Shade pulled Spark inside, saying, “You’re lucky you found us, you could have been killed in that wind.”
“They found Vendoin,” Chime told him.
Shade stared. “What?”
Rorra’s teeth chattered as she tried to talk. Lithe stepped up and wrapped her arms around her to share her body heat. Rorra hugged her back, groaning gratefully. His voice rough from the cold, Root explained, “The Hians left Vendoin behind on a little island. She told us things about the weapon the others don’t know.”
Spark had gotten her breath enough to continue, “It was the Hian called Lavinat, like the others on the big flying boat said. She’s taken over but Vendoin didn’t tell her everything she knew about the weapon.”
Lithe looked past Rorra’s arm to say, “What do you mean? What did she not tell Lavinat?”
“She didn’t tell her how to make it work in this place.” Spark waved a hand, indicating the giant dock.
“That’s why I brought this.” Rorra eased away from Lithe, her voice a little stronger. She tapped the large fire weapon strapped next to her flying pack. “There’s a large component in this place, that the artifact has to have nearby to work. We think if we destroy it, the Hians won’t be able to use the artifact the way Lavinat wants.”
Chime hissed out a breath. It made sense. There was a reason the weapon had to be brought here, a reason it had killed the Fell and Jandera inside the trading town but reached no further. Obviously Lavinat had been able to do something with it, or the dock wouldn’t have started forming the passage down toward the lower continent. But maybe the reason they were still alive was that Lavinat didn’t know what else to do.
“We have to find it.” Shade looked toward the open door.
“Where is everybody else?” Root asked.
Lithe told him, “Jade and the warriors were following the Hians down the shaft in the center of the dock, but when the spinning started, the passage collapsed and we were thrown off. Moon and the kethel went to try to find them.”
“Collapsed?” Flicker said, aghast.
“Moon and the kethel?” Root said, horrified.
Spark began, “We have to—”
“Quiet,” Shade said, and all the warriors shut up. Chime blinked and managed to clamp his jaw shut on the comment he had been about to make. At the moment, Shade’s resemblance to Moon was even more obvious; he wasn’t a shy, delicate consort either, not anymore. Shade said, “Rorra, can that fire weapon get through whatever’s blocking the shaft?”
“Metal, or whatever this place is made of?” Rorra made an uncertain gesture. “Maybe.”
“We’ll try that first.” Shade tilted his head at Lithe. “You and Chime stay here.”
Chime exchanged a look with Lithe. At the expression on her face and spines, he swallowed back his protest. This was no time to argue. Lithe said, “Maybe we can still do something here.”
“We’re going to have to stay low, try to use the docking flower things as wind-breaks,” Shade said. “I’ll carry Rorra. Can the rest of you make it?” His hard gaze faltered as he looked at Flicker. “Are you all right? You should stay here.”
Flicker twitched his spines in denial. “I can make it.”
Chime thought Shade wasn’t convinced, but Shade said, “Let’s go.”
Rorra stepped to Shade. He put his arm around her waist and lifted her without effort, then swung out the door.
Spark and Flicker followed immediately. Root glanced at Chime, grimaced and said, “We’ll find Jade. We’ll stop the Hians.”
He leapt after the others into the howling wind, and Chime felt his heart sink.
Moon followed the passage as it wound down through the structure. Kethel was so close he kept bumping Moon’s shoulder, which made Moon want to bite but was also weirdly reassuring.
He couldn’t catch any hint of Raksura, which had to mean the shaft that Jade and the others had followed down probably didn’t intersect with this passage. Which meant this passage probably didn’t intersect with where the Hians were and he and Kethel were just wasting their time, but he didn’t know what else to do.
Kethel said, “Where did the forerunners go?”
Moon half-snarled, but it wasn’t Kethel he was angry at. “They didn’t go anywhere. They died out and left us and you.”
Kethel hissed back at him. “I know that. The ones who came here in that boat, but didn’t bring the weapon. Why come here? Where did they go?”
It was a good question. “They decided not to use the weapon, that’s why it was still at the foundation builder city.” He added, “I don’t know what happened to whoever brought the ship here. We don’t know it was forerunners.”
Kethel didn’t seem happy with the answer but then Moon wasn’t either.
Ahead the corridor met another shaft. Moon cautiously leaned out to look up and down it. In the dim light he saw it had rippled walls, as if the material had been poured out like liquid metal and the little waves and rivulets formed had frozen in place. Kethel poked its head in too. “Up or down?”
“It’s parallel to the big shaft,” Moon said, keeping his voice low. “We’ll go down.”
Moon’s claws found easy purchase, and though Kethel had to shift to climb, its big body fit easily into the space. It was a relief to be able to move faster. Moon tasted the air, but the odor coming off Kethel overwhelmed anything else. He tried to filter it out as best he could.
A few turns down and the tube turned horizontal. As Moon dropped into the junction he got a scent of cold outside air in the draft. He thought they had to be very close to the bottom of the structure, where it had sat on the sea floor before the air passage had started to open below it. He turned to the tube leading inward. Kethel dropped into the junction, then shifted back to its groundling form. That was a relief; its scent was easier to deal with in its smaller form.
Then Moon caught a trace of scent and stopped abruptly. Kethel stumbled to a halt behind him. The scent was moss, Kishan moss. It has to be the Hians. The warriors had carried a few of the fire weapons in their packs, but if that was the Raksura ahead, Moon would have been able to scent them by now.
Moon crept forward, very aware of Kethel’s big presence behind him. But as he reached the last bend in the tube, he forgot everything else.
A crack in the wall gave a view of a huge round chamber, and Moon controlled a hiss of satisfaction. They had found the Hians.
More tubes like this one curled down toward the chamber floor, many with cracks or whole chunks broken away. Dark discolored walls curved down, covered with the figured designs of the forerunners, but stopped above the etched floor to leave an open gap. And through that gap Moon saw the swirling edge of the air passage. The bottom part of the chamber was suspended above the storm, though the howl of the wind was still muffled and there was no harsh flow of air.
Several Hians stood spaced around the center part of the room, holding heavy fire weapons, warily on guard. Above their heads hung a heavy slab of dark polished stone, and below that a nest or cradle of curved silver bars. One Hian turned and Moon recognized Lavinat. She held the artifact close to the cradle.
Moon went cold with horror and grabbed the edge of the crack. But it was too narrow to cram his body through; if he tried the Hians below would have plenty of chances to burn him.
Then the Hian next to Lavinat said, “It just isn’t working.”
Moon froze in hope. Beside him, Kethel snorted a breath.
Lavinat said, “There has to be a reason it didn’t open like the others. The weapon has allowed us to get this far. Navin, put it back in the cradle.”
The other Hian took the weapon, handling it carefully. One of the others said, “Perhaps it is for safety. If only a foundation builder can make it work, it prevents the weapon from being used against their will.”