The Dreaming Hunt (43 page)

“Heads up,” Rynn interrupted. “We have company.” The paxan settled into a fighting stance in front of Will, his crystal-encased hands and forearms relaxed in front of his body.

There was precious little room to fight on these narrow stairs. If they were not extremely careful, someone was going to be pitched off the cliff to his or her death.

“What in the name of the Guardian of the Cliff are you people doing out here on the Steps on a terrible day like this?” a male voice demanded indignantly from beyond Rynn.

A short, stout human stood before them, squinting up the stairs at them through the rain.

“You'll fall to your deaths, for sure. Come in from the rain already and take the inside passage. Bunch of cursed fools.”

Rynn glanced questioningly over his shoulder at Will, who shrugged in return. An inside passage sounded promising. Anything was better than continuing down these wet, slippery steps as the storm worsened around them.

About a dozen steps farther down the cliff, an opening loomed, leading into the cliff face. Rynn ducked through the low opening first, and Will followed suit. The party crowded into a relatively dry cave and shook the rain off like a bunch of dogs. The man who had led them in squawked as water flew in all directions and removed his cloak, revealing a purple-and-black tabard bearing the double mountain insignia of the Imperial Miner's Guild.

Rynn unobtrusively slipped his concealing circlet over his third eye then gestured at Raina. “This is Initiate Raina of the White Heart, and we are her escort.”

“And where might you be bound, White Heart? There are precious few people in these parts in need of your particular services. These here are the wilds, in case you hadn't noticed.”

“That fact had not escaped my attention,” Raina replied courteously, smiling. “I am on a journey of exploration. To that end, I am desirous of obtaining passage across the Estarran Sea to find out what lies beyond.”

“Bah. Nothing worth your time lies over there. Just the odd settlement and a few bands of wild greenskins.”

“As a White Heart member, greenskins fall within my area of duty,” she replied gently.

Another grunt. “Waste of good healing, if you ask me.”

Will was faintly surprised that Raina refrained from pointing out tartly that, in fact, she had not asked for the man's opinion.

He looked around the cave curiously. A half dozen passageways delved deeper into the cliff, and their guide lead them toward the leftmost one. They paused to light torches they took from a basket sitting by the entrance to the tunnel and then proceeded downward on another set of steps much like those outside. Except of course, these steps were dry and did not offer the thrill of potentially falling to one's grisly death with a single misstep.

From time to time, a vein of pearlescent white shot through the dark gray of the walls, and as torchlight caught its surface a rainbow of colors shimmered in the translucent substance. Will restrained an urge to reach out and caress the beautiful stone.

After they'd been descending for perhaps five minutes, Raina stopped abruptly, frowning, and reached for yet another vein of that beautiful opalescent stone, laying her palm flat upon the rock wall and tilting her head to listen.

Rynn asked her, “What do you hear? Is it the voices again?”

Hear? Stone did not speak
. Will frowned back and forth between the pair.

“Whispers,” she answered. “Voices whose words I cannot quite make out. They … reverberate. Like echoes.”

Rynn stepped near her and reached out with both hands to place them on either side of her head. His fingertips rested on her temples. “Do not try to understand the individual words. Let the greater meaning unfold as it wills, and do not fight it. Just let whatever comes, come.”

She nodded between his hands, her frown easing slowly. What was that all about? She was hearing voices now? That could not be good. The last thing they needed was for her to go mad on them. He should know.

The party continued on.

The tunnel eventually opened into a huge chamber. A half dozen cottages would have easily fit within the confines of this soaring space. A collection of tables and benches tucked into one corner held a cluster of men who appeared to be chatting and drinking ales. A tavern, mayhap?

A line of men covered in stone dust, bearing axes and picks over their shoulders, clumped across the chamber and headed down one of many side passageways. Several of them wore Miner's Guild colors or insignia. The group was mainly different kinds of dwarves and humans.

“Where are you folks headed?” their guide asked.

Will and the others traded flummoxed looks among themselves, and Raina dived in to answer, “We'd like to go to the dock. I really do want to obtain passage across the sea.”

“Well, then, you'll need to head down thataway.” He pointed at a passage across the space. “But I would not go down there if I were you. Past these upper levels, lizardmen have been attacking the miners ever since we opened up an area of old caves. Them bug eaters seem to think they have some sacred right to them. They're demanding that we vacate all the caves they say is their ancestral places. Which is poppycock. They just want the rich veins of ore we struck. This whole cliff belongs to the Empire, it do.” He spat scornfully.

Sha'Li had gone very, very still. Both Eben and Rynn moved closer to her, presumably to hold her back if she should attack.

The man continued heedlessly, “Making the Merr plenty mad, too, those lizardmen are. Had a few skirmishes between 'em, but for the most part, they's just spittin' and steerin' clear of one another. It ain't no fit place for a buncha kids to venture, White Heart colors or no. Best you stay out of the rest o' the mine altogether,” he warned.

“But we need to cross the sea as soon as possible,” Raina explained.

The miner shrugged. “If you get ambushed by lizardmen, no miners nor Merr will come to save you from those filthy greenskins.”

Will heard the hiss from Sha'Li and the telltale slither of her claws starting to slip out of her fists. “Easy,” he breathed at her.

The guide turned his back and stomped away to join the other miners in the makeshift tavern.

Rynn's eyesight was the best, so he went first into the darkness. Sha'Li went second. Forewarned of possible trouble, they moved slowly, easing downward into the bowels of the cliff. The passageway narrowed, and the stone changed down here. The walls were rougher, as if this was an active mine that had not finished being worked. They had just reached one of the wide landings marking a switchback in the tunnel when, without warning, a half dozen green lizardmen burst around the corner brandishing weapons. Rosana screamed a little, and even Will jolted at the creatures' sudden appearance.

“Our mines these be. Intruders you are. Leave at once or die.”

Sha'Li pushed forward, elbowing Rynn aside. “Name thy clutch,” she demanded truculently.

Hisses issued from the lizardmen's throats, and their spears lifted menacingly. But then one of them raised his torch high, and Sha'Li's black scales glistened like polished obsidian in the firelight. “Black Clan. White Tribe,” he breathed.

All the lizardmen's torches lifted up high. They stared as if they had seen a ghost.

“Vouch for these others, do you, tribe warrior?”

“Aye. Vouch for them I do,” Sha'Li replied.

And just like that, the lizardmen lowered both their torches and their weapons as meek as lambs. “The Elder will want to speak with you. Come with us.”

They turned off the main tunnel and plunged deeper into the mountain. The passageway became rough, narrow, and dank. No way could Will work in these conditions every day. As it was, the weight of the mountain pressing in on him was making him intensely uncomfortable.

The lizardmen led them to a domed chamber cut out of the rock. He would have called it low and wide were the scale of the place not so large. The floor and walls were black stone and carved with long rows of intricate scribbles that looked like no writing he'd ever seen before. One of these leaped out at him, though. He saw it every day on Sha'Li's face. The Tribe of the Moon symbol.

Interspersed among the scribbles were pictorial panels carved with incredible detail. Most of the panels seemed to deal with a war between Merr and lizardmen followed by a reconciliation and peace between the two races. But among those, he spied a panel depicting what looked like a human woman before and after transforming into a werewolf.

Raina stopped in front of a panel showing an elf wielding a great longbow. “Who is this?” she asked their escorts.

One of the lizardmen glanced over his shoulder at the bas-relief. “The wielding of the Eliassan Strongbow that shows. The bow of an ancient warrior it was. Brought out in times of war by elves, for fires true it always does.”

Will took a hard look at the bow. Stout and nearly as tall as the elf wielding it, that strong bow would take a strong man, indeed, to pull it, let alone fire it with any accuracy. Raina was concentrating fiercely on the carving as if memorizing every detail of the weapon and the elven warrior firing it. Did she think that might be Gawaine's missing bow?

Black stone benches rose from the floor of the cave in a huge circle, carved as part of its creation, apparently, and a fire burned sluggishly in the shallow depression inside the circle. They were waved over to the benches, and room was made for them to sit. As he took his place on a bench, Will noted fine golden veins running through the stone. It looked like the same stone the wedge in the Haelan legion armory had been carved from.

“What stone is this?” he murmured to Sha'Li.

“Nullstone.”

He'd heard of it before. It had the power to absorb magic and was impervious to the effects of magic. It was said to be so hard as to be nearly unworkable, though. Legend had it that the rokken dwarves had been masters at mining and carving it. The modern Miner's Guild tightly controlled every sliver of the stuff these days. Gads. And these lizardmen sat in an entire cave made of it.

The lizardmen around them were several different colors, which surprised Will. He'd thought they were all green. He asked low, “Eben, are the different colors in their skin similar to the differences in yours?”

The jann shrugged.

Rynn piped up with, “Different clans have different colorations. Whether that indicates some sort of elemental alignment, I could not say. However, red lizardmen come from the hot, dry places, and blue lizardmen came from deep, open water. They've been mostly eradicated by the Merr.”

At the name of their enemy, hisses rose from the numerous lizardmen loitering in the chamber. They all looked as if they were waiting for something. And, indeed, a moment later, a new lizardman entered the space from another tunnel and made his way to the circle of stone benches.

As he approached the fire, Will saw that this one was actually brown in color, although as the flames caught his scales, a metallic glow closer to tarnished brass glinted. He looked old, although how he got that impression, Will couldn't exactly say—maybe the slow, stiff way he moved or the discoloration around his mouth and eyes.

The newcomer zeroed in on Sha'Li and sank to the bench beside her. “Welcome are you among us, sister.”

“What place is this?” she asked the old one.

“Clutching ground of our ancient ancestors this is.”

“Honored are we to be invited in,” Sha'Li said formally.

Will looked around with fresh interest. How ancient were these ancestors of which the bronze lizardman spoke? Rumor had it that lizardmen were descended from dragons, but rumor also had it that dragon ancestry was a lie to try to gain social standing. Would that this actually was a dragon clutching ground. How many humans could claim to have seen one of those?

“What, tell me can you, of yon tribe symbol on the wall?” Sha'Li asked.

Going straight to the point, was she? Raised around his elven mother, Will was used to a fair bit of small talk before the real subject of any conversation came up. Not much for social niceties, these lizardmen.

“Ancient is that symbol. Carved by early members of the tribe chosen by Lunimar himself. With magic it is imbued. Yon panel shows Lyssa Wolfsong in her transformation to Lunimar's Gifted.”

“Never have I seen so much nullstone in one place,” Sha'Li said in wonder that mirrored Will's.

“Touched by a dragon's breath were these walls and hence formed the stone. Great and magical is the breath of our ancestors.”

“Still active is the magic in the stones, then?” Sha'Li responded eagerly.

“Aye.”

If Will was not mistaken, that was a warning tone the old bronze one had used, as if steering Sha'Li away from asking any more questions about the chamber and its symbols' magic.

“Of Tribe of the Moon and our kind, what can you tell me?”

“Many are we within tribe. Ancient is our kinship, one to another. Rare, however, is your white mark. Hatched have many clutches since seen has been that color. A sign it may be, that back is the white magic of your kind.”

“What does it do?” Sha'Li asked eagerly.

“For healing does white magic stand. Purification and renewal its gifts are said to be.”

“Bah,” Sha'Li burst out, the ridge of scales along the back of her neck and over her head rising. “For combat raised and trained was I.”

The old one shrugged. “And yet, white marked you be. With healers and warriors surround yourself you do. Like wolves and lambs, sharks and seals, always has it been. Giving of life and taking of life, together exist side by side. Both healer and warrior you may be.”

Sha'Li subsided. After a pause, she asked, “How for this white mark was I chosen?”

“By your actions are you known.”

Something in Will prompted him to speak up. “Actually, it's by her heart that she is known to us as our friend. And she is a credit to your race.”