Zuna led them up the staircase, where they were all forced to slow. There was no running on these stairs with their awkwardly short risers. Their breathing rasped loudly in the narrow stairwell. It had been a long climb.
The sound of barking drew Jendara up short.
“Fylga,” Boruc whispered.
It had to be. Jendara’s heart sank. The dog sounded close at hand, perhaps in the purple boulevard.
“Why would they leave the ship?” Boruc spoke for them all.
Jendara freed her handaxe from her belt. “He wouldn’t disobey me out here, not once he heard about the ulat-kini. Let’s all be quiet.”
The barking increased in volume, the tone thin and unhappy. Jendara hoped the dog wasn’t badly hurt.
They crept out into the narrow hallway, and Jendara could see where it met the purple boulevard; a faint dimness lit the mouth of the hallway. Night had fallen while they’d explored the halls below, and they were no closer to leaving this island than they’d been when they first descended the stairs.
Fylga gave a frustrated growl. She had to be very close now.
Jendara waved for the group to stay back and then turned off her lantern. There was no telling what might be out there with the dog. She crept out into the boulevard, mindful of every step. The comforting bulk of a heap of rubble, probably one of the fallen kiosks, provided a bit of cover. From her right, the dog’s barking came again. She peered over the rubble.
Nothing moved. Fylga’s shape lay beside the biggest pool of water, her white patches bright in the gloom, but she was alone. Jendara darted toward the dog.
“Hey, girl,” she whispered, dropping down beside the animal. This close, she could see what she’d missed before: the fine strands of a net entangling the dog. Fylga wagged her tail and pushed her cold nose into Jendara’s palm. “I’ll get you out,” Jendara murmured. Where was Kran? Why wasn’t Fylga with him?
Boruc ran out from behind the pile of broken rock and joined Jendara. He pulled his lantern from the cover of his jacket, turned down low. Shielding the light, he held it above the dog. “She’s got a bad cut on this leg.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and bound it up quickly. “Where’s Kran?”
“I don’t know.” Jendara hissed. “He—” With a grunt, she hacked at the net. “Look, whatever caught Fylga could still be out here.”
A muffled shout from the direction of the Star Chapel underscored that thought. Jendara ripped the net off Fylga and the dog streaked toward the sound. Jendara raced after her.
A pallid twilight came from the doors of the Star Chapel, and Fylga ran straight into the room. Jendara had the presence of mind to stop and peer around the doorframe to take stock of the situation. She heard the heavy footfalls of her crew pounding behind her.
Three figures stood outlined against the windows, two of them the hulking fish-things she’d seen inside that structure on top of the city, the other slighter and shorter as it held off the first two with a nasty-looking trident. There was no sign of Kran, but Jendara readied her sword. She searched for Fylga.
A tiny sound came from the darkest corner of the room and she made out Fylga beside a shadowy humanoid shape.
Kran. Her son was in there.
Jendara charged.
Her blade bit into the largest fish creature’s neck before it even noticed her, slicing through the vertebrae to crunch into its collarbone. The blade stuck fast. The creature went rigid, and then, with a hollow gurgling, slid onto the floor, Jendara’s blade still trapped in its body. The second of the fish-folk spun to face her just as Tam stepped in, his sword slashing across its leathery face. Its eye spilled clear jelly, but it slashed at him as if it hadn’t noticed he’d ripped open its face. Tam ducked under the blow.
Then blood bubbled out of its mouth as the trident burst through its chest. Jendara pulled free her sword and pivoted toward the last of the fish-faced creatures.
Kran jumped out of the shadows behind the thing, and at the last second Jendara checked her blow before it connected with creature and boy. Tam smashed the thing in the face with his fist, and the slender creature crumpled.
Kran stared at it, mouth wide open.
Jendara pulled him to her chest. “You’re alive. You’re alive.”
Then she looked around. Her lungs felt suddenly as if someone were squeezing her ribs. “Where’s Sarni?”
Zuna turned up the flame in her lantern and looked around the Star Chapel. The dead bodies of the fish-folk lay sprawled in the main aisle, and the smaller creature—an ulat-kini, Jendara realized, and only small in comparison with the much more powerfully built, silvery fish-folk—still lay motionless at Tam’s feet, although it still breathed. Up close, Jendara could see the gills on its neck and faint fuzz of eyebrows over its almost-human eyes. It had to be one of the ulat-kini–human hybrids. Not that it made a difference, she reminded herself. It lived with the ulat-kini, and that made it an ulat-kini.
She looked away from the misshapen creature. Zuna’s lantern caught the golden constellations and made them dance, as if the sky itself reeled around them.
“There’s nobody else here,” Zuna said. “Sarni’s gone.”
* * *
Sarni was really gone. Back at the Milady, Jendara got the story out of Kran while the others worked. He had fallen asleep shortly after they’d left and awakened from terrible nightmares to find himself alone. He’d gone out looking for Sarni after searching the entire ship. But he hadn’t found any sign of her besides the lantern she’d left burning on the deck.
That detail made Jendara’s spirits sink lower. She’d left express orders to keep the ship dark and to stay below, hoping that darkness and silence would protect the pair from the notice of anything searching the cave. Sarni would never disobey one of Jendara’s orders—not unless an emergency called for it.
“Shit,” she said, rubbing her forehead. Her head hurt.
“I still don’t understand why we brought that thing back with us,” Zuna complained. “Tam and I’ve got it tied tight in the storage room, but I don’t like leaving it alone on the Milady.”
“Me, neither,” Jendara agreed, “but he’s not going anywhere, not if Tam tied him.” She shrugged. “Kran insists the ulat-kini saved him from those big fish things.”
“I guess we can turn it loose after we leave,” Zuna said. “I don’t even care if we get more gold. We should find the captain and get out of here.”
“It’s not that easy. We have to find Sarni, too.” Jendara got to her feet quickly. “I’m going to get a few things for Kran before we leave.”
“Kran?” Zuna’s black eyes flashed. “You’re not taking him with us, are you?”
“I’m not leaving him here. Something took Sarni right off this deck. He’s not safe.”
Jendara threw open the door to their cabin and rummaged through the drawers beneath the built-in bed. She kept some spare gear on hand in case of emergencies. Kran would need something stouter than a dagger.
A foot scuff behind her made her spin around.
“Kran!” She smiled. “I was just getting you some gear. I’m not leaving you here after what happened to Sarni.”
He took a tentative step toward her. His face, twisted with worry, looked younger than usual. He reached for his slate. Sorry, he wrote.
“For sneaking on board? I know.”
He shook his head, moving his hand in a circle that indicated her, him, the ship, everything.
“Sarni going missing isn’t your fault.” She had a feeling he meant something more than that, but she wasn’t quite sure what.
He bit his lip, tapped his chalk on his slate a few times, then wrote: Dreamed it.
“You dreamed something took Sarni?”
Kran moved his free hand in a wriggling gesture, snakelike.
“It was just a dream, Kran. I didn’t find any scales or any sign that a sea snake got her—” He was shaking his head and already scribbling, so she broke off.
Octopus—squid? Had suckers.
She opened her mouth and closed it. Kran had barely been outside the galley. He hadn’t seen all the statues with tentacles, all the strange wriggling art. She didn’t like the fact that those images had somehow gotten into his dreams.
She sat back on her heels and tried a different tack. “Look, no one in our family has ever had any kind of prophetic dreams. I don’t know why you had bad dreams, but that’s all they were: dreams.” She ruffled his hair. “It’s a lot more likely that those fish-things took Sarni. And I’m not going to let them near you.”
Kran made a faint attempt at a smile, proof he wasn’t himself. Normally, an attempt to ruffle his hair resulted in a punch in the arm. He need a distraction, and fast.
Jendara pulled out a scabbard. “Can you get this on your belt?”
His mouth fell open as he recognized the shape. He patted his hand on his chest.
“Yes, you can use it. For now.” She slid the blade from the sheath, admiring its edge. This long seax had been her first husband’s go-to blade for close quarters, and his first masterwork weapon. “I gave it to your father as a wedding present.”
She passed it to the boy and he secured in place on his right hip. Like his father, Kran was left-handed. The thought made her want to pull him close to her again, as she had back in the Star Chapel. Her mother had died when she’d been only a girl, her father and sister taken from her just when she was old enough to strike out on her own. Ikran had been murdered by a rival when Kran was only a little one. She wasn’t going to lose any more of her loved ones: not here, not ever. A fire kindled in her chest.
She got to her feet. “Let’s go find Vorrin.”
* * *
The smell of scorched seaweed still clung to the damp walls of the hallway where Vorrin and Glayn had been lured away. The crew marched grimly past open doorways, no longer tempted by treasure or curiosity. With Sarni, Glayn, and Vorrin all missing, this island had proven itself filled with enemies. Every corner they turned could lead them into danger, whether from creatures or from rockfalls.
Jendara had made sure every member of the party was roped up to the others, and she’d had Tam check their lines before they set off. If they’d done that the last time they’d gone down to this level, Vorrin and Glayn would be safe right now. The rope got in the way sometimes, but it was worth the extra measure of safety.
“Just a little farther,” she reassured Kran, her voice pitched low.
She felt more than saw him nod. They were only using three lanterns, the minimum she thought they could use for safe travel. She’d noticed that the ulat-kini and the fish-folk hadn’t carried lanterns. Her crew needed light, but it made them a target for creatures with better dark vision.
“Here,” Tam whispered.
The group gathered beside the pit, untying each other so they could set to work. Tam had already prepared a harness under good lighting in the Milady’s galley, and now he brought it out.
Jendara knelt at the edge of the opening. It felt like balancing on the mouth of some huge creature that could swallow her at a moment’s notice. A cold waft of fish and seaweed came up from the pit, a fresher smell than the dead shellfish around them.
“Vorrin?” she called. She raised her voice a little. “Glayn?”
No one answered. Water droplets fell someplace, a lonely and plaintive sound.
She leaned over the edge, peering into the darkness below. Zuna’s makeshift torch had gone out. “Someone give me a lantern.”
She held it out, but its light failed to penetrate the depths of the space. On the water’s surface, the flickering dot of her flame seemed to mock her. “Glayn?”
Only silence replied.
Throwing off her pack, she reached for the nearest coil of rope. “You’ve got to lower me down.”
Zuna opened her mouth to speak, then paused. Finally, she nodded. “It’s not a bad idea. You can take the harness.”
Tam was already joining the coils of rope and tightening a loop around Jendara’s waist. Zuna pressed the harness into Jendara’s hand.
As they worked, Boruc lit another bundle of candles and began lowering it down. He passed the rope to Kran. “Hold it steady.”
Boruc took a stance beside Jendara. The rough fibers rasped against her hands as she tossed the rope to him, who ran it once around himself before tossing the rest to Tam. They were big men and Zuna was tough. They would make sure she didn’t fall.
Jendara hesitated on the edge of the open pit. The water looked very far below, the walls invisible in the darkness. There could be anything down there: rocks, beasts, more traps. Vorrin’s dead and broken body, floating outside the circle of lantern light. Her stomach roiled at the thought, and so she lowered herself over the edge, needing to see with her own eyes.
For a moment she swung helplessly, the rope slipping over the broken flooring before jerking tight, and then Boruc and Tam brought it under control. She began to move slowly toward the water. She still couldn’t make out the walls of the pit or get any sense of how large the space around her was, but at least she knew down from up.
Beside her, the bundle of candles and rags spun around slowly, its light playing off the dull surface of the nearest wall. Jendara nodded to herself—the wall that formed the boundary of the hallway apparently continued down as one continuous slab of rock. It made structural sense, at least. The wall descended without adornment, a smooth face of damp stone that met the water without offering up doors or ledges for a pair of men to creep onto. Nothing but a few crumbling stones protruding like islands from the pool’s surface.
“I don’t see anything,” she called up. “No Glayn, no Vorrin. No exits, no ledges.” She paused. There was something, right at the waterline. She squinted. “Hold up a sec.”
The makeshift torch flickered and then steadied, and Jendara saw the dark patch at the waterline again. This time, she noticed the ridge of neatly worked stone framing it off. If she hadn’t given the staircases in the other hallways such a careful looking over, she might have overlooked it, but she was starting to understand the construction methods of the ancient builders. “There is an exit,” she shouted. “A door, maybe even a staircase. I’m guessing Vorrin and Glayn swam for it. Bring me up!”
Slowly, she ascended. She scrabbled at the stone flooring a minute before she got her grip and pulled herself up. Tam and Boruc sat on the floor, looking tired. But Zuna was frowning.
“There’s another possibility,” she began. “We know someone made this pit trap. And what does a hunter do when she sets a trap?”
Jendara went still. “She brings home her prey.” A muscle twitched in her cheek. “Someone took Vorrin and Glayn.”
“Either the ulat-kini or those fish creatures,” Boruc said.
Tam stood up. “I think we should go talk to the ulat-kini. Even if they don’t have our folk, they might have more information about the fish-things. Being sea critters and all.”
“Well, we know where to find them,” Jendara said, voice grim.
* * *
The plan formed quickly while they re-roped themselves. Time was of the essence. Going back to interrogate their prisoner would add another hour to their search, and there was no guarantee the prisoner even spoke their language. He hadn’t said a word to Kran, and he’d been too groggy to talk while they were tying him up. Their best bet was to get into the ulat-kini camp and find one of their translators. The creatures were known more for theft than trade, but a group this size probably had at least one trader with a smattering of Taldane, the main human tongue in the region.
Jendara had argued for heading back to the grotto and getting the dinghies to approach the camp from the water. From the sea, she knew she could find the docks and ladders she’d seen under construction. She didn’t like the idea of wandering through the island’s labyrinthine tunnels. They’d made little headway exploring the subsurface so far, and Vorrin and Glayn were depending on them.
But Tam and Boruc were certain the sea approach was a bad one, and she had to agree with their logic. One ulat-kini could easily tip or sink a small dinghy: on the water, the creatures had every advantage. The ulat-kini wouldn’t expect a land approach, either.
“Besides,” Boruc said, “we won’t be exploring, opening doors, or digging around. We’re in a tunnel that goes north. I say we just stick with the tunnel and see where it goes. It’s not such a big island, really.”
It made a certain kind of sense. Jendara stroked the gray dot on her left hand and wished the ancestor spirits were the kind of spirits that gave signs or sent comforting portents. She could only trust her gut to make the right choice, and her gut was all too invested in the outcome of this one. Vorrin had been in danger before, but not since they had married.
Finally, she nodded. “It’s as good a plan as any.” She sent a silent, fervent wish up to her father, should he be watching out for her, that this plan was the right one.
They moved at a steady pace for several minutes, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Boruc fell in step with Jendara. “I know this plan is a long shot.”
“I believe in your plan, Boruc. Don’t take my nervousness for doubts in you.”
“I’m nervous, too,” he said. The words were strange, coming from the big man’s mouth. He and his brothers were three of a kind—tough, smart, hardy folk. They reminded her so strongly of her father that they could well have been her own brothers. Admitting fear or weakness went against their grain.
“It’s this place,” Tam said. Jendara started. She hadn’t even realized he’d been listening. He, too, was an island native, and as close to family as Boruc. “It weighs on me. The rocks, the constant shrieking of the wind, the smells. Everything is old here, and long dead.” A breeze stirred the flame of his lantern so it cast shadows across his face, turning his eyes to dark hollows.
“Not dead,” Zuna said. “Can’t you feel it? It knows we’re here.” She hesitated. “Not dead, but maybe sleeping.”
The wind gave a wheezing laugh, as if it took pleasure in their discomfort. Jendara rubbed her ears. She wasn’t cold, but the wind’s chill bit at her flesh.
Kran tugged at her arm, cupping his hand to his ear.
She listened for a second, then shook her head. “All I hear is the wind.”
He made an impatient hand gesture. The wind. Something about the wind.
“Why is there wind?” she asked. “We’re underground.”
Tam was nodding. “How does wind get into an underground tunnel? We’ve got to be near some kind of exit.” He looked excited, but Boruc was already shaking his head.
“Doesn’t mean anything. There could be a crack in the wall or a natural chimney. You see that all time in caves.”
Fylga trotted ahead to a spot where the tunnel bent leftward at a steep angle. She scrabbled at the tunnel wall, sniffing. Kran stooped beside the dog, feeling the wall carefully. He beckoned to the crew.
In their lantern light, the crack running up the northern wall was apparent. It grew wider toward the top, and a cool breeze came through it.
Jendara pushed on the tunnel wall. “There must be a natural fold in the island’s bedrock.” She closed her eyes and tried to remember what the island had looked like when they made their way around it. “There were three big ridges,” she mused, “each with its own steep valley.”
She opened her eyes to see Zuna nodding. “I remember them. There were smaller buildings tucked down into the valley, nothing like the spires on the tops of the hills.”
“So this must be the edge of one of the valleys, probably the northernmost one.” Jendara decided. “The buildings at the north end of the island looked more humble than the ones at the southern tip.”
“I’m not seeing how this helps,” Zuna interjected. “Our tunnel bends and goes west here.”
Jendara pulled her new axe from her belt. Boruc’s eyes widened in horror, but she reversed the beautiful tool in her hand and began to tap the handle against the wall. Stone flaked from the edges of the crack. “We’ve seen how the other rock walls take a blow. Maybe we can break this one down.”
“Even before it went under the sea, this side of the hill would have taken the brunt of the storm season,” Boruc reasoned. “And after coming up out of the sea? It’s got to be even weaker.”
Tam fell in beside her, rapping his pommel against the wall. “It’s chipping.”
“This is too slow,” Boruc grumbled. “Get out of the way.”
Jendara looked up from her hammering to see Boruc backing up. He lowered his shoulder, aiming the pommel of his sword like a battering ram. Jendara pulled Tam out of his way.
Boruc charged. With a wonderful crash, rock burst outward and moonlight poured in. Zuna grabbed at the back of Boruc’s shirt just in time to keep him from falling into open space. His arms windmilled as he teetered on the brink of a new cave mouth. Jendara caught his hand and helped pull him back inside.
“Merciful Desna,” Tam whispered.
It had been one thing to be in the city this morning, surrounded by light and standing on the edge of a great expanse of majestic buildings. It was an entirely other thing to stand here in the heart of it, the moon’s light beating down on the ancient ruins. The details of the buildings were obscured by heaps of drying seaweed, but the details didn’t matter. It was the scope of the place. Every inch of land was covered by rubble or the remains of some kind of structure or statue.
Low, rectangular buildings, still mostly intact, ran down the hill’s impossibly steep flanks. Broken plinths of stone bridged narrow gaps that must have once been alleys, and stone figurines stood beside almost every sagging or collapsed doorway. Jendara tried to imagine what it must have been like before it sank beneath the waves, and found her imagination not quite up to the task. By the look on Kran’s face, he was struggling, too.
Jendara took a cautious step toward the hole Boruc had smashed in the wall. Directly to Jendara’s right, the facade of a wide, templelike building jutted out of the cliff face, its columns still intact. Ornate stonework still showed in places where the masonry wasn’t overgrown with sea life or worn down by the elements. She could see the tracings of what could only be carved tentacles coiling around the bases of each column, twining up toward the sky.
“Tentacles,” she murmured. Kran gave her a sharp look.
“They must have worshiped the sea,” Zuna mused.
“And the stars,” Tam added. He pointed to their left, where a knot of shorter buildings somehow clung to the side of the steep hill. Most of them were badly damaged, but Jendara could still see the patterns of contrasting stones laid into their walls in the shapes of stars.
“It makes sense,” Zuna said. “To any seafarer, the stars are their best guide.”
“We could use a guide right about now,” Boruc grumbled. “We may have found our way out of that tunnel, but how in all hells are we supposed to get over that?”
Jendara tried to recall the island’s size and shape. “This is the northernmost valley,” she said slowly, “so once we go over that hill in front of us, we’d be looking right down at the dock the ulat-kini were building.”
Crossing the surface proved easier said than done. The group moved from ruin to ruin, testing the ground as they went. Sometimes they scrambled over fallen buildings; sometimes they circled around them. Jendara wished she could see inside some of the bigger ruins, but debris and seaweed choked any openings that still remained. They climbed and scrabbled their way across the city until the edge appeared and the worst of the debris flattened out.
Jendara picked up her pace, relieved to be on something like solid ground. She took a few quick steps and pulled ahead of Zuna and the others. They had nearly reached the ulat-kini.
Rubble shifted beneath her boots and Jendara felt herself sliding downhill. Her arms flailed and she caught the edge of a strange statue beside her. Stone and shells clattered over the edge of the cliff. A slab of stone, like some very worn and ancient roof tile, teetered on the drop-off and then slid over the brink. It fell a few feet and then caught on a thin lip of stone jutting out below.
Zuna and Tam arrived at the edge of the cliff, Boruc moving slowly behind them. Tam’s face was pale. His fingers fumbled at the knots around his waist until Zuna took over for him.
“Glad we roped up,” Zuna said. “There was a point there I might have lost Tam, otherwise.”
Boruc pointed out a pair of black knobs jutting up over the cliff’s edge, just a few feet to Jendara’s right. “Do you think that’s one of the ulat-kini’s ladders?”
She shifted over a few steps, keeping her hand on the sturdy statue, to peer over the edge. “Looks like it.” She gave the others a weak smile. “Nice of the ulat-kini to give us an easy way down to their camp.”
Zuna joined her beside the ladder. “Looks solid.” She crouched to look down at the water below while trying to stay hidden. “I don’t see many ulat-kini. Not even any kind of guard around this ladder.”
Jendara looked down. Far below, she could see the four ugly boats tied up at the dock, which was now quite a large floating platform supporting a few shabby tents. At the farthest end, what appeared to be a clothesline held up a load of perfectly ordinary linen.
“I don’t think this is a raiding party. This looks like an entire community of ulat-kini.” She looked at Tam. “Does that make sense to you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’re planning to settle this place?”
She turned her attention back to the camp. “Maybe.” The camp looked quiet and unassuming beside the strange floating dock. “The black ship is gone. Maybe it was a cargo vessel hired to bring the platform stuff?”
“No point wondering,” Boruc said. “We just have to get down there and see what we find.” He took hold of the ladder and began his descent, Zuna right behind him.
He was right, of course. They had to get down there and find out what there was to be discovered. Jendara just hoped she’d find Vorrin, safe and well.
Because if he wasn’t, there would be all hell to pay.