pockets had been gouged into the living wood of the trees and lined with an assortment of leaves and fern fronds. Chetiin gestured for them to keep going. “It’s the troll nest,” he said. “We’re almost at the bottom.”
Ashi studied the dens dug into the trees. Each looked big enough for one troll to sleep curled up inside, but there weren’t just nine pockets for the nine trolls. There were dozens, some disappearing into the shadows high above. The majority, however, seemed abandoned. They had no linings, and the scarred wood had long healed into puckers of bark. Makka had described the valley as being a cursed place since the mountains were young. Ashi wondered how long trolls had been living here.
Beyond the nest was the bottom of the stairs-and the bottom of the pit. The ground leveled out among the roots of the great trees in an expanse of dense, black soil. Somewhere else, Ashi might have called it a small clearing. Here it felt like a kind of void. On its far side rose a sheer rock face. Built against the rock was the front of a simple shrine, fashioned from the same gray stone as the stairs and carved with a band of the same twisting shapes. Through a narrow doorway, the interior of the shrine extended into the rock as the trolls’ dens extended into the trees.
“Aureon’s blue quill,” said Midian. “It’s in perfect condition.”
“Pre-Dhakaani?” Dagii asked.
“Pre-Dhakaani,” Midian confirmed. He stepped off the stairs and walked across the bare earth to hold his torch up before the structure. Illuminated, the carvings sprang into sharp relief. Ashi thought she could see animals in the swirls. Animals, plants, maybe even figures that could have been members of the goblin races. As the others came to join him, Midian frowned and stepped closer, examining the carvings up close. “This isn’t possible,” he said. “The grooves and edges haven’t weathered at all.”
“They’d be well protected down here,” Ashi pointed out. “And you said there was probably some preserving magic on the stone of the stairs. Wouldn’t it have been applied to the shrine as well?”
“Preserving magic doesn’t work that well. There was lichen on the stairs and some weathering, and I thought that was amazing.” He touched a carved swirl. “These are more than fifteen thousand years old, and they might have been carved yesterday.”
“It’s here, though,” said Geth, his voice excited. They all turned to look at him. He was standing in front of the shrine’s door, his eyes bright, and he held Wrath out in front of him with both hands, as if trying to keep a grip on the sword. “The rod is here, in the shrine. If you’re finished looking at carvings, let’s go get it!”
“It’s not going anywhere, Geth,” Ekhaas said. “We’ll go in when we’re ready.”
“Grandfather Rat, how much more ready can we be? Chetiin, Ashi, are you with me?”
Ashi-and Chetiin as well-glanced at Ekhaas before answering. The duur’kala’s ears stood up, but after a moment, she nodded. “You’re right. Let’s go. Just be careful.”
Chetiin went through the door first with Geth and Midian after him. Ashi would have followed, but Ekhaas caught her arm. “Has Geth seemed more impetuous than usual to you lately?” she asked quietly.
Ashi considered the question for a moment, then shook her head. “He always throws himself into a fight.”
“Yes, but generally only the ones he knows he can win.”
“Maybe it’s the strain of our quest,” said Dagii from behind them. “He has been our only guide and his task is nearly complete.”
“Maybe.” Ekhaas didn’t sound convinced.
“Coming?” Geth’s voice echoed out of the door.
Ekhaas’s ears stood even taller and her eyes looked into Ashi’s, then Dagii’s. “Watch him,” she said, “both of you.”
Ashi nodded, then stepped into the shrine. A rough-walled passage extended beyond the door, no taller or wider than the door itself. She could just barely squeeze through-looking back, she saw that Dagii had to turn sideways to get in. A few paces ahead, Geth and the others were already out of the passage, the light of their torches spreading to illuminate a larger space. She hurried after them and emerged into a small chamber that was partly worked stone and partly natural rock. When all six of them were standing in the chamber, it felt nearly as crowded as the narrow passage.
And there was a stillness to it, as well. Eerie like the valley and tense like the pit, but moreso. Ashi felt a foreboding, as if the stillness had a physical form and was standing somewhere just behind her. There was something else about it as well… something she couldn’t identify at first-or at least couldn’t describe.
“Do you feel that?” she asked.
The others nodded. Silently, Geth pointed with Wrath to the wall opposite the passage. It was the most natural of the chamber’s walls, split by a wide crack and untouched by tools except for a grate of iron bars that had been placed across it. Once the gate must have blocked the crack. Now it hung open.
Litter lay on the ground beyond in a jumble of strange objects: cups and knives and trinkets of all sorts, most similar in design and decoration to the carvings on the shrine and the stairs.
“Offerings,” said Ekhaas quietly. “When the grate was closed, they would have been shoved through into the darkness.”
“Offerings to what?” Dagii asked.
Ekhaas spread her hands. “I don’t know. Whatever power is in this place.”
Midian held out his torch. “They’ve been sorted.”
Ashi looked again. The gnome was right. The jumble actually lay in several heaps, separating small objects from large, moderately valuable from worthless. There seemed to be nothing of great worth, though she had a feeling that perhaps there once had been.
A clear path led between the heaps. The back of the crack opened into another passage, a little wider than the first.
“Leave the pitch pots,” said Dagii. “They’ll just get in the way.”
They left the clay pots in a heap, carefully extinguishing the ones they had lit, then stepped, one by one, into the crack. Ashi scanned the heaps of offerings for a weapon she could use and selected a long knife that was only a handspan away from being a short sword. Ekhaas glanced at it as she picked it up, then looked again more sharply.
“That’s not pre-Dhakaani,” she said. Ashi passed her the dagger and she turned it over in her hands, cursed under her breath, and held it out for Midian to see. The gnome’s eyebrows rose.
“Riis Dynasty,” he said. “The time of the Shaking Emperor.”
No one said anything else. Ashi took the dagger back and tested the edge. Still sharp.
The new passage hadn’t been worked at all. It was wide enough that Ashi didn’t feel cramped, but she had to watch closely for projections from the walls and raised stones underfoot. It twisted from time to time, turning or dropping suddenly. She had the feeling that they were generally going deeper. At least there were no side passages. No way to go but forward and back.
The foreboding stillness grew with every pace. Sounds seemed muffled. Ashi fought the urge to reach back and take Ekhaas’s hand, just for the reassurance of knowing that it was the duur’kala behind her and not someone or something else.
She was the first to notice that the torches had stopped flickering, suddenly becoming as steady as everbright lanterns. Ashi looked up at her torch and saw that the flame was still. Not merely steady, like a candle protected by a lantern, but still, like a piece of bright orange-yellow glass. All of the torches they carried were still.
She found the description for the stillness that had eluded her earlier. It was “stopped.” It felt as if their little party moved through a world in which all other motion had ceased. She bit down on her alarm, instead lowering the stopped torch to show Ekhaas. The duur’kala’s ears pulled back flat.
At the head of the party, Chetiin and Geth went around another twist in the passage-then were back and pressed up against the wall. The hair on Geth’s arms and neck was standing up. His eyes were wide. “We’re here,” he said.
“What is it?” Ashi asked.
“I think you need to see for yourself.” Geth took a deep breath and slowly stepped around the corner. Chetiin followed. Midian, Ashi, Ekhaas, and Dagii looked at each other, then Ashi braced herself and went after Geth.
Beyond the twist, the passage went a couple of paces more, then opened up into a cavern. The floor was reasonably level and the cavern itself was quite broad, spreading twenty paces or so in any direction from the
