Our imaginations peopled the place with a hundred dangers even as they raced ahead in contemplation of the wonders that awaited us in the Chamber of Ancestors. I did not speak to Mirian of it, but I worried that someone might have learned the Karshnaar code and plundered the tomb, almost as much as I worried that we might misremember that code and be cut in half or crushed to paste beneath some ancient trap.
—From The Daughter of the Mist
The corridor was in slightly better condition than the first ones, complete with short runs of shining little fungi. Certainly the green light was eerie, but it was better than nothing. Because it grew in long trenches at both head and foot level, Ivrian could easily see there weren’t any monstrous spiders or centipedes waiting to drop on him. What webs he saw were of the typical variety. He still gave them a wide berth.
With his pole shifted to its spear end and pointed before him, Jekka sounded almost friendly as he spoke with Mirian.
“It is wise,” he said, “to leave more warriors to guard a larger space.”
“Yes,” Mirian said.
They neared an intersection. “You are not more worried that we will be encumbered while carrying the treasures?”
“Not with these magical backpacks.”
He’d grown a lot friendlier today, and Ivrian wondered whether that was just the natural result of his spending time with Mirian. Perhaps seeing her artwork last night had something to do with it. Whatever the cause, a calmer, less irritable Jekka was a more reassuring companion.
They advanced into the next segment of hallway. A long swath of its ceiling was cracked. Mirian flashed her light over its surface and revealed tree roots that had fought their way through the rock.
Jekka continued to prove uncharacteristically talkative. “I begin to see that a contract is a pledge that guarantees honor between humans. I suppose such contracts are necessary when there are so many different clans.”
“Yes,” Mirian agreed.
“Unfortunately,” Ivrian added, “many humans don’t honor their contracts anyway.”
Jekka glanced back at him and stopped to consider Mirian, who halted and cocked an eyebrow at him.
“But you do,” Jekka said.
“My clan prides itself on honoring its contracts,” Mirian said. “My father risked his life to honor his.”
“All for the riches?” the lizard man asked.
Mirian’s smile was a little sad. “Not really. For the thrill. To go places no one had ever seen. To find secrets, to solve puzzles.”
“He was a hunter, then.”
“Of a kind.”
“And you are like him.”
“I suppose I am.”
They reached another intersection, surveyed the dark corridors, moved on. What else lay down these silent halls, he wondered? How many lizardfolk had lived and died here and raised families? And how many artisans must it have taken to chisel the carvings into every surface? It was, he thought, a little too much. Like the homes of the extraordinarily rich, where everything was gilded, even the bathing chambers.
Jekka was talking once more. “I think you are more interested in the hunt than the riches.”
“What about you?” she asked quietly. “What are you interested in?”
Jekka was suddenly brusque. “I am here to help my brother and my cousin.”
“But not yourself?”
Jekka paused, just a few yards shy of the glistening pool at the center of the next intersection. His voice became solemn. “The mark of doom is upon my people, Mirian. Do you truly think there is some lost land where my clan still lives?” He didn’t leave time for her to answer. “We are finished. It doesn’t matter if the final blow comes from your kind, or the boggards, or even others of our own folk. All are instruments of Gozreh. He does not want us here. My mate said he must have great need for the Karshnaar in the spirit world, for he had taken so many. But I think he does not care.”
“I don’t know about gods,” Mirian said. “But I can hope, Jekka. You and your people are brave and determined. Sometimes that’s enough.”
He studied her.
“Enough talk. It’s time for a dive.” Mirian turned to Ivrian. “Do you have the hang of this now?”
“I do.”
“All right. Jekka, he can’t swim as fast, so you and I will have to slow down. I don’t want us spread out too far.”
“Understood.”
Jekka and Mirian consulted the map a final time. As Ivrian completed a second scan of the hallway behind them, he understood the depth of the change that had occurred between the two. He couldn’t imagine seeing the tall woman and the slim lizard man standing so easily side by side in that seemingly long-ago age when they’d boarded the ship together.
Apparently satisfied, Mirian slipped the map into her haversack, one of two she now carried, like Ivrian, each on a shoulder. “Let’s be on with it.”
She pulled free her sword, stood with feet planted wide as she blew out all her air, then dropped into the water. Jekka slipped in a moment later, facing the opposite direction. Ivrian waited a moment for the waves to cease their rocking, then watched as his companions got out of the way. Mirian waved him on with one dimly glowing, fin-coated hand. He could tell from her pained expression that she was still transitioning to gill breaths.
Soon he was cold and wet along with them, sucking in the water through his own set of glowing gills. He would have thought whoever had dreamed up the kind of magic that made it possible to breathe underwater could have worked a little harder and made it comfortable.
Before he’d adjusted, both Mirian and Jekka were kicking down through a circular passage to the lower level of water tunnels and turning south. Using the fins that appeared on arms and feet wasn’t as simple as Mirian made it seem. He couldn’t imagine he looked as graceful as she did.
Underwater fronds were mixed in with the fungus in the lower transit hall, casting strange shadows.
Here and there he was startled to see the silvery flash of tiny fish. He hoped these weren’t piranha—he’d neglected to ask what those looked like. The creatures seemed wary, which was probably a reasonable indicator they weren’t inclined to eat him.
He thought he’d paid attention to Heltan’s directions, so he was surprised by a couple of turns Mirian and Jekka made. Most alarming of all was a deep thrumming noise that scattered a school of those tiny fish. It sounded as though someone were beating a great underwater drum.
It was so startling that once again he forgot to empty his lungs before he surfaced, and he spent a long minute coughing water as Mirian and Jekka climbed free. He decided he’d leave that out of any account he wrote—assuming he could acquire permission to write it.
He studied the hall as he recovered. It was different from the others he’d seen. First, it was on the same level as the upper water passages, but it was filled with air. Second, the floor was covered in an inch of water. Third, there was nothing at all within the short corridor but clear red tiles. Only at the hall’s far end, thirty paces on, was there any ornamentation whatsoever. Hundreds upon hundreds of small Karshnaar faces looked out on him, arranged in parallel rows from floor to ceiling.
“This,” he managed weakly, “is going to be trickier than I thought.”
As if placed merely to add to his apprehension, a series of bones were strewn near that decorative wall. His bare feet splashed little waves as he followed Mirian and Jekka. Seven skulls. Lizardfolk or boggards, he guessed, though he wasn’t practiced enough to tell the difference. “They must not have known the pattern,” he said.
Neither Mirian nor Jekka answered.
“Hey, did either of you hear that strange noise while we were underwater?”
“Yes,” Jekka answered.
“Do you have any idea what it is?”
“No,” the lizard man said without turning. “But I do not like it.”
“What about you, Mirian?” Calling her by her first name felt unnatural, but she showed no sign that she objected.
“I’m not sure what to think, but we need to be cautious. Now stand guard behind us. Jekka and I have to concentrate.”
Right, he thought. He turned, holding his spear ready. He felt a little ridiculous poised there with a shortspear, standing with legs naked to the knee, two backpacks crossing his shoulders. If I survive to describe this, he thought, I’ll downplay the absurdity of my appearance.
His eyes widened involuntarily.
“I’m definitely going to survive this,” he muttered to himself. “Definitely.”