locks was more intimidating than either of them, and that was no easy feat.
But Wynn stood face-to-face with one of the elusive Stonewalkers.
A hundred questions filled her head. Foremost was whether he knew anything of the texts. He would never answer that, so she straightened and said the only thing she could.
“A crisis in your family.” She paused, considering her words. “Your brother asks that you take leave and visit your mother.”
Resentment faded from Ore- Locks’s expression, but his forehead wrinkled again.
“Crisis? And how would High Tower . . .” He broke off and took a heavy breath. “Has my brother come back? That is not possible.” He shook his head. “What has happened with my mother and . . . ?”
Wynn never heard him speak the obvious final word—“sister.”
“Why would my mother,” he continued, “if not my sister, send word all the way to the guild? Why not to me?”
He faltered, as if knowing the answer.
“Because no one could contact you here, until now,” Wynn confirmed. “It’s not that easy, is it?”
“What else? What crisis?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. He begs that you take leave to see them.”
“And that is all to your message? Nothing more specific?”
Wynn realized how flimsy this sounded, but she couldn’t risk expanding the lie. She could think only about four words he’d spoken—if not my sister.
Sliver had vehemently opposed any attempt to bring her elder brother home. Ore-Locks seemed to imply that she never would’ve sent for him. He now paced the entrance chamber, lost in his own thoughts, and finally turned to face Wynn. His features hardened as if he resented the messenger because of the message.
Ore-Locks wheeled and shoved the door open, leaving his hand extended, commanding her to return to the inner chamber. When she and Shade stepped inside, the duchess was waiting, blocking their way.
“Your task is complete?” Reine demanded.
“It is,” Ore-Locks answered before Wynn could.
“Tristan!” Reine called out.
The captain quickly joined her. “Yes, my lady?”
“Escort them back to the market,” the duchess instructed, and when he nodded, she turned to Wynn. “You have well served your domin. You may now return home.”
Wynn couldn’t mistake that as anything but an order. The other two bodyguards closed on Chane, and he was ushered out as the outer guards regained their stations. Wynn was about to follow at the captain’s silent urging, but Duchess Reine never moved.
“Are you not returning to the market as well?” Wynn asked.
The duchess looked her up and down, then turned away to join her elven advisor and Ore-Locks.
Chane looked down questioningly at Wynn as she exited with Shade, but he kept silent.
Captain Tristan pointed up the passage for the long walk back.
Wynn was seething by the time the escort unceremoniously showed her, Chane, and Shade into the market. It was late, and the place was nearly empty. Many of the stalls were closed or gone. But only when the Weardas turned back into the tunnel were they free to speak.
“What is the duchess doing here?” Chane immediately asked.
“Clearly more than paying respects,” Wynn answered. “There are too many implied connections between the royals and the Stonewalkers . . . not to mention Ore-Locks’s previous visit to High- Tower.”
“Yes, the guild is involved as well,” Chane agreed. “That is a trio of powerful factions in our way.”
“And the duchess has gone to the Stonewalkers. I suppose we could hide here, wait until she comes out, and try to follow her.”
“If she comes out,” Chane countered. “Likely she did go with them after the funeral. She may be staying with them.”
Wynn wasn’t so sure. “Why shop in the market for clothes she wouldn’t need and didn’t fit her? She may be welcome among them, but I hardly think a royal would take quarters in the underworld. No, she’s here for something else.”
Shade whined loudly, and Wynn looked down.
The dog scratched the flagstones with one paw and barked.
“Shush,” Wynn said, but knelt to grip Shade’s face with both hands.
Everything blurred in Wynn’s vision as a dark image overtook her mind.
She was walking down a damp tunnel. Mineral-glazed walls of natural rock glistened, faintly phosphorescent, though the floor beneath her feet felt level and smooth. She could smell . . . seawater.
The tunnel was narrow, barely wide enough for two to walk abreast, or one dwarf. The rough walls were calcified, as if the path had been created long ago. For some reason, no one had seen fit to finish them smoothly.
Near the path’s end was an iron door, slightly mottled by rust.
The memory wavered.
Wynn suddenly stood before the door, looking down. She glimpsed the long hem of a deep green cloak around high riding boots—those of the memory’s owner. Then her attention caught on a palm-size shining oval on the door where a lock’s keyhole should’ve been.
There was no mistaking that silvery white—more Chein’âs metal.
&
nbsp; Wynn felt herself reach up into her hair, pulling something out. When her hand lowered, she held a pearly sea-wave comb in her palm, and she knew the memory’s owner.
Duchess Reine took the comb and pressed its concave side to the door’s oval.
Wynn heard the scrape of metal sliding.
She passed the comb to someone behind her and pushed the door open. Its hinges squeaked lightly. As she stepped through, no other footsteps followed, though someone shut the door. She stood in a dark chamber of natural stone where the smell of the sea permeated the air.
Just beyond a near ledge, Wynn spotted a pool filling most of the chamber’s floor. An iron grate in the back wall was half-submerged in its water. Beyond that was a dark tunnel half-filled as well, though she couldn’t see more than a few yards down it. She suddenly turned left.
A rough opening led to another chamber, but it was too dark to see what lay there, and she didn’t even approach. Dim light came from somewhere, but Wynn wasn’t certain of its source. The sight of the opening became misty, blurred. . . and her eyes began to sting.
There were tears running down her cheeks.
Something wet slapped stone, the sound echoing from that next chamber.
Something moved in there.
She began to feel dizzy, trapped between her own fears and the grief welling from within the duchess’s memory. And then everything winked black.
Wynn was shaking as she looked into Shade’s crystal blue, yellow- flecked irises. She crumpled on the market’s flagstones.
“Wynn?” Chane said in alarm, crouching beside her.
While she’d been tangled in a failing scheme inside the white portal’s domed chamber, Shade had been quite busy. Wynn took a long, shaky breath and pressed her cheek against Shade’s as she closed her eyes. The dog was clearly trying to tell her something, but she wanted—needed—more than what she’d seen.
“Wynn?” Chane insisted. “Say something!”
“An underground room . . . a pool in its floor . . . and an iron grated tunnel,” Wynn whispered, still trying to make sense of it.
“Whose memory?”
“The duchess . . . she started crying.”
“Why would Shade show you this?”
“I don’t know.”
Without warning, another flash surged upon her.
She sat at the table in the Iron- Braids’ back room. At first, she thought it was her own memory of just a short while ago. But Chane and Shade weren’t present.
The table was laden with roasted venison, fresh sliced bread, and baked apples, all served in plain clay bowls. Mother Iron- Braid hobbled about, setting out bleached wooden plates and tin forks and knives as she babbled away with shining joy on her face. But Wynn was staring across the table at Sliver, who sat glaring back. Unlike her mother, the smith didn’t care for . . .
Whom did this memory belong to?
Mother Iron- Braid rounded the table, reaching out a gnarled hand to lay it on Wynn’s cheek.
“It is so good to see you again, my son,” she whispered.
Wynn shivered, her fingers closing in Shade’s neck fur. The spoken words were much clearer this time than anything Shade had shared with her before.
It was Ore-Locks’s memory.
Everything winked black for an instant.
Wynn stood in a dark passage where orange crystals were few. It looked familiar, like someplace she’d walked herself at some recent time. At the sound of heavy footfalls behind, she paused and turned.
There was Sliver again, following her.
“No more,” the smith hissed in Dwarvish. “No more of you . . . and your twisted calling! No more of your shame and hidden sin upon us. Mother does not know what you are, what really took you—and I will keep it that way.”
“I was called,” Wynn answered—in Ore-Locks’s deep voice. “Called by one that so few remember . . . and none know for the truth. But I hold that truth.”
“You hold a lie!” Sliver nearly screamed back. “And if it calls you, then faith itself is a plague—and you are nothing but its carrier. Is it not enough that we’ve fallen so low that you try to infect us with its horror? Follow it alone and keep away! Do not come again!”
Sliver backed up the passage as she began to shake—as she had upon Wynn’s visit when the smith first uttered Ore-Locks’s name.
“Stay away from us!” she shouted. “Go to your fall . . . alone!”
The memory faded, and again Wynn looked into Shade’s eyes.
Whatever called Ore- Locks to service among the Stonewalkers horrified Sliver, and perhaps High-Tower as well. Was that why the domin had nearly denounced his brother in that one secret visit to the guild?
Shade had been very . . . very busy, indeed. Wynn sat astonished, now realizing just how intelligent the majay- hì were as a whole—or Shade for her youth.
“Did you see more?” Chane asked. “Did she show you anything that would help us locate the texts?”
Wynn shook her head. “No, it was Ore- Locks’s this time. I’m not certain, but I may have gotten to him. I’ll tell you more later. Right now, I need you to stay and watch for the duchess, while I go back to the Iron-Braids’.”
Chane frowned. “I do not like that plan.”
Wynn stroked Shade’s head. “I can’t miss a chance to catch Ore- Locks if he goes home. And someone has to watch for the duchess. Shade will come with me, and I’ll be fine.”
Chane paced, and Wynn waited for him to accept the only option.
“If the duchess comes out, I will follow her,” he finally agreed. “But once you leave the smithy, go directly to the inn, so I can find you.”
Wynn nodded and stood, picking up her staff. She still wished Shade could grasp language more than just remembering sounds, but at least in that she understood it was meaningful. And there was no denying certain advantages of memory-speak. She reached for her pack hooked over Chane’s shoulder. When she saw his face, she stopped with her hand gripping the strap.
He looked expectantly down at her, perhaps a hint of hope glittering in his eyes, which now had a touch of their original brown.
“We made contact with a Stonewalker,” he whispered. “We are getting closer.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “So no matter what else, don’t you get caught.”
He touched the back of her hand, still high upon his shoulder. “I will find you later.”
Wynn took the pack and started off with Shade pressed against her leg.
CHAPTER 13
Wynn headed for the Iron-Braids’ smithy, her arms loaded full of bread, potatoes, and a burlap-wrapped halibut. She’d stopped in the market long enough to procure goods from what few vendors the market long enough to procure goods from what few vendors remained. Hopefully Mother Iron- Braid wouldn’t take it as an insult, though Sliver likely would. Shade traipsed beside her, snuffling hopefully at the scent of fish.
“You’ll wait—and behave yourself,” Wynn said, not that Shade would understand. “We’ll have dinner soon . . . I hope.”
As she neared the smithy’s open door, she paused at the sound of raised voices within.
“You refuse me . . . again?” a male voice boomed in Dwarvish.
“I will not repeat the reasons . . . again!” Sliver shouted back.
Wynn crept closer, peering inside as Shade stuck her snout around the door frame.
A stout male dwarf in fine dark pants and a cleanly oiled hauberk stood face-to-face with the smith. His mass of brown hair was pulled back in a leather thong, and his slightly darker beard was trimmed and crisply groomed. It was Carrow, Hammer-Stag’s clan-kin.
“You protect nothing,” he said, and then anger softened into pleading. “There is nothing left to protect. Your family name has faded. It will be lost one way or another.”
“To even say so shows you know nothing of me,” Sliver answered, “let alone my heart. So how could I accept you?”
Wynn swallowed hard. Hammer-Stag’s clan-kin had prop
osed marriage—and not for the first time.
“Your brothers are long gone,” he said, stepping closer and holding out his hand. “They have abandoned you—I have not—and I do know your heart. Take my family’s name. Our children will be so honored to have you at our table’s head.”
For an instant, Wynn thought Sliver might reach for his hand, but the smith backed away.
“I cannot, Carrow . . . you know I cannot.”
His expression turned cold. “Then marry into some lesser family, and keep your name . . . for what it is worth!”
He strode for the door.
Wynn scrambled down the passage, fumbling with her burdens. She quickly spun, pretending to stroll idly the other way. Carrow stomped past without a glance, and Wynn slowed, watching him fade down the passage.
Poor Sliver. A clan-kin of the great Hammer-Stag was in love with her. Maybe she had feelings for him, but she valued her lost heritage more.
Dwarven matrimony was complicated, leaning heavily on notoriety, honor, and status. If Sliver married into a family lesser than her own, her husband would’ve taken the Iron-Braid name. But she hadn’t done this, and from her state, living in the depths of underside, how could there be a lesser family? Sliver was proud to a fault.
Wynn turned back. With her arms full, she tapped her foot on the door frame.
Sliver raised her head where she stood slumped over the forge. At sight of Wynn, the smith’s surprise quickly vanished under ire.
“What now?” she growled.
“Might we share a meal?” Wynn asked, trying to hold up the food.
“Unless you have something to tell me alone . . . be gone!”
“Is that your mother’s wish?” Wynn returned. “Or are you now the matriarch of the Iron-Braids?”
Sliver straightened instantly but faltered in answering.
“Then your mother’s welcome stands,” Wynn claimed, and stepped in without invitation. “Shall we cook?”
She headed straight for the rear door, not looking at Sliver.
As she passed, the smith snarled, “Where is your tall friend?”
“He had business at the market,” Wynn answered.