Through the protective cushion of the cabin he felt the ship shake continuously. Their altitude was slowly dropping and the wind sounded like the worst gale Chime had ever experienced. It was making his spines itch and the muscles that controlled his wings twitch in reaction, even through the heavy walls of this chamber.
And the fact that it was still happening meant none of the others had been able to get to the weapon yet. Part of him wondered what it would be like when it happened, if they would just fall down dead suddenly or if it would hurt. The thing he was most afraid of was that it wouldn’t affect them at all because of some protection the forerunner structure would offer, and they would return to the wind-ship to find everyone else dead. Then there would be the struggle to get back down to their own continent, then the long trip to return to the Reaches, knowing what they might find . . .
Examining the sill of the crystal window Chime had already looked at, Shade hissed and said, “Someone’s out there.”
“What?” Chime pushed to his feet, bumping into Lithe as they both tried to see.
“It’s a Raksura, not sure who.” Shade pushed away from the window and dove for the ladder.
His heart pounding with hope, Chime swung down after him with Lithe on his tail. She said, “Maybe Moon found the others.”
If he had, Chime couldn’t think why they would come back here. The rotation of the structure hadn’t slowed any yet so he didn’t think they could have found the weapon.
Shade climbed out to the stairs, clinging to the rungs as the wind buffeted him. Chime stepped out on the platform and leaned between the climbing bars, squinting to see as the wind tore at his frills. But it wasn’t Moon, or Jade, or any of the others who had gone down the shaft. The figure fighting the wind above the ship was the Opal Night warrior Spark, and two other Raksura were with her. One carried a shape that was clearly a groundling. As they came around to approach, Chime recognized Root and Flicker. Flicker carried Rorra.
Chime hissed, and dropped back to the platform to report this to Lithe. She said, “Why would they fly ahead?”
“Probably not a good reason,” Chime said. A thump sounded as someone landed hard on the roof and Chime and Lithe scrambled back inside to give them room. Root swung in first, breathing hard and covered with ice crystals. “What are you doing here?” Chime demanded.
Root shook his spines and turned to help Flicker and Rorra inside. Rorra wore one of the flying packs, but it would have been useless in the wind. Flicker stumbled and started to sink to the floor and Rorra held him upright. She was bundled up in an extra Kishan coat, but her skin was still gray-blue with cold. Her voice hoarse, she gasped, “We found Vendoin.”
Shade pulled Spark inside, saying, “You’re lucky you found us, you could have been killed in that wind.”
“They found Vendoin,” Chime told him.
Shade stared. “What?”
Rorra’s teeth chattered as she tried to talk. Lithe stepped up and wrapped her arms around her to share her body heat. Rorra hugged her back, groaning gratefully. His voice rough from the cold, Root explained, “The Hians left Vendoin behind on a little island. She told us things about the weapon the others don’t know.”
Spark had gotten her breath enough to continue, “It was the Hian called Lavinat, like the others on the big flying boat said. She’s taken over but Vendoin didn’t tell her everything she knew about the weapon.”
Lithe looked past Rorra’s arm to say, “What do you mean? What did she not tell Lavinat?”
“She didn’t tell her how to make it work in this place.” Spark waved a hand, indicating the giant dock.
“That’s why I brought this.” Rorra eased away from Lithe, her voice a little stronger. She tapped the large fire weapon strapped next to her flying pack. “There’s a large component in this place, that the artifact has to have nearby to work. We think if we destroy it, the Hians won’t be able to use the artifact the way Lavinat wants.”
Chime hissed out a breath. It made sense. There was a reason the weapon had to be brought here, a reason it had killed the Fell and Jandera inside the trading town but reached no further. Obviously Lavinat had been able to do something with it, or the dock wouldn’t have started forming the passage down toward the lower continent. But maybe the reason they were still alive was that Lavinat didn’t know what else to do.
“We have to find it.” Shade looked toward the open door.
“Where is everybody else?” Root asked.
Lithe told him, “Jade and the warriors were following the Hians down the shaft in the center of the dock, but when the spinning started, the passage collapsed and we were thrown off. Moon and the kethel went to try to find them.”
“Collapsed?” Flicker said, aghast.
“Moon and the kethel?” Root said, horrified.
Spark began, “We have to—”
“Quiet,” Shade said, and all the warriors shut up. Chime blinked and managed to clamp his jaw shut on the comment he had been about to make. At the moment, Shade’s resemblance to Moon was even more obvious; he wasn’t a shy, delicate consort either, not anymore. Shade said, “Rorra, can that fire weapon get through whatever’s blocking the shaft?”
“Metal, or whatever this place is made of?” Rorra made an uncertain gesture. “Maybe.”
“We’ll try that first.” Shade tilted his head at Lithe. “You and Chime stay here.”
Chime exchanged a look with Lithe. At the expression on her face and spines, he swallowed back his protest. This was no time to argue. Lithe said, “Maybe we can still do something here.”
“We’re going to have to stay low, try to use the docking flower things as wind-breaks,” Shade said. “I’ll carry Rorra. Can the rest of you make it?” His hard gaze faltered as he looked at Flicker. “Are you all right? You should stay here.”
Flicker twitched his spines in denial. “I can make it.”
Chime thought Shade wasn’t convinced, but Shade said, “Let’s go.”
Rorra stepped to Shade. He put his arm around her waist and lifted her without effort, then swung out the door.
Spark and Flicker followed immediately. Root glanced at Chime, grimaced and said, “We’ll find Jade. We’ll stop the Hians.”
He leapt after the others into the howling wind, and Chime felt his heart sink.
Moon followed the passage as it wound down through the structure. Kethel was so close he kept bumping Moon’s shoulder, which made Moon want to bite but was also weirdly reassuring.
He couldn’t catch any hint of Raksura, which had to mean the shaft that Jade and the others had followed down probably didn’t intersect with this passage. Which meant this passage probably didn’t intersect with where the Hians were and he and Kethel were just wasting their time, but he didn’t know what else to do.
Kethel said, “Where did the forerunners go?”
Moon half-snarled, but it wasn’t Kethel he was angry at. “They didn’t go anywhere. They died out and left us and you.”
Kethel hissed back at him. “I know that. The ones who came here in that boat, but didn’t bring the weapon. Why come here? Where did they go?”
It was a good question. “They decided not to use the weapon, that’s why it was still at the foundation builder city.” He added, “I don’t know what happened to whoever brought the ship here. We don’t know it was forerunners.”
Kethel didn’t seem happy with the answer but then Moon wasn’t either.
Ahead the corridor met another shaft. Moon cautiously leaned out to look up and down it. In the dim light he saw it had rippled walls, as if the material had been poured out like liquid metal and the little waves and rivulets formed had frozen in place. Kethel poked its head in too. “Up or down?”
“It’s parallel to the big shaft,” Moon said, keeping his voice low. “We’ll go down.”
Moon’s claws found easy purchase, and though Kethel had to shift to climb, its big body fit easily into the space. It was a relief to be able to move fa
ster. Moon tasted the air, but the odor coming off Kethel overwhelmed anything else. He tried to filter it out as best he could.
A few turns down and the tube turned horizontal. As Moon dropped into the junction he got a scent of cold outside air in the draft. He thought they had to be very close to the bottom of the structure, where it had sat on the sea floor before the air passage had started to open below it. He turned to the tube leading inward. Kethel dropped into the junction, then shifted back to its groundling form. That was a relief; its scent was easier to deal with in its smaller form.
Then Moon caught a trace of scent and stopped abruptly. Kethel stumbled to a halt behind him. The scent was moss, Kishan moss. It has to be the Hians. The warriors had carried a few of the fire weapons in their packs, but if that was the Raksura ahead, Moon would have been able to scent them by now.
Moon crept forward, very aware of Kethel’s big presence behind him. But as he reached the last bend in the tube, he forgot everything else.
A crack in the wall gave a view of a huge round chamber, and Moon controlled a hiss of satisfaction. They had found the Hians.
More tubes like this one curled down toward the chamber floor, many with cracks or whole chunks broken away. Dark discolored walls curved down, covered with the figured designs of the forerunners, but stopped above the etched floor to leave an open gap. And through that gap Moon saw the swirling edge of the air passage. The bottom part of the chamber was suspended above the storm, though the howl of the wind was still muffled and there was no harsh flow of air.
Several Hians stood spaced around the center part of the room, holding heavy fire weapons, warily on guard. Above their heads hung a heavy slab of dark polished stone, and below that a nest or cradle of curved silver bars. One Hian turned and Moon recognized Lavinat. She held the artifact close to the cradle.
Moon went cold with horror and grabbed the edge of the crack. But it was too narrow to cram his body through; if he tried the Hians below would have plenty of chances to burn him.
Then the Hian next to Lavinat said, “It just isn’t working.”
Moon froze in hope. Beside him, Kethel snorted a breath.
Lavinat said, “There has to be a reason it didn’t open like the others. The weapon has allowed us to get this far. Navin, put it back in the cradle.”
The other Hian took the weapon, handling it carefully. One of the others said, “Perhaps it is for safety. If only a foundation builder can make it work, it prevents the weapon from being used against their will.”
Lavinat made a negative gesture. She said, “The weapon opened the other doors for us, and the passage started to form as soon as we brought it into this chamber. There is no point to opening the passage if the weapon doesn’t work.” Navin laid the weapon in the cradle and stepped back. Lavinat reached up to touch the flat plate of stone overhead, and continued, “I think the door will open when we reach the correct position.”
Moon wasn’t sure what door she meant. Then he realized the floor wasn’t just etched with a flower petal design, the whole thing was one of the large flower petal doors.
Moon eased back from the crack. He didn’t know why Jade and Stone and the others hadn’t gotten down here yet. He hoped they were just stuck in the blocked shaft, but whatever had happened, he couldn’t wait for them. Keeping his voice to a bare whisper, he said, “We can’t count on her being wrong about that. Before the door opens, we need to get down there and get the weapon.”
Kethel whispered, “We both attack at once.”
It was a tempting plan, but Moon could see one big disadvantage right off. This tube curved down to open into the chamber, but the opening hadn’t been designed for kethel-sized beings. “You’re too big to get out of the tube fast enough. They’d burn you to death before you got close to the weapon.”
Kethel grimaced, showing his clipped fangs. “I know that. You get the weapon then.”
A kethel bursting onto the scene suddenly, even in its groundling form, would certainly be a distraction. But Moon didn’t think he would have time to get around to where the weapon was and remove it from the cradle before the Hians saw him. “Then they burn me and take the weapon back. One of us has to stay alive long enough to hide the weapon somewhere they can’t find it.”
Kethel stared at the crack, its big brow furrowed in frustration. Moon thought it was going to argue, but it said reluctantly, “Maybe so.” Then it cocked its head. “What about the thing they put the weapon in? If one can get close and destroy it, then it doesn’t matter if they kill both.”
Moon considered it, stepping close to the crack again to look at the cradle the weapon was nestled in. The curved metal vines looked jewel-like and vulnerable. It would be better to get the weapon out of the chamber entirely, but if that was impossible . . . “That could work.”
Jade snarled in frustration. Stone had tried to push the door in, shoving his entire weight against it. They had tried to burn it with the Hians’ fire weapons until the moss canisters stopping working and the fire ran out. It hadn’t weakened the door at all. She had sent the warriors to explore the tunnel above again in case she had missed a doorway or opening in their haste, but there were no branching passages.
Balm growled but said, “At least we aren’t dead yet. Maybe something went wrong and the Hians can’t use the weapon.”
Jade glared at her and Balm added in frustration, “I know we can’t count on that.”
Balm was right, though. Maybe making the weapon work was a longer and more involved process than they had assumed. “This thing is still moving down, though,” Jade said, mostly to herself. She could feel the continuing drop in altitude. They were going toward the continent below, somehow. But if they had been given a temporary reprieve, they couldn’t waste it standing here beating on this immovable door. “Stone, stop!”
Stone whipped around and all the warriors and Merit flinched back. Jade bared her fangs and Stone shifted down to his groundling form. Breathing hard, he covered his face with his hands and ground out the word, “Sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Jade said, and tried to sound as if she meant it. The last thing they needed was to turn on each other. “We have to go back up, get past the block in the shaft, and look for another way down.” She ignored the agitated twitching of the warriors’ spines. Yes, I know it’s a bad idea, but it’s the only idea left, she snarled to herself.
The crash from above made her twitch. Stone shifted to his winged form and River grabbed Merit as all the warriors braced to flee or fight. Jade pinpointed the source of the sound past the confusing echoes. “That was from the shaft. Someone got through the block.”
“It has to be Moon and Chime,” Balm said, hopefully.
Jade said, “Balm, Saffron, with me. The rest of you stay here.” She didn’t want to leave the door unguarded, just in case the Hians opened it from the other side for some inexplicable reason.
Jade leapt for the tunnel entrance, the rush of Balm’s and Saffron’s wings behind her. They made it only partway up before she detected Rorra’s distinctive scent wound through with familiar Raksura.
Moon whispered, “Now.”
Shifted to its winged form, coiled awkwardly in the too-small tube, Kethel roared.
It staggered Moon and deafened him; he just hoped it had a similar stunning effect on the Hians. He took a deep breath and flung himself forward, rolling down the tube and falling out into the chamber.
He hit the floor and rolled, shifted to his groundling form and let himself land in an awkward sprawl. He got a quick view of the astonished Hians. Across the chamber two Hians shot their fire weapons ineffectually at the tunnel mouth. Kethel roared again, then retreated up the tube, thumping and scraping its wings on the walls to make as much noise as possible.
Moon held his breath. This was the point where the Hians might just burn him, and Kethel would be on its own. He knew he looked wounded; the bruises and scrapes from being knocked off the docks transferred to his more vulnerabl
e groundling body. He had hurt the skin under his claws and his hands and feet smeared blood onto the silver-veined petals of the floor.
Lavinat stepped toward him and said, “The Fell?”
Moon shoved himself up on his elbows, and gasped, “They’re all over this place. They followed the Golden Islanders’ wind-ship.”
Lavinat’s fingers curled around the stock of her fire weapon and Moon got ready to shift and leap. He couldn’t make it to the cradle from here without being hit by one of the others’ fire weapons, and he wasn’t sure he could damage it enough on his own. No, he needed Kethel. But he wasn’t going to lie here and let her burn him.
Then Lavinat said, “Two of you, go up that tunnel and see if there are rulers coming.”
Moon dropped his head to conceal his slump of relief. That might be even better, Moon thought, as two of the Hians lifted up in their flying packs and cautiously advanced on the tunnel. If Kethel was able to pull off the deception.
The other Hians watched Moon nervously and Lavinat made a gesture, apparently telling them to pay attention to their surroundings. She said, “I have never seen a Raksura like you close up, before. You’re very different from the Arbora, but not as much like the rulers as I’ve heard.”
Moon eyed her warily. “If you do this, I might be the last one you see.”
As if it was nothing, as if they were discussing what she planned to eat that day, Lavinat said, “I don’t expect to survive this either.” She added after a moment, “I regret the other damage this will do. But it’s necessary.”
“We’re never going to agree on that.” Moon made his voice hoarse. “Has it started yet?”
“Not yet.” She stepped back. Without moving the nozzle of the fire weapon away from Moon, she nodded toward the slab of slate-like rock above the cradle. “That’s how we know it will work. It was unrecognizable at first, then I realized it was a map. But the hills, valleys, even the rivers and mountains it marks have all changed over time. It’s a map of the world below as it was, when this place was constructed. I’ve adjusted the cradle so the passage will open there, on the plain just outside the western border wall of Imperial Kish.” Her mouth thinned, an expression of annoyance or anger. “I couldn’t make it go any closer.”