Book 3: Chapter Twenty-Two

Leena appeared near the mouth of the cave. Her head felt fuzzy and she had to stop and take a few deep breaths to steady herself. Her third trip of the day was always more tiring than the first two.

“Ahh, good, you’re back,” Boktar said. He and Josip took the bundle of wooden boards she was holding. She could only carry a small stack at a time, so she’d been bringing some back on each trip. “That took a while.”

“It was hard to find an ironmonger’s shop without being able to speak the language. I had to get help from the desk clerk at the Senshall office.” She took her bag from her shoulder and handed it to Josip. It held the nails and iron brackets the two men had requested so they could finish reinforcing the wooden supports that were keeping the fallen rocks from collapsing into the cave entrance. They’d already disassembled one of the wagons for parts.

“Will this be enough?” Ellerie asked, coming over to join them. She smiled at Leena, touching the back of her hand. Leena smiled back, but then looked down. She couldn’t risk any complications in her life right now.

Boktar said, “We’ve got enough to finish shoring up the existing timber. We’re just building it alongside the old stuff. I didn’t want to risk removing and replacing the old boards.”

“But it’ll be safe to use?”

“I’m not an expert,” the dwarven man said. “If I’d wanted to spend my time digging around in caves, I’d have stayed in Stone Home. Yes, I think it’ll hold, but I also think half of us should stay out here at all times just in case it doesn’t. If it collapses, we’ll have to do some fast digging.” He frowned as he thought. “Take Corec with you in case there’s trouble, but leave the other men here to handle any heavy lifting. And leave Leena here, so we can find you if we need to.”

“She could tell you where we are just as easily if she comes with us.”

“Not if it collapses on her.”

Leena shivered at the thought. “It’s that dangerous?”

“Probably not. Josip and I have gone through a dozen times already, working on the barrier. Elle’s peeked inside too. There’s about twenty feet of rubble to climb over once you’re past the barrier, but then there’s an open tunnel. The mountain’s stood for all these years; it’s not likely to fall apart now.”

Leena nodded.

“And it’s a man-made tunnel,” Ellerie told her. “It’s not natural, which means it must go somewhere. We haven’t found anything interesting at the other campsite, so I think it’s time to move everyone over here. I’ll go tell the others.” She turned to Boktar. “Can you finish this tonight?”

“We’ll be done before you finish moving the camp,” Boktar said.

“Great. Then, tomorrow, we can go in and see if there’s anything to see.”

The elven woman left to organize the move, but Leena stayed behind with Boktar and Josip. With three trips to Aencyr and back, she’d teleported six times in less than half a day. She wasn’t feeling up to walking over a mile back to the old camp.

She took a seat on a large stone the men had rolled out of the cave. The bulk of the work seemed to have already been completed. The new barrier, constructed mostly of lumber and nails from the wagon they’d taken apart, was layered directly against the old barrier. Using the nails she’d brought with her, they went back and doubled up on the work they’d already finished. The new boards went to strengthening the entrance itself. With that done, Boktar and Josip started fastening the iron brackets to all the right-angled joints.

While they worked, Leena started to feel more like herself. Lately she’d been Traveling to Aencyr three times a day, which took a lot out of her. Luckily, though, she hadn’t needed to do any Seeking on top of it. She hadn’t had any problems remembering the location signatures, and her modified version of the warden sense to find Corec didn’t require an actual Seeking.

But that meant it had been a week and a half since she’d last attempted to Seek her target, and she was starting to grow nervous. Ever since reaching Cordaea, the Seeking kept pointing her in the direction the group intended to travel, but right now, they didn’t have any plans on where to go next. It all depended on whether they found anything here.

She decided to risk it. She didn’t have any more work to do for the day except to hand out trail rations for supper, so if she was more tired than usual, it shouldn’t matter.

Tell me where I need to go next to protect my brother, she thought to herself.

The Seeking failed, and icy fear gripped her chest. How could it fail? Even if she was supposed to stay where she was, it should have told her that. To get nothing at all …

Had something happened to Udit?

In desperation, she tried the only thing she could think of. Picturing her family’s camp outside Matihar, she Traveled.

#

“What do you mean she’s gone?” Ellerie asked. “Gone where?” When she’d returned to the cave with the rest of the group, she’d found Boktar and Josip alone.

“I don’t know,” Boktar replied. “She was sitting right there,” he pointed to a nearby rock, “and then she just disappeared.”

“She didn’t tell you what she was doing? She’s already been to Aencyr three times today. I thought she was going to wait here.”

“She didn’t say a word. She was watching us work on the barrier, and then she was gone. That was over two hours ago.”

Ellerie frowned. Leena was rarely gone for more than an hour unless she had trouble finding whatever she was shopping for. She hadn’t been scheduled to go out again, and the sun was starting to dip down below the horizon. Had she decided to take an extra trip to buy food, after having to waste three trips hauling lumber for the barrier? If so, why wasn’t she back yet?

“Corec!” Ellerie called out, looking around only to find him already making his way over from where the rest of the group had started setting up the new campsite.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, looking from her face to Boktar’s to Josip’s.

Boktar told him what had happened.

“Can you find her?” Ellerie asked. “Is she in Aencyr?”

Corec’s eyes unfocused for a moment. “No. Aencyr’s too far north. She’s somewhere to the southwest.”

“Where?”

“You know it doesn’t work like that.”

His tone was oddly gentle, but she glared at him anyway. “Maps!” she said. “Wait here.”

She ran down the slope to where Nedley was unloading the horses, and searched through her saddlebags for her stack of maps. She thumbed through them until she found one that showed the Gilded Sea, with Aravor to the west, Cordaea to the east, and Vestath to the south.

Returning to the cave entrance, she handed the map to Corec. “Can you find her?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but then he hesitated. All he said was, “I’ll try. Josip, can I borrow your compass?”

The guide slipped the compass out of his pocket and handed it over.

“This map doesn’t actually show the barrens,” Corec said, after checking the compass and the position of the sun, “but if I had to guess, she’s either still in Cordaea or she’s in Sanvar, if she can Travel that far.”

“She went from Sanvar to Larso once,” Ellerie murmured thoughtfully. “Do you think she went home? Why? And why not tell anyone she was leaving? Boktar was standing right there!”

“I don’t know, but we know she’s alive, and she told you if she ever got lost, she’d find her way back eventually, right?”

Ellerie forced herself to calm down. “Yes, that’s true. And she said it would be easy to find you. Something about the warden sense combined with her Seeking.”

“Well, then, we just have to wait. She’ll be better at finding us than we’d be at finding her.”

Ellerie sighed. “I guess we don’t have a choice.”

“We can’t wait too long,” Boktar warned. “We were depending on her for supplies. If she’s not back in a day or two, we’ll need to head out of the barrens.”

#

When Corec left his tent the next morning, Ellerie was waiting for him. He quickly dropped the tent flap to block the view inside. Shavala had stayed in his and Katrin’s tent again. As far as he knew, Treya was still the only person who’d discovered the arrangement, and he hoped to keep it that way. He had no idea what the others would think about it.

“She’s still not back!” Ellerie said, agitated. “Is she all right? Where is she?”

Corec checked Leena’s warden bond. “She’s still to the southwest. I can’t say whether she’s moved or not, but she’s still in the same direction. Did you get any sleep after your watch shift?”

“Treya did something that knocked me out. Where is she?”

Corec didn’t reply. Her question was obviously about Leena rather than Treya, and was just as obviously rhetorical. They’d talked about it late into the night as Leena’s absence had continued, but they hadn’t come to any conclusion.

To distract Ellerie from her worrying, he said, “What’s the plan for today? Are we going to wait here?”

She bit her lip, then glanced up the slope to the cave entrance. “If we might have to leave tomorrow to resupply, I suppose we should still explore today, to see if it’s worth coming back. Will you ask around and see who’s coming with us? I’ll go put something together for the morning meal. Oh, Boktar wants to keep most of the men out here. He wants to clear away more of the rockfall, so that if it collapses, there’s not as much to dig out.”

“Sure,” Corec said. “We should probably leave some sort of guard presence here too, if Boktar’s going to be busy. Someone to keep watch, at least.”

Ellerie nodded. “That makes sense. I’m going to go see if I can figure out where Leena packed the rest of the food that we didn’t find last night.”

An hour later, they assembled at the cave entrance. Katrin and Razai had agreed to keep watch, while Bobo had hemmed and hawed before deciding to stay in camp. He’d claimed he wasn’t interested in exploring underground unless he knew there was something worth seeing.

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Corec and Ellerie were taking Shavala, Treya, and Sarette with them.

“Stay together,” Boktar told the group. “Don’t get separated. Watch where you put your feet. If someone needs to explore a tunnel or crevice alone, tie a rope around them. If an area doesn’t look safe, don’t risk it. I can check it out later.”

“If it’s just a cave, I don’t plan to spend too much time in there,” Ellerie said. “I’m hoping it’ll be similar to the tunnels below Tir Navis.”

Boktar eyed the mountain. “That would be like going back to Stone Home.”

“Maybe the Ancients were stoneborn,” she said, smirking at him. Planning for the trip had seemed to calm her down. “There are a lot of them here in Cordaea, after all.”

“You know more about the Ancients than I do,” he said. “I know my people didn’t come from Stone Home originally.”

Ellerie patted the coil of rope she’d looped over her shoulder, then looked back at the group. “I guess we’re ready to go.”

“Wait for me!” came a shout. Bobo was jogging up the slope from camp, grasping his walking cudgel.

“I thought you weren’t coming.”

“I changed my mind.”

“I’ll take point,” Corec said. “Sarette, will you bring up the rear?”

The stormborn woman nodded.

“Is that really necessary?” Ellerie asked.

Boktar frowned at her. “Remember the giant spider? Take Corec’s advice.”

“It’s just until we see what it’s like in there,” Corec assured her. “If it’s similar to Tir Navis, we won’t have to be as careful. But I want to hear the story about the spider.”

She rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath.

Corec laughed, then made his way through the newly reinforced barrier, which was keeping the rockfall from collapsing back into the entrance. As the tunnel opened up wider, it became clear that a lot of the rocks had fallen inside, either during the initial avalanche or more recently when someone had first dug out the entrance. Corec stepped carefully over the uneven ground, bracing one hand against the side of the tunnel. As the others followed behind him, they blocked the sun coming through the opening. He summoned a mage light and left it floating in the air, then captured a second one in the empty lantern he’d brought with him.

Ellerie joined him at the front with her own lantern. “The rocks don’t go much farther,” she said. “Boktar’s been past them already.”

Twenty feet from the entrance, they were past the worst of it, walking on a flat dirt surface rather than jagged rocks.

“The walls are smooth, like the tunnels below the South Valley ruins,” Sarette said. “These black lines are new, though. I don’t remember seeing them there.”

The sides of the tunnel curved up, meeting in an arch. The walls were a light gray, but there was a thin black line running along each side at head height. A third line ran along the exact center of the ceiling arch.

“Decoration, perhaps?” Bobo suggested.

Ellerie said, “The tunnel continues around that curve ahead of us, but Boktar didn’t go any farther than that. Are we ready?”

“Let’s go,” Corec said, moving back into the lead and holding the lantern up ahead of him. The tunnel curved to the left for a hundred feet, then gradually curved back to the right. As they walked, the height of the arch seemed to increase. The black lines, which had originally been even with Corec’s eyes, were now above his head.

“Wait,” he said. “Treya, can I borrow the shovel?”

She handed him the small camp shovel they’d brought along.

“What’s going on?” Ellerie asked.

The others were shorter than he was, Corec realized, and may not have noticed the change to the lines.

“I think either the tunnel’s getting taller or there’s less dirt on the ground,” he said. He dug down until he hit something hard, then scraped the dirt away enough to see what was below it. As he worked, the sound echoed down the tunnel.

“The floor’s artificial, just like the walls,” Ellerie said, peering at what he was doing. “And just like Tir Navis. I forgot to ask the stormborn if they know what it’s made out of. It’s not polished stone blocks like they use in Stone Home.”

Corec said, “The dirt’s about three inches deep here. I think it was about a foot deep back where we started. Either that or the tunnel actually did get taller.”

“It makes sense if it was deeper closer to the entrance,” Bobo said. “The dirt had to come from somewhere.”

“We can check the entrance on our way out,” Ellerie suggested.

Corec nodded and passed the shovel back to Treya. Picking up his lantern, he continued down the tunnel, the others following along behind.

The curve to the right continued much farther than the curve to the left. It finally came to a stop nearly a quarter of a mile from where it had begun, opening out into a cavern. The mage-light lanterns didn’t pierce far enough into the darkness to see the other side.

Ellerie summoned another mage light, sending it fifty feet straight ahead. It showed a few shapes marring the mostly flat ground, but still didn’t illuminate the far end.

“How big is it?” Bobo asked.

“Big,” Shavala murmured, her eyes unfocused.

“I can’t see the top,” Treya said. She was looking up.

Corec summoned a mage light and sent it floating into the air. Along the wall nearest them, just above the tunnel’s exit, the light illuminated a balcony of sorts, with elaborate stonework pillars at each end and a metal railing between them. The light continued floating up, and another balcony appeared above the first.

Corec exchanged glances with Ellerie, and then they each summoned more mage lights, sending them up and out as far as the spell would reach.

Everyone stared without speaking at the sight looming above them. The balconies weren’t balconies after all. Each was merely one small section of a vast colonnade that curved around the chamber. In total, the whole thing extended seven levels high, though the stone pillars on the seventh level were slender and spaced more closely together. Corec sent a mage light up over the railing on the first level. It illuminated what appeared to be a walkway—a promenade—extending around the room as far as he could see. Beyond it, there was a corridor leading away from the promenade and the cavern.

Ellerie suddenly laughed. “The stone walls of Tir Yadar. I didn’t realize, even after seeing the tunnels in Tir Navis. It was never referring to a defensive wall around the city. The mountain is the city. We found it.”

“Does that mean the Ancients were dwarves after all?” Corec asked. Up on the first level of the promenade, there was a flickering as if something had passed in front of his mage light, but when he looked, there was nothing there. He decided he must have imagined it.

“Not necessarily. Boktar said the proportions in Tir Navis didn’t feel right. They might have been related, though.”

“But most of South Valley—I mean Tir Navis—was above ground,” Sarette said.

“The other Tirs were too, at least the few that we know anything about. They must not have always lived below ground. The stoneborn don’t, either.”

“Yathal!” Bobo said. “The consonant shift!”

“What?” Ellerie asked. She looked as confused as everyone else.

“Some of the sounds in the language changed over time. The word yadar doesn’t mean anything in the version of the language that survived, but yathal means fortress. It could have been yadar once. Fortress Home. They kept the old name as the language continued to evolve.”

“This place doesn’t look much like a fortress,” Corec said.

“Maybe not here, but if most of the city was underground, they’d need space for civilians too.” Bobo stared through the darkness ahead of them. “Do the walkways go all the way across? How do we get up there?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Ellerie said.

#

“Do you want me to take over now?” Katrin called out to Razai. The demonborn woman had perched herself on a boulder overlooking the camp and the cave. Below them, Boktar, Josip, and Nedley were carefully removing stones from the rockfall on the slope above the cave, tossing them off to the side so that if it collapsed over the entrance, there’d be less to dig through.

“Come on up,” Razai said.

Katrin scrambled up the slope, joining her on top of the boulder. Razai was sitting cross-legged, throwing one of her knives into the air then catching the flat of the blade between her palms on its way down.

“Have you seen anything?” Katrin asked, eyeing the knife nervously. She hadn’t spent much time talking to the demonborn woman before.

“There’s nothing out here for miles,” Razai said, pointing to the spyglass resting next to her. She switched to catching the knife one-handed. “Take a look for yourself.”

Katrin fumbled with the spyglass. Sarette had shown her how to use one before, but that had been months ago. Finally, she managed to get a clear view. Razai was right—there was nothing to see except for more of the same dusty landscape they’d been faced with for days.

The other woman continued tossing her knife, not giving any indication she planned to leave. The silence was awkward.

“What was it like to end the warden bond?” Katrin asked, just to make conversation. It was the only topic she could think of.

“I hardly noticed,” Razai said. “The only annoying bit is that I got in the habit of looking for him, and now I keep doing it even though it doesn’t work anymore. At least it’s over and done with.”

“He didn’t mean to bond you,” Katrin felt compelled to say. “It was an accident.”

“Probably less of an accident than he thinks, but I’m out of it now, so it doesn’t matter.” Razai frowned, staring to the southwest. “Leena had better get back soon. What’s taking so long?”

“Corec said she’s all right.”

“He said she’s alive; there’s a difference. But I suppose he’s good for something.” Razai abruptly changed the subject. “What’s your deal with Dallo, anyway?” she asked.

“What? How do you know about him?”

“I was the one who turned him in for the bounty. I saw what you and your friends did to him at the docks. How’d you manage that?”

“Wait—there was a bounty?” Katrin said. Dallo was usually careful enough to avoid the authorities. “What happened?”

“He and some of his friends tried to take over the docks district. Got in some fights with the seaborn.”

“The seaborn? Not the fishermen?”

“They weren’t stupid enough to go up against the fishermen. A pity. Things would have been over a lot sooner. You didn’t answer my questions.”

“Questions? Oh. I told him to jump and he did. It’s a bardic thing. I don’t always have to use music.”

“Huh. If you told Marco to take off all his clothes and dance around naked, would he do it?”

Katrin blinked, picturing the sight. “I can’t do that! I mean, I don’t think I can. I wouldn’t.”

Razai snickered. “You should try it just to see if it works.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Bah, fine, be boring. You still didn’t tell me what you were doing with Dallo.”

Katrin grimaced. How many more times was she going to have to tell someone about her past? “I grew up in Tyrsall. My brother and I were part of Dallo’s gang until he decided he wanted me out walking the streets. He was going to give me to one of his men, Torse.” She sighed. “I wouldn’t have minded making Torse jump off the pier, too, but Dallo told me he’s dead.”

“I know. I was the one who killed him.”

“What?”

“He murdered one of the bodyguards the seaborn hired. I was only planning to break a few fingers to make him talk, but he started screaming like a madman and I couldn’t have him attracting any attention. I left him draped over that fountain—you know the one with the statues, in front of Dallo’s old building? The red one?”

Katrin nodded.

“I left him propped against one of the statues with his guts at his feet. I figured that would get Dallo’s attention.”

Katrin winced. She didn’t have any love for Torse, but it still seemed excessive.

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Razai said. “I killed him first, then I spilled his guts. It’s not like I made him bleed out that way.”

“I … I guess that’s better. So Dallo’s in prison?”

“Along with most of his men. They might have even sent him to the hangman by now. He was smart enough to leave the fishermen alone, but stupid enough to start pressuring a couple of the tax men. Renny Senshall says the duke was not amused. She’s the one that got the constabulary to take down the gangs that were involved.”

“I didn’t know about any of that,” Katrin said. “I guess I don’t have to worry about him anymore.” It was almost disappointing. She’d had fantasies about what she was going to do to him—or make him to do himself—if he came after her or Barz again.

“If he’s still alive when we get back, I could help you sneak into the prison.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

Razai drew a finger across her own neck. “I wouldn’t mind finishing the job. They already paid out the bounty. It’s not like they’ll take it away if he dies mysteriously before he can be executed.”

“Ahh, no, I don’t think so. It’s enough to know he’s not out there anymore.”

The demonborn woman rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Too bad, though. I’ve been working on a new disguise, a Tyrsall constable. I was hoping to try it out.”

“How do you do that, anyway?” Katrin asked, eager to change the subject. “Back in High Cove, you were a man, and then you weren’t.”

“I call that one Aden,” Razai said, briefly taking on the larger form, clothing and all. In a man’s voice, she said, “It’s just an illusion. It’s fake. This one’s a dockworker I saw once, but with enough practice, I can create new people too. It’s no different than what you do when you sing.” She reverted back to her own image.

“But that’s just in the listeners’ minds,” Katrin said. “They can picture it in their heads, but they don’t actually see it for real.”

“Either way, you’re crafting an image and using it to fool someone else’s senses. The only difference is which part of the mind it affects. Well, that, plus I can only change myself. A bard can build an entire scene to be whatever they want.”

“I’ve never really done that,” Katrin mentioned. “I just use what I’ve seen in real life, or copy a vision that I’ve seen another bard use.”

“You should try it. It can be fun.” Suddenly, Razai was gone, and a slavering, eight-foot tall demon stood in her place. It had horns coming out of its temples, and two broken tusks growing from its misshapen mouth. It carried a curved sword in each hand.

Katrin shrieked and stumbled back, then noticed Razai’s legs sticking out from the figure’s feet. The demonborn woman was still sitting, and the illusion didn’t extend to cover her entirely.

“That’s not funny!” Katrin exclaimed.

“I said fun, not funny. I use this disguise when I’m outnumbered and need to scare away a few of my opponents.”

Katrin couldn’t help imagining the sight. “It must work pretty well.”

“Usually too well, and then I’ve got to track them all down. Annoying, but it’s always better to be the hunter than the hunted.”

[Note: I plan to start switching through the different book covers for the thumbnail image on this site. If you find the new chapters each week by looking for the green cover with Corec and Katrin, you may wish to follow the story instead, or look for the title rather than the image, at least until you get used to seeing the new covers.]