It was such a shock to see something different, they all just stood there. The glow of the spell-lights didn’t reach very far, but Rorra directed her distance-light around, revealing more carved walls and a dark space at the end of the passage.
Jade started forward cautiously. Moon tasted the air and caught more salt. There was something different, not quite fresh, but not as heavy with rock and stale water. There was a draft coming from somewhere ahead.
Moon felt the tension he had been holding in his back and shoulders ease a little. Whatever happened, at least they weren’t in a box-trap at the top of the stairs.
“How far up are we?” Delin asked softly.
Bramble answered, “Not near the top. We’re well above the sea, though.”
“And deep inside the rock,” Chime added. His spines twitched uncomfortably. “The city’s heart?”
Bramble drew breath and Jade said, “Let’s not speculate.” She started forward. “Chime, if you get any sense of something—”
“I’ll say so right away,” Chime assured her.
“Feel free to yell,” Moon murmured. Chime moved a spine in assent.
As they moved through the passage, the lights revealed stone shelves built out from the walls, though their placement seemed random and they were all empty. So did they store things here? Moon wondered. Again, it was hard to know what something might be meant for when you didn’t know what the people who had built it looked like.
The lights started to reveal glimpses of the chamber ahead. Moon was expecting carved stone and emptiness; it was all they had seen so far. But the lights glinted off broken ceramic and smashed fragments of stone. Rorra pulled the distance-light off her shoulder strap and held it up. Jade said, “So something else got here before we did.”
The chamber had apparently held a number of objects on carved stone plinths of various heights. The plinths had been overturned and most smashed, and all that was left of the objects was a mix of intriguing debris: broken crystal and pottery of all different colors, stained with mud and mold, and small scattered pieces of bright metal.
Delin groaned. “This is disappointing.” He sighed heavily. “I will hate to tell Callumkal of this.”
Stone stepped forward, picked his way carefully through the room. Moon followed with the others. Rorra’s light showed a doorway on the far side, so hopefully they could keep going until they found a stairwell down, or the source of that draft. His foot brushed something soft, and he nudged it cautiously with his claws. It was a pile of some disintegrating substance, with folds as thin as an insect’s wing. “This was fabric, maybe?”
Chime crouched over another moldy pile, studying it closely, holding his spell-lighted cup almost on top of it. “I see incised markings. I think these were books.”
Delin made a pained noise and clapped a hand over his eyes. Moon sympathized. And they didn’t even have anyone like Vendoin here, to tell them if there was writing on the walls that explained what these ruined objects were for.
Stone had almost reached the doorway. Normally Stone liked to poke through remnants like these, the abandoned remains of strange people, but now the path ahead seemed to hold all his attention. “This isn’t good. This is salt mud. It came from the sea bottom.”
That stopped Moon in his tracks. It couldn’t be a flood, not so far up in the escarpment. “So what’s it doing all the way up here?”
“Odd.” Bramble twitched, shedding nervous energy. “There wasn’t any mud in the stairwell.”
“Yes.” Rorra pivoted, shining her light over the walls. “Something got in here. But the mud is all dry, I think, so it wasn’t recent.”
Bramble nodded agreement. “And that’s a relief—Root, what have you got?”
Moon turned. Root stood near the center of the chamber, holding something of dull silver-colored metal that was shaped like a cage or a frame for a piece of glass or crystal inside. Root said, “This is pretty. We should take it.”
There was a moment of startled silence. Moon felt his spines prickle uneasily. They had no reason to suspect anything was wrong but . . . Moon thought something was very wrong. It was like the air in the room had changed. Chime said, “Uh . . . I don’t feel anything, but . . .”
“I feel something,” Stone said, and his tone made all the warriors twitch. Though Root seemed not to notice. “I feel anger. Root, put it down.”
“But the groundlings are going to take things,” Root said, not looking up. “Why can’t we take this?”
Watching warily, Delin said, “I would not recommend it. If it is a compulsion, like the call that drew groundlings and Fell to the forerunner city . . . Root, put the object down.”
Root ignored him, an extremely un-Root-like thing to do. Frustration and fear in her voice, Song said, “Root, you heard Stone, put it down!”
Moon took a step closer, wondering if he could knock the object out of Root’s hands without touching it.
“Root,” Jade said, and Moon felt the tug on his own heart. It was the queen’s power, the connection between her and all the court. He knew he must only be sensing the edge of it; all Jade’s concentration, sharpened by fear for his safety, was directed at Root. “Root, put it down.”
Root’s head jerked up and he stared at her, startled, his spines drooping. Then he looked at the thing in his hands and set it on the nearest broken plinth. He said, “That was weird. Why did I want that?”
Moon hissed in relief. There was a nervous flutter of spines around the room. Stone’s body still radiated tension. Jade said, “Root, come here. Everyone out, come on, this way.”
Root took a step forward and Moon moved, hooked his arm and pulled him away from the plinth. Chime and Song hurried to reach Jade and Stone, with Bramble taking a wide path around the plinth. Rorra, ever practical, used her pack to lift off the floor, picked up Delin, and navigated them both over the debris and down to the door beside Jade. Briar came last, shepherding Bramble ahead of her.
The passage past the room was wider but longer, and Moon could feel more moving air. He was still holding onto Root’s arm, and Root whispered, “Moon, I don’t know what happened. Am I in trouble?”
“Yes,” Chime snapped. “If that was the thing the trap was protecting, it’s dangerous.”
“I’m talking to the consort, not you,” Root said, sounding more like his normal self.
“No more trouble than usual,” Moon said. He hoped so. They might have just averted a disaster.
“Do we tell Callumkal about this?” Rorra asked Delin. Moon noted she hadn’t switched to Kedaic, which meant she didn’t care if the Raksura understood her. “If it’s dangerous, I’m reluctant.”
Delin said, “First we must escape this city, and the Fell. Perhaps they have followed the Kish to this city, believing it to be forerunner, and will leave it when we do. If so, Callumkal and the others will wish to return and examine this place in more detail. I also . . .” He hesitated, and then sighed. “This is a long-winded way of saying ‘I don’t know.’”
Moon didn’t know either. The silver and crystal object was the only thing in the shattered room that had stood out, and it had been near the plinth left of the center. Whatever had destroyed the books and other objects hadn’t taken it, but then maybe whatever had dragged that sea bottom mud up here wasn’t sentient, and had just been looking for food. If that thing is what the Fell want ... The Fell queen had seemed to imply that it was something specific, that the Fell weren’t just chasing rumors of power associated with ancient ruined cities. But then how did they know it was in here? Unless Callumkal and the other Kishan had known, and had kept the knowledge from Rorra, and the Fell had discovered it from them somehow.