Of Truth and Beasts

Ghassan struggled with what he saw. In his mind, the wraith had been destroyed and was long gone. That failure now changed everything.

What did it want? If it wanted Wynn dead, she would be. Ghassan forced himself into a calmer, better-reasoning state. It must have followed her and then slipped ahead. Then a greater fear crept into his thoughts.

He had been tracking the sun crystal’s position, but that did not mean Wynn was still carrying it.

Fear turned to panic. What if someone else possessed the sun crystal, and he had been tracking the wrong person? Worse, what if he had been tracking Wynn, and the reason the crystal had stopped moving was because the wraith had killed her?

The black-robed creature began wildly searching the cavern, racing from place to place. Ghassan just watched. At the moment, there was little else he could do.

Chapter 22

Sau’ilahk raced through downed columns and all about the cavern, uncertain what to look for. Where would the orb have been hidden?

Several archways in the east wall all led to cave-ins. Flying back out, he drifted up into the heights, following the multilayered upper walkways. Nothing came of it. He began to realize that although he had reached Wynn’s destination first, he possessed no knowledge of this place. He wanted to weep when the only option taunted him.

He would have to wait on Wynn yet again.

In truth, he had no idea if she was any more informed than he. But the insipid little sage always wormed her way forward, inch by inch. The prospect of being so close and still dependent on her made him writhe.

Sau’ilahk settled to the cavern’s floor.

The dog might sense him more easily in this open place. He could not allow that, so he drifted to the cavern’s far side. Slipping behind one remaining, erect column, he peeked around its immense base.

Sau’ilahk watched the entrance, sickened by his hope that Wynn would come soon.

Ghassan closed his eyes, raising sigils amid patterns in his mind. Any noise might betray his presence to the wraith, and he focused inward. As he lifted one foot from the rubble, his will held him up, and he floated silently to the floor behind the toppled column.

Hiding was not difficult among the debris, and he slipped along to crouch behind the remains of the broad steps he had passed. Peering out, he spotted the black spirit behind another great column, but the creature’s attention appeared focused on the archway through which it had entered.

If the wraith was here, hiding and watching, it could only be waiting for Wynn. Hope fueled that belief, as Ghassan could not battle the wraith alone. He needed to stay alive to counter any further damage Wynn might unleash in coming here. Again he considered revealing himself to her if—when—she arrived.

They had confronted the wraith together once before. If he could hold it, she could burn it, but obviously that had not lasted the first time. Remaining hidden still offered the better chance of uncovering her purpose.

Without warning, the wraith began moving again. It drifted back into a passage on the cavern’s southern side. Within the span of a few breaths, Ghassan heard voices coming, and his gaze locked on the great northern archway.

Wynn stepped into a massive cavern, and her gaze slowly rose into the heights.

The dome’s sheer size and the level of destruction were overwhelming. Her companions were equally stunned. Even Ore-Locks turned in a circle, as if trying to take in everything at once. How could this enormous place not have collapsed when the mountain fell?

Chane and Shade kept close to her as they moved inward. Wynn was so mesmerized that she stepped over piles of shattered debris without seeing them.

“Look,” Chane said, pointing down. “These are better preserved.”

Not catching his meaning, Wynn glanced down.

Thick skeletal remains lay to her right, half-covered in remnants of decaying armor and corroded blades exposed by rotted sheaths. One still wore an ax on his back, and a tarnished thôrhk lay among the shattered bones of his neck. Another skeleton, perhaps a woman, lay a few paces ahead, her bones still bearing a ring with a dark blue stone and a necklace of metal loops.

As when Wynn had walked the long tunnel from the cave-in, she suffered a returning sense of loss and sorrow. The scale of death here was too much to hold in her thoughts for long, and she wondered what Ore-Locks felt—thought—standing amid what his genocidal ancestor had done here.

Did he feel anything? He appeared merely entranced by the daunting visage of this lost city of his people’s forebears.

Wynn couldn’t help asking, “How can this be intact if the entire upper peak collapsed?”

Still gazing upward, Ore-Locks answered, “We are deep ... much deeper than I realized. Thousands must have lived here, but why would so many choose to live this far down?”