it.
Shops and stalls were carved into or built out of the side walls, but their spacing, shape, and size had no discernible pattern. Between one with wide double doors and another with an archway blocked by a garnish of braided drape was a third with a vertical set of three windows—triangle, square, and hexagon. Even those were obscured with curtains. Occasionally, vendors’ stalls of wood or canvas surrounded a column, but nearly all along the way were closed for the night.
There was no one who appeared to be a resident to ask for directions. The farther they went, the fewer passersby scurried off their own way. More than half of those kept to the other side of the center columns once they spotted Shade.
Wynn was thankful that Shade kept quiet, but she couldn’t help noticing the near absence of humans. Even without Shade, that alone made her and Chane stand out.
“If we cannot find guidance,” Chane said, “then we should secure lodging. Tomorrow, more people will be about. We cannot visit these Iron- Braids in the middle of the night, if manners are valued here.”
“I want to at least find where they live, and you can’t be out during . . .” She paused when he glanced sidelong at her. “Oh . . . I suppose you can down here.”
The thought hadn’t occurred to her before. Underground, shielded from the sun, Chane wasn’t limited by daylight.
“Let’s look a little longer,” she added.
They finally reached the end of the shops. Farther on, the tunnel emptied into a tall, domed chamber somewhat wider than the mainway. Four slimmer columns supported its ceiling, and narrow passages spidered outward around it. Thick steps on both sides climbed upward into stone. On the cavern’s far side, one broad tunnel continued onward in a gentle downward slope that arced left.
Wynn heard someone walking toward them.
It took a long time for the figure to enter the mainway’s light. An ancient dwarf in a faded gown hobbled into Oblique Mainway, leaning upon a walking rod. Her hair was so thin that her age-speckled scalp showed through it all around. Gnarled wrinkles over her features all but obscured her small eyes. In her stoop, she might have been shorter than Wynn, but was twice as wide, with a large mole on her wrinkled cheek.
“Old mother,” Wynn said, a respectful phrase learned from Domin Tilswith, “we are looking for the Iron- Braids. Could you help us?”
The elderly dwarf raised her milky eyes, but her voice was clear as she shook her head.
“I only recently came to live down below . . . with distant relations. . . .”
She trailed off somberly. Perhaps she’d lost her immediate family and been reduced in circumstances enough to fall back on relatives in the underside.
“Could I ask,” Wynn began, reluctant to press, “where do you and yours reside? It might be near where I can find those I seek.”
The old woman took a slow, haggard breath, answering in Numanese. “Go all the way down to yillichreg Bâyir . . . Limestone Mainway. Look for the cheag’anâkst called Kìnnébuây. It stays open all the time.”
“Cheag’anâkst?” Wynn repeated, trying to decipher the term. “A greeting house?”
The old woman nodded. “The locals there may have heard of your friends.”
“Thank you,” Wynn replied.
She wanted to say more, or offer trade for welcome advice, but the old woman had already hobbled onward.
“What is this . . . greeting house?” Chane asked. “A tavern?”
“Not exactly,” Wynn replied. “I’ve never been in one. It’s closer to an eatery, lodge, and gathering place all in one.”
“Then a common house.”
She shook her head. “Dwarves have another word for that. And such places are for family or clan only, not outsiders.”
She looked across the wide end chamber to where the tunnel began its downward curve. She’d hoped for more specific directions before going into the depths. Without a word, Wynn trudged onward, and Chane and Shade paced her on separate sides.
A few small crystals were set in the walls along the gradual downward spiral. In a while, another wide tunnel with a single row of columns shot off in what she assumed was the same direction as Oblique Mainway. She stepped through the end chamber to the first crystal- mounted pylon. The new tunnel wasn’t Limestone Mainway.
Here, the look of the shops and structures were much the same as above. She peered back to where the curving tunnel joined the right side of the end chamber. On the left, its gradual spiral continued downward.