Through Stone and Sea

Chapter 16

Reine stepped into the domed chamber and halted as the door closed behind her. She stared at the floor's white metal portal, smoother than a mirror—or a still pond. The last comparison made her feel worse. She rarely thought of water without an anxious twinge, though that old fear had become small compared to others.

She didn't think of the dwarves' honored dead, now at peace in the Stonewalkers' care. Nor did she think of ancient texts heralding sinister days to come—or to come again. She thought only of that strange white metal, and how such simple beauty could seal in torment.

The underworld waited.

Chuillyon came up beside her, following her gaze. At his light touch upon her shoulder, she stepped onward.

"Welcome, Highness," said one thänæ bearing a long-hafted mace. All four about the chamber nodded sharply to her, and Chuillyon went directly to the bell rope.

One long, deafening tone shivered through Reine's flesh—one ring would call Cinder-Shard. When the Âreskynna's tall elven advisor glanced back, his amber eyes filled with concern. Reine didn't acknowledge him. His counsel and care were welcome, but not his pity.

Captain Tristan stood eternally attentive, occasionally eyeing the four thänæ. She didn't know him well, in spite of his years serving the royal family. He rarely spoke except for a question or an order. As a leader of the Weardas, his ability was beyond question. So was his loyalty, considering the secret she'd borne from the day she had married the one man she loved.

Her other two Weardas, Danyel and Saln, stood at attention, awaiting orders. She knew them even less, though they'd been handpicked by Tristan.

A rhythmic grinding began to build inside in the chamber, becoming a vibration in the floor. The white metal portal split along its thin seam, the halves sliding apart, and the lift rose through the opening.

Master Cinder-Shard stood alone upon the platform.

His gray-streaked black hair hung loose, and he wore no hauberk of steel-tipped black scales. In only charcoal-colored breeches and a bulky shirt, he looked much as Ore-Locks had a few nights ago. But his dark eyes were far more challenging.

"My lady," he said in his cracked-gravel voice.

He often avoided either of her titles—one by marriage, and the other she preferred by birth. One he acknowledged; the other he ignored. Titles meant nothing here. No bloodline or royal bond would see her through a night like this. If she saw it through again.

Cinder-Shard took a half step, then paused, and his craggy face tensed. He cocked his head, peering about the domed chamber, as if trying to find something only he heard.

"What?" Tristan barked.

Exchanged glances passed between the four thänæ as they watched Cinder-Shard. The master Stonewalker's tension appeared to spread among them. They followed his roving glare—as did Reine—and Chuillyon moved closer to her.

Cinder-Shard rolled his massive shoulders and shook his head.

"Nothing," he muttered. "Let us go."

Reine willed herself numb as she followed him onto the lift.

Sau'ilahk listened intently outside the door. The soft grating of sliding metal was followed by stone grinding out a rhythm—like the gears of a dwarven lift. When all noise died, a gravelly voice rose. It did not belong to anyone in the entourage.

A dwarf, most certainly, but that voice pulled a twinge from Sau'ilahk, as if he still had true flesh and muscles that could spasm. So few words, but that voice made him anxious. He faltered, uncertain why, and then heard the lift's grinding begin again.

Sau'ilahk could not bear ignorance. He pressed his cowl slowly through the door until the blindness of submerging in wood faded. He glimpsed beyond the door, then quickly drew back. It was enough to leave him astonished, hopeful, and frustrated all the more.

Duchess Reine descended through a central shaft in the chamber's floor. All her companions were with her, as well as some elder dwarf in dark attire.

Sau'ilahk had found the duchess's entrance into the underworld, and the texts waited somewhere below. But more guards stood within the chamber.

His patience thinned.

The two outer guards would be found sooner or later, but living ones left behind would quickly betray an invader's presence. Four thänæ could never harm him, but he could not kill them all before one raised an alarm. Already weakened by conjury, he lacked strength to fill the chamber with conjured noxious mists.

And the duchess was slipping away.

Sau'ilahk slid back from the door. Was his one glimpse enough? The shaft lay directly inward. If he could only keep a straight course, he could reach it.

Follow, he whispered to his servitors, and he sank through the end chamber's floor.

The lift settled at the shaft's bottom, and all Reine could do was retain her composure. Cinder-Shard opened the gate, but she barely took two steps before he paused, blocking the way.

The grizzled master peered down the rough passage ahead. Far away, past where the path split in three directions, Reine saw dim phosphorescence in one natural cavern at its end.

Cinder-Shard spun about toward the lift, glanced up the shaft over Reine's head. He then lowered his gaze, scowling in uncertainty. He spun back to stare down the way ahead.

Danyel and Saln both put their hands to their sword hilts. Tristan remained still, watching Cinder-Shard. But the master Stonewalker said nothing. He finally stepped off the platform, turning to usher Reine out.

"Do we have your leave to continue?" she asked, hoping he might offer a hint for his behavior.

"Of course," he said absently. "You know the way. … My thoughts go with you."

More pity.

"Thank you," she answered coldly, hoping he said no more.

At the tunnel's branching, Cinder-Shard followed the main path, but Reine turned left, to the west. Somewhere in this direction, beyond the mountain, lay the ocean and a rising tide.

"What was that about?" she whispered to Chuillyon.

The tall elf shrugged with a lazy roll of his large amber eyes. "I could not guess. Perhaps the old tomb tender has spent too much time in silence down here."

Tristan said nothing—probably because he had nothing to say. He, Danyel, and Saln brought up the rear. This was one of the few places where the captain never required that he take the lead, entering the unknown before her.

Reine made her way as Chuillyon dropped back behind her.

This side tunnel was nearly as old as the first castle of Calm Seatt, and its walls grew damper the farther she went. Tiny beads of water glistened dully upon their faint yellow-green phosphorescence. She heard soft, erratic patters as the droplets fell. But the tunnel grew dimmer the farther she went. Entering the passage's last leg, she stopped before a lone door, and Chuillyon pulled out his cold lamp crystal.

The stout wooden door showed signs of decay. Rust stained the hinges pinned into stone with steel spikes. The door would need replacing again in a year or two.

Reine peered at the handle and the lock plate with no keyhole. Only an oval of the white metal domed slightly from the plate.

She reached up and pulled one sea-wave-shaped comb from her hair. In its back was a small spot of white metal, as if a silvery molten teardrop had fallen there to bond with the mother-of-pearl. She placed the comb's back side over the lock plate's white metal oval. The steel bolt instantly grated away into the wall.

Reine shifted her other comb to hold back her falling hair. As she cracked open the door, she handed the first comb to Chuillyon. When he turned to pass it to the captain, she stayed his hand.

"Keep it," she said.

"You do not wish me to come with you?" he asked.

"Just … wait out here. I'll call if I need anything."

"But the goods we purchased … Should you not—"

"Later, Chuillyon."

"Highness—"

"Leave me be!"

She slipped inside, shutting the door. With her hands pressed against the damp wood, Reine heard and felt the bolt slide back into place. The sound still made her stomach clench, no matter how many times she heard it. All of this had begun a moon after she'd been found drifting alone in the boat—the night she had lost Frey.

Reine leaned her forehead against the door, and looked down at another white metal oval on the lock plate's inner side. Twice per year, the highest tides were the worst.

She always left the one comb with the white metal teardrop behind, locking herself in. Without it, only Chuillyon—or Cinder-Shard—could let her out. Nothing could escape this place. She rolled her head upon the door and peered toward the rough opening in the far-right wall.

The space beyond it was nearly pitch-black.

Reine took a long breath, straightened, and headed for that opening. She tried not to look upon the pool's invading seawater, even as she stepped along its rear stone shelf. Too many times, she'd stared blankly across it at the iron gate, waiting for something to come. Half-submerged by the rising tide, the gate, its every detail, had already been branded into her mind. So much so that it had worn away even her fear of the ocean. This "cell," as she'd come to know it, had been excavated so long ago that not even Cinder-Shard knew when.

The tide's welling stench intensified, making it hard to breathe, as Reine stepped into the adjoining dark chamber. She reached out and slid her hand along the opening's inner right side. Her fingers caught on tiny crisp edges, and she stroked them three times.

Dim light rose from the thumb-size crystal resting on a ledge. It was a small gift she clung to in this place, passed to her privately by Lady Tärtgyth Sykion, high premin of Calm Seatt's sages. Reine peered about the space.

A blend of fixtures turned the place into a tight and cluttered cross between a sitting room and a study. Its major furnishings were a small scribing desk, a wooden couch with aging cushions, and a book-laden stone casement chiseled into the opposite wall. She'd tried to soften its nature with tapestries, blown-glass fishing floats of varied hues and such, but nothing changed what it was.

There was no end in sight to this repeated torture, and still she refused to give in. She glanced reluctantly to the right. There was another opening in the sitting room's rear.

"I'm here …" she said flatly, but bitterness leaked in when she added "again."

She heard the rustle of fabric from that next room. That one didn't even have the dim glow of phosphorescent walls. Uneven shuffling footfalls upon stone echoed from it.

A dim, tall figure took shape in the doorway.

Head low, dark blond hair draped around his face. One of his hands clutched the opening's edge.

Reine saw sallow fingers with faint undertones of sickly green. Or was that just the light in the sitting room reflected by mineral-laced walls?

"It will pass," she whispered, stepping closer. "Just one more night."

She would never cry in front of him. He didn't need that further burden.

"I'm here now. Everything will be all right … my Frey."

The seawater reached Chane's knees, and even he grew hard-pressed to advance. He could only guess how bad off Wynn must be.

The steel hoop had long ago cooled and been stored away. The more gates they reached, the more the tide gained on them, until the bars were too deep in cold water to heat up. He had to force them by sheer strength. The last—the sixth—had taken too long.

Shade suddenly vanished in a splash.

Wynn grabbed his arm, about to shout, and Chane quickly hooked the pry bar in his belt, ready to jump in. But Shade resurfaced and paddled back until her forepaws caught on something. She rose, standing only chest-deep.

Chane looked beyond her, clenching his jaw. There was a dropoff beneath the water.

Wynn's forehead pressed against his arm.

"Damn dead deities!" she whispered. "If they don't want anyone to get in, why not just trap the place, kill us off, instead of these endless—"

Chane clamped his hand over her mouth.

He had already wondered about the same thing, thinking that perhaps the tunnel had other uses than simply to let in the sea. But right then, he looked ahead, uncertain of what he saw.

A faint light glowed somewhere down the tunnel.

Glancing down at Wynn, he laid a finger across his lips and slowly lifted his hand from her mouth. He leaned close to her ear and whispered, "Look."

Wynn lifted her head, eyes widening.

Chane glanced down at Shade, once more laying a finger across his lips, and then he peered down the tunnel again. Perhaps twenty, maybe thirty yards ahead, he thought he saw vertical lines of black over the light.

Another gate.

He tried to release fatigue and sharpen his sight, but he still could not be sure. The opening looked smaller than any they had breached … or maybe the bars were just thicker?

Had they finally made it all the way?

Chane carefully slid his boot along the tunnel's submerged floor. His toe slipped off an edge, and he lowered his foot over. He sank above his waist, soaking his tied-up cloak before hitting bottom.

Perhaps it was a reservoir, keeping the end pool filled longer than a high tide. Wynn would sink to her chest. Their packs might get wet, and he would not like that for all the precious books he carried. There was little to be done for it.

"Hold your pack over your head," he whispered. "I will try to lash the staff to your back, crystal upward."

Wynn slipped her pack's straps off, so he could secure the staff, but he was still worried about his books. The ones from the healers' monastery might survive, but Welstiel's journals had some entries made with charcoal sticks. He slipped a pack off his shoulder and pulled out those journals.

Wynn scowled at them, and then at him.

She knew what he intended and did not like it or the sight of them. But she took the journals and roughly shoved them in her pack.

Chane knew better than to thank her and hoisted on his packs.

"We go slowly—silently," he whispered. "And Shade must let me hold her afloat. We cannot have any splashing."

Wynn nodded and touched the dog's face. Whatever passed between them, the meaning must have been clear. Shade only twitched a jowl as he wrapped one arm around her chest. Wynn stepped over the dropoff, and he grabbed hold of her belt.

Chane waded forward in slow steps, flinching every time water splashed even slightly. How would he break through the last gate in silence? With his strength waning, the prospect was almost more than he could face.

This had to be the last one.

Reine sat upon the couch holding Frey reclined in her lap. He was thin and pale, and it didn't matter how many times she'd seen him like this; each time was worse, because each time he looked worse.

At least he was dry, so he hadn't tried to drown himself again. Still, everyone around her—from Chuillyon and Cinder-Shard to all of the family—said he must have seawater to touch as well as gaze upon. It was all that kept him from slipping into pure madness.

But Reine saw the hunger in her husband's aquamarine eyes.

It was worse than that first night she'd met him, when he'd stared out the castle window. Now and then, in his quieter moments, she still saw the semblance of thought in his frail features. His eyes would shift, and suddenly he'd glance up, seeming to notice her for the first time.

"Yes, it's me," she said calmly, again and again. "Just me, Frey."

He squinted as if recognizing her only then. But any turn of his head exposed his throat.

Triple sets of faint creases marked both sides, like the faint beginnings of wrinkles that would deepen with age. But these were too perfect, too straight and parallel, placed so high near his jawline. They appeared only at the highest tides each year, vanishing again as the tide receded.

Frey suddenly rolled his head toward the opening to the pool's outer chamber.

Reine felt him go rigid in her lap. His eyes didn't blink.

"They're coming," he said hoarsely.

Sick of the terror, Reine couldn't hide it anymore and began to shake. Not because of what might—or would—come … but because he longed for it.

"No," she whispered, and then more sharply, "No!"

Frey rolled from her lap, though she tried to hang on to him. By the time he gained his feet, she'd already blocked the opening. How many times had she stopped him from beating himself nearly unconscious upon the pool's gate?

"Frey, stay," she ordered.

He held his place, staring over her head.

"Listen to me, love," she whispered, hanging on to calm. "The water can wait … until the tide passes. Then you can …"

She lost her voice as his head cocked. His brow creased in concentration as he swayed slightly with effort to stay on his feet.

"Not … them?" he croaked.

Frey's lost gaze drifted down to Reine and then rose beyond her again. Puzzlement in his expression shifted first to suspicion and then hardened to anger, enough that Reine hesitantly glanced over her shoulder.

The outer door was still shut tight, but she heard the softest scrape of metal. Its echo in the quiet left her uncertain where it came from. She backed one step through the opening, glancing toward the pool… .

Reine toppled aside as Frey knocked her out of his way. Her back hit the pool chamber's rear wall, stunning her as she heard the splash. She went cold with fright.

Beneath the pool's rippling surface, a mute wavering form moved along the bottom toward the gate.

Reine leaped off the edge and sank to her chest. She thought she heard another splash, but as her feet hit bottom, she was clawing into the water, trying to find a grip on Frey.

"Chuillyon!" she screamed.

At the tunnel's end, Chane looked through stout vertical bars. Beyond the gate, seawater collected in a wide pool within a roughly hewn chamber. What light filled the space came from the glittering walls and more from an opening in the right wall's far end. Whether someone was in there, he could not tell, but he spotted a stout door in the rear wall's left side. Worse was that it held a white metal oval in place of a lock.

This last gate was smaller than any others, and its bars were not as thick as he had first thought.

"Can you do it?" Wynn whispered.

Her voice startled him, and then he noticed her blue-tinged lips. He had to succeed. They would never make it out of the tunnel any other way.

Wynn mouthed the word "staff" and turned her back to him.

Chane untied it, and she leaned it against the tunnel wall. But how was he going to keep Shade afloat? They could not have the dog treading water.

Wynn placed her pack behind her head, atop her shoulders, and backed up to pin it against the tunnel wall. Her lips quivered again as she mouthed, Shade, and held out her arms.

Chane carefully glided the dog into Wynn's grip. Shade sank a bit in Wynn's arms, struggling for an instant. Once the dog settled, Chane pulled the pry bar off his belt.

Shade twisted sharply and growled.

Her sudden splashing made Chane stiffen. Wynn struggled to keep Shade still, but the dog kept wrestling to get free. He reached instinctively to grab Shade's snout but stopped.

Shade looked down the tunnel and snarled again.

The water's surface rolled, nearly churned, as if the tide had suddenly surged up the tunnel.

A grip latched around both Chane's ankles. He heard Wynn suck a loud breath as his feet were pulled from under him.

Chane lost sight of Wynn as he was jerked beneath the water.

Wynn's hold on Shade broke as the dog thrashed around. Shade clawed the tunnel's side wall as she tried to put herself between Wynn and the churning water. Wynn's breath came hard and fast.

"Chane!"

She pinned the pack to the wall with one hand and groped wildly beneath the surface for Chane. Shade snarled and snapped, but she was struggling to remain afloat. Something light-colored stretched out beneath the water's surface.

Wynn tried to grab for it, but it broke the surface beyond reach, and it wasn't Chane.

A barbed spearhead rose.

She snatched her hand back. The spearhead was nearly white, like Chein'âs metal. Water erupted beyond it as Chane thrashed to the surface.

Shade pushed off the wall, treading water as she moved in front of Wynn.

Wynn barely caught a glimpse of a dim form behind Chane, holding on to one of his packs. She heard another splash behind her, but she reached out wildly for Chane.

"Chuillyon!"

Wynn flinched at that scream from beyond the gate but kept her attention on Chane.

His features twisted in rage, and his eyes had lost all color. He swung back at his attacker as another set of hands rose from the water and latched around his waist.

Chane vanished beneath the surface in a splash.

"Let him go!" Wynn shouted, and reached behind her back, pulling Magiere's old dagger.

Shade suddenly sank with a yelp, and Wynn let the pack drop as she lunged for the dog.

Another spearhead thrust up, driving straight for her face. She toppled backward, pushing with slipping feet, and her back hit the gate's bars. The spearhead on its long shaft halted, level with her throat.

Two slender arms shot out through the bars behind her.

"No, Frey!" someone shouted behind her. "Get back!"

The arms latched around Wynn, pinning her against the bars.

Trapped by the hovering spearhead, she didn't dare try to slash herself free with the dagger. A third arm reached past her head and a small, delicate hand snatched her wrist.

"Release the blade … now," someone commanded.

Harsh as the voice was, it was clearly a woman's, though the arms around Wynn's chest were those of a man. Wynn slowly opened her hand and felt the dagger being ripped away.

Shade splashed to the surface, hacking and coughing. She paddled to the tunnel's wall, clawing for any grip to anchor herself.

"Please," Wynn begged. "Let me help her!"

"Silence!" the hidden woman snapped.

The spear's shaft before Wynn tilted as water rolled around it. Its wielder began to rise. The first of it that she saw was a row of pale spikes.

Slowly breaking the surface, webbing followed at their bases, stretched in a crest over a bald scalp. Black-orb eyes, fully round and too large to be human, watched Wynn. Translucent membranes in place of lids nictitated over them.

The being was covered in slick, smooth skin tinged blue or perhaps more teal. Its face appeared distended, making the orb eyes look slightly pushed to either side of the hairless head. Its nose was only two vertical slits. When its lipless mouth parted, Wynn saw needle-sharp opalescent teeth like those of a sea predator.

When it—he—stood to full height, he was long and slender, but as solid as a full-grown male elf. More web-separated spikes ran along the outside of his forearms to match those cresting his skull. Wynn's breath caught as three slits on each side of his throat flexed like gills beneath a long jawline.

The strong hands and arms that held her suddenly slackened.

"Frey, please," the woman whispered, and then cried out, "Chuillyon, Tristan … help me!"

Wynn didn't know who held her. With the spear aimed at her throat, she couldn't twist her head to look.

"We're coming!" someone called, and more splashes came from the pool's chamber.

Chane erupted from the water again, just beyond Shade.

Before cascading droplets settled, three teal-skinned beings burst up and were on him. With a grating hiss, he shouldered one into the tunnel's wall. Shade twisted back, lunging and snapping at the first being's forearm. That one turned at the dog's assault, and his spear wavered.

Wynn jerked free and spun partway, groping for her staff. Then her gaze caught on a man's face pressed hard between the gate's bars.

The anguish there made her falter.

His half-mad eyes might've shed tears, but any such were obscured by water running down his face from his drenched dark-blond hair. His mouth gaped as he stared into the tunnel, but not at her. He looked only at the teal-skinned being holding off Shade with a spear.

Wynn had seen that expression, or ones so similar.

It showed on the faces of peasants in the worst corners of this world, such as Leesil's birthplace in the Warlands. Starving, dying of thirst, or beaten down, for them hope had become a lie. Worse, the man looked at the teal-skinned being as if his relief dangled tauntingly just beyond his reach.

The woman's voice shouted, "Chuillyon! Get the gate open!"

A woman had her arm wrapped over the madman's shoulder and across his chest, pulling on him to no effect. When she turned her head back from crying out, Wynn looked into the panicked face of Duchess Reine.

"Frey, stop it!" the duchess ordered.

"Wynn … get away from them!" Chane rasped.

He slapped away his assailant's spear. Shade clawed along the tunnel wall, floundering as she tried to get around her own opponent. With two companions desperate for help, Wynn could only try for the closest. She took a step to grab for Shade.

The point of a long, narrow blade struck the tunnel wall before her eyes.

Wynn's feet slipped as she tried to duck. She toppled against the curved wall to keep from sinking. The long blade levered in, and its edge set against her throat.

Duchess Reine had her arm thrust through the gate, pinning Wynn in place with a saber.

Shade let out a wild snarl, and then all sounds of struggle quickly lessened.

The duchess's enraged eyes turned away.

Wynn could barely move with the sharp edge at her throat, but she followed that gaze to Chane.

"Yield or she's dead!" the duchess commanded.

Chane froze in place, surrounded by the trio of strange beings, while a fourth held Shade off with its spear.

Wynn nodded once at Chane and turned only her eyes toward the gate.

As the duchess withdrew her saber, the white-robed elf tried to pull the wild-eyed man away. The captain, sword in hand, jerked the gate open, forcing both to retreat a little.

"Inside," he ordered, leveling his long sword at Wynn.

Wynn hesitated. Amid the confusion, her pack had sunk. She wasn't sure she'd be allowed to fish it out, but she wasn't leaving the sun crystal's staff behind. She reached for it.

The captain surged in, grabbed her tunic front, and jerked her through the open gate. She floundered, swallowing a mouthful of water, and another Weardas dragged her to one side. Shade came splashing after her, snarling and coughing. The captain ducked into the tunnel, sword out toward Chane, and grabbed the staff.

Chane came through next, all the teal-skinned newcomers herding him. He paused, raising one open hand as he pulled Wynn's pack from the water. He was soaked from head to toe, and his colorless eyes shifted rapidly as he watched everyone. As he passed through the gate, another Weardas snatched the pack away and herded him at sword point to the pool's far side.

Then the wild-eyed man tore from the elf's grip, lunging for the tunnel opening.

The duchess threw herself on top of him, screaming, "Freädherich, no!"

They both toppled and sank, but that name overrode Wynn's fear for an instant. She recognized it.

The pair heaved up, splashing water everywhere.

Wynn sucked in a panicked breath as the captain flung the staff onto the pool's far edge. And the bodyguard before her flattened his sword in warning against her chest.

The captain and the elf rushed toward the duchess as the third Weardas circled around, blocking off Chane. Like Wynn, Chane watched everything in complete confusion.

The closest teal-skinned being stepped to the half-open gate.

The wild-eyed man shrieked like a mourner, reaching out to it. Even with the duchess atop him, and the elf and captain trying to get a grip on him, his fingers kept clutching the air toward the visitor.

The visitor slowly stretched out its hand in turn. Long, narrow fingers, ending in claws, were webbed in the spaces between.

"Get away from him!" the duchess shrieked. She rolled off the madman, ducked around the tall elf, and slashed her saber. Its blade clattered across the gate's bars.

But the being in the tunnel didn't even lift its spear. It just slowly lowered its hand.

Duchess Reine threw her whole body against the gate. It slammed shut with a clang that reverberated through the chamber.

"You're not taking him!" she hissed, backing away with saber held out. There was less rage than terror on her face.

All the being did was quietly grip one iron bar and gaze through the gate with its black-orb eyes.

The duchess whirled in the pool as the captain and the tall elf heaved the whimpering man onto the pool's rear ledge. She looked as if she might break right there, collapse, and sink beneath the water.

"Highness?" whispered the bodyguard before Chane.

With a convulsive shudder, Reine straightened and turned her eyes on Wynn. In place of the whimpering man's madness, some fear-driven rage filled her features. She surged through the pool straight at Wynn with the saber thrust out.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

Wynn might've come up with something if she weren't so overwhelmed. Her gaze flicked erratically about. She knew of only one man named Freädherich, though she'd never seen him up close.

The younger prince of the Âreskynna, thought dead for years, was locked away in the Stonewalkers' underworld.

Wynn couldn't get out one word.