Of Truth and Beasts

The black gelding nickered, and he saw that the horses had been fed and the fire was lit. He leaned down to look under the wagon. Ore-Locks’s bedroll was empty, though his iron staff still lay there. Shade growled, and Chane straightened.

Shade sniffed the air, perhaps searching for Wynn in her own way, and Chane grew tense as the dog began ranging about the camp and peering out into the dark. Had Ore-Locks decided to drag Wynn off on his own in search for the seatt? Then why leave the wagon, horses, and weapons behind? Why bother building a fire?

“Wynn!” Chane called.

His maimed voice didn’t carry far. Shade threw back her head and howled once.

“Up here!” Wynn shouted. “Come quick.”

Chane looked up and saw light above the outcrop’s top, perhaps thirty or more yards overhead. His relief faded under annoyance. What was she up to now?

He dropped the hare by the fire and ran to catch Shade scrambling up the slope along the outcrop’s southern side. When he ascended to a height where torchlight reached his eyes, Shade was beside Wynn and Ore-Locks out on the outcrop’s strangely level top. They were climbing over a pile of large stones—practically boulders—near the outcrop’s end.

Chane was about to call Wynn back, not caring what brought her up here, when Ore-Locks dropped to a crouch beside one large, erect stone.

“Get over here,” Wynn called, waving.

Exasperated, Chane stepped outward, but his curiosity did not take hold until Ore-Locks stood back up. The stone next to the dwarf was about his height and half that in width. Roughly weathered, it seemed too square. It was raggedly sheared at an angle, as if it had once been quite tall, but had broken off.

“What is it?” Chane asked.

Neither Wynn nor Ore-Locks answered at first. Perhaps they had not yet discussed this.

“A pylon?” Wynn suggested. “Like the ones in Dhredze Seatt, used to show directions?”

Uncertain as he was, her notion made him uncomfortable. By its worn and shattered state, it was very old, perhaps ancient.

“Why?” Ore-Locks ventured, for once so focused that he seemed open to discussion. “My people do not need pylons outside our own seatt.”

“Unless ...” Wynn began, “unless it’s from a time when there was more than one seatt.”

Ore-Locks’s frown began to fade. “Or when more of my people once traveled well-used ways.”

Reluctantly, Chane asked, “Is there writing?”

Wynn and Ore-Locks exchanged a look, and then both crouched and pawed at the erect stone’s surface.

Chane hoped they found nothing—hoped Wynn might have grown weary by now and notions of giving up were in the back of her mind. When they reached the great range, and perhaps after days and nights on foot in those peaks with no sign of a “fallen mountain,” he might finally take her home to relative safety. There were fewer threats that would risk following her among her own kind.

“Here!” she breathed.

That one word almost extinguished Chane’s hope. Ore-Locks crouched beside Wynn near the squared stone’s base.

“Can you feel them?” Wynn asked. “There’s not much, but these might be worn traces of old engravings.”

“Perhaps,” Ore-Locks said at first. “Perhaps, yes ... yes.”

He rose again, torch in hand, and peered southward in the direction of the stone’s face. Wynn looked up at him, her dust-smudged face faintly hopeful.

“This must mean we’re on the right track,” she said.

Ore-Locks tilted his head, appearing thoughtful now. “If the seatt is on the range’s southern side, this marker is much too far away. Pylons, as you call them, point to the next closest location or subsequent marker in the direction from an engraved surface.”

“Like what?” she asked.

Ore-Locks fell silent for a moment. “Perhaps the seatt is not as far as we thought.”

“No, it has to be on the far side. Its name is derivative of an old desert language.”

Ore-Locks paused, as if uncertain. “Then a way station ... perhaps.”

Chane’s discomfort increased.

Wynn stood up. “A what?”

“A land-level entrance to a seatt or its settlements,” Ore-Locks continued. “Like those of my people’s stronghold, Dhredze Seatt.”

“A passage?” Wynn asked. “All the way through the range to a seatt? That’s not possible even for your people.”

Ore-Locks gazed southward. “Something is out there, along our path.”

He strode off past Chane and down the sheer slope. As Wynn passed, following the dwarf, Chane saw thoughts working hard upon her face. He just stood there, tired and frustrated, as Shade passed him, as well. When he turned to follow, Shade had paused at where the overhang met the slope.

Her ears pricked up and she stood rigid, facing northward.

Chane tried to follow Shade’s gaze but saw nothing. The rushing night breeze made it impossible to pick up a scent. Then he heard a low rustling in the scant trees. A low branch swayed, but nothing came bustling out. Shade had likely sensed a hare or perhaps a thrush attracted by the torchlight.

“Come,” he said.

Shade scurried off downslope, and Chane climbed down. When he reached camp, he went straight for the fire to skin and spit the hare.