Of Truth and Beasts

PROLOGUE

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

Byûnduní—Deep-Root—halted in the dark of a chamber so tall and empty that he heard the frightened clench of his own massive hands. And why should there be light or sound in the temple of his people? The hall of the Bäynæ, the dwarven Eternals, was now a place filled only with false hopes. The people’s greatest ancestral spirits had abandoned them.

Suddenly, he heard the pounding behind him, though it seemed to hammer within his skull, until it took shape in a thunderous gale of breathy, tangled voices.

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

He wanted to scream in rage at the chorus of overlapping whispers in his head. They had torn at him for so long, he could not tell if those words of warning were his or theirs. He could not remember when he had last closed his eyes, though he felt as if he were asleep. Not in a dream, but in an endless nightmare where silence had been slain.

In the depths of Bäalâle Seatt, there was but one long ever-night of fear and madness.

The pounding would not stop, and he could almost feel it upon his broad back. He turned about and stared in panic at the great doors of the chamber of the Eternals.

Each was the height of four dwarves. Each had been hewn whole from the trunk of a great oak and was as thick as his forearms were long. Yet he could hear those who crowded outside the doors, pounding ... so many of them it began to sound like a rain of stones upon the wood. They were pounding to get in, though their voices could not breach the barrier like the hammering of their fists.

“What are you doing?”

Deep-Root spun at the threatening whisper and reached to his belt. All he saw at first were the great silhouettes in the dark. They reached to the hall’s impossible heights. Three lined the wall of the door, and three more stood at the far side. All these statues of his people’s Eternals were silent, their stone faces lost to sight.

A flickering light caught his eye.

An approaching flame wobbled toward him. Behind it was the reddened glow of a craggy old face, perhaps worn down and shriveled like the corpse of a human. The closer it came, the more he made out its features—and the two black, olive-pit irises of one of his own people.

Broad featured and gray bearded, the elder’s eyes widened in wariness, exposing bloodshot whites around his irises. The torch glimmered upon the steel-shorn tips of the black scale armor of Master Kin-of-Far.

“You would let them in!” the old stonewalker accused.

“No ... not anymore,” Deep-Root denied.

“Liar!” the other hissed, and his free hand dropped to the black-lacquered hilt of one of his daggers.

In reflex, Deep-Root reached for a blade sheathed at his own waist.

“Where have you been?” Master Kin-of-Far asked, cocking his head. “To your prattling brother? Is that how it started?”

The elder stonewalker watched Deep-Root with one eye, while the other tried to see whether the doors had been opened as he crept forward.

“All of them turned against us once the siege began,” he continued. “What deceits did you spit into the people’s ears ... through your brother?”

And the whispers rose like a torrent in Deep-Root’s head.

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

Deep-Root released his dagger’s hilt and slapped his hand to his head.

But one voice, so much louder than the others, cracked through his mind.

Listen only to me—cling only to me.

The other voices began to grow again, making it too hard to think.

“No ...” he whispered, and then gripped his head with both hands as he shouted, “Leave me be!”

“Leave you be?” asked the elder, feigning puzzlement. “Why would I? You—you did this to us, traitor. You and your brother ... made them come for us!”

“No ... 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.

Deep-Root closed his hands tighter upon his head.

The elder dropped his torch and charged, raising the dagger as he shouted, “Keep your treachery, Byûnduní!”

Do not listen. Come to me.

And again the other voices raised such a cacophony that he tried to cling to the one clear voice. He tried to crush the others from his head.

Byûnduní—Deep-Root—snatched out one dagger at the sight of his caste elder coming for him.

This tainted place had to end. There would be sleep and silence once Bäalâle fell and was forgotten.