Canticle

shuddered at it, but still she felt it.

It was exhilaration.

Chapter 16

Neb

Rufello’s Cave lay in stone foothills covered in gray scrub just beyond the forest of glass that had once been Ahm. From Neb’s position, it looked like a small crevasse in the side of the granite.

The crossing had been harder than he’d thought it would be, evidenced by his shredded uniform and the dozen or so cuts that covered him. Renard had tried to teach him how to move through the razor-edged forest without feeling the sting of salted glass, but as he himself had observed, it took practice.

“I cut myself for years,” he told him with a chuckle at one point when they’d stopped to bandage one particularly nasty gash in Neb’s thigh.

They’d moved slower after that, Renard never saying what Neb heard already from voices deeper inside himself. They’re slipping away from us.

Still, Isaak had left an intentional trail easy for them to follow.

Now, they had reached another stopping point.

Rufello’s Cave.

Of course, it wasn’t where Rufello had lived. Rufello had lived before the Great Migration, before even the Age of the Weeping Czars. He’d been a scientist-poet who had spent his life studying out the treasures, toys and tools of the Younger Gods, leaving behind his Book of Specifications that now only existed in fragments. According to Neb’s history lessons, the book was rare, and only scattered copies had remained past the Year of the Falling Moon-forbidden by the Wizard Kings once their thrones were established upon the earth.

The cave, according to Renard, was named for him because in it, the Androfrancines had found a cache of his drawings in a hidden library.

“When I was a boy,” Renard remembered, “my father was with them when they found it.”

They made their camp with the crevasse in view, and in the morning, they approached it.

Neb kept behind Renard as they drew closer and was surprised to see wheel ruts cut into the hard-packed ground. They stretched north and then east but did not continue south from there. They ended at the mouth of the cave. “They didn’t hide their tracks?”

Renard chuckled. “No need to. You’ll see.”

They picked their way across the rocky terrain, finally joining the wagon trail and following it the rest of the way in. The closer they came, the more Neb felt dwarfed by the sheer size of it. The crevasse stretched much higher than he’d thought. When they finally stood in the shadow of it he saw the carefully built stone wall and the massive doors just ten feet inside. At four-span intervals, massive Rufello locks made of iron dead-bolted the door closed.

Or should have.

Renard must have seen it at the same time Neb did; the Waste Guide gasped. The door hung open. Not by much, just ajar really, but it was open nonetheless, and the locks were set with the dead bolts engaged so that the door could not be shut without the correct ciphers. When Renard stopped, Neb stopped, too. The gangly man drew out his thorn rifle. “What in the Third Hell is this?”

Neb found himself reaching for his knife, his eyes already going to the ground to look for tracks as Aedric had taught him during scout training. He felt the momentary tickle of fear along his spine and forced himself to breathe.

Renard moved forward now, cautious, his eyes moving to and fro. Neb followed.

They reached the door, and Renard leaned around to look into the dark, yawning mouth and pause. He raised his right hand, and when it moved into the Whymer hand language, Neb could not follow it. Still, he took the hint and waited.

Renard vanished into the massive cave, and Neb studied the locking mechanisms. The only larger locks he’d seen were on the Keeper’s Gate they’d passed through to come here-those were the size of hay bales easily. These were smaller but still easily the size of a large man’s head. The levers and dials on the locks were pitted with age and weather, but when he put a tentative hand to one of them, it turned easily and quietly.

Whoever had left the door open had done so intentionally and had the necessary ciphers to do so.

Renard whistled from behind the door. “Stay clear,” he called out.

Slowly, the great door swung open and let sunlight spill into the tunnel until the shadows swallowed it.

Still, what they could see was bare.

“There’s no one home. Even the lamps are gone,” Renard said. “We’ll need light.”

They made makeshift torches with dried branches hacked from nearby scrub and advanced into Rufello’s Cave. Occasionally, they paused to listen, and at least twice, Renard left Neb behind with the light to creep forward and scout the dark. At the end of the corridor, it widened into a large cavern.

But still, it was empty. Completely empty.

Renard scratched his head. “This makes no sense. There have been no caravans. They would have passed beneath my watching eye.”

Neb looked at him and saw the consternation on his face. “Who else knew the ciphers?”

“Me,” Renard said, reslinging his rifle. “My father, certainly. A handful of others. dead with Windwir, I’ll wager.”

Neb thought for a moment. “Could they have come by a different direction?”

“If someone with the ciphers survived?” Renard cocked his head. “Surely, but why? The Wastes stretch on and on and on all around us. The sea is ten days’ root-run to the south, though the salt dunes near her make for hard going.” He stretched out his hands. “They’d have needed wagons for all of this, and there’s no way to get a wagon through the dunes. Hells,” he said, “there were wagons stored here, but not nearly enough to haul the supplies they’d stockpiled.”

A thought struck Neb. “What else was here?”

Renard shrugged and started listing them off. “Everything. Clothing. Nonperishables. Tools. Weapons. Maps.”

Anything needed to mount an expedition, Neb realized. And someone had let themselves in and helped themselves to it. And not just some of it-they had emptied the place. Renard had told him just days ago that the most dangerous predator in the Wastes was still man. Neb found himself wondering if perhaps this was simply the work of common thieves, though it did not explain the lock. Rufello locks were nearly impenetrable. Whoever had done this either had the ciphers or somehow knew a means for puzzling them out- something Neb could not fathom. The cipher on one lock might be possible over a stretch of time, but not five or six locks. It would take a lifetime.

Renard had hunkered down in thought, but now he straightened. “I want to give this a closer look.”

They started a new torch and went to opposite walls. Then, they walked slowly, shedding light onto the floor as they went, and Neb saw that the cavern wasn’t quite as empty as they’d perceived. Here and there, he saw spilled nails, splintered wood from crates now vanished, and at one point, even found a tattered robe wadded up and discarded. Still, nothing useful.

They moved slowly, methodically covering every span of the room, and just when they reached deepest, darkest corners, Neb came across the flour sack.

It had been dropped, apparently, and had burst, coating the floor with a quarter inch of fine white powder. When he came upon it, he nearly stepped into it but caught himself. Squinting, Neb looked down.

There in the flour, a footprint. He crouched and leaned over to examine it. “I’ve found something.”

He heard Renard coming and blinked again, cursing the guttering torch for toying with his eyesight. The dancing flames gave the footprint an inhuman cast-a shape like no boot or foot he’d seen. Except.

Neb’s brow furrowed. “A mechoservitor was here.”

Renard approached and crouched himself, studying the single footprint. “The Whymers don’t bring their toys