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

Arion turned and started back to the camp. “Come, it’s cold, and there’s no reason you can’t practice where it’s warm.”

The others had eaten, although not much by the look of what was still left. Suri wasn’t hungry and didn’t think she could eat. While the others bedded down to sleep, or try to, Arion helped Suri practice.

Tura had always taught her that stones had spirits, that they were living things, but when she searched the rock around her, Suri felt nothing but an empty void. The waterfall was a source of power, but the stone—this old, deep stone—was dead. She needed the power to pluck the chords, to instigate change, but the stone was useless. Carefully, oh so delicately, she reached out to the others, her companions and friends.

With their life force she found the needed access and reached through the veil to the chords. She instantly sensed the deep ones, huge, thick, and shimmering. Arion had warned about them. Those were the struts and pillars of existence, the instruments of gods. Their music was deafening, their power drawn from the bowels of the world and on through the heavens. They radiated heat and light and begged to be played, to have their music released, but they also required great power to pluck.

Suri turned away and focused on the smallest of chords, the little strings. Arion was right: They were all familiar. She knew the sounds each would make, the song two or more joined together would sing, and how that could change the world. The number of possibilities was infinite. There were hundreds of ways to start a fire, though only a few made much sense and the way she had done it was the most efficient. Still, she noticed other patterns that she thought would be more…more…elegant, maybe?

An entire bank of strings represented the stone around her. She could fold it, shatter, and shear it. She found what she looked for, and went through the practice of a weave that—had she followed through—would have opened the ground the same way Arion had done under Rapnagar. Having found it, she felt better. She stowed away the knowledge and was gladdened at knowing what to do and how to do it.

She opened her eyes. Most were asleep, but Brin and Persephone were staring at her with curious expressions.

“What?” she asked.

“You were singing,” Brin said.

—

With a nod from Persephone, Rain pulled his great pickax from the sheath on his back. The tool looked incredibly heavy, but the dwarf handled it with ease. The way he treated it was like the care mothers took with babies. Seeing him prepare to dig, Persephone knew she was about to see the complete version of Rain.

They gathered around him at the place where the rock in the cliff had cracked, where the stratum on the right didn’t line up with the layers on the left. Persephone never would have noticed it, but she imagined Rain had an eye for such things. She had no idea what was about to happen. The trick was in not showing fear. She caught Brin, Roan, and even Moya looking at her. Maybe they looked for signs of panic. No matter how she felt, Persephone had to remain calm and composed. Arion, she thought, was a master at this. The Fhrey appeared relaxed, but the serenity had to be an act. Even Minna was pacing and panting.

Rain looked over his shoulder at her with a solemn expression of expectation.

“Do it,” Persephone ordered.

With a great round swing, the digger brought the pointed end of the huge pick down on the rock. Whether by some magic of the pick, or Rain’s skill in knowing exactly where to strike, the wall that appeared to be so solid broke apart. Huge chunks fell away as if the dwarf were digging through sunbaked clay. Hunks came off in large fragments that slapped the ground and, in some cases, had the force to bounce and roll into the pool. The entire process took so little time that when Rain stopped she was certain he was only taking a breather, but the dwarf flipped his pick around and stuffed the handle into its sheath.

He stepped out of the way to let her see, and Persephone spied an opening in the rock, a jagged crevice that was big enough to pass through.

Rain took out his glowstone and asked, “Would you like me to lead?”

“Please,” Persephone told him.

One by one, they all crawled into the black hole, each following the one in front by feel. The dwarfs did have it easier. Their compact frames appeared born to such travel. Even with his big pickax, Rain scrambled through the cramped crevasse with the nimbleness of a ferret. They went up slightly, then down. The passage grew narrower and narrower. Then with a deep inhale, Persephone squeezed out into a larger chamber. She expected to see a corridor of Dherg engineering—perhaps not the vaulted halls at the entrance, but a more compact version, something akin to the rols in the Crescent Forest. As it turned out, they were beyond the reach of Neith, deeper than the ancient city. And just as dense forest and brambles waited beyond the bounds of Dahl Rhen, here, too, was wilderness.

Dripping stone spikes hanging from a toothy ceiling greeted Persephone. Wrinkled rock formed uneven, sloping walls. Another natural pool—this one larger, with irregular edges—played a lonesome music of plinks and ka-plunks as calcified fangs from overhead let stony saliva slip, making elegant ring patterns on an otherwise glassy surface. At the base of the cavern snaked what appeared to be a woodland deer path of packed dirt. Persephone surmised it was a dry underground stream. She could see all this by the light of luminous lichen whose bluish glow turned the chamber into a strange fairy wonderland. For all its grandeur, the Dherg halls of Neith could not surpass the raw magnificence of this natural cavern. Nor had Neith provoked such a sense of dreadful awe. The world they found themselves in was no longer one of measures and weights, no longer a tamed realm.

They followed Rain’s lead, scooting down the steep slope to the trail. Looking both ways, Persephone saw a long zigzagging path disappearing into darkness.

“Which direction?” Frost whispered softly. The place demanded a quiet reverence.

Rain nodded to the left.

“How far?” Flood whispered even softer.

“A hundred yards, maybe.”

Eyebrows rose as the answer rocked the two dwarfs. They looked to each other, sharing excited expressions.

“It’s like we’re at the bottom of the world.” Moya’s head was up, eyes large, examining the jagged ceiling.

“No, not the bottom,” Rain replied, and Persephone believed him. At that moment, Persephone would have believed anything he told her.

Brin was the last down to the path. The girl had sallow cheeks and shadowed eyes.

“Are you all right?” Persephone asked her.

Brin nodded.