The inlet cut so deep into the shore's steep slant that its back was pitch-black. There was no place to follow the rolling waterline. They would have to climb high upslope to get around it. The whole venture became more dangerous with half the night gone, but Shade kept crawling along the inlet's steep side.
"Get back here!" he called, though his rasp was barely audible over waves and wind.
Shade clawed along the water's edge, deeper into the inlet, and Chane dropped down the rocky backbone, boots scraping on wet rock. Waves broke and tumbled well before they reached the inlet's back, so it had to be shallow. It was still not something to wade across in the dark. Shade suddenly shuffled sideways, trying to get upslope as dark foam-laced water surged upward around her legs.
"Shade!" Chane called.
He gripped slick rock with his slope-side hand and pushed on.
Turning only her head, Shade barked at him and then gazed toward the inlet's back. As he came up behind her, the darkness in the inlet looked different. The rock above it did not meet the water's surface. A rough overhang created a low and wide opening over the undulating water.
The cave, or pocket, was half-filled by the sea.
Chane looked to the moon and then down into the water. There was no telling its depth.
Shade huffed at him, sounding impatient, and then pricked up her ears. Peering at the low cave, she cocked her head to the side and whined loudly. She barked once and began backing unsteadily across the backbone's side.
"What?" Chane called tiredly.
Shade backed another step, stopping only when she could go no farther without running into him. Clearly she had decided this was not what they sought. But Chane had to be certain and stepped down the sheer rock. He hesitated before he sank one booted foot into the dark, undulating water.
When he found his footing, he dropped waist-high into the water. Clinging to the backbone's side, he inched into the inlet until his eyes adjusted to its deeper darkness. Still, he could not see to its back, but he heard water slapping against stone somewhere deeper beneath the overhang. Shade's actions now made sense.
She had been listening for the path of the water flowing unobstructed. Even without entering, she had known there was no opening beneath the overhang.
Chane backed out in dejection and clawed up the backbone's side. Shade was already moving on. Scrabbling upslope, she began nosing out a way around the inlet, and Chane struggled after her.
They should have turned back, but the prospect of failure overrode reason.
Chane searched every nook, crack, and hollow, making certain they did not miss a single hole or odd patch of pure black. He forgot how dangerously far they had pushed on until he heard faint, distant bell tones rolling down the mountainside.
He froze, counting off the five tones.
The fifth eighth of night, by the dwarves' measure of time, and they had found nothing. Fear pulled reason back through frustration. He could push his body until morning if need be, but even now, he was uncertain whether he could reach the inn before sunrise. How could he fail Wynn in this task?
"Shade!"
He knelt on the rock as the dog paused ahead, glancing back at him. To his bewilderment, she looked up at the sky—no, up the mountainside to the moon glowing behind thin night clouds. Did she understand that they traveled by night out of more than choice? If she knew that much, then …
A huge wave hit the shore.
Spray rose high and slapped down around Chane, drenching him. When his sight line cleared, Shade faced him within arm's reach. One jowl twitched beneath her cold, intense gaze, and she never blinked.
"Do you know?" he whispered.
If she did know what he was, why had she never attacked him outright? If she did not, why did she always wrinkle her snout and glare at him?
Chane had to head back immediately—but Shade did not.
Indecision made him falter. Somehow, he had to make her understand. If his suspicion was correct, and she knew his true nature, then letting her see into his memories would change nothing. If he was wrong, one of them would end here—or at best, he would have to flee. What would become of Wynn without him?
Chane grew frantic.
Finding a sea tunnel to the underworld might be the only chance they had left. If he and Shade did not succeed, Wynn's mission ended in failure. There was only one way to tell Shade to go on without him—and he knew only one way that could happen.
Chane rose on his knees, his thumb already rubbing the ring on his finger. He locked eyes with Shade, but hesitated as he pinched the ring between the fingers of his other hand.
He pulled off the ring of nothing.
Shade shimmered before Chane's eyes, as did the sloped rocky shore, like an intense heat across a plain making the horizon blur. Another wave's arcing spray crashed down on both of them.
Salt water ran off Chane's face. He shuddered, not from cold but as all his awareness sharpened threefold. He had not removed the ring since first entering Calm Seatt, moons past. He had almost forgotten how much it dampened his awareness. It felt like coming alive again—or at least how he might have imagined such a thing.
And there were Shade's blue crystalline eyes, burning too brightly in his widened vision.
Shade snarled, her jowls pulling back and exposing all of her teeth. Her shoulders bunched, and even soaked as she was, her hackles rose. Shade snapped the air, her teeth clacking.
Chane went completely still—he had made a grave error.
The dog's rolling snarl took on a pealing mewl, like a cat's enraged yowl caught in its throat. Her ears flattened as her whole body quaked under that sound.
But Shade remained where she stood.
Her snarls lessened, becoming no more than low growls.
"You knew …" Chane whispered. "All this time."
For an instant, he could not even think how. Either Shade's own senses, so much like Wynn's old companion Chap's, had sensed he was not natural, or …
Had Shade caught some slip in Wynn's memories?
The dog had not attacked him, as one of her kind should. She had even fought beside him against the wraith—in defending Wynn.
How could he tell Shade what he needed her to do now?
He tried to think of memories, of any instance in which he had protected Wynn, as well as moments of searching since the three of them had come together. There was also the small room at the inn to which he would have to return and wait. But he had no memory like the one Wynn had spoken of—a grated iron opening that let the sea rise in an underground chamber. All he could think of in its place was the one overhang that Shade had already found, though it had proved false for what they sought.
Shade grew strangely silent, watching him.
Once Chane was clear on which memories he would have to use, he reached out.
Shade twisted on the slope and snapped at his wrist.
He snatched his hand back. He was not certain how this process worked, but Wynn had so often touched the dog that it seemed necessary.
"I must," he said, reaching out again. "I must be sure you understand! You have to go on and … look for the entrance, damn you!"
His head suddenly filled with a memory.
In the dwarven port's inn, in that small dark room, a lantern sat beside a narrow bed and a damp folded blanket in one corner.
Chane drew back in hesitation. He had not been thinking about that as he spoke.
Shade fell silent. Her left jowl quivered and she spun away.
Chane only watched as she clawed and hopped away, up the dark coast beneath the erratic spray of the sea. She stopped only once upon a crest of rock, and it seemed her head swung back his way.