Through Stone and Sea Page 11

  “Oh,” she moaned, slapping a hand over her mouth and nose.

  Dog’s breath wasn’t good for a sick stomach.

  Cream-colored shimmers from Shade’s undercoat peeked through her charcoal fur every time her rib cage rose in a slow breath. Fragments of the previous night returned to Wynn: the greeting house, a barter with a thänæ, and a telling before a crowd, then the smithy . . . and Sliver. She had enraged High-Tower’s sister, alienating the one possible lead to finding the Stonewalkers.

  “Oh, seven hells,” she said, groaning as her stomach clenched.

  Shade’s left ear twitched, her crystal blue irises peeking through slitted eyelids.

  Wynn rolled away to hang over the bed’s side, desperately looking for anything to throw up in. Another convulsion came, and she hung there to vomit on the floor. But nothing came up.

  When her dry heaves passed, they left a skull-splitting headache and a feverish flush. Something cold and wet snuffled Wynn’s cheek, and a slathering warmth dragged over her face.

  “Oh, don’t do that!”

  Wynn shoved Shade’s muzzle away, but at that touch, flashes of last night poured into her head.

  She remembered—Shade remembered—Wynn sitting in a doorway as Chane headed off after the forgotten pack. Clear images showed him returning to carry her down the mainway near where they’d first entered Sea-Side. He had all three packs and her staff.

  “All right, I see,” Wynn grumbled, looking around the unfamiliar room.

  Where was Chane?

  Shade growled, and Wynn rolled back. The dog sat behind her, gazing steadily beyond the bed’s foot. Wynn crawled around Shade and went to look.

  Chane lay prone on the floor with a pack for a pillow and his cloak as a bed-roll. His jagged red-brown hair was a mess, and his white shirt was wrinkled. With his eyes closed, his long features were smooth and relaxed.

  He wasn’t breathing and lay still as—was—a corpse upon the floor.

  Self-pity and a throbbing head made Wynn almost envy such a state.

  The tiny room had no window, of course, and was sparsely furnished with the one hard bed, a lidded brazier of dwarven crystals, and a small door-side table bearing a tin cup and clay pitcher. She desperately needed to wash the horrid taste from her mouth.

  Scooting back, Wynn climbed off the bedside, not wanting to step over Chane’s body, and staggered to the table. She hoisted the pitcher and gulped from it.

  Her stomach felt as if it had been turned inside out. How could three or four—or was it more—sips of ale affect her like this? What was in those tankards that had worked so slowly, creeping up on her, until the night had gotten completely out of hand?

  She sipped again and then grabbed the cup, pouring water for Shade. As Shade hopped off the bed to lap at the cup, Wynn plopped down on the floor, sick and miserable. She remembered Sliver’s raging and pained expression.

  She couldn’t go back to the smithy again. She had closed that door more soundly than Sliver had. So what now? They couldn’t give up. They had to locate the texts and uncover what the wraith had been seeking. She had to learn more about the orb, its purpose, and the Ancient Enemy of many names. She had to find out if it was returning . . . and if it could be stopped.

  Something—anything—that might connect even one disjointed piece to another.

  All of this made her dizzy and sick again.

  She rose with effort, barely able to stand with her head pounding even more, and then slapped a hand over her mouth. For an intant, she feared she might lose the water she had just swallowed. Then she heard soft voices somewhere outside the wide oak door.

  Where was she? There were only two things she could reason out: Chane had procured a room in some inn, and it must be daytime, since he was still dormant. She pulled back the slide bolt and cracked the door open.

  Two doors down, the corridor emptied into an open space. There stood a somewhat flabby dwarven woman in an apron, gripping a straw broom. She was chatting with a young male behind a stout desk.

  “Pardon,” Wynn called, and her own vile breath made her want to cover her mouth again. “Can you tell me the time of day?”

  The male leaned sideways, peeking around his companion, and both dwarves’ eyes widened.

  Wynn winced—she must look worse than she imagined. But the one behind the desk corrected his expression to polite disinterest.

  “Yes, miss, it is just past Day-Winter’s start.”

  “My thanks.”

  Wynn pulled back and shut the door. How could she have slept until midafternoon?

  She had only one friendly contact in all of Dhredze Seatt. That was Shirvêsh Mallet, back in Bay-Side—all the way on the mountain’s other side. Perhaps if pressed more subtly, the old shirvêsh might give her another lead, some other way to find the Stonewalkers. Or failing that, he might provide some custom to help make amends with Sliver.

  The dwarves were a people of long tradition, couched in clan and tribal rules and rituals. Yes, for now Shirvêsh Mallet was her best and only choice—in a retreat from her mistakes.

  Wynn slid down the door and patted the floor for Shade’s attention. The dog just stared at her, so she held out her hands. Shade padded over, and Wynn took the dog’s face in her hands, calling up memories of the temple. Before she even raised an image of the tram, Shade backpedaled out of reach, growling at her.

  “I know it was awful,” Wynn whispered, “but we have to go.”

  Chane still hadn’t moved. Back at the guild, he’d slept in a bed in Domin il’Sänke’s chambers, but she’d peeked in there only occasionally. So far in this journey, they’d arranged for separate rooms, and Wynn had never seen him in full dormancy before. The sight was unnerving, but at least the sun didn’t matter inside the mountain.

  If they started back now, the tram would arrive at Bay-Side by early night. They would reach the temple not long past supper—a good time to speak with Shirvêsh Mallet.

  Trying to ignore her pounding head, Wynn crawled toward Chane.

  She stopped near his shoulder and looked down at him, almost feeling as if she invaded his privacy. He might not like for her to study him like this—so dead and still upon the floor.

  He was proud, but secretly this was one of the things she admired about him. She could not help thinking back to those distant nights in Bela, at the newly founded branch for the Guild of Sagecraft, when he visited and drank mint tea with her as they pored over historical parchments. A handsome young nobleman seeking out her company, of all people.

  Then she’d learned the truth about him.

  He was a vampire who drank blood to continue existing, and of course she’d shut him out of her life. But nearly every time her life was in danger, he’d appeared from nowhere to throw himself in front of her, to protect her at any cost. Once, when she’d been locked away by a brutish warlord, Chane had broken into the keep, killed several soldiers, and carried her out through an underwater tunnel.

  Wynn didn’t fully understand Chane’s feelings for her. She knew they were strong, and she wasn’t the sort of woman who normally inspired such in men. There had been only one other.

  Osha, a young elf and an’Cróan had been in training to be an Anmaglâhk—an assassin—though he’d been ill-suited to such a pursuit. He was not handsome, even compared to a human, with a long, horselike face. Nor was he as brooding or intellectual as Chane. Osha’s emotions were always so plain to see, but this made his wonder and kindness show as well, even when tainted by his people’s hate and fear of other races. He was unflinching and steady, and had befriended Wynn when she’d needed one. And perhaps he had felt even more than friendship for her.

  If Wynn had wanted to, she could have pulled him further toward her— but she hadn’t. He’d had to return to his people, and she’d been told to return home as well. What could’ve been, couldn’t be between them.

  Sometimes, she missed him, thought of him. But when his face rose in her thoughts, somehow, Chan
e’s always did so as well—even when she didn’t want it to.

  Wynn sat there on the floor, looking down at Chane’s smooth, pale features and red-brown hair, wishing. . . .

  Things could be different, if he weren’t undead. But he was, and nothing could change that.

  She finally reached out and touched his shoulder, stiff under her fingers.

  “Chane,” she said softly. “Wake up.”

  He didn’t move. The sun’s rhythm shouldn’t affect him down here. Was something wrong? She grasped the side of his shirt, trying to shake him, and the effort made her stomach worse.

  “Chane!”

  His head lolled. That limp movement was almost frightening, as if he were truly dead . . . or no longer undead . . . dormant . . . whatever.

  Chane’s eyelids snapped wide.

  Wynn jerked upright, but not before his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.

  “Oww! Stop!”

  Before she pulled against his grip, he whirled over and pinned her to the floor.

  “Chane, stop it!”

  He sat halfway up, staring down at her, and then recognition spread across his twisted features. He rolled off of her in sudden shock and closed his eyes as he flattened onto his back again, as if exhausted.

  Wynn sat up, watching him cautiously as she rubbed her wrist.

  “Don’t go back to sleep,” she urged. “We need to catch the tram and return to Bay-Side.”

  This time, Chane opened his eyes and truly looked at her. “Wynn?”

  “Of course,” she answered, but the question left her worried about his state. “You have to get up. We’ve lost too much time already.”

  She felt as if they’d lost whole days because of her blundering.

  “Tonight . . .” Chane slurred. “We can . . . go . . . tonight.”

  If they waited until dusk, it would be the middle of the night before they reached the temple. Mallet would be asleep, and she didn’t know if anyone else would be up to let them in. Who could say when she might catch the shirvêsh at another opportune moment?

  Wynn took hold of Chane’s arm. “Get up! You can sleep on the tram.”

  “I do not . . . sleep!” he snarled. “That is for the living.”

  Wynn froze, but she didn’t have time to ponder his strange comment. With a mix of coaxing and bullying, she got him on his feet, and they gathered their belongings.

  Without Shade, Wynn didn’t know how they would’ve managed. The dog’s perfect memory led them back to the tram station, though in the end, Wynn had to wrestle a groggy Chane and a stubborn Shade on board. At least it distracted her from her own reluctance for the ride.

  Chane collapsed on a bench, and Shade growled as Wynn shoved the dog’s rump to get her into the tram. Wynn settled on the bench’s end near the aisle.

  The long ride back began, and soon, the sickness she’d felt upon waking became nothing compared to the return to Sea-Side. Somewhere along the way, she forgot everything but her misery.

  The car was sparsely populated, and she leaned forward, bracing against the back of the next bench. She tried hard not to retch, but Shade lay under her bench making enough pathetic noises for both of them. Only Chane remained still and silent.

  Time passed too slowly in the tram’s endless rush. Trying to think of anything besides her suffering, Wynn found herself wondering . . .

  Was there something more Chane had meant about sleep being “for the living”?

  “Chane,” she whispered with effort. “Do you . . . do Noble Dead dream . . . when they sleep . . . I mean, go dormant?”

  At first he didn’t answer. He finally twitched, straightened, and then fell back against the rail wall before catching himself.

  “Wynn?” he rasped, his eyes half open in confusion. “Where are we? Are you all right?”

  He seemed himself again, and in part, she was relieved to have him back. The sun must have set outside the mountain, though it was always dark as night in the tram tunnel. He frowned and reached for her, trying to help her sit back.

  “No,” she managed to say. “I’m not all right. Just let me lean here.”

  They returned to silence beneath the chatter of the tram’s wheels in the tunnel’s steel-lined ruts. Wynn was barely aware when those wheels began to screech and finally slowed.

  Bright lights from huge crystals in the walls illuminated the Bay- Side station platforms.

  Chane tried to help her up. She pulled away, grabbing her pack and staff.

  “I can walk.”

  When they reached the market cavern, Wynn balked at the noise of lingering vendors and customers hammering at her aching head. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this ill before, not even the morning after Magiere and Leesil’s wedding feast. Chane led them out through the cavern’s enormous mouth.

  Wynn later remembered stepping into the cold night air and seeing the back side of the way station’s crank house. She remembered Shade trotting up the street of great steaming orange crystals, and Chane taking hold of her to follow. But the rest remained a blur.

  She forgot about speaking with Shirvêsh Mallet and barely recalled passing through the temple’s tall brass arch bell and the wide marble doors. Even these details didn’t come back until she found herself in a small room, dimly lit in red-orange, and she crumpled upon the hard bed. Chane pulled a blanket up around her chin.

  He held a cup of water to her lips, but she could take only a sip.

  “I will check on you before dawn,” he whispered.

  The little world of that room grew dark, but not before Wynn again wondered . . . Do the dead dream?

  It wasn’t the best thought with which to fall asleep.

  Chane slipped from Wynn’s room under Shade’s cold stare and quietly closed the door. He was hungry and dazed. Rarely had his dormancy been interrupted, and he felt something like what he remembered of going without sleep in his living days.

  It made him feel even weaker . . . and hungrier.

  Worse, when he turned about, Shirvêsh Mallet came bustling down the corridor. Chane was not up to polite conversation.

  “I was told young Wynn is ill,” Mallet blurted out. “Does she need care?”

  Chane tried to stand straight. The blunt question was welcome, as all he could do for Wynn was give her water and let her rest.

  “She drank dwarven ale . . . too much, in a Sea- Side greeting house,” he rasped. “It has affected her badly.”

  “Oh, good grace!” the shirvêsh exclaimed. “What was she thinking? And you moved her? What were you thinking?”

  Chane bit his lip in restraint. “She insisted on coming back,” he answered politely. “I could not refuse.”

  Mallet’s wrinkled face softened. “I will fetch purifying herbs for tea to clean out her blood. She will be shaky for a few days.” He shook his head, white hair swishing over his shoulders. “Dwarven ale is not for such a tiny Numan . . . someone should have stopped her!”

  Indeed, Chane thought.

  “Get some rest yourself, lad,” Mallet added.

  Nodding, and surprised at his own gratitude, Chane stepped into his own room across the way, but only closed the door to a crack. He waited long enough for the shirvêsh to trundle off and then slipped along the passages and through the roundabout circling the chamber of the dwarven Eternal. No one seemed to notice him, even as he exited out into the night. He paced the mountainside’s winding streets, his thoughts twisting inward.

  Wynn’s ignorant gift of goat’s blood made him wonder about feeding on livestock. Mules used at the crank house’s turnstile had to be stabled nearby. Or could he solve the mystery of Welstiel’s arcane feeding cup?

  The beast with hands, chained down within him, lunged at its bonds, howling to be fed.

  Neither cup nor livestock appealed to him. Yet he had to find a way to survive, while keeping his feeding to a minimum. He wandered down the mountain’s street, poignantly aware that he was alone and unrestrained. To protect Wynn, he needed
the strength of life—and she need never know how.

  Chane slowed.

  Directly ahead lay the lift’s way station, crank house, and the huge glowing maw of the market cavern’s entrance. He had not even thought about where he was going, yet here he was. Or had that other part of him known? Had the beast pushed him here, already hunting while he was distracted in thought?

  Chane looked from the way station to the cavern’s entrance. People were still about. A few even passed him on the street, giving him little notice. He could not risk feeding upon someone who lived here—someone with a clan and a tribe, as well as family, who would notice one of their own gone missing. His brief encounter with Sliver emphasized Wynn’s warning against matching strength with a dwarf.

  He needed a visitor, a traveler . . . a human.

  Chane stepped away from the pylons’ crystals and slipped into a darker path between buildings at the settlement’s cliff side. He took little notice of the structures’ back sides as he moved quietly down the short-walled cobbled walkway along the cliff. When he neared the row’s end, close enough to see the way station, neither a cargo nor a passenger lift was currently docked. He peered over the retaining wall and along the sheer mountainside, but did not see any lift crawling up the steep stone road.

  Chane leaned against the wall and looked upward. He had to shift along the path to see between the buildings. It was the same above, where the empty stone road continued toward the mountain’s top, perhaps all the way to what Wynn had called Old-Seatt.

  Sudden voices made him duck away from the wall and against the last building’s back side.

  Chane peered around the corner toward the night chatter’s source. Four humans in the attire of the well-to-do rounded the crank house. One sounded as if he were chuckling at his own wit. The others merely smiled or nodded, and only the last responded, too low to hear. But the first boisterous one . . .

  Chane knew what to look for.

  The small group separated as three headed off toward the lift. But the talkative one, so amused with himself, waved a hand in parting and turned up the street along the pylons.