“No, I cannot make the crystal drive us, but this crystal may still absorb and reflect the power of another.”
Chane did not follow the dwarf’s intention. He watched as Ore-Locks laid the large crystal on a bare section of the platform at the cart’s front, and then lashed it in place with a length of rope from his sack.
“What are you planning to do?” Chane asked.
Ore-Locks reached out to Wynn. “Give me your crystal.”
With some hesitation, she passed it off to him.
“Step back,” he said.
Ore-Locks looked away from the engine crystal and touched it with Wynn’s cold lamp crystal.
Light instantly exploded from the front of the cart, illuminating a good distance down the track. Chane put his hand up to shield his eyes, and he pushed Wynn behind the cart, out of the engine crystal’s sightline.
“Your sage’s crystal does not provide enough light for safe travel with speed,” Ore-Locks said. “The larger crystal can amplify its light, with the cart’s box shielding us in back from too much glare.”
“Good,” Wynn said, nodding. “Chane, can you pump this cart?”
He could, but his despair began growing again.
“We will take shifts,” Ore-Locks said.
His sudden willingness to work together only irritated Chane. The dwarf was nothing if not single-minded.
“Shade, up,” Wynn said, tossing her pack into the walled box and climbing onto the platform. “Chane, we can put your packs and our supplies here in the box.”
With one final, accusing glance at Chane, Shade jumped aboard after Wynn. Chane began passing blankets and water to Wynn. Every action, every movement, felt wrong, and as Shade blamed him, he could not help but blame Ore-Locks.
Wynn had both a route and means of transport beneath the range.
Nothing would make her turn back now.
Sau’ilahk had come to depend more and more on the elves who followed Wynn. No one in their group was able to sense his presence, yet they had their own method of tracking that had proven more than adequate so far.
Although he longed to feed on them, he had come to view their presence as necessary. They served him unwittingly, and he never needed to risk exposure. In the foothills with all the outcrops, trees, and brush, it was never difficult for him to hide close to them and listen without being detected. But his confidence in their abilities fell apart as they dismounted their horses and stood beside Wynn’s empty, abandoned wagon.
Chuillyon picked up an empty harness, his face filling with confusion.
“You saw nothing?” he asked Hannâschi.
“No.” She shook her head, equally troubled. “When I arrived, they were gone. Their horses were still here, set loose. All their belongings but the chest and tents are missing, and I could find no sign of the journeyor or her companions.”
Sau’ilahk longed to kill them all right now. How could they let Wynn slip away?
Tall Shâodh approached the slope, his dirty cloak swinging over the top of his boots.
“It is clear they entered the mountains,” he said, and turned about. “Will we do the same?”
His tone was almost challenging.
“Of course,” Chuillyon answered. “Can you sense for their life shadows again?”
Sau’ilahk had become familiar with the abilities of these elves. He was not surprised when Shâodh turned to face the slope and closed his eyes, chanting softly under his breath. He stood there for long moments, and then raised one slender hand.
“There,” he said quietly, pointing upslope and to the right.
It seemed Shâodh could sense the lingering tendrils of life and was capable of separating people from wildlife. At least he was doing something.
Sau’ilahk remained hidden behind an outcrop near the bottom of the pass as he watched all three elves begin to climb. It felt too long before he heard Hannâschi’s voice echo down the slope.
“Look, Domin! A path.”
He longed to blink up beside them, but there was little cover where they stood. Soon they started off again, snaking and curving up the mountain until he lost sight of them.
Sau’ilahk allowed himself to fall slightly dormant, to dematerialize and blink up the mountain. At first, he could not see them, but he heard voices again. He drifted ever so cautiously around the sharp slant of a sheer cliff face.
The last of the three elves was disappearing into the brush at the base of the cliff wall.
When they did not come out, anxiety began to trickle through Sau’ilahk. Rather than blink into the unknown, he drifted nearer, slowly following where he had seen the elves vanish. Within moments, he found himself looking out of a tunnel into a vast cavern with dead crystals lining the upper walls.
The elves were crossing the cavern, looking about in wonder. A large, open archway filled a good section of the far wall. The three were debating something, but Sau’ilahk had missed the first part.
“We cannot leave the horses saddled down there,” Hannâschi said. “And we need what is left of our supplies.”
“Go quickly,” Chuillyon answered. “We cannot let the journeyor get too far ahead.”
“I will go,” Shâodh said.
Before the slender elf came straight toward Sau’ilahk, he blinked out, focusing on the archway at the vast cavern’s far side. He was not at all surprised when he rematerialized and hurried onward to find a tram platform.
His anxiety changed to hope. Wynn had found an ancient tram station on this side of the range, but did it lead to the seatt? He dared not believe it yet. He had been disappointed too many times.
Drifting past the tram, he spotted an old metal pump cart out on the tracks, and he stilled his mind to listen. Far ahead, he could hear the rhythmic creak of heavy wheels in the tunnel’s stone grooves for tracks. Wynn was already well ahead, leaving the elves behind.
Sau’ilahk glanced back, hearing Chuillyon’s muffled voice in the tunnel leading to the tram station. He no longer needed these elves, and Shâodh was outside. Could he risk attacking the girl and the old elf to replenish himself before going after Wynn?
He remembered how Chuillyon alone had almost bested him once in Dhredze Seatt. He might spend more energy than he gained, and even in hunger, it was not wise to take such risks when he was so close to victory.
Sau’ilahk turned back toward the tracks in one last instant of indecision. Then he blinked down the tunnel after the sound of those wheels in the deep stone tracks.
Ghassan il’Sänke was not a man easily disheartened. But day after day, night after night, of searching this fallen mountain for an entrance had left him questioning his abilities. In addition, he’d been tracking Wynn’s rough position. By her distance from him, she had to be inside the range. Although she had a long way to go before reaching this side of the mountains, she was moving more rapidly than he thought possible. How was the question he could not answer.
Tonight he searched the upper regions of the mountain’s northern base, stopping once for a supper of flatbread—which was almost gone. He should have been glad for anything to eat out here, but when closing his eyes, all he saw were lamb kebabs, honeyed yams, and herbed rice. He had been away from home for so long now.
Ghassan was also not a man given to any kind of sentiment, but he could not help missing his rooms at the Suman guild, eating properly prepared food, and partaking of the companionship of his peers there. He had been too long among the Numans, with their tasteless vegetable stews and open, unguarded chatter.
And now he was alone, sitting on a fallen mountain, and looking for a way inside.
He shook his head, admonishing himself. His task to intercept Wynn, to learn what she was doing, took precedence over everything.