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CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

“We are safe now,” their prisoner muttered, leaning against the smooth wall of the room they’d just entered.

And it was, indeed, a room. Every surface was well graded, carved out of the native rock with a degree of precision that Ahearn associated with official buildings of the Consentium. Well, more accurately, ruins of them: he’d never actually been under any roof raised by present-day Dunarrans.

Umkhira was also staring around at the perfectly flat surfaces and plumb-trued lines. “Would your people’s warriors have chased us, had we not taken you?”

He considered. “Probably, but not with such determination. Particularly when they realized you meant to go to a place they fear.”

S’ythreni looked up from where she was sitting against a wall. “And what place is that?”

“This.” He gestured at their surroundings. “The uppermost reaches of the old city from before the Great Dying.”

R’aonsun yawned. “Which ‘Great Dying’?” When the dry-man stared at him, he sighed. “There have been several.”

Their prisoner answered with a long, sideways glance. “Legend says that in this part of Mihal’j, where there is sand, there were once plains. And what are now plains were once jungles.”

Ahearn frowned. “So, you mean the Cataclysm?”

“I have heard that word in my travels.” The dry-man shrugged. “That may be one and the same as the Great Dying.”

“I believe this construction dates from a later time,” R’aonsun muttered. “The millennium after the Cataclysm was not quiescent. Other shocks—and ‘Great Dyings’—followed. Not all arose from natural causes.”

“Such as the one that may have caused Saqqaru to rise up out of the sea?”

Ahearn sighed. “I confess, I thought Druadaen more than half mad when first he spoke of that.” He shook his head, glanced at the dry-man. “So you’ve heard of the Cataclysm and speak passable Commerce. You seem to have traveled a bit.”

Another shrug. “I have. Including your own lands.” He allowed himself a small, wintry smile in response to their stares and spoke in Midlander. “You see, I am very acquainted with Ar Navir.”

Umkhira started. “Truly? And your presence there did not cause panic, or… or… ?”

“Or loathing?” he finished for her. “With care, it is quite easy to pass among your breeds. I traveled well cloaked. On those occasions when my body was seen—usually my arms—I was not attacked, merely shunned. We have learned that to all but those few who have actual knowledge of us, we appear to be afflicted with an especially grievous case of one of your wasting diseases. ‘Leper,’ is what I was most frequently called, even though the mottling of my skin hardly resembles the sores of that malady.”

Cerven patted the perfectly straight wall. “So, are we now in the upper reaches of Zatsakkaz?” he asked.

“That is the word humans use for this place, now. But that is only the more recent name, for the more recent parts of it.”

S’ythreni stood, frowning. “What do you mean by ‘more recent parts’?”

“Just what I said, aeosti. This room was once at the top of an earlier tower around which Zatsakkaz was built.”

Of all of Ahearn’s companions, only the dragon seemed unsurprised.

Cerven spoke through a puzzled frown. “We were told that Zatsakkaz was built in an unpopulated area, in a place where there was no prior construction at all.”

Their captive looked bored. “Your breeds have such short memories that I am not surprised the truth has fallen from memory.”

Varcaxtan’s voice was uncommonly sharp. “Then educate us about this earlier city. Who built it and what was it called?”

“Firstly, its name was Loësnum—”

“That’s Old Amitryean,” Cerven said with a frown.

“It may be. I do not know, and I do not care.” The dry-man glanced at Varcaxtan. “Just as you don’t seem to—even when it comes to matters of your own history.”

Varcaxtan frowned. “I’ve no interest in your riddles. If you’ve something to say, say it.”

“Remember,” the other smiled, “I do so at your request. I did not say that Loësnum was a city; you presumed that. I told you quite plainly that it was a tower.”

Elweyr looked dubious. “So Zatsakkaz was built long after the tower?”

The captive glanced at him, lip curled. “Reportedly, human mantics are famed for their intelligence. That is apparently an exaggeration. Attend, fools: the tower began as a watch post for a larger structure that the ages buried. By the time your sand-crawling cousins decided to build Zatsakkaz, the tower was so weathered that they were able to convince others that it had been the first construction on the site.”

“Because that way,” Varcaxtan grunted, “they kept the secret—and value—of what was buried beneath for themselves.”

“Obviously.”

Ahearn crossed his arms. “And so what is this valuable buried secret, this Loësnum?”

“Oldest memory says it was a citadel of some kind.”

“You mean, a fastness?”

The dry-man shrugged. “That, too, I suspect.”

“Well, if that’s but a small part of the tale, what is Loësnum mostly known for?”

A greater shrug accompanied his answer: “Wonders.”

“Just that?”

He pointed at Elweyr and, more cautiously, R’aonsun. “You travel with mantics.” His tone became derisive. “Surely they must know more than I do about such things.”

“Mayhap they do,” Ahearn asked, stepping very close to the dry-man. “But I’m asking you.”

The prisoner swallowed—a sound like a cheese grater—and shook his head. “If I knew I’d tell you.”

“So you’re saying we just go down the stairs I see across the room, and we’re at the top of this Loësnum?”

“Well… you would have been, in earlier times.”

“Eh?”

“The ruins of Zatsakkaz are just beneath us, in a cavern.”

“How is that possible?” Cerven asked. “We were told it was built on the surface!”

The dry-man nodded. “It was. But it was in a sheltering cleft, and once it was abandoned, sand filled it in. Later, the mountain against which it was built collapsed. Some say it was toppled to ensure that Zatsakkaz could not be rebuilt. Whichever it was, the city was buried, but the sand kept it from being crushed. However, whatever caused the mountain to fall upon it opened seams in the bedrock. They widened into crevasses and, over time, most of the sand drained into them.”

R’aonsun’s face brightened. “So you are telling us that, not far beneath our feet, there is a city sealed in a… a bubble within the rock?”

“I am.”

“And that the tower of which this room was the pinnacle was broken? And that the section in which we stand is embedded in the roof of that bubble, whereas the tower’s bottom still stands in the city below?”

The dry-man just nodded, wide-eyed at the dragon’s inexplicable excitement and jollity.

Ahearn wasn’t much less confused. “Eh, R’aonsun, why are yeh acting as if you’re going to a spring revel?”

The avatar snorted. “I have no interest in spring revels—except possibly for scaring the crowds witless. Easy to accomplish, given how little wit they start with. But this? This? What a fabulous novelty!” When he realized they were all staring at him, he glanced at the dry-man and continued in a more guarded tone. “Bear in mind how much—living I’ve seen. How many unusual places. Eventually, it all becomes, well, repetitive. Mere variations upon a theme. And eventually, the variations themselves become familiar.” His eyes widened, brightened. “But what this being describes? I’ve never seen its like. I’ve never imagined it! So by all means, let us not tarry here, but find a way down to this anomaly!”

The dry-man seemed unable to decide if the dragon-avatar’s outré exclamations were the greatest sign of the group’s insanity, or that none of its companions seemed terribly surprised by them.

“I agree,” Elweyr said in a tone that had a hint of placation in it, “but before we resume our journey, I want two things.”

“Which are?” S’ythreni asked, one corner of her mouth suggesting a smile.

“First, I want to sit, eat, and close my eyes for a few moments. And second”—Elweyr rounded on the captive—“I want to know why your people so fear Loësnum.”

“That is not what they fear.”

“Then what kept them from following you?”

He nodded at the space beneath their feet.

“Do you mean the ruins of the city or the way down to it?”

“Both. My people tell stories of great guardian beasts, warriors made all of metal, and demon ghosts who lure the unsuspecting into a garden of death.”

Elweyr frowned. “And you believe these things exist?”

“Again, I did not say that. I said my people tell tales of foes that the ages should long since have turned to dust. Many believe those tales to be fact.”

Ahearn crossed his arms. “Aye, and maybe you do, as well. I notice you haven’t yet said that you believe the way before us is safe.”

The dry-man nodded. “I do not say that because I cannot know it. Deep caverns are often the domain of creatures of great size, strangeness, and ferocity. So it would be unwise to deem them free of hazard. But like you, I have no choice but to see for myself.”

“Is that the only way for you to escape the, eh, Izrojagi who wish to execute you?”

Their captive shrugged. “It is the only path that is said to offer another route to the surface. I would not survive an attempt to slip back through the caverns of the Huzhkepbar Iz. There are too many patrols, and they will all be watching for me.”

Varcaxtan came to stand next to Ahearn. “Tell us about this other route to the surface.”

“I know very little about it. It is said to rise up in the mountains to the south.”

Cerven seemed to be visualizing the maps they’d studied aboard the Swiftsure. “That is a very long journey.”

The dry-man nodded. “And dangerous, not the least because I do not know the way until I begin rising up through the tunnels beneath those mountains. But at least I will not have to worry about the Huzhkepbar Iz’s executioners.”

R’aonsun approached him slowly, eyes unblinking. “And do you know the way down to the citadel itself?”

Despite himself, their captive shrank back. “I know the approximate area.” He paused. “For a skin of your water and a sack of your rations, I might be able to share some additional details.”

The towering avatar let a slow smile spread across his face; there was no humor in it. “You’re hardly in a position to negotiate.”

The other failed to suppress a rasping gulp. “You can hardly afford to have your only guide’s wits dulled by thirst or hunger.”

“He has a point,” Ahearn grumbled, tossing the dry-man paper-wrapped rations and a spare waterskin. “Now, start talking—and plainly, or this will be your last meal.”


As they descended the stairs, a greenish-yellow glow grew beneath them. Before long, they realized what it was: the hole that marked where the top of the tower had broken off from the bottom. Nearing that jagged limit, they began to make out shapes in the dim light below: buildings, some intact, some ruined. But before they could pick out particular details, the stairs ended; at least two stories of risers had fallen, along with whatever had held them to the interior walls. They found only one way to continue; at the stairway’s last landing, a crude tunnel had been hewn through the tower’s wall into the same mass of rock that held it aloft.

The tunnel was short, coming out on a ledge that had been widened, enough to make Ahearn think of it as a gallery. Although he was comfortable with heights, his first look over the edge was accompanied by a moment of vertigo—and then, it was forgotten in the rush of wonder inspired by the scene far, far below.

Graceful towers stretched up toward him. Stately buildings—some fronted by columns, others by immense arches—lined wide boulevards. In several places, ziggurats poked up over the tops of smaller houses of stone, the latter’s glazed terra-cotta and polished slate shingles blurring into a busy mosaic. Glowing mosses covered the cavern’s sides, which curved upward and toward each other until they met almost directly overhead in a peaked ceiling which ran the length of the valley-cavern. The soft light from that growth lay upon the scene as a yellowish twilight which hid flaws and smoothed any of the ravages that time might have wrought.

But closer inspection pierced that flattering haze. The many triumphant arches that sat astride the great ways, and the narrow, curving flyovers of alabaster, were all topped by dead moss and the rocky debris from the roof of this self-contained world. Several of the tallest towers, built in the form of narrowing spirals, had been battered by falling stalactites. In some cases, those stone icicles had come to hang so far down from the ceiling that they had touched and ultimately fused with the pinnacles of those towers. Ahearn marveled at the strange image; it was as if a mudflow had frozen upon touching the top of a narwhal horn.

The city beneath was no better. Alongside the broad avenues, medians that had once housed plantings were straggling graveyards of slender shoots that they’d sent across the streets, as fine and brittle as varicose veins. Stretches that had once been parks or parade grounds or other public places were now ruffled thatchworks of trees and bushes that had grown together in wild confusion before falling apart in desiccated decay. And at the far edges of Ahearn’s vision, out beyond the proud stone and brick building of the city’s center, he could just barely descry the fate of the less stoutly constructed homes and shops of its outskirts: a great midden heap of wood, mortar, and adobe so reduced by age that it was nothing more than irregular gray piles that faded into the darkness at the far reaches of the cavern.

“The architecture looks a bit like Tlulanxu,” Varcaxtan murmured. “Especially those flyover walkways.”

S’ythreni nodded. “Maybe that’s why it reminded me of old Uulamantre ruins.” She expanded when Umkhira tilted her head questioningly. “Dunarra’s capital—Tlulanxu—was originally Tlu’Lanthu, the only great city that survived both the Costéglan Iavarain and the Cataclysm.”

Cerven’s eyes, which had been scanning the entire vista as if committing all of it to memory, shifted his gaze to the decapitated remains of the tower just beneath them. What was left of it stuck up like a hollow spike, the top ragged, the debris of the shattered middle section surrounding its base like the waste pile of a quarry. He aimed an index finger down at a point just beyond its ruined skirts. “Is that a… a garden?”

Ahearn and the others craned their necks to follow the implied trajectory. There was indeed an oasis in that rough margin of broken stone. Spared from the devastation as if by miracle, they could make out trees and even a still, clear pond within its sharply delimited borders.

“You’ve good eyes,” S’ythreni breathed appreciatively. “For a human.” She and Cerven exchanged smiles. “Interesting location, that garden.”

“Better that we get to it than look at it,” Ahearn muttered. “Let’s keep going.”


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