Downpour's brisk pace offered Wynn no time to peer about. She glimpsed little of the other rooms or halls through any opening, at least not until the wide passage ended in a final grand arch of framestones. The opening spilled into a room so tall that Wynn couldn't see its ceiling from the outside. All she did see were three large emblems on a bare wall straight ahead, no more than three paces into the room.
Downpour paused outside the archway. "Anyone can come here whenever the temple is open."
Wynn stared at the inside wall. The Hall of Stone-Words couldn't be this small, even for dwarven brevity in writing.
"Hopefully something here will fulfill your needs," Downpour added. "Now I must get to my duties."
Downpour headed up the passage, and Wynn moved closer to the archway. Dwarves might not care for writing everything down, but certainly they had more records than this. There had to be more than three platter-size engraved symbols of complex strokes … or vubrí.
Certain Dwarvish words weren't always written in separate letters. Just as the sages' Begaine syllabary used symbols for whole syllables and word parts, the harsh strokes of dwarven letters could be combined into a vubrí. These emblems were used only for important concepts or the noteworthy among people, places, or things. They were also how the families, clans, and tribes emblazoned or embroidered their identity on some personal attire. It took Wynn a moment to untangle the three engraved upon the wall.
The two to either side—Virtue and Tradition—connected by a straight line to an engraved circle holding the central emblem of Wisdom.
Wynn stepped fully through the arch, and a sudden sense of space made her look up.
The engraved wall went only halfway to the space's height, but it was still tall enough that she would've barely reached its top with her upstretched staff. Far above, amid stone arches supporting a high ceiling, metal mirrors reflected light down into the hall from three shafts in the ceiling.
Wynn stepped back and saw that the ceiling's arch supports went well beyond the partition.
She was baffled until she noticed that neither partition's end joined the hall's side walls. She headed left, finding the wall as thick as she was from shoulder to shoulder, and she peeked around its end. Wynn's mouth and eyes opened wide.
Multiple stone partitions cut across the hall at regular intervals, like the casements of a library. Each was clear of the side walls, allowing anyone to walk around them and up and down the hall's length. The only furnishings were thick stone benches, worn by use. But there were no massive vubrí on the next partition's front side.
Engraved Dwarvish letters filled five columns, each as wide as her spread arms. The same covered the back side of the first partition. Even the hall's side walls had columns written in twin sets, positioned to face the spaces between the partitions. Those paired side columns stretched nearly all the way to the ceiling's high arches.
Wynn had never seen anything like this among the dwarves, not even in her visit with Domin Tilswith. But it seemed most fitting in the temple of their poet Eternal.
"Stone-words," she whispered, "words engraved in stone."
Dwarves recorded only what they considered worth such permanence, such as the teachings of Feather-Tongue. Even to say "written in stone" meant that what was said must never be forgotten.
Shade pushed past, sniffing halfway down the partition's back side before Wynn regained her wits. She followed the dog, running her fingers over the engravings' sharp edges. Not only could she see these words, she could feel them. She flushed with unfamiliar awe as her fingers slipped from one column of crisp carved characters to the next.
"Stories," she whispered.
She'd never even seen some of the characters before. Perhaps they were older than the written form of Dwarvish she'd learned. As she reached the third partition's back side, she lingered on one obscure vubrí. Wynn knew she'd seen it before, somewhere upon these walls, and she tried again to decipher it.
Lhärgnæ?
She frowned, trying to remember her lessons with Domin High-Tower.
The old Dwarvish root word "yarghaks" meant "a descent," as in a falling place or a downslope. In the vocative, it was pronounced "lhargagh," but such a formal declination implied a label or title. And the ancient, rare suffix of "-næ" or "-æ" was for a proper noun, both plural and singular.
She knew the letters and vubrí for the Bäynæ, the Eternals. That reference had appeared often in passages she had scanned. Strangely, she didn't remember ever spotting "Lhärgnæ" written out in plain letters. But its vubrí seemed akin to the one for the Bäynæ.
"Lhärgnæ" … the Fallen Ones?
She scanned several more lines, and the obscure vubrí appeared again, this time in a sentence that also mentioned the Eternals. She traced back along engraved letters, reading more slowly.
Our Eternal ancestors exalt our virtues over our vices, and shield us against the … Lhärgnæ.
Wynn paused in thought. She knew some dwarven "virtues," such as integrity, courage, pragmatism, and achievement. There were also thrift, charity for those in need, and championship of the innocent and defenseless. The possible vices might be counterpoints to these, at least in part.
Dwarves believed that their Eternals were part of the spiritual side of this world. They were not removed from it, to be called upon in another realm, as with the elves, nor sent to an afterlife, like most human religions taught. The Bäynæ were the revered ancestors of their race as a whole. Their presence was thought strongest wherever dwarves gathered in great numbers. They were believed to be always with their people, wherever they went.
So what place did these Lhärgnæ—these Fallen Ones—hold in the dwarves' spiritual worldview?
She sidestepped along the wall, scanning for more occurrences of the rare vubrí. Near the wall's bottom, it was couched in a phrase with the terms "aghlédaks" and "brahderaks"—cowardice and treachery. The rest of the sentence held too many older characters she didn't know.
Wynn straightened up, sighing in frustration.
She'd expected this to be easier. She was a sage, after all, and spoke a half dozen languages or dialects fluently and others in part. She could read even more. When she turned about, Shade lay at the wall's far end, her head on her paws, silently watching Wynn.
This was all quite boring to Shade.
For an instant, Wynn wished she had Chap here instead. His counsel had helped her choose the texts to bring home from Li'kän's ice-bound castle.
Her gaze drifted to an oddity on the next partition's front. These columns of text were framed in engraved scrollwork. Curiosity pulled her to them.
She read a few random lines with little effort, for it was written in contemporary Dwarvish characters. The text appeared to be a story. A way down the column, she found one familiar vubrí—Bedzâ'kenge, the poet Eternal. Another vubrí was mixed in the text closer to the first column's top.
Wynn settled on the bench, working out its patterned strokes.
"Sundaks"—avarice.
But the context implied more. It should be in the vocative case as well, like a title or a name pronounced in formal fashion—Shundagh.
Wynn lifted her eyes to the story's beginning.
A fine family of renowned masons lived in a small but proud seatt of only one clan and one tribe among the Rughìr.