We camp far enough away from the fallen columns that the air is bearable. With the sun gone for the day but the wind still blowing in from the sea, the cold begins to bite. We’re all exhausted and don’t talk much. But when I roll into my blanket, it takes me a while to nod off. I’m not sure if it will be the sea that will haunt my dreams, or wave after wave of Aphorain soldiers marching to their deaths against Zostar’s forces.
The next thing I know, Barden is gently shaking my shoulder.
“Dawn’s about to break,” he says, handing me a palmful of rock figs. He’s built a campfire, and the scent of honey-sweetened barley porridge beckons me.
“Thanks, Bar. Has she eaten?” I jut my chin towards Ami.
“You think I’d let her start work on an empty stomach?” He returns his attention to the copper pot over the fire and mumbles something under his breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t be like that.”
“Fine,” he huffs. “I was just saying I hope Nisai is feeding himself, too. He always gets so absorbed in things he forgets to eat.”
“Mother hen.”
He shrugs, a goofy smile curling his lips.
“Guess it’s as good a way to get promoted as any, eh? Become indispensable to the future Emperor.”
His smile vanishes and I hold up my hands. “I’m joking. Really. We should seize whatever happiness we can.” What I don’t say is that with what’s coming, who knows how much of it there’ll be to go around. If any. “As soon as we’re done here, it’ll be straight on to Lostras. You can get back to happily mother-hen-ing all you want.”
I scarf my food, roll away my blanket and join Ami in the Ruins of Stink. She seems unbothered by the smell, too intent on the task. “Look for patches of ground that seem unusual, parts of the temple that are buried, that sort of thing. We’re looking for an underground repository, and the entrance may have been covered by the shifting sands.”
I begin to pace the fallen columns but see nothing unusual. Maybe I don’t have an eye for it. Or maybe my vision is still not what it was. I can’t quite tell if the edges of distant objects are blurrier than they should be, or if they’re further away than I ever saw sharply.
But Ami doesn’t turn up anything either, and she’s the expert.
Frustrated, I return to the camp.
Barden’s scrubbed the dishes with sand and is packing them away. “We’ll only have a day or so before we have to find a source of fresh water,” he reports.
“I know,” I snap. But it’s not him I’m sore at. It’s the whole situation. “Sorry, Bar, I—”
“I get it. Me, too.”
We begin searching the ruins. Sometimes I think I see something, a symbol or letters carved in the weathered stone. But when I scrape away the layer of bird scat, there’s nothing of note.
I spy another unusual looking stone. Again, nothing.
The morning passes in cycles – a whiff of hope, chased away by salt and brine and scat.
“Over here,” Barden finally calls.
He’s standing at the edge of the cliff, so close that when the wind gusts my heart lurches against my ribs like it’s trying to drag me back to safety.
I used to be fine with heights. But that fearlessness is getting eaten away by caution. Images crash into my mind as the waves crash against the cliffs thousands of feet below. Climbing down into Belgith’s Canyon after fleeing Aphorai City in the depth of night with Ash. Luz’s sure grip as she pulled me back from the edge of the ice ravine when we journeyed to the Sanctuary. The last place I want to be is now on a cliff edge above churning water.
But Barden is Barden. He’s always anchored wherever he goes. Teetering on the edge of the world is no exception.
I force myself to step tentatively closer.
“What is it?”
“Here.” Barden drops to his knees and stretches on to his stomach. “You’ll have to get close to see it.”
I follow his lead, and crawl forward, flattening on my front as I near the edge. Flakes of limestone go skittering over the cliff and disappear into the ocean’s raging waters.
“Down there. In the cliff. See that overhang?”
I swallow my fear and try to follow where Barden is pointing. “Got it.”
“Now look what happens when the waves come in. Every now and then, when there’s a bigger one. Wait for it…”
I watch, not sure exactly what I’m watching for. The waves swell towards us, one after the other like a never-ending military parade. Each one crashes against the cliff in turn, salt water spraying high and falling back down into a roil of blue-and-white froth.
“This one,” Barden says, excitement in his voice.
The larger wave crashes much like the others, foam flying. I squint hard, gaining slightly better focus. Even though the wave has left the cliff behind, water continues to flow back out of the cliff like a temporary waterfall.
“There’s something there,” Barden says. “A cave. A tunnel. Maybe just a large depression in the rock. But there’s something.”
Whatever it is, it’s going to be impossible to get to. Even if you could find enough hand-holds and ledges in the eroded cliff face, it’d only take the barest slip and it’ll be all over. The ocean would claim you.
“Maybe it is something, maybe it isn’t. Finding out would be a death wish. Nobody in their right mind would do it.”
“I haven’t lost my wits,” Barden says defensively. “And I can climb.”
It’s true. He’s been climbing trees and canyons and even the Aphorai City walls since we were kids. He’s never once fallen. But this is different.
“No.”
He gives me a sharp look.
“You’ll have to have a rope. It’s too risky not to.” I look back to the plain stretching behind us, flat except for the tufts of camelthorn bush like the scraggliest of beards. Not a boulder or outcrop in sight. Nothing to use as an anchor but us.
I consider Ami’s slender form. I suppose I could ask her to go. But why is her risk any less than mine? And the way she turned so pale she was almost green at the prospect of climbing down here pretty much rules out her being any use.
When I look back to Barden, he’s narrowing his eyes, like he already knows what’s coming next. He knows me too well.
“I’ll go.”
“Now hold on a—”
“Remember why I used to be the one to climb for the highest oranges back when we were kids? You’re the heaviest, Bar. If you fall, who knows if we’ll be able to hold you? Out of the two of us, I’m sure as stink I’d rather have you holding the rope than me trying to haul your deadweight back up here.”
“We could use the animals,” he says.
“I don’t trust camels.” My eyes go to where Lil is having the dust bath of her life, hooves kicking in the air as she joyfully rolls about. “And I doubt we’ll have enough rope for it.”
He stares down at the water. One wave crashes. Two. Three.
Finally, he gives me a grim nod.
We return to retrieve the rope Luz insisted we bring with us. I’m beginning to lose count of how many times she’s saved our skins. Not that I’d let her know that, the result would be insufferable.
Barden unloops the rope’s coils and dangles it over the cliff edge. I was more right than I wanted to be: it barely makes it halfway to the overhang.
“We’ll have to use whatever we’ve got. Clothes. Lil’s tack. Tie it all together, and we might just make it. But you’ll have to be the anchor, not Lil,” I say.
We set to work, turning out each of our packs, gathering anything that can be used to lengthen the rope’s reach. I tie each section, test it and test it again, thanking Father for making sure I knew my knots from an early age.
Once we’ve done the best we can, I pull my satchel tight, tying a loop in the strap so it sits snug against my back. It’s extra weight, but Barden can handle it, and there’s no way I’m going down t
here empty-handed. If that cave goes back far, it’ll be dark for one thing. And if it does tunnel in, who knows what I’ll find down there. My knife comes, too.
“Keep your eyes peeled for anything that doesn’t look like a natural occurrence. Strange symbols, carvings, a rock that doesn’t look right,” Ami says.
“I managed to find the Library of the Lost, I think I can figure this out.” I sound snarkier than I mean to, but when I’m about to risk my life, the last thing I need is someone telling me the obvious.
The rope is at Barden’s feet, several paces back from the cliff edge. I’ve tied myself to the other end, a pair of his leather trousers circling my waist. I refrain from making a quip about it being the closest we’ll get to being in each other’s pants again.
“I’ll have you the whole time, remember that.”
I smile at my best friend. “I know.”
“But be—”
“—careful. I will.”
He gives me a quick but fierce hug and picks up the rope.
I back over the edge of the cliff, my feet bracing against the rock. And just like that, I’m horizontal out over a hundred-foot drop to a watery grave. Don’t look down, I chant to myself. One foot after the other. Just don’t look down.
I look down.
My stomach flip-flops and I grip the rope harder; the slight but sudden shift in my weight sends my foot to sliding on the cliff’s flakey stone. The rope goes even tauter as, out of sight atop the cliff, Barden and Ami counter my weight. I scrabble for a hold, managing to get my heels braced against the cliff again. For a few thunderous heartbeats, I don’t move, just cling on, trying to get my breath under control, the wind clawing at my clothes and doing its best to blind me with my cheek-length hair.
“I’m fine,” I call.
Inch after careful inch, I ease further down the cliff. Then I’m at the end of the rope. But I’m not where I need to be. Instead, I’m only level with the overhang jutting out from the cliff. The lip of rock beneath it, the floor of whatever the hole in the cliff is, must still be twice my height below me.
A drop like that is going to hurt, even if I manage not to twist an ankle or wrench a knee.
We have to know what’s down there. If it’s the weapons cache, it doesn’t seem like there’s any other way to access it. And the last thing I want to do is climb all the way back up the cliff to see if there’s anything more to lengthen the rope with and then make the descent all over again.
I call up to Barden. “It’s a cave. I can’t tell how deep it goes from out here. Further than I can see at least. Can you lower me any further? Even a little?”
He shouts something down to me but though I can hear his voice, the wind and the waves steal the words.
“Lower me further!” I yell.
I’m eased down another arm length. It’s still a sizeable drop. But it’s not out of the question I won’t be able to reach it again on my way back. I grip the rope above me, taking up the slack until I can pull myself free of the makeshift loop of a harness. I wait for the most recent wave to recede.
Then I bite my lip, tasting salt, and let go.
My feet hit the floor of the cave. I bend my knees to lessen the shock but the impact still jars my bones. I don’t let myself pause to absorb the pain, instead moving quickly out of the next wave’s reach, and peer into the gloom.
I can’t smell anything but brine and wet stone and something vaguely rotten – a vegetable kind of rot. There’s no cave monster in here, unless it’s made of seaweed. Some kind of sea-moss lines the walls and the floor is slick with the spongy plant. The squelching noise as I pick up each foot would be comical at another time.
I rummage in my satchel for some yeb balm. There’s nothing to make a torch with, no driftwood or anything but the rock worn smooth from a thousand tides. I dig a small, empty faience jar from my supplies. It’s just translucent enough to serve as a makeshift lantern. I transfer a little of the paste in before lighting it. Sure enough, the flame glows through the faceted glass, enough to see a couple of paces ahead of me. I’ll have to hurry. It’ll get too hot to hold before long.
The cave starts out rough and worn unevenly, seemingly natural. But thirty or forty paces in – I didn’t think to count – it becomes more obviously hewn by human tools – uniform and smooth. I’m reminded of the Library of the Lost and a surge of hope warms my chest – if this is what we’re looking for, it would have been built around the same time. Possibly even by some of the same people.
My jar lamp is heating in my fingers. I could take off my tunic and use it as a holder, but it’s clammy enough in here, with the damp and the sea wind, that I’d be freezing. Instead, I set the jar down and retrieve another from my pack. It’s almost empty, and carrot seed can be replaced cheaply at almost any market or city stall. I tip the contents out and make another yeb lamp in their place, leaving the already heated one on the ground to light my way back.
The floor of the cave begins to tilt upwards ever so gently. Soon I’m walking on dry stone, leaving the slimy weed behind. It feels good to be standing on solid rock again.
At the top, the air is still, the flame in my makeshift lamp doesn’t waver. It smells different here, though. Beneath the distinct scent of the burning yeb balm, there’s something both stale and sharp. It’s a dead end.
There’s got to be something here. I push onwards. There. Something small reflects back at me from the depth of the cavern. Then another. And more still, until there’s a hundred flames gleaming darkly.
I cross to the nearest one and pick it up. It’s a sherd of blue-black glass. Something tugs at my memory. The Library again. The spears I almost got myself skewered on racing across the trap-set flagstones. The ceiling inside the Library’s main cavern, deep blue-black glass set with silver in a copy of the constellations of the star wheel. The polished surface of the Archivist’s desk. And at the Sanctuary – the amphitheatre of the Conclave.
The blue-black glass has something to do with the weapon needed to stop Zostar and his shadow army? There must be more than sherds of it here.
But there isn’t.
I move around the cavern, ignoring the growing heat in my jar of light.
Sherd. More sherds. Pieces in different sizes and shapes. And that’s what they are. Pieces. Whatever this weapon is, someone has found it first. And they’ve left only the broken remnants behind. Or did the waves come all the way up here at some point? Have the water levels changed over the centuries? Was there a violent storm that surged into the cave and dashed whatever was here on the rock walls?
The thought makes me shudder. I need to find whatever I can and get out of here.
My gaze snags on a particular sherd. I pick it up, turning it this way and that in the low light. Something about it is strangely familiar. It’s almost like … the lip of an urn? Like the planters filled with rosemary at the door of Father’s house in our village. Or like a much larger version of the faience jar in my hand. But then it’s not quite as rounded. Almost as if it had a … corner? Was all this glass once square vessels? Or at least some of it? And if it was, what did it contain? Spears? Swords? Arrowheads?
A shadow moves in the corner of my eye and I spin around.
There’s nothing there.
Then another shadow moves.
Fear creeps up my throat but I force myself to calm, my only movement to stow the black glass sherd and so that I can draw my knife from my belt.
Another dark shape flits by. This time so close I feel it move the air next to me. The hairs on the backs of my arms stand straight up. I shouldn’t feel shadows. Not normal shadows. Scents-be-damned, is it a trap? Some creation of the Lost God’s? Something guarding against anyone finding the weapon to use against him?
But the smell in here isn’t the tell-tale reek of a charnel house. Nothing that says death and decay, no rotting flesh like I smelled when I was healing Nisai of the last element of the poison – the dark decay of Doskai’s powers.
&nb
sp; Here the smell is something … living. Or something that’s been here recently. The sharpness in the same family as the stink of a back-alley urinal.
A shadow slices past my cheek and I flinch, a thin line of pain in its wake. When I draw my fingertips away from my skin they’re wet.
Then they’re everywhere. Shadows. Dropping from the ceiling of the cavern, swarming around me, tearing at my skin and clothes. Fear finally wins and a shriek escapes my throat. My hand loses grip on the light jar and it smashes on the floor, the yeb balm leaking out in a last flare of fire.
The flame dies and I’m in the dark with a thousand flying creatures flapping and clawing and diving around me. I hold up my arms to shield my face, trying to retrace my steps towards the entrance.
The creatures follow, frenzied, tearing.
I break into a shambling run, the fastest I can move without risking knocking myself out if I slam into a rock wall. The floor slopes down. I’m going the right way. But before my feet find the weed of the outer cave floor, they find something else. Water.
I’m knee deep before I even realize. How has the water changed so much in so little time?
Tides, a distant voice in the back of my mind says. Unlike lakes and rivers, the sea has tides. And I guess this is what it means for the tide to come in quick.
A glance up and I see the last of the shadow creatures fleeing for the mouth of the cave. In the gloom they’re much smaller than they seemed in the dark. Their tiny flapping wings frantic.
I suppose they don’t want to get caught down here.
And nor do I.
I wade down to the outer cavern. My first glimpse of daylight reveals a huge wave swelling into the mouth of the cave, surging towards me. Instinct kicks in and I turn to flee back towards higher ground.
Then I’m shoved in the back by a wall of water. Salt fills my mouth and nose and eyes, stinging and blinding.
I kick out, but I can’t figure which way is up, everything is roil and liquid rage. Barden and I used to swim in the oasis pool when we were kids, but that was water so calm you could see your reflection in it. It was nothing like this.
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