“I don’t understand,” she whispered. “After Nellis Saradexma vouched for us, the empress accepted our offer. She even loaned us the big red dragonflies so we could get to the mountains faster. But these men act like they don’t want our help.”
She was referring to the Imaskari soldiers and war wizards who’d accompanied the dragonborn into the caverns. Uniformed in somber colors, their pale skins mottled with dark streaks and spots in a way that, so far as Balasar was aware, made them unique among humans, they were courteous enough. But when they thought no outlander was looking, their expressions betrayed varying degrees of skepticism, amusement, and impatience.
“I think it’s a matter of professional pride,” Balasar murmured back. “They already explored these particular tunnels. They couldn’t find a path that leads all the way under the Dragonswords to the desert beyond. So it will make them look inept if somebody else does.”
“But Khouryn is a dwarf.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing to them that it does to us. Not if they believe they’re just as at home underground as his people are.”
Biri gave him a puzzled look. “Is that what they believe?”
“I don’t know and don’t intend to ask. If it’s not already common knowledge, they may not want outsiders to know. But have you ever wondered where they spent all those centuries between the fall of their old empire and the founding of the new one? Or why the new one is called High Imaskar?”
She smiled at him. “You think like a wizard.”
He normally took compliments as his due, but for some reason, hers always disconcerted him, although he trusted it didn’t show. “I doubt that. My poor tutors had to thrash me on a regular basis just to inspire me to learn my letters and numbers.”
She chuckled then her face turned serious again. “Do you think the Imaskari could be right that there’s nothing to find?”
He shrugged. “Alasklerbanbastos didn’t show Jhesrhi where to search. He just told her. Then she passed the information along to Khouryn when they were mainly worried about sneaking him out of the War College. So it could have gotten muddled along the way. But I doubt it. Jhesrhi and Khouryn are both sharp, and Gestanius’s creatures have to be slithering under the mountains somewhere. Why don’t we go inquire how things are going?”
They headed for the front of the column. Warriors of the Platinum Cadre greeted them or nodded as they passed. Like any sensible dragonborn, Balasar had no use for religion, and a wyrm-worshiping religion least of all. But he was still glad the cultists had forgiven him for infiltrating their fellowship to spy.
Peering in all directions, Khouryn was prowling around at the point where the pale, steady shine of the floating orbs faded out. He’d explained that was intentional. There were things a dwarf could see in the dark but not in the light and vice versa. Operating at the leading edge of the illumination made it easy to switch back and forth between the two modes of sight.
“Anything?” Balasar asked.
“Not yet,” Khouryn said. He turned toward Biri. “I noticed you and a couple of the Imaskari wizards casting a spell a while back.”
She shrugged. “More divination. It didn’t reveal anything. But that could be because Gestanius has countermeasures in place.”
“I imagine it is,” Balasar said. “But saying so won’t keep our new friends from getting restless. They’re going to want to turn back pretty soon.”
“We have lanterns,” Biri replied, and Balasar liked the matter-of-fact way in which she said it.
“That we do,” he said. “Still-”
“Look at that,” Khouryn said.
Balasar turned. The dwarf was using his new battle-axe, a cherished heirloom and gift from the Daardendriens, to point at a spot where the high wall met the vaulted ceiling.
Balasar squinted then said, “I don’t see anything.”
Khouryn grinned, a flash of white teeth inside his bushy beard. “Good.” He waved for Medrash, Nellis, and Jemleh Bluerhine to come forward.
Predictably Medrash looked keen as a newly honed dagger to learn what was afoot. Clad in a black greatcoat with four layers of shoulder cape, the crystal globe that served as his arcane focus cradled against his chest, Nellis appeared almost as eager. The diplomat had been startled when Tarhun ordered him to join the expedition, but at some point on the sea voyage, his attitude had shifted, and he was enjoying himself.
It was Jemleh who advanced in a more leisurely fashion. Tall for a human, the Imaskari commander wore the same sort of ink black greatcoat as Nellis. But his had an oval onyx clasp to hold the high collar shut, and he carried a cane with a crook carved from the same stone to help him cast his spells.
“What do you need?” he asked.
Khouryn pointed as he had before. “It looks to me like there’s a rift at the very top of the wall, right before it bends out and turns into ceiling. It’s hard to see because it’s almost beyond the reach of the lights, and because of the way the stone humps out to either side. That makes it look like just an indentation, not the start of another tunnel.”
Jemleh squinted at it for a couple of heartbeats. “I think it is just an indentation.”
Biri smiled. “We don’t have to speculate.” She murmured a rhyme and pressed her hands together as though making a snowball. Between them appeared an orb of light like the ones the Imaskari had conjured except that the glow was golden, not silvery. She tossed it and it floated upward.
Its radiance spilled into a gap broad enough to allow the passage of even the biggest creatures assailing High Imaskar. It would be tight for the largest ones, but they could squirm through. Balasar felt a pang of excitement.
“You have good eyes,” Jemleh told Khouryn. “I admit we never noticed that. But you don’t know that it goes anywhere. There could be a back wall just beyond reach of the light.”
Balasar grinned. “It’s like the lady said. We don’t have to speculate.”
“Right,” said Medrash. “We don’t.” He turned and beckoned for a couple of warriors of the Cadre to come forward. Jemleh achieved a similar result by pointing to a pair of Imaskari soldiers with his cane.
Nellis conjured another ball of light and floated it halfway up the wall. Gripping a first handhold, Medrash started to climb. Other men-at-arms followed. Meanwhile, the two Imaskari mages muttered incantations that Balasar realized were the same, perhaps a charm to enhance their strength or agility. Biri didn’t, though. Smiling, she simply awaited her turn to begin the ascent.
Balasar stuck close to her as they pulled themselves up. But there were plenty of places to grip or plant one’s toes, and she didn’t need any help. Above them, one of the Cadre warriors hauled himself up onto the floor of the gap and swore softly.
When Balasar reached the top, he saw what the excitement was about. Though it was impossible to know how far it extended, he and his companions had entered a cave every bit as spacious as the one below. He found it vaguely disquieting that such a prominent feature had gone undetected. It made him imagine a whole world riddled with lightless, secret spaces whose existence no dragonborn ever suspected, even when they were right above his head, beneath his feet, or within arm’s reach.
Mainly, though, it made him eager to press on. He looked around for Medrash and Khouryn; then everything went black.
He realized some countermagic had put out Biri’s light. He snatched out his broadsword; he and Medrash had left their greatswords behind in Skyclave, the Imaskari capital. The larger weapons were fine for showing what important fellows they’d become, but they preferred the blades with which they’d practiced all their lives when it was actually time to fight.
Khouryn bellowed, “Troglodytes!” Then came a thunk that was likely his axe cleaving flesh. An Imaskari yelled something in his own language. Perhaps trying to make a new light, Biri rattled off a spell in dactylic trimeter.