The pale glow of the tree cast just enough light to see that the space before them stretched farther than they could have imagined. A great underground city stood before them. The slim waterway through which they had emerged led directly toward it, passing under a metal archway that seemed to mark the city’s entrance. Apart from the aqueduct, the city was perfectly still. High towers and gables shadowed one another in the silvery light like the stones and monuments of a crowded cemetery.
They stood in awed silence, gazing at the ruins. Finally Shadrack spoke. “Is there any mention of this place that you know of?” he asked Veressa.
“None. I have neither read nor heard anything about it.”
“Then we are the first to explore it.” Shadrack’s voice was tight with excitement.
Martin hobbled forward, passing his hand lightly over the trunk of the silver tree. “What genius they must have had. That is why the roots are metallic. To reach through stone—or ice.”
“Father?” Veressa said, going after him.
Martin reached into his pocket and dropped something else onto the ground. “Lovely,” he said, smiling, his face illuminated on one side by the pale light of the tree and on the other side by the yellow light of Burr’s torch. “An avenue of brilliant maples, leading to the city gates.”
As he spoke, the seed that had fluttered to the ground cracked open and plunged its thin roots into the earth. A slender stem burst upward, throwing its pale limbs into the air like smoke from a doused fire. The trunk thickened, the branches stretched upward, and the fragile limbs were suddenly filled with tiny buds that in a single, sweeping movement opened into delicate leaves. They were shaped like maple leaves, but they shone with an unearthly luminescence. Martin stood staring up at it, and then he pressed his hand reverently against the trunk. “Beautiful,” he whispered.
“Father, be careful,” Veressa said, taking his arm. “We don’t know what these seeds do.”
“It’s not the seeds, my dear,” Martin said, turning to face her. “It is the ground—the earth. The earth of this Age. And to think—this has been here all along.”
“Then you know this Age?”
“Yes and no,” Martin said slowly. “It is the same Age as the one Burr found—where he got the soil that gave me a silver leg.” He bent down with effort and took a pinch of dirt between his fingertips. “Amazing. It isn’t a hot spring. It is the soil that warms the water. The earth has heating properties.” The others bent down and pressed their hands to the ground. Sophia gasped in surprise. The dirt felt as warm as if it had been baking in the sun for hours. “Look here,” Martin exclaimed, pointing into the aqueduct. “The soil at the base of the aqueduct glows red—like fire, like molten rock.”
Veressa turned back to Shadrack. “Where do you think we are? How close are we to finding the way out?”
“We have traveled about three miles from the Nochtland palace,” he said. “Three miles southeast. Would you agree, Sophia?”
Sophia nodded distractedly. “Three miles,” she said, gazing out at the deserted city. She could see, even from a distance and in the pale light cast by the trees, that the buildings were encrusted with centuries of mineral growth: rough, sparkling surfaces like rock salt covered the walls and roofs and the tall posts that must have once been lamps. How long has it been, she wondered, since someone set foot here? The thrill of discovery, the longing for exploration that she had heard in her uncle’s voice, flitted briefly through her. Maybe Grandmother Pearl’s story was real, she thought. Maybe the boy who destroyed the city will be here.
Veressa bent over the map, frowning as she drew her finger along the winding underground route. “Traveling southeast three miles. Where would we be above ground? There is no road here. This is . . .” she trailed off. Then her eyes widened. “This is Lake Cececpan. We are almost beneath it. The lake must be”—she lifted her head to look across the cavern—“almost directly above us.” They raised their eyes collectively to the ceiling, as if expecting to see the lake there, hanging overhead.
“Lake Cececpan,” Shadrack repeated. “Could it be—”
“It is a great coincidence, if nothing else,” Veressa cut in, putting the map down. “But the location of the carta mayor does not matter,” she said firmly. “We are looking for the exit, and I believe the exit will be just beside the lake. If Sophia’s idea about the flowers is correct, the passage will be somewhere here.”
“I agree. It must lie somewhere in the city.”
“In the city?” Veressa echoed doubtfully. “Surely it is more likely to be in the cavern wall?”
Sophia drew herself away from the alluring view of the city. “Yes, I think so, too—it would be in the wall.”
“The passage may go down before it goes up,” Shadrack insisted, walking forward. Logic and experience suggested that Veressa and Sophia were right, but the abandoned city posed too great a temptation. It lay there untouched, quiet and full of mystery, waiting to be explored.
“Searching the city for an entrance will take so long,” Veressa objected. “The rest of us can walk the perimeter of the cavern to save time.”
Shadrack hesitated. “Very well—we can keep sight of each other with the torches.”
“And the trees!” Martin added. “I can drop seeds, and those will illuminate the way.”
“Fine,” Shadrack agreed. “Theo and Sophia can come with me. Burr, Calixta—you go with Veressa and Martin along the perimeter.”
“Take some seeds, Sophia,” Martin said, handing her a small fistful from another pocket.
As the pirates and the Metls withdrew, Sophia walked alongside Theo and Shadrack, dropping seeds. The towering trees blossomed behind them, and she saw another line rise up along the cavern’s edge. Soon even the darkest corners were faintly illuminated by the silvery light, and Sophia looked up with awe at the high, domed ceiling. She squinted, seeing a dark patch high on the wall. “Look,” she said to Shadrack. “Doesn’t that look like a hole or a doorway?”
“It may be,” he said absently, glancing upward only briefly. “If it is, Veressa will find it.”
Sophia noticed a shadowy line zigzagging away from the dark spot. “Those might even be stairs leading up to it.”
They had reached the entrance, and Shadrack paused for a moment, resting his hand against the greenish archway. The gates, like the rest of the city, were encrusted with mineral deposits that made them glitter in the silver light. The lacy trelliswork of the arch overhead had broken in places, disintegrated by the salty air and the chalky limestone. “Quite ancient,” Shadrack remarked. “And not from this Age. We are in the presence of something I had never thought to see,” he said. “The ruins of a future Age. Remarkable. This opportunity may never come again,” he said, drawing Theo and Sophia toward the gates. “We are a fortunate few. Even if we never emerge from this place, we have been privileged to see it.”
“But we will emerge from it?” Sophia asked anxiously.
Shadrack seemed not to hear her. “Come—let’s search the city.”
It was impossible to know what the buildings had originally looked like, for they were utterly transformed. High towers, connected to one other by bridges, created a second network of passageways above the streets. Many of the doorways had calcified, their doors sealed shut forever. Others stood open like sad, drooping eyes, their empty rooms staring out blindly. The ground beneath their feet was hard, but the seeds Sophia dropped threw roots nonetheless, breaking through the rock and sprouting quickly into silvery vines that climbed up the limestone walls and burst into brilliant bloom, releasing a sweet scent. There was no sign of human life; the buildings were empty of even the sparest furniture. The most visible mark left by the people who had inhabited the city were the sculptures that stood in front of almost every building. Cut from pale green stone, like those in the subterranean garden, they were deformed beyond recognition by the calcite. Had they not appeared unmistakably shaped by human hands, it would almost have seemed possible that the entire city was nothing more than a fantastic sculpture built by the earth itself.