Her grandmother shook her head as if the answer to that question was more than she could bear. One withered hand lifted and gestured. Phryne’s eyes closed in response, and she fell fast asleep.
PANTERRA QU FELT A CHANGE in the temperature of the air and in the brightness of the light, and then all at once he was in a different place entirely. He stopped where he was and looked around, discovering that the portal through which he had entered was nowhere to be found and that instead of standing beneath the Belloruusian Arch, he was in a tunnel. For a moment he was confused; he tried to get his bearings and at the same time figure out what had caused this to happen. He knew at once that magic was at work, and that in all likelihood his own had responded to it. He glanced briefly at the black staff, but its rune carvings were dark. Whatever help it had given him was finished. He thought briefly of Prue, knowing how frantic she would be, watching him disappear and not being able to reach him—it was a safe assumption she couldn’t or she would have been there beside him by now—or know where he had gone.
Then he put it aside. There was nothing he could do about any of it, and for the moment none of it mattered. What mattered was finding Phryne. Wherever he was, it was entirely possible that she was there, too. According to Xac Wen, she’d done exactly what he’d done almost two days earlier when she disappeared. It was reasonable to assume that whatever had happened to him had happened to her, too. If he was lucky, he might be able to find her.
He started walking down the tunnel in the direction he had been facing on passing through the portal. The passageway looked the same both ways, but he had to assume Phryne would have made the same choice he was making. Veins of phosphorescent
minerals embedded in the walls gave off enough light to let him find his way. Starting slowly, he scanned the rocky surface of the tunnel floor for signs of other footprints and after a short time found what he was looking for—scuff marks and small pieces of debris knocked free of the stone. Reassured, he kept going.
He walked for a very long way, wondering as time passed if he had made a mistake in reading the signs. It was unlikely, he told himself. His tracking skills wouldn’t allow for it. But the distance seemed great for an underground tunnel with no branches. Still, he pushed ahead, determined to see this through.
In the end, he reached a place where the passageway branched either right or left or continued ahead, angling downward. He took a long time to study the rocky floor at this point, searching for fresh sign. He found what he was looking for when he had followed the middle passageway to where a set of stone steps began a steep descent. There he discovered a clear boot marking and knew this was the way Phryne had gone.
Shouldering his pack and taking a fresh grip on his staff, he started down the stairway.
He descended many steps, winding his way downward in circular fashion, water dripping, splashing on his face and hands and soaking his clothing. He listened carefully for voices, but the only sound he heard was a strange hissing, something that resembled the breathing of a huge creature. He recalled the dragon in Aphalion Pass and wondered if it were possible that it made its home this far under the earth. He wondered what he would do if he found it.
At the bottom, he found another passageway, this one with its ceiling clustered with stalactites, puddled below with small pools of the mineral-infused water they had shed.
He continued on, moving carefully, quietly through the near-darkness. The hissing sound was growing louder; whatever its source, it lay not too far ahead. A snake? He didn’t care much for the thoughts that image conjured, imagining how large the snake would have to be to make a sound of that size. No, it was something else. More like a waterfall. Or steam escaping from a vent.
Finally, he arrived at a massive cavern dominated by a lake that was ringed by hundreds of tombs and markers stretching away for as far as the eye could see.
Phosphorescence infused the walls here, too, illuminating the stone garden and casting shadows in strange shapes and forms.
He walked forward cautiously, wending his way into the burial ground, through the clusters of tombs and markers, down toward the edge of the lake. The hissing grew louder, and suddenly he could discern voices. He recognized now what he was hearing.
It was whispering, a vast collection of hushed voices all speaking at once. He could catch snatches of words and phrases, but not enough so that any of it made sense. He wondered where the voices were coming from, and an instant later knew the answer.
He was listening to the dead speaking to one another.
A moment after that, he saw Phryne.
PHRYNE. WAKE UP.
She heard her grandmother’s voice from a long way off, from far down in a warm drowsiness that wrapped her like a blanket. She tried to ignore it, anxious to be left alone, content in her sleepy world. But the voice became more insistent, a barrage of words that prodded like sharp sticks.