Watching the door, Jade said, “Careful. If one gets in—”
The door was almost shut when a dakti slipped through the narrow opening. It froze in the light, clinging to the door, staring at them as if it hadn’t expected them to be watching. A Janderi fired her weapon and fire blossomed in its chest. It collapsed and fell into the dark water.
The door shut with a rumbling thump that seemed to go on for a long time.
Moon leaned on the railing. His wings were a heavy weight and he wanted to shift to groundling, but he was afraid if he did, he would just collapse on the deck and not be able to get up. Jade didn’t need a collapsed consort right now.
“That was close.” Chime gripped the railing so tightly, the scales over his knuckles were swelling.
It was still close; they hadn’t escaped, just changed the level of danger. Moon hoped it was a little less, at least at the moment.
The distance-lights moved across a high curved ceiling, down to huge arched doorways that led off into empty, echoing halls. The scents were all dank stone and saltwater and rotting vegetation. The thrum of the sunsailer’s motivator sounded oddly loud. It was punctuated by the Kishan’s hurried footsteps and their shouts as they checked for wounded and made sure no one had fallen off or been snatched away by Fell at the last moment.
Moon squinted into the darkness. It still didn’t look anything like the forerunner city, which was a relief. The stone was a light gray, the sides of the archways carved to form pillars made to look like giant twisted skeins of rope or vine. The curved ceiling was emblazoned with interlocking squares. Staring upward at it was making Moon dizzy. He swayed and leaned on the railing again.
“What do we do now?” Root said, his voice small and hushed.
Jade looked around at the warriors. They had gathered around on the deck, and everyone had scrapes and claw slashes and probably some impressive bruises under their scales. She focused on River, who had claw rips across his chest and was dripping blood on the deck. “Merit, take River inside and do something about that. Balm, I saw you run into that ruler, you go with them.”
Balm, who had one hand pressed to her head and was grimacing in pain, protested, “I’m fine.”
“Sure you are.” Merit took her wrist and towed her toward the hatch. “Come on, River.”
River limped painfully after him. Jade said, “Stone, why don’t you go with them?”
Stone glanced around at the empty darkness of the hall. “Nah, I’ll just stay here.” He sat down on the deck with a wince and a partially suppressed groan.
Jade hissed in exasperation. “I know I made that a question, but what I actually meant was—”
Callumkal strode out of the hatchway, Vendoin and Kellimdar hurrying after him. Callumkal gripped Kalam’s shoulder in relief and looked around at the Raksura, asking, “You are all well? Everyone made it inside?”
Giving up on Stone, Jade turned to him. “We’re well, is your crew all right?”
“We’ve accounted for everyone, and there were no serious injuries.” Sounding overwhelmed, Callumkal said, “We need to talk about what to do next.” He looked around, taking in the size of the entrance passage. “For so long, we wanted to get inside this place, and now . . . We have to get out.”
Delin, leaning on Bramble, said, “Cities seldom have one entrance. There must be another way out, even if it is concealed.”
Moon thought that was probably true, but they would still have to get past the Fell. From the grim atmosphere, that aspect of the situation had occurred to everyone.
Then Callumkal said, “How did you open the door?”
Jade glanced at Chime. “That’s a good question.”
Chime hesitated and Bramble gave him a poke. “You said it was magic.”
“No. I mean, yes, it was magic. No, nothing told me what to do.” Chime’s spines shrugged tiredly. “There was no scarily persuasive voice.”
“That’s good,” Moon pointed out. “That’s really good.”
The Kishan were listening with various expressions of confusion and dismay. “Scarily persuasive voice?” Vendoin glanced at Delin. Her armor patches glistened damply and her dress was dripping onto the deck. She must have been near a window when the sealing had started pouring saltwater into the sunsailer. “Like the one that drew the Fell to the forerunner city?”
“Right, there wasn’t one.” Chime was distracted, obviously trying to find the right words. “It just felt right to touch those symbols. And I didn’t feel anything until I was right in front of them, so if Delin and Bramble and Merit hadn’t figured out they were the ones we should be looking for, we’d still be outside with the Fell. Before that, it was all just a big dead sea-mount.” Chime looked around at everyone. “I don’t know why.”
Delin interposed, “We are all tired, and some of us are very old. We should rest while we talk.”
Stone punctuated this by stretching out on the deck and apparently falling instantly asleep. Reminded of his other responsibilities, Kellimdar said, “Yes, the crew need rest and food as well.” He started off down the deck toward the distance-light operators on the nearest balcony.
As Callumkal and Delin turned to go back inside, Moon told Jade, “I’ll stay out here with Stone.” He understood Stone’s reasoning for remaining on deck. If something attacked the boat, he could shift instantly to deal with it. There were four Kishan crew posted along the stern railing, holding fire weapons and worriedly watching the darkness past the range of the lights, but Moon figured they could use the help.
“I’ll stay, too,” Chime added. Possibly he wanted to avoid further unanswerable questions from Vendoin. In Chime’s place, Moon knew he would have.
Jade’s spines indicated reluctant agreement. She said, “Everyone else, inside for now.” The warriors and Bramble started to make their way toward the hatch, Root stumbling a little with weariness.
Moon went over to Stone and sat down heavily. Chime followed, sitting on his heels to eye Moon worriedly. “Are you all right?”
“Just sore.” Moon shifted to groundling, and managed not to hiss from relief as the weight of his wings melted away. The next moment, the pain of every strained muscle and bruise and claw scratch doubled in intensity, and he managed not to hiss again. He rubbed his eyes, tried to focus. “When you touched the symbols, you said you didn’t think it was forerunner.”
Chime shifted to groundling, muttered, “Oof, ow.” He half fell over, supporting himself with one arm. “Yes, but now I can’t think why I thought that. Maybe just a different . . . feel? I know at the time it seemed clear, but it’s just slipped away.”
That’s probably a good sign, Moon thought. It seemed more likely all the time that this was a foundation builder city.
The motivator thrummed into life again, and the boat started to move slowly forward. Esankel came out of the hatch, a fire weapon slung over her shoulder, and stood by the railing. She made a soft exclamation of awe as one of the distance-lights swept upward over the great blocks on the ceiling. Moon asked her, “Do we know where we’re going?”
“No, they thought it was better to move forward, away from the door, in case the Fell get it open.” She turned away from the rail, and lifted her hands in a gesture of uncertainty.
They sat in the quiet darkness for some time, watching the Kishan go back and forth from the hatchway and the steps that led to the upper decks, checking over the sunsailer for damage, shining their lights on the city’s walls and remarking softly on the carving.