Of Truth and Beasts

She walked a wide, cleared path between calcified, shadowy forms. A hulking stalagmite rose from the cavern floor, thick and fat all the way up to head height. Others were joined at the upper end by descending stalactites, forming natural, lumpy columns that glistened with mineral-laden moisture. But in the dim phosphorescence of the walls, some forms looked too big and bulky to have been made only by calcified buildup. To an unknowing observer, they might have been boulders at one time, now buried beneath decades of crust.

Wynn knew exactly what those protrusions were. She stood in the chambers of the honored dead, as she once had in Dhredze Seatt. This was where dead thänæ were entombed in stone, to be tended in eternal rest by the Stonewalkers of this lost seatt.

Ore-Locks glanced at only a few of the lone stone protrusions in this first cave. He moved to a nearby opening and stepped off the open path and into the next shadowed forest of such formations. Wynn followed, watching as he examined each one with a kind of mania before rushing for the next.

“What is he doing?” Chane asked. “Has he gone mad?”

“Shhhh,” Wynn said. “Those aren’t just mounds of calcified stone.”

She didn’t know why the Stonewalkers wouldn’t allow bright light in these caves. They seemed to think it would disturb the dead they cared for. Wynn spread her fingers, letting just a little of her crystal’s light seep out.

“Look,” she told Chane, and he leaned in.

The top of one glistening stone protrusion narrowed over rounded “shoulders” to a bulk like a “head.” This one had melded to the tip of a long, descending stalactite. The hints of features, like the face of a sculpture roughly formed and left unfinished, were barely visible in the light of Wynn’s crystal.

The long-dead thänæ’s eyes seemed closed, but there was no way to be certain.

Wynn couldn’t tell if it was male or female. Its clothing was nothing more than the barest ripples in the glittering layers of minerals. The buildup had turned its hands into lumps. She glanced at other dark shapes about the cave’s silent stillness.

“Honored thänæ, taken into stone,” she whispered. “We are standing among the dead of a forgotten time.”

No coffins or crypts. The Stonewalkers—the Hassäg’kreigi—entombed their most honored in stone itself. Left here for a thousand years or more, they became one with the earth their people cherished.

Chane backed up, looking all around without blinking.

Wynn knew he didn’t fear the dead. He too had stood in those caves in Dhredze Seatt.

Chane’s eyes suddenly widened. “One has been shattered!”

He rushed off the path.

When Wynn caught up, he was crouched over fragments at the base of one form. She froze at the sight of this desecration. From the size of the pieces lying all around, the dwarf had been large—tall—and the broken bits had been there long enough to bond to the cave floors.

She shook her head in sadness. Who would do such a thing, and why? There was no way to know, and she gripped her crystal tighter, peering about for Ore-Locks.

He still wove between the lumpy columns, studying every calcified thänæ he could find.

“What are you doing?” Wynn called to him.

Instead of answering, he broke into a jog and ran into the cave’s wall.

Wynn stiffened, and then heard his heavy footfalls echoing through the caves. Shade took off toward another opening.

“Ore-Locks!” Wynn cried, following Shade’s lead.

The next cave held only a few calcified forms. Ore-Locks was already running for another wall, his face twisted in urgency. Wynn started after him, but Shade barked.

Still moving, Wynn glanced back in frustration. “What?”

“Perhaps she has dipped into his memories,” Chane said.

Wynn stopped cold, though Chane went on to peek into the next cave.

Shade padded closer, and Wynn dropped to one knee. She touched Shade’s face, feeling bad for having snapped at the dog. In her own mania to catch Ore-Locks, she’d forgotten Shade’s ways.

“Sorry,” she said softly, closing her eyes.

An image of darkness filled her mind instantly. One of her own memories began to return....

She held a cold lamp crystal out before a figure of stone, carved almost like an upright coffin, but with an engraving inside a raised, oblong panel about chest level. She traced the engraved markings with her finger.

... outcast of stone ... deceiver of honored dead ... ender of heritage ... the seatt killer ...

She reached the bottom—a final vubrí.

Thallûhearag—the Lord of Slaughter.

Shade had taken her back to the Chamber of the Fallen at Dhredze Seatt, those counterparts to the dwarven Eternals. Reviled for their rejection of dwarven virtues, their faceless effigies, chiseled in the form of iron-banded coffins, were locked away in the deepest place. One was worse than all others, and secreted in a small chamber of its own.

Inside the memory, Shade began to snarl.