“Maybe they aren’t from Vilan Hills. The Patriarch said Ghazel were in Percepliquis. Follow the tracks… They might lead to the entrance. And get Magnus off the wagon. Isn’t he supposed to be an expert at finding underground passages?”
Hadrian stared at her stupidly. “You’re absolutely right.” He started to return to the others.
“Hadrian?” She stopped him.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t tell Alric I said anything. Say it was your idea.”
He looked confused for a second, then said, “Oh—right.” He nodded with sympathy. Hadrian started to climb the hill, then waved at Wyatt. “Com’on, sailor, you can help look too.”
“But I’m still—”
Hadrian gave him a smirk.
“Okay, okay. Excuse me, my lady—ah—Arista.”
The two climbed to the top of the hill and disappeared over the rise. Elden came over and sat beside her. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small bit of wood, holding it out in his huge palm. It was a figurine, deftly carved in the shape of a woman. She took it and, upon closer inspection, realized it was her. The detail was perfect, right down to her messy hair and Esrahaddon’s robe.
“For you,” she heard him whisper.
“It’s beautiful, thank you.”
Elden nodded; then, standing up slowly, he moved off to sit by himself.
Arista held the statuette in her fingers, wondering when he had found time to make it. She tried to determine whether he had whittled in the saddle or carved it the night before while the rest of them were eating dinner.
Myron left the top of the hill and Arista waved him over.
“So what does Mr. Hall have to say about how he got in?”
Myron smiled comically. “Not a lot that is of much help. Although, he did have some nice diagrams that showed the ruins, so we are in the right place. As for getting in, all he said was that he went into a hole. From his accounts, it was really deep. He started climbing down and fell. A nasty fall by the sound of it too. His handwriting afterwards was shaky and he only bothered to write short sentences: Fell in a hole. No way out. The pile! They eat everything! Cyclone of darkness. River running. Stars. Millions. Crawling, crawling, crawling. They eat everything.”
Arista sneered. “Doesn’t sound all that pleasant, does it?”
“It gets worse,” he said. “Down near the underground sea, just before he reached the city, he encountered the Ba Ran Ghazel, but that wasn’t the worst of it. He actually made it to the great library when—”
A whistle sounded.
“Found it!” Alric shouted.
The hole was not on the summit of the hill.
Hadrian had watched as Magnus and Royce had located the passage, each coming at it from a different direction. Royce traced Ghazel tracks and Magnus followed what he called the sound of an underground hollow. They came together down the back side of the slope, where the angle grew steep and dangerous. A patch of trees and thick thorny brambles wreathed what appeared to be a minor depression. The only clue that something more lurked there was the faint echo of falling water.
“Looks slippery,” Mauvin said as they all gathered on the icy ridge above. “Who’s going first?”
Before anyone could answer, Royce appeared carrying a heavy coil of rope, wearing his climbing harness and slipping on his hand-claws—brass wraps with sharpened hooks that jutted out of his palms. Hadrian helped him get situated; then Royce lay on his stomach and inched along, leaving a trough in the soft snow as he eased off the ridge.
As he started down the slope, Royce began to slide. He tried to get a grip, but his hands and claws found only snow. He picked up speed like a sled and Hadrian worked at taking up the slack in the rope. Then Royce crashed through the thickets and disappeared from view. Mauvin joined Hadrian on the rope, which was now as taut as a bowstring.
“Get the end,” Hadrian ordered. “Tie it to that tree.”
Magnus moved to grab the line.
“No, not you!” Hadrian shouted, and the dwarf scowled. Hadrian looked to the next-closest person. “Wyatt, could you tie the end off?”
The sailor grabbed the end of the rope and dragged it around the base of the little birch.
“How ya doing, Royce?” Hadrian called.
“Dangling,” Royce replied. “Pretty slick up there. Give me some slack.”
They stood in a circle, each keeping a safe distance, all of them standing on their toes, trying to see down. Overhead, the winter clouds made it hard to tell the time. There was no sun, just a vague gray light that filled the sky, leaving everything murky and drained of color. Hadrian guessed they had only four hours of light left.
Mauvin and Hadrian let out the rope until it hung from the tree, although Hadrian continued to hold on to it just the same. He could not see Royce and stared instead at the thin rope. It too was mostly lost, buried in the snow, leaving only a telltale mark.
“Can you reach the bottom?”
“How much rope do we have?” Royce’s voice returned like an echo from the bottom of a well.
Hadrian looked at Arista.
“Ten coils of fifty feet each,” she replied. “All told, there should be five hundred feet’s worth,” she shouted, tilting her head up a bit as if throwing her voice into the hole.
“Not half good enough,” Royce replied.
“That’s a deep hole,” Hadrian said.
The rope shifted and twisted at the edge.
“What’re you doing, buddy?”
“Trying something.”
“Something stupid?”
“Maybe.” He sounded winded.
The rope stopped moving and went slack.
“Royce?” Hadrian called.
No answer.
“Royce?”
“Relax,” came his reply. “This might work. I’m on a ledge, big enough for all of us, I think. Icy, but doable. We can tie on here too. Looks like we’ll have to work our way a leg at a time. Might as well start sending down the gear.”
They brought up the wagon and began lowering supplies, each package disappearing through the opening in the brush.
“I’ll go first,” Alric announced when the wagon was empty.
Hadrian and Mauvin tied the safety rope around his waist and legs. Once tethered, the king took hold of the guide rope and, sitting down on the snow, scooted forward. Mauvin and Hadrian were careful this time to let out the rope slowly, and soon Alric reached the thickets and peered through.
“Oh dear Maribor!” Alric exclaimed. “You have me, right?” he shouted back at them.
“You’re not going anywhere until you want to,” Mauvin replied.
“Oh lord,” he repeated several times.
Royce was offering suggestions, but too faintly for Hadrian to hear exactly what they were.
“Okay, okay, here I go,” Alric said. He turned himself over and, lying flat on his stomach, started backing into the hole, clutching tightly to the guide rope. “Slowly now,” he warned as Mauvin and Hadrian let out the tether, and inch by inch he slipped over the edge and out of view.
“Oh sweet Maribor!” they heard him exclaim.
“You okay?” Hadrian called.
“Are you crazy? Of course I’m not! This is insane.”