The Eighth Warden Bk. 03 Ch. 23-24

Boktar nodded. "We'll leave Nedley here, then, to watch over the animals."

"And the rest of us can explore Tir Yadar," Ellerie said.

#

"More living quarters," Katrin said, glancing through the rooms. She'd decided to accompany the group exploring the city, at least for one day. Shavala had agreed to take her place back at the camp to help Razai keep watch.

The quarters were similar to the ones in Tir Navis, though not as grimy. Being a level above the ground floor had prevented any flooding. There was plenty of dust, though. Katrin sneezed.

"It seems like the family-sized ones are farther away from the promenade and the smaller ones are closer," Treya said.

"Maybe they didn't want children running around the walkways."

Corec joined them. "I found a frying pan in the other room," he said, showing it to them. "I wouldn't want to use it, though. It's rusted almost completely through."

"Then they cooked in here after all?" Treya asked. "Where? There's no chimney."

"You know the countertop that's part stone and part metal? I wiped all the dust off the metal part and there are two circles on it. They remind me of the burner lids on an iron cookstove, though I didn't see any way to open them. No firebox or oven either."

"How would it work without a firebox?" Katrin asked.

"I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong, and the frying pan came from somewhere else. But that's all I found. Did you two see anything interesting?"

"No. It's just as empty as the rest."

"Then I think we've seen enough down this hall, at least for now. Let's go find the others." As the day had progressed without any sign of danger, Corec and Ellerie had eventually decided it was all right to split into two groups to cover more ground.

The three of them followed the corridor back to the main junction, and then made a right turn which took them back to the main promenade overlooking the cavern. Corec added the frying pan to the small pile of objects they'd been collecting.

They only had to wait for a few minutes before Ellerie, Bobo, Sarette, and Leena joined them.

Bobo set a broken ceramic plate down near the frying pan. "There's not much left behind," he said. "You'd think there'd be more, even if most things would have rotted away. Either the people took everything with them when they left, or someone else has already hauled away anything of value."

"What about the zombies?" Treya asked. "They'd have stopped anyone else who came here. That must be what killed the other group we found."

"Perhaps the zombies came later, after the place had been emptied."

"Marco will be disappointed there's no treasure," Ellerie said with a wry grin.

"Not necessarily," Bobo said, picking up the frying pan to examine it. "I still know some buyers who'd be interested in this sort of thing as long as we can prove where it all came from. If we scour the whole place, I bet we could pay back the investors, at least."

Ellerie shook her head. "I'm not going to spend weeks here going through empty rooms. If Marco wants to, that's up to him, but I want to explore and map out the rest of the city. We'll check the other levels just to see if they're the same, but then I want to start looking down those tunnels."

"A good point," Bobo said. "Our book will be rather boring if it primarily consists of our attempts to find buttons and belt buckles."

Ellerie laughed. "Hopefully we can manage something more interesting than that."

"What do you suppose they needed this much open space for?" Corec asked, peering down over the railing into the darkness of the oval cavern. "The living quarters are packed in tight, but then they left a huge gap in the middle."

"I think it was a plaza," Katrin said. "An open-air market. Well, not open-air, I suppose, but you know what I mean."

"That makes sense," Ellerie said. "A common area that everyone shared. It would explain why we haven't seen anything that looks like a shop."

"Could they see in the dark?" Bobo asked. "Or did they have some way to light the whole thing up?"

"Maybe something like this," Katrin said. She sang a series of scales, and suddenly, in her head, she could see a vision of the massive chamber completely lit with mage lights, nearly as bright as day. People—Katrin used humans as her models—walked in small groups around the second-level promenade, while below them, a huge bazaar stretched out, with merchants hawking their wares from stalls.

Parts of the vision were hazy and almost dreamlike since she'd never practiced it before, but Katrin had been imagining the sight all day as she wandered through the ruins, wondering if she could turn her ideas about the place into a song.

Visions from bardic magic were similar to a thought or a memory. They didn't replace what someone saw through their own eyes, but if Katrin closed hers, it was almost as if the illusion was overlaying the chamber.

"Oh!" Ellerie exclaimed. "That's incredible! I didn't know you could do that."

Katrin nodded at her, allowing the song to fade. "That's all I've got for now, but I can add more later."

"Thank you," Ellerie said. "How did you come up with that?"

The elven woman had tried to make peace with Katrin several times, and maybe there wasn't any point in continuing to hold a grudge. Katrin had resented the idea of some noble laughing at everyone else behind their backs during the months she'd kept her identity secret, but Ellerie didn't really act any differently now than she had before. In fact, she'd become easier to live with over time. Slightly easier, at least—she was still Ellerie.

"It's just what I thought about when I saw it," Katrin said. "I hadn't considered that they might be able to see in the dark."

"I like your idea better," Bobo said.

Ellerie nodded. "I don't understand why the Ancients would leave a place like this," she said. "It's still in good shape even now, despite its age."

"I think you already answered that question," Bobo said. "If the barrens were perfectly round at one time, and Tir Yadar was in the exact center ..." He paused and waited expectantly.

"Then the barrens aren't natural. Something caused them."

"Exactly. Something happened to the land, and once it became worthless, they moved on."

"The Burning," Corec suggested. "Nobody knows what it is, but if there were once forests here, maybe they burned down? Hildra thinks the word might have been used literally."

Bobo said, "We're talking about thousands of years of history. Just because it's something we've heard of doesn't necessarily mean that it happened at the same time as something else we've heard of."

"It's a coincidence, but it still seems logical," Ellerie said. "The First claimed that the people who created the wardens scattered after the Burning, right?"

Corec nodded. "Something like that, yes."

"And we suspect it was the Ancients who created the wardens. Abandoning Tir Yadar could certainly be considered scattering. Bobo, you already suggested they left because the land grew barren."

"I suppose. Yes. That doesn't mean it was an actual fire, though."

"No," Ellerie said. "A forest fire would have promoted new growth, not killed everything for centuries. Why didn't anything grow back?"

Bobo shrugged. "We may never know the answer."

#

"Miss Ellerie, Corec said to tell you that the supply wagons are almost here."

"Thank you, Nedley."

The boy hesitated. "Umm, Ellerie?"

"Yes?"

"Can I go in and see what's inside the mountain?" he asked in a rush.

"Not by yourself—it's too dangerous—but if you can convince someone to take care of the animals for a day, you can come in with us on our next trip."

Nedley bobbed his head up and down. "I'll ask! Thank you!"

He left, and Ellerie turned her attention back to Bobo. "Do you think the northern colonnade and the western colonnade are at the same elevation?" she asked, staring down at the pages of the multi-level map the two of them had been carefully constructing.

"It seemed like it, but they must be at least a third of a mile apart. It could have changed gradually and we wouldn't have noticed."

They'd discovered two separate tunnels leading to a colonnade chamber on the north side of the mountain that was similar in size and structure to the one they'd already found, though the northern colonnade only had five levels of living quarters rather than seven. In both cases, the quarters at the top level had been larger, and seemed likely to have been more opulent at one time. They'd even found a few small metallic etchings made from the Ancients' special metal. The artwork had gotten Marco excited enough that he'd stopped trying to figure out a way to haul the statues back to Tyrsall.

Ellerie nodded. "I'm going to leave it on the same level for the map. What about the tunnel you found below it?"

"I think that was an aqueduct," Bobo said. "There's no water now, but there was a channel running through the middle, and I saw what I believe were pieces of ceramic piping."

"Did you take measurements?"

"No. I didn't want to be away from the group for too long. I figured I can go back in later with more people if we decide we need to map out the aqueducts. It would take a long time."

Ellerie sighed. "We could spend years here and not learn everything."

"Something tells me Varsin and Burton aren't going to pay for that."

"I suppose not. We really need to spend more time exploring the south section. If we're going to find anything interesting, that seems like the spot."

Instead of another colonnade, the south side of the mountain was a maze of odd rooms and structures. Some areas seemed designed for storage, such as several rows of cylindrical towers that Corec insisted were grain silos, while others were unfamiliar. There was a huge chamber which appeared to have been designed for metal smithing, but there hadn't been any obvious way to light a fire in the forges.

Bobo said, "I want to find a way through those sealed tunnels too. Why were they sealed? Where do they go?"

Situated between the two colonnades and the southern section, roughly in the center of the mountain, there was a busy junction where numerous tunnels came together. The largest of them led north, west, and south. There was a similar indentation to the east, but it was sealed off with the same stone-like substance the other walls were made of. There were also several ramps leading up and one going down. One of the upper ramps led to a viewing platform overlooking the junction, while the others they'd investigated so far had led to the upper colonnade levels. The ramp that led down became a tunnel which came to an unexpected end shortly after it began. The ceiling, walls, and floor appeared to have melted together.

"Well, we can't go east from the northern colonnade. I think our best bet to find a way east is by searching the southern section. We might find another downward tunnel there, too."

Boktar strode over to them, pulling off his gauntlets and tossing them aside. "The farmboys can empty the wagons. I'm exhausted."

"How did it go?"

"Fine, but Josip and I had made it three days south before we saw rain clouds in the distance and realized we should have brought Sarette."

"Oh!" Ellerie said. "I didn't think of that. I take it you didn't have any problems?"

"Not this time—it was just rain, not a lightning storm—but if you want me to make another trip, I'll need her along."

Ellerie pondered that. "We're not really protected from lightning here, either. I suppose we can move the camp back to the town site. Some of the buildings there still had roofs." The walk back and forth would be inconvenient, but inconvenience was better than death, or risking the loss of a supply wagon.

"Not inside the mountain?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so. There haven't been any more attacks, but it gets too oppressive being below ground all the time. I don't know how your people do it. Sarette won't mind going with you—she says being under the mountain makes her dizzy. The farther in we go, the worse she gets."

Marco approached the group. "Any problems?"

"No, but we used up all the coin you sent, and then some," Boktar said. "You owe me fifty-five silver."

Marco frowned. "On top of the deposit Leena already paid?"

"Yes. I made sure to stock up while we were there."

The factor shook his head. "I didn't consider that we'd be paying for all the feed for the drivers' mules here and back. I'll need Leena to deposit another letter of credit in Aencyr."

"I'll ask her," Ellerie said.

"Five wagons. That'll get us ten more days, right?"

"Let's call it eight days," Boktar said. "We need to give the mules a break before we head back, and they'll have to eat while they're here. Besides, I want to see this underground city."

"Eight days won't leave enough time to make another trip to Livadi and back, will it?" Marco asked.

"No, but neither would ten," Boktar said. "I had to change the plan to make the logistics work. We'll meet Josip's friend Lufton on the way back. He's bringing three more wagons to keep us going until this group has time to get there and back. I tried to get five, but there just weren't that many available and willing."

"Wait—you already paid for the next three wagons? Drivers, mules, and supplies?"

"Yep," Boktar answered with a grin.

Marco broke into a smile. "Well, then, I guess I don't mind the fifty-five silver after all. Have you ever considered a career with the Senshall Trading Company?"