Of Truth and Beasts

by Barb Hendee

  Of the three, she was the most exhausted by far—growing worse over the long nights. Sau’ilahk had noted this was another contention point between the two men. Chuillyon’s annoying jovial nature had turned serious over this journey. However, he politely but more pointedly insisted that they continue.

  “The pale one and the dog were out hunting,” Hannâschi said, settling against the boulder at Shâodh’s insistence. “The journeyor and the dwarf found a pile of stones high up on an outcrop. They seemed quite interested.”

  “Why?” Chuillyon asked, his brows creasing.

  “I could not get close enough to hear. The majay-hì appeared to sense me or pick up my scent.” She paused. “But if we can risk a small fire, I brought something back.”

  The two males exchanged quizzical glances.

  “Supper,” Hannâschi explained with a smile, opening her cloak to pull out a dead hare.

  Chuillyon smiled back, a trace of his former demeanor returning.

  Sau’ilahk anticipated when he would catch that old elf alone and unaware. That one would never stand in his way again.

  Ghassan il’Sänke had traveled for more than a moon. He stood on a craggy foothill, gazing across the shallow depression before him at what appeared to be a fallen mountain.

  The first part of his trek had taken him northward along the coast to the vast range’s western end. There he had turned eastward along the foothills between the peaks and the desert’s northern fringe of dried, dusty earth.

  Tracking Wynn by the staff’s sun crystal was limited, for he gained only a sense of her general direction and distance. But she was coming south from the Lhoin’na. By a map copied from the ship captain’s records, Ghassan guessed she was nearing the end of the Slip-Tooth Pass. She would soon enter the range from the northern side, but he was not concerned. He had ample time, and she had a long, hard trek ahead of her.

  With his copy of the poem fragment translated for her and the clues that it bore, Ghassan was certain he would find the seatt well before she did—if it existed.

  He still wore his midnight blue robe with its cowl to protect him from the bright sun and the freezing nights. But he hadn’t found ample firewood for the past eight days. All he had left to eat was dried flatbread. Water was not so much an issue.

  Ghassan had grown up near the desert before joining the guild. Interaction with tribal people who still ranged the dunes taught him the ways to find water where others would see none. Even weary as he was, ever since translating that poem fragment, Ghassan often lingered in memories of his youth.

  Allowed to sit “silently” at the evening fire with his grandfather when tribal elders came to visit, he heard many an entertaining though frightening tale—including one about a headless mountain. It was said that for any who found it, the last thing they heard in this world were whispered rumblings in the dark. Then the head of the mountain took form again, but as fire instead of stone. All there were consumed, leaving only ash that blew away in the next dawn’s wind, and the mountain remained headless once again.

  That tale had not been so entertaining or frightening to eight-year-old Ghassan. If such noises were the last thing one heard before the peak’s missing head reappeared as fire, then . . . ?

  “How could anyone have lived to tell of it?” he had whispered to his grandfather, not daring to speak openly, impolitely, before the hosted tribal elders.

  Grandfather had smiled brightly. With a wink and pat on Ghassan’s hand, he placed a finger over his wrinkled lips.

  Ghassan had not thought of that tale again until after he met Wynn Hygeorht. Now he looked up the base slope of a headless—or “fallen”—mountain beyond, hidden from the desert below by the jagged hills and lower crags.

  It must have once been as immense as any other peak in the range. He could almost not see from one side of its base to the other. About halfway up, the entire top half seemed to have caved in. He wondered, if he climbed all the way up, would he find a flat plateau, crumbled hillocks of boulders, or a crater?

  “I am here, Wynn,” Ghassan whispered in the cold evening breeze. “I have found it first.”

  He rushed downward through the depression to the mountain’s base.

  If this was where Bäalâle Seatt had once existed, climbing to its top would avail him nothing. Any higher entrance would have collapsed if the mountain-top had indeed fallen. But if the tales of the “headless mountain” were based on fact, anyone who had come here and lived had never mentioned anything below it. Lower entrances, if they existed, surely would have been found. So did they even exist?

  Yes, he was here. He believed he had found the location of the lost seatt.

  “But how do I get inside?” Ghassan whispered again on the wind.

  CHAPTER 19

  A few nights later, Chane was out foraging on his own. He took relief in being off by himself for a while.

  In his mortal days, he had needed a share of solitude. That penchant had increased since the night he rose from death. Though he cherished Wynn’s company, the last two moons in close quarters with others had begun to take its toll.

  He still had some acquired life in one bottle, so he was not concerned for himself, but he strode the pass’s western slope, looking for firewood or anything edible for his companions.

  They had made good time in the last few nights, and mountains loomed close ahead. But even in darkness, the landscape was bleak, a rocky terrain spare of trees.

  He wandered into an open area at the base of a shorn slope where no trees grew among the scattered, loose stones. Only the sharp angles of embedded boulders showed in the dark. He headed toward the straggly trees at the far side, for no game would linger here.

  Chane’s boot toe caught on something.

  Stumbling forward before righting himself, he looked down at a square edge protruding from hardened ground. He found himself standing on a flat area, and an exposed patch of smooth stone showed where his boot had scuffed away the dirt. He bent over, studying it.

  It was smooth—too smooth—and level versus the surrounding slope of dirt. Crouching, he began brushing away more dirt, and soon exposed an edge.

  Though the stone was pitted with wear and age, the small patch appeared to be cut square. He began using his old shortened sword to break more of the hard earth. When he had cleared five paces’ worth, he stopped to examine what he had exposed. The entire edge of stone ran straight and square for the whole distance. It might have once been the foundation of a small but heavy building set into the gradual slope. He stood up, scanning the ground around him, and let hunger rise a little to sharpen his night sight.

  Those other shallow, angular protrusions were not embedded boulders. He could see the outlines for what they were—the bones of long-forgotten buildings at various points up the shallow slope.

  Had there been a settlement here long ago? That was strange for the middle of nowhere.

  Chane walked back along the edge he had exposed. He noticed a fallen tree, weather grayed, lower down the slope. Hacking off pieces, he gathered what he could before turning back the way he had come. But he paused, glancing back once at those ruins’ remains, and remembered what Ore-Locks had claimed at the shattered pylon.

  Something is out there, along our path.

  Chane was tempted not to mention this place at all.

  Before dawn, they had found a decent spot to camp between two ridges up the pass’s western slope. A tiny, if somewhat clouded, stream trickled down a rock crevice to replenish their water casks. Walking into camp, Chane found a fire burning with the remains of last night’s wood. Wynn was bent over a pot at the fireside.

  “I’m telling you, they are edible,” she said emphatically. “As long as they are thoroughly cooked with enough water.”

  Ore-Locks frowned, almost to the point of disgust, showing more emotion than usual. Lying nearby, Shade grumbled, her head on her paws.

  “What is edible?” Chane asked, dropping the wood beside the fire. />
  Wynn looked up, and he noted her dust-laced hair. She wore it loose tonight, and instead of wispy and light brown, it looked flat and dull in the firelight.

  “Oats,” she answered.

  Both surprised and dubious, Chane leaned over the pot. “The stone-rolled ones . . . for the horses?”

  “It’s the most abundant foodstuff we have left. Domin Tilswith and I were forced to live on them several times. They are perfectly edible if cooked down enough . . . but a pity we have no honey.”

  Shade made a little retching noise and squirmed around to face the other way.

  Chane regretted the lost hare from a few nights back, more so when he studied the cream-colored goop Wynn was cooking. Fortunately, he would not have to eat it.

  “Did you find anything else?” she asked.

  “Nothing to eat,” he returned. “Only . . . only a place.”

  Wynn stopped stirring. Ore-Locks was still slightly aghast, watching the pot. He blinked and looked up.

  “A what?” he asked.

  The look in Wynn’s eyes made Chane clench his jaw, wishing he had said nothing at all. But it was too late.

  Wynn held her crystal over the half-buried stone remains. Excitement—even hope—slowly built within her.

  “Well?” she asked Ore-Locks.

  He’d done some digging and unearthed a forearm’s height of a stone wall’s base. He was crouched, examining it.

  “This was cut by my people,” he confirmed. “Humans do not fit stone like this without mortar, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “I see proof of only three dwellings. My people do not live in small villages in the middle of nowhere.”

  “So what was this doing out here?” she asked.

  Wynn twisted in her squat and spotted Chane a few paces off with his arms crossed. For some reason, he’d been resentful about bringing them here. Shade sniffed the ground all around but didn’t seem any happier than Chane. Wynn ignored them both.

  Ever since finding the broken pylon and Ore-Locks’s mention of a ground-level entrance into the mountains, her thoughts hadn’t stopped churning.

  “What do you think it was?” she asked Ore-Locks.

  She couldn’t keep the tremor from her voice. When she saw her own hesitant hope mirrored in his face, it made her falter for an instant.

  “Perhaps a way station for overland travelers,” he said slowly. “My people have constructed a few such north of Dhredze Seatt, along the coast toward the Northlanders’ territory. But those were built on a well-traveled route and—”

  “Then Vreuvillä was right!” Wynn cut in excitedly. “Dwarves once used this pass to interact with the Lhoin’na ancestors. But we are nowhere near the range’s southern side and the seatt itself. Where were the dwarves coming from, going to, that they’d require a layover here?”

  No one spoke, but Chane’s expression grew darker. What was wrong with him?

  Wynn scurried over to join Ore-Locks. “Are you certain your ancestors might be capable of building a passage all the way through the range?”

  “If you sages believe much was lost in your Forgotten History, then there is no telling.... But I wonder what knowledge and skills my people may have once—”

  “No!” Chane nearly snarled.

  Wynn stiffened in surprise as Shade’s head swung toward him.

  “Even if you find such a thing,” Chane went on, “we are not wandering down some tunnel beneath mountain after mountain, with little food, nothing to hunt, and only hope of fresh water. If we travel for days and nights and reach only a cave-in, do we walk back out, only to find ourselves worse off than before?”

  Chane crossed his arms tighter.

  “Pohkavost!” he hissed, anger making him slip into his own language.

  Wynn didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t wrong in calling it “lunacy.” Everything he’d said was valid, but he was not in charge here.

  To make matters worse, Shade normally growled if Chane took that kind of hostile tone. She hadn’t, and instead she got up and sat right in front of Chane, glaring at Wynn.

  Ore-Locks remained crouched in silence. Wynn didn’t need to glance back to know he was waiting for her to end this rebellion.

  She was tired, hungry, filthy, and had no wish to fight with the two companions she trusted—and she certainly had no wish to side with Ore-Locks.

  It suddenly occurred to her that while Chane and Shade had both remained at her side, aiding her, the more she gained hope in her purpose, the more reticent they’d become. Did they want her to fail, to abandon this desperate task and just go home—to be the dutiful little sage, finally obeying her superiors?

  “If we found a passageway on this side,” she said calmly, “we would not even have to search for the seatt. It would lead us right there.”

  Chane took a step forward, his mouth opening to argue, but she stood up in the same moment.

  “We have to try,” she told him. “We have to at least look. It’s better than facing another moon or more wandering in the mountains, trying to find the remnants of a lost seatt on the edge of leagues and leagues of desert.”

  The words building in Chane never left his parted lips. Maybe now he would finally accept that no matter what, she would still follow her own path.

  Shade rumbled at her softly and began walking over. Wynn wasn’t about to tolerate a heated argument of chopped memory-words, either.

  “No,” she said, holding out her hand. “We’re doing a search. Maybe I’m wrong and there is no passage, but these ruins, this place, existed for a reason.”

  She turned away, facing south, though it was too dark to see the foothills of the pass’s end, let alone the mountains. Then she looked down at Ore-Locks still crouched at the base of the exposed wall’s remains.

  It felt wrong to hurt those close to her by turning to him, but whatever his motivations, he was the only one willing to help. If she could find a passage built by the ancient dwarves that led directly into the seatt, half this battle would be won.

  “Well?” was all she said to him.

  Ore-Locks simply nodded.

  Ghassan il’Sänke was no closer to finding a way inside the seatt. He had given up counting days or nights. He searched the lower reaches of the headless mountain until exhaustion took him, and he simply dropped where he was to sleep. When the rising sun, or a sharp wind, or the night’s chill woke him, he searched again.

  A small voice in his mind began to taunt him. Could he be wrong? Was it not possible that this mountain had eroded on its own?

  Perhaps there had once been a high lake up there, and it had simply dried out and filled in. Who was he to claim otherwise? A natural disaster, such as a volcanic eruption ages past, could have collapsed the top once it had cooled. Even that would have fit the legend of the mountain’s head returning as fire. And again, nature would have taken care of the rest over centuries.

  But Ghassan denied his self-doubts.

  What natural disaster could collapse an entire mountain from the inside? A volcano would have blown the top outward, leaving sharp, pocked stones, if not hardened paths of cooled lava, in the aftermath. Many small ravines would have formed following the erosion of softer material. But it was not so.

  The seatt was in there, beneath the headless mountain. He had only to find his way in before Wynn reached it. But he was no scout or guide, wise to these barren wilds. He needed to start relying on his strengths.

  He was a metaologer.

  Movement caught his eye where he lay exhausted on a gravel slope. At first he did not bother to look. It would be another tiny dust twister kicked up by wind curling through the peaks. When it came again, he heard gravel tumbling overhead.

  Ghassan rolled his head, raising a shielding hand, and looked upslope.

  It was only a barrel-chested lizard skittering away as a few specks of gravel tumbled down. The creature’s scales were mottled brown and gray. Perhaps it had been there all along, blending with t
he landscape. He lowered his hand, too tired to even hunt it down for food.

  But his mind came fully awake.

  How or why had this ugly little creature come all the way out—up—here? But for protruding boulders and loose stones, there was little cover in this area, and yet he had not noticed the creature before. In its rush, it had sent gravel downslope. It would have done so whether it had climbed down or up to get to his level.

  Ghassan rolled onto his hands and knees.

  The lizard froze on a boulder beyond the gravel slide’s edge; it had noticed him.

  His thoughts galvanized as he blinked slowly. In that sliver of darkness behind his eyelids, he raised the lizard’s image in his mind. Over this he drew the shapes, lines, and marks of blazing symbols stroked from deep memory. A chant passed through his thoughts more quickly than it could have passed between his lips.

  He felt the lizard’s tension, poised in the baser response of fight or flight. He wanted the latter as he opened his eyes and still kept the little beast’s presence fixed in his mind. When he hissed at it, feeling the flight response seize it, he fed its instinctual fear with his will.

  The lizard bolted.

  Ghassan scrambled upslope after it, slipping and sliding on loosened gravel. The lizard must have someplace that it holed up; it was too far from the lower reaches to have merely wandered all the way up here.

  The lizard was faster, or he was slower, than expected. By the time he reached the boulder, it was gone from sight, but he still felt its presence in his mind. He followed that blindly.

  An immense rock protrusion jutted outward just around the slope’s bend. Years of erosion had built up above it, creating a dangerous outcrop of loose material. He did his best not to make the slope’s material slide as he worked his way toward the outcrop.

  The closer he came, the more the presence felt as if it came from below. He did not care for traversing underneath that much amassed loose gravel and earth. Angling down toward the overhang, he inched along with many upward glances.