Page 126 of A Trade of Blood

“Because he needs to see it,” she said. “As do you.” She began to walk down the path and waved a hand about her. “Yet I shall tell you—it is a tomb, Din. But then, all the Empire is a tomb, and all of history. So much age, so much death. We live within tombs, within tombs, within tombs. The question is—how to find our way out?”

—

The seam wasno less unnerving than it had been the last time, even though on this foray we were at least somewhat certain the path ahead bore no combatants. Tauri led the way, thurible held high like a midnight adventurer peering into the mist. I kept my eyes fixed on his golden tresses, and tried to ignore the trembling of the leaves, the crackling of the branches, and most of all the strange, fractal angles of the pale boles.

Something Tauri had said weighed heavily in my mind now:Astrange thing, to be adrift in a creation wrought by a mind you cannot comprehend! It’s like studying a tapestry, and attempting to imagine the loom that made it, only for it to defy you.

My thoughts lingered on those words. So often the imperial past defied us. What would happen if, today, it did not, and welcomed us into its embrace?

After many leagues of trees and ruins and strange statues in the leaves, we returned to the fountain. Jalin Burav’s body still lay beside it, though now it moldered—yet not as swiftly as a corpse would in other environs. Perhaps the altered forest warded away more common rots. I spoke a prayer for him, and we continued north-northeast.

Just as Ana had said, within a half league we came to a large aperture dug in the ground, with a wooden ladder leading into its depths. We both stared at it as if it might leap up at us like an adder.

“It was here,” mused Tauri. “Just behind the bend of the hill! If we’d gone wandering, we’d surely have tripped on it.”

“Shall we climb down, sir?”

He made a move to do so, then paused and looked north-northeast. “This…this place. Is it coincidence?”

“Pardon?”

“Well, Din…if you were to draw a line straight from the well to the Touched Site, it…it would go right through here.”

There was a silence.

“Do we wish to continue?” I asked.

Tauri did not answer. He removed his half mask, slid on his warding helm, and fixed it atop his head. Then he raised his mai-lantern, stooped low, and climbed in. I put on my own warding helm and followed.

—

The tunnel wascramped and moist, so much so that soon my brow dripped with sweat and my shirt stuck to my back and chest. Worse was the ignorance of what was ahead: with Tauri climbing through before me, I could only see the flashing of his mai-lamp, the ribbed walls of the tunnel, and little else.

“Where are we going?” I whispered to Tauri. “You’ve a map in your mind, true?”

“Yes,” Tauri said reluctantly. “But I hope I am wrong.”

“Why?”

“Because…we are still bound north-northeast. This tunnel fed the fountain back there, once. I believe it caved in somewhere behind us, blocking its flow. But where it leads…” He shifted in the dark. “I think it shall take us to the Touched Site.”

“We’re goingintothat black plug in the ground? It’s madness to go there, surely?”

“Yes, but…Burilis Burav went there once, I think. And he lived. It must be safe. I can’t say—and won’t try to now. This darkness seems to demand quiet of me.”

I did not know how long we crawled and climbed and crept through the tunnel. For many leagues, perhaps dozens. Yet then Tauri slowed and sighed with awe. I heard him whisper, “It ends! But…but could it…”

He stepped forward, out into some greater space. I followed and squinted through the glass bulbs of my warding helm as he raised his mai-lantern.

A dark underground lake stretched out before us, easily two leagues in breadth. There was no sign of light other than the lamp in Tauri’s hand. I looked up and could barely make out stone statues arrayed above us, like holy beings keeping watch over sacred waters. Many bore cups; others, ewers, or ladles, or bowls. Their faces were obscured by dust and loose soil, and many were half submerged in the detritus of some old collapse above. I could not comprehend who could have made them, or why these sculptors had ever come to this place. My skin crawled, and a mad thought wormed into my mind:This was to be left for shadow, and no more.

Tauri pointed down. “The waters move.”

I looked and saw he was right: there was a ripple in the water, a faint swirling, as if something shifted about in them.

“Why do they move?” asked Tauri. “Are they fed by a stream? Or is something within it?”

We stepped back, worried some horrid creature might rise up and attack us—for, like all good imperials, we feared deep waters most of all. Yet none came, and the rhythm of the rippling continued, as if this lake was fed by a stream dribbling into the far end.