The smithy vanished.
That brief memory had been one of Wynn's own, but the rapid changes were making her dizzy. Still uncertain what Shade was trying to tell her, Wynn found herself standing in a dark cavern.
A greenish phosphorescence tinged the rough, glistening walls. Stalactites and stalagmites joined together in concave, lumpy columns. Odd twisted shadows played over and between them. In a few steps, Wynn realized the walls' own glimmer caused everything to throw multiple shadows every which way.
She understood the purpose behind Shade's chain of memory-speak. Her own question in the smithy's hearth room had triggered a memory in Ore-Locks.
Wynn—or rather Ore-Locks—walked through the cavern's dim glimmer. Now and then, natural openings appeared, leading off to other places, but he never glanced aside enough for Wynn to get a peek into any of them.
Everything flickered to black—then returned.
The surroundings had changed. A rough stone path still wove in and out of adjoining caves and pockets. Two more flickers, and Wynn guessed that Ore-Locks's scattered memory had raced onward in skips rather than tracing a complete path. Something caught her attention for an instant.
In one place, out of the corner of her eye—Ore-Locks's eye—she thought she saw standing figures. They hid in the cavern's dim recesses among the lumpy, bulging columns and half-formed mineral-laden cones protruding from the ceiling. But those mute figures remained still as statues. The only sounds were the scattered patter of drips and the echoes of Ore-Locks's heavy footfalls. Then he stepped upslope toward a ragged opening ahead.
Half-hidden behind a rising stalagmite, something passed on the left as she stepped out of the cavern.
Wynn stiffened for real. Had that been a face shaped in glistening wet stone?
The memory shifted and altered. Wynn stood before an arch filled with age-darkened iron. It looked just like the triple-layered portal in the amphitheater at Old-Seatt, but smaller. Again, the memory wavered, as if Shade hadn't been able to follow or comprehend what Ore-Locks was doing.
The archway was now open.
The space beyond was so dark that Wynn couldn't see anything except a flight of stairs arcing downward along a curved wall. She took only four steps and stopped—or Ore-Locks stopped—going no farther into the depths.
She couldn't see how far down the stairs went, but far enough that any floor below wasn't visible over the stairs' outer edge. The curved wall to her other side was smooth and perfect. This wide space wasn't natural and had been carved out. But what was down there?
"Enough," she whispered—but in Ore-Locks's deep voice. "Please leave me be."
Wynn shivered, locked inside his memory. She was in the Stonewalkers' underworld.
"You called me," Ore-Locks whispered. "I came to that calling … to serve. But I have learned no more. I cannot save you … free you."
Whom was he speaking to and what did he mean by … "save you"?
"No one will believe or remember," Ore-Locks continued. "I beg you … please, leave me be!"
Everything faded.
Wynn knelt in the passage, her fingers clutching Shade's face.
"No, there has to be more!"
Shade just whined, flattening her ears dejectedly. This was all she had caught. Like her father, Shade dipped only memories that surfaced—whatever rose in a person's conscious thoughts. But Ore-Locks had known what was there in the depths, in speaking to whomever or whatever.
Wynn rocked onto her heels. Was there something down there that called Stonewalkers to a life of service? The evening had ended, and that stolen memory had begun with a question.
Who is Thallûhearag?
And Sliver had spoken of a "false" ancestor.
Wynn couldn't fit it all together, but as she stared at the smithy door, she wondered how the Iron-Braids had come to such a low state. How many generations had existed this way and why? She didn't see how this helped with her own pursuit, but the memory left her pondering one person.
Ore-Locks still might be the one to help her—if she found a way to understand the memory Shade had stolen. Together, she and Shade headed out into the Limestone Mainway.
At dusk, Sau'ilahk willfully awakened from dormancy and coalesced in a shadowed side passage across from Wynn's chosen inn. It was the last place he had followed her, when she and her companions left the tram the night before. Before sunrise had forced him into dormancy, he had slipped deep into the settlement's back ways. In that desolate place, he had drained one young dwarven female caught by surprise and dragged her body into a storage chamber filled with dust-coated crates and barrels.
That one life had been strong and still brimmed vibrantly within him.
Sau'ilahk waited outside of Wynn's inn, but no one came or went. Where else might she have gone, or had she even returned from her day's wandering? He mentally recounted her visits to Sea-Side and blinked into dormancy, envisioning one place. He reemerged in the end chamber of Limestone Mainway on the lowest level and peered at the greeting house where Wynn had first met the warrior thänæ.
Why had she come back to Sea-Side? Was she seeking more concerning Hammer-Stag's death? Again he waited, sinking almost fully into the side of the end chamber's arched opening.
Business was done for the day, but Limestone Mainway still bustled with dwarves. Frustrated, he blinked out again and materialized in a dim passage beyond the Iron-Braids' smithy.
Sau'ilahk quickly conjured, hiding himself in another pool of light-banishing darkness. He heard nothing within the smithy. Then he caught a glimpse of movement, and he looked down the passage, toward the exit leading into the mainway.
Someone short, in a long robe, huddled low beside a black form.
Wynn stood up, patting Shade's head.
Sau'ilahk had wasted energies, but he slipped from his conjured darkness, letting it fade. Wynn had visited the smithy, but he was too late, missing whatever had taken place.
Where was Chane?
Wynn must be close to something, if she returned to previously visited locations.
Sau'ilahk watched her slip into the mainway, and then he glided quickly to the passage's end and halted. Too many people still wandered about for him to follow her, but he could not continue in ignorance. He needed to hear—to see—what she said and where she went. He pulled back into the passage, steeling himself and shutting out the world.
Air for sound was not enough. Fire, in the form of Light, was needed for sight, but its emanations could betray the servitor's presence. It had to be encased with Earth as well, as drawn from Stone. But a base servitor of multiple elements, in three conjuries, would cost him dearly. And a fourth conjury had to intertwine with the others. His creation would need a hint of sentience, though this would make it less subservient.
Sau'ilahk began to conjure Air first of all.
When its quivering ball manifested, he held it and reached out. Caging the warp of Air with incorporeal fingers, he began conjuring Fire in the form of Light.
A yellow-orange glow began to radiate from within his grip.
Sau'ilahk forced his hand corporeal and slammed the servitor down into the passage floor.
He was only half-finished. The last two conjuries had to come simultaneously while he held the first pair firm. Around his flattened hand, a square of glowing umber lines for Earth via Stone rose in the passage floor. A circle of blue-white appeared around that as he summoned in Spirit and inserted a fragment of his will.
The spaces between the shapes, glyphs, and sigils of white grew iridescent, like dew-dampened web strands as dawn first broke. He called upon his reserves, imbuing his creation with greater essence. It would be birthed closer to the edge of sentience, to serve him better.