Sliver must have waited until her unwanted guests departed and then reopened the door.
Chane did not have time to ponder why. The open door could be lucky or unlucky, depending upon the exact spot where Wynn had dropped her pack. Slipping along the wall, he drew as close as he dared without being seen by anyone inside. He leaned around the door frame enough to peek at the floor inside—and spotted no sign of the pack.
Ducking low, he shot across to the door's other side and peered in again.
To Chane's relief, there was the pack, just inside the door's left atop a stack of folded canvas. It blended so well in the low red light that anyone might have overlooked it. Dropping to his hands and knees, he reached in and then spotted Sliver.
Chane pulled back quickly.
Sliver stood leaning against a table with one hand covering her mouth. Embers in the open forge were waning, and it was hard to make out her face. Another movement at the workshop's rear caught Chane's attention.
A door opened in the workshop's back wall.
Sliver looked up, turning her back to Chane. An old dwarven woman with wild white hair and a long, dull blue woolen robe stepped out of some well-lit back room. Sliver hunched her shoulders as she spit out a curt string of Dwarvish.
The old woman stepped closer, and her wrinkled face twisted into desperation. She gripped a table's edge and uttered a reply so pained that Chane was riveted, wishing he understood the words.
Sliver scoffed and turned away from the old woman. Perhaps it was to hide the sudden doubt that crossed her face.
A domestic dispute was clearly in play. Chane wondered, considering it came so close behind their visit, if the two events were connected.
The old woman's next utterance was sharp if not loud, and Sliver straightened. So did Chane at the sound of one word—say-gee.
Could that word have been "sage," garbled by the old one's accent?
Sliver turned angrily to face her elder, her back to the outer door.
Chane took the opportunity and reached in for Wynn's pack.
Sau'ilahk hung motionless at the intersection as Chane scurried across the smithy's doorway. He had tried to follow all three of his quarry, but the cursed dog had picked up his presence. On some level, Chane had seemed to "feel" him as well. Sau'ilahk had been forced to slip into dormancy, vanishing quickly from either's awareness.
He waited in that pure darkness as long as he dared, then awakened once more in the same dark spot inside Limestone Mainway's end chamber. At the sound of footsteps in the upward-bound tunnel, he followed and watched as Chane hid Wynn in a doorway and turned back.
Sau'ilahk was pleased, even as he blinked away once more to let Chane pass by. He now had the chance to pull closer, to see and hear what Chane sought in this dingy, forgotten smithy. He focused on a point farther down the side tunnel, slipped into dormancy, and reappeared at that place.
Beyond the smith shop, Sau'ilahk listened to two female voices arguing within. Dwarvish was one of many tongues he had picked up over the centuries. He ignored Chane and focused on their words.
"Go back inside the house, Mother," said the first, low and bitter.
The other cried out in an age-broken voice. "If the shirvêsh of Bedzâ'kenge assisted the sage, there is good reason she seeks Meâkesa … and you sent her away! Why did you not help her to find your brother?"
Sau'ilahk knew from his servitor eavesdropping on Wynn that these people must be High-Tower's family. "Meâkesa" translated as "Ore-colored Hair." Wynn sought the Stonewalkers through a link between them and a son of the Iron-Braid family—High-Tower's brother.
"Why should I help her?" the first voice returned. "He abandoned us long ago … as did Chlâyard! Neither of them even returned when Father fell ill. Tell me, Mother, how should I have helped? We do not even know where he is!"
"It is a sign," the creaking voice wailed. "The coming of a human sage is a sign. Do you not see? We are to be rejoined with Meâkesa. Help her!"
The smithy fell silent, and Sau'ilahk saw Chane stealthily reach inside the open door. An instant later, he pulled back, holding a faded canvas pack.
This was what he came for—a forgotten pack?
Sau'ilahk mulled over the conversation.
Wynn had come all the way down here and been sent away. She had been seeking a connection to the Stonewalkers, but it seemed she had gained no lead. But that connection was here, waiting, and only an old woman seemed to care that it was fulfilled.
Sau'ilahk had little knowledge of these Stonewalkers—little more than rumors of the sect from centuries ago. At the least, they were hidden guardians of the dwarven dead. He had never had a reason to learn more.
In Calm Seatt, he had searched the guild grounds for many nights. Rumors passed on by his informants had called him to the king's city of Malourné after Wynn's return. But other than translation folios sent to scribe shops, he found neither trace nor hint of where the original texts were hidden. If the Stonewalkers knew their location, as Wynn seemed to suspect …
Then why had some cult of the dead become involved with the texts?
Sau'ilahk grew impatient with the inept sage. Wynn should be gaining information much faster! All the trouble she had caused him so far left him seething and indignant in even allowing her to live.
Chane rose, his attention no longer absorbed by his task, and then he froze. He turned about, staring deeper down the side passage. His hand dropped to his sword's hilt.
Sau'ilahk could have hissed in rage—he had been sensed! Anger turned to alarm as Chane stepped slowly in his direction. He had no fear of this man who was there and not there, but this one had survived his touch, an anomaly not to be taken lightly.
Sau'ilahk backed into—through—the tunnel's stone wall.
He lost sight of everything and twisted about—what he thought was about—hoping there was no other space behind him. He remained immersed, blinded and deafened by solid stone. But how long should he wait before Chane gave up?
Yes, Wynn was waiting, and Sau'ilahk ticked off in his mind what Chane might do.
Perhaps traverse no more than a few doorways down the tunnel. Then urgency would take him back the other way. Sau'ilahk waited even longer, and then slipped forward through stone.
As pure black broke before him into the faint red light in the passage, Sau'ilahk peered up the tunnel toward the mainway.
There was Chane, rushing away as fast as silence allowed.
Sau'ilahk stewed in envy.
Tall, pale, and handsome, yet some strange form of undead, Chane would look that way forever. Waves of jealousy grew into spite at Beloved's betrayal. Once, Chane would have been a meaningless shadow compared to Sau'ilahk's great beauty … so long ago.
Sau'ilahk hung there in self-pity.
If Wynn did not locate the Stonewalkers or draw them out, perhaps he would have to do it for her. There was only one way. But for this, he needed strength—he needed life to feed upon. Not a local, a dwarf, but a foreigner, some visiting human not quickly missed.
Sau'ilahk drifted along the twisting back ways of the dwarven underlevels.
The light of crystals grew sparse and excavation was not so smooth or painstaking. Places where the walls were jagged with small hollows and depressions offered shadows for him to meld into without arcane effort. He calmed, letting his presence sink into sensual awareness, searching for human life.
And he sensed one, not far off.
Sau'ilahk turned into a southbound tunnel that might even hook back toward the far-off mainway. The distance between smaller crystals in wall brackets decreased. He prepared to wink out into dormancy if needed. He could not be seen, not clearly noticed, or word of a strange dark figure might accidentally reach Wynn.