Of Truth And Beasts Part 52

Blackness faded, but only a little.

She exhaled hard and couldn't stop shaking as she gasped, unaware of where she was. Every muscle in her body clenched and wouldn't release. Something pulled at her thoughts, but it wasn't the crackle of leaf-wings.

It was monotonous and endless, like a wind shrieking inside her head. Words rose out of it in fragmented whispers.

. . . they come . . . liars, deceivers . . . a.s.sa.s.sins, murders everywhere . . .

The wind inside her skull seemed made of even more than those words, so many whispers that she only caught these broken pieces. Her own thoughts were drowned by the gale, as the first thing she saw was a dim hearth.

Orange-red coals within it barely lit the s.p.a.ce where she stood. She stood surrounded by plain stone walls, in a room without a single piece of furniture. Its empty state heightened her awareness until her focus snapped sharply to the left.

She hadn't even thought of turning, but she did.

. . . trust no one . . . not ever . . .

At those whispers out of the gale, Wynn looked to an archway in the room's left wall. It was nothing but another portal into blackness, for the hearth's dim light didn't penetrate the s.p.a.ce beyond. She wanted to back away, to find any path out of here, but . . .

"Vra' feilulke . . . bhyil tu-the?"

Not a word of that cry made sense, though it rushed from her own mouth with a frantic urgency pushing toward rage. But it wasn't her voice that she'd heard.

Wynn's fear mounted.

She was lost inside a memory. But whose? Was Shade doing this? She focused hard, trying to see the world she last remembered-the rough tunnel, the winged reptile, or Shade.

None of this came to her.

Where was she? Who was she? Without answers, she wrestled with what she'd heard to hold off the fear-fed whispers trying to drown her reason.

The first word had been vocative, masculine-she knew the language! She'd been speaking Dwarvish, but either she hadn't heard it right or she didn't know the dialect. She couldn't recognize the word's root. Only the suffix "-ulke" barely made sense.

It meant "like" or "alike."

"Vra' feilulke! Bhyil tu-the?"

Wynn's throat turned raw as she repeated the deep shout. A rustle of leaf-wings rose in her mind. Not many, just one this time, like when she'd listened in on Chap as he'd communed with his kin. The first words she'd uttered repeated in her head, this time in every language she knew: Brother-of-like-flesh . . . are you here?

Whomever this memory belonged to, Shade was not the one pa.s.sing it. Shade had called the winged creatures in the tunnel Fay-born. Did those leaf-wing sounds come from them? Was this how the Fay would finally get to her, kill her, while she was trapped and lost in some memory?

Something moved beyond the archway.

It wavered from side to side, staggering forward through the dark. Large, dwarven hands covered his broad features, smothering his haggard, rapid breaths. One eye peered at her through his thick fingers. Then his left hand slid off his face and clutched the archway's side. Though his other hand remained, its fingers curled upward into his red-brown hair.

This "like" brother-"twin" brother, at a guess-had a broad jaw, once clean-shaven and now shadowed with days of stubble. His eyes were sunken in dark circles, as if he hadn't slept in many nights. He was young, or might have seemed so, if his face weren't twisted in horror.

For an instant, Wynn thought she knew him, but that wasn't possible. She didn't even know where she was-or who she was. Nothing about this place was familiar.

. . . loved ones now hunt you . . . they are coming . . . be ever watchful...

The brother's gaze darted quickly about, searching the hearth room.

He heard those gale whispers, just as she did!

. . . never close your eyes again . . . not ever . . . not until they all die . . .

His jaw muscles bulged as his hand jerked from his head, haplessly tearing out tangles of hair. That hand balled into a ma.s.sive fist.

Wynn saw the same rage in his face that she'd heard in the voice of this memory's owner, the other brother. She rushed forward, grabbing the brother's vestment's front with one large hand. She felt her other hand groping for something at her waist.

"Why are you still here?" she shouted in the deep voice that was not her own. "I told you to leave, while you still could. Get out of here!"

The brother froze, his fist still raised. Then the gale grew once more in Wynn's mind.

. . . if they see you, kill them quickly.... They will kill you, if they can. . . . They will; you know this....

Wynn's lower hand clenched. She jerked hard, though she barely glimpsed what she gripped. Her gaze remained locked on the brother as he pulled a dagger from a sheath on his belt. He raised it, point downward.

The leaf-wing came again in Wynn's head.

I am with you-hear only me. Hear the quiet I bring to your thoughts.

Wynn froze as the brothers faced each other, each ready to strike the other down.

A scream carried from somewhere distant.

Wynn released her grip and backstepped, not knowing what she-he-was doing. She spun toward the distant sound.

Then she saw what had become of the furniture.

Chairs, stools, an oak table, and even a large chest were piled against the door of this place. Everything from this room must have been thrown against it in blind desperation. When her focus turned back, the haggard brother stared toward the door, as well. His eyes were wide in fear as he shuddered and looked at her.

"Come . . . come, please," he begged, stuttering. "Come with me."

"No," Wynn answered. "Go alone, as I told you."

"Do not do this!" the brother shouted, advancing one step, anger returning to his face. "Your brethren have fallen, like the rest . . . though first, did they not? They locked the people from the temple . . . and you helped them? In this plague of madness, where are the people to go even if any could think to leave . . . if any could escape?"

He stepped farther out into the hearth room.

The brother's vestment might have been russet, but it was too filthy, and there was too little light to be certain. His gaze dropped downward, and whoever Wynn was here and now followed that gaze. Wynn saw what she held.

The long, triangular dagger, its base as wide as his fist, had straight edges that tapered directly to its point. Its polished guard and pommel were almost silvery, and bits of the hilt that showed around his broad fist looked lacquered in pure black.

It was the blade of a stonewalker.

Wynn cringed within that imprisoning memory, not wanting to accept what that might mean. The gale whispers rose, as if called by her fear. The single leaf-wing didn't return until the stonewalker-she-raised the blade.

This is not the one you must kill.

Wynn felt the stonewalker falter as he-she-looked at his brother.

Cling to me alone.

She sensed no true comfort in those words, and they gave her none. That leaf-wing voice didn't speak to her. It spoke to him, the owner of this memory. She heard it, felt it, only because he did.

Wynn began to doubt even more.

Those words couldn't have come from the monster in the tunnel. They were just part of this memory. What was it that had come to this place? What spoke to this stonewalker?

"By our blood, remember me," she-he-whispered. "But once you leave here, never speak my name again. By our blood, I bind you to this . . . let me be forgotten by all."

Shock rose on the brother's face as he shook his head in disbelief. The instant he opened his mouth to speak, the stonewalker turned.

Wynn saw the wall coming at her as he raced toward it, into it. She remembered why that first, suffocating blackness felt like it had entombed her. Stonewalkers could move through anything of earth and stone. But even that didn't silence the gale whispers inside of him, inside of her.

She didn't want to see anymore. But as he raced through open tunnels, pa.s.sages, and chambers, she couldn't look away or close her-his-eyes.

He never paused, always running for the next wall, but Wynn saw things . . . heard things. Between the silence and blackness of each dive into stone, wails of manic fear and rage echoed in every s.p.a.ce.

Two dwarven women tore at each other until one ripped the other's throat open with her bare hands. She'd barely let the body fall when she whirled toward a male with his back turned. She threw herself at him, her stained hands reaching around to tear at his face.

A young female shoved an old man aside as they both tried to get through a door. She slammed it shut in his face, though he pounded on it as the sound of heavy boots closed upon him.

A red-spattered warrior beat upon the fallen with his mace, shrieking at them to get away or he would kill them all. They were already dead, mangled beyond recognition, yet he wouldn't stop.

A silent dwarven child felt her way along a wall. She couldn't see because of the blood running out of her hair and into her eyes.

At the center of a large chamber filled with tables and stools, an elder male crouched upon a greeting-house dais. He rocked slowly, whispering to himself as if in prayer . . . and then he laughed in hysteria as his gaze flitted about at nothing.

The blackness of stone came again and again. Each time, Wynn wished it would be the last.

Let her stay in that cold, encasing darkness, where she-he-would see nothing ever again. She didn't want to know more of the madness, the whispers, waiting with each return of dim light. When it came again, she would've whimpered if she'd had her own voice.

And the stonewalker halted.

It was darker here than any other place, even more than the home of his brother. It was almost quiet, except for a pounding in his ears. Wynn didn't want him to turn around, but he did.

A great archway filled her sight. Its double doors were shut, sealed with an iron bar that rotated on a rivet larger than her arm. It wasn't broken like the last time she'd seen it. The muted rumbling of thunder reverberated through those doors.

There were people out there, on the other side, pounding to get in.

"What are you doing?"

At that menacing whisper, the stonewalker grabbed for both blades on his belt. As he twisted around, Wynn saw immense, dark forms in the hall. Great silhouettes of statues reached toward a ceiling lost in the pitch-black heights. Three each lined the hall's longer walls, and Wynn knew where she was. She was still in Balle, in its hall of the Eternals, but not as she'd found it. It was whole, as if from another time, long ago. A flickering light caught her eye, and she-he-watched an approaching flame.

That torch's light illuminated the bearer's reddened face of broad features and gray beard. His eyes were so wide, the whites showed all around his black-pellet irises. Firelight glinted on the steel tips of his black-scaled armor.

The old one was another stonewalker.

"You would let them in!" he accused.

"No . . . not anymore," Wynn answered in the deep, masculine voice.

"Liar!" the other hissed, and his free hand dropped to a dagger's hilt. "Where have you been? To your prattling brother?"

Wynn didn't answer, but felt her-his-grip tighten on the hilt of his battle dagger.

"Is that how it started?" the old stonewalker whispered, creeping forward. "All of them turning against us, once the siege began. What deceits did you spit into the people's ears . . . through your brother?"

And the whisper gale rose again.

. . . no one left to trust . . . never turn your back . . . they are coming for you . . .

His hand slipped from the dagger's hilt. Wynn felt pain as the young stonewalker slapped the side of his own head. The leaf-wing rose instantly, its voice too loud over the gale of whispers.

Listen only to me-cling only to me.

Its crackling skitter smothered all thoughts from Wynn's awareness.

"No . . ." the young stonewalker moaned. His other hand slapped his skull as he shouted, "Leave me be!"

"Leave you be?" hissed the elder, almost in puzzlement.

Wynn realized the old one hadn't heard the leaf-wing.

"Why would I?" the elder went on. "You-you did this to us, traitor. You and your brother . . . made them come for us!"

"No," he groaned. "My brother has no part in this."

"More lies!" shouted the elder, jerking his blade from its sheath.

Do what is necessary and come to me.

At the sound of that leaf-wing, the young stonewalker closed his hands tighter on his head. And the elder dropped his torch and charged.

"Keep your treachery," the old one shouted, raising the dagger. "Byndun!"

Do not listen. Come to me.

The young stonewalker squeezed his skull ever tighter, trying to crush that voice from his head. But Wynn didn't feel the pain. She only shriveled within upon hearing his name.

She tried frantically to escape once more to the real world, to escape this memory of Byndun-of Deep-Root-of Thallhearag, the Lord of Slaughter.

Sau'ilahk raced down the tunnel, following a conjured servitor of light to break the darkness. The tunnel began to intersect with smaller, branching pa.s.sages, but he kept to the main one, always heading downward into the mountain's depths.

His servitor shot into a small cave, and Sau'ilahk halted at the dead end.

Upon seeing no breaches, pa.s.sages, or another way in or out, his frustration threatened to boil over into rage. Where could he look now? How many narrow tunnels had he pa.s.sed along the way? The orb had to be here somewhere!