Sau'ilahk fought exhaustion, willing his awareness to clear, and peered around the curve to where the passage straightened. Six dwarves stood before the wall of blocks where the entrance was hidden. A few murmured to one another, as all kept looking along the passage.
Sau'ilahk sank fully into hiding within stone.
These were not constabulary. They were armed and fully armored in steel-reinforced hauberks and helms with heavy iron bands. An iron tripod had been placed before them, its basin filled with orange crystals that lit up the space.
The dwarves had been warned.
In his current weakness, he could not kill six quickly enough, let alone feed to satisfaction. Was his remaining servitor still within the mountain? Would it be enough for an instant's advantage?
Beloved had commanded that the knowledge of his return should be hindered. Rampant slaughter and reports of a black figure would heighten any state of alarm. Much attention would turn his way.
Sau'ilahk did not care anymore. He was tired of hiding within shadows. He needed to kill, feed, and grow stronger with every death.
The Stonewalkers worked in unison, so he would scatter them like rats in the mountain's bowels. Let them blindly pursue him, uncertain where he might strike next, and he would take them one by one. There would be no more waiting, wandering in frail hope of flesh.
And he would find Wynn—or the duchess—and torment her until she relinquished the texts' true location. Perhaps he would learn as well the meaning behind Beloved's final demand.
Sau'ilahk tried calling his last servitor.
Come to me … come to the target of my intent.
He fixed upon a point down the passage beyond the dwarves and waited, holding that one spot upon the floor with his full awareness.
The stone-worm rose there.
Liquidlike ripples spread through the floor's stone around its trunk. One dwarf shouted, pointing at it, and the others turned that way.
Sau'ilahk shot across the passage into the far wall and sank only halfway.
Two dwarves raced toward the worm, one raising a mace to shatter it.
Sau'ilahk flowed rapidly along the wall, his black-cloth-wrapped hand extending toward the first dwarf's exposed back.
Left in silence, Wynn ignored Ore-Locks and the sea guardian as she lost herself in research. Switching between chest tops as a desk, she had carefully arranged every text or translation listed in the second codex all around her. Now she tried to find references to the Children, the Reverent, or the Eaters of Silence.
She struggled through ancient languages and letter systems, some too obscure to fathom more brief phrases. Others were utterly unknown, including a system of ideograms she'd never seen before. Those might've come from Li'kän, perhaps well after she was alone, drifting into madness amid isolation. But Wynn found no further mention of traitors, warlockers, those who "walked in earth," or even Bäalâle Seatt.
So why had the last been found in Chane's scroll?
Volyno's work was the easiest to read, but it held little that was useful. She often referred to notes of names taken from direct translations she'd read in the guild's catacombs. She was halfway through another book, its pages made from some thin animal skin. The content was in Iyindu, an old Sumanese dialect, so likely written by Häs'saun. Occasional words were written with characters similar to what she'd learned of Belaskian and Old Stravinan in the Farlands.
And then she stumbled upon mention of the Reverent.
That term was recorded in her notes, though this was first time she'd seen it here.
Wynn ran her fingers over the page's surface. She was holding the actual text from which that translation had been taken, containing that term and unknown names. And here were the names she'd written in the same paragraph.
Jeyretan, Fäzabid, Memaneh, Creif, Uhmgadâ, Sau'ilahk.
She still hadn't come across a clear definition for the Sâ'yminfiäl, or the Eaters of Silence. If the Children were powerful servants to the ancient enemy, the offspring of a perceived god, and the Reverent were its priests, then who or what were the Eaters of Silence? She read on and came to a passage concerning Vespana and Ga'hetman, two of the other Children. It seemed an account of a journey.
It couldn't have taken place after the Children "divided," as mentioned in the scroll. Häs'saun would've been off on his own trek, and therefore couldn't have learned the details. Wynn made out only a few terms, and quickly searched for translations from this text. There were some, but they didn't help much.
… to the west of the world's fulcrum … [symbols obscured, possible number] long nights from K'mal … Khalidah grew tiresome … though eluded the tree-born … many tainted-blood died … a few filled our ranks …
The place references were baffling, but she copied everything word for word, even the dots indicating missing or untranslated parts. Some of it was clear. "Tree-born" had to mean the elves, likely ancestors of the Lhoin'na and the an'Cróan. "Tainted-blood" might be humans, and among the dead the few who "filled our ranks" meant only one thing.
Vespana and Ga'hetman had raised them as undead.
… were one's forces over and over … by the Sâ'yminfiäl … their mad thoughts consuming weak earth-born minds … waking slumber and … the rituals of Khalidah … that trio with their twisted whispers of thought … promises and fears … the walkers in earth, guided the anchor of Earth … eating up through the mountain's root …
The pieces hinted at strange things. Wynn lingered most over mention of "walkers in earth" and "guided the anchor of Earth." The latter was baffling, perhaps some siege engine used against the seatt. Whatever it was, it seemed the Stonewalkers had aided in this. But other parts took more time to connect, and when they did, it was so much the worse.
"Oh, no, no, no," Wynn whispered, and then quickly went silent.
The rituals of Khalidah … the trio with their whispers of thought … consuming weak earth-born minds …
Wynn understood what Sâ'yminfiäl, the Eaters of Silence, meant. They were sorcerers.
A trio of them had been part of the siege upon Bäalâle Seatt, along with Vespana and Ga'hetman.
Chane had deduced that the wraith was a conjuror, so it couldn't be one of them. That meant this Khalidah wasn't the wraith. One more name had now moved to one of her three known groups, but it still left too many others unclassified. She had nothing to truly support her notion, but she felt more and more certain that the wraith had served among the Reverent.
For whatever reason, it—he—was obsessed with seeking where the thirteen Children had gone. But also, much as she was now, had it been seeking what had happened at Bäalâle Seatt?
She was onto something, but what?
Wynn returned to Häs'saun's text, struggling with an ancient dialect she hadn't mastered. Almost as cryptic and secretive as the hidden writing in Chane's scroll, what little she fathomed was often condensed. She opened her journal to entries of names taken from the translations.
Jeyretan, Fäzabid, Memaneh, Creif, Uhmgadâ, Sau'ilahk.
The wraith had to be one of them. She didn't know what use might come of knowing its name. Perhaps it was just the need to know anything, any scrap concerning her enemy. But it might also help her understand any other references to the Reverent, anything they'd done … anything the wraith knew.
She read on, catching only every third word and doubtful of her translation, but she used these to guess at the others. She came upon a strange series of fragments that seemed connected.