by Martha Wells
“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.
M
erit 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.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The stairs just kept going up, which at first was terrifying. Moon was certain they had escaped the neverending hallway just to be trapped in the neverending stairwell. Rorra gave Delin a lift on her harness, and the Raksura used their claws to climb. Stone, stuck in his groundling form while the stairwell was this narrow, was the only one who was relatively slow. The uneven steps and the way they made you want to lean to the left didn’t help, either. Ahead, Moon could see Jade’s spines getting even more rigid as she tried not to betray any emotion.
Then her spines twitched and she said, “There’s a landing!”
Moon hissed with relief. It meant they weren’t, or probably weren’t, in another trap. Moon crowded up onto the open space with Stone. It was a landing, with the stairs continuing to curve up on the far side. To the right was a large crystal-filled window, more than twelve paces wide and nearly taking up the whole wall. “This looks like a door that was filled in,” Jade said, tapping her claws on the crystal.
The glass was murky and clouded. Moon stepped up and pressed his light against it, trying to see what was on the other side. Chime leaned past him and chipped at the mortar on the edge with a claw. Rorra, taking advantage of her flying pack, hovered up over everyone else’s head to see. Just enough light permeated the glass to let Moon get a murky view of a larger room with a stairwell going down. There was a doorway, too, leading into darkness. He said, “You’re right, it was a door.”
“The edges aren’t smooth,” Chime reported. “It’s not like those other crystal panels, the windows down to the canal.”
Moon thought of the crystal that enclosed the top of the city. Maybe that had been added later as well, an extreme measure to protect against attack. Delin squeezed in around his arm to examine the glass and said, “They wanted to block access to something in this part of the city, so it may only be approached from this stairwell.”
It means they thought they might come back, that they might need whatever they left up here, Moon thought. It meant there might not be a dangerous creature trapped in an eternal prison, but something that had been useful, something to be protected. It might also mean the builders or whoever had already returned at some point in the dim past and retrieved it, and just not bothered to disarm the magical trap protecting it. Moon found himself hoping for the latter; it would be easier to deal with.
Jade made a fist and struck the glass. It made a dull thump. “Stone, can you break this?”
Stone glanced around the space and grimaced. “I’ll try. Everybody out of the way.”
Jade turned toward the stairs leading up. “Come on.”
It gave them a chance to rest, sitting around on the steps while Stone shifted and tried to first push the glass out, then to dig at the wall around it. After the first moments of hope, Moon could tell it wasn’t going to work. Rorra said tiredly, “I think the Kish might have tools that could get through there. Of course, they’re all back on the sunsailer.”
Stone shifted back to groundling and hissed in annoyance, tucking his hands under his armpits. “Can’t budge it.”
Moon hopped back down the stairs. “Are you all right?”
“Just broke a claw,” Stone said.
“Let me see,” Moon insisted.
Growling, Stone showed him. He had broken three claws, the wound showing on his groundling form as bleeding from under the fingernails. His knuckles were darkening with bruises. He glared over Moon’s shoulder as the others crowded around. “Not everyone needs to see.”
Bramble dug another cloth out of her pack and said, “Quiet, line-grandfather. Somebody hold a light for me.”
Chime got the healing simples out again and Bramble wrapped Stone’s hand while Stone hissed impatiently. Moon exchanged a look with Jade. There wasn’t going to be another way out. They would have to follow these stairs to wherever they led.
They continued upward, moving faster now that they had some confirmation that this wasn’t another trap. Climbing beside Moon, Chime said, “I don’t know why I’m not hearing or feeling anything. I should have some idea about this place, this magic that’s here. Not that I’m complaining about not being able to hear any frightening voices, for example. But if my stupid ability was ever going to be any help, you’d think now would be a good time.”
You would think that. Moon said, “It’s got to mean something.”
“Perhaps . . .” Delin said, holding to Rorra’s harness as she hovered behind them. “You sense magics which are inimical or simply strange, is that it? You don’t feel it when Merit scrys or heals, do you?”
Chime told him, “Right, it’s always something very different. Sometimes harmful, sometimes just different.”
“Perhaps this is not different,” Delin said.
“Yes, but . . . Huh.” Chime went silent, considering it.
“It would be nice if these people left some carvings of themselves behind,” Song grumbled. “Then at least we’d know if they were like us or not.”
“I don’t think they were like us,” Briar told her, hooking her claws around a wall carving to pull herself up. “If they were, they had very odd taste in stairs.”
Merit held onto Balm as they leapt from pillar to pillar, River following and Kalam and Vendoin using their flying packs. They found the junction of seven canals quickly enough. As Balm set Merit down on the ledge, he tasted the air deeply. He didn’t catch any scent but traces of Raksura, sealing, and groundling. But there was something about this place he didn’t like.
“They could just be lost,” Kalam said, as he maneuvered his pack down to the floor. He sounded more hopeful than Merit felt the situation warranted. “This place may be a maze past this point.”
“If they weren’t sure which way to go, they could have followed their own scent trail back here,” Balm told him. “And we can’t be confused about direction. We always know where south is.”
“Are you certain?” Vendoin directed her light up at the carvings. “This place seems very confusing. And these designs . . . They are so intriguing . . .”
Ignoring them all, Merit sat down on the pavement, shifted to groundling, and pulled his pack around. “I need to scry. Can we tell which door they took?”
River was already casting back and forth between the doorways. He stopped in front of one to the left and said, “They took this one. With that sealing with them, they might as well paint arrows on the floor.”
“Everybody be quiet so Merit can scry,” Balm said, more pointedly than necessary.
Out of the corner of Merit’s eye he saw Vendoin start to speak and Kalam shush her. You could scry using a variety of things, shapes and patterns and movement in water, air, blood; it was all up to the individual mentor. Flower had liked to use wind shear, and birds in flight, if possible. You could also focus on individual objects, and Merit felt he was particularly good at that. This time he was scrying on a place, on this junction and the doorway the others had chosen. This place k
new what had happened next.
His sense of his own body, of the cool damp air in his lungs, all the scents of salt and familiar Raksura and unfamiliar groundlings, the texture of the layer of cloth between his groundling skin and the chill stone, went away. The visions came between his eyes and the view of the dark doorways, the scraps of carving and the dust motes visible in the spell-lights and Kishan lamps. Balm sat with Kalam. River was a little distance away, his head drooping as he dozed. Vendoin had taken out a small book in a leather wrap and was writing in it. Merit felt the mental drift of scrying, and a sensation like a wall crumbling, as if something had stood between him and the visions and had now dissolved. As he slipped into the space where the images lay, ghosts of color crawled across the walls, the painted designs and writing only Vendoin could see. Not warnings, but a last message: it lies here, take care, you know our reasons ...
Merit twitched, aware he had just spoken. Balm sat up straight. River flinched awake and the groundlings watched him wide-eyed. “What did I say?” Merit demanded, his voice coming out in a dry croak. The words were still floating around in his head, and he didn’t think there was time for them to settle so he could recall them himself.
Balm told him, “You said, ‘Bramble’s wrong, it’s not a trap, it wants them to find it.’”
“Right.” Merit shook his head, trying to wake himself up. “Something was there, blocking me, but it’s gone now.” He scrambled to his feet and shifted. The others stood, confused, hopeful. Merit shook his spines out and asked, “How long was I scrying?”
River answered, “Maybe an hour, a little longer. You know where they are?”
Merit nodded. “They had to go up. We just have to figure out where they’re coming down.” This was going to take more scrying, but at least he knew he was on the right track.
Moon and the others kept climbing, passing more landings, all with blocked-off doors. They tested each one, more carefully this time, just to make sure none of the crystal barriers had been inserted badly and were weak enough to dislodge. Moon was frustrated almost beyond bearing and he knew Jade was as well. This stupid trap had herded them right into the place it was supposed to be protecting.