Age of Swords (The Legends of the First Empire #2)

The room seemed to have no end. The grand hall just kept going in a series of colonnades and shafts of light entering from either side. Great sculptures of giant rams reared to butt one another over the main aisle, which was paved in gleaming silver and inlaid with gold. Every inch of wall space, and even the underside of the high, arched ceiling, had been carved with decorative designs—mostly variations on squares and circles. Great stone pillars, like the grown-up parents of the babies in the Crescent Forest rols, towered overhead, taller and straighter than any tree. To both the left and right, thin sheets of water spilled down walls to create a shimmering curtain that fell into one of the many illuminated pools.

Suri had to admit, as far as caves went, this one wasn’t bad. The vast space and natural light gave her a sense of walking in a thickly canopied forest rather than being underground. The fear that usually accompanied caves wasn’t in this one.

As the group spread out, moving among the statues and fountains, they wandered more than walked the long length of the grand hall. Before too long, Suri spotted doors and openings on either side and stairs leading up to balconies and additional doors. Flood and Rain had taken the lead and now headed straight to what Suri realized was their destination—a huge downward stair and an upward one as well. From the lack of elegance and unimpressive size, there was no doubt that the rising steps were irrelevant when compared with the downward ones. The city of Neith lay below.

They passed between the statues of two huge dwarfs holding up the ceiling on either side of the downward steps and began their descent.

Suri lingered at the top of the stairs, looking back the way they’d come. Wind blew across the opening that let the light in and made a mournful sound. A sharp flapping noise disturbed the wind’s wailing song, and she looked up to see a shadow near the ceiling. A bird had entered one of the shafts, its nest on top of a cornice. Splatters of white and a few discarded feathers littered the floor below it. She walked over, bent down, and picked up some of the brown-striped plumes tipped in white. Hawks! She ran a thumb along the comb. Suri had known many hawks, good friends all. Feathers were always lucky. She slipped them into a pouch at her waist.

Frost, who walked at the rear of the party, paused with her. “After so many centuries, all manner of intruders have taken residence in here.”

Suri glanced at Minna, and the wolf clearly joined her in wondering if Frost referred merely to birds. Suri didn’t think so; neither did Minna.

Then they began the long descent.

They went down, and down, and down some more, passing more levels of stone opulence. By the seventh or perhaps eighth flight, the sunlight had been replaced by a new illumination. Gems mounted in the walls gave off the familiar green light, but on occasion, a blue one appeared. Minna liked them better, but Suri had no preference.

After what seemed like hours, she’d lost count of how many flights they had dropped—not that she’d really tried to count. Suri wasn’t the counting sort. Roan was. Roan likely knew how many steps they’d taken. Roan likely knew how many steps they’d taken since they left Dahl Rhen.

Just as Suri’s stomach started rumbling, the dwarfs called a halt.

“Stopping here for the night,” Frost said. This was the first anyone had spoken since Suri and he had discussed the hawk. Aside from Arion’s comment to herself, no one had said a word since entering. Even when Frost made his announcement, he did so quietly, as if they were thieves inside a carefully guarded home.

They set down their burdens and clustered on the stone floor beneath the green light of a gem mounted in the wall. Two great urns stood to either side of them, and centered beneath the gem was a chiseled picture consisting of three panels. The first one showed a dwarf hammering on an anvil. The middle panel depicted the same dwarf holding up a ball of light. The last etching showed him throwing it.

Brin was so fascinated with the picture that she stood staring, still laden with gear. She stayed there long after everyone else had settled in.

“There’s no wood,” Persephone said, looking around. “No way to warm our food.”

Frost pulled five black stones out of his pack and stacked them on the ground. “These will burn.”

Flood drew out another pair of stones and while Frost added bits of cloth and lint to the pile, Flood began clacking his stones together, creating sparks.

The sounds echoed, and Flood paused, looking guilty. They all looked out into the darkness, waiting for something awful to happen. Nothing did.

“Maybe you should let Suri do it,” Arion said.

“Do what?” Flood asked.

Arion didn’t answer; she simply looked at the mystic.

Suri had started fires ever since she was a young girl, and never thought anything about doing so. Requesting the fire spirit to burn wood was no more unusual than when Tura asked her to fetch water from the creek, but she knew better now. Producing fire had nothing to do with the fire spirit. Suri had unknowingly been flicking a chord, tapping the hidden power around her. Sitting deep underground, she found little warmth to draw from. The stones were cold, and the sun too far away. She sensed potential in the black rocks the dwarfs had brought, but it wasn’t enough. The only source she found came from people around her.

Arion nodded. “It won’t hurt. You just need a little.”

Suri, who had made a million fires and once set a bear aflame, hesitated. Even though Arion said no one would get hurt, Suri was scared. After all, the Miralyith also hadn’t expected Suri to kill Rapnagar. She looked at the faces surrounding her and realized, perhaps for the first time, that she cared for these people. The friendships had crept up on her, become important without her realizing. The idea of taking too much heat, of accidentally killing them—even the dwarfs whom she liked the least—made her shudder. And what if she killed Arion? Suri hated to admit it, but the Fhrey had slipped into that part of her heart left vacant by Tura. The two were alike in so many ways, despite being completely dissimilar in others.

“You can do it,” Arion encouraged. “I know you’re scared, but you have to try. Take your time. Do it gently, slowly. It will be all right.”

Everyone was looking, making her feel self-conscious—under too much pressure. “I can’t…not now.” She saw Arion’s disapproval, and it was saddening, but killing her friend would be far worse.

Arion sighed. “It’s not dangerous, but”—she held up her hands in patient resignation—“I won’t push you. We both know that’s not a good idea. You’ll come to it when you’re ready.”

“So no fire?” Moya asked.

Roan unloaded her bow and one of the sticks that she hadn’t put a stone point on yet, and within five minutes had the pile of tinder smoking enough so that when Frost blew on it, a flame caught.

“Thank you, oh resident wizard,” Moya said.

Roan said nothing and just set to putting her things in order.

“Who is this?” Brin asked. She was still standing, still laden with gear and pointing at the picture behind them.

“That’s Drome,” Frost replied. “He forges the sun each morning and then throws it west, where it flies until it cools, goes out, and falls. Then after a brief rest, he does it again.”

“Ridiculous,” Roan said softly without taking her eyes off what she was doing. “Makes no sense. Why would anyone do such a thing?”

“To make the days,” Frost said with a dash of irritation.

Roan looked up and cringed. “Did I say that out loud?”