“No, but Bramble said nobody leaves a place like this and thinks they aren’t coming back. Like the colony tree. So if there wasn’t already a way to open it from the outside, they would have made one.”
“Maybe they just used magic,” Moon said. Looking past the bow of the sunsailer, he saw the distance-lights fall on a row of giant sealings, the massive bodies curving in toward them. A Kishan weapon fired, light blossomed in the air, and a kethel screamed. It was a chance, he thought, we had to take it. But they weren’t going to figure this out in time, if there was a way to figure it out at all. Some of the warriors and the Arbora might escape if they could get to the island and dig in . . .
Exasperated, Chime was saying, “Well, Moon, that’s a possibility of course but there’s absolutely no point in assuming that—”
Then Merit yelled, “It’s here!”
Chime hissed and half-climbed and half-slid down the wall. Moon dropped after him.
Delin and the two Arbora crouched on the ledge. Merit held up a clump of wet sea wrack spelled for light, illuminating some still barely visible chipped and cracked carvings. Moon swung down beside Chime on the ledge. He had no idea what they were all staring at. He said, “How do you know that’s it?”
Merit said breathlessly, “It’s the same symbols on those pillars, the ones we think meant ‘opening.’ They’re around this hole, and we think it’s like the hole in the center of the flower-thing at the forerunner city.”
Bramble turned to him, her expression elated. “There’s old damage, like turns ago someone dug at it, trying to get in.”
Delin urgently motioned Chime closer. “Chime, you try it. You know about it from the other city.”
Moon thought they had all lost their minds. It didn’t look anything like the flower-thing that had guarded the entrance to the underwater forerunner city. It looked like a hole in the rock face, possibly dug by one of the worm-like coral creatures who had infested the cliff wall.
Chime slipped past Merit and Bramble, splashing in the water lapping over the ledge. He tried to peer into the hole. “Can’t see anything, and there’s no way to get a light down there without blocking it. Anybody have a stick, or do we have to send someone to the boat?”
Delin dug through the satchel slung over his shoulder. “Try this.” He handed Chime a long thin metal rod with a hook on the end. “I confess I brought it with this possibility in mind.”
Moon hissed under his breath. The sealings were closer to the sunsailer and he couldn’t see any Raksura in the air. He couldn’t see any Fell in the air either, which could be fear of the Kishan weapons or the knowledge that the sealings were about to do their work for them.
Chime took the rod and inserted it into the hole. Moon held his breath. After a long moment, Chime hissed and pulled the rod out. “There’s no catch in there.”
Delin took the rod back. Chime planted both hands on either side of the hole and leaned on the rock, muttering, “This has to be it.”
It didn’t have to be it. This was a very old city, and they had always known it might have nothing to do with the forerunners. That Callumkal might be wrong and Vendoin right, that it was a foundation builder city. Even if it had been forerunner, that didn’t mean it would open the same way as the other city. And there were two Arbora and a groundling here and Moon and Chime could only save two of them when the sunsailer sank, and he had no idea where Jade and Stone and the others were.
Then Chime leaned into the wall, pressing his cheek against it. He said, “Oh, wait. I hear something.”
“Hear or ‘hear,’” Bramble asked, her claws flexing nervously.
“It’s like . . .” Chime’s voice was barely audible over the wind and the growing rush of sealings moving through the water. “. . . breaking rock, someone, something breaking . . . I don’t think it’s forerunner, I think it’s something else . . .”
The Arbora froze. Moon stared, then realized Chime’s left hand was half atop one of the symbols. There was a duplicate of that symbol on the other side. Moon nudged Merit and pointed.
Merit twitched in realization and carefully reached to move Chime’s left hand all the way onto the symbol. His claws clicked against the rock. “The Fell are wrong,” Chime said clearly.
Merit waved urgently at Bramble. Her teeth bared, she gently moved Chime’s right hand all the way onto the symbol on that side. Then Chime said, “Oh, Moon was right, it is magic.”
The cliff cracked and shuddered underfoot. Moon clung to the rock with his claws and caught Merit before he fell backward off the ledge. Bramble grabbed Delin. Broken rock and coral fragments rained down on their heads and the water below the ledge dropped with a gurgling whoosh. Then the cliff slowly, ponderously, started to swing inward.
Moon clung to the rock and to Merit, equal parts astonished and appalled. It wasn’t the whole cliff, it was a large section of it, at least a hundred paces wide and almost as tall. Bramble had said the door was big enough to get the sunsailer through, but Moon hadn’t thought it would be this big.
The door swung in toward a great dark tunnel in the escarpment, a channel in the bottom rapidly filling with water from the sea. Inside it was as dark as an underground cavern, the air flowing out of it stale and tinged with salt and a faint scent of plant rot.
“The sunsailer,” Delin said, his voice faint. He stared into the darkness, wide-eyed. “They must come in, before the Fell . . .”
Moon had never seen Delin this overcome before and he was fairly sure he didn’t like it. Bramble said, “Chime, can you close it? Once we get the groundlings inside—”
Chime gasped, “I can barely hold it open, so yes, I think I can close it.”
“Stay here,” Moon told them all. He made sure Merit had a good grip on the rock, then moved down the ledge and leapt upward.
The wind caught him and almost sent him right through the open doorway. Moon flapped frantically, rolled, and managed to get himself under control. He flew toward the sunsailer, careful to circle around it and stay out of the distance-lights, in case any of the Kishan were a little too quick to fire. He spotted Callumkal out on the upper deck directing the weapons. And there was Jade, circling above the sunsailer, with Briar and Balm flanking her. Further out, Stone swept past.
He drew near Jade and shouted, “The door’s open! Chime’s holding it open!”
She circled around and her spines flared as she saw it. She called to the warriors, “Briar, go get Root and River! Balm, you and Song go to the Arbora!”
As the warriors shot away, Jade dropped toward the sunsailer. Moon waited to make sure Stone was headed back this way, and then followed Jade down.
They landed on the steering cabin roof. Jade said, “Tell them. I’ll keep watch.”
Moon dropped to his knees and leaned down to see through the window. Rorra held the steering lever, grimacing with the effort of keeping it steady. He knocked on the glass. She flinched, then glared at him. He pointed emphatically toward the escarpment. She leaned sideways to see around him, and her eyes widened. She mouthed something that wasn’t in Altanic and then turned back to the steering lever.
Moon pushed to his feet. “Are the Fell fighting each other out there or am I hallucinating?”
Jade said grimly, “If you’re hallucinating, then we’re all doing it with you.”
Stone passed overhead then abruptly doubled back. Moon and Jade ducked as he came in low. He shifted and dropped down onto the cabin roof. He staggered and Jade caught his arm to steady him. Stone said, “That gets a little harder every time.”
Moon swayed as the sunsailer jerked sideways. Metal groaned as it started to turn toward the escarpment. Hopefully the Fell hadn’t realized that the door in the escarpment was open. The distance-lights were pointed toward the sky and the island, and it would be hard to see the door in the dark from where most of the Fell were still flying. Hopefully all the dakti who had managed to get close were dead. He asked Stone, “Could you tell what the Fell were doing?”