In truth, he had needed time alone, though it brought him no revelations. The white woman had taken two of his caste and disabled him-all before she could be struck even once. Her frail form was a deception, hiding startling speed and strength.

Hkuan'duv stood up, facing the white, rocky world around him. Wind and snowfall had ceased by dawn. He ran a hand through his short, spiky hair, secured his face wrap, and pulled up his hood. Without a word, he and Danvarfij slipped along the white landscape and crouched to peer at Sgailsheilleache's abandoned camp.

"When did they leave?" he finally asked.

"At first light."

He could not decide whether to wait or to follow their clear trail. "They must be searching for the small human and the majay-hi."

"Both were alive when you escaped?" she asked.

"Yes, but the majay-hi charged the… white woman. He could not have survived long, and the human would have died quickly after. We have only to wait until Sgailsheilleache discovers their bodies and returns to camp."

"And the bodies of our fallen," Danvarfij added. "Sgailsheilleache will know his caste is following him."

She was not blaming him for leaving their companions behind, but shame slipped past Hkuan'duv's guard just the same. It sickened him that he had left Kurhkage and A'harhk'nis where they lay, without even a hurried ceremonial call to the ancestors to come for their spirits.

"They were lost," Danvarfij said, "and you were not. I would have done the same."

"Your sympathy does not serve our purpose," he replied.

Greater concerns plagued him. Two more members of his caste now searched the land where this savage white woman ranged. Sgailsheilleache and Osha had no idea what was waiting up there. His first instinct was to warn them, but he could not do so without exposing his presence.

"Fulfilling our purpose will be more difficult," Danvarfij said. "A'harhk'nis was wilderness-wise, but so are you. Perhaps we should monitor the search?"

"Not yet," he said. "We wait. Whether they find the bodies or not, they have to return. There is no point in risking ourselves."

Danvarfij shifted closer beside Hkuan'duv to share warmth.

Wynn stirred, memories of the past night flooding back-the slaughtered anmaglahk, Chap falling as if dead, and the white woman with black hair. She sat up in panic, opening her eyes.

A dull orange glimmer dimly lit marred stone walls, but Wynn could not remember where she was.

I am here.

She spotted Chap across the room, staring out the entrance. Only remnants of hinges showed that there had once been a door.

The orange light came from a wide and shallow tripod brazier sitting on the stone floor to one side. It had not been there when she collapsed to the floor, but the brazier did not hold fire.

Instead, a pile of fist-sized crystals glowed like coals in its black iron depression. These filled the small room with more heat than light, raising the temperature above freezing.

"How long have I been asleep?" she asked.

Chap kept his gaze fixed outside of the opening. Day has come… I have seen traces of sunlight down the corridor outside.

Wynn's stomach rolled slightly at his words. Her right leg throbbed painfully, but she could feel her toes again. She crawled over to where Chap sat vigil, remembering translucent wolves, ravens, and swirling dark forms.

"Are they still out there?" she asked.

They appear and vanish… but they are there, always.

"What are they?" she whispered.

Chap remained silent for a long moment. Undead… though I have never heard of animals as such… let alone ones like shadow and yet not.

She rose up on her knees to peer over Chap. Nothing distinct met her gaze-but something like shifting soot moved in the dark spaces across the corridor outside.

"We are prisoners," she whispered. "But why does she keep us alive?"

Chap did not answer, and Wynn wondered where the white undead might be. She dug out the cold lamp crystal and rubbed it quickly.

The room was perhaps twelve by fourteen paces with no other openings. Its old stone walls seemed deeply marred in places by wild swirls of tangled scratches. A decayed desk near the back wall had collapsed on one side, and its slanted top had long ago spilled its contents on the floor. Iron brackets supporting shelves were mounted on the right wall, but the lowest wooden board lay in pieces on the floor amid scattered papers and books grown brittle and tattered with age.

"Where are we?"

Chap growled at the doorless opening but did not answer.

"Last night…," she said, "you kept looking, until you found me."

He turned his head and quickly licked her hand.

Wynn was thirsty, but she saw no sign of food or water. Then she spotted two small bottles among items near the broken desk. She crawled over and picked one up. Remnants of dried black stains flaked off its open mouth, and she realized it once had held ink. Quills lying in the mess were nothing but stems, the feathers rotted completely away.

"We're in an abandoned study," she said, and went to inspect the shelves.

A few books were so old that their covers were damaged with mold. They looked so weak and brittle she was afraid to pick one up.

Another shelf held rolls of rough wood-pulp paper and animal skins stripped clean of fur. She knew enough about old archives not to touch them just yet, lest they crumble and break in her hands. Down another shelf she found stacks of old bark with markings on their inner sides.

Other works were bound in sheaves between hardened slats of leather or roughly finished wood panels. One was sandwiched between what looked like scavenged squares of iron the size of a draught board.

"Chap… come and look at these."

Look to the walls first.

Wynn glanced at him, but he had not turned around. What would she want with decaying walls? She stepped closer, holding the crystal high.

The marks on the walls were not the etchings of age.

The crystal's light spilled over a mass of faded black writing. Patches of words, sentences, and strange symbols covered the stones. They ran in wild courses, sometimes overlapping and tangling in each other. Wynn tried to trace one long phrase.

It might have been a sentence, if she could have read it-but it seemed to go on without end. And the words were not all in the same language. Even the symbol sets differed, and some had faded, becoming illegible.

One word was composed of Heiltak letters, a forerunner of Wynn's native Numanese, but the letters were used to spell out words in a different tongue, one that she did not recognize. A piece of old Sumanese was followed by an unknown ideogram, and then a set of odd strokes tangled with short marks. She found one possible Dwarvish rune, but it was so worn she could not be certain.

The passages were in scattered patches, as if the author had run out of paper or hide, or anything else to write upon. Over time, driven by some desperation, this disjointed and manic record had been made on any surface available. But what had the author used for ink that would adhere to stone for so long?

Wynn shifted back, until all the lines and marks became tangled chaos.

Like reading madness itself recorded on forgotten walls.

Now… look next to the archway.

Chap's words startled her. Obviously he had been nosing about before she awoke. Stepping toward the doorless opening, she found a column of single… words? It seemed so, though again the languages and symbol sets varied.

The highest lines were too faded, as if the words had been rewritten in a downward progression over many years or decades. Midway to the floor, Wynn recognized what seemed to be ancient Elvish by its accent marks, written in the rare edan script. Further on was more roughly scripted old Sumanese. Near the bottom, almost to the floor was… was it some form of Belaskian?