veins.
Telarian surrendered his hold on the soul-forged blade, and the hint of recognition Nis felt toward the strata vanished. The knowledge of who might have been responsible for cutting these passages was again beyond his conjecture.
They made good time then, traveling straight and level, without any side passages to dilute their resolution to move forward. The wind's strength slackened as they moved farther from where it had first assaulted them, and finally failed altogether, so that only the sounds of clopping hooves rushed down the narrow corridor.
They camped once, strung out over several hundred horse spans, with Knight apprentices moving up and down the line with feed, food, and water for mounts and Knights alike.
When they rode next, they traversed not more than a few miles before they broke into an underground city.
Telarian found his steed traversing what had once been a street, its cobbles now buckled and misaligned. Squat tenements of white stone crowded along the road, mostly collapsed and shattered beneath the settling ceiling.
Flashing lantern beams picked out hundreds of bodies lying in the street, in positions of casual repose, as if they had settled for a midmorning nap from which none had ever risen again. The humanoid shapes were as hard and pale as the sedimentary rock in the tunnels. Telarian's first thought was that they were scattered, looted sculptures.
Telarian dismounted. He saw the forms were not posed in any way, like a statue might be. No, the remains were apparently people who fell to a disaster unrecorded. An image granted him earlier by Nis flashed before his eyes-a slender, white tower burning as it receded into the sky, leaving behind a plain of absolute black. The image dissolved. Telarian leaned in to get a closer look at one of the bodies.
Not elf, nor precisely human. Orc? The features were too gracile to be those of any modern orc. Some sages believed the farther one penetrated history, the more primitive one would find the inhabitants. Were these extinct people something related to goblins? Whatever they were, they hadn't survived into the current age in any realm or plane Telarian knew. Nor had he seen any such creatures in any of his visions of the future. Whatever civilization and achievements these humanoids may have once known, reality moved on without them.
Thindhul said, 'Who knew Stardeep's underdungeon opened upon such'-the Knight Commander fluttered his hand at the scene-'such enigma.'
'One that doesn't concern us,' said Telarian, more to himself than Thindhul. Whatever the nature of the secrets and treasures hidden away in Stardeep's unexplored basements, they had no bearing on the reason they were there, or what he intended to accomplish.
'Very well. Which way do we go from here?' asked Thindhul, his tone sardonic.
Telarian rose and studied the wider streets and half-collapsed ceiling. A score more Knights issued from the tunnel out into the streets to set up a temporary perimeter. From the diviner's vantage, he counted at least five side streets, each as wide or wider than the street they'd emerged upon, though at least a couple were choked by shattered walls, collapsed ceiling sections, and fossilized bodies.
'We'll continue to follow the street we're on. Since it led to the tunnel, this was likely once a main thoroughfare. It should lead to the city's center. From there, we'll decide where to go next.'
Thindhul nodded, and shouted orders for the Knights to form up behind the vanguard. With the streets so wide, the Knight Commander judged the space adequate for five Knights to easily ride abreast. Telarian left him to his duty and joined the vanguard as it picked its way forward, stepping around the twisted, stony corpses that littered the road.
As they progressed, the crushing weight of the fallen ceiling gradually lessened, revealing more of the city's architecture. Thick foundations gave way to arching white balusters, fluted columns, and slender balconies. The upward construction did little to draw the eyes away from the grisly, hardened remains of the city's former citizens, whose numbers increased the farther they moved.
By the time the vanguard entered the central city hub, the forms underfoot were as thick as cobbles. It was easier for the horses to trod those unfeeling backs than to pick their way through. Telarian was riding the vanguard, judging the Knights' confidence would be bolstered by his presence.
The ceiling arched up into a great dome, at the center of which a violet flame burned dimly, like the ghost of the sun. Beneath the flame rose a jumble of rock-hard bodies rising some forty paces from a broad base to a narrow tip. The cone-shaped cemetery mass was surmounted by a blood red throne of rough-cut crystal.
A lone, bone white figure sat upon that throne, unmoving and lifeless as the hundreds of fossilized forms who made up its court and supported its high seat.
Telarian called a halt. The vanguard paused some dozens of paces from the mound's lower edge. He waited for Thindhul to catch up as he continued to observe the panorama.
When Thindhul rode to Telarian's side, the Knight Commander asked, 'Do you sense a threat?'
The diviner shrugged, 'Perhaps we have stumbled upon the epicenter of some terrible genocidal ritual. However, that heap has the look of something assembled after the bodies were petrified.'
'Either way, nothing to do with us, correct?'
The Keeper replied, 'If that statue sitting on its pretty seat maintains any cognition whatsoever, perhaps it can provide us with directions.'
Thindhul's mouth opened with a surprised gape. He said, 'Is that wise?'
Telarian fixed the Commander with a wintry look, saying nothing.
Thindhul stuttered, shook his head, and finally declared, 'I shall send someone to inquire.'
The Knight Commander turned and gestured to one of the vanguard. 'Knight Dilthari, ascend that heap and investigate.'
An elf woman dismounted, gave the reins to a companion, and approached the heap.
She walked the periphery of the cone, looking for the best route to ascend the pile of rigid bodies.
The figure on the throne suddenly stood from its seat and looked down at Dilthari, just as the violet flame on the ceiling flared to three times its original luminosity. The figure, as naked and roughly preserved as all the other figures, absorbed that light across its hard surface in discrete patterns that resembled regalia and clothing. It was revealed as wearing a crown of light and a luminescent cape, and it brandished a long staff of streaming effulgence.
It coughed a plume of dust, then mumbled something to Dilthari in a language unknown to Telarian. The tone made it seem a question. The diviner quickly essayed a charm of language comprehension, as the figure spoke again.
This time, Telarian caught part of its question, '. . more subjects whose salvaged essence can fuel my elaborate mechanisms?'
Dilthari continued to stare up, uncomprehending. Telarian shouted, 'Stand away, Knight!'
The figure, despite its fossilized limbs, pointed down the slope with its intangible staff. Dilthari scrambled backward. The other Knights of the vanguard unlimbered crossbows and fumbled to fit bolts.
Dilthari gasped as if punched in the stomach and ceased moving. She half turned her gaze back to Telarian, surprise dawning across her features. To the diviner's eyes, it seemed as if the Knight exhaled a thin streamer of mist from her nose and mouth. The streamer flowed through the air toward the crowned one, who snared it with his blazing staff. Dilthari's flesh instantly cooled and paled to the color of salt. She toppled, becoming one more rigid carcass among the thousands of inert, fossilized bodies. As she struck the previously hardened corpses, her outstretched arm broke off at the shoulder with an unnerving report.
Even as Thindhul screamed, 'Attack!' a volley of bolts battered the creature with such force it overbalanced and fell from sight off the back of the heap.
Telarian waited to hear the creature crash down, but several heartbeats of silence dashed his expectation. Instead, the dusty, dry voice mumbled from behind the heap. 'Wake, wake, wake my sleepy ones! Open your dull eyes and stand-your prophet commands it! Dream no more in lonely exile!'
'By the Sign!' screamed Thindhul. The rubble on which the Knights rode began to shudder, heave, and crack. Every fossilized corpse scattered across the buried city's central hub, and all the way down the road along which the Knights were assembled began to twitch. Each became a terror of eon-hardened hunger.
A tsunami of screams scratched from a thousand rock throats. The noise slammed through the Knights, threatening to break even their renowned valor. The howls were of damned souls thrust suddenly back into bodies
