Of Truth And Beasts Part 48

The long-dead thn's eyes seemed closed, but there was no way to be certain.

Wynn couldn't tell if it was male or female. Its clothing was nothing more than the barest ripples in the glittering layers of minerals. The buildup had turned its hands into lumps. She glanced at other dark shapes about the cave's silent stillness.

"Honored thn, taken into stone," she whispered. "We are standing among the dead of a forgotten time."

No coffins or crypts. The Stonewalkers-the Ha.s.sg'kreigi-entombed their most honored in stone itself. Left here for a thousand years or more, they became one with the earth their people cherished.

Chane backed up, looking all around without blinking.

Wynn knew he didn't fear the dead. He too had stood in those caves in Dhredze Seatt.

Chane's eyes suddenly widened. "One has been shattered!"

He rushed off the path.

When Wynn caught up, he was crouched over fragments at the base of one form. She froze at the sight of this desecration. From the size of the pieces lying all around, the dwarf had been large-tall-and the broken bits had been there long enough to bond to the cave floors.

She shook her head in sadness. Who would do such a thing, and why? There was no way to know, and she gripped her crystal tighter, peering about for Ore-Locks.

He still wove between the lumpy columns, studying every calcified thn he could find.

"What are you doing?" Wynn called to him.

Instead of answering, he broke into a jog and ran into the cave's wall.

Wynn stiffened, and then heard his heavy footfalls echoing through the caves. Shade took off toward another opening.

"Ore-Locks!" Wynn cried, following Shade's lead.

The next cave held only a few calcified forms. Ore-Locks was already running for another wall, his face twisted in urgency. Wynn started after him, but Shade barked.

Still moving, Wynn glanced back in frustration. "What?"

"Perhaps she has dipped into his memories," Chane said.

Wynn stopped cold, though Chane went on to peek into the next cave.

Shade padded closer, and Wynn dropped to one knee. She touched Shade's face, feeling bad for having snapped at the dog. In her own mania to catch Ore-Locks, she'd forgotten Shade's ways.

"Sorry," she said softly, closing her eyes.

An image of darkness filled her mind instantly. One of her own memories began to return....

She held a cold lamp crystal out before a figure of stone, carved almost like an upright coffin, but with an engraving inside a raised, oblong panel about chest level. She traced the engraved markings with her finger.

. . . outcast of stone . . . deceiver of honored dead . . . ender of heritage . . . the seatt killer ...

She reached the bottom-a final vubr.

Thallhearag-the Lord of Slaughter.

Shade had taken her back to the Chamber of the Fallen at Dhredze Seatt, those counterparts to the dwarven Eternals. Reviled for their rejection of dwarven virtues, their faceless effigies, chiseled in the form of iron-banded coffins, were locked away in the deepest place. One was worse than all others, and secreted in a small chamber of its own.

Inside the memory, Shade began to snarl.

In her crystal's light, a shadow of that lone effigy appeared to move upon the wall behind it. A baritone voice rose as if from the black basalt form.

"His true name was Byndun . . . Deep-Root."

Ore-Locks stepped from the shadows, his hand stroking down the effigy. He raised his eyes to where the head would be, as if seeing more than the mute form's representation. He placed both hands flat on the oval plate of its engraving, as if trying to blot out the epitaph.

"He does not belong here," Ore-Locks whispered.

The memory ended as abruptly as it began.

Wynn opened her eyes, still holding Shade's face, and realized what Shade was trying to tell her.

"Deep-Root?" she breathed.

Did Ore-Locks actually hope to find his traitorous ancestor among the honored dead of Balle?

"What did she show you?" Chane asked.

"I know what Ore-Locks is looking for, and he will not find it here."

Rising, she ran into the next cave, and then the next. The farther in she went, the more the entombed forms became indistinguishable from the cave's glistening stone. She found Ore-Locks inside the fifth and last cave. He looked pale and stricken, down on his knees. When he saw her watching him, he stood up, his expression hardening.

She had no idea what to say. Her feelings were as mixed and blended as the remains of the dead and the cave's stone. She was angry with him for leading them astray. After the carnage they had seen above in the seatt, how could he ever have thought to find his genocidal ancestor here? Even if any stonewalkers had survived the seatt's fall, why would they ever place a monster among the honored dead? Or did Ore-Locks merely wish it so, as proof that the little-known tale of his treacherous ancestor was a lie?

But a small part of her pitied him. Was this truly why he had come all this way-to somehow change the truth of the past?

"We are finished here," he said coldly. "We move on."

"To where?"

"You wished to go lower." He strode past her, ignoring Chane and Shade.

Chane kept glancing about as they walked. When Ore-Locks neared where they'd entered, Chane slowed. Wynn stopped, wondering what was wrong.

"Feather-Tongue would find this tomb a tragedy," Chane said.

Wynn shook her head, uncertain what he meant.

"These thn are forgotten," he went on. "The tales that brought them here are forgotten. They will not continue in the memories of their people. These here are now truly dead, forever."

She hadn't considered that. First, Ore-Locks had tried to clear his genocidal ancestor's name in a place where the dead were forgotten, and now Chane waxed philosophical like a shirvsh of Bedz'kenge. The world felt upside down.

"We have to go," she said.

He nodded and followed her as they hurried.

Ore-Locks was waiting by the portal. This time Wynn, Chane, and Shade all stepped out, and he closed the doors from the inside before pa.s.sing through the iron to join them. They wouldn't need to enter that place again.

Ore-Locks still looked pale and sickened. He took the lead, and when they reached the narrow, sloping pa.s.sage, he turned downward again.

A small part of Wynn wished to offer him some word of comfort; the wiser part knew that was foolish-and wrong.

Gha.s.san lingered near the entrance to the hall of the Eternals, noting the great gash in its far right end, but he did not step inside just yet. The wraith must be somewhere ahead of him. He did not wish to risk exposing his presence to it or to Wynn.

Footsteps and voices carried down the engraved entry pa.s.sage behind him.

Gha.s.san looked back. Who else could possibly be down here? He could not make out the words, but he heard the lilt and guttural turn in those voices. Elves?

He hurried inside the hall. Quietly rushing down its length, he looked for a vantage point where he could still remain hidden. Then he froze midway.

The wraith lingered at an archway beyond the last great statue along the hall's far wall. Its back was turned to him.

Gha.s.san knew he had only moments before it might turn around or the elves would enter this place. He formed sigils and shapes in his mind, focusing on the wraith. He did not know if he could hide his presence from its unnatural awareness, but it was all he had left to try.

On pure hope, he ran between the statues on the hall's other side, ducking behind the shoulder-high base of the effigy of a dwarven warrior.

The wraith turned. It floated farther out into the hall, but did not look his way.

Gha.s.san stifled an exhale of relief. He remained rigid, listening to the footsteps approaching the hall.

Sau'ilahk thought he heard something and turned quickly. He saw nothing, but he was not given to hearing things that did not exist. He drifted to the hall's center and then heard something else.

Footfalls and voices carried from the hall's entrance.

It could only be Chuillyon and his companions. An overwhelming hunger flooded Sau'ilahk. Feeding upon Wynn was the only greater pleasure he could imagine than draining the old elf's life. But he could not lose Wynn now.

Sau'ilahk rushed back to the portal archway and saw her light far down the pa.s.sage.

Gha.s.san peered out from hiding. Once again, he could almost not believe his eyes. Three elves in travel attire stepped through the hall's broken doors. The oldest of them led the way, followed by a tall, younger male and a beautiful female.

Gha.s.san fixed on the leader. He had seen that one many times whenever d.u.c.h.ess Reine of the royal house of Malourne had come visiting at the guild branch of Calm Seatt. He had heard the old one's name mentioned once or twice, and he tried to remember.

Chuillyon? What was an advisor to the royals doing in Balle Seatt? It was certainly no coincidence.

"Look at their size," the woman breathed, gazing up at the ma.s.sive statues. Beautiful as she was, she looked thin and exhausted, nothing like the hardened traveler Wynn had become.

Gha.s.san spoke Elvish well enough, and hoped he might learn more than expressed awe over the work of ancient dwarven artisans.

"This way," the younger male said, heading for the open portal.

Chuillyon slowed, glancing back at the hall's right end. He finally nodded and continued on with the others. The trio pa.s.sed through the portal.

Gha.s.san exhaled in frustration. He now had more than one interloper between himself and Wynn.

Chane kept close as Wynn followed Ore-Locks. He gauged that they had gone down another two levels before the pa.s.sage stopped at another sealed portal. There had been no further side pa.s.sages along the way. Chane had a strange feeling that they had reached the end of their long descent, though he could not fathom why.

Perhaps it was the look of finality on Ore-Locks's face as the dwarf hesitated before that portal.

"What's wrong?" Wynn asked.

"Nothing," Ore-Locks answered.

The dwarf pa.s.sed through the iron and, within seconds, the familiar grinding sound began.

Chane had not expressed his suspicions aloud, like Wynn, but he had become increasingly wary. Ore-Locks seemed to know exactly where to go and the correct sequences to open all portals. It was too easy, too convenient.

As the last of the triple iron panels slid into the arch's frame, Chane pushed past Wynn, stepping inside another great hall. But he instantly spotted its difference.

In place of the stone effigies there were huge basalt likenesses of coffins sealed with carved representations of iron bands. Chane knew where Ore-Locks had brought them, for he had been in a similar chamber below Dhredze Seatt.

This was another chamber of the Lhrgn . . . the Fallen Ones.

Chane hung back, blocking Wynn's entry, until Ore-Locks moved off. When he glanced back, Wynn was peeking around him. She paled at the sight of those basalt coffins.

He finally stepped forward, noticing that this chamber was in even worse shape than the hall of the Byn. The left and right end walls each bore the same strange breach he had seen above-except the one on the left was wide, and the one on the right was taller and slightly narrower.

Though the stone coffin effigies were at least three times the size of those in Dhredze Seatt, two showed multiple fractures, and a third was half-shattered into chunks that lay across the floor. Again, there were fewer of them than in Dhredze Seatt.

Chane walked farther in, looking for any pa.s.sage to another chamber or hall where one more effigy might have been set apart. There were no openings. They had truly reached a dead end. He turned to find Wynn examining the engraved, oblong panel on a basalt coffin. Her brow crinkled as if in deep concentration or thought.

Chane could guess at her concern.

She had followed Ore-Locks into the bowels of this dead seatt, and not a single clue or hint to the orb's whereabouts had been uncovered. Instead, they stood in this last hall, in the Chamber of the Fallen, with nowhere left to go.

"The symbols are worn, old, and hard to comprehend," she whispered. "But I've made out their t.i.tles, at least."

"Is Avarice here?" he asked.

Avarice was one of the Fallen Ones who she had learned of at Dhredze Seatt in tales of Feather-Tongue's exploits.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "He must have come later."

Ore-Locks had not bothered even glancing at the coffins. He stood before the wider breach in the hall's left end, looking into it. Then he walked the hall's length, as if to do the same at the other end. Wynn watched his every step.

Her eyes turned so bleak, Chane could barely stand to look at them.

"It's not here," Wynn said, her voice breaking with sudden catches. "The orb isn't here . . . and there's no place left to go. Perhaps it was hidden somewhere above, or worse, in the upper levels, buried where I cannot find it." She closed her eyes, leaking tears. "I've lost."

Chane pulled her toward him, not knowing what else to do. She dropped her forehead against his upper arm, gripping his cloak, his arm, and burying her face.

He hurt for her pain, but he was not sorry she had failed.

He was not sorry at all.