Of Truth and Beasts

It could only be Chuillyon and his companions. An overwhelming hunger flooded Sau’ilahk. Feeding upon Wynn was the only greater pleasure he could imagine than draining the old elf’s life. But he could not lose Wynn now.

Sau’ilahk rushed back to the portal archway and saw her light far down the passage. 

Ghassan peered out from hiding. Once again, he could almost not believe his eyes. Three elves in travel attire stepped through the hall’s broken doors. The oldest of them led the way, followed by a tall, younger male and a beautiful female.

Ghassan fixed on the leader. He had seen that one many times whenever Duchess Reine of the royal house of Malourné had come visiting at the guild branch of Calm Seatt. He had heard the old one’s name mentioned once or twice, and he tried to remember.

Chuillyon? What was an advisor to the royals doing in Bäalâle Seatt? It was certainly no coincidence.

“Look at their size,” the woman breathed, gazing up at the massive statues. Beautiful as she was, she looked thin and exhausted, nothing like the hardened traveler Wynn had become.

Ghassan spoke Elvish well enough, and hoped he might learn more than expressed awe over the work of ancient dwarven artisans.

“This way,” the younger male said, heading for the open portal.

Chuillyon slowed, glancing back at the hall’s right end. He finally nodded and continued on with the others. The trio passed through the portal.

Ghassan exhaled in frustration. He now had more than one interloper between himself and Wynn.

Chane kept close as Wynn followed Ore-Locks. He gauged that they had gone down another two levels before the passage stopped at another sealed portal. There had been no further side passages along the way. Chane had a strange feeling that they had reached the end of their long descent, though he could not fathom why.

Perhaps it was the look of finality on Ore-Locks’s face as the dwarf hesitated before that portal.

“What’s wrong?” Wynn asked.

“Nothing,” Ore-Locks answered.

The dwarf passed through the iron and, within seconds, the familiar grinding sound began.

Chane had not expressed his suspicions aloud, like Wynn, but he had become increasingly wary. Ore-Locks seemed to know exactly where to go and the correct sequences to open all portals. It was too easy, too convenient.

As the last of the triple iron panels slid into the arch’s frame, Chane pushed past Wynn, stepping inside another great hall. But he instantly spotted its difference.

In place of the stone effigies there were huge basalt likenesses of coffins sealed with carved representations of iron bands. Chane knew where Ore-Locks had brought them, for he had been in a similar chamber below Dhredze Seatt.

This was another chamber of the Lhärgnæ ... the Fallen Ones.

Chane hung back, blocking Wynn’s entry, until Ore-Locks moved off. When he glanced back, Wynn was peeking around him. She paled at the sight of those basalt coffins.

He finally stepped forward, noticing that this chamber was in even worse shape than the hall of the Bäynæ. The left and right end walls each bore the same strange breach he had seen above—except the one on the left was wide, and the one on the right was taller and slightly narrower.

Though the stone coffin effigies were at least three times the size of those in Dhredze Seatt, two showed multiple fractures, and a third was half-shattered into chunks that lay across the floor. Again, there were fewer of them than in Dhredze Seatt.

Chane walked farther in, looking for any passage to another chamber or hall where one more effigy might have been set apart. There were no openings. They had truly reached a dead end. He turned to find Wynn examining the engraved, oblong panel on a basalt coffin. Her brow crinkled as if in deep concentration or thought.

Chane could guess at her concern.

She had followed Ore-Locks into the bowels of this dead seatt, and not a single clue or hint to the orb’s whereabouts had been uncovered. Instead, they stood in this last hall, in the Chamber of the Fallen, with nowhere left to go.

“The symbols are worn, old, and hard to comprehend,” she whispered. “But I’ve made out their titles, at least.”

“Is Avarice here?” he asked.

Avarice was one of the Fallen Ones who she had learned of at Dhredze Seatt in tales of Feather-Tongue’s exploits.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “He must have come later.”

Ore-Locks had not bothered even glancing at the coffins. He stood before the wider breach in the hall’s left end, looking into it. Then he walked the hall’s length, as if to do the same at the other end. Wynn watched his every step.

Her eyes turned so bleak, Chane could barely stand to look at them.

“It’s not here,” Wynn said, her voice breaking with sudden catches. “The orb isn’t here ... and there’s no place left to go. Perhaps it was hidden somewhere above, or worse, in the upper levels, buried where I cannot find it.” She closed her eyes, leaking tears. “I’ve lost.”