Through Stone and Sea Read online

  “How long to Chemarré?” Wynn asked in Dwarvish.

  The stocky girl put her hands on her hips and answered in a shockingly deep voice, “No stops on this run, so by Night-Summer’s end.”

  Then she was off through the forward door to the next car.

  Wynn understood why so many vendors sold food and drink in the great market cavern. It was well past dusk, even past mid-Night-Spring and the second bell of night. The trip would take over a quarter- night. She settled on a bench at the car’s midpoint.

  Shade flattened, trying to crawl under the seat, but only managed to get half her bulk out of sight.

  Wynn reached down, scratching Shade’s back. “It’s all right.”

  Chane piled their packs next to her and climbed into the next empty bench.

  “Did you pay for passage?” he asked.

  “Transport inside the mountain is a public service,” Wynn answered. “The tribes and clans take pride in the upkeep of streets and access that serve their settlements.”

  Chane barely nodded, watching the last travelers board—all dwarves. She and he were the only humans. Then he leaned over the rail wall, peering forward along the tram.

  Wynn knew he was trying to see the lead car—the “engine,” as he’d called it. But he wouldn’t from their current vantage point.

  “Are you acquiring a taste for dwarven culture?” she asked.

  He leaned back, and any wonder had already faded from his eyes. Perhaps someone like Chane couldn’t allow himself to enjoy anything too much.

  “It is orderly,” he answered, “even in its occasional chaos. I can appreciate this.” Then he paused as if thinking. “Do they have a constabulary . . . or a city—settlement—guard?”

  Wynn frowned suspiciously.

  “Not precisely,” she answered. “Each tribe has a warrior caste, somewhat like human armies, but they haven’t known outright war since . . . I don’t know when. Some clans man local constabularies in their areas, but there’s little to no crime. Justice is handled by a clan conclave.”

  “Conclave?” he echoed. “A council?”

  “Not exactly,” she countered. “Council members are usually elected or appointed. It’s more complicated with a dwarven conclave, from what little I know. And it always meets behind closed doors.”

  “So, politics persist in all cultures.”

  “It’s complicated,” she repeated, “in who sits on a clan or tribe conclave. Disputes between clans, and families of differing clans, or more complex issues are settled up at Seattâsh—Old-Seatt. That’s where representatives meet for the conclave of five tribes. Why do you ask?”

  Chane glanced away.

  Wynn grew anxious to press him for answers, but then the tram car lurched. She grabbed the seat’s edge as Shade let out a pitiful moan beneath it. The tram picked up speed, and Chane settled with his back to her.

  The journey through dark and stone began.

  Still in the tram tunnel’s darkness, Sau’ilahk had to know where Wynn was headed. In the end, he had little choice but to expend preciously consumed life. Pulling back against the tunnel wall, he focused inward.

  In his mind’s eye, in midair, he shaped a glowing circle for Spirit the size of a splayed hand. Within this, he formed the square of Air. And in the spaces between these nested shapes, he stroked the lines of sigils with his thoughts.

  Sau’ilahk fixated upon the glowing grand seal, and a part of his own energies bled away in a brief wave of weariness.

  A silent breeze built inside the tunnel.

  He ignored this side effect and called the air inward, into the seal that only he could see. There was no change of temperature in the tunnel, but the pattern’s center space warped like the horizon across a hot desert. That nearly invisible distortion held its place within the seal’s center—a servitor of Air.

  The most base of elementals, no more than a mindless automaton, awaited his implanted instructions.

  The effort of its creation left him lethargic, but he was not yet finished. He focused his will upon a tiny fragment of Spirit infused within the construction of Air and embedded five simplified commands in proper order.

  Target the being in gray robes.

  Record all sound.

  If target leaves this area, return to origin point.

  Reiterate all sound.

  Banish!

  Sau’ilahk released the glowing lines in his mind’s eye.

  They faded to nothing—but not the small twist of Air. Freed of restraint, the faint warp of the servitor shot down the tunnel into the station’s cavern to fulfill its purpose. Not even a breeze was raised in its passing.

  Sau’ilahk drifted toward the tunnel’s mouth.

  No one noticed the fist-size warp. All were far too busy, including Wynn, as she led her companions to the nearer platform. This at least told him where she was headed, but he waited as the trio boarded and took their seats, and yellow-orange light erupted with steam at the tram’s head.

  It gained speed and hurtled toward him in the tunnel.

  It could do him no harm, but he backed to the side before its glow bore through him. As the second-to-the-last car passed, he glimpsed Chane sitting before Wynn.

  Sau’ilahk still sensed nothing from this man. Chane seemed no more than an illusion of light and sound that somehow had gained physical presence.

  Who—what—was he?

  In Calm Seatt, Sau’ilahk had tried to drain that one’s life with a touch and found only emptiness where life should have existed. Chane was indeed undead, but not like any that Sau’ilahk had ever encountered. Were he a vampire, his presence would immediately be sensed, and the dark majay-hì with Wynn would have attack him.

  The last car dwindled in the tunnel’s distant darkness.

  The servitor’s warp reappeared before Sau’ilahk.

  He tensed in anticipation, waiting for the tunnel’s Air to shiver with its recorded sounds. Wynn’s voice echoed lightly and he listened.

  Most of the sparse conversation was useless, but one utterance brought him some revelation.

  Shirvêsh Mallet believes High- Tower’s family resides below Sea-Side. If we can find them, we might find his brother . . . and then the Stonewalkers and the texts.

  The servitor vanished with a pop as normal air rushed in to take its place. Its last command completed, it returned to nothingness.

  Sau’ilahk’s thoughts filled with fragile hope amid puzzlement.

  So the little sage’s reason for traveling to the mountain’s ocean side was to search for the kin of Domin High-Tower, for his brother . . . and for the Hassäg’kreigi. What could she possibly know of Stonewalkers? That dwarven sect was all but a mystery, even to its own people. Yet, she now seemed to believe they were connected to the ancient texts. She had sounded resolute in her deductions. She must have learned something critical.

  Sau’ilahk’s mild fatigue from conjuring left him with no regret. He was on the correct path, and Wynn would lead him the rest of the way. He let himself slip down toward dormancy.

  This time, he did not recall a memorized place. He focused instead upon the tram’s distant glow and held it within his consciousness.

  Sau’ilahk vanished from the tunnel, swallowed in an instant of dormancy. He immediately struggled to reawaken.

  The tram’s clatter erupted around him in the tunnel, startling him for an instant. Its last car was so close he could touch it, as if in one blind step he had crossed the long distance to catch up. Then it quickly rushed onward.

  Blink by blink, to dormancy’s edge and out again, Sau’ilahk followed Wynn’s night journey through the mountain.

  CHAPTER 4

  Wynn gripped the bench’s edge—not from panic but from growing nausea. Poor Shade had long since gone silent.

  The tram constantly shuddered, rocking slightly whenever rounding a gradual curve. It didn’t agree with Wynn’s stomach, and worse, Chane appeared annoyingly immune. He glanced back at her now and then in concern.

  “On our return, we will take a forward car,” he said. “Being closer to the engine may minimize the rocking.”

  Wynn bit down on her lower lip. Such ideas were all well and good, but they didn’t help her now. Rationalizing every problem was always his way of helping, but she wondered if he possessed any true empathy. She was also beginning to feel trapped.

  Even with a welcome breeze from the tram’s rush, there was little to see along the way. The absolute blurred sameness throughout the night made her feel as though the tunnel were closing in.

  “The uneven motion may partly be the tracks’ construction,” Chane went on. “Did you notice them?”

  Wynn glowered at the back of his head. Normally he was so quiet. Why all the prattle now? Perhaps he was trying to distract her from suffering.

  “Simple and easily maintained,” he added. “They need only forge new steel to reline the ruts, likely guiding the tram without need for a steering mechanism.”

  Wynn swallowed hard. “Chane, please . . . stop . . . talking!”

  He pivoted and raised his eyebrows, as if surprised at her tone, and the tram took a hard left turn.

  Wynn closed her eyes with a groan. Her fingernails bit into the bench as a strange metal screech built around their car.

  “We are slowing,” Chane said. “There is light ahead, more than from the engine’s crystal.”

  At least that was a welcome comment.

  Wynn opened her eyes in fragile hope and leaned over the tram’s rail wall. She saw some light ahead, enough to make out the tram car’s side . . . and the tunnel’s stone wall rushing by in a blur.

  Her stomach lurched.

  Light grew quickly, building to a warm glow. The tunnel wall’s rush began to slow, and to Wynn’s relief, the tram rolled into another constructed cavern. In a screech of steel, it finally stopped, lurching her forward in her seat.

  Shade groaned somewhere below amid a scratch of claws on the car’s floor.

  Wynn saw a station platform on the car’s far side. Dwarves aboard immediately got up and began disembarking. She sagged forward, bracing against the back of Chane’s bench, and reached down for Shade’s head.

  “We’re here . . . it’s over,” she whispered with effort, but she couldn’t find Shade by touch.

  A moaning growl rose from somewhere behind her. Without a breeze from the tram’s rush, so did a thin, foul smell.

  “Shade?” Wynn whispered.

  She stood up, wobbling as she stepped into the aisle, and bent over, looking for the dog.

  Shade lay under the next bench back. Her rib cage bulged with each heaving breath, and spittle dripped freely from her half-open jaws. Below Wynn’s own bench was a pool of saliva surrounding undigested sausage lumps.

  Wynn covered her mouth against a gag.

  “It wasn’t any better for me,” she muttered.

  Shade exposed still-dripping teeth, and Wynn regretted her words, even if Shade couldn’t understand them.

  “Come,” Chane interrupted, and hoisted his packs and hers as well.

  Wynn took up the staff, checking the sun crystal under its leather cover. Then she crouched, patting the side of her leg as she peered at Shade.

  Shade crawled out, rising on shaky legs, and Wynn felt even worse at having put Shade through this ordeal. It couldn’t be helped. They had to find High-Tower’s family as soon as possible. She stroked Shade’s head, passing memories of quiet inn rooms, and then pulled Shade along as she followed Chane onto the platform.

  Sea-Side’s tram station wasn’t set deep into the mountain, as in Bay-Side. It was couched directly behind the settlement’s main market cavern, smaller than Bay-Side’s but still filled with the hazy glow of steaming crystals upon pylons. Beyond scarce vendors and others, only four great columns with few upper walkways supported the high ceiling. Scant passengers already gathered on the platform for the tram’s return trip. As the stout female dwarf came along to usher them aboard, Wynn caught the young woman’s attention.

  “How late is it?” she asked.

  “Barely Night-Summer’s end,” the girl answered. “About your midnight.”

  She stepped back on to the tram with the last of her passengers.

  “And now?” Chane asked.

  Wynn looked about. Some arriving passengers headed for the archway leading outside into the cold night, but most of them disappeared into the widest of three other tunnels leading deeper inside the mountain.

  “That way,” Wynn said, nodding toward the latter.

  With Chane on one side and Shade on the other, she stepped off the platform to search for Sea-Side’s “underside.” Motion sickness passed as curiosity took its place.

  After a short walk down a vast columned tunnel, she spotted side paths through archways the size of normal roads. These were placed at intervals akin to a city block. Squat pylons with engravings stood at each intersection, but only every other one held a steaming orange crystal, smaller than the ones of Bay-Side.

  “This settlement is not as developed as the other,” Chane commented, stepping ahead.

  “Wait,” Wynn called, circling the nearest pylon.

  She studied dwarven engravings on all four sides. It took a moment to figure them out, and then she peered down the left-side path. The way broadened farther on, and she spotted signs, flags, and banners in front of varied doors and openings.

  “The pylon says this is Chamid Bâyir,” she said, pointing down the main tunnel. “Oblique Mainway—wherever that goes.”

  A few dwarves and fewer humans milled past them.

  Chane looked warily at a thickly bearded human in a shimmering head wrap and short umber robe. Dark skinned, with a sheathless curved sword slid into his fabric wrap belt, he returned Chane’s stare with haughty disdain before moving on.

  “Do not get out of my sight,” Chane warned.

  Wynn shot him a glare. She was as well traveled as he was, and far more accustomed to this culture.

  Shade growled.

  The tone was different from her pained suffering on the tram, and Wynn forgot Chane’s irritating manner. She spun about and found Shade watching a dwarf in a leather hauberk striding toward them along the mainway. Two matched, overmuscled, and short-haired hounds padded beside him.

  Both animals were barrel- chested, their raised heads easily higher than the dwarf’s belt. In contrast, Shade looked even more like a slender, long- legged wolf. Her hackles rose as she pulled back her jowls.

  One dog slowed and began growling back.

  Wynn crouched, quickly laying down her staff and grabbing Shade’s neck. She’d tried to warn Shade about growling at strangers, but doing so with memories hadn’t been easy. She hadn’t mentioned—shown—Shade anything about other dogs.

  “Apologies,” she said in Dwarvish. “My dog is a bit protective.”

  “Dog?” the dwarf replied.

  His bushy brows rumpled as he eyed Shade, who obviously looked like a wolf. But he didn’t appear offended and nudged his own animal with his knee, growling, “Quit!” With a polite smile to Wynn, he continued on his way.

  Wynn watched the houndmaster and then saw Chane’s hand on his sword’s hilt. The dwarf either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t cared. Holding Shade fast, Wynn called out in Numanese so that Chane could follow.

  “Sir?”

  The dwarf paused and half turned.

  “Do you know of the Yêarclág . . . the Iron-Braids?” she asked. “And where they reside?”

  “No, miss,” the dwarf answered, this time glancing at Chane’s tensed hand. “But you are in the upper trade district. You may need to head beyond it, possibly down, to find dwelling districts. Maybe someone there can help you.”

  His Numanese was perfect, but most dwarves spoke it well enough, along with a smattering of other tongues. Dwarves, who valued good trade with other cultures, were so oral that language came easily to them.

  “Thank you,” Wynn called.

  The dwarf returned a shallow bow and headed off with his hounds. Shade was still leering after them, and Wynn grabbed her gently by the snout.

  “No!” she whispered firmly.

  Shade rumbled, glaring back with blue crystalline eyes. She shook herself free of the grip.

  Wynn sighed in frustration. Sometimes she forgot that Shade didn’t understand language—not like her father. Trying to use memories and present them in clear and meaningful strings was daunting. Wynn stood up and turned on Chane.

  “And you!” she said. “Keep your hand off that sword, unless you have no choice! Most dwarves are quick to laugh and slow to anger, but once aroused, they don’t calm easily. Even you would have trouble facing one of them.”

  Chane’s eyes widened and his jaw muscles bulged. Clearly offended, he opened his mouth to respond.

  “I’m not questioning your skill,” she went on, but lowered her voice to a whisper. “And keep your sword in plain sight. To them, only a villain carries concealed weapons. Magiere and Chap both saw visions of the past . . . through the memories of others. Dwarves are a match—or better—for an undead’s strength.”

  Chane’s expression relaxed. Perhaps he took her at her word—or he was patronizing her. The barest slyness surfaced in his expression—almost a thin smile—and he lunged sideways.

  By the time Wynn twisted to catch sight of him, he was behind her.

  “They would have to get a hold on me first,” he rasped.

  She just stared at him. Was he joking? Did Chane know how to joke?

  Wynn almost smiled—and then scoffed. He might be faster than a dwarf, but that wasn’t the point. The last thing she needed was his overprotective gallantry getting them into trouble.

  Chane gestured down Oblique Mainway, then cocked his head toward the side tunnel.

  “Onward or outward?”

  Wynn had no idea. If the Iron-Braids lived in the poorest district, then they would have to head below sooner or later. How and where was another matter, and she would rather have the answers before they tried navigating unknown regions. She should’ve asked more from the polite houndmaster.