Ichneumon was muttering to herself.
“What do they say?”
“There was a town here, or perhaps ‘outpost’ is the better word. It was founded... ”
Ichneumon counted years and dynasties, moving her lips slightly. Ichneumon the Weird was less horrifying than most of her colleagues, at least in Charops’ opinion. Most people who weren’t her great friends and traveling companions didn’t share this opinion. Her eyes had the eerie blankness exhibited by anyone who made a practice of fooling the universe into doing magic. Charops knew it made mundane calculations difficult, when each instance of magic produced over a whole lifetime of chicanery had to be remembered, lest the universe take everything back and the Weird’s soul was set to burning like a rancid candle, as all the magic she’d ever performed was reversed in a split second.
“Four hundred and eight years ago. Or seven, or nine. Depends on —”
“Don’t worry, doesn’t matter,” said Charops. “And apart from that?”
Ichneumon ran her forefinger over the stone. “They were concerned about... the ‘flow of time.’”
“Meaning what?”
“Can’t tell. Here’s it says ‘shell oak’ again. The way the pit just opened up beneath them, it was like, like a wound. Like a sword cutting through parchment. Sorry. Ah, it seems this place was called Shell Oak Landing.”
“And what do you mean, ‘concerned about’?”
“They keep mentioning it, is all,” said Ichneumon. “Ah ha. Loron’s map was accurate. Separate from Shell Oak Landing is the Hall of the King. It’s farther along this way. And there; I think that heads down to what used to be the river. Choked on water, the water was like iron, like a chain of iron, a metal eel sliding down his throat. Says here, a ‘sacrificial’ hall.”
“Sacrificial.”
“That’s what it says. The Hall of the Snail King. ‘Sacrificial’ might have some other connotation here.”
“Not really too many things that word can mean,” said Charops.
“No.”
“Bearing some connection to this ‘shell oak,’ whatever that is? What exactly are we walking into here?”
“... Hieroglyphs are pretty ambiguous,” said Ichneumon.
Epigrams
Ichneumon smiled suddenly.
“What’s funny?”
“I almost forgot,” said the Weird. She pulled a scroll from one of her dozens of pockets. “I found it in Loron’s pack last night. Might be... oh, the statue, it just exploded out of the stork’s lungs, it starts the size of a pea. And in the end, it’s bigger than the stork.”
“Let’s see.”
Charops unrolled the scroll. At the top was written “The New Epigrams of Loron,” and below that were further lines of Loron’s flowing script.
“Ah,” said Ichneumon, “could be better than I thought! It’s not murder, is it? Self-defense, isn’t it? The whole town buried under ash, but I rang the bell first. Fair warning. Uh, let’s hear them.”
Charops read the first epigram out loud.
Ichneumon said, “Maybe he’s gotten tired of being a flatterer?”
Charops read another.
Ichneumon said, “Who are these people?”
“Rich people. They’re his patrons. They were his patrons.”
And surely these weren’t the sort of commemorative verses they had in mind.
Ichneumon grinned. “The weasel!”
“Actually, I’ve met Aurigula,” said Charops. “He might be even more unpleasant than Loron.”
Charops frowned.
Ichneumon laughed. “That’s... fairly accurate. Backward into the edge of the altar, so her spine snaps. Hey, keep reading. Is there one about me?”
“Yes, don’t worry,” said Charops.
“What do you think?”
Ichneumon laughed and laughed. It was not a sound that would reassure anyone about her general claim to humanity.
“When we get back, I’m going to invite him to tour the Folly of the Weirds,” she said. “Are there more?”
“Here’s a sort of, well... ”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t wondered what’s under that mask of hers,” said Ichneumon. “I think I’m starting to warm up to our genius.”
“And, ah, the last one. Ouch.” said Charops.
“Hmm,” said Ichneumon. “Now that’s not very subtle. The statue’s arm, stone, you know, black granite, chopped down, just smashed him. It wasn’t what they had in mind, but they had to let me in after that, right?”
A strange feeling was coming over Charops. “These weren’t written by someone with any intention of rejoining Zend’s social life.”
If Loron wasn’t planning on going back to Zend, what did he want out here, in this pit of nowhere?
Ichneumon shrugged. “Some people are just asses, though, right? Pardon the blood.”
Charops let go of the scroll and it rolled itself up. She rubbed her chin, thinking of the venomous quill that had written such words. Some people are asses, and some asses kick their masters. Sometimes they have a reason, and sometimes they don’t need one.
Shell Oak Landing
A path led through the foliage, away from the obelisk. It was long abandoned, but for decades, not centuries. They passed a row of ancient statues, men, women, children, all bearing snail shells in place of heads. The statues’ arms, where they hadn’t been snapped off, were raised, pointing ahead. Ichneumon made a scoffing noise.
The trees stopped, leaving a margin between the leaves and a narrow stone facade built into a cliff. The facade was shaggy with lichen, bulging outward where stones had shifted. There were no windows, only a doorway leading inside.
Just within, Loron pored over his map in the light of the doorway. He looked up as Charops and Ichneumon arrived, his countenance sagged and flushed from decades of wine-soaked decadence. He rolled up his map.
“Well, this is it. Open it, will you?”
Charops lit a torch and saw what he meant: this cramped entry would have led farther inside to a much larger room, but for a sturdy metal grating set opposite the outer door. The grating was rigged with chains that ran up into a pair of shafts in the ceiling. To the left side was a squared beam, on which was set what appeared to be the missing wheel from the wagon back below.
“Ah, yes,” said Charops.
“Er, no,” said Loron. “I’m more keen on what’s inside.”
“A defensive portcullis.” Charops touched the grate gingerly. “Very solid.”