Six effigies stood in the hall, three lining each longest wall, but as with much of this seatt, Wynn was struck first by their sheer size. All of them were at least twice the height of Feather-Tongue’s effigy at Dhredze Seatt. Even with her crystal, she could barely make out their heads high above in the dark.
She glanced at a large breach in the hall’s right end, but then turned back to staring at the titanic stone statues. She and Ore-Locks both walked farther into the hall’s center for a better look.
“The hall of Eternals,” Wynn whispered.
“And these are all in one place,” Ore-Locks added hoarsely.
In Dhredze Seatt, each Bäynæ had its own temple, except for the three warrior Eternals, who shared one temple.
“The main tunnel down connected directly to the passage leading here,” Wynn noted. “This hall must have been open to the entire seatt.” Then something else occurred to her. “Only six here?” she wondered aloud. “There are nine in Dhredze.”
Ore-Locks appeared as perplexed as she was.
“I will start seeking an exit,” he said.
Again, he turned away, as if the effigies suddenly no longer mattered. He walked over to stand between the nearest two.
Wynn felt Shade press against her thigh, but she watched Ore-Locks. For the first time, it dawned on her that he’d led them directly down here, and yet he’d never been here before. He was doing everything she asked, but always leading them. Was it her purpose that brought them here or his?
Ore-Locks rounded an effigy’s base that was taller than his head and disappeared along the far wall. Wynn turned to quietly tell Chane her concerns, but he wasn’t there.
Chane stood back by the broken doors, studying them, and Wynn hurried to join him.
Upon entering the hall of immense statues, Chane had looked for one without even thinking. Among the six present, none looked like the figure of Feather-Tongue that he knew. Perhaps that dwarven Eternal had been born after the war, lived in the aftermath, and was unknown among either Thänæ or Bäynæ in earlier times.
From what Chane fathomed, Feather-Tongue had been a scholar of the world rather than choosing to stay in any one place to teach. Perhaps he had gone among the scattered dwarves who had escaped Bäalâle, offering his tales and lessons. Somehow, he had proven himself worthy enough to be remembered and been elevated to Bäynæ.
Chane put that puzzle aside, for he had greater concerns. Control over Wynn’s safety seemed to be slipping away with every step. While she studied the effigies, he went to the hall’s far right end, looking into the wall’s great gash.
A raw shaft went straight down, too dark and deep for his crystal’s light to reveal the bottom. It may have always been there inside the stone and was only exposed when the wall had collapsed inward. But though rough surfaced, it seemed too round to be a natural rift. Why would dwarves excavate a vertical passage of such size, leave it unfinished and unusable, only to be exposed by the breach?
Chane turned next to studying the entrance doors. The hall was reasonably intact, so what had broken them? One leaned against the archway’s edge, while the other had been knocked outward into the tunnel, its great hinges ripped from the frame stones. The remains of a rotating iron bar, nearly as thick as his thigh, was still bolted to the door. Clearly, this entrance had been sealed from the inside.
Half the bar was gone, shorn off near the center spin point. Glancing around, Chane spotted the missing half tucked in against the outer tunnel’s wall base. His brows knitted.
The cataclysm might have caused some damage here, but judging by the doors’ inner hinges and that bar, they would have more likely fallen inward. Yet there was the sheared bar lying in the outer tunnel, as if the hinges had been ripped from the stone as the door was forced outward.
“Chane.”
He looked back to find Wynn hurrying over, with Shade trailing her.
“Where is Ore-Locks?” he asked.
She pointed. “He headed off behind that statue, looking for a way onward.” Then she leaned closer, lowering her voice. “Does it feel like he led us here, like he knew where he was going?”
Wynn watched him expectantly.
“That is not possible,” he answered, though doubt crept in. The dwarf had brought them directly to this hall.
“Is he leading us where he wants to go?” Wynn asked, not letting the notion drop. “Does he know more than he’s told us ... perhaps even about the orb?”
Chane had never truly cared what Ore-Locks wanted here. It had sometimes seemed the dwarf simply wished to know if the seatt was just a myth or if anything could be learned of his long-dead ancestor. It had not occurred to Chane that Ore-Locks might also be seeking the orb.
If so, Wynn was in more danger than Chane had thought. His first instinct was to take her from here, by force if necessary. But she would never forgive him.
“If he knows ... anything,” Wynn continued, “all the more reason to follow him, since I don’t know where to look.”
Shade growled in obvious disagreement, but Wynn turned and headed toward the effigies.
Chane checked both his swords for a smooth draw before hurrying after her. At the first sign of treachery, he would take Ore-Locks suddenly, killing the dwarf before he could react. That would end this foolish exploit.
“Ore-Locks,” Wynn called.
“Here.”
They rounded the last of the statues, the only female among them, and Ore-Locks stood before another archway. The dwarf’s expression had altered, filled with relief or satisfaction. Then Chane took a better look at the archway.
Set deep between the thick frame stones was a panel of old, marred iron with a worn seam down its middle. The panel fully filled the arch, slipping into the wall on either side through a thick slot. It would be at least an inch thick, with two more like ones behind it. There was no lock, handle, or latch, nor brackets for a bar, and there would not be on the other side, either.
Chane knew those panels would open only for a certain set of individuals. His hand dropped to his sword hilt as he eyed Ore-Locks.
This portal matched the same impassable barriers they had once faced in Dhredze Seatt. One way or another, all black iron portals led to the underworld of the Stonewalkers.
Wynn became more suspicious of Ore-Locks by the moment. He was looking for something specific down here—and it wasn’t effigies of the Bäynæ. His steady progress was beginning to border on manic, and he appeared to know where he was going, as if he had been here before.
“This must be opened from the other side,” Ore-Locks said.
Wynn remembered how Ore-Locks’s superior, Cinder-Shard, had passed right through such a portal. The master stonewalker had opened it by manipulating a series of rods in the wall on the other side that functioned as a complex lock. And Ore-Locks knew very well how these doors worked.
Panic hit Wynn as she realized he was about to pass through the wall. What if he didn’t unlock the portal? The look of satisfaction on his broad face could only mean he was getting close to whatever he sought here. What if he just abandoned them and went on alone?
“Take Chane with you,” she said. “You don’t know what you’ll find, or even if you can unlock it. You may need him to help force the portal open.”
“I am not leaving you alone,” Chane argued.
Ore-Locks turned his head, looking at Wynn. “No one could force a portal ... it would take a dozen warrior thänæ, and even they might fail. If I cannot open it ... I will return.”
His tone dared Wynn to challenge his word. She didn’t trust him, and he knew it. She tried to think of another way to stall him until she came up with something, anything else they could try.
Ore-Locks stepped straight into the iron and vanished.