The encroaching tide gained on them every time they stopped to face yet another gate. So far, Chane had broken through five more. Though these hadn't been as stout as the first, it took him longer each time. He hadn't used the hoop on the first three. When he did so for the last two, it took him longer to bend the heated bars. She worried that even his strength wouldn't hold out if they ran into another. The last one had taken great effort, and he'd faltered three times.
Wynn couldn't fathom why the Stonewalkers bothered creating and maintaining this hidden way if it needed to be so impenetrable. Every gate had an oval of Chein'âs metal in its lock plate.
She forced one foot after the next, with no idea how much time had passed. It felt as if they'd been struggling up the freezing tunnel for half the night. She and Shade were now trapped by the tide. But all that mattered, if—when—they made it through, was locating the texts.
"Have you been counting?" Chane suddenly asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.
"Five gates … since … the first," she managed between shivers.
"Paces," he corrected.
Wynn sighed in exhaustion. "More for me … your legs are longer."
"We have traveled almost a league, at a guess."
She didn't need to hear that.
"Do you need to rest?" Chane asked, glancing sidelong at her.
He stopped walking. His face looked even paler in only her crystal's light, and the anxiety on it was smothered under a wrinkle of anger.
"Your lips are blue!" he hissed, and then shook his head. "This was foolish … foolish! I never should have allowed this."
"You? Allow?"
How many times had she reminded him that this was her mission? Even if he found the texts on his own, he certainly couldn't read most of their content.
Shade whined up ahead. Much as Wynn empathized with Shade's suffering, she couldn't stop shaking herself. Shade huffed twice more.
Chane turned and took a few more steps.
"Odsúdýnjè!" he cursed.
Wynn didn't have to ask. She sloshed forward and peered around his side … at another gate.
Sau'ilahk watched from a far vantage point as Duchess Reine stepped into the lantern-lit end chamber of the downward-curving tunnel.
The two dwarven guards above in the entrance room had not been an issue. He had simply pushed his cowl through the wall of moving stones until he saw the hidden space. He quickly withdrew before the guards noticed a subtle change of shadow on the inner wall. That brief glimpse had been enough to judge distance and position for whatever space lay beyond the door within.
He had waited for the duchess and hers to move on, and then blindly slipped through stone around the room. Lost for only a moment in groping to an exit, he emerged slightly below the head of the downward-curving tunnel.
Once his servitors followed, he trailed the duchess, remaining out of sight around the tunnel's wide curve. She finally reached the end chamber, and he was forced to remain far back. She faced two more armored dwarves framing another door, and Sau'ilahk barely contained his exhilaration.
Had she reached the underworld?
The door was unimpressive, unlike the iron panels in the entrance chamber, and doubt dampened his excitement. It could not possibly be a portal into the Stonewalkers' realm.
"Welcome again, Highness," one guard said, and pulled a heavy key ring from his belt. Neither dwarf appeared surprised to see her.
Sau'ilahk again wondered why she chose to go below at night.
The first guard unlocked the door and stepped aside. The duchess and her people passed onward. Sau'ilahk caught only a vague glimpse through the opening.
Light beyond it was brighter than in the end chamber, and the elf pocketed his crystal as he entered. As the last Weardas followed, Sau'ilahk was too far off to spot any passage beyond. The guards pulled the door closed, locking it again, and Sau'ilahk began to panic.
He had not seen enough to blink into that space beyond the door. Even so, he could never emerge in plain sight if the duchess lingered. All he could do was gain the door, prepared to slip through when he was certain no one on the other side would see him.
This left him an obvious dilemma.
How to kill both guards, quickly and quietly, so that no one beyond the door was alerted? If there was another passage—or more than one—he might lose the duchess.
Sau'ilahk glided back up the tunnel and drew his servitors with him.
Rise, he commanded, and the segmented stone worm arched out of the floor.
He snatched its head, squeezing its round mouth shut, and began to conjure something more into its body. Pale yellow vapors leaked from the worm's mouth to escape between his solidified fingers.
Hold, he commanded. Expel only when you smell life before you.
He pulled the worm from the floor, placing it against the side wall. Once it submerged, he pointed to the ceiling directly above. The stone-spider scuttled across the ceiling above his fingertip.
Tap until someone approaches, he instructed. Then open your eye, burning brightly.
And last, Sau'ilahk raised another pool of light-eating darkness. He sank through it, halfway into the wall, until only his cowl's edges remained surfaced as he watched.
The spider's click-click-click began.
"Did you hear that?" one guard asked the other in Dwarvish.
"Hear what? There's nothing …" the other began, and then, "Oh, Eternal's mirth! Some rat sneaked in again!"
The first grumbled. Leaning his iron staff against the wall, he trudged up the curving tunnel. Sau'ilahk remained still, letting him pass along the curve, just beyond sight of the end chamber.
A red glow appeared upon the ceiling.
The dwarf froze, staring upward. Before he uttered a puzzled exclamation, the worm snaked out of the wall near his head. He flinched away, but not far enough.
A soft crackle of grating rock came as the worm's mouth snapped open. Pale yellow vapor erupted in the dwarf's face, and a startled suck of breath did the rest.
The dwarf choked once, never gaining breath to cough. He crumpled in a dull clatter of armor and heavy bulk.
"Guster, what are you doing?" the second called from the end chamber. "Guster? If you cannot find the vermin, stop fooling about!"
No answer came, and the second guard hefted his iron staff. He stepped cautiously up the tunnel, and Sau'ilahk grew anxious.
This was taking too long—long enough that the duchess could be well ahead of him. He had no way to dispose of bodies in this place, though he had hoped to feed on a guard before moving on. He waited only until the second guard stepped through the pocket of banished light.
Nothing but a black silhouette showed against the tunnel's far wall, marking the dwarf's presence.
Sau'ilahk thrust out both hands, and his forearms sank through the thick chest.
He felt the dwarf turn toward him, gagging and shuddering in the pure darkness. Something long and narrow toppled across the light from the spider's eye. The dwarf's grip had loosened on the iron staff. It was falling.
Sau'ilahk whipped his left arm sideways through the dwarf, keeping his right encased. Willing both solid, he snatched the toppling staff as the dwarf stiffened around his forearm. He tried to wrench his hand out, tearing the chest open—but it would not come. What had been easy with humans, such as the city guard of Calm Seatt, was nothing like this—like trying to pull free of half-hardened clay.
The dwarf's hands slapped upon the wall's surface, shoving hard. Sau'ilahk felt himself being dragged out of the wall.
In panic, he struck the staff sharply into the guard's head. At the dull thump, massive weight jerked his arm downward. He quickly released his will, his forearm turning incorporeal.