CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Moon took the last position in the group, wanting Chime and Delin to be closer to Jade and Stone, and wanting to keep an eye on Rorra in case her pack failed. And to make sure nothing came out of the dark to snatch anyone away.

After several jumps from pillar to pillar, the light from the sunsailer faded, making the hall ahead look like a dark and slowly shrinking tunnel. The rest of Moon’s senses could tell they were still moving through a cavernous space. The lap of water against rock, the click of claws finding purchase on the stone, an occasional half-heard sound from the ship behind them all struck faint echoes from distant walls.

Then Bramble’s light jerked and Stone hissed. Moon froze, his claws gripping the edge of a pillar. Everyone stopped. Carrying Delin, Chime had landed just above Moon. Rorra maneuvered her pack close to his shoulder.

After a moment, Moon heard what must have alerted Stone. Claws scrabbled on rock below them, near the edge of the canal. Jade, on the pillar just ahead, turned back and tapped the spell-light hooked around her pack, and then pointed toward Rorra. Interpreting this, Moon whispered, “She wants you to use your light and try to see what it is.”

Rorra hovered closer, gripping the light mounted on the shoulder of her flying pack. Her voice low, she said, “Where is it?”

Holding on with one hand, Moon pointed to where he thought the scrabble had come from. Rorra angled the light and squeezed it, and the illumination suddenly doubled. It formed a thin shaft, throwing light down onto the edge of the canal. It showed only empty pavement and lapping water, but movement just on the edge of the darkness made Rorra twitch the light over.

Something huddled on the pavement, something at least the size of a small warrior. It had multiple spiky limbs, and a protective shell in bright colored stripes, red, yellow, blue. So many antennae stood out from the head that Moon couldn’t see any features, if it had eyes or a mouth. Two curved claws so sharp the light glinted off their edges shot out from the tangle of limbs, then the creature slid off the pavement into the water.

Rorra moved her light around, searching for more, but as far as they could see there was no movement. That still left a lot of dark space down there that they couldn’t see. “Well, we’re not alone in here,” Chime muttered.

“No swimming,” Moon agreed. They hadn’t seen any waterlings like that around the island, so the creatures might live in the city. All this water was coming in from the open sea some way, probably through channels buried deep in the rock. “Seen anything like that before?” he asked Rorra.

Eyeing the dark water, she said, “No, not that large. There’s a tiny version something like it in the shallows near Vesselae that can snip your fingers off if it gets the chance. I would think a large creature with claws like that would be extremely deadly.”

Moon thought so too. Ahead, Jade hissed a command and they continued on.

They passed a long section where there were no archways leading off into the depths of the city, just the supporting pillars and the ledge running along the side of the canal. Moon could tell the hall wasn’t quite straight, but curved gently toward the left and the eastern end of the escarpment. Then Bramble’s light jerked up suddenly and stopped. As Moon drew closer, he saw Stone had landed on a bridge or gallery, stretching across the hall. The canal extended below it, but seemed to open up into a large space. I really hope this doesn’t dead-end into another basin, Moon thought. But this city was huge; surely it couldn’t function with just one entrance.

The others caught up one by one and Moon reached them and landed beside Chime and Delin. It wasn’t just a bridge, it was a junction. Standing on Stone’s shoulder, Bramble held her net-light up as high as she could, revealing a giant seven-sided space, with tall doorways in each wall.

Chime set Delin on his feet and stepped over to a large oblong of crystal set into the floor. He crouched to peer down through it. “So does the main canal split into seven branches, and one of these hallways follows each branch?”

Jade flicked a spine in Root and Song’s direction and they both jumped over the edge of the bridge. After a few moments they climbed back up and Song reported, “Seven canals, each right below one of these doors. They aren’t nearly as tall and wide as the hall we just came up, and it would be tricky to fly along them. They all look big enough for the groundling boat, though.”

Jade said grimly, “Yes, but which one do we follow?” She turned to look at the doors. “There isn’t a middle one. That would have been helpful.”

There were a few dismayed hisses as the realization penetrated. All the doors were set at angles, none obviously a continuation of the main hall.

Rorra stepped to the edge of the bridge to look down at the canal, angling her light to let her see the sides. “If the halls parallel each canal all the way along, that’s easier than having to trace them by water. Particularly if the canals are inhabited by those waterlings. It’s just a matter of picking the right one.”

“‘Just a matter?’” Delin echoed.

“I didn’t say it was an easy matter,” Rorra admitted, stepping back.

Jade showed her fangs in a brief grimace. “So we may have to follow each one to see if there’s an outer door at the end.”

Moon didn’t think the task was that enormous. “The city’s tall, but it isn’t that wide. It would take, what, maybe a couple of hours to cross the top? The outside walls taper in, but not that much. So searching each canal shouldn’t take that long.”

“They might connect to each other,” Chime added. “That should help, too.”

Jade paced away. “It would still be better if we picked the right one first.”

With Bramble on his shoulder, Stone moved to the first door, letting the light fall down it a little. It was a hallway, on a smaller scale than the big one that led here, with carvings on the arching walls and maybe pillars farther down. Stone moved to check each door, but the halls seemed all the same. There were bands of carving around the doors, but they were all the same size, and nothing seemed to indicate one door was more important than the others. Bramble reported, “I don’t see any of the symbols we found on the entrance.” She added wryly, “That would have been handy.”

“Maybe we should have brought Vendoin to see the writing,” Root said. “I mean, if there’s writing.”

Delin stood near a pillar, examining the carving. “She would still have to translate it, which takes time. And the Hian interpretation of foundation builder language is greatly disputed.” His voice dry, he added, “I heard a great deal about that on the way to the Reaches.” He looked around again, squinting in the dim light. “The designs are asymmetrical. And the entrance was toward the eastern end of the escarpment, not in its center. There is less room for the canals on the eastern side.”

Jade’s tail lashed slowly as she considered it. “So it’s more likely some of these canals dead-end, or get smaller.”

Briar said, uncertainly, “There’s enough of us. We could split up to search each. That would take less time.”

Bramble snorted. “There’s stories that start that way and they all end ‘and then they were eaten.’” Stone grunted in agreement.

Everyone was looking at Jade, waiting for a decision. Trying to give her some breathing room, Moon said, “Do you want to go back and wait for Merit to scry?” He didn’t expect her to say yes, considering how badly Merit’s attempts to scry had been going.

“There’s no telling how long that will take.” Jade hesitated, her tail still moving slowly. “Chime, which hall should we start with?”

Moments like these were when Moon felt Chime’s former life as a mentor came in handy. A warrior would have balked at taking the responsibility; at this point, Moon would have picked a door at random. Chime moved forward, studying each doorway intently. “Asymmetrical,” he murmured. “And the gate into the city was toward the east, and a lot of these carved designs have a focal point toward the left . . .”

Moon, with Jade, Stone, Rorra, and the warriors, turned to stare at the nearest carvings. Bramble and Delin just nodded. Once it was pointed out, Moon could see that many of the carvings seemed to look better if you tilted your head to the left, but he had no idea what that meant. Chime finished, “So I’m guessing we should try that door first.” He pointed to the one third from the left. He turned to consult Bramble and Delin.

Bramble said, “It could be that one or the one to its right, but . . . Yes, I think we should start with it.”

Delin nodded agreement. “Your theory is sound, Chime.”

“What just happened?” Rorra asked Moon.

He said, “I have no idea.”

The hall wasn’t tall or wide enough to make flying or leaping feasible, and while a bounding gait would cover ground faster, it wasn’t a good way to travel through a place as strange and potentially dangerous as this. So they walked.

Moon was worried this might be hard on Delin and Rorra, but Delin seemed more interested in trying to study the wall carvings their lights revealed, and Rorra didn’t seem fatigued. Moon still meant to remind Jade to call for a rest sooner than she normally would need to.

Every fifty paces or so there was another oblong crystal inset in the floor. The glass was cloudy with age, but still allowed a dim view down to the canal below, just enough to see Rorra’s distance-light glinting off the water. With the others, Moon kept tasting the air, but all he could detect was saltwater, rock, nervous Raksura, nervous sealing, and Delin. Keeping his voice low, Chime said, “This isn’t the worst place we’ve ever explored. If it wasn’t for the possibility of a monster locked up in here somewhere, this wouldn’t be so bad.” He was clearly trying to keep his spirits up, because even as he said it, his spines twitched uneasily.

Walking ahead of them, Briar added, “And that we might starve to death if we can’t get past the Fell.”

“Right, I forgot about that one,” Chime said sourly. “Thanks for reminding me.”

“Remember the foundation builder writing,” Delin said. “This place is probably not of the forerunners. Unless they took control of it somehow, before or after the foundation builders departed.”

“Then why did it let Chime open it?” Bramble asked.

“Good question,” Delin said wryly.

Ahead, Stone stopped, and Bramble held up the net-light.

A staircase twisted up a pillar, leading up through an open shaft in the ceiling. Across the hall, an opening showed another set of steps curling down to the canal below. Moon ducked around Stone’s big furled wing to see the steps. Each was broad and flat across the middle, with two raised sections to either side, one a little higher than the other. Delin and Rorra moved up beside him, and Rorra said, “More than two legs? Or just decorative?”

“I don’t know.” Delin leaned into the stairwell, holding his light. “Odd.”

Stone set Bramble down, then shifted to his groundling form. Rorra flinched away from the abrupt transformation, but Delin just stepped closer to take advantage of the unobstructed view. Bramble’s frills brushed Moon’s scales as she pushed between him and Chime to see.

Briar, Song, and Root looked down the other set of stairs, trying to angle their lights to see more. Thinking of the size of the escarpment, Moon said, “I wonder if the city really fills the whole mountain. It’s a long walk up to the top, and we saw buildings through the glass up there.”

“We can’t get the boat up stairs. Come on,” Jade said, not patiently.

The others stepped away reluctantly. Moon had to admit, it was intriguing. He wanted to see the top of the city, wanted a better look at the shadow-shapes sealed under the glass. With a long look at the stairs, as if he was reluctant to leave them as well, Stone said, “We’re coming.”

Root added, “It’s not like anyone wants to find the monster.”

Stone gave Root a nudge to the head, then shifted back to his winged form.

They moved through the darkness with their lights throwing shadows on the walls and the graceful lines of the off-center carvings. Some distance along, Rorra stopped to drink from her water flask, and made Delin take a drink as well. Moon and Chime stopped with them, just in case something terrible chose that moment to leap out of the shadows. Ahead, Jade noticed and slowed the group’s pace so she could keep them in sight. Rorra stoppered the flask and put it back in her pack, saying, “You really think it’s too dangerous to split up? It seems so empty.”

Moon twitched his spines uneasily. “It’s too dangerous.”

Chime told her, “The creature in the forerunner city made us and the Fell see things that weren’t there.”

As they started walking again, she said, “But we don’t think one is here now, do we? This is so different from the city you described.”

“The creepiness is the same,” Chime said.

Some time later, Moon saw Root catch up with Jade. He asked her something in a plaintive tone. She stopped, and pulled affectionately on one of his frills. She turned back and said, “We’ll stop for a moment. Root’s hungry.”

Stone set Bramble down, and shifted to groundling while she dug in her pack for the food she had brought along. They had some bread and some of the dried sea-weed that the Kishan swore was almost as good as eating meat.

Moon turned to ask Rorra and Delin if they wanted any when Rorra swayed and caught Delin’s shoulder. “Sorry,” she said, and put a hand to her head. “I feel ill.”

Moon stepped over to take her arm to steady her, and caught the scent of blood. “Are you bleeding?”

She frowned at him. “No.”

He looked down and saw a dark spot just below her left knee, above the top of her boot. “Yes.”

“What?” She stared at it, uncomprehending.

“Sit down, here,” Delin urged her, and he and Moon helped ease her down.

Sitting on the floor, Rorra let out a breath and admitted, “That feels better.” Moon helped her unbuckle the boot and ease it away from the cloth of her pants. Where the fabric and leather had rubbed against her skin, there was a bleeding sore. Rorra swore in Kedaic, and said, “This happens sometimes when I have to walk all day. But I didn’t feel it until just now.” She touched it carefully and winced. “And we haven’t been walking that long.”

It must have been there a while. Now that it was in the open, Moon could catch a scent of infection off it. Except that he was sure it hadn’t been there when Rorra had removed her clothes and boots to swim in the sea only yesterday.

Chime and Bramble shouldered Moon aside at that point, both proffering medical advice and bandages and simples. Moon left Rorra to accept their help or fend them off, and went over to Jade. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“She has a wound, she must have gotten cut during the battle,” Moon said. That was the only explanation he could think of. Except he didn’t know how Rorra could have been hurt without it tearing the tough material of her clothes. And it had looked like a chafing sore. “Is Root all right?”

“Just hungry,” Jade said, frowning absently.

Still chewing a seaweed cake, Root had gone over to help Bramble hold her pack open. She and Chime were putting together a quick simple for Rorra. Bramble had been carrying extra supplies for Merit and it was coming in handy. It wouldn’t have the same effect as a simple made with mentor’s magic, but the combinations of herbs and distilled oils still helped healing.

“I’m hungry too,” Briar said, keeping watch on the darkness ahead. “And thirsty.”

“So am I.” Moon rubbed his eyes. He felt grit at the edges of the membranes under his eyelids, but that was probably because of the sand in the air outside. Now that everyone was talking about it, he realized his stomach felt empty and his throat was dry.

Briar said, “We ate before we left. It’s only been an hour or so.” She flicked her spines, suddenly uneasy. “Hasn’t it? My wings feel heavy, like I’ve been walking forever.”

With relief, Song said, “I thought it was just me.”

Moon stared at them, then met Jade’s gaze. He knew they were sharing a near identical expression of disbelief. Moon tried to sense where the sun was outside the rock of the escarpment, and felt nothing. Uh oh, he thought.

Slowly, as if dreading the answer, Jade said, “Stone, how long have we been in this corridor?”

Stone, who had been staring absently down the dark cavern of the hall, turned and ambled back to them. “About an hour.” He saw their expressions. “What?”

Moon said, “We’re all hungry and tired like we’ve been walking for more than a day, and Rorra has a chafing sore on her leg that wasn’t there earlier, and it’s already infected.”

Stone took that in. Then he groaned, “Shit.”

Delin stepped up beside Moon and said quietly, “I fear you are right.” He rubbed his neck below his beard. “I shaved while we were preparing to leave, not knowing when I would have the chance again. I am not a young man, to bristle with hair after barely an hour’s time.”

“So when did it happen?” Jade said. Her voice was even but she was holding her spines neutral with effort. “After we picked this corridor?”

Briar’s spines twitched in agitation, and she turned to Song. “Do you remember how many stairwells we’ve seen? I was going to count them, just to make sure we could find our way back if there was another branch in the hall. Bone is always going on about the warriors not paying enough attention to tracking, so I was . . . But somehow I didn’t count them.”

Song shook her head. “I didn’t think of that.”

Stone said, “Bramble, get over here.”

He hadn’t raised his voice, but something in his tone made Bramble cross the distance in a single bound. Chime, helping Rorra fasten the bandage, turned to stare, startled. Stone asked Bramble, “How many stairwells?”

“Uh.” She blinked. “I thought I was counting them, but I can’t remember . . .” She looked around, spines lifting in suspicion. “How long since we’ve seen one? Or one of those insets in the floor?”

Song said, “I know I was checking those, and so was Root, to make sure we were still above the canal.” She tasted the air. “I can smell the saltwater, so it’s still below us—”

“Enough.” Jade held up her hands, claws spread. “We know what’s happened—we know what we think happened—how do we fix it?”

“I just don’t think we should move anymore,” Chime said, wearily. “We don’t know where we are.”

Moon nodded grim agreement. They had shifted to groundling to conserve their strength when they had started back down the hall. But after walking for some time, they hadn’t even reached the last stairwell again. That was assuming the stairwells were real, and not part of this trap.

The unchanging darkness and no sound except for their own movements and breathing was beginning to weigh on everyone. Moon found himself wondering how long Merit’s spells on the moss bundle and the cups would work. If they would be trapped here long enough for their lights to fade.

Chime had been more upset than anyone else, blaming his erratic extra senses for not warning them. Though Root had pointed out, “You thought it was creepy, everyone did. Maybe you just couldn’t tell the difference between ordinary creepy and this.”

Whatever this was. Chime had said, miserably, “Maybe that’s why I picked this hall.”

Moon had squelched that quickly. “Whichever one we picked, this would probably still have happened.”

Jade added, “Yes, there’s no point in a trap like this if there are six ways to avoid it.”

Now Stone turned to Jade and said in frustration, “Maybe I should go on alone. Try to . . . get ahead of it.”

Moon thought that was a terrible idea. “We don’t know what ‘it’ is.”

Jade flicked her spines in a negative. “I don’t want us to split up. You might be still stuck like this, but unable to find us again.”

It sounded all too possible to Moon. And it must have to everyone else too, because Root edged nearer to Song, Bramble tucked Stone’s arm under hers, and Briar gently herded Delin and Rorra closer to the middle of the group. Chime, already standing shoulder to shoulder with Moon, said, “Yes, it’s too big a risk.”

Stone half snarled but said, “I know, I know.”

Jade stood there a moment, her gaze on the shadow at the edge of their lights. “So, trying to go back didn’t work.”

“We don’t know that we are even moving,” Delin pointed out. “We may be walking in place.”

Rorra added, “At least we know we’re actually walking. If we were lying on the floor dreaming this, we might get hungry, but I wouldn’t have gotten a sore.” With a simple plus a feather-soft stretch of cloth Bramble had brought, Rorra’s skin was now protected. Chime had suggested she float along with the flying pack, but she wanted to conserve it, since they weren’t certain how long they would be stuck here, and the moss that made its spells work wouldn’t last forever.

“So we know we’re standing up and walking, even if we aren’t making any progress,” Jade said. Her gaze fell on Bramble, who was bouncing a little, stifling impatience. Jade said, wryly, “Go ahead.”

Bramble said, “It’s just I know it sometimes bothers all of you when I get out of hand—”

Moon said, “Bramble, this is just the kind of situation where we need you to get out of hand.”

All the Arbora liked stories, and making up stories, and speculating on everything from the motivation of rival courts to every type of intrigue that existed. Bramble was particularly good at it, often to excess. Stone gave her an encouraging nudge forward and she said, “First thing I thought of was that spell you all were trapped in that time in the city in the mountain-thorn.” Everyone nodded, and Chime started to object, but Bramble continued, “Of course this isn’t the same. Here, time is clearly passing, our bodies feel it passing, we’re hungry and tired, it’s just that something keeps confusing our heads, making us think we haven’t been here that long. But it’s not something affecting our memories, because of course otherwise we wouldn’t remember that we had realized something was wrong.”

Bramble paused for breath, then continued, “So I think this is protective, to keep people from getting any further into this city. And I think it started after we passed that last set of stairwells and the last window down into the canal channel, because since then nothing has changed, the corridor looks the same. I’ve been trying to see if the carvings are changing, but a lot of them are just repeating patterns, and the light’s too bad to tell.”

“That’s good,” Chime said, startled.

Song poked him in the arm. “Don’t sound so surprised.”

Moon said, “It means Jade’s right, splitting up won’t help.” He wanted to make sure everyone understood that part. A situation where anyone who had separated from the group was still trapped, but alone and unable to find the others, was a nightmare he didn’t intend to participate in.

Delin had his fingers tangled in his beard, staring into the distance, deep in thought. “I feel your reasoning is sound, Bramble. If we are some short distance after the last stairwell, what do you think it was that triggered this trap? Was it merely that we stepped over some line imperceptible to us, or was there some object?”

“There wasn’t anything on the floor,” Chime said, “so if it was an object, it had to be on the walls.”

Stone turned away, looking up. “So if we’re in a short stretch of hallway, walking it over and over again, we might be between two of Bramble’s objects, both mounted on the walls.”

“They aren’t my objects,” Bramble protested.

“No, not your objects, and we don’t know that they’re actually there.” Jade studied the walls. “But if they are, we can’t get out from between them by going forward or backward—”

“We need to try going up,” Moon finished. “This city isn’t designed for people who fly. They may not have thought about that when they made the trap.”

They all looked up. The glow from their lights only went up so far, the dark stretching up beyond. Moon felt a prickle down his spines. The darkness seemed to take up more space than it had before, as if the ceiling was higher. “If you’re right,” Bramble said, “it means this city definitely wasn’t built by our forerunners, and it also wasn’t built by people who were enemies of our forerunners. If they were trying to trap people who could fly, they’d have put a top on the trap.”

The other thing Arbora liked were sweeping conclusions. Moon wasn’t sure Bramble was right about what it meant, but it would be interesting to find out.

“A point to think about,” Chime said, his spines twitching uneasily. “We might end up in a situation where we’re climbing endlessly, instead of just walking endlessly.”

The other warriors stared at him, appalled. Stone grimaced. Delin said, “One of you will be carrying me. It will be your decision.”

“We’ll risk it,” Jade said. “Root, take Delin.”

“We need to hurry.” Stone stepped away and shifted.

Bramble hung the net-light on one of Stone’s claws and Stone started up the wall. Jade leapt up next, Bramble starting up behind her. Root followed with Delin, then Song, then Rorra used her flying pack, staying close to the wall. Then Moon started up with Chime and Briar.

They stayed together in a tight group, furled wings just brushing, Stone’s tail hanging down to curl up just below them. Moon glanced down and saw darkness seem to fill the space below them like muddy water poured into a bowl. He thought about dropping one of the lighted cups to see if the floor was still there, but if they were stuck here much longer, they might regret the loss of any light source.

“We should be getting close to where the ceiling curves,” Chime whispered.

Moon squinted, trying to see it above them, but the net-light bounced around too much as Stone climbed. Under his scales, his skin itched with nerves.

They climbed past a carving of something that might be a stylized sun, the rays streaming off to the upper left, and Moon was sure they must be near the curved ceiling, but he couldn’t see anything but wall above.

He was looking up when Stone’s form suddenly rippled, as if Moon saw him through a haze of heat. The ripple flowed downward over the others, then Moon’s body went numb. The wall spun and there was a roar in his ears, inside his head. His claws slipped on the stone. Above, Jade shouted, “Keep climbing, don’t stop!”

Moon scrabbled to keep his grip on the wall. He couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t tell where his claws were or how hard to grip. Beside him Chime started to slip down the wall and Moon grabbed his shoulder and gave him a shove upward. Briar, near to sliding helplessly herself, grabbed Chime’s wrist and tried to pull him up with her. Bramble skittered down the wall almost on top of Moon and he caught her by the frills and shoved her up again.

Then Rorra grabbed Briar and jerked her up, dragging Chime along with her. Chime’s tail slapped Moon in the face and Moon grabbed it, and was pulled straight up the wall with them.

His ears popped and the world was suddenly right side up again. There was a ledge just above his head and Jade leaned down from it, grabbed his collar flange, and hauled him up and over.

Moon braced himself on the floor, still shaken. A quick glance around showed him that the others were all here, in various states of disarray, and that this wasn’t a ledge, but a large space, a gallery looking down on the hall below. The walls he could see were carved with the same sort of designs, the ceiling also curved. It hadn’t been here before, he was certain of it; whenever Stone had held the light up, it had reflected off a solid curved ceiling. He said, “We were right.”

Jade squeezed his wrist and stood. “Bramble, remind me to thank Bone for insisting you come along.”

Bramble clambered to her feet and lifted the net-light. “You would have gotten here eventually, I just shortened the trip a little,” she said, but her spines flicked in pleasure.

Chime crawled to the edge of the gallery and looked down. “I can’t see the hall we were in, but it must be down there.”

Rorra pushed to her feet, swaying as she got her balance. “There’s one of those stairwells, going down. The last we passed, perhaps?” She took a step nearer, peering into the dark, and pointed toward the far end of the room. “And there’s one going up.”

“Careful,” Delin said, as Bramble gave him a hand up. “Do not get too close to the downward stairs. We know the trap extended up some distance.”

Moon got to his feet, giving Chime and Root a hand up. Briar and Song were already standing, looking around the room cautiously. Stone hooked the net-light around a claw and took a quick turn around the big room. Then he shifted down to his groundling form. “There’s no way out of here but those stairwells.”

Jade considered the stairwell that led downward warily. “I don’t think we can risk it. It must go straight down to the hall we just left.”

“Back into the trap,” Delin agreed.

“I don’t want to do that again,” Root said fervently. There were murmurs and spine twitches of agreement all around.

As the others talked, Moon took one of the lights and went to the wall, following it all around the room. Briar and Song trailed behind him. There was nothing that indicated any secret ways out, not even a crack. At the opposite side, Stone met him with a dry expression. “I tried that already.”

“I know.” Moon controlled a spine twitch of frustration. He lowered his voice. Briar and Song were standing close and watching worriedly. “The chances of what’s up there being . . .” Another terrible prisoner, another creature so dangerous a whole city had to be abandoned to imprison it. And whoever might have left it here wasn’t nearly as good at making impenetrable prisons as the forerunners.

“Yeah. There’s a chance.” Stone looked away. “I wish they’d just killed the damn things.”

There had to be some reason they didn’t, Moon thought.

“So the trap must have been there to protect that stairwell,” Chime was saying, his scaled brow furrowed.

With a growl in her voice, Jade said, “I suppose there’s no way to tell the trap that all we want is to get our boat out of this damn city.”

Rorra shook her head in frustration. “No, they clearly thought anyone who came in here after the city was deserted would be searching for whatever is up there.”

“We have to go up, don’t we?” Root said, with a bleak droop of his spines. “What if there’s another trap?”

“We can’t stay here.” Jade turned to the stairwell. “We’ve already been gone too long.”

Bramble’s expression was grim. “The others will come after us. They’ll follow our scent right up that hall.”

Moon exchanged a look with Stone. Then Jade said what they were both thinking, “I just hope they haven’t already. I hope Merit was able to scry this.”

Merit had felt the sun cross the sky high above the sea-mount. He and everyone else on board had gone from impatience for the Raksura to return to the certainty that something was badly wrong. His scrying was more frustrating than ever, and had yielded nothing but flashes of darkness. I have to get closer, he thought. He glared at Balm and River. Whether some people like it or not.

The two warriors had both woken up angry, and after nearly a full day of increasingly anxious waiting, they wanted to kill each other. After listening to them argue, Merit wanted to let them.

“I can move faster alone,” Balm said to River, her spines lifted dangerously. “I don’t need to be slowed down.”

Balm wanted to go after Jade and the others by herself, which might have seemed sensible on the surface. If everyone who went into the city disappeared, reducing the number of people going in might be a good idea. But Merit didn’t think it was practical. What if she needed to send someone back for help? What if she ended up trapped somewhere because there wasn’t anyone to help her at the right moment? It was why Raksura never traveled alone.

River’s reasons for objecting were entirely different. “You don’t trust me,” he growled. “What do you think I’ll do, rip your throat out and leave you somewhere?”

Balm eyed him coldly. “Why don’t you try it now, so I can kill you and get on with finding them.”

Merit hissed, annoyed. “Balm, you don’t really think that.” He had expected Balm to be half out of her mind with fear for Jade and Moon and the others, but River was almost as bad. And neither wanted to admit it.

They both ignored him. River said, “I don’t want to fight you. You’re the one who wants that, because you think it’ll erase what happened to you, how the Fell used you. I’m not the only one who remembers that, Balm.”

Balm’s spines went rigid with fury. Merit agreed that it was too close to home and also an unfair strike. Merit said, “River, that’s not helping.” Stupid warriors, he thought. He needed to be more sympathetic to Chime’s situation; it must be agony to be like this now after living all your previous life as a sensible Arbora.

Again, they both ignored him. Kalam stood in the doorway, watching anxiously. Callumkal had been in and out as they waited, increasingly worried, trying to make his own plans with the other groundlings. He had said grimly, “At least we know the Fell can’t get in, or they would have been on us by now.” Unable to wait for the Raksura to return, a group of Kishan were getting ready to take their flying packs and try to follow the canal to find a way out.

Balm stepped deliberately close to River, and he bristled. Balm said, “You made sure everyone remembered it. You took advantage of what it did to me, treated me like nothing to prove to your idiot followers how strong you were—”

River sneered. “You let me.”

It wasn’t doing Merit any good to think what Jade, Moon, or Stone would do in this situation. If they were here, this wouldn’t be happening. He asked himself what Flower would do.

As Balm’s claws flexed, Merit shoved in between them. He was in his groundling form, small and vulnerable. Balm was wearing a copper bead necklace and River a bronze armband Pearl had given him. Merit slammed a hand on Balm’s chest and grabbed River’s arm. He didn’t quite hit his targets, but he got close enough.

Both yelped and flinched violently away from him. Balm ripped her necklace away over her head and River clawed his armband off. Both stared at Merit. “What—” Balm began. “You—” River started.

Merit said, “Don’t make me do it again.”

There was a moment of stunned silence. River touched his armband where it lay on the floor, and jerked his hand away. Balm muttered, “I didn’t know you’d do it in the first place.”

“You’ve never been idiot enough to make me,” Merit said. Warriors tended to forget that rocks and cups weren’t the only thing mentors could spell for heat. “I know you’re afraid for Jade and the others, but that’s no excuse. This is what we’re going to do. The three of us will go look for them. I need to be closer to them, on the route they took, so I can scry about what happened. Now get your packs and get ready to leave.”

Balm and River exchanged a look. Merit held his breath, afraid they might comment on his recent lack of success in scrying. But they both turned away, too angry with each other to think of it.

Kalam said, “I want to go with you. My father will let me take one of the levitation harnesses, so I won’t slow you down.”

River had gone to get his pack, his movements stiff with offended pride. Balm picked up hers, threw a wary glance at Merit, and told Kalam, “If you can’t track by scent, there’s no way you can help us.”

Kalam wasn’t deterred. “Some of the sunsailer’s crew are suspicious because the other Raksura didn’t come back. They think they’re searching the city with Rorra and Delin, looking for artifacts instead of the way out. If I go with you, it’ll show them my father still trusts you.”

Balm grimaced. “Oh.”

Filling his waterskin from the cask against the wall, River shook his head. “That’s stupid. What artifacts? We don’t know anything about this place.”

“They think Delin does.” Kalam waited for further objections, then said, “I’ll go get my harness.”

Balm hesitated, and glanced at Merit. “Should we take him?”

Merit wished for an instant he hadn’t seized control of the search party in such a dramatic fashion. It was a little daunting. But he didn’t suppose Balm and River would remain subdued for long. And Kalam had been friendly to them during the whole trip; Merit didn’t see any reason they shouldn’t trust him. “He might be able to help.”

River made a skeptical noise but didn’t argue.

Within a few moments they were out on the deck, Balm and River having quickly assembled their supplies, and Merit making sure he had his simples and anything else he might need. They had taken some more of the little metal cups and Merit spelled them for light. The little glows of illumination seemed ridiculously inadequate next to the dark well just beyond the Kishan lights, but it was all they had. Merit wished he could spell the huge walls for light, but that was far beyond his abilities.

Kalam appeared with Callumkal, trailed by Vendoin, Kellimdar, and some other Kishan. He was pulling on the harness that went with the flying pack, and had a belt with tools and pouches strapped around his waist. Vendoin was fitting a harness over her armor patches. “Vendoin wants to come with us,” Kalam explained.

Merit hesitated, and looked at Balm. Balm lifted a brow, the tilt of her spines clearly saying you decided you were in charge. River’s expression was sour.

Merit controlled the urge to snarl at both of them. Vendoin had a flying pack, so it wasn’t any extra burden. Hopefully there wouldn’t be any time for her to ask him annoying questions and act surprised at his answers. And if it made the Kishan happy and made it easier for Callumkal, so much the better. He said, “Yes, she can come.”

Callumkal seemed gratified and Kellimdar surprised. Callumkal said, “Take care.” He squeezed Kalam’s shoulder.

As the groundlings got ready, Merit heard Vendoin speak to Kalam in Kedaic, saying, “Once we leave, they will send some crew members in packs up the canal. They don’t trust the Raksura.”

Tightening a last buckle, Kalam didn’t look up. “They didn’t betray us. Something’s wrong.”

“At least we all agree on that,” Balm said in Raksuran, in Merit’s ear. She lifted him and they took flight into the dark.