They came to the top of the beach. Over a ridge, where they couldn’t be seen by the nervous band of rowers, lay a scrubby plain.
‘Which way?’ Serrah wondered.
Reeth and Kutch pointed simultaneously, and unerringly. North. Towards the interior.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘that seems fairly clear.’
‘It’s where the magic’s coming from,’ Kutch explained.
Caldason said nothing.
As they travelled, the scrub gave way to grass, and bushes and trees started to appear.
‘You wouldn’t have thought vegetation could take hold in a place like this,’ Serrah remarked.
‘It’s the magic,’ Kutch told her. ‘There are very strong energy channels running through these islands. They bring fecundity, particularly where one or more cross. Haven’t you noticed how mild the temperature is?’
‘Now that you come to mention it-’
‘What’s that?’ Caldason said.
In the undergrowth there were fragments of whitish stone.
‘Could be a path of some kind,’ Serrah decided.
‘It’s the remains of a road,’ Kutch confirmed, ‘and it looks really old. What sort of stone is that?’
‘One I’ve never seen before,’ Serrah replied, excavating it with the toe of her boot. ‘If it is a road, it seems to start about here; and it’s going the same way we are.’
They followed it. The landscape became increasingly lush, and the air warmer. Bizarrely, trees were in leaf, and there was an abundance of unseasonable wild flowers.
At length, they saw the road’s destination. It terminated at a tall outcropping, and there was an opening in the rock. Not a natural fissure, of the sort leading to a cave, but a cut entrance, large enough to comfortably drive a wagon through. If there had ever been doors, they had rotted away long ago.
A jumble of debris was scattered around the outcrop. As they approached, they could make out fallen pillars, broken plinths, and what might have been the remnants of an arch.
‘This looks like the way into a temple or something,’ Serrah said.
‘It’s hardly a place to hide anything,’ Caldason agreed. ‘All it lacks is a sign.’
‘Perhaps whatever’s in there wasn’t hidden,’ Kutch ventured.
‘What do you mean?’
‘We’ve assumed that the Clepsydra, and the Source, were deliberately concealed. But maybe they weren’t so much hidden as just…left. Abandoned.’
Serrah was doubtful. ‘And no one’s come here before us and found them?’
‘What if we’re the only ones who can see this?’
‘That doesn’t make sense, Kutch. I’m not a spotter, and neither is Reeth.’
‘Forget my spotting talent. Suppose us being able to see this place is a function of Founder magic.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Maybe we were meant to find it.’
‘How could that be?’ Serrah’s brow wrinkled.
‘As I said, they didn’t think like us.’
‘We’re jumping to conclusions,’ Caldason said. ‘Serrah could be right; somebody might have got here first. Let’s check the place.’
They stood in front of the entrance, gazing at a pitch-black interior. Kutch and Serrah took out small glamour orbs, and Caldason spent a few seconds patting pockets before producing one himself. Then they stepped inside.
A musty smell hit them. The dust of ages. Twenty or thirty paces in, they came to a set of broad stairs that swept down into deeper darkness. Clutching the hilts of their swords, they warily descended.
One hundred and thirty-five steps later, they arrived at a level, and ahead of them was a wall that didn’t quite reach the ceiling. There were two doorless entrances in the wall, to right and left.
‘Which one?’ Caldason wondered.
‘Give me a leg-up,’ Serrah told him. Boosted to the top of the wall, she peered in, holding out her glamoured orb. She saw more walls, and passageways that zigzagged. ‘It’s a labyrinth.’
‘How big is it?’ Caldason asked.
‘I can’t see its end. It’s too far, too dark. But in the distance…’
‘Yes?’
‘There’s a kind of glow. That’s all I can make out. Watch yourself, I’m coming down.’
‘How do we handle this?’ Caldason said. ‘If there are traps in there or-’
‘Excuse me,’ Kutch interrupted. ‘We’re assuming things again. It looks as though this was some kind of public place, a memorial or something, not a secret to be defended. You know what mazes are for? They’re a path to enlightenment, a map of higher states of consciousness. It’s a symbolic journey, not a trap or a barrier.’
‘So what do you suggest?’
‘I’m not saying we shouldn’t be ready for trouble, but let’s try walking it the way the Founders would have. As pilgrims or adepts, or however they thought of themselves when they came here.’
‘We just walk it?’ Serrah said. ‘Is there any special way of getting through?’
‘The tradition with labyrinths is to take left turns on the way in, right turns coming back.’
‘That sounds vaguely impossible.’
‘It’s as good a plan as any,’ Caldason decided. ‘So we go in by the…left door?’
‘The right,’ Kutch corrected. ‘Think about it.’
‘I’m trying not to,’ Serrah told them. ‘It makes my brain hurt.’
Caldason went first, but most of the paths were wide enough for them to walk abreast. The shimmer of their glamour orbs lit walls, floor and ceiling of a uniform whitish-grey and unwavering evenness.
‘It’s so smooth,’ Serrah muttered, skimming her fingers across a surface. ‘What is it?’
Caldason shook his head. ‘No idea, but for all its smoothness it has friction. Have you noticed how the floor slopes, yet we’re not sliding down it?’
‘I have,’ Kutch replied. ‘We’re going deeper. And it’s a lot warmer, too.’
‘How does the magic feel to you?’ Serrah asked him.
‘It’s…heady. Definitely building.’
They took yet another left turn.
‘Is it my imagination,’ Serrah said, ‘or is it getting lighter down here?’
Kutch wiped the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead. ‘We’re close now.’
‘Ssshh.’ Caldason had a finger to his lips. ‘Do you hear that?’
Serrah strained to hear. ‘There’s something.’
‘What do you think? Flowing water?’
‘No. It’s too…slithery.’
They carried on. The light grew brighter, the air hotter. They turned, turned, turned again.
The labyrinth abruptly ended.
They faced a wall. It had a single entryway carved into it, identical to the one they came in by. Beyond it was light, unidentifiable sound, and the weight of an awesome presence. Each of them felt it.
Caldason moved forward, drawing a sword. Serrah did the same and made to follow. She looked to Kutch, saw the expression on his face, and waited. Smiling, she pocketed her orb and offered him her hand. He took it, squeezing hard, and they joined Reeth.
For a second, the three of them hesitated at the threshold.
Then they went through.
23
The Bone Temple at Earth’s End. Gazall’s bridge over Teardrop Valley. The five remaining towers of Akhom-Behtz. The statues of Crae and Fornarr at Dragon Spine Mountain. All were chilling partly because they were colossal, and size is naturally intimidating.
However, it was mainly their great age that was disturbing. It had something to do with the eons they’d weathered, and the countless mortals they’d outlasted. As though, like vampires, they drew into themselves the life essences of short-lived things to prolong their own monolithic existence. It was as if they imbibed the detritus of the ages; every windblown particle of human skin, every stray hair, every speck of sweat or drop of shed blood, absorbed.
Kutch, Serrah and Caldason felt that dread. They knew the terror of vast antiquity, and of gigantism, a feeling compounded by the fact that what they were looking at was imbued with such a sense of otherness.
The maze had led them to a massive cavern. It was brightly lit by sorcery, though no glamoured orbs were apparent; the light seemed to bleed from the yellowish rock itself. The air was perfumed by a mingling of aromas, sulphur being the strongest by far.
Big as the cavern was, a single artefact utterly dominated the space. It was the size of a mountain peak, and seemed to be fashioned from the living rock, along with a commingling of other materials that might have included steel, quartz, zinc, ceramics, and even gold. The great broad face of the edifice was adorned with unknown symbols in vivid colours that kept their brilliance despite the passing of countless ages.