He pivoted and raised his eyebrows, as if surprised at her tone, and the tram took a hard left turn.
Wynn closed her eyes with a groan. Her fingernails bit into the bench as a strange metal screech built around their car.
“We are slowing,” Chane said. “There is light ahead, more than from the engine’s crystal.”
At least that was a welcome comment.
Wynn opened her eyes in fragile hope and leaned over the tram’s rail wall. She saw some light ahead, enough to make out the tram car’s side . . . and the tunnel’s stone wall rushing by in a blur.
Her stomach lurched.
Light grew quickly, building to a warm glow. The tunnel wall’s rush began to slow, and to Wynn’s relief, the tram rolled into another constructed cavern. In a screech of steel, it finally stopped, lurching her forward in her seat.
Shade groaned somewhere below amid a scratch of claws on the car’s floor.
Wynn saw a station platform on the car’s far side. Dwarves aboard immediately got up and began disembarking. She sagged forward, bracing against the back of Chane’s bench, and reached down for Shade’s head.
“We’re here . . . it’s over,” she whispered with effort, but she couldn’t find Shade by touch.
A moaning growl rose from somewhere behind her. Without a breeze from the tram’s rush, so did a thin, foul smell.
“Shade?” Wynn whispered.
She stood up, wobbling as she stepped into the aisle, and bent over, looking for the dog.
Shade lay under the next bench back. Her rib cage bulged with each heaving breath, and spittle dripped freely from her half-open jaws. Below Wynn’s own bench was a pool of saliva surrounding undigested sausage lumps.
Wynn covered her mouth against a gag.
“It wasn’t any better for me,” she muttered.
Shade exposed still-dripping teeth, and Wynn regretted her words, even if Shade couldn’t understand them.
“Come,” Chane interrupted, and hoisted his packs and hers as well.
Wynn took up the staff, checking the sun crystal under its leather cover. Then she crouched, patting the side of her leg as she peered at Shade.
Shade crawled out, rising on shaky legs, and Wynn felt even worse at having put Shade through this ordeal. It couldn’t be helped. They had to find High-Tower’s family as soon as possible. She stroked Shade’s head, passing memories of quiet inn rooms, and then pulled Shade along as she followed Chane onto the platform.
Sea-Side’s tram station wasn’t set deep into the mountain, as in Bay-Side. It was couched directly behind the settlement’s main market cavern, smaller than Bay-Side’s but still filled with the hazy glow of steaming crystals upon pylons. Beyond scarce vendors and others, only four great columns with few upper walkways supported the high ceiling. Scant passengers already gathered on the platform for the tram’s return trip. As the stout female dwarf came along to usher them aboard, Wynn caught the young woman’s attention.
“How late is it?” she asked.
“Barely Night-Summer’s end,” the girl answered. “About your midnight.”
She stepped back on to the tram with the last of her passengers.
“And now?” Chane asked.
Wynn looked about. Some arriving passengers headed for the archway leading outside into the cold night, but most of them disappeared into the widest of three other tunnels leading deeper inside the mountain.
“That way,” Wynn said, nodding toward the latter.
With Chane on one side and Shade on the other, she stepped off the platform to search for Sea-Side’s “underside.” Motion sickness passed as curiosity took its place.
After a short walk down a vast columned tunnel, she spotted side paths through archways the size of normal roads. These were placed at intervals akin to a city block. Squat pylons with engravings stood at each intersection, but only every other one held a steaming orange crystal, smaller than the ones of Bay-Side.
“This settlement is not as developed as the other,” Chane commented, stepping ahead.
“Wait,” Wynn called, circling the nearest pylon.
She studied dwarven engravings on all four sides. It took a moment to figure them out, and then she peered down the left-side path. The way broadened farther on, and she spotted signs, flags, and banners in front of varied doors and openings.
“The pylon says this is Chamid Bâyir,” she said, pointing down the main tunnel. “Oblique Mainway—wherever that goes.”
A few dwarves and fewer humans milled past them.
Chane looked warily at a thickly bearded human in a