The Eighth Warden Bk. 02 Ch. 23-24

She closed her notebook. "You might as well say it."

"Say what?" Boktar asked. He'd made several circuits around the building, and was now peering through the open doorway.

"What you've been wanting to tell me for the past two days."

"Elle, I don't know what you're talking about." Was he smirking at her?

"Tell me how stupid I was for going to the Storm Heights in the winter! For insisting on coming here, even after they told us how dangerous it was! For thinking I could find something new even though the stormborn have been exploring and documenting this place for the past two hundred years! For thinking I could find anything when the whole damned place is covered in three feet of snow!"

"If you remember, I never argued against doing any of that."

Ellerie rubbed her temples. "Maybe you should have. Maybe I'd have even listened. I don't know what I thought we were going to accomplish here."

"Each step of the way was perfectly logical," Boktar said. "We knew it would be cold, but I've traveled in snow before. Not this much, I'll admit, but it's not a big deal. We heard the stormborn might know something, so we visited them. They knew the location of one of the old cities, so we came here. So what if it doesn't lead us to Tir Yadar? It's still one of the Ancients' cities, and one that nobody but the stormborn knew about before now."

"That's true, I suppose. And it's large enough that it's got to be one of the Tirs. I'm just mad at myself for not thinking things through. If we'd come in the summer, we'd actually be able to see the ruins. And we wouldn't have been attacked by snow beasts."

"We can still see some things. Like this one—it's got a roof, so it's not filled with snow. Do you want to go in?"

"We might as well."

"There aren't any windows. Could you light the lantern?"

Ellerie whispered the words to her mage light spell, trapping the light within the lantern Boktar carried. He went in first and she followed. The snow was over two feet deep outside the entrance, but it sloped down gradually inside, so she was able to walk through rather than hop down.

The building was empty, like every other structure she'd visited within the ruins. The stormborn had cleared out anything of note, carefully cataloging their finds back in Snow Crown. When she returned to the city, she planned to spend more time looking through their records.

Boktar held up the lantern so he could examine the wall's stonework. The structures that had survived seemed to be of two types. Some were made of large slabs of stone, somehow cut intact to form an entire wall or section, while others were constructed of carefully fitted blocks of stone, more uniform than modern stonemasons could manage, but still larger and less even than bricks.

The walls here were of the larger slabs. How did the Ancients find deposits of stone solid enough to cut such wide pieces? Was it even real stone? It looked real, and these particular walls appeared to be made of granite.

There was another room, but like the first, it was long, narrow, and windowless. It led to nowhere. What could this building have possibly been used for? Storage seemed like the only possibility, but why such an odd shape?

Ellerie had a sudden strange feeling, and quickly cast her arcane sight spell. As the veil fell over her vision, the stone floor below her feet lit up brightly.

"Don't come in here!" she shouted to Boktar.

"What's wrong?" he asked from the archway between the two rooms.

"I think I'm standing on a warded trap." How could a magic field still exist after thousands of years? The spell must have been cast before the secret of permanent enchantments was lost.

"Get out of there!"

"I don't know what it is! I don't know what'll happen if I move!"

"The stormborn have mapped this all out, haven't they? They must have been in there before, and come out safely."

"I don't know," Ellerie said. "Some wards only work on mages. I think I can banish it." She whispered the words to the banishing spell she'd learned during the trip north.

"Are you sure that's a good—"

The floor collapsed with a roar, and Ellerie fell with it. She landed hard amidst the rubble, fifteen feet below.

"Elle!" Boktar shouted. "Are you all right?" He was peering down into the opening, waving dust away from his face.

"It hurts," she managed to gasp out. "Something fell on my leg."

"I'll go get Treya and some rope! Stay there!"

Where did he think she was going to go?

#

"Lift it higher!" Tomas said.

Corec grunted, bringing his end of the log up to his chest. Then he cheated and cast his strength spell. He pushed the log up above his head and nudged it until it was centered over the log below it, then held it there while the man on the other end did the same thing.

"Now, add the braces!" Tomas called out, and two other men shoved smaller logs into place diagonally, with one end braced against the ground and the other holding the larger log up tight against the remains of the stone wall. The bracing beams were a short-term solution. The woodcutters had brought their axes with them, but they didn't have the chisels necessary to create well-fitted notched joints.

After Ellerie and Boktar had found the hot spring bathhouse, the refugees had decided to move closer, but the only building nearby suitable to hold the group was missing part of a wall. Now, with the new log barrier in place, the work was nearly done.

When Corec stepped back to take a look at the structure, he saw Shavala trudging in from the south, pulling an empty sled behind her.

"Can you handle the rest without me?" he asked Tomas.

"Sure. The boys already gathered pine boughs for the hole in the roof, and the rest of us can handle daubing in some mud to fill the gaps between the logs."

Corec nodded, then made his way to Shavala. "No luck?" he asked her.

"No, I don't think many deer stay in the mountains over the winter." There was a puzzled expression on her face. "Why are you building a wall? Aren't we leaving tomorrow?"

Corec sighed. "It turns out Sarette and Gregor were keeping secrets from us. There's a group of stormborn coming here in a few days with enough food for the folks from Jol's Brook. I guess we'll leave after that."

"Oh. Should I stop trying to hunt, then?"

"Well, the more food we can give the Jol's Brook people, the better off they'll be. There's nothing left back at their village. Even if they dig around in the ashes and find whatever coin they didn't manage to bring with them, they'll have to go farther than Elmsford to buy enough to last them through the whole winter."

"In that case, I found an entire clearing full of wild potatoes. I can show them where to dig."

"I thought potatoes froze and died in the winter," Corec said.

"These are buried deeper than usual, and there's three feet of snow above them. It kept the ground from freezing."

"Then how did you find them?"

"My elder senses aren't blocked by snow. Or soil. I usually need to see a plant with my eyes to know for sure what it is, but a tuber is a tuber. I dug down to find out what kind it was. I also saw some mushrooms, but I'll have to check with Gregor to see if they're safe to eat."

"Every bit helps. I'm sorry we keep saddling you with so much extra work."

Shavala shrugged. "I like getting out on my own. Is everyone moving over here?"

"Yes, it's closer to the hot springs. Katrin already carried your things over for you."

"I'll go find her."

Just then, Boktar came running. "Ellerie needs help! Where's Treya?"

#

When Ellerie opened her eyes next, Treya and Corec were kneeling over her.

"Can you move that big rock off her left leg?" Treya murmured.

Corec did as she asked, and Ellerie gasped as pain shot up her leg. Then it receded, Treya's hands glowing as she ran them over Ellerie's body.

"I thought Boktar was just getting Treya," Ellerie said, her mind still fuzzy as she tried to piece together what had happened. The room glowed from mage lights—her own and two more which must have come from Corec. There was a rope hanging over the ledge.

"She couldn't come down here alone," Corec said. "Boktar said he'd watch the rope from above, so you had a choice of me or Nedley. I chose me."

Ellerie laughed, then winced at the pain in her ribs. "Boktar's love of rope doesn't extend to climbing it. Thank you."

Treya moved her hands, and the tightness in Ellerie's chest relaxed. She took a deep breath and there was no pain.

"He said it was a trap?" Corec asked.

"No, it wasn't," Ellerie said. "I was an idiot. It was a spell designed to keep the floor from collapsing. I banished the spell, so, of course, it collapsed. With me standing on it."

"What is this place?" Treya asked, helping her to sit up.

Ellerie looked around. The cavern they were in was artificial, a tunnel constructed below the city. It continued east and west as far as the glow of the mage lights extended, parallel with the building above. Thirty feet to the east, there was a dark opening suggesting another branch leading north, and to the west, there were two metal doors along the south wall.

"Is it an old hot spring tunnel that isn't used anymore?" Corec asked.

"I don't see any channel for the water to flow through," Ellerie said. "I think it's part of the city."

"Is everything all right down there?" Boktar shouted from above.

"I'm fine!" she called back. "We're in a tunnel! I want to explore for a bit."

"Are you sure? It's getting late."

"Treya healed me. I just want to see how far this goes. Why don't you come down?"

"Uhh, I'll see if I can put together a rope ladder."

Ellerie snickered, then turned to her companions. "Do you two want to come?"