Chime asked, “Could you see an opening? Any way inside?”
Stone sank down a little in the water. “No, but I’m wondering about those stairs.”
Merit said in Raksuran, “Can you get me something to scry with? A chip of carved rock, maybe?”
“Sure.” Stone let go of the rail and sank below the waves.
A moment later Stone surfaced with a splash and handed up a fragment of tile, mud and a weed still clinging to it. Merit took it carefully, wrapped it up in a cloth, and stored it away in his bag.
Rorra called, “Are you done? I need to start the motivator again so we don’t smash into those rocks.”
Stone grabbed the railing and hauled himself back aboard, his clothes dripping onto the deck. Wringing out the tail of his shirt, he said, “Done.”
Rorra worked the starting lever and steering bar, and the boat swayed underfoot as it turned away from the rocks. She said, “I don’t think we can get much closer, not with the water so choppy.”
Moon pointed toward the wall beyond the pylons. Waves washed the ledge at its base, and he could just make out the shapes carved on its surface. “Is that it?”
“Yes.” Vendoin confirmed. She appeared to remember she was speaking to Raksura. “Ah, can you reach it? Without the boat?”
Moon knew he and Balm could. He glanced at Chime. “Can you do it? If not, one of us can carry you.”
“Uh . . .” Chime hesitated, studying the situation. “I can get there. Don’t tease me if you have to carry me back.”
Balm nudged his shoulder. “We won’t.”
Delin was already holding his arms up for someone to carry him. Moon shifted and picked him up, and Balm shifted to lift Merit. Before Moon could ask Stone if he wanted to come, Stone went backwards over the rail again. Moon sighed. He asked Vendoin, “Do you want someone to come back for you?” He didn’t want Chime to have to carry anyone, just in case.
“Thank you, no,” Vendoin said, bemused. “I saw the images several times on our previous trip.”
Moon crouched and leapt, snapped his wings out to catch the wind, and rode a gust to one of the pylons. He landed and had to furl his wings and clamp his claws on the wet stone surface to steady himself. Glancing down, he saw Stone’s big dark shape move through the water below, weave in between the bases of the pylons, and then sink out of sight. “Exhilarating,” Delin commented.
Balm landed with Merit on the next pylon. Chime overshot but curved around well before the wall and managed the landing on his second pass. He crouched, breathing hard, clinging to the top of his pylon. Balm and Merit watched worriedly.
“You did good,” Moon told Chime, thinking, I’m definitely carrying him back.
Chime nodded, his spines flicking anxiously. “Right, yes. That was fun.”
Balm took the long jump across to the ledge and set Merit on his feet. It was a wider space than it looked, about six paces, but half of it was awash. Moon went next and set Delin down. His foot claws were washed by cool seawater, and the wind pulled a little at his spines and frills, but it wasn’t a bad perch. They all watched as Chime made the leap, and landed without a stumble. “That part was easy,” he told them, clearly a little annoyed at their concern.
Merit thumped him in the arm. “It didn’t look easy.”
Delin turned to the wall to examine the images. The water churned, then Stone popped up in groundling form. He sat on the ledge, squinting at the wall. Moon turned to look and found himself staring at the carved figure of a forerunner.
The images were scattered along the wall, along with symbols and figures he couldn’t guess the meaning of. Delin, Chime, and Merit moved up and down the ledge, examining everything in detail. Chime touched the cut-out section where the tile they had seen on the boat had been removed.
To get out of the way, Moon withdrew to the edge where Stone sat, and Balm joined them. “Were there images like this in the forerunner city?” Balm asked.
“No.” Moon frowned at the wall. “It didn’t look like this.” He remembered Vendoin asking if the images at the forerunner city had at all resembled trading flags or other methods for displaying information for travelers. “I think this was done by someone else, for someone else.”
Stone nodded toward the water. “This was a docking area for surface ships, so that makes sense.”
“But wouldn’t they already know they were going to a forerunner city?” Balm pointed out, her brow furrowed.
“It might not be saying that.” Moon settled his spines, aware they wanted to convey unease. He wasn’t even sure why, though he could see Balm reacting the same way. “It might be saying, ‘if you aren’t a forerunner, leave.’”
“Or,” Chime said, “‘If you don’t have a forerunner with you, leave.’ Or ‘Wait here till a forerunner comes to get you.’ Or anything.” He sat on his heels beside Balm. “The good thing is, I’m not hearing or feeling anything. Nothing odd, I mean. No voices.”
That was good news. Moon hoped the place was just an empty shell, either forerunner or foundation builder. Then the Kishan could poke at it to their hearts’ content without fear of releasing anything horrible. As long as the Fell stayed away.
“But then where’s the door?” Balm flicked water off her claws. “You don’t put up a message like that—if that’s what it is—unless it’s on or near an entrance to something.”
Delin, leaning so close to the wall his nose was almost resting on it, pointed at her without turning around and made a waving gesture. Chime said, “I think he agrees with you.”
“The Kish took that tile out because they were looking for the door, not because they wanted the image on it,” Moon said.
Stone made a “hmph” noise. “They want into this place bad. Even before they sat there on that island for the last couple of months staring at it.”
That wasn’t encouraging. Merit came over to them, shifting to his Arbora form so he could sit in the water on the ledge without getting his pants wet. He held another fragment of rock. “Maybe I can scry something about the door. I took this from the edge around the missing image.”
Delin turned away from the wall. “Intriguing.” He asked Stone, “There was no sign of an underwater door?”
Stone shook his head. “Not that I saw, not below this wall. If it’s there, it’s hidden well.” He looked back toward the boat. “And if it’s there, I don’t think we want to find it. At least not until we know what we’re dealing with.”
Delin frowned at the boat too. “We should get back.”
The wind had calmed a little and they reached the boat again without too much trouble, though Moon took two trips, one with Delin and one with Chime. Chime objected, but not too strenuously, saying, “You don’t have to. I could probably make it.”
This was no time to force the issue of the tricky flying that Chime had always been slow to master. Moon told him, “It’s the probably part that worries me.”
Once they had shifted back to their groundling forms, Rorra guided the boat back toward the island. Shielding his eyes from the glare, Moon could see Jade and the other warriors and Bramble on the beach, talking with two figures that were probably Callumkal and Kalam. Or Jade was talking to them; Bramble played in the surf with Root, and Briar and Song wandered on the beach just above, looking as if they wanted to play in the surf. The other Kishan had gone back to their camp.
It was a peaceful scene and Moon hoped it meant Kellimdar and the other scholars had agreed to accept the Raksura’s presence.
Rorra took the boat back to its spot near the beach and Rasal and Sarandel dropped the anchors to keep it in position. Chime offered to fly Delin to the shore, so Moon shifted and jumped into the water.
He arrived, dripping, at Jade’s side, with Chime and Delin already there, and Stone wandering up the beach behind him. Rorra was walking with Balm and Merit, while the two Janderi women headed up toward the camp.