The long sword's end rounded to a point, though the tip was broader than normal. With no fuller or ridge down the blade, it was slightly thin for its kind. He wondered at its weight compared to his own sword. The balance would be different, likely turning closer to the guard. By estimation, an agile fit in the hand, but it looked almost fragile.
If Wynn's claims held true concerning dwarven steel, Chane would not see its like anywhere but in a seatt. In this particular smithy, it seemed out of place.
Impoverished Sliver had somehow afforded whatever rare materials and processes were needed for that strangely mottled steel. How odd that anyone with such skill had not risen from this low life.
Chane had never coveted a weapon. All his resources, when he had any, went into his intellectual pursuits. But from the instant he had seen that sword in Sliver's hand, he had wanted it. Even if he had coin, most dwarves did not value precious metals, and how could he barter when he could not estimate its worth? In truth, he had little to trade by way of goods or services. Was the blade even available for purchase, let alone barter?
He worried about what lay ahead, especially for Wynn. Her search for the texts had already put them in dangerous positions, some of which were not overcome by combat. That might not hold for the future. Even if—when—the texts were found, wherever their secrets led would likely be more hazardous, not less.
Keeping Wynn safe meant acquiring every advantage. A broken sword was a still sword—but not like the one he now fixated upon.
"I have no news," Wynn finally said, steeling herself for the next tactic. "But if you help me, I might get a message to Ore-Locks … something to make him come."
"More lies!" Sliver snarled. "Peddling false hopes for your own gain!"
"Mind your ways, daughter," the mother warned. "She is a sage, likely sent by your brother High-Tower."
"Mother, please," Sliver returned. "High-Tower could have come himself after so many years. But he did not. This conniving scribbler is not here because of him … or your prayers to the Eternals. Your sons are gone … Ore-Locks will never return!"
Startled, Wynn caught the strange twitch of Sliver's eye. The smith's final declaration seemed to have escaped on its own. Perhaps she now regretted it.
Sliver's denouncement of High-Tower clearly pained her, as if she wished at least one brother might come home. But not the other. Did Sliver believe Ore-Locks would never return—or did she wish it so?
Mother Iron-Braid didn't even look up.
"Your daughter is correct in one thing," Wynn said. "Domin High-Tower didn't send me."
The old woman's features sagged. If faith could've crumbled in a wrinkled old face, it began to crack right before Wynn's eyes. Guilt left a bitter taste in her mouth.
She was so lost regarding what drove Sliver. And by truth or ploy, she was doing damage here in that ignorance. Her only choice was to fumble along the middle ground between the two.
"In Ore-Locks's past visits," Wynn began, "did either of you see by what path—or where he went when he left?"
"If I knew that," Sliver grumbled, "I would have gone my—"
"At the Off-Breach Market," Mother Iron-Braid cut in, "on the second level, down the Breach Mainway."
Sliver choked.
Chane shuddered, nearly convulsed.
The beast with hands inside of him suddenly rose in wary agitation. Chane pulled his gaze from the sword to look upon Sliver's stunned face.
The smith's eyes were so wide that the whites showed all around her black pupils. Sliver's claim still hung in Chane's mind.
If I knew that …
It was a lie—or half of one. She knew something concerning her brother's whereabouts. Again, the warning of deceit had hit Chane when he was not paying attention.
"I believe he came from there," the old woman went on. "I followed my son when he left but lost him near a clothier's booth … and a cobbler's stall, if they are still in the same place. I could not keep up, and he was gone."
"When was this?" Sliver demanded, and then swallowed hard, faking composure though her eye twitched.
"Years back, before he stopped coming at all," the mother answered. "You were busy … always busy."
"I was seeing to our needs," the daughter returned, "unlike your sons."
Mother Iron-Braid raised her eyes. "Then see to them now!"
Sliver jabbed a finger at Wynn, and shouted, "She is using you—you are nothing but bait to her! Ore-Locks's calling keeps him now!"
Chane cocked his head. At mention of Ore-Locks's status among the Stonewalkers, a flicker of revulsion rolled across the smith's face. It was revealing but puzzling.
"Why would he come to this sage, if not to us?" Sliver asked disdainfully.
Why indeed? Chane wondered. Why had Ore-Locks stopped visiting his family?
Chane fixed on the smith, trying to sense the truth—or the lack of it.
Wynn wished she understood.
Sliver stood shocked at her mother's claim of following Ore-Locks, yet Sliver had come to the temple demanding that Wynn share all she learned. Perhaps Sliver had never intended anything to reach her mother's ears. Was it Sliver, and not Mother Iron-Braid, who wanted to know all that Wynn found out? And again, why?
"Do not spit in the face of the Eternals!" Mother Iron-Braid chided her daughter. "They answered my prayers, regardless of your fallen faith! Never speak of Ore-Locks in that way again."
"Mother, stop—"
"Your brother … both your brothers, sacrificed all to serve a high calling, each to his own. You will take this sage to the market. She will find Ore-Locks … because the Eternals wish it so!"
The old woman's large, bony hand fell on Wynn's tiny one, clasping it tightly.
"Tell Ore-Locks to come home," she whispered, her voice quavering as tears welled. "Tell him I … we need to see his face once more. Tell him. It is so little to ask."
Wynn wanted to pull away, and not because her hand hurt under that grip. The very ploy she planned to use to lure Ore-Locks had just spilled from Mother Iron-Braid's lips. What better way to drive a son home than with the heartbroken desperation of a mother?
"I will," Wynn answered. "No matter if it gains me … or not."
"Show them, daughter!" the mother ordered, like a matriarch rather than a frantic old woman.
Sliver spun in angry silence. She jerked the door wide, forcing Chane to step aside, and strode out into the workshop. Chane held back, waiting upon Wynn.
Amid confusion and shame, Wynn carefully pulled free of Mother Iron-Braid's grip.
"I'll reach Ore-Locks," she promised, "or tell him … somehow."
A good distance down Breach Mainway, on Sea-Side's second level, Wynn followed Sliver into the strangest open market she had ever seen. Deep inside the mountain, Off-Breach Market was set up in a huge space carved from the granite innards, rather like the interior of a great cathedral. Voluminous, it was lit in orange by massive crystals steaming upon stone pylons the circumference of oak tree trunks. Even thicker columns supported the ceiling all the way to the tile ringed opening at the dome's apex. Vapors and smoke from various coal pots and food vendors' carts wafted up to escape through the central air shaft.
The columns here were brightly painted in purples, greens, and yellows, from their sculpted base rings to their flanged tops. All were embellished with dwarven characters and vubrí surrounding wedge-arrow symbols pointing the way to sectors for produce, clothing, housewares, leatherwork, and even livestock.
A goat's bleating carried over the market's noise, and Wynn craned her head, looking for the source. She spotted a makeshift pen at the far left side. Inside a stick corral for goats and chickens, two young dwarves shoveled animal refuse into a wooden wheelbarrow.