“There’s dried mud on this floor,” Stone said. Moon could feel it underfoot, but just as a slight gritty texture. Stone was in his groundling form and the skin on the bottoms of Raksuran feet was tough, but still more sensitive than scales.
Bramble stopped to examine the mud on her foot claws. “It’s got to be turns old. Doesn’t it?”
“Doesn’t mean what brought it in isn’t still here,” Stone said.
“We know waterlings can get in here,” Moon said. You would think they would stay in the lower part of the city, in the canals, but maybe some had gotten curious. “If they can get in, we can get out.”
The passage slanted toward the left, and they passed several smaller rooms, the floors covered in layers of dried mud but empty of debris. Chime said, “I’m still afraid we’re going to turn a corner and there’s going to be . . . one of those things.”
“I think if we were going to find one, it was going to be in that room,” Jade said. She glanced back and Root’s spines drooped again.
Then Stone said, “Wait.”
Everyone stopped. Moon tasted the air and caught a trace of rotting sea wrack. Stone turned to Jade. “It’s close.”
She tilted her head to listen. Moon couldn’t hear anything from ahead. But the draft felt stronger. Jade said, “Stay here.”
Moon stepped past Chime and Bramble, just as Stone drew breath to speak. Jade said, “I was talking to the consorts, too.”
Stone subsided with an annoyed hiss. Moon managed not to object as Jade started ahead down the passage, a single spell-light to guide her. As the passage curved to the left, her light disappeared.
Stone tasted the air again, his head tilted to listen. Moon glanced back at the others, their worried expressions and the tired angle of everyone’s spines. Delin’s face was drawn and Rorra seemed more gray than she had before. He didn’t think it was a good sign. Chime leaned against the wall, Bramble rested her head on Song’s shoulder, her eyes half-closed. Briar was last behind Root and Song, keeping a wary watch back down the passage. They needed rest and more substantial food than the rations in their packs. They needed to not be trapped in this endless maze.
The movement of air in the passage was the only thing to signal Jade’s return; she had shoved her light into her pack. Moon saw her expression and the grim set of her spines and knew things had just gotten even worse. Her voice low, she said to Moon and Stone, “Something is getting in and out of this place, but I’m not sure we’re going to be able to.”
Lying on his belly, Moon looked over the edge of the air shaft. He swallowed back a hiss. Yes, it’s worse.
They had left the others and he and Stone had followed Jade as the passage narrowed and they began to see faint natural light ahead. The passage met a large vertical shaft, with a little light falling down it that must originate at the top of the escarpment and the crystal-sealed portion of the city. From the quality and scent of the air, it wasn’t open to the outside. But below this level, the shaft was occupied.
The inhabitants clung to the sides of the shaft, and at first Moon could only see thick, rough, scaled bodies of silver and blue, glowing with prickles of blue light, like burning coals buried in their flesh. And claws, like the kind crabs and shellfish had, big bulky razor-sharp things on the ends of their limbs. And there were a lot of limbs, some with hand-like structures with smaller claws, which they used to hook themselves to the wall. As Moon watched, an eyeless head lifted up and yawned, and revealed that the distended jaw was full of a myriad of needle-like teeth. These must be the creatures who had explored these rooms, destroyed the objects left behind. Fortunately, they all seemed to be asleep, or drowsing. The few who were moving were languid and seemed barely aware.
Moon wriggled silently back from the edge to where Jade and Stone waited. They retreated farther down the passage, out of earshot of the air shaft’s occupants, and Moon said softly, “At least we know there’s no neverending hallway trap at the bottom of that shaft. They have to be eating something.”
Stone said, “They’re probably from the ocean. Eyeless waterlings don’t live in seas this shallow.”
Moon nodded. “They must have washed up here in storms, and got in through the passages that are letting the water in. They probably only go out at night.”
Jade hissed impatiently. “I really don’t care how they got in, or what they do when they aren’t blocking our way out. How do we get down past them?”
“We don’t,” Stone told her. “We go up. If there’s one air shaft, there’s more. Before they sealed off the top of the city, that’s how they kept the air moving through here.”
“We have to go while it’s still daylight,” Moon added. “They probably start moving around at dark. There’s a chance they might clear out and go to some other part of the city, or go outside, but we just can’t risk it.”
“That makes sense.” Jade dropped her spines in chagrin. “I should have thought of that.”
“That’s why you have us,” Moon said, and thought, we really need to get out of here. They were all getting too exhausted to think straight. Jade had told the others to eat and rest while they were waiting, but that wasn’t going to be enough. And it was never good to stay too long in enclosed spaces with no fresh air. If this place had been originally designed to be ventilated from the outside, then having all those openings closed off wasn’t helping.
Jade squeezed his wrist. “Right. I’ll go up and see if I can find an opening to another level.”
“Let me do it,” Moon said, keeping his voice casual. The image of Jade slipping and falling because she was too tired to climb made his chest constrict. “This is why you brought me.”
Jade said, wryly, “I brought you for sex.”
“Ha.” It was good she could still joke but he hoped it didn’t mean she was getting loopy. “Sex and climbing walls.”
Stone said, “Jade, he’s right. The warriors are exhausted, and if the connecting passages are this size, I can’t fit into them. We can’t risk losing the queen.”
Jade growled under her breath. “I don’t care if he’s right, I’m going. You two get ready because if I wake the waterlings it’s not going to matter.”
Moon drew breath to argue and Stone punched him in the chest. Jade, already turning to creep back to the edge of the shaft, didn’t see. Rubbing the injured spot, Moon waited until she was out of earshot to whisper, “You said I was right!”
“She doesn’t need an argument right now. Neither do I,” Stone said pointedly.
“Fine.” One reason to send someone ahead was that they needed to know if moving into the shaft would rouse the waterlings. If it did, it would be very, very bad. “Why don’t you go back to the others and get ready to die horribly when the waterlings swarm us?”
“Why don’t I,” Stone said, and turned back down the passage.
Moving quietly, Moon went to the edge of the shaft. Jade had slipped out to cling to the side and cautiously moved upward. The rock was heavily pitted and made for easy climbing. It was just the sleeping waterlings that were the problem.
Moon gripped the edge and leaned out, trying to see if there was an opening to another passage. The light from above was faint, but it was just enough to throw shadows. And there, about fifty paces up and on the far side of the shaft, was a door-sized square shadow.
Jade had seen it too and climbed toward it slowly, obviously being careful not to make any noise louder than the gusty exhalations of the sleeping waterlings. Like sealings, they probably weren’t scent hunters, and hopefully their senses weren’t as acute out of the water as in it.