Edge of Worlds (The Books of the Raksura) (41 page)

The others caught up one by one and Moon reached them and landed beside Chime and Delin. It wasn’t just a bridge, it was a junction. Standing on Stone’s shoulder, Bramble held her net-light up as high as she could, revealing a giant seven-sided space, with tall doorways in each wall.

Chime set Delin on his feet and stepped over to a large oblong of crystal set into the floor. He crouched to peer down through it. “So does the main canal split into seven branches, and one of these hallways follows each branch?”

Jade flicked a spine in Root and Song’s direction and they both jumped over the edge of the bridge. After a few moments they climbed back up and Song reported, “Seven canals, each right below one of these doors. They aren’t nearly as tall and wide as the hall we just came up, and it would be tricky to fly along them. They all look big enough for the groundling boat, though.”

Jade said grimly, “Yes, but which one do we follow?” She turned to look at the doors. “There isn’t a middle one. That would have been helpful.”

There were a few dismayed hisses as the realization penetrated. All the doors were set at angles, none obviously a continuation of the main hall.

Rorra stepped to the edge of the bridge to look down at the canal, angling her light to let her see the sides. “If the halls parallel each canal all the way along, that’s easier than having to trace them by water. Particularly if the canals are inhabited by those waterlings. It’s just a matter of picking the right one.”

“‘Just a matter?’” Delin echoed.

“I didn’t say it was an easy matter,” Rorra admitted, stepping back.

Jade showed her fangs in a brief grimace. “So we may have to follow each one to see if there’s an outer door at the end.”

Moon didn’t think the task was that enormous. “The city’s tall, but it isn’t that wide. It would take, what, maybe a couple of hours to cross the top? The outside walls taper in, but not that much. So searching each canal shouldn’t take that long.”

“They might connect to each other,” Chime added. “That should help, too.”

Jade paced away. “It would still be better if we picked the right one first.”

With Bramble on his shoulder, Stone moved to the first door, letting the light fall down it a little. It was a hallway, on a smaller scale than the big one that led here, with carvings on the arching walls and maybe pillars farther down. Stone moved to check each door, but the halls seemed all the same. There were bands of carving around the doors, but they were all the same size, and nothing seemed to indicate one door was more important than the others. Bramble reported, “I don’t see any of the symbols we found on the entrance.” She added wryly, “That would have been handy.”

“Maybe we should have brought Vendoin to see the writing,” Root said. “I mean, if there’s writing.”

Delin stood near a pillar, examining the carving. “She would still have to translate it, which takes time. And the Hian interpretation of foundation builder language is greatly disputed.” His voice dry, he added, “I heard a great deal about that on the way to the Reaches.” He looked around again, squinting in the dim light. “The designs are asymmetrical. And the entrance was toward the eastern end of the escarpment, not in its center. There is less room for the canals on the eastern side.”

Jade’s tail lashed slowly as she considered it. “So it’s more likely some of these canals dead-end, or get smaller.”

Briar said, uncertainly, “There’s enough of us. We could split up to search each. That would take less time.”

Bramble snorted. “There’s stories that start that way and they all end ‘and then they were eaten.’” Stone grunted in agreement.

Everyone was looking at Jade, waiting for a decision. Trying to give her some breathing room, Moon said, “Do you want to go back and wait for Merit to scry?” He didn’t expect her to say yes, considering how badly Merit’s attempts to scry had been going.

“There’s no telling how long that will take.” Jade hesitated, her tail still moving slowly. “Chime, which hall should we start with?”

Moments like these were when Moon felt Chime’s former life as a mentor came in handy. A warrior would have balked at taking the responsibility; at this point, Moon would have picked a door at random. Chime moved forward, studying each doorway intently. “Asymmetrical,” he murmured. “And the gate into the city was toward the east, and a lot of these carved designs have a focal point toward the left . . .”

Moon, with Jade, Stone, Rorra, and the warriors, turned to stare at the nearest carvings. Bramble and Delin just nodded. Once it was pointed out, Moon could see that many of the carvings seemed to look better if you tilted your head to the left, but he had no idea what that meant. Chime finished, “So I’m guessing we should try that door first.” He pointed to the one third from the left. He turned to consult Bramble and Delin.

Bramble said, “It could be that one or the one to its right, but . . . Yes, I think we should start with it.”

Delin nodded agreement. “Your theory is sound, Chime.”

“What just happened?” Rorra asked Moon.

He said, “I have no idea.”

The hall wasn’t tall or wide enough to make flying or leaping feasible, and while a bounding gait would cover ground faster, it wasn’t a good way to travel through a place as strange and potentially dangerous as this. So they walked.

Moon was worried this might be hard on Delin and Rorra, but Delin seemed more interested in trying to study the wall carvings their lights revealed, and Rorra didn’t seem fatigued. Moon still meant to remind Jade to call for a rest sooner than she normally would need to.

Every fifty paces or so there was another oblong crystal inset in the floor. The glass was cloudy with age, but still allowed a dim view down to the canal below, just enough to see Rorra’s distance-light glinting off the water. With the others, Moon kept tasting the air, but all he could detect was saltwater, rock, nervous Raksura, nervous sealing, and Delin. Keeping his voice low, Chime said, “This isn’t the worst place we’ve ever explored. If it wasn’t for the possibility of a monster locked up in here somewhere, this wouldn’t be so bad.” He was clearly trying to keep his spirits up, because even as he said it, his spines twitched uneasily.

Walking ahead of them, Briar added, “And that we might starve to death if we can’t get past the Fell.”

“Right, I forgot about that one,” Chime said sourly. “Thanks for reminding me.”

“Remember the foundation builder writing,” Delin said. “This place is probably not of the forerunners. Unless they took control of it somehow, before or after the foundation builders departed.”

“Then why did it let Chime open it?” Bramble asked.

“Good question,” Delin said wryly.

Ahead, Stone stopped, and Bramble held up the net-light.

A staircase twisted up a pillar, leading up through an open shaft in the ceiling. Across the hall, an opening showed another set of steps curling down to the canal below. Moon ducked around Stone’s big furled wing to see the steps. Each was broad and flat across the middle, with two raised sections to either side, one a little higher than the other. Delin and Rorra moved up beside him, and Rorra said, “More than two legs? Or just decorative?”

“I don’t know.” Delin leaned into the stairwell, holding his light. “Odd.”

Stone set Bramble down, then shifted to his groundling form. Rorra flinched away from the abrupt transformation, but Delin just stepped closer to take advantage of the unobstructed view. Bramble’s frills brushed Moon’s scales as she pushed between him and Chime to see.

Briar, Song, and Root looked down the other set of stairs, trying to angle their lights to see more. Thinking of the size of the escarpment, Moon said, “I wonder if the city really fills the whole mountain. It’s a long walk up to the top, and we saw buildings through the glass up there.”

“We can’t get the boat up stairs. Come on,” Jade said, not patiently.

The others stepped away reluctantly. Moon had to admit, it was intriguing. He wanted to see the top of the city, wanted a better look at the shadow-shapes sealed under the glass. With a long look at the stairs, as if he was reluctant to leave them as well, Stone said, “We’re coming.”

Root added, “It’s not like anyone wants to find the monster.”

Stone gave Root a nudge to the head, then shifted back to his winged form.

They moved through the darkness with their lights throwing shadows on the walls and the graceful lines of the off-center carvings. Some distance along, Rorra stopped to drink from her water flask, and made Delin take a drink as well. Moon and Chime stopped with them, just in case something terrible chose that moment to leap out of the shadows. Ahead, Jade noticed and slowed the group’s pace so she could keep them in sight. Rorra stoppered the flask and put it back in her pack, saying, “You really think it’s too dangerous to split up? It seems so empty.”

Moon twitched his spines uneasily. “It’s too dangerous.”

Chime told her, “The creature in the forerunner city made us and the Fell see things that weren’t there.”

As they started walking again, she said, “But we don’t think one is here now, do we? This is so different from the city you described.”

“The creepiness is the same,” Chime said.

Some time later, Moon saw Root catch up with Jade. He asked her something in a plaintive tone. She stopped, and pulled affectionately on one of his frills. She turned back and said, “We’ll stop for a moment. Root’s hungry.”

Stone set Bramble down, and shifted to groundling while she dug in her pack for the food she had brought along. They had some bread and some of the dried sea-weed that the Kishan swore was almost as good as eating meat.

Moon turned to ask Rorra and Delin if they wanted any when Rorra swayed and caught Delin’s shoulder. “Sorry,” she said, and put a hand to her head. “I feel ill.”

Moon stepped over to take her arm to steady her, and caught the scent of blood. “Are you bleeding?”

She frowned at him. “No.”

He looked down and saw a dark spot just below her left knee, above the top of her boot. “Yes.”

“What?” She stared at it, uncomprehending.

“Sit down, here,” Delin urged her, and he and Moon helped ease her down.

Sitting on the floor, Rorra let out a breath and admitted, “That feels better.” Moon helped her unbuckle the boot and ease it away from the cloth of her pants. Where the fabric and leather had rubbed against her skin, there was a bleeding sore. Rorra swore in Kedaic, and said, “This happens sometimes when I have to walk all day. But I didn’t feel it until just now.” She touched it carefully and winced. “And we haven’t been walking that long.”

It must have been there a while. Now that it was in the open, Moon could catch a scent of infection off it. Except that he was sure it hadn’t been there when Rorra had removed her clothes and boots to swim in the sea only yesterday.

Chime and Bramble shouldered Moon aside at that point, both proffering medical advice and bandages and simples. Moon left Rorra to accept their help or fend them off, and went over to Jade. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“She has a wound, she must have gotten cut during the battle,” Moon said. That was the only explanation he could think of. Except he didn’t know how Rorra could have been hurt without it tearing the tough material of her clothes. And it had looked like a chafing sore. “Is Root all right?”

“Just hungry,” Jade said, frowning absently.

Still chewing a seaweed cake, Root had gone over to help Bramble hold her pack open. She and Chime were putting together a quick simple for Rorra. Bramble had been carrying extra supplies for Merit and it was coming in handy. It wouldn’t have the same effect as a simple made with mentor’s magic, but the combinations of herbs and distilled oils still helped healing.

“I’m hungry too,” Briar said, keeping watch on the darkness ahead. “And thirsty.”

“So am I.” Moon rubbed his eyes. He felt grit at the edges of the membranes under his eyelids, but that was probably because of the sand in the air outside. Now that everyone was talking about it, he realized his stomach felt empty and his throat was dry.

Briar said, “We ate before we left. It’s only been an hour or so.” She flicked her spines, suddenly uneasy. “Hasn’t it? My wings feel heavy, like I’ve been walking forever.”

With relief, Song said, “I thought it was just me.”

Moon stared at them, then met Jade’s gaze. He knew they were sharing a near identical expression of disbelief. Moon tried to sense where the sun was outside the rock of the escarpment, and felt nothing.
Uh oh
, he thought.

Slowly, as if dreading the answer, Jade said, “Stone, how long have we been in this corridor?”

Stone, who had been staring absently down the dark cavern of the hall, turned and ambled back to them. “About an hour.” He saw their expressions. “What?”

Moon said, “We’re all hungry and tired like we’ve been walking for more than a day, and Rorra has a chafing sore on her leg that wasn’t there earlier, and it’s already infected.”

Stone took that in. Then he groaned, “Shit.”

Delin stepped up beside Moon and said quietly, “I fear you are right.” He rubbed his neck below his beard. “I shaved while we were preparing to leave, not knowing when I would have the chance again. I am not a young man, to bristle with hair after barely an hour’s time.”

“So when did it happen?” Jade said. Her voice was even but she was holding her spines neutral with effort. “After we picked this corridor?”

Briar’s spines twitched in agitation, and she turned to Song. “Do you remember how many stairwells we’ve seen? I was going to count them, just to make sure we could find our way back if there was another branch in the hall. Bone is always going on about the warriors not paying enough attention to tracking, so I was . . . But somehow I didn’t count them.”

Song shook her head. “I didn’t think of that.”

Stone said, “Bramble, get over here.”

He hadn’t raised his voice, but something in his tone made Bramble cross the distance in a single bound. Chime, helping Rorra fasten the bandage, turned to stare, startled. Stone asked Bramble, “How many stairwells?”