A Wind in the Night: A Novel of the Noble Dead (Noble Dead Series Phase 3) by Barb Hendee & J.C. Hendee

Author:Barb Hendee & J.C. Hendee [Hendee, Barb]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2014-01-06T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Not long past nightfall, a figure garbed in a full-length hooded black robe and cloak materialized in one small room of the keep’s underground chambers and passages. Inside a voluminous, sagging hood—where there should have been a face—was only darkness. Though the chamber’s air was still and stale, both robe and cloak shifted subtly, as if upon a breeze.

Sau’ilahk awakened from dormancy, fully aware and alone, for the man who usually awaited him was late.

It did not matter yet.

He raised one arm, and his sleeve slid downward. For an instant he stared at his own thin arm, hand, and fingers all wrapped in strips of black cloth. Even to him, his arm looked so real, so corporeal, but it was not. Anything might pass through it, as if it were a mirage upon the great deserts of his homeland. Focusing with intent, he turned his hand solid as he drifted across the chamber without the sound of a single step. He paused at the one small table, worn and bleached with age, and looked down upon the single object lying there. . . . A circlet, broken by design, made of ruddy metal.

It was thick and heavy, slightly larger in circumference than a great helm, and about a fourth of it was missing. From its open ends, protruding knobs pointed straight across the gap at each other.

Some might call it a thôrhk, a neck adornment worn by few honored dwarves, but it would more correctly be called a key.

Sau’ilahk picked it up with his willfully solidified hand and turned slowly away from the table. This chamber, carved from solid rock, was not large, but it was private, secure, and suited to his needs. It had perhaps once been a storage room or a cell for prisoners. One solid but aged wooden door behind him would open into a main subterranean chamber lined with similar doors that could also be locked.

To the right of the door was an iron tripod stand.

Three legs supported a like iron ring, which held the only other object in this locked room.

The globe resting in the stand was slightly larger around than the object he held, but it was not made of the same ruddy metal. Rather, the globe appeared fashioned from some unknown material, neither metal nor stone, and it was dark as char, with a surface faintly rough like evenly chiseled basalt. A spike of matching material pierced down through the globe’s center; its broad tapered top was wider from side to side than a clenched fist. The spike’s pointed tip also protruded through the globe’s bottom between the stand’s legs. But both spike and globe appeared formed from a single piece.

The very sight of it still caused Sau’ilahk to quiver with elation after a thousand fleshless years of yearning. Oh, how long had he suffered in his search for . . .

The orb—“anchor”—of Spirit.

His impatience growing, Sau’ilahk glanced at the door and then raised the thôrhk before the hollow of his dark hood.

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