Bramble dug another cloth out of her pack and said, “Quiet, line-grandfather. Somebody hold a light for me.”
Chime got the healing simples out again and Bramble wrapped Stone’s hand while Stone hissed impatiently. Moon exchanged a look with Jade. There wasn’t going to be another way out. They would have to follow these stairs to wherever they led.
They continued upward, moving faster now that they had some confirmation that this wasn’t another trap. Climbing beside Moon, Chime said, “I don’t know why I’m not hearing or feeling anything. I should have some idea about this place, this magic that’s here. Not that I’m complaining about not being able to hear any frightening voices, for example. But if my stupid ability was ever going to be any help, you’d think now would be a good time.”
You would think that. Moon said, “It’s got to mean something.”
“Perhaps . . .” Delin said, holding to Rorra’s harness as she hovered behind them. “You sense magics which are inimical or simply strange, is that it? You don’t feel it when Merit scrys or heals, do you?”
Chime told him, “Right, it’s always something very different. Sometimes harmful, sometimes just different.”
“Perhaps this is not different,” Delin said.
“Yes, but . . . Huh.” Chime went silent, considering it.
“It would be nice if these people left some carvings of themselves behind,” Song grumbled. “Then at least we’d know if they were like us or not.”
“I don’t think they were like us,” Briar told her, hooking her claws around a wall carving to pull herself up. “If they were, they had very odd taste in stairs.”
Merit held onto Balm as they leapt from pillar to pillar, River following and Kalam and Vendoin using their flying packs. They found the junction of seven canals quickly enough. As Balm set Merit down on the ledge, he tasted the air deeply. He didn’t catch any scent but traces of Raksura, sealing, and groundling. But there was something about this place he didn’t like.
“They could just be lost,” Kalam said, as he maneuvered his pack down to the floor. He sounded more hopeful than Merit felt the situation warranted. “This place may be a maze past this point.”
“If they weren’t sure which way to go, they could have followed their own scent trail back here,” Balm told him. “And we can’t be confused about direction. We always know where south is.”
“Are you certain?” Vendoin directed her light up at the carvings. “This place seems very confusing. And these designs . . . They are so intriguing . . .”
Ignoring them all, Merit sat down on the pavement, shifted to groundling, and pulled his pack around. “I need to scry. Can we tell which door they took?”
River was already casting back and forth between the doorways. He stopped in front of one to the left and said, “They took this one. With that sealing with them, they might as well paint arrows on the floor.”
“Everybody be quiet so Merit can scry,” Balm said, more pointedly than necessary.
Out of the corner of Merit’s eye he saw Vendoin start to speak and Kalam shush her. You could scry using a variety of things, shapes and patterns and movement in water, air, blood; it was all up to the individual mentor. Flower had liked to use wind shear, and birds in flight, if possible. You could also focus on individual objects, and Merit felt he was particularly good at that. This time he was scrying on a place, on this junction and the doorway the others had chosen. This place knew what had happened next.
His sense of his own body, of the cool damp air in his lungs, all the scents of salt and familiar Raksura and unfamiliar groundlings, the texture of the layer of cloth between his groundling skin and the chill stone, went away. The visions came between his eyes and the view of the dark doorways, the scraps of carving and the dust motes visible in the spell-lights and Kishan lamps. Balm sat with Kalam. River was a little distance away, his head drooping as he dozed. Vendoin had taken out a small book in a leather wrap and was writing in it. Merit felt the mental drift of scrying, and a sensation like a wall crumbling, as if something had stood between him and the visions and had now dissolved. As he slipped into the space where the images lay, ghosts of color crawled across the walls, the painted designs and writing only Vendoin could see. Not warnings, but a last message: it lies here, take care, you know our reasons ...
Merit twitched, aware he had just spoken. Balm sat up straight. River flinched awake and the groundlings watched him wide-eyed. “What did I say?” Merit demanded, his voice coming out in a dry croak. The words were still floating around in his head, and he didn’t think there was time for them to settle so he could recall them himself.
Balm told him, “You said, ‘Bramble’s wrong, it’s not a trap, it wants them to find it.’”
“Right.” Merit shook his head, trying to wake himself up. “Something was there, blocking me, but it’s gone now.” He scrambled to his feet and shifted. The others stood, confused, hopeful. Merit shook his spines out and asked, “How long was I scrying?”
River answered, “Maybe an hour, a little longer. You know where they are?”
Merit nodded. “They had to go up. We just have to figure out where they’re coming down.” This was going to take more scrying, but at least he knew he was on the right track.
Moon and the others kept climbing, passing more landings, all with blocked-off doors. They tested each one, more carefully this time, just to make sure none of the crystal barriers had been inserted badly and were weak enough to dislodge. Moon was frustrated almost beyond bearing and he knew Jade was as well. This stupid trap had herded them right into the place it was supposed to be protecting.
“Do you think the sunsailer is still where we left it?” Chime said wearily when they paused to rest.
“I hope they haven’t done anything stupid with it,” Rorra replied. She was sitting on a step, making sure the bandages cushioning the top of her boots were still in place. “They must be searching for us by now, and for the way out.”
Delin sighed, stretching his back. “They may think we have betrayed them, and are searching for artifacts.”
Moon had already thought of that earlier. The trust between the Raksura and most of the Kishan was still fragile, and this wouldn’t help. But apparently Rorra hadn’t. She stared, surprised and offended. “Why would I betray them?”
“Because they’re so obsessed with getting answers to their questions they can’t imagine anyone feels different,” Moon said.
Rorra shook her head, still upset. “I have worked with Callumkal since I—Since I came to Kish.”
Obviously trying to console her, Root said, “Maybe they think we killed you instead.”
“I’d like to kill every wall in this stupid city,” Jade muttered. “Come on, we need to keep moving.”
They kept going up, and Moon started to wonder if they would reach the top, find an empty room, and have to start back down and try to defeat the neverending hallway again anyway. They were hoping there was a way into a different part of the city through here somewhere, but there was no guarantee of that. He thought mentioning this out loud would be more than Jade’s temper could take at the moment, so he didn’t. And he just hoped Root didn’t think of it and blurt it out.
Then he caught a scent of something different, cooler air, maybe a trace more salt. Ahead Jade’s spines flicked as she caught it too. She said, “There’s another landing up here. I think—It might—” Then she leapt ahead.
Stone took the last three stairs in one step. Lunging after them, Moon jumped up onto a landing that opened into a passage with a curved ceiling. The others crowded up behind him.