Stone pushed off from the edge of the shaft and dropped to the pavement below. The faint sounds as he moved around were almost imperceptible, but Moon could tell he was carefully exploring the chamber. If Stone walked into something and was trapped as well … Moon asked, “Merit, are you having any more visions?”
“I can still hear voices, off and on.” Merit stirred uneasily, and a little dislodged moss and dust drifted down. “Not any words I can understand. They’re like echoes, as if the people speaking are a long distance away.”
Then Stone came back into view, settled his wings and shifted to groundling. Moon strangled the urge to tell him to be careful, and dropped down beside him. Merit’s spell-lights had marked the whole side of the danger area, but it still made his spines twitch to land so close to it. River followed, with Merit tucked under one arm.
Stone paced along the perimeter, then sat on his heels near the edge, studying Chime.
River set Merit on his feet and flicked his spines in agitation. “How did they get all the way down here? This magic, or whatever it is that freezes things in place– why did it stop Coil and Root up there, but let the four of them get here?”
“Whatever is doing this let Chime come down here.” Moon’s voice came out low and harsh. “It lured him down. Then when Jade and Balm and Song came after him, it … did this. Jade must have left Root and Coil up at the top, and they heard something that made them follow, and they fell right into it.”
River twitched and settled his spines. “So where is it?”
Then Stone said, “I think it’s still there.”
Moon stepped to his side, crouching down so he could see what Stone was seeing. Merit scooted over in beside him. From here, Moon had a better view of Chime’s face. With Chime in his groundling form, it was easier to read his expression. His lips were parted, and Moon thought his eyes were focused on some point only a few paces away from him, his chin tilted up … Moon let out his breath in a hiss. “He was—is—talking to someone.”
Stone nodded. “And Jade and Balm. They’re looking at it too.”
“So it’s hiding itself from us.” Moon sat back. “It knows we’re here.”
“Or …” Merit eased back from the edge. He shook his head. “I think there are a lot of things in here we can’t see.”
Moon felt a chill pass through the skin under his scales, an aborted flight reflex. He took a deep breath, making himself think. “It didn’t happen just because they were here. This thing has been here a long time.” Long enough to keep the jungle from growing down through this part of the shaft. “And that light. The one we saw last night. What does that have to do with it?”
Stone growled under his breath. “We’ll have to wait for tonight, to see if it comes again, and find out.”
It was still some time until dusk, and they knew the light might not appear until much later. Moon sent River up the shaft to tell the others what they had found, while he waited with Stone. Merit withdrew a short distance away and tried to scry.
Hoping for some clue, Moon explored the shadowy corners of the chamber, taking one of Merit’s spelled rocks for light and tossing broken tile pieces ahead of him to make sure he didn’t walk into a trap. The walls were covered with faded paint and inlay, too stained by turns of dripping water and mold to make out anything but the occasional elegant curve. They had been crushed along the top and tilted sideways at an angle that didn’t look at all stable, and Moon found several broken supporting columns strewn around. But a huge single slab of stone had come through the ceiling at the back; braced against the floor, it seemed to have kept the big chamber from collapsing. Now it was supported by a wayward branch of the mountain-thorn that had grown up through a crack. Vines had worked their way in as well, and small colonies of parasite plants. They crept across the floor, stopping well short of the frozen area.
Moon gave up and returned to the others. Merit had found a spot further back in the chamber, cleared off a space on the floor and spelled all the plants around him to glow with light. The paper and ink from his bag was spread out and he huddled over it, writing rapidly. Stone still sat near the edge of the frozen area and Moon sat down beside him. After a time, Stone cocked his head, and a few moments later Moon heard the faint sounds of more than one Raksura climbing down the shaft. Moon sighed, but he had expected this. “Who do you think is with him?”
“I’m betting on Floret, and probably Bramble,” Stone said. He added thoughtfully, “Bramble bit me in the head when she was barely three days old. It was an omen.”
Moon was exasperated enough to growl. “I left Floret in charge up there.”
Stone snorted at this example of naiveté. “Warriors obey queens. Us they obey as long as we’re standing there staring at them.” “I noticed.” Moon pushed to his feet.
River, Floret, and yes, Bramble appeared on the wall of the shaft and one by one carefully dropped down to the chamber floor. Only a little sulky, River said, “I told them not to come.”
“We know,” Moon said. Floret and Bramble stared at the tableau, Bramble sidling cautiously to the right and craning her neck to try to see better. He could tell from their expressions that they were in shock, so he didn’t say anything.
After a time, Floret turned to him. “But when the light comes back, it could do this to you.”
Moon said, “Believe me, there is no horrible possibility that I haven’t thought of already.” And it was very much a possibility. The light had to have something to do with whatever had happened here. It might be a trap, a lure. But whatever it was, they had to find out, and the only way to do that was to stay down here and watch for it.
Floret shook her head. “I just … I don’t know.”
Bramble said, “Can’t we try to get a rope in there and haul them out?”
From behind them, Merit said, “You can try. It won’t work.”
Bramble hissed in frustration. “I want to try it anyway.”
Floret looked at Moon. He pressed his hands to his eyes. “Go ahead.”
They tried. It involved bringing down almost all the rope the Arbora had with them, searching for the right size of rocks, and an attempt to build a sling to hurl them. For a stretch of time it seemed it might work, which made it all the more painful when it finally failed. The frozen area was more solid toward the center where the four Raksura were trapped; none of their attempts made it any closer than the spell lights Merit and Moon and Stone and River had already thrown into it. Bitter disappointment made Moon finally break down and shout, “Get out of here or I’ll kill all of you!”
Stone, who hadn’t moved or spoken during any of the preceding efforts, stirred. “Moon, go sit down. The rest of you—” He turned to survey the group of abashed warriors and Arbora. “Go back up there and wait.”
Moon went and flung himself down on a patch of vines, fuming. The others left reluctantly.
Moon hadn’t thought he would ever sleep again, but he woke with a start, some internal sense telling him that the sun had just set. He sat up, bleary and confused for a moment. He didn’t even remember shifting to groundling. He scrubbed at his ear, wiping moss away.
Nearby, Stone sat up and stretched. “We need to move back further.”
He meant move further into the vegetation line. Moon got to his feet and helped Merit gather up his spell-lights and notes and drawings. It gave him a chance to look at what Merit had been making diagrams of, not that any of it made sense to him. Even if Moon had been able to read any of the Raksuran script, the drawings looked more like calculations. It gave Moon a little spark of hope, that Merit was apparently working on something. But he was afraid to ask what it was; if Merit was just passing the time, Moon didn’t want to know it right now.
They settled again some thirty or so paces back, among a soft patch of air ferns. Moon shifted to his winged form, just because he felt safer that way.
And they waited. Moon was wide awake now, and settled into the patient trance acquired by turns
and turns of hunting through various parts of the Three Worlds. The chamber was quiet but not completely silent; he could hear the soft distant calls of nightbirds and treelings and other creatures that lived in the lower depths of the mountain-thorn, a creak as wind stirred the outer branches and vibrated through the trunk. Merit leaned against his shoulder and sighed.
Moon wasn’t sure how much time had passed, when Stone tensed. Then Merit sat up straight and whispered, “This is it.”
Moon couldn’t see it at first, then he realized the shadows were no longer black but gradually lightening to gray. At first it was easier to see Chime, then slowly the air around Jade, Balm, and Song grew brighter. As if whatever was causing the light, was closest to Chime. The glowing tiles and clumps of moss Merit had dropped into the area grew dimmer, not because they were fading, but because the air around them was growing lighter.
Then out of that light more shapes formed, shadows at first that grew gradually more solid. Like the Raksura, they were frozen in place. They were groundlings of some kind Moon had never seen before. Their skin was a slick blue hide, their heads smooth and almost fish-like, with lipless downturned mouths and only a small bump with a single nostril for a nose. Except unlike fish and other amphibians, the expressions in their wide eyes were easily read. There was terror there, and shock, and confusion.
Not unlike what Moon was feeling right now. What happened here? What did Chime find?
They were dressed in loose drapes of different fabrics, filmy and light or heavy with brocade. Their appendages were willowy and their hands long-fingered and delicate. Moon couldn’t tell how many limbs they had; it seemed to vary from individual to individual. They stood all around the frozen area, some huddled in groups, others apart, some half-crouched, all staring upward. Except the one who stood a few paces from Chime. He—she—it stood with one arm uplifted, hand extended and slender fingers spread as if to catch something that was falling towards its head. And it stared directly at Chime’s face.
Moon pushed to his feet slowly. He stepped forward and hit a wall of sound and motion, voices crying out, the sour tang of fear heavy in the air, choking dust, smoke, figures ran, turned, clung to each other—
Stone grabbed his arm and Moon hissed out a breath, dazed. The chamber was silent, empty except for the still figures, but the silence was like the echo after a great crash of sound. Stone stood to one side, and Merit to the other. Merit’s expression was rapt, the light pulling glints out of his scales. Moon managed to say, “Did everybody see that?”
“Yes.” Stone’s voice rumbled in his chest. “So what do we think about this?”
Moon gathered scattered wits. “When the light’s glowing we can see the past. They have to be the people who lived here, and this was the moment the city was destroyed.”
“It’s not the past, it’s not a static image. It’s a moment, happening over and over again.” His voice almost dreamy, Merit said, “It has to do with that one in the middle. The one Chime was talking to. I was hoping … I was hoping the light would show us more.”
With forced patience, Stone said, “Merit, you need to explain that for us.”
“This is … I think Chime is talking to a groundling sorcerer. I think he’s the one who did this.” Merit leaned forward and waved a hand to indicate the whole frozen area.
It didn’t make sense. Moon said, “If he did this, he trapped himself too. And no one’s looking at him except Chime. The other groundlings are all looking up.”
“Whatever they were afraid of, it was up there, coming toward them,” Stone agreed. He eased forward, trying to see up the shaft without getting too close to the spell area. “There it is,” he said grimly.
Moon stepped up beside him and craned his neck to see. Not far up the shaft was the ghost image of a boulder. It filled most of the shaft and the light seemed to be coming from it.
“Yes,” Merit said, twitching with excitement. “The rock we find on the forest floor. We’ve always thought it was there and then the forest grew up around it. What if it fell from the sky, long before the mountain-trees grew here? If this city was passing over this area when the rock started to rain down, and it was hit—I think the working or spell the groundling sorcerer did was meant to save the city, or at least try to save the groundlings who were down here.”
Moon sorted through that and it made him see the whole scene in a different light. “So a big rock fell from the sky and hit the city, smashed it down out of the air, and he was trying to stop it. And instead he … froze everyone here.” If that was the case then it wasn’t a trap, it was a terrible mistake, made in a desperate moment.
Merit frowned, twitching his spines. “It didn’t freeze them, it preserved them, but not the way he meant it too. It’s like he created a temporary world where they all lived, but he wasn’t strong enough to actually make it happen. So it’s stuck here, always on the verge of happening. The visions, the things I heard, they’re echoes of the event, all coming from what he did.”
Moon understood some of what he was saying, but not all. “Then why can’t we see them when the light isn’t showing?”
Merit’s expression went bleak. “Because it’s been too long. Time is passing in the moment, but slowly, so slowly. It might have taken hundreds and hundreds of turns, but they died. Their bodies aren’t there anymore. They rotted away.”
Moon blinked. The pavement the groundlings stood on wasn’t bare, it was littered with debris. He had seen it as just the same broken tiles and stone rubble that covered the rest of the floor, but were there bones there, rotted wisps of fabric …
Stone narrowed his eyes. “So how did Chime get stuck in the middle of it? And the others.”
“Maybe it has to do with the light. Maybe …” Maybe the light made the frozen area, or the moment, or whatever it was, more permeable. Moon bent and picked up a tile fragment and tossed it into the area. But like the others, it just fell more and more slowly until it finally stopped.
Merit said, “It does have to do with the light. It’s all that’s left of the falling rock that struck the city, the moment of impact, the moment this sorcerer tried to stop. Every day it repeats, the moment almost happens but not quite happens, and the light is visible. That must mean the wall between the moment and the real world is very thin during this time.” He turned to them. “Since Chime changed, he’s been able to hear and see things that he shouldn’t be able to. It’s like his mentor abilities changed too, and we just can’t understand how. I think the magic left here drew him in, and when he saw the light he followed it. He saw a vision, but instead of just seeing it for an instant, he was able to walk into it, into the moment, and doing that opened it up long enough for the others to follow him.”
Moon’s throat was dry. “The groundling sorcerer saw him, and Chime spoke to him.”
“But the opening didn’t last.” Merit lifted his hands, claws sheathed, and made a gesture of dropping something. “It all went back to the way it was.”
Stone said, “Do they know what’s happened? Any of them?”
Merit’s spines shivered. “I don’t think so. If anyone knows … it would be the groundling sorcerer.”
“So what do we do?” Moon was glad his voice came out mostly even. It sounded hopeless. It sounded like they were trapped inside this moment of death suspended forever.
But Merit said, “My lights went in there, and they’re still glowing. Which means a mentor can get their power inside the moment.” He looked at Stone. “We need more mentors. How far away is Ocean Winter?”
After some experiments to make sure the light hadn’t made the danger area any wider, they climbed up the shaft to tell the others about the plan, such as it was.
While Stone and Merit returned to the camp outside the city to get ready to leave, Moon had River lead Venture down the shaft so she could see the situation with her own eyes. It was Floret’s idea, who said, “She believes us now, but it’ll just be easier for them if she can tell her queen tha
t she saw it herself. And it’ll help her be able to describe it. I mean, I couldn’t describe this to anyone if I hadn’t seen it myself.”
Moon would be staying here, mostly because he felt his lack of experience with Raksuran courts was a real disadvantage now. A normal consort would know exactly how to navigate this situation without a queen’s protection; Moon had no idea. It seemed simpler to send a line-grandfather and a mentor, since the usual rules of court etiquette tended not to apply to them, and Venture to attest that they were telling the truth. He was mostly worried that Ocean Winter would take violent exception to Garnet being held in Indigo Cloud as a hostage, and insist she be released before they agreed to help.
He asked Floret, “Do you think the Ocean Winter queen will be angry about Garnet?” He was debating the idea of sending two warriors back to Indigo Cloud to tell Pearl the situation, but he could only spare two and it just wasn’t safe for so few to travel through the suspended forest.
Floret thought about it, frowning, and finally shook her head. “Yes, but by helping us she’ll get such a big advantage over us that it’ll benefit her court in the long run. And it isn’t like Garnet or her warriors will be hurt or uncomfortable. Just very bored and anxious.”
“It’s not like anyone at Indigo Cloud will do anything rash,” Bramble added. “We brought most of the rash people with us.”
By dawn, Stone, Merit, and Venture were ready to leave. At the camp outside the city, Stone told Moon, “Keep an eye out. Don’t let them get too comfortable here.”
He meant, don’t get so distracted worrying about Jade and Chime and the others that you let everybody else get eaten. Moon just said, “I won’t.”
Stone shoved him in the head and walked toward the path through the mountain-thorn. Merit shouldered his pack, nodded to Moon and hurried to catch up. Venture hesitated, but just nodded and followed. She was treating Moon like a real consort now, like an important member of a foreign court; in other words, not someone she should be speaking casually to without a pressing reason.