Of Truth and Beasts

Those words couldn’t have come from the monster in the tunnel. They were just part of this memory. What was it that had come to this place? What spoke to this stonewalker?

“By our blood, remember me,” she—he—whispered. “But once you leave here, never speak my name again. By our blood, I bind you to this ... let me be forgotten by all.”

Shock rose on the brother’s face as he shook his head in disbelief. The instant he opened his mouth to speak, the stonewalker turned.

Wynn saw the wall coming at her as he raced toward it, into it. She remembered why that first, suffocating blackness felt like it had entombed her. Stonewalkers could move through anything of earth and stone. But even that didn’t silence the gale whispers inside of him, inside of her.

She didn’t want to see anymore. But as he raced through open tunnels, passages, and chambers, she couldn’t look away or close her—his—eyes.

He never paused, always running for the next wall, but Wynn saw things ... heard things. Between the silence and blackness of each dive into stone, wails of manic fear and rage echoed in every space.

Two dwarven women tore at each other until one ripped the other’s throat open with her bare hands. She’d barely let the body fall when she whirled toward a male with his back turned. She threw herself at him, her stained hands reaching around to tear at his face.

A young female shoved an old man aside as they both tried to get through a door. She slammed it shut in his face, though he pounded on it as the sound of heavy boots closed upon him.

A red-spattered warrior beat upon the fallen with his mace, shrieking at them to get away or he would kill them all. They were already dead, mangled beyond recognition, yet he wouldn’t stop.

A silent dwarven child felt her way along a wall. She couldn’t see because of the blood running out of her hair and into her eyes.

At the center of a large chamber filled with tables and stools, an elder male crouched upon a greeting-house dais. He rocked slowly, whispering to himself as if in prayer ... and then he laughed in hysteria as his gaze flitted about at nothing.

The blackness of stone came again and again. Each time, Wynn wished it would be the last.

Let her stay in that cold, encasing darkness, where she—he—would see nothing ever again. She didn’t want to know more of the madness, the whispers, waiting with each return of dim light. When it came again, she would’ve whimpered if she’d had her own voice.

And the stonewalker halted.

It was darker here than any other place, even more than the home of his brother. It was almost quiet, except for a pounding in his ears. Wynn didn’t want him to turn around, but he did.

A great archway filled her sight. Its double doors were shut, sealed with an iron bar that rotated on a rivet larger than her arm. It wasn’t broken like the last time she’d seen it. The muted rumbling of thunder reverberated through those doors.

There were people out there, on the other side, pounding to get in.

“What are you doing?”

At that menacing whisper, the stonewalker grabbed for both blades on his belt. As he twisted around, Wynn saw immense, dark forms in the hall. Great silhouettes of statues reached toward a ceiling lost in the pitch-black heights. Three each lined the hall’s longer walls, and Wynn knew where she was. She was still in Bäalâle, in its hall of the Eternals, but not as she’d found it. It was whole, as if from another time, long ago. A flickering light caught her eye, and she—he—watched an approaching flame.

That torch’s light illuminated the bearer’s reddened face of broad features and gray beard. His eyes were so wide, the whites showed all around his black-pellet irises. Firelight glinted on the steel tips of his black-scaled armor.

The old one was another stonewalker.

“You would let them in!” he accused.

“No ... not anymore,” Wynn answered in the deep, masculine voice.

“Liar!” the other hissed, and his free hand dropped to a dagger’s hilt. “Where have you been? To your prattling brother?”

Wynn didn’t answer, but felt her—his—grip tighten on the hilt of his battle dagger.

“Is that how it started?” the old stonewalker whispered, creeping forward. “All of them turning against us, once the siege began. What deceits did you spit into the people’s ears ... through your brother?”

And the whisper gale rose again.

... no one left to trust ... never turn your back ... they are coming for you ...

His hand slipped from the dagger’s hilt. Wynn felt pain as the young stonewalker slapped the side of his own head. The leaf-wing rose instantly, its voice too loud over the gale of whispers.

Listen only to me—cling only to me.

Its crackling skitter smothered all thoughts from Wynn’s awareness.

“No ...” the young stonewalker moaned. His other hand slapped his skull as he shouted, “Leave me be!”

“Leave you be?” hissed the elder, almost in puzzlement.