were the magnificent pillars rising from it.
Silus was beginning to wonder how they were going to find a way in when he saw what he took to be a window in the side of one of the towers. Signalling to the others to follow he swam in close, but could make out only his reflection and nothing of whatever lay inside. He put out a hand and tried to clear the glass, but instead of coming up against a solid surface it passed straight through. Silus cautiously flexed his fingers, but could feel nothing on the other side. He withdrew his hand and looked at it, but it didn't appear to be any different.
The others had now clustered around him and, giving them a nod, he held out his lightstone and thrust himself into the side of the structure.
Silus's stomach turned over as he dropped, but it was only a short distance to the floor and he did little more than bruise his knees. His hands left wet prints in the thick dust covering the floor as he raised himself to his feet and looked over his shoulder. The others floated there beyond the window and he was about to give them the signal to proceed, when he realised that they couldn't see him. So, instead, he gave a tug on the rope that let them know that it was safe to enter.
All seven of them took a moment to look around after they stepped inside, their breathing and the drip of seawater from their suits the only sound in the musty chamber. Father Maylan crouched over something in the corner of the room and removed his hood in order to get a better look.
'Did you even stop to think that the air in here might not be breathable?' Kelos shouted, after removing his own hood.
'It's perfectly breathable, look.' Father Maylan said, and demonstrated by taking a deep breath. 'I wonder what manner of creature this is?' He said, indicating the skeleton before him.
The skeleton was propped against a wall. The skull that sagged against the chest was larger than that of a human and had an oval hole for a mouth instead of a hinged jaw. Behind the broken ribs the spine was a single piece of bone that tapered down to just above the ankles. The legs were much like those of a human, though there were only three toes on each foot, while the creature's arms were — like the spine — each a single piece of tapered bone.
Silus saw an object lying near the body and picked it up. From a metal handle emerged eight thick strands of a material that looked not unlike squid flesh.
'I'd be careful with that if I were you,' Dunsany said. 'It may be a weapon and you don't know how what it does.'
As Silus looked at it more closely, he tightened his grip on the handle and the strands came to life, swaying like the fronds of a sea anemone caught in a gentle underwater current. When they began to twine around each other and crackle with small tongues of lightning he dropped the strange flail and stepped away.
'Whatever this creature was, it clearly went down fighting.' Dunsany said.
'Fighting what though?' Silus said.
Apart from the creature's corpse and the strange weapon, the chamber was empty.
Kelos took a moment to untie each of them from the rope that joined them together, before they ventured through an archway in the far wall.
As they exited the room they were hit by a strong blast of wind, whistling down the tower from above. On it Silus thought that he could just make out the call of gulls.
'These towers must act as ventilation shafts.' Kelos said.
'If they needed air to survive,' Jacquinto said, 'what did they go and build this place underwater for?'
'Most aquatic mammals need air. Consider dolphins, for example.'
'What, dolphins built this place?'
'I believe that Kelos was only using dolphins as an example,' Silus said. 'The architects who designed and built these towers were clearly far more complex creatures.'
The wind at their backs dropped briefly and, in the lull, Silus thought that he could detect a bitter odour rising from below. It reminded him of the smell of a cold range in the morning, the phantom of smoke that wafted from the grate as the ashes were shovelled out.
Ahead of him Dunsany stumbled as he tripped over a broken step and Silus saw that the stone there was cracked and charred. Streaks of soot began to mark the walls as they continued cautiously down, the stone in places bulging and glassy as though a fierce heat had once attacked the tower. When they reached the base of the tower the walls were almost entirely black and they had to hug the outer curve of the spiral to negotiate the last few shattered steps.
'Gods, it's a bloody charnel house!' Silus heard Dunsany gasp.
When he reached the bottom, Silus saw for himself what had so taken his crew-mate aback. Behind him there were similar exclamations as the rest of the crew joined them.
They stood at the entrance to a massive circular room, the floor of which had been gouged by deep, blackened rents. Above them the ceiling shimmered and through it they could see the six towers rising to the surface far above. Fragments of scorched bone and broken skulls were scattered across the floor, but it was not these that had evoked Dunsany's exclamation. There were three entrances into the chamber, besides the one through which they had entered, and each one was piled high with bones.
The smell of burned bone intensified as Silus approached one of the arches. The skeletons piled there — like a jumble of blackened twigs — had been fused together by the fire that had consumed the flesh that had once clothed them. Silus reached out to touch the edge of a leg bone and the whole pile shifted suddenly as it crumbled, a small avalanche of dry remains tumbling into the room.
'What in the name of Kerberos happened here?' Father Maylan said.
'A massacre.' Silus said.
'Perfect! So, we discover a new race, only to find that it has already been killed off?' Kelos said. 'Who'd want to be an adventurer?'
'It beats languishing in a Vos prison,' Jacquinto said. 'Trust me.'
Beyond the archway, Silus could see through to where a flight of stairs descended.
'We could clear a way through this,' he said. 'Maybe we'll find some clues as to what happened here.'
He unsheathed his knife and started to cut a path through the brittle skeletons. It wasn't a particularly difficult task as the majority of the bones crumbled as soon as he touched them. Black flakes rained down on him as the pile shifted and creaked. He paused for a moment but the mound of the dead held and he continued to tunnel towards the stairs.
The crew looked at each other, then at Silus sawing away, and — after only a brief hesitation — followed him through the charnel mound.
The quantity of bodies didn't lessen any as Silus approached the top of the stairs. The glow of his lightstone revealed yet more skeletons crowded into the scorched tunnel sloping away from them. Some were wrapped around their companions, as though the creatures had been seeking solace in their final moments. Others, towards the top of the pile, had arms outstretched and heads thrown back. Silus imagined them scrabbling across a pile of their already dead brethren, only for them to be annihilated by a roaring wall of flame.
'Do we really want to find out what did this?' Dunsany said from behind him. 'I mean, I've seen the old battle fields in the Anclas territories but this… gods, it's just…' His voice caught for a moment and a sob escaped his lips. 'Horrible.'
Kelos put a hand on his friend's shoulder and Dunsany covered it with his own.
'I think that whoever did this is long gone,' Silus said. 'There's no more threat here. Just a tomb.'
'It could be haunted.' Ignacio said, from further behind him. 'Places like this are always haunted.'
'No, I feel nothing.' Father Maylan said. 'This place is just… dead.'
Descending the stairs took them longer than Silus had anticipated. The bodies were packed in more tightly around them here and it was hard to see where each step fell. Twice Silus had to tell the group to back off so that he could work out the best route through.
As he was pulling bones away from the wall of the tunnel he heard a sound like a whisper and looked up.
A skeleton hung spread-eagled above him, its empty eyes seeming to observe him with contempt. Silus thought that he could see a glint of something deep within one of the sockets. The glint resolved itself into a more definite form, as a spider crawled from the hollow and skittered across a cracked cheekbone. With a dry rattle, the skull shifted slightly to the side, almost as though the dead creature were cocking its head at him.
