“It is,” Myron replied.
Gaunt turned on the little monk. “Oh, so you’re keeping information from us, is that it? Or are you merely incompetent and just forgot to tell us about this part of the journal?”
“No,” he said meekly. “There’s nothing in the journal about this.”
“Then surely you are more pious than I thought, for Maribor himself must be giving you information he keeps from the rest of us.”
“Maybe,” Myron replied. “All I know is that’s Edmund Hall’s mark.” He pointed. “See there, carved into the stone.”
Royce was first to it and, holding his light above the floor, revealed the etched inscription:
EH
“E.H.,” Gaunt read. “How do we know that stands for Edmund Hall?”
“You think there’s a parade of people coming through here with those initials, do you?” Royce asked.
“That’s the exact way he wrote his initials in the journal,” Myron explained.
“What about these, Myron?” Royce asked as he pushed more rocks away to reveal more etchings. These were much brighter—fresher than the EH.
Myron glanced at them for only a moment before saying, “I don’t know anything about those.”
Hadrian stepped up, blew the dirt away. Then he turned to Arista and Alric. “Didn’t the Patriarch say he sent other teams?”
“Yes, he did,” Alric agreed. “Three of them, I think.”
“According to the empress, they all failed,” Arista added.
Hadrian glanced at Royce. “I think we know about the third group he sent, but they didn’t come this way. Still, I’m guessing these are the initials of either the first or the second team.” He looked at Royce again. “If you were going to handpick a group to come down here, and you could choose anyone, who would you pick to lead such a group?”
“Breckton, maybe,” Royce replied. “Or possibly Gravin Dent of Delgos.”
“Well, we know they didn’t pick Breckton, and look at the first initials, GD. Now when was the last time anyone saw Gravin? He wasn’t at the Wintertide games this year.”
“Not last year either,” Alric said.
“He was at Dahlgren,” Mauvin said.
“Yes, he was!” Arista confirmed. “I remember Fanen pointing him out and saying what a great adventurer he was and how he worked mainly for the Church of Nyphron. He called him something… a—a—”
“Quester?” Mauvin asked.
“Yes, that’s it!”
“Now let’s think about that,” Hadrian said. “They would need a scholar, a historian. Dent was at Dahlgren. Wasn’t there someone else too? That funny guy with the catapult, what was his name?”
“Tobis Rentinual?” Mauvin asked. “He was a real nut.”
“Yeah, but do you remember him saying something about how he named the catapult after Novron’s wife, because of all the research he did into ancient imperial history?”
“Yes. He said something about having to learn a language or something, didn’t he? He was all boastful about it, remember?”
“That’s right.” Hadrian was nodding. “Look at that second set of initials, TR.”
“Tobis Rentinual,” Mauvin said. “It even looks like how he would draw his letters.”
“What about the others?” Alric asked.
Hadrian shrugged. “I’m really only guessing at the first two. I have no idea about the others.”
“I do,” Magnus said. “Well, one of them, at least. HM, that’s Herclor Math.”
“Who?” Hadrian asked, and looked around, but everyone shrugged.
“Of course none of you would know him. He’s a mason—a dwarf mason—and a good one. I would recognize his inscription anywhere. The Maths are an old family. A Math even worked on the design team of Drumindor. His clan goes back a long way.”
“Why did they initial the stone?” Wyatt asked.
“Maybe to let anyone who might follow know they got this far,” Magnus replied.
“Why didn’t they mark the bloody three-choice passage?” Mauvin asked.
“Maybe they planned to,” Arista said. “Maybe—like us—they didn’t know if they picked the right one, but planned to mark it on the way out, only—only they never came out.”
“Maybe we should carve our initials too,” Mauvin suggested. “So others will know we were here.”
“No,” Arista said. “If we don’t come back out, there will be no others to follow us.”
Each of them looked toward the hole with apprehension.
“At any rate,” Royce said, “this looks like the place. Who’s carrying the rope?”
They tied three lengths of rope together, and with Hadrian on the line, Royce climbed in. They fed out two-thirds of it before Hadrian felt the line stop and Royce’s weight come off.
He waited.
They all waited. Some sat down on whatever flat spots they could find. Elden remained standing. He had an unpleasant look on his face as he eyed the hole. Despite Arista’s comments, the dwarf busied himself carving each of their initials into the stone.
“You want to call down to him?” Alric asked. “He’s been in there a while.”
“It’s better to be patient,” he replied. “Royce will either call up or yank on the line when he wants us to come down.”
“What if he fell?” Mauvin asked.
“He didn’t. On the other hand, what is more likely is that there’s a patrol of Ghazel and he’s waiting for them to pass. If you get nervous and start yelling down, you’ll get him killed, or angry. Either way it’s not a good idea.”
Mauvin and Alric both nodded gravely. Hadrian had learned his lesson the hard way on that first trip the two made to Ervanon. Learning to trust Royce when it was dark, you were alone, and the world was so quiet you could hear your own breathing was not something you did overnight.
Hadrian remembered the wind whipping them as they climbed the Crown Tower. That was a big tower. He must have climbed a hundred of them with Royce since, but aside from Drumindor, that was the tallest—and the first. He had marveled at how the little thief could scale the sheer wall like a fly with nothing but those hand-claws. He gave Hadrian a pair and sat smirking as he tried to use them.