Moon felt the block around him dissolve, like chains that had suddenly fallen away. He shifted, wrapped an arm around Ceilinel’s waist, and leapt up to cling to the side of the nearest column. She didn’t shriek but he felt her body go rigid with fear. “Hold on to the ridge above my collarbone,” he told her. He scanned the chamber below and marked the location of the Hians scattered there. At least half were armed, and three had seen Moon’s leap and angled their fire weapons up at him. Her fingers wrapped around his collar flanges and Moon leapt, timing it so the wooden disks struck the pillar just as he left it.
He caught the chain of the big hanging lamp, swung to the balustrade on the far side. He let go just as a crack told him the base had ripped out of the stone ceiling. It brought half the mosaic tiles down in a crash as Moon bounded along the balustrade. Ceilinel gasped, “The stairwell, the one on the western side.”
The Hians not staggered under the onslaught of falling tile ran to this side of the chamber to aim at Moon. Two bolted up the curving stairs to the gallery to cut him off. He flipped over the balustrade, bounced off a column, and landed at the base of a pillar on the opposite side. As the Hians spun to aim their weapons, Moon dodged around the pillar and raced down the corridor.
Moon had been through here earlier and didn’t need Ceilinel’s whispered directions as he ducked through rooms to a corridor in the outer section of the dome. A heavy metal gate blocked the large stairwell but Ceilinel pressed her hand to the lock and it sprang open. Moon leapt down the stairs to the next landing. From there he saw a wide hall opening into a dimly lit tile-floored space. He couldn’t hear any movement down there, and the scents were dry and clean, free of the acrid fire weapon moss. He asked Ceilinel, “Where does this go?”
“The colloquium archives.” Her voice was breathy with fear and he could feel her pulse pounding through her body, but she kept a firm grip on his collar flange.
Moon leapt down to the bottom of the stairs. As he landed he staggered and half-collapsed against the wall to steady himself. Ceilinel let go of him and stumbled away. He thought she might run; they still didn’t have much reason to trust each other, or at least Moon didn’t trust her. But Ceilinel cast a worried glance up the stairs, and whispered, “Are you all right?”
Moon looked down at his chest. Blood leaked between his black scales, the delicate new skin underneath torn by too-quick movement. His legs felt weak and unsteady, his wings as heavy as if he had been flying all day and night. What he wanted to do was shift to groundling and lie flat on the cool tile floor, but that wasn’t an option right now. “Where’s the nearest way out?” This was a junction with five archways leading to large dark hallways. He wasn’t scenting any outdoor air, which was worrisome.
“This way, the public entrance. It’s our best chance.” Ceilinel started toward an archway and Moon shoved off the wall to follow. She added, “They must have come through the private entrance, on the side facing the reservoir. They couldn’t walk up to the public entrance carrying weapons without causing alarm.”
Past the archway the light was just bright enough to ruin Moon’s night vision. It came from little bronze globes mounted on tall stone shelves that held wooden boxes. From the dry weedy scent in the air, Moon guessed the boxes contained Kishan books. A narrow stream of water ran down a channel in the floor, and Moon kept his foot claws retracted so they wouldn’t click on the tiles. It would have been faster and safer to carry Ceilinel and jump from the top of one row of shelves to the next across the chamber. Or better yet, from the heavy stone supports and arches dimly visible in the shadow above. But Moon’s side and chest ached and he could feel the skin under his scales tear and strain. He needed to conserve what strength he had left.
Ceilinel muttered, “They must be idiots to think killing either of us will help their case. It’s just going to make the conclave certain the Hians are at fault.” She hesitated at another junction, then turned right, and Moon realized this lower part of the dome was much larger than the upper section that Ceilinel lived in. She added, “Unless that’s what they want. But why . . .”
She let the question trail off, clearly talking to herself more than him. But she was assuming the Hians were all in this plan together, and Moon knew that probably wasn’t true. “When we caught up with the Hians who took the weapon, most of them were dead, killed by a faction on their own flying boat.”
Startled, Ceilinel stopped and turned to him. “What? You said nothing of this.”
Moon nudged her to keep moving. “You didn’t ask.”
She continued on toward the end of the hall. “What were these factions?” she asked urgently.
“Vendoin was the one who stole Callumkal and the others. It was her plan to get the weapon. She wanted to kill Fell, mostly, and didn’t care if some Jandera died. She wanted the Hians to be able to go back to Hia Majora. Lavinat led the other faction. She didn’t care as much about killing the Fell as killing Jandera. Then Vendoin realized it was going to kill Jandera and Hians and every other species descended from the foundation builders. We think she started to change her mind. So Lavinat stole the weapon from her and killed half the Hian crew. Lavinat was the one who took it to the ruin and made it work.” They reached a wide cross hall and Moon caught Ceilinel’s arm to stop her. He tasted the air and took a careful peek up and down. “Which way?”
“There.” Ceilinel pointed to another hall that branched off the main one. In that direction, over the tops of the endless shelves, Moon detected a glow of brighter light. “How do you know this?”
“I was there. I tried to stop Lavinat and she burned me with a fire weapon. I don’t know what happened after that.” Moon’s throat went tight, thinking about that moment and who might and might not have survived it. If that wasn’t Stone he had glimpsed near the market . . .” There were other Raksura there. They must have made the ruin fall, trying to stop the weapon.”
Ceilinel whispered furiously, “Why didn’t you tell me this? If you had—”
“Would you have believed me? Gathin’s supposed to speak for me and she doesn’t even think I’m a person!”
She didn’t answer, and by the time they reached the end of another hall, he thought the conversation was over. He heard the faint sound of running footsteps, maybe the creak of a door opening, but from the echoes they were some distance away. Then Ceilinel admitted, “I don’t know if I would have believed you.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, so didn’t say anything. She added, “This Lavinat, did she care if she survived? Or those with her?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t even know if they thought about it.”
Ceilinel made a distracted gesture as she considered it. “So . . . The point of this attack is not that you and I are killed, it’s that we are killed by Hians.”
She was probably right. Some Hians wanted the Jandera to attack them, either so they would have an excuse to fight or for some other less apparent reason. Other Hians didn’t. Killing an important Kishan like Ceilinel might force a violent response from Kish-Karad and the Jandera in Kedmar and take the choice away from the other Hians.
They had been drawing closer to the area where the sunset tinge of natural light still shone. The hall opened out onto a broad balcony, with a wide stair leading down to a chamber below. Three big windows, all sealed with faceted crystal, stretched up the far wall, allowing in the last of the day’s sunlight. The water channels ran out from the halls of shelves to become miniature waterfalls at the balcony’s edge. The falling water sound covered small movements. Ceilinel lowered her voice even more, saying, “The public entrance is down there.”