Of Truth and Beasts.

A novel of the n.o.ble dead.

Barb & J. C. Hendee.

PROLOGUE.

. . . never close your eyes again . . . not ever . . . not until they all die. . . .

Byndun-Deep-Root-halted in the dark of a chamber so tall and empty that he heard the frightened clench of his own ma.s.sive hands. And why should there be light or sound in the temple of his people? The hall of the Byn, the dwarven Eternals, was now a place filled only with false hopes. The people's greatest ancestral spirits had abandoned them.

Suddenly, he heard the pounding behind him, though it seemed to hammer within his skull, until it took shape in a thunderous gale of breathy, tangled voices.

. . . they will kill you, if they can. . . . They will; you know this . . .

He wanted to scream in rage at the chorus of overlapping whispers in his head. They had torn at him for so long, he could not tell if those words of warning were his or theirs. He could not remember when he had last closed his eyes, though he felt as if he were asleep. Not in a dream, but in an endless nightmare where silence had been slain.

In the depths of Balle Seatt, there was but one long ever-night of fear and madness.

The pounding would not stop, and he could almost feel it upon his broad back. He turned about and stared in panic at the great doors of the chamber of the Eternals.

Each was the height of four dwarves. Each had been hewn whole from the trunk of a great oak and was as thick as his forearms were long. Yet he could hear those who crowded outside the doors, pounding . . . so many of them it began to sound like a rain of stones upon the wood. They were pounding to get in, though their voices could not breach the barrier like the hammering of their fists.

"What are you doing?"

Deep-Root spun at the threatening whisper and reached to his belt. All he saw at first were the great silhouettes in the dark. They reached to the hall's impossible heights. Three lined the wall of the door, and three more stood at the far side. All these statues of his people's Eternals were silent, their stone faces lost to sight.

A flickering light caught his eye.

An approaching flame wobbled toward him. Behind it was the reddened glow of a craggy old face, perhaps worn down and shriveled like the corpse of a human. The closer it came, the more he made out its features-and the two black, olive-pit irises of one of his own people.

Broad featured and gray bearded, the elder's eyes widened in wariness, exposing bloodshot whites around his irises. The torch glimmered upon the steel-shorn tips of the black scale armor of Master Kin-of-Far.

"You would let them in!" the old stonewalker accused.

"No . . . not anymore," Deep-Root denied.

"Liar!" the other hissed, and his free hand dropped to the black-lacquered hilt of one of his daggers.

In reflex, Deep-Root reached for a blade sheathed at his own waist.

"Where have you been?" Master Kin-of-Far asked, c.o.c.king his head. "To your prattling brother? Is that how it started?"

The elder stonewalker watched Deep-Root with one eye, while the other tried to see whether the doors had been opened as he crept forward.

"All of them turned against us once the siege began," he continued. "What deceits did you spit into the people's ears . . . through your brother?"

And the whispers rose like a torrent in Deep-Root's head.

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

Deep-Root released his dagger's hilt and slapped his hand to his head.

But one voice, so much louder than the others, cracked through his mind.

Listen only to me-cling only to me.

The other voices began to grow again, making it too hard to think.

"No . . ." he whispered, and then gripped his head with both hands as he shouted, "Leave me be!"

"Leave you be?" asked the elder, feigning puzzlement. "Why would I? You-you did this to us, traitor. You and your brother . . . made them come for us!"

"No . . . my brother has no part in this."

"More lies!" shouted the elder, jerking his blade from its sheath.

Do what is necessary and come to me.

Deep-Root closed his hands tighter upon his head.

The elder dropped his torch and charged, raising the dagger as he shouted, "Keep your treachery, Byndun!"

Do not listen. Come to me.

And again the other voices raised such a cacophony that he tried to cling to the one clear voice. He tried to crush the others from his head.

Byndun-Deep-Root-s.n.a.t.c.hed out one dagger at the sight of his caste elder coming for him.

This tainted place had to end. There would be sleep and silence once Balle fell and was forgotten.

CHAPTER 1.

Wynn Hygeorht paced the floor of her room inside Calm Seatt's branch of the Guild of Sagecraft. Shade, a large wolflike dog with charcoal black fur, lay on the small bed, watching her through crystal blue eyes.

Wynn was in trouble, and she knew it.

Only one night before, Wynn and Shade, and her other companion, Chane Andraso, had returned from Dhredze Seatt, the mountain stronghold of the dwarves. In that place, Wynn had disobeyed every order and every warning from her superiors. The repercussions were staggering. By now, word of her return had surely spread through the guild to its highest ranks. It was only a matter of time before she would be summoned before the Premin Council.

"Where's Chane?" she whispered absently, still pacing.

Whatever happened tonight, he'd want to know. He'd taken guest quarters across the keep's inner courtyard, but it was well past dusk, and he was late.

She nearly jumped when the knock at her door finally came. Pushing strands of wispy brown hair away from her face, she hurried to open it.

"Where have you . . . ?"

It wasn't Chane outside the door.

There stood a slender young man only a few fingers taller than Wynn. He was dressed in the gray robe of a cathologer, just like her. His shoulders were slumped forward, as if in a perpetual cringe.

"Nikolas?" Wynn said, then quickly dismissed her confusion and smiled. He was one of the few friends she had left inside the guild.

He didn't smile back. In fact, he wouldn't even look her in the eyes.

"You . . . you've been summoned," he whispered, swallowing hard halfway through. "Premin Sykion says you're to come straightaway to the council's chamber. And you're supposed to leave the . . ." He glanced once toward Shade. "You're to leave the dog here."

Wynn just stared at him. But she'd known this was coming. Hadn't she? She straightened, smoothing down her own gray robe.

"Give me a moment," she said. "Go tell the council that I'll come directly."

He hesitated nervously, then nodded. "I'll walk slowly. Buy you a little time."

Wynn gave him a sadder smile. "Thank you."

She watched him disappear down the pa.s.sage, but she closed the door only partway. She took a breath before turning about, for the next part wouldn't be easy.

"Shade, stay here," she said firmly. "You cannot come."

Wynn used as few words as possible, as Shade's understanding of language wasn't fluent yet.

With a low rumble, Shade flattened her ears and launched off the bed.

Wynn was ready. She spun through the half-open door and jerked it shut. The door shuddered as Shade slammed into the other side with her full bulk. Then the howling began.

"Stop that!" Wynn called through the closed door.

With no time for Shade's drama over being left behind, she gathered up her robe's skirt and hurried down the pa.s.sage to the end stairs, and then out into the night air of the courtyard.

She made her way across to the old stables and storage building, long ago converted to workshops, laboratories, and, of course, the guest quarters. Slipping through one outer door, she headed upstairs to a door she knew well. These were the same quarters once used by her old ally, Domin Gha.s.san il'Snke of the guild's Suman branch, far to the south. She knocked lightly.

"Chane, are you there?"

No one answered, and anxiety swelled inside her. Where could he be? She had to at least let him know she'd been summoned.

She knocked again, more sharply.

"Chane?"

A scuffle rose beyond the door, followed by the sound of rumpling paper and a sudden screech of wooden chair legs on a stone floor. This time, the door opened, but the room beyond was dark. Wynn looked up at Chane Andraso towering over her, his face pale as always.

"What in the world were you . . . ?" She stopped midquestion.

Chane's clothes were wrinkled, and his red-brown hair was disheveled. He blinked several times as if she'd just roused him from dormancy. And . . .

"Umm, you have a piece of parchment stuck to your face."

His eyes cleared slightly, and he reached up. Instead of grabbing the torn sc.r.a.p, he swatted at it with his hand, and it fell past Wynn into the pa.s.sage.

"Did I wake you?" she asked in confusion.

Chane always woke the instant the sun fully set. Light from the pa.s.sage's small cold lamp seeped into the guest quarters' outer study. The chair behind the old desk was pushed at an awkward angle against the wall. A pile of books and papers was lying haphazardly all over the desk, and some had even fallen to the floor.

"I must have read too late . . . near this morning," he rasped in his maimed voice.

Wynn raised one eyebrow. Chane had fallen dormant at the desk, not aware that dawn was coming? She shook her head, for they had larger problems.

"I've been summoned."

Realization spread over his handsome features as he came to full awareness.

"I am coming," he returned instantly, stepping backward to grab the room key off the desk.

Then he hesitated, glancing down at himself. He still wore his boots from the night before, along with his rumpled breeches. He quickly began tucking in his loose white shirt.

Wynn didn't care how he was dressed. It didn't matter.

"Only me," she said. "I was even ordered to leave Shade in my room."

Chane froze. He knew Shade almost never left Wynn's side. The dog rarely tolerated that. He returned to tucking in his shirt.

"I am as responsible as you," he insisted, "for all that happened. You are not facing them alone."

As he came to the door, Wynn looked up, meeting his eyes in silence. She felt ashamed by her relief at the thought of his standing beside her to face the council. But that wasn't the way this would work.

"I don't think they'll let you-"

"I am coming," he repeated, and stepped out, closing the door.

He headed down the pa.s.sageway toward the stairs before she could argue further. Without intending to, she sighed-in relief, resignation, or at the weight of her burdens. Perhaps all three.

Wynn still felt cowardly in her relief at Chane's presence as they climbed the stairs to the second floor of the guild's main hall. With all that had happened in the Stonewalkers' underworld, deep below Dhredze Seatt, she could imagine the Premin Council like some Old World mock court. Its verdict would be predetermined before any trial began.

But it wasn't a trial. This was a guild matter, and what she'd done would never be revealed publicly. She would have no statute of law to protect her against any unofficial conviction.

She glanced up at Chane beside her, his expression grim with determination. Perhaps his presence might keep the council in check, for there were internal affairs they might not raise before an outsider. But she doubted it.

When they stepped onto the upper floor, two sages waited outside the council's chamber down the broad pa.s.sage. Chane never slowed, and Wynn tried not to falter, but the closer they came to the council chamber, the odder it all looked.