Of Truth and Beasts

Chapter 26

Still lost in the memory, Wynn—Deep-Root—emerged in the glistening caves of the honored dead. He stepped out of stone, placing each foot slowly, fearful of making any sound. Then he crouched to feel the cave floor with one hand.

The leaf-wing still skittered in Wynn’s mind, holding the whispers at bay, but beyond its influence, Deep-Root felt the gale whispers. They were distant, moving erratically, but they were out there, searching for him. He had no more time for caution.

He began searching quickly among the calcified figures and paused before one.

It was tall for a dwarf. Though mineral crust obscured details of its form, it held something long and narrow against its chest in a double grip. The object appeared to reach all the way to the cave floor, unless decades and centuries of buildup had dripped down to make it look so.

“Forgive me,” Deep-Root whispered as he drew one heavy dagger. “I beg of you, grant me absolution for this sacrilege.”

With a single, quickened breath, he struck the first blow.

He stabbed and hacked until Wynn saw a glint of tarnished and mottled steel. Then the sound of running boots echoed among the caves. Deep-Root dropped the dagger and grabbed the top of the object with both hands. Calcified stone fractured and broke as he wrenched it from the figure’s grip.

Wynn thought she saw the petrified remains of dwarven arm bones as the figure’s hands broke off, still bonded to the object. She wanted to cringe at the sight of them.

The footfalls grew loud and near.

Deep-Root whirled, and all he could do was raise the object he held. A blade cracked against it.

Pieces of calcified stone exploded around the impact as he saw another stonewalker with a maddened expression before him. Chips shot into his face, and even Wynn flinched at their patter. Deep-Root groped at his belt for his other dagger. The other stonewalker’s hand closed into a massive fist, and he struck low.

Wynn felt the pain as if her own abdomen had been hit. Breath rushed from Deep-Root as he toppled back against the calcified figure.

“Your bones will not rest here!” the other stonewalker snarled. “We will leave you to rot with those outside who try to come for us.”

His features glistened with a feverish sweat and were so twisted that Wynn couldn’t tell if he was the same elder from before. Then she saw his blade coming again.

Deep-Root tried to block. The stonewalker’s blade slipped off the object Deep-Root held up and tore down the left side of his scaled armor. Wynn heard steel-tipped scales screech under its passing.

Deep-Root cried out as he jerked his last dagger free. He slammed the long, crusted object into his attacker’s face as he raised his blade. The stonewalker’s head jerked in another spatter of calcified stone. Deep-Root swung downward, and his blade sank point first into the neck of the stonewalker’s armor.

There was a wet, grating sound, like steel across stone—or bone—but the stonewalker didn’t fall. He reeled back, his mouth gaping as he choked. Blood began seeping between his teeth and over his lower lip.

Wynn heard Deep-Root’s dagger clatter on stone as he looked in horror at what he’d done. More footfalls and shouts echoed through the caves, growing louder and closer. Deep-Root raced across the cave and into a wall.

There had been no choice in what he’d done, and Wynn knew this. But in the darkness of stone, her own shame began to grow. She realized what he was about to do.

Deep-Root leaped out of stone into the dragon’s deep cave. Mute whimpers escaped his mouth with each sobbing breath.

Wynn heard the echoes of pursuit rolling in from the tunnels above this place. When Deep-Root raised his sagging head, for a moment all she saw was a watery blur through his eyes, until he dragged the back of his hand across his face.

The dragon stood waiting in the middle of the viscous pool. It hung its head, its breath weak, but it gave Deep-Root not a moment’s rest.

Strike below my last rib, upward into my chest, as if toward a heart. But only when I have begun my last flame and swallowed it down. Only then ... only upon my command.

Deep-Root raised the stone-covered object in his hand.

So much of its mineral crust had broken away that Wynn saw parts of a long, thick blade. He grabbed the lumpy hilt, breaking away the remains of calcified fingers. With one hesitant glance up the sloping passage, he gripped the cleared hilt and slammed the crusted blade against the cave’s wall. He beat it again and again until the sword’s blade was nearly clear.

Every ringing blow sharpened Wynn’s panic. It would be heard everywhere in these tunnels.

A shout erupted just before a splash.

Deep-Root turned wildly. Another of his brethren splashed toward him through the pool, and then came a slap upon stone that hummed through his bones. Up the sloping tunnel, another stonewalker had her hand firmly against the tunnel’s rough wall. The sound of a blunt impact and rapid splashing pulled Deep-Root’s attention the other way.

The dragon’s head slammed against the wall as it staggered sideways in the pool. A stonewalker whipped an iron staff back for another strike.

Deep-Root splashed toward the dragon, but the beast suddenly righted itself.

Its head whipped around, its maw widening, and then it dipped its head and its mouth snapped shut with a crack. Half of its assailant vanished amid torn bowels. Spatters of blood rained down on Deep-Root.

Wynn suddenly shrieked, though it was Deep-Root’s voice that cut loose. He arched away from a deep pain in his back so sharp that everything dimmed before Wynn.

When her sight cleared, she saw that he’d turned, knocking aside someone’s arm. Yet the pain only increased as he chopped down with the sword. The blade cleaved through a young stonewalker’s skull, and Wynn saw the dwarf’s face split open.

Deep-Root groped at his lower back, and Wynn felt the protruding hilt that he grabbed.

Now ... before our deaths are wasted.

Deep-Root instantly released his hold on the blade in his back and turned.

The dragon lifted its head toward the cave ceiling. Amid a nerve-tearing clack of its jaws, flickers of fire rose between its teeth. Wynn thought she heard Deep-Root whispering something, over and over, but she was lost within herself.

If she’d been there, she would’ve done anything to help him. If nothing else, she would’ve thrown herself in front of any adversary to give him even one more moment to succeed. Inside of him, inside of this memory, she couldn’t help but wonder ...

Would she be trapped here to end along with him?

Deep-Root rushed in, placing the sword’s point against the dragon’s side, still whispering frantically.

Remember him ... his words ... our end, my children.

Before Wynn fathomed those last leaf-wing whispers she heard, Deep-Root threw his bulk against the sword.

A world of fire erupted, and then there was only whiteness. There was no one left to hear the silence in place of those gale whispers.

Wynn cried out as the memory ended. Remnants of the forgotten events washed though her with heat that couldn’t be real.

Deep-Root and the dragon had sacrificed themselves, along with a seatt gone mad, to stop enemy forces from gaining access to the northern lands.

A multitongued voice rose in Wynn’s mind.

Remember!

That word hung alone in the whiteness, which grayed and grew darker.

A flicker like a flame rose—but not in the dark. It reflected on twin obsidian orbs so large they blocked out everything else. Those twin eyes watched Wynn, as the dancing shimmers of orange-red within them spread everywhere in the dark ... spread like memories in Wynn’s mind. As the last of Deep-Root’s images faded, a fresh ache assaulted her. It was like something fiercely pulling at her thoughts, and she felt her own memories rising.

The world went black again for an instant. Then she saw herself moving backward in time, each memory coming more rapidly than the last. First was a clear image and the sensation of the pump cart as it moved, but it was moving backward. Every memory flowed in reverse to another as she relived ...

... driving the wagon down the Slip-Tooth Pass ...

... the attack of the Fay in the Lhoin’na great forest ...

... traveling with Chane, Shade, and Ore-Locks on the ship as they journeyed toward Drist ...

... fighting the wraith in the underworld of Dhredze Seatt ...

... being shunned by her peers in the guild at Calm Seatt ...

... Chane crouching on the ground near a stable, when he first handed her the scroll, lonely hope in his eyes ...

... Shade diving from a dark street to protect her from the wraith ...

... the journey from the Farlands to her homeland with Magiere, Leesil, and Chap ...

And the images came even more rapidly.

... Sgäile lying dead under a willow tree ...

... Chap helping her remove ancient texts from the ice-bound castle’s library ...

... battling Welstiel’s feral vampires in that castle ...

... jumping from a burning elven ship into a lifeboat with Osha ...

... facing Most Aged Father before the council of the an’Cróan ...

... sobbing with her head on Chane’s bloody chest after Magiere cut off his head...

... standing beside Leesil as he uncovered the remains of the five races sacrificed for Magiere’s birth ...

... drinking mint tea with Chane, before she knew he was an undead, as they pored over historical parchments in peace and quiet at the guild annex in Bela ...

Memories rushed back and back, until she stood in the central council hall of Bela. Leesil, Magiere, and Chap came walking down the broad passage. She looked down at Chap and then smiled up at Leesil, seeing his amber eyes for the very first time.

“Stop!” Wynn cried out.

Her shoulder suddenly ached, but her life continued to race by, as if it were only these tiny blinks of time.

Memories suddenly halted, leaving her in darkness, but the pain in her shoulder sharpened. Behind a leaf-wing’s cacophony, broken words echoed over and over.

—Wynn ... come back.... Wynn ... wake up—

Wynn opened her eyes to Shade standing above her. Shade’s jaws were clamped on her shoulder, biting through the cloak, as the dog pulled and shook her.

“Don’t,” Wynn moaned, reaching up.

But lying there on the tunnel floor, the unfamiliar presence remained inside her head. The sensation was nothing like the feel of sharing memories with Shade, or Chap’s multilingual voice in her head. It was harsh and unbreakable, and Wynn clamped her eyes shut again.

It was so deep inside her that she could feel emotions that weren’t her own. Hope and suspicion, spite and hesitation, all crawled about inside her, as if that presence was searching for something.

Wynn cracked open her eyes.

She looked up into twin obsidian orbs in a reptilian head that filled her view. The dragon stared down at her, unblinking, its presence so deep inside her that she began to sense something of it in turn.

It was a descendant of the one who’d come for Deep-Root. It had been waiting here for so long ... for something. That other, greater dragon and that forgotten and fallen stonewalker raised one question in Wynn’s mind.

Where was Ore-Locks?

A pounding sound overlayed with the grating of massive claws finally broke through her haze. She lifted her head at the vibrations in the tunnel floor beneath her back.

Another dragon, not quite as large as the first, crawled down the tunnel from the direction of the breach into the Chamber of the Fallen. Shade released her grip on Wynn’s shoulder and turned to snarl at it.

The second dragon halted, fixing on Shade.

Wynn was frozen in confusion. A soft sound of lighter footsteps echoed from down the tunnel into the dark. When she looked, a light came bobbing up out of the dark behind the first dragon.

Chane ran into view, and Wynn pushed herself up to sit. He had his sword in one hand, and his eyes sparked without color in the light of his crystal. His features were twisted with panic and blind rage, like that night back in First Glade.

The first dragon snaked its head back toward him, and Chane raised his blade.

“No!” Wynn shouted.

Chane saw Wynn on the tunnel floor with the reptile’s massive head hovering over her. The sight magnified his fear until even the beast within him struggled to rouse from under the violet concoction that kept him awake. He raised the sword, ready to strike once and slip past to Wynn.

Shade snarled and whirled the other way.

But then Chane saw the second winged monster up the tunnel, and his self-control drained away completely. He lunged as the first one turned its head his way. Wynn cried out, but he only heard her panic and not her words. As he swung, the nearer creature drew its head aside, opening its maw with a hiss. Not even the threat of all-consuming fire cut through Chane’s madness to get to Wynn.

“Chane, stop it!”

He heard Wynn’s call at the edge of his awareness, distant and echoing, like something tapping him awake from dormancy.

“He’s not what you think,” she shouted, her voice echoing in the tunnel.

Chane faltered before he swung. Those words had not been for him—but for whom?

The question awakened reason, and Chane stopped no more than a sword’s reach from the creature’s jaws. He smelled its breath, hot and stinking like something akin to smoke and oil. The stench cleared his thoughts a little more.

Rushing in blindly would not save Wynn. Somehow, he knew this.

Chane fought for reason, struggling to swallow down the hunger and rage and the half-awakened beast inside him. The reptile’s maw slowly closed, but it did not turn from him. He kept his sword cocked upward as he looked at Wynn.

“Did you find it?” she called to him, her voice desperate.

It? What did she mean?

Wynn glanced once down the tunnel, beyond him. She appeared less afraid of those creatures penning her in than of something else.

Chane remembered the orb.

“Where is Ore-Locks?” she asked in alarm. “Where’s the wraith?”

Chane’s clarity sharpened, and he cowed the stirring beast inside him.

“Ore-Locks ...” he began. “I sent him.... He took the orb into stone before il’Sänke could take it.”

Wynn’s eyes widened. “Il’Sänke? What are you—?”

“He is here. He tried to take it.”

“You gave the orb to Ore-Locks?”

Chane faltered in shame, not knowing what to say. He had let Ore-Locks take the one thing she sought at all cost, because reaching her mattered more to him than anything.

“I had to,” he finally answered.

To his surprise, Wynn nodded. “It’s all right. He’ll come back.”

Chane stared at her, dumbfounded by her sudden calm. She knew no such thing.

“You did everything right,” she said. “Everything.”

At a complete loss, he stood there looking at this small woman who had brought him halfway across the world. He understood only that she was alive, whole, and unharmed. This was all that mattered.

Wynn watched in relief as the soft but pale brown color flooded Chane’s irises. He lowered his sword. Before she could take a step toward him, multitongued words exploded in her head.

There is more to learn ... and to discern.

As before, she felt emotions—hesitation and suspicion and doubt. She spun sharply to see the second dragon coil and turn, heading back up the tunnel. Shade rumbled, backing up, but then she turned, rounding Wynn with a nudge. Yet when Wynn looked back at the first dragon, she found it still blocking Chane’s way. Before she could say anything, more words filled her head in every language she knew.

Not this unliving thing. It will no longer defile this place of sacrifice.

The dragon had seen all her memories. It should know better.

“You know how I see him,” she answered. “Without him, I wouldn’t be standing here. And the orb wouldn’t have been saved without him.”

You saved nothing!

At those sharp words, Wynn heard Shade yelp, and everything darkened for an instant before her eyes. The dragon swung its head away from Chane and turned on her. Its jaws parted in a hiss as spittle struck the tunnel floor.

We have no faith in your kind, no trust in you to keep a prisoner of Existence out of the claws of the first slave. The shackled one is not for you! We give the anchor of Earth only to the blood of the sacrifice. It is now his to protect. Move on ... or die with your walking dead!

Wynn forced herself not to flinch at a flickering flame sparking between the creature’s grinding teeth. Her mind raced over its words.

The “blood of sacrifice” was clearly the descendant of Deep-Root. But Ore-Locks was gone, and she didn’t know where he was or when he would return. The “anchor” had to mean the orb itself. But the strange reference to a “shackled one,” a “prisoner,” and keeping it from a “first slave,” left her bewildered.

What did any of this have to do with the orb?

More than you deserve to know.

Wynn stilled her thoughts, for every one of them was exposed to this ancient being. She looked at Chane, and as much as she feared shattering this very fragile respite, she couldn’t accept leaving him after what he had done.

Then it is upon your life that he comes.

Again, the reply came before Wynn could speak. She carefully waved Chane to her. Without hesitation, he sidled around the creature, coming to her as quickly as he could without breaking into a run. The open relief on his face pulled at Wynn.

“Put the sword away,” she whispered. “Don’t draw it again, no matter what happens.”

Chane shook his head, his expression hardening, and the color began to fade from his eyes.

“Trust me,” she said.

He tensed at her urging. She wasn’t certain anything she said or did would get through to him. Finally, he slid his sword back into its sheath.

The dragon watched his every move.

The second one had stopped up the tunnel, as if waiting. Wynn headed after it, with Chane behind her and Shade in the lead. The first creature followed, and soon all Wynn could hear was the sound of claws scraping stone.

“Where are we—?” Chane began.

She quickly glanced back and shook her head at him. There was so much she had felt in the ancient memories of these beings. She knew they were descended from the one who’d sacrificed itself with Deep-Root. They had been here, one generation after another, guarding the orb, but for reasons she couldn’t fathom.

That they continued to fulfill their ancestor’s stand against the enemy was clear. But whether they were truly allies was not so certain. They wanted something from her, and she didn’t believe she would walk out of this seatt unless she fulfilled whatever they required.

Soon they passed the breach into the Chamber of the Fallen, but the lead dragon continued up the tunnel’s other way. Along the winding passage, Wynn saw it pause briefly ahead at turns, breaks, and splits in the tunnel. They kept on at a pace that forced her into a half trot, and soon she emerged in a pocket of deeply sloping stone.

The smaller, lead dragon settled on a rise of stone near one of the side walls. The surface beside it was strangely smooth, though it slanted toward the pocket’s roof. Wynn squinted, letting out a bit more light from the crystal in her hand.

There were ragged marks in the walls, as if clawed into the stone, but the longer Wynn looked, a pattern began to emerge.

You will wait here ... for him.

She looked back to find the first dragon inside the pocket’s opening, blocking the way.

“I don’t know where Ore-Locks is,” she answered. “How could he find us here?”

The blood will come to its own.

As if on cue, heavy footfalls echoed from the tunnel beyond the pocket.

Ore-Locks appeared at the opening, carrying the orb under one arm and the iron staff in his other hand. At first, Wynn could only focus on the orb. She remembered how heavy the orb of Water had been. She was astonished he could carry the orb of Earth with one arm.

At the sight awaiting him, Ore-Locks’s eyes widened. He backstepped, leveling his staff one-handed at the first dragon. It didn’t even look at him, but shifted to make room for him to enter.

“Ore-Locks,” Wynn said, waving him in.

He blinked at her, hesitated longer, and then cautiously crept down the passage.

“What is happening?” he asked.

The answer lashed every other thought from Wynn’s mind.

Look upon the last words, and speak them to him.

The second dragon swung its head toward the marred wall.

Wynn stepped closer, examining the claw marks. “I cannot read these,” she said, but words began filling her head.

Chane watched Wynn’s face as she flinched. Words poured from her mouth in Numanese as if she performed a recitation.

Wynn faltered, and her breath caught sharply. She covered her mouth, and a tear slipped from her left eye.

Chane put a hand on her shoulder, but before he could speak, she went on.

And again the words seemed to catch in her throat.

Chane felt Wynn shudder at every word, though she had faltered twice on one phrase. The brother mentioned in the verse had been admonished never to tell of Deep-Root, should that brother have actually survived what had happened here a thousand years ago.

Wynn heard every word in every language she knew. She could never have read the gouges on the wall, for those marks of these creatures were utterly unknown to her. And even so, what they’d recorded was from a lost dialect of Dwarvish.

The dragon guardians had recorded and passed down the last words—the last whispers—of Deep-Root damning himself to eternal death.

Without remembrance, he chose to pass into nothingness rather than the afterlife of this world in his people’s beliefs. He cut himself off from them. The few who remembered only the title of Thallûhearag were no better than Wynn in their ignorance.

But Wynn had recited less than what the dragons had read into her thoughts. Strangely, neither of them had reproached her for this.

A command erupted in her head.

You will tell him everything we showed you of the past.

Wynn turned around. “Ore-Locks ... Ore-Locks, I’m ...”

He looked so stricken that she faltered at where to begin. She looked to those marks on the wall, and then to the floor—to anywhere besides his face. She began recounting what she’d lived within Deep-Root’s memories. She never heard a sound from him. When she came to the moment of Deep-Root’s choice, tears were running down her face. Her knees went weak and she sank.

Strong hands caught her from behind. Chane held her up, and she let him, but not once could she bear to look into Ore-Locks’s face. Not even as she finished.

“I’m sorry,” she kept whispering, but it sounded weaker, more inadequate each time.

Ore-Locks still said nothing. And then Shade broke the silence with a snarl.

Wynn raised her eyes just enough to see Shade stalk toward the dragon by the wall. Shade looked so tiny before that great being, but it shifted immediately out of Shade’s way, never causing the dog to pause. She paced at the pocket’s back and then craned her neck, looking at Ore-Locks.

A pile of blackened shapes lay beside Shade’s forepaws. She lowered her muzzle to them as the multitongued voice spoke to Wynn again.

Tell him to take up his blood ... take what is his.

Wynn blinked hard, wiping her face with a sleeve to clear her eyes. She squinted at bones by Shade’s feet. There weren’t enough for an entire body, but she realized whose they were.

Those were the last remains of Deep-Root. The dragons must have unearthed what they could find over the centuries.

Ore-Locks set down the orb and his staff, and he slowly walked over. He fell to his knees before the bones, and just knelt there in stillness. When he started to reach for them, Wynn pulled out of Chane’s hold, frantically trying to strip off her cloak. Chane helped her, and she clutched it as she approached.

Almost afraid to come too close, she held back until Ore-Locks looked up.

Anger crossed his broad face. She couldn’t bear it, and dropped her gaze as she held out the cloak. When he didn’t take it, she crouched to place it on his folded knees.

“They say the orb is only for you,” she whispered. “You are its guardian now.”

He still said nothing, and Wynn watched only his hands as he began lifting the bones one at a time. He was so slow and gentle, as if any one of them might crumble to ash.

Wynn watched Ore-Locks place each bone in the small cloak, but she never looked up into his eyes.