The labyrinth beneath Missing City was as old as Gal Tra’kalas itself. Deep beneath the city it formed a massive maze of chambers, interconnecting corridors, and puzzling dead ends. Its purpose was long forgotten, but its lofty tunnels still bore evidence of the skill and aesthetic taste of its creators. The tunnels were arched, and in many places the graceful lines of fan vaulting helped retain the strength and beauty of ceilings that were centuries old. At the intersections of major corridors, the lintels were carved to resemble tree trunks that rose and burst into leaf in stone relief over the doors.
Only Lanther, Linsha, and a few of the Legionnaires had been in the tunnels before. Anxious for the eggs, they pressed on, following their own faint trail. Whenever they came to a turn or an intersection that gave them doubts, Varia whispered directions in Linsha’s ear. The owl had a phenomenal memory for dark places.
The rest of the Legionnaires and centaurs hurried behind, their eyes wide with wonder and surprise. They had heard of Iyesta’s death in the labyrinth near her palace, of the midnight escape of a few trapped pockets of militia and Legionnaires out of the city through the tunnels, and of the battle with Thunder in the egg chamber. But they never imagined anything as spacious and well-crafted as these tunnels, nor a space so well preserved after hundreds years of neglect and abandonment.
In silence the party walked deeper and deeper into the maze, making turns to the left and right that Linsha never would have remembered on her own. As they penetrated farther into the labyrinth, they began to pay less attention to the walls around them and more to the floor and to the heavy darkness that pressed close. They were far in now and had seen only the traces of the earlier small groups. If the Tarmaks had truly carried the eggs into the great chamber in the center of the maze, there should have been some evidence of their passing.
True, Linsha thought, there were other entrances to the labyrinth and other tunnels that led toward the chamber, but she worried nonetheless and kept a close eye on the dusty floors of each tunnel they passed or entered.
She was so busy looking for tracks that she did not realize they were nearing the chamber until she heard someone behind her whisper, “What is that light?”
Linsha’s head jerked up. A pale gold light glowed through the pitch darkness from a turn in the tunnel ahead. It was still there!
But it looked different, and something else was gone. When she came the first time to the cave with Iyesta, she’d found the air in the egg chamber was rich and moist like the air in the woods around Solace. Now it was like the rest of the labyrinth—cool and dry and smelling just slightly of decay. The hair on her neck rose, and a warning went off in her head.
“They’re not there.” She said it so sharply that the centaurs jerked to a stop.
Linsha ran forward, nearly unseating the owl on her shoulder. She ignored the pain of Varia’s talons on her skin. She ignored Lanther’s shout of warning and the exclamations of the others. She charged toward the light with her heart in her throat. At the turn of the tunnel she raced into a chamber as grand and enormous as befitting a nest of dragon eggs, and she came to a skidding halt.
Her eyes took it all in—the withered corpse of the mother brass dragon against the far wall, the mound where they had buried Azurale, the decayed, beetle-chewed carcass of the blue dragonlord, Thunder, and finally, the ruined, trampled nest of sand where the egg had once lain. Varia flew from her shoulder and flapped in a circle over the nest, her voice sadly keening.
Linsha’s body stilled. Her nostrils flared. The warning in her head turned into a klaxon, and she knew without a doubt. Linsha wheeled.
“Go back!” she shouted to the others coming up behind her. “We’ve got to get out! It’s a trap!”
5
Race for the Door
Lanther grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop. “What do you mean? How do you know?”
“Look!” she said. Her hand pointed to the empty nest. “There are no eggs! They were just used to lure us down here. We’ve got to go!”
Tanefer trotted to her side, his bearded face locked in a frown. “Are you sure? Couldn’t the Tarmaks have placed the eggs somewhere else? This labyrinth is huge.”
Linsha didn’t want to argue. Every part of her mind screamed at her to leave as quickly as possible. But the centaurs and the Legionnaires milled around in confusion, staring at the dead dragons and talking among themselves.
“There is no other place in this labyrinth suitable for incubation,” Linsha said. “Iyesta and Purestian altered this cavern with magic to give it light and warmth and the proper conditions for the eggs’ development. There is nothing left here but the light, and even that is failing. No, there are no eggs down here. Now get rid of those baskets and run!”
She was relieved to see her urgency finally sink in. Young Leonidas was the first to accept her word. With a swift cut of his dagger, he loosed the ropes holding the baskets on his hack, dumped them on the floor, and gave her his hand. He hauled her onto his back. Lanther and Tanefer exchanged alarmed glances before they too urged the others to move. Baskets fell to the floor, swords were drawn, and the Legionnaires were quickly mounted on the backs of the centaurs.
Suddenly Varia’s feathered “ears” popped up. Her eyes grew enormous. She screeched an alarm everyone understood and flew out the tunnel entrance.
Linsha and Leonidas did not need another warning. The buckskin centaur cantered for the tunnel, the others close on his heels. With their torches held high, they hurried back the way they had come, hoping to reach the faraway pool entrance before anyone else in the labyrinth knew they were there.
But they had not gone far when Varia returned, winging up the passage they had just entered. The centaurs stopped, and in the sudden silence that fell among them, they all heard what the owl had heard in the cavern—voices and the sounds of a large troop moving at a quick march through the tunnels. In the twists and turns of the labyrinth, it was difficult to tell exactly where and how far away a sound originated, but no one doubted the creators of the noises that echoed up the tunnel were not far away. Surely they were even now on their trail of hoofprints in the layer of dirt on the tunnel floors.
Linsha thought fast. Although she had spent more time down there than anyone else in the group, she had always had a guide to help her find her way in the lightless maze. She did not know it well, nor was she familiar with more than four or five doors. Two of those doors were out of their reach in the old foundations of the city, one was the way they had come through the pool house, and one was guarded by the mercenaries on the palace grounds.
She raised an arm for Varia. When the owl landed on her wrist, she whispered, “Who is there?”
The owl clacked her beak in anger. “Tarmaks. Many of them. They are in the tunnel that you must take to reach the pool door.”
“How convenient,” Linsha snapped.
Several well-chosen curses ran through her mind, all aimed at herself. She had been so sure. She wanted to be so sure! She wanted those eggs back so much that instead of doing something sensible like coming down alone to scout out the situation, she had brought along seventeen others to share in her heedless stupidity. Now they were trapped in this maze without a safe door out.
“Where do we go?” Leonidas asked. His hooves shifted nervously beneath him.
There was only one place she could think of, only one door that they might be able to break through. “The palace. We’ll have to go to the door in the palace gardens.”
“Isn’t that one guarded by the mercenaries?” Lanther reminded her. She wished he hadn’t, but the others may as well be prepared.
“Yes. Who would you rather fight, the Tarmaks or the mercenaries?”