An hour later, she gathered her den, and in the same silence, the magestone in her pocket, they headed back to the undercity for the first time in months.
7th of Maran, 410 AA Twenty-fifth holding, Averalaan
Angel and Arann went to the Port Authority. Carver and Duster went “out.” Finch, Teller, Jester, Lefty, and Lander went with Jewel.
Duster made clear how much she hated this arrangement, and she and Jewel exchanged terse words, but in the end, Jewel wouldn’t budge.
“We need what you bring in,” she said, her voice flat. “Even if we find something, we won’t have money from it for a week. Or two.”
Carver had put his hand on Duster’s shoulder. Duster shrugged it off. But she stopped speaking. “Take Angel,” she finally said. “Or Arann. You’ll find the cracks in the ground harder without ’em.”
Jewel’s brows had lifted in surprise. “I would,” she finally said, “but we can’t spare them. We need anything they can bring in, as well.”
Duster stood, mute now. She was poised in the doorway, one foot over the threshold, frozen there; it was hard to tell, looking at her, whether she was coming or going. Had she been anyone else, Jewel would have hugged her. She was Duster. Jewel raised her hands, not to touch, and not to push, but instead, to sign.
Duster hesitated, and then said, “Don’t lose them.”
The den watched her leave in silence.
7th of Maran, 410 AA Undercity, Averalaan
There was no sky in the undercity. No sea breeze, tasting, always, of salt. No moving maze of people. No light that wasn’t theirs. Jewel held the magelight as they emerged into the streets. Familiar streets, opening up into the darkness of perpetual night.
They walked in a huddle, and this slowed their progress, but that was fine. The undercity had become strange with absence, and unknown with Fisher’s loss. Everything—every step, every hushed word—was hesitant. Even Jewel’s.
But the hesitance couldn’t last.
With each step and each word, a little bit of confidence returned. Teller pointed at familiar facades, Lander and Lefty signed, poking each other when their gaze wandered from the moving flight of den-sign that was their hands.
“Where do you want to start?” Teller asked.
Jewel frowned. She didn’t want to start exploring the uncharted areas of the undercity, but all the ones they knew had nothing to offer; they’d been over them, time and again. “Let’s head to the center. We can decide from there.”
The center of the undercity—which was, as far as Jewel could tell from her study of Rath’s maps, an accurate description—was where the larger roads met. Some of those roads were wide, and buildings, stepped back from flat, smooth rock, girded their progress. She thought grass or flowers or even trees must have grown near the building fronts at some point, because there was dirt in evidence; none of the foliage remained. Some of those roads were impassable; bridges had fallen across them.
At least Rath had called them bridges; they were also stone, and Jewel couldn’t understand why you’d build a stone bridge above the streets. But apparently, the people who lived here had thought it was a good idea to never touch the ground.
Teller knew more, because he asked more questions, and because Rath actually liked talking to him; he told Jewel and Finch that Rath thought the original buildings on some of these roads had been taller than Avantari , the palace of Kings. Taller, he added, than the Cathedrals. But wider. The bridges that had fallen had crossed from the heights of one structure to another.
Thinking about the number of steps you’d have to climb several times a day just to reach those heights made Jewel sneeze. She wondered if that’s where the poorest of the people lived, way back. She’d asked Rath once and he’d laughed, which had set her teeth on edge. She’d been younger.
“No, Jay,” he’d replied, using her preferred name the way he generally did when other members of the den were present. “I think we can safely assume that only the very, very wealthy, and the very, very powerful, lived at the heights of this city.”
“But why? They want to run up and down a mile’s worth of stairs every single time they need water or food?”
“I imagine,” he replied dryly, “that they would pay other people money to do it for them.”
“They’d have to come down sometime.”
“Oh, indeed. But I think that’s where the bridges would have been useful, or even necessary.”
“How do you even know they’re bridges?”
“I don’t. But the maps that you found suggest levels to the city; they would either have to descend into basements, or climb. And some of the fallen stone is not architecturally consistent with the style of the facades of actual buildings. In my explorations,” he added, which Jewel knew far outstripped her own, even three years later, “I’ve found nothing to suggest that basements were used as a tunnel system.
“There was wealth, in this city,” he added softly, “and power. Never doubt that there was power.”
Power enough, apparently, to build huge stone bridges that collapsed across buildings and roads, making them completely impassable. Jewel swore that if she ever possessed that elusive thing called power, she was not going to waste it on something so stupid.
“And what, then, would you waste it on?” Rath had asked, that annoying half smile on his face. It wasn’t a smirk, or she wouldn’t have answered.
“A bigger place for us,” she replied. “Food. Clothing.”
“Haval’s expensive clothing?”
“No, real clothing. And good boots. And better daggers. Oh! And magestones. For everyone. And solarii for Farmer Hanson. And—”
He lifted a hand. “Enough, Jay. Enough. One day, you’ll have those things, and you might—just might—be required to waste money on the things you don’t want and think you don’t need.”
“Why?”
“Because to others, it will signify power. Your power,” he added. “And they will therefore treat you with more care.”
“Or try to kill you,” Teller added.
They both turned to look at him. “Well,” he added, “that’s what always happens in your books.”
Rath’s smile had faded, although his expression hadn’t changed. “Yes,” he’d said softly.
Jewel avoided fallen bridges. She’d traveled to the center of this city often enough that she knew how to jog around the wide, main streets where the roads vanished beneath the weight of too many kinds of rock.
“There’s more stone than there used to be here,” Teller said quietly, when they’d made their second detour.
Jewel looked at the road. She couldn’t see any difference. But she didn’t want to see one either, and his words settled into her stomach like bad meat. “You’re sure?”
He nodded. “And the cracks are wider in places as well.”
Lefty snorted. “Tell me about it.” And then fell silent. Lander touched his shoulder and Lefty looked automatically at his hands. The hands were still. After another quiet pause, Lefty nodded at Lander.
It reminded Jewel—as if she needed a reminder—why she loved these people. She smacked Lefty on the back of the head. “Let’s go,” she told him.
They reached the center of the city. It was obvious in part because the roads seemed to converge to meet here, and in part because of the statue. Well, what remained of a statue. Its base was large enough that the whole den could line up against one of its square sides, end to end, with plenty of room to the right and left. The statue’s lower torso and legs were still attached to the base; Jewel had no idea how tall they were because they couldn’t really climb the statue’s base without a lot of effort; it was just too damn tall.
The remains of the upper half of the statue lay strewn along the ground for some distance. They examined every single piece, hoping for some gold leaf or gems they could pick out, but had no luck.
Mixed in with the slabs and chunks of broken stone was always a smattering of glass; it caught
light, and the reflections glittered across the surface of otherwise dim and solid ground, hinting at riches and delivering small wounds, instead.
Teller looked at Jewel, and Jewel caught herself before she could shrug. People were tentative, now, and that was fair—she had to resist the urge to count them every time they stopped moving.
“Let’s head this way.” She started walking. Teller fell in to her right, and Finch to her left; Lander, Lefty, and Jester walked behind. Footsteps were like heartbeats, constant, steady, and slow. Where rock lay in their path, those steps stopped and shifted as the light shifted. Here and there, Jewel stopped when something glinted on the ground ahead. Glass or no, they couldn’t afford not to look.
Whole days had been spent in this rhythm, hours in the darkness while streetside the sun slowly sank; whole days of work, knees against rubble and feet against rock, backs bent to move larger pieces to one side or the other. There was swearing because, inevitably, someone failed to move those larger pieces far enough to one side, and there was muted laughter or chuckling. Even Lander talked while they worked.
The den fanned out around the radius of light, kneeling, standing, moving a foot or two every few minutes, working carefully and deliberately.
“That’s my spot.”
“I was here first.”
Jewel grimaced, but the grimace relaxed into a smile. She knew who’d spoken, but it didn’t matter; echoes of the voices of every single one of her den could be heard in those words if you knew how to listen. She let them scuffle; as long as there was no actual shoving, it didn’t matter.
They moved when she called a halt, heading slowly down the road. Most of the streets closest to the city center were covered in rubble. But not all; when the streets became smooth again, they could see facades of old buildings, most of which vanished because the light cast by the magestone couldn’t chase them that far.
Buildings were often tricky, but this close to the center, the floors could generally be trusted not to buckle. Jewel whispered the light up, and walked, slowly, toward the nearest one.
It was fronted, as so many of them were, by the frame—the stone frame—of a door. Standing to either side of that frame, were statues. They were only as tall as Arann in height, which was taller than anyone present, and they stood on small, square pedestals. Teller walked closer to one, and reaching out, touched the cracks that had appeared in the rigid drape of long robes.
“You think this was a temple?” he asked quietly. He glanced at the face of the statue; it was a woman’s face, her hair bound above her head. She looked neither down nor up, but instead, off into the distance, her expression the serene, empty expression of stone. Her arms were at her sides—the gown was sleeveless—and her palms were turned toward the den.
“I don’t know. It’s not the first place I’ve seen statues, but most of the outdoor ones are broken.”
He nodded, and reached out to place his palm across her left hand.
Jewel caught his wrist before stone and skin made contact; he froze at once. This wasn’t den-sign, but it was visceral.
“Jay?” Finch asked.
“Don’t touch them,” she said quietly.
Teller lowered his hand without flinching. “Magic?” he asked her.
“Maybe. I can’t tell if it’s the stone or the magelight, but there’s something orange around her hands. I don’t think it was there before you approached her.” She no longer asked if the den saw what she saw; she knew. “Let’s skip this one.”
They nodded and withdrew, following Jay, although Teller cast a backward glance at the statue. They had always fascinated him; they were evidence of those who had long since abandoned this city, one way or the other. Carver had pointed out that everything was evidence—the buildings, the streets, the big damn piles of rubble—but Jewel understood why it wasn’t the same. Carver didn’t.
Carver wasn’t here.
“Come on,” she said. “There’s another quarry ahead.” It wasn’t really a quarry, but that’s what they often called the largest of the debris piles.
It had started so well.
She’d been so nervous, heading back into the darkness that had devoured Fisher whole. They had come down the chute so carefully, it almost felt like the first time—but the first time, she’d had Rath, and he knew the undercity.
She could remember that day so clearly, on this one. The first time she had touched the walls of the tunnels. The first time she had seen the stone walks that Rath said were probably the remnants of an old cloister or a courtyard. The Stone Garden. She didn’t walk that path on the last day she would ever see the undercity.
She walked a path less traveled.
Her den was around her, or all of it that wasn’t streetside, looking, in their own ways, for money. She watched them as she worked, moving stone with her feet while she held the magestone aloft. She heard their grunts, their whispers, the grind of stone against stone as they braced themselves on things that wouldn’t quite bear their weight. She heard their calls for light, or for more light, and responded with the ease of long practice.
She felt, for a moment, at home again. This place had been theirs, and some part of it still was.
And she should have known, then.
She should have remembered that home is something to strive for, but nothing to rely on. Hadn’t her mother, her Oma, and her father, gone, one person at a time, taking warmth and sound with them? In their wake, the familiar rooms, the old crates, even the walls, had moved beyond her, while she was standing in place. She should have known.
But she’d had warning, then, hadn’t she?
Her mother’s illness, her cough, her pale, sallow skin, her voice, harsh and quiet at the same time. Her Oma, in winter, still struggling to light her pipe, to sit in her chair, to be of use in the last hours remaining to them. And her father, who listened to responsibility and duty—who listened to his fear, for her, and for himself, in a city bereft of any other family.
She should have known.
Never trust the gods. Never trust a gift. Never trust a curse.
They worked, in the darkness. They chattered. They argued. They came up empty, but that had happened before, and when Jewel called a halt, they stretched, brushed stone dust off their clothing, and made their way to the exit, following the light she held. It took less time to leave than it had to find a site to search, but that was normal, too.
“We’ll come back tomorrow,” she told them, as they left the larger walks for the small tunnels and crawl spaces that led streetside.
She was wrong.
The tunnels narrowed. They always did, this close to the streets. The den walked single file, their words bouncing off cool stone, their hands brushing the same surface. Teller and Finch passed ahead of her so that the light could remain somewhere in the middle of the moving line.
But the light stopped as she did, shifting slightly as she turned to look back at the other three.
Lander. Jester. Lefty.
She forgot to breathe.
Lander. Jester.
They saw her face, her chin brightest because it was closest to the source of light. Everyone looked pale, in that light.
Jester saw her expression, and Jester turned first. Lander almost ran into her. But he saw what Jester had seen, and he turned as well.
No one was following them.
Her hand closed in a red fist. Jester and Lander flattened themselves against the nearest wall as she walked past them, smothering the light they all needed. She was breathing; she must have been breathing. But she couldn’t feel air pass her lips. She couldn’t feel anything except the silence. Not even her boots against cracked stone made enough noise to reach her ears. She walked, following the tunnel, aware, peripherally, of when it fell away and she stood on the border of the actual city proper.
Standing there, in the windless, sunless silence, she forced her fingers to uncurl. Light, then. Small, diffuse, insignificant light. All the shadows it might have ca
st were absorbed by the shadows that lived here.
She was dreaming. She must have been dreaming. And in the dream she could see, laid out against the impenetrable darkness of the undercity’s sky, familiar ghosts: Lightning. The pause of storm. Thunder.
There were no clouds, here. No rain. No flash of the light that both illuminated and terrified. No sound at all.
No warning.
They came, then.
Finch. Teller. Jester. Lander.
They didn’t touch her. They didn’t speak. They stood almost as she was standing. Minutes passed. Jewel might have been a statue, much like the one she had told Teller not to touch, her arms locked in the habitual position that kept the magelight exposed. She couldn’t breathe.
She didn’t want to breathe.
Because if she did, if she could, she would have to talk.
And she knew, at this moment, in this darkness, that to get to words, she would have to get past what waited for breath, first: a scream. And if she started, here, it might never stop. It might go on and on and on, swallowing her words forever.
7th of Maran, 410 AA Twenty-fifth holding, Averalaan
She screamed in the silence, waiting. In the apartment, sitting in her chair, the table flat beneath her forearms, her hair in her eyes. Shoulders slumped but tense, jaw locked. Waiting.
They had asked. She didn’t remember the exact words because she didn’t want to remember them. Lander had started forward into the darkness. Jewel had grabbed his shoulder, pulling him back. No words left her lips, but she lifted one hand, den-sign. No.
So many things she would never forget, and he added a new one: his face. His expression.
Lander, who loved sign, had picked up words instead, and they were wild, heavy words, carrying sudden and unexpected emotion into familiar channels: Confusion. Anger. Fear.
He had shouted at her, and she had stood, like stone, in the rain of words, watching him, pale, his body shaking with too many things. And still, one-handed, she signed, no.
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