Through Stone and Sea - By Barb Hendee & J. C. Hendee Page 0,3
Chane rasped from behind.
Wynn was accustomed to his maimed voice, but it still startled her in the dark predawn.
“It can be a little disorienting at first,” she replied.
And it was. Dwellings and inns, smithies, tanneries, and shops all spread out, around, and above them in a melded maze.
She shifted her pack to relieve pressure on her shoulder. Chane seemed oblivious to the weight of his own two packs. Gripping her tall staff, a leather sheath covering its top end, Wynn led the way farther up the main street. When she glanced back, she paused, spotting a great open archway in the mountain’s side behind the crank house.
The entire lift station could have fit through it with room to spare. The orange light of the dwarves’ heated crystals spilled from its interior over people coming and going. But she had no time for a closer peek and instead looked eastward.
The star-speckled night had lightened farther along the distant horizon, and urgency took hold.
“We must find the temple,” she said.
Any visitor in a foreign place had to find lodging, but in Chane’s case, it was foremost. She needed to get him inside before the sun rose.
“Find?” he echoed. “You do not know where it is?”
“Of course I know. It’s just . . . been . . . a long time.”
Wynn hurried up the street’s gradual slant, deeper into Bay-Side, and quickened her pace. In spite of her assurance to Chane, she wasn’t certain of the temple’s location. It was still the best place to take shelter, away from other travelers at an inn. It was also a place where a visiting sage would be welcomed.
Dwarves practiced a unique form of ancestor worship. They revered those of their own who attained notable status in life, akin to the human concept of a hero or saint, or rather both. Any who became known for virtuous accomplishments, by feat and/or service to the people, might one day become a thänæ—one of the honored. Though similar to human knighthood or noble entitlement, it wasn’t a position of rulership or authority. After death, any thänæ who’d achieved renown among the people over decades and centuries, through the continued retelling of their exploits, might one day be elevated to Bäynæ—one of the dwarven Eternals. These were the dwarves’ spiritual immortals, held as the honored ancestors of their people as a whole.
Wynn sought lodgings at the temple of just such a one.
Bedzâ’kenge—Feather-Tongue—was the patron of wisdom and heritage through story, song, and poetry, their paragon of orators and historians. For as long as any history remembered, the dwarves kept to oral tradition rather than the literary ways of humankind.
As Wynn hurried along, she noticed faint shadows upon the granite street stones. Another glance eastward, between stout buildings on the settlement’s outer edge, showed the horizon growing ever lighter.
“Are we near yet?” Chane asked.
He didn’t sound concerned, but Wynn knew better. If they didn’t find the temple soon, they’d have to knock on some random door and beg admittance to get him out of the coming dawn.
“We’re in the right area,” she half lied. “I’ll recognize the street when I see it.”
But she wished she’d paid better attention as a girl while visiting with Domin Tilswith.
Wynn stopped between wide steps on both sides. Another thick four-sided stone pillar stood in the intersection. Atop it, steam leaked around a huge raw crystal casting orange light and warmth about the street. Oral or not, dwarves had an ancient writing system, and columns often served the same purpose as street signs in human cities.
She circled it, scanning for engravings upon its smooth faces—not for names of streets but for places found in the direction the column’s sides faced. She could read the common dialect reasonably well, but the temple of Bedzâ’kenge wasn’t mentioned. Either it didn’t lie along any of these routes or it was more than one level up.
Along the higher staircase, she spotted a mapmaker’s shop on the first landing, its tan banner flying above a wide front door.
“There,” she breathed in relief. “I remember that from the last time I was here.”
She hurried up the steps past the mapmaker’s shop and others, all the way to the main street’s next switchback.
“I know where we are,” Wynn exclaimed.
Chane raised one eyebrow. “I was not aware you were in doubt.”
“Oh, just come on!”
She broke into a jog, heading the other way. At the next intersecting stairway, she turned upward again. She stopped halfway, catching her breath on a landing with sculpted miniature