stairs. At least she knew her place. She was the magical work beast. He was the leader of the expedition.
The walls were carved with religious scenes, but they were too coated in dust to make out. There would be time for that later. He gave up counting the stairs after one hundred. Their descent seemed to go on forever, so when he suddenly found himself at the bottom it was a surprise. He stopped.
A narrow corridor just wider than his shoulders continued into darkness. He started along it, moving slowly. The corridor was free of rubble at first, but soon became cluttered. At one point he stepped over a crack as wide as his hand that had severed the entire passage. Not long after he saw a faint light ahead, then several strides later he had reached the end of the passage.
“Halt!” he called, fearful that the others would blunder into him and push him over the precipice.
“What is it?” Mikmer asked, his voice close to Barmonia’s shoulder.
“A crack,” Barmonia replied. “An enormous crack. It must be two hundred paces to the other side.”
“Does the passage continue on the other side?”
“I don’t know. I can barely see it.”
“Let me come forward and I will make a light,” the woman offered.
Barmonia was tempted to refuse out of spite, but he could think of no other way to know the size of the crevice.
“Come forward, then.”
There was a shuffling behind him as the men made room for her to pass them. A spark of light flared into existence and floated past his shoulder, moving slowly out into the void. The opposite wall brightened. There was no passage in it.
“No,” Barmonia said. “The corridor ends here.”
As the light brightened he looked down. Not far below was a jumble of rocks, filling the crevice. Looking up, he felt his blood turn cold.
A massive slab of the wall beyond had fallen forward and now rested precariously against the opposite surface. A tremor of enough force would one day free it, and it would come crashing down on top of the rubble below.
He drew in a deep breath and let it out again. Looking down, he surveyed the floor of the crack. Some pieces of the rubble were larger than a house.
“Hopeless,” he muttered. “If anything was there it is gone now.”
He turned and pushed past the woman. The others looked at him closely, reading the disappointment from his face. He began to move past them, to lead the way back.
“There are handholds in the rock.”
Barmonia turned to see Yathyir crouching by the edge.
Walking back, he peered over the edge and saw that the boy was right. Grooves had been carved into the wall below the passage. Looking closer, Barmonia realized that the outside edge of the passage had been carved with a decorative border. This was
Leaning out further, he saw that the handholds continued down to the floor of rubble.
“If there is anything down there, it is well buried,” he amended.
“But it can be dug out,” the woman said.
“That will take months.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
Barmonia turned to glare at her.
“Or maybe it does.” She shrugged. “The choice is yours.”
“Let me see,” Kereon said.
The woman and Yathyir moved back into the passage to allow Mikmer and Kereon to look at the crevice. Mikmer turned back, allowing Raynora past.
“I don’t like the look of that bit of wall above us,” Mikmer said. “I think, whatever we do, we should do it quickly.”
Kereon nodded in agreement.
“I most definitely agree,” Raynora said from the end of the passage, still looking upward.
Barmonia managed to stop himself scowling at them. Local workers would have to be paid. And watched, which meant someone had to be in there with them. They could be clumsy. A loud noise might be enough to send the wall tumbling down on them. Then there’d be more rubble and rotting bodies to clear.
He turned to the woman. “Then you had better get started.”
“I will,” she said, holding his gaze. “Tomorrow. This will take concentration and I could do with a night’s sleep.”
He shrugged. “Tomorrow then.” The others looked relieved - happy to leave the work to another. Yet Barmonia did not like the thought of her uncovering anything without someone else around. She might pocket something. Someone must watch her. He considered his fellow Thinkers.
The boy was a useful freak, but still a freak. If the ceiling fell, it would hardly be a loss to the world.
Turning on his heel, Barmonia led the others back along the passage.
Auraya had settled into a routine in the evenings. First she and Nekaun would enter her rooms. He would draw her attention to a new gift and she would make the appropriate noises of gratitude and admiration. Then he would leave and she would pause a moment to look around and sigh with relief.
The tables and shelves of the room now bore many objects. Large stone statues of dancers, tiny blown glass warriors and carved wooden animals stood next to toy ships floating in pottery bowls. Bolts of fabric patterned with pictures of farmers and aqueducts were neatly draped across a bench. Reed chairs had been delivered the day she had visited the river where the source plant was harvested. After a walk in one of the city’s lush gardens she had returned to find a cage containing two brightly colored birds.
All this was hers to keep, or so Nekaun had said. Which meant nothing, because she couldn’t fly back to Si carrying reed chairs and stone statues and she didn’t intend to return in a Pentadrian ship.
Next she would look for Mischief, who always hid when Nekaun was about. Tonight it took only moments to find him. A familiar pointy nose emerged from behind one of the large pottery water vessels brought every day. She crouched beside it.
“There you are, Mischief.” She smiled as he hauled himself to his feet with obvious effort and let her scratch his head. The heat made the little veez sleepy and subdued. During the day he lay sprawled on the stone floor, rising only to eat or drink. The domestics seemed fascinated by him, brought him fish, and had taught him the Avvenan words for food and water.
Reassured that Mischief was alive and well, she sat down in one of the reed chairs for her next nightly task. Closing her eyes, she focused her mind on the ring around her finger.
