Of course you will, Moon thought. He was trapped here until dark.
Stone pushed away from the wall. Moon tensed all over, but Stone only said, “I’m going out to talk to some groundlings, see what they know about this mortuary place.”
It wasn’t a bad idea. In fact, it was such a good idea, Moon wished he had thought of it. There was Theri, Rith, and Enad to ask, if they were back from their daily work, or the woman who ran the wine bar. But it was a much touchier subject than how strangers found work in the city. Moon asked, “How are you going to work ‘What do you do with your dead?’ casually into a conversation?” Tension made the words come out sharper than he meant.
Everyone seemed to tense in apprehension. But Stone just said, “I thought I’d ask somebody who won’t notice. Like Dari.”
As soon as the sun sank out of the cloudy sky, Moon and Jade left the tower, flying toward the coastline near the leviathan’s head.
All through the afternoon, the warriors had taken turns surreptitiously searching the empty buildings in this area, looking for passages down to the underground space. Root, Song, and Floret had been left back at their tower to keep watch over Rift and the two groundlings.
The mortuary temple lay in a shallow valley between the leviathan’s shoulders, surrounded by crowded, crumbling stone structures only a few stories high. There weren’t many vapor-lights and the empty streets were deeply shadowed, except for the gleam of water. The sea must wash up over the leviathan’s head whenever it moved, flooding the streets and leaving puddles behind. Moon could pick out only a few lit windows here and there. This was obviously not a highly prized neighborhood, if it had ever been one.
To the northwest, he could see where the creature’s body dipped down, just below the ridge formed by its right arm. The roofs and top stories of flooded buildings were just visible above the dark water.
They banked in to land on the peak of a roof, and Jade climbed down to the alley. Moon paused to watch a groundling lamp-tender make his way across the open plaza in front of the temple’s entrance. It was a big, round structure, at least four stories tall, topped by an octagonal dome. A wall formed a roofless court before the entrance, and inside it several blue-pearl guards, probably Ardan’s men, stood in front of the metalbound double doors. The night was cool, and they had gathered around a waist-high brazier. From their postures, they were very bored.
The lamp-tender reached the stand at the far end of the plaza. He filled the well in its base from the heavy canister he carried, closed it, and went on his way. The sputtering vapor-light in its glass cage at the top of the stand brightened noticeably.
“Moon,” Jade whispered from below.
Moon climbed down the pitched roof to a ledge where Chime and Balm waited. Chime reported quietly, “Stone just got here. He said he thinks there’s something over in that part that’s underwater.”
“We hadn’t looked there yet,” Balm said, frustrated. “We thought if there was an open passage, the water would have drained away.”
They took flight again, Chime following them toward the flooded section. Balm went to gather the others back from their fruitless search.
They circled down to the flooded street, and Moon landed on a roof and crept to the edge. The street formed a dark passage below, lined with empty stone houses, their doors long ago washed away. Stone was in groundling form, standing balanced on top of a low wall just below this house. The water was as dark as obsidian and gleamed in the moonlight. The place smelled of dead fish and silt and… “Do you smell that?” Moon whispered.
Jade answered, “Yes, it’s water traveler. There must have been one through here at some point.”
Moon hooked his claws into chinks in the mortar and climbed down the wall. “I saw some yesterday, heading toward the city. But why is the scent here, and not at the harbor?”
Following Moon and Jade, Chime said, “This must be where they do their trading, to keep them away from the groundlings in the harbor. After all, Nobent wanted to eat you when he thought you were a groundling.”
Then from below Stone said, “The rumor I heard from Dari is that the city trades the dead bodies of the poor to the water travelers in exchange for edilvine.”
“They trade their dead?” Moon stepped cautiously into the water and his claws slipped on the slimy pavement.
“For vines?” Jade added skeptically, hanging from the wall as she waited for Chime to climb down.
“That’s the part I haven’t figured out yet,” Stone admitted, and turned to lead the way along the flooded street.
Behind them, Chime muttered, “The more I hear about this place, the less I like it.”
If this was true, the vines had to be something the city wanted or needed, badly. “Maybe they make a drug out of it. Like that smoke, and whatever it is that Dari drinks.”
Stone made a noncommittal noise and turned a corner to follow the street as it passed under a high, curved archway. It led into what had been an open court with a covered terrace at the back, supported by pillars carved in the shape of giant lily stalks. Like the street, it was flooded, the water washing the broad steps up to the deeply shadowed terrace. “How did you find this place?” Chime asked.
Stone said, “Once Dari mentioned water travelers, I just followed the scent.”
Moon tasted the air as he and Jade followed Stone up the steps and past the columns. The scent of water traveler was much heavier here, clinging to the damp mortar and the furry plants growing across the vaulted ceiling. Stone dug in the pouch at his belt and pulled out a faintly glowing object—one of Flower’s spelled rocks.
It cast a dim light over the cracked, stained paving and up to the far wall, revealing a carved scene with life-size groundlings in a procession, carrying a body on a bier. The carving framed a doorway, rusted metal figured with elaborate curving designs. “It’s locked, maybe barred on the inside.” Stone tugged on the handle, demonstrating.
“Let me see. If you shift under here, you’ll break the roof.” Jade stepped forward and took the handle.
“Don’t break it off,” Moon said.
“Moon—” Jade jerked at the door and it yielded with a loud crack. Pieces of a broken lock fell to the ground as the door swung open. Stone lifted his light and it shone down a long ramp that led into darkness.
Stone started to step forward and Chime snapped, “Stop!”
They all froze. Moon flicked a quick glance around the doorway, but he didn’t see anything but dark patches of mold. He whispered, “What?”
“I— It’s— I’ve got a funny feeling,” Chime said, sounding mortally embarrassed. “Like there’s something there.”
“A mentor feeling?” Jade asked, and crouched down for a closer look at the pavement just inside the door. Careful not to let any of his frills fall past the threshold, Moon joined her.
“Maybe,” Chime admitted.
“I thought all that didn’t come back after you changed,” Stone said, his tone carefully neutral.
“Well, it hadn’t.” Chime twitched uneasily. “Until… Look, I’m probably wrong.”
Jade nudged Moon and nodded toward something on the pavement inside the doorway. “No, you’re right,” Moon told Chime. About a pace past the threshold was a line of dirt and flotsam that had washed up under the door. It had formed a straight line across the ramp, as if it had encountered some solid object, except there was nothing there. “It’s one of Ardan’s barriers, like the one around the tower.”
Jade sat up, her spines flicking impatiently. “This could be a trap. If they trade with the water travelers, groundlings must come and go through here, and the lock would be enough to keep thieves out. The only reason to put a magical barrier here is to catch us.”