Beyond the Pool of Stars

by Howard Andrew Jones

  Mirian offered a faint smile. “So I’m old and slow, eh?”

  Jekka cocked his head to one side. “I do not understand.”

  “She’s just having fun with you,” Ivrian explained. “Because you wished her the speed of her youth.”

  “That is the wording of the prayer,” Jekka explained quickly. “I meant no insult.”

  “It’s all right, Jekka. No insult taken. Ivrian’s right.”

  “So that was mockery?” Jekka said.

  “Teasing,” Ivrian said. “Not at all the same as mockery.”

  “Explain.”

  She held off sighing. She really wanted to get started. “It’s something friends do. Although teasing can be cruel as well, like poking a stick at a tethered animal.” She threw up her hands. “It might take a lifetime to explain our differences, and mine might be really short. But I didn’t mean it as mockery, Jekka. It was a sign of good fellowship, as your prayer was to me. I thank you.”

  He bobbed his head once more.

  “Now get back there.” She thumbed over her shoulder.

  “Yes. Of course.” Jekka sounded troubled, but he withdrew, feet splashing through the thin film of water.

  She looked back at them a final time. Jekka held tight to his weapon. Ivrian waited beside the pool as if he meant to fling himself toward her rather than jump to safety at the first sign of trouble.

  “Look,” she said, “there’s no point in my risking myself if you two aren’t ready to drop into the water. And you damned well ought to be keeping sentry anyway, Ivrian. Isn’t that your job?”

  He turned, reddening. Jekka’s position didn’t change at all.

  Mirian pivoted and considered the faces one final time, running the sequence through her head. How had she gotten here, again? And how stupid was this? By all rights shouldn’t Alderra or her brother be doing this?

  She sighed and put a hand to the first face. She whispered a prayer to Desna and her ancestors, and pushed.

  The face sank halfway in with a gentle rumbling. Mirian moved quickly to the next, down on the left, and so on. The green glow she’d rubbed on the faces was fading, but she could still see the way.

  Each one sank in as she thrust carefully with her palm. So far there’d been no ominous clunk or sound of gears. She arrived at the seventh face, right in the middle, then leaned down for the eighth face, one row over on the very bottom, and then finally the ninth, two faces over from the one in the middle.

  It sank in.

  And nothing happened.

  Mirian stood on the balls of her feet, eyes shifting over the wall. Had she missed one? Done something out of sequence?

  “Maybe you should get back,” Ivrian suggested.

  Then the floor gave way beneath her, and she and the water and the bones all slid down into darkness.

  19

  The Chamber of Ancestors

  Ivrian

  Splendors lay to right and left, wonders the likes of which I’d never seen, nor even dreamed. But as my eyes shifted from one glittering marvel to another, I knew a sense of foreboding. Little did I know of the cunning, hungry thing that had lain in wait for countless years …

  —From The Daughter of the Mist

  One second Mirian was standing in front of the wall of faces. The next she’d plunged out of sight with a little cry of surprise and a thump as her body hit something hard. There was a splash and rattle as the water and bones cascaded after her.

  For all that he’d been told to dive the moment a trap opened, Ivrian’s first reaction was to race after Mirian. Quick as he was, Jekka arrived ahead of him.

  Maybe it wasn’t a trap, Ivrian saw, even as Jekka dropped down the newly slanted flooring. Runoff from the accumulated water in the passage trickled after him. As Ivrian reached the edge of the ramp, he saw Mirian picking herself up from a stone floor ten or twelve feet below. This surely wasn’t the end that had come to the previous explorers, or else their bones wouldn’t have littered the entryway.

  It might be, Ivrian thought, some other kind of trap. He lowered himself onto the watery slide and dropped after the others, twisting his feet at the last moment so he just missed knocking down Jekka.

  He stood, grinning. “That was sort of fun.”

  “You should have stayed up top,” Mirian grumbled, fumbling through the bags hung along her belt. The place was completely dark apart from the light drifting in from the hall above, but there was no missing her expression as she turned to address Jekka. “And it would have been nice if your brother had mentioned the floor was going to drop in.”

  “I don’t think he knew.”

  “Funny what information was passed down and what wasn’t.”

  Ivrian tried not to grin.

  Mirian produced the glow stone. The light caught upon the reflected glow of a crystalline object: a sculpture of a lizard head, Ivrian recognized, just as the light roved on.

  Once he had his own glow stone working, it became clear they were in a round room the size of a small auditorium, lined with shelving. Half of it was given over to display, the other lined with tables covered in dust-draped metal tools. He walked among the tables examining the implements. Those, surely, were pliers, and that a hammer, but he couldn’t for the life of him determine what that spiral tool with the sharp edge was for.

  “Was this a workshop?” Ivrian asked.

  Jekka’s attention was focused elsewhere. “I do not know.” The lizard man strode carefully through the room, his feet near soundless on the moist floor. He peered into every dark crevice.

  Ivrian felt less concern. There was an air here of safety. As he swung his glow stone about, he could imagine the ancient lizardfolk sitting at the high benches beside the tables. On the curving wall behind were raw supplies: a riot of gems and colorful minerals in sagging, time-eaten wicker baskets. On the wall opposite were finished works. He heard Mirian muttering in astonishment.

  “It’s everything Heltan promised,” Ivrian breathed. Container after container of gemstones of every color. He followed the circle of the wall to where Mirian marveled at a sculpture in blue marble shot through with strands of gray veins. It portrayed a sinuous serpent with sharp teeth and vestigial legs that flowed out behind it.

  “Do you know,” Ivrian said, “my mother’s been afraid all along that there wouldn’t really be much here. But there’s too much. How do we even choose?”

  While Jekka patrolled the shelves, Mirian walked slowly beside other carvings. Here was a row of twelve lizardfolk heads, each seemingly carved from solid ruby.

  “Look at the workmanship,” she breathed. She picked one up gingerly and almost dropped it as the thing suddenly coughed at her. At that noise, all the long line of them let out the same sound: the laughter of the lizardfolk echoing through the empty chamber.

  Mirian held it at arm’s length, apparently concerned the strange object might do something else. But after a few moments the sound ceased, and that made by the others died out as well.

  She glanced back to Jekka, who was poised as if to spring to action. “What is this for?”

  “I do not know, Mirian.” His voice was heavy with melancholy. “Perhaps my brother will. I wish he had come. He scours the dry words of my people, but here he could look upon the work of their hands and come to know them.”

  Ivrian said, “We should leave most of this so that, when your clan revives, your children can come to see what their ancestors were capable of.”

  “You are more hopeful for my kind than I am,” Jekka said.

  “Isn’t it possible your brother’s right?” Ivrian asked. “That some other branch of your people is still alive, and he’s going to learn their whereabouts?”

  “Anything is possible. But many things are unlikely.”

  “Let’s stay focused on the mission,” Mirian said. “I want to gather these heads and the gems that are already cut. I think that marble sea drake sculpture might be portable, if we wrap it right. A lot of these other pieces are go
ing to be damaged, though. Too many delicate parts.”

  Ivrian concurred. It was hard to imagine carting some of the more intricate carvings along with them, like that beautiful tropical bird sitting in a nearby alcove. Claws, beak, and finely detailed feathers could all be broken or damaged.

  “The government probably won’t be as interested in art, anyway,” Ivrian said. “Those are of negotiable value. The Free Captains want gold.”

  “Probably true. But I’m taking these little heads anyway.”

  Mirian wrapped each one individually in a wealth of rags she’d stuffed in her haversack. Ivrian, meanwhile, packed up the worth of several small cities in cut rubies and emeralds. Though Mirian worked with care, every now and then she’d accidentally activate one of the heads and its laugh would set his skin crawling.

  Jekka wordlessly handed over his own empty pack to Mirian and continued to patrol, although Ivrian thought it more of a tour now, for it seemed the area was secure.

  “Jekka,” Mirian said, “is there anything here you think your brother or cousin would want?”

  The lizard man paused, his back to them, still as the white marble statue of a hooded lizardfolk head he faced. “No.”

  “And you?” Mirian asked.

  Jekka half turned, speaking to them in profile. “I wonder if one day some remnant of your folk will guide some other race to the ruins of Eleder, and a human will stand contemplating lost greatness and wondering what went wrong.” He turned the rest of the way to face her and spoke with finality. “No. The memory of this place is enough.”

  Ivrian gaped at Jekka. The savage lizard man was a philosopher. He’d never have guessed.

  They filled the haversacks to their brims. Magical as they were, each continued to weigh no more than five pounds, just as they had when mostly empty. Plentiful riches remained, but there was nothing more to transport them in.

  “We’d best get moving,” Mirian said. “I wish we’d asked your brother how to seal this place.”

  “We’ll be back, though, won’t we?” Ivrian asked.

  “We might,” Mirian said. “We have more than what we came for, though. And I imagine Heltan’s going to want to cart a few of the book cones.”

  “Mother’s letting him borrow a bag like these haversacks,” Ivrian said. “It’s a little heavier and harder to carry, but it will also hold a lot more.”

  “Huh. I wonder if it’ll have room for our supplies. Why didn’t she mention it before?”

  “Probably so we wouldn’t stuff it with our supplies,” Ivrian said. He wondered how he was going to carry his writing desk. There was certainly no room for it in his haversack now.

  Climbing up the thick stone ramp proved more challenging than sliding down until Jekka noticed the narrow steps carved into the stone on the ramp’s right side. He led the way up, and Ivrian followed. Mirian came last. As she stepped to the narrow ledge on one side of the ramp, it was already returning to its closed position.

  “How did the floor know to do that?” Ivrian wondered aloud.

  Mirian shrugged. “Magic, most likely.”

  “Oh. Right.” Ivrian was filled with giddy excitement. That room, and the treasures it carried, just about guaranteed a bestselling leaflet or two, depending on how long he stretched out the account of their adventure.

  As he dropped after the others into the flooded corridor, he began to wonder, though. If he did tell the story, wouldn’t he have to change things around a little? Especially if he wanted to preserve the rest of those treasures? Maybe he could set the lost ruin to the south, in the Laughing Jungle, or somewhere else.

  His mind awash with the possibilities, it took him a moment or two to notice that faint vibration again. A thrumming. Jekka and Mirian looked to right and left as they reached a corridor. Mirian dug out her wand. He heard her talking, faintly, in the water, and swam closer to see if he could understand.

  “—large.” Jekka answered, and said something about moving faster, which sounded good to Ivrian, except that Jekka and Mirian immediately surged ahead and he had no way to keep up. He kicked vigorously, but he didn’t have Mirian’s extra ring or Jekka’s powerful tail, just his legs with the magical fins. Thrash as he might, his speed didn’t increase.

  They reached the circular opening to the upper water tunnels. Mirian floated by the rim, waving at him impatiently to hurry.

  He shouted to tell her that he was hurrying, but that’s when he saw something from the corner of his eye and wasted a moment turning to look.

  In the far distance, a large creature sped along that glowing green passage.

  Straight toward him.

  20

  The Thing in the Depths

  Mirian

  Mirian knew a sea drake when she saw one, even if she was stunned to find one this far inland. The blue-green water dragon’s undulations stirred the seaweed flourishing on the floor of the lower tube. Its maw seemed tens of feet wide, open in a laughing expression. Its winglike fins and whipping tail produced that thrumming they’d been hearing.

  She’d been chased by one of the damned things when she was a teenager. Only Rendak and her father’s daring distractions had gotten her free. She and the two adults had spent the better part of six hours holed up near the beast as it alternately blasted with its electrical breath or slapped on the sunken hulk with its tail to try to panic them into flight.

  She screamed at Ivrian to go, but it seemed an eternity before he was finally into the waters of the upper tunnel.

  Jekka had swum up to the entrance to the dry corridors and waited, spear ready. As though a spear could stop a sea drake. It occurred to Mirian then that the ancient Karshnaar must have known of the thing, or they wouldn’t have carved the creature she carried in her pack.

  Mirian kicked down to the writer, grabbed him by the wrists, and added her momentum to his own, pulling him up to the rim. From below came the steady, wall-shaking drum of the sea drake.

  The drake sculpture in her pack was beautiful and sinuous. As the real creature pushed into the upper passage, she got a much closer look at head than she would have preferred: the spiny backward-pointing ridges on its skull, the glowing yellow eyes, the great mouth full of needlelike teeth, the fanlike frill waving from its jaw. A real sea drake was lovely in the way of a well-made knife.

  Mirian shoved Ivrian up into the hole and turned, wand leveled. She spoke the magic word.

  Nothing happened.

  The monster squeezed through the break between the two submerged tunnels, gaining speed as it got its winglike fins past.

  Mirian turned back to the surface, only to have two vise-like hands grab her shoulders.

  Jekka. As she leveraged herself up, coughing in agony—she’d forgotten to breathe out, damn it—he dragged her away from the pool’s surface.

  The drake head burst up, mouth agape, preparing its deadly electrical breath.

  From the other side of the water pit, Ivrian rose and drove a spear deep into its neck.

  There was no doubting the young man’s courage, that was certain.

  The drake gurgled in pain and dropped out of sight, slopping water over the circular rim. A moment later the floor rattled, and Mirian realized it had slammed its body into the tunnel floor.

  Still vomiting water, Mirian staggered to her feet and waved for Ivrian to get over to her side of the hallway. And then she realized he was facing the right direction, and it was she and Jekka who’d come up on the wrong side.

  “This way!” Ivrian shouted.

  “Mirian, hurry,” Jekka said.

  She needed no urging.

  The lizard man raced to the lip of the water and cleared it in a running leap. Mirian didn’t think she could do that, particularly while she was still coughing water. Instead, she stepped onto what had probably been a wide, safe ledge of stone the ancient lizardfolk had used to bypass the water. Except that the ledge was now slick with glowing green plant life. She was two-thirds of the way across when the shadow of th
e drake loomed below. Fear lent her the impetus for speed.

  She slipped as she ran, tumbling to the tiles just beyond the opening to the water. She skinned her hands on the stone and tore open her leggings. Ivrian stood above her, spear ready for another thrust.

  Behind her, the ledge erupted in a spray of stone and water. The drake had broken the walkway, widening the hole.

  Mirian scrambled to her feet. “Go!” She imagined the drake’s lightning blasting through the young man.

  The floor shook beneath them, and for the first time Mirian wondered about the structural integrity of the lizardfolk tunnels.

  She ran, her allies racing with her. The corner they needed was fifty feet on, twenty—

  Suddenly there was a roar from behind, then a burst of light and a lance of pain. She dropped to the flagstones beside Ivrian, her body shaking spasmodically.

  “Mirian!” Jekka shouted.

  The pain tingled through every limb. She forced herself up, knowing the sea drake could spit lightning again soon. Jekka took her arm and helped her forward.

  Ivrian lay motionless in the hall, a jagged black mark blasted through his shirt. The smell of burned flesh nearly made her gag. He must have been the target, with the drake’s lightning playing off any other living thing in range. That’s how their attacks worked; she’d witnessed the creature that had hunted her younger self killing scores of fish while it waited for her and Rendak and her father to emerge from hiding.

  Jekka seemed unharmed.

  “Help me drag him,” she said.

  “You can barely move. And he may be dead.”

  “No one gets left behind,” Mirian snapped. She wobbled as she reached for Ivrian. Jekka was faster. He handed his staff to Mirian, grasped Ivrian by the arms, and began to drag, grunting with the effort.

  They hurried down the hall and ducked left, halting just past an intersection. Mirian undid the padded flap along her belt and pulled forth the healing potion. She knelt beside the wounded writer and propped up his head, forcing the liquid down his throat.

  He blinked and coughed, which meant he must not really have been dead. Expensive as these supplies were, they didn’t have that kind of muscle.