Cinder-Shard had watched the exchange in silence. Without a word, he fell in beside Chuillyon. Both strode onward.
Reine watched them in shock before hurrying to catch up.
Chapter 20
Chane shivered, though he did not feel the cold. Along with Wynn and Shade, he'd been locked away in pure darkness. He could not see anything at all.
"Open the door!" Wynn shouted. "You have to listen!"
"Enough," he said. "They are gone. Light your crystal … I cannot see."
"What? But … you're undead."
"Even our—my—eyes require some light."
He heard clothing rustle, and a soft glow rose in the dark, orange-red at first.
Chane watched light build, filtered through Wynn's small, rubbing hands. When she opened her fingers, her face was illuminated by the cold lamp crystal resting in her palm. They both looked around.
Shade stood nosing the stone landing's left side. Just beyond her, stairs led downward along a curved wall. The landing itself was no more than six paces square, its front and right side dropping straight off into the dark. Though the crystal lit the wall around the arch, its light barely reached the high ceiling above.
Chane peered over the landing's edge and could not make out what waited below. His thoughts were overwhelmed.
The wraith still existed. At its barest touch upon the cavern floor, fire had erupted and been shaped in a way he could not imagine. Dwarves had emerged from cavern walls. A small stone creature with one glowing eye had done so as well and then broken apart in midair around the disturbingly serene elf.
But worse, Chane was hungry.
The effort to gain the underworld, as well as swiping his hand through the wraith, had taken much from him. Possibilities for feeding were almost nonexistent. He feared what might happen if he grew desperate.
Glancing back, he expected to find defeat in Wynn's round face. What he saw startled him more.
In the crystal's upward light, her features looked so hard. Wynn's bright, sweet face was filled with anger unlike anything Chane had ever seen in her.
"Imbeciles and idiots!" she whispered sharply. "They don't know what they're dealing with, and they lock up those who do!"
Wynn glanced at him. The dark taint in her expression lingered an instant longer before it finally drained away.
"We have no weapons at all, if the wraith attacks us here," she said, "nothing to hold it off without the staff."
Overstating the obvious accomplished nothing, but Chane kept silent. In truth, he felt vulnerable without his sword or the treasured belongings in his packs.
"How could it have survived?" she whispered. "I watched it burn to nothing!"
She did not seem to expect an answer.
"It is more than just a spirit, especially by its actions," he said. "If it is a Noble Dead, even my kind are not easily dispatched."
Her gaze flickered to his throat. Beneath his cloak and shirt collar, he bore the scar around his neck as proof of that point. He too had risen from death a second time.
"What was that other thing … that leaped at the duchess and the elf?" she asked.
"I remember scant references to … constructs of a kind, from my earliest studies. Conjured things of the Elements with awareness of their own." He paused and shook his head. "We should survey our surroundings … see if there is anything of advantage."
"Why is this place so dark?" she asked, stepping past him toward Shade. "The walls don't glow like most of the outer caverns."
Much as he valued her curious nature, it now wore upon him, like the beast pacing within him, pulling against its bonds in growing hunger.
Wynn held the crystal out above Shade, illuminating the wide stone stairs, and Chane studied the wall. It was hewn smooth, unlike the caverns. This was a created rather than a natural space. No moisture crept in to coat it with glittering mineral deposits, which seemed impossible at this depth.
Chane stepped past Wynn. Only a dozen stairs down, Shade scurried into the lead, sniffing every step they took. He had not counted the steps, but too many passed before Wynn's crystal began to expose the chamber's lower reaches. If she had stumbled off that landing, it would have been a very long first—and last—step.
They passed the stairs' midpoint and circled at least halfway around the outer wall. The chamber was indeed round, though only a third as wide as it was tall. Indistinct forms took shape below, standing around the lower floor. Something in the floor's center caught the light of Wynn's crystal.
Chane felt Wynn's hand upon his shoulder.
"I've seen this place," she whispered.
"When? How?"
"Shade saw it in Ore Locks's memories."
She pushed past him, scurrying downward, and Chane hurried to keep up. Before he reached the bottom, the erect forms already looked like mute representations of standing figures. But Chane focused on that shining disk in the floor's center.
The large plate of ruddy metal, perhaps polished brass, was at least three or four strides across. There were markings upon it. Shade stepped off the last stair and began circling the floor, but Wynn went straight for the closest tall form.
"Wait!" Chane ordered.
She stopped short, an arm's length from one strangely shaped, upright black … casket. At least, that was what it looked like. Drawing closer, he saw that it more resembled a stout form of iron maiden, a torturous execution device he had only read of.
Dull black, perhaps basalt, it was slightly taller but far broader than Wynn—even greater than the breadth of a male dwarf. Narrowing slightly at its base upon the floor, its bulk widened upward, until …
Chane's gaze came to where the plain figure narrowed into the dull, domed representation of its "head." The raised shape of a riveted band was carved out of the stone, wrapping around at jaw level. Two like bands ran around its "body" at shoulder and thigh height. But he saw no seams along its sides.
It was carved whole from one solid piece. And between the two lower bands around its bulk was a vertical oblong shape of raised stone covered in engraved characters.
Chane peered around the chamber.
Seven basalt forms—trapped and bound in place—faced inward toward the floor's central disk. But between two on the far side he spotted another opening in the chamber's wall. He glanced up, barely making out the landing above. The opening was directly below it.
Then Shade rumbled.
Chane was not the only one who did not like the feel of this place. The dog paced around the chamber, remaining equally far away from the tombs and the floor disk.
"Wynn?" he said uncertainly.
When she did not answer, he turned back. Wynn was about to touch the oblong of engraved characters on a tomb.
"No!" he said. "The floor disk first."
It was the only thing he could think of to stop her. She frowned at him and headed for the floor's center.
Chane backed up, still eyeing the mute black shapes. When he spun about, Wynn had crouched at the disk's edge, holding her crystal above it.
It was made of brass, though Chane saw no sign of tarnish. Someone must clean and polish it regularly. Not truly a circle, the octagon's sides were slightly curved outward, causing that mistaken impression. Inside each edge was an emblem like a complex sigil. In the center was a depression, akin to a high-edged bowl sunken into and melded with the disk. One larger pattern rested in its bottom.
"Arhniká … Mukvadân … Bedzâ'kenge …" Wynn whispered.
With each strange word, she pointed to a symbol around the outer circumference.
"These are vubrí for dwarven Eternals," she added in puzzlement. "Eight of the Bäynæ."
Chane knew little of dwarven saints beside Bedzâ'kenge—Feather-Tongue.