Raef crept along the tunnel, every sense tuned for the sound of claws on stone or steel.
Drowned Gate was a labyrinth, but there was something familiar in its rumble. Water ran everywhere, in rivulets and showers from above. Raef could not tell the acid from the pure, so he kept as dry as he could and made his way upward, working round and round in the climbing passages.
Again and again, his path brought him back to the central well. Each tunnel opened onto a ledge, but none had a way to reach the opening at the top of the prison.
Retreating again, he climbed, choosing only upward paths, and found a room with walls covered in ancient parchment. It looked something like the tower’s Scriptorium, where the priests had copied books, but these were drawings of flayed flesh, organs, and bones. Detailed notes filled the margins and loose pages were piled on the rusty tables stained by all sorts of humors.
Raef wished he could retch, but everything he’d seen had hardened his stomach too far for that. His heart still ached at least.
“Thank you, Lady,” he whispered.
He was still alive, still human enough to feel, even if it hurt him so.
A stairwell led him higher than ever before, giving him a cautious hope. He entered a familiar room.
He knew these metal floors and walls. He’d seen these forges, vast enough that entire families could have made homes inside them.
Helios’s Forge—that’s what Sati had called this place. A stack of familiar shapes stood propped against a wall. Some were complete, others in pieces, but all were boxes with the same moon symbol worked into the lid.
Raef lifted a bit of brass, shifting it awkwardly with the shadowhand. It moved stiffly.
The fire in him stirred, threatening to rack him once more, to send him out of his mind again. He breathed in and out, willing the flames to douse, to fade back into embers. He thought of Seth. This must be how it was for the knight, always fighting the fire within him, always pushing it down. No wonder he’d been so broken.
Raef passed tools and half-finished weapons, many whose make he did not understand.
A bronze frieze wrapped the ceiling. In it the gods fought the demons. Raef knew the faces of Phoebe and the other twelve, but the demons were strange, inhuman. One figure was a ring of hands, an eye in each palm. Another was a storm cloud, a third, a swarm of locusts. The lesser demons mixed the shapes of man, beasts, and plants, like the jackal men here in Drowned Gate, like the woman of vines on Thiva. Haerwen, his mother had called her.
The two other walls showed the battle, the gods and demons at war, their followers clashing. They led great armies. The final wall showed a sad procession, Phoebe and Hyperion walking hand in hand. Between their palms they carried a half-moon, half-sun, their light mixing, reflecting one another as they stood mourning with Rhea. A young man rested inside the open coffin, his arms crossed over his chest.
Helios, Raef presumed.
The figures were in the ancient style, like those on Eastlight, rougher but recognizable. Whatever this place was, wherever the box had come from, it was ancient, older than the temples and shrines Raef knew from Versinae.
He took it in.
The gods were a family. They might quarrel as families did, but they were not enemies, not the opposites the knights made them to be.
Yet they’d taken this world. It could not be simple. The demons could not all be evil. If they were, then that made him evil. It made Seth evil, and he refused to accept that possibility.
It followed that the gods could not all be good. No good god would allow the Hierarch or Kinos to do what they’d done.
None of it helped. He had more answers than before, but the Moon’s Door was gone. Even if it had survived, the Day of the Black Sun had likely passed.
Raef knew now why Kinos had gone into the box, but not why Phoebe’s priests had made him.
He climbed higher, through the Forge’s metal chambers. More machinery, more metal, scraps and pieces.
A scraping, jagged claws on steel, sounded behind him.
These creatures were like him, or at least like Argos. The hounds had been bred from them, but Raef did not think they’d be as tame as Seth’s pup. He should run, but still, he wanted a look at them, to see if he could spy any part of himself in these distant cousins.
The howling began.
He retreated to the well. From this higher ledge he could see the many openings and passages below. He kept the shadowknife ready. The plan was simple.
Yipping and snarling, the demons raced up the passage, coming toward the ledge. They crowded together, leaving no room for him to slip past them, even if he’d been foolish enough to try.
They looked something like people, with sickly green eyes and matted, yellow fur covering their naked bodies. Their teeth were long and yellow beneath their snouts. Their smell, like oily meat, preceded them. They ran on all fours, claws scraping and clicking, ready to leap for him.
So much for a family reunion.
He’d seen enough to satisfy his curiosity.
The dome of stone, the well’s roof, was not much higher. Another passage lay between him and it.
Raef’s control over the shadowhand was not perfect, but he knew how to use the knife.
Calling it, gripping it, he drove it into the wall and willed it to harden. He found a purchase for his right hand and toes.
He pulled the knife free, reached, and drove it into the stone again.
With the shadowknife as an anchor, Raef climbed.
The demonkin reached the ledge. They leaped and yipped, trying to catch him.
He’d made it about halfway before one of them started climbing after him. It lost its grip and crashed back into the pack to leap and scramble on the ledge.
Another demon found better purchase. It nipped, its jaw latching onto Raef’s boot. He hung by the knife, but lost his other grips. He tried to kick, to lose the demon’s hold. No one would be dropping an oar this time.
He straightened his foot and let the demon drag the boot free.
It fell, wailing to land in the acid far below. It surfaced once, screaming, and did not reappear.
That cowed the rest of them. They retreated from the ledge, seeking another upward path. Hopefully they couldn’t find what he hadn’t.
Weak, he climbed on. He’d lost strength in the box and here, feeding on only algae. He had to leave this place while his body and mind allowed it.
He was almost to the next ledge when someone caught his hand and pulled him up.
“Easy,” a familiar voice said.
Raef blinked at the pair of boots before his eyes.
“Is it you?” he asked. “You’re really here?”
Seth pulled him up, over the ledge and into safety. Raef collapsed against it. He rolled to his back, trying to look upward. A furry face filled his vision, and a long tongue scraped across Raef’s cheek.
“Yes,” Seth said, laughing. “It’s us.”
“How?” Raef asked through brimming tears. “How are you here?”
“How are you out of the box?” Seth asked.
“That’s a story.”
“We can trade them,” Seth replied with sadness.
Raef frowned to see the shadows in the knight’s eyes.
“What?” Seth asked.
“I’m just glad you’re here,” Raef lied.
He remembered what Hanel had said, that it was a mortal wound when your faith was broken. Had it come to that?
He hoped not. He had no love for Hyperion, but he did not want that for Seth.
Seth offered Raef a hand.
Taking it, Raef let Seth help him to his feet.
Seth lifted his right hand. It glowed with fire, a little ball of sun to light their way. Raef’s shadowknife and shadowhand glinted silver before they faded.
Seth blinked at the sight. He stood close.
“I have to smell pretty rank,” Raef said, mostly because he did not know what else to say.
“It’s fine,” Seth said, nodding toward a passage. “We’ll get you out of here. This way.”
“How are you here? How did you find me?”
“The Bishop sent me to find the Forge.” Seth lifted his hand so the light danced across the space. Argos padded along behind them.
“And it’s in Drowned Gate,” Raef said.
Seth’s eyes shone when he smiled.
“And both are beneath Versinae.”
Raef blinked.
Seth chuckled.
“What’s the date?” Raef asked. “Has it happened yet?”
He’d lost count. After all this time, after ten years—he’d lost count.
“It’s the twentieth day of Rhea’s moon.”
Two days. Two days remained.
“It would be waxing, almost full . . . before.”
“You kept the count,” Raef said, tears brimming again.
“I never forgot her, though I tried.” Seth sized up the portal to another chamber. He looked abashed. “The Bishop sent me to find a weapon.”
“Your sword . . .”
The one on his belt was not the one Raef knew. It was shorter and the leather of the grip was red. Another story lay there, but Raef would ask about it later.
“I’ll never use that blade again,” Seth said coldly.
Raef nodded. He understood, and he was honored, had no other word for it.
They took in the Forge and the weapons in various states of completion. “How did you even find this place?”
“I’ll show you when we leave,” Seth said. He eyed the blades and hammers. “But Argos helped.”
“How?”
Seth grimaced.
Raef made a disgusted sound, but he knelt to scratch the hound’s head.
“I’m glad you’re all right, boy.”
Argos wagged his tail in thanks as Seth faced the heavy door ahead of them.
Burnished bronze, they stood as tall as the doors to Hyperion’s temple.
“What’s in there?” Raef asked. “It looks like a vault.”
A trace of the old greed rose with his curiosity. The contents, an ancient mystery, had to be valuable.
“I do not know. I cannot open it, but I think it’s why I’m here.”
“There’s no keyhole.” Raef stepped closer. He ran his right hand over the metal. “Did you try knocking?”
“It’s Helios’s Forge. I tried fire.”
“Perhaps your knife?” Seth asked.
“I don’t think so.”
The ceiling held a frieze like the one below, all the gods gathered in a ring, holding hands. Phoebe stood beside Hyperion above the vault door. They carried their half-moon, half-sun.
“Let’s try both,” Raef suggested. He nodded to Seth’s lit hand. “Put that out for a moment.”
“I don’t understand,” he said but did as Raef asked.
“Put your palm to the door.” Raef called the shadowhand and laid it on the metal. “Then call your fire.”
Seth stepped forward. Raef used his good hand to guide Seth’s to the metal. Seth flushed a little at the touch.
“And . . . now,” Raef said.
Shadow and flame.
The metal doors swung open without a creak. Argos let out a happy bark at the trick they’d performed.
“The gods aren’t enemies,” Raef said.
“They’re family,” Seth added.
A little light glowed inside.
The interior was pristine, free of dust and damp. Several crystals, set into the ceiling, glowed like captured candleflames.
Raef stood back as Seth wandered among the racks, eyeing the swords and axes. He paused before a long war hammer, considering it.
“This one,” he said. Sparks danced in his eyes. “This is the one.”
“Will you be able to use a shield with that?”
“No. And I won’t fit into the cadre’s formation when I wield it, but it does not matter. This is the one.”
Even Raef could admit that the craftmanship was beautiful. Forged of some brassy metal, it was worked with woven designs from head to pommel.
Part of him liked the way Seth’s arms flexed when he lifted the weapon, but the feeling quickly faded.
“Now we just have to get out of here,” Raef said.
“We’ll show you,” Seth said. “Won’t we, Argos?”
The hound perked up from where he’d guarded the vault.
Back in the Forge, Raef watched the door close behind them.
Lighting the way, Seth led Raef and Argos into a small room, a metal box. Raef tensed.
“How is this the way out?” he asked, feeling short of breath.
“You’ll see.”
Seth laid a hand to the wall, called the fire, and the floor shifted.
The room shook and rose, leaving the broader Forge behind. Raef could hear the clank of chains above. The doorway passed stone both dry and glistening.
Raef beamed at Seth.
“Wondrous,” he said.
The room swayed a little, and his weakness threatened to return. Seth lifted a hand, ready to catch him, but Raef kept his footing.
The chamber finally stopped. The open door faced bronze, not stone.
“We’ll need to be quiet for this part,” Seth said, stepping nearer. “I have a lot to tell you, but the Hierarch is not happy with me. He’s tried to kill me twice. He will try again.”
Seth let the light fade and pressed a part of the metal wall. It shifted, swinging open silently.
Raef recognized the smell of dead flowers and candlewax.
They stepped into the crypt beneath the temple of Hyperion.
The door to Drowned Gate was the shrine to Helios. The bronze relief slid back into place, fitting so tightly that Raef would never know it was there.
Raef scanned the crypt for flaming swords and let out his breath.
Fewer candles lit the space now.
The three of them crept up the stairs. Raef went first, using the shadowsight to watch for danger.
The sun had set, leaving the dome’s interior in darkness.
Offerings were piled about the altar, scribbled prayers and supplications.
“The Hierarch is here,” Seth whispered.
“He’s in Versinae?”
“Yes. He brought you, in the box. He probably knows I’m here now too, but not that you’re free.”
“Then we have a chance,” Raef replied as they crept toward the doors.
“At what?”
“To fix this,” Raef said. “To fix everything.”
“How?” Seth’s eyes were wide.
“I’m not quite sure yet,” Raef lied.
It was easier than telling him what he’d realized in the Forge. He couldn’t say it out loud, not yet. The truth of it, the acceptance, had to grow, to settle in what remained of his heart.
Argos padded along, much quieter than his master. Raef tried not to scowl at the rap of the knight’s boots on the marble.
“You are really bad at this,” Raef hissed.
“I know,” Seth whispered back. “Sorry.”
The doors were unguarded. Raef could not open them. He was weaker now than when he’d come to steal Kinos, but Seth lifted the beam barring the way and leaned, using his weight to open them to a crack.
He pushed them closed when they’d squeezed outside.
“Now where?” Seth asked, taking in the darkling city.
“I have an idea,” Raef said.
“Boat Town?”
“I think we can do better than that.”