Anna stood at the center of the strange circle of rock and dust and looked about her, her eyes half-lidded.

She was a tall, rather slender girl of eighteen years, and she wore her long auburn hair, which had been bleached almost blond by the sun, tied back in a plait at her neck. Like her father, she was dressed in a long black desert cloak, hemmed in red with a broad leather tool belt at the waist. On her back was a leather knapsack, on her feet stout leather boots.

Her father was to the left of her, slowly walking the circle’s edge, the wide-brimmed hat he wore to keep off the sun was pulled back, a look of puzzlement on his face.

They had discovered the circle the previous day, on the way back from a survey of a sector of the desert southwest of the dormant volcano.

“Well?” she asked, turning to him. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, his voice husky. “Either someone spent an age constructing this, sorting and grading the stones by size then laying them out in perfect circles, or…”

“Or what?”

He shook his head. “Or someone shook the earth, like a giant sieve.” He laughed. “From below , I mean.”

“So what did cause it?”

“I don’t know,” he said again. “I really don’t. I’ve never seen anything like it in over fifty years of surveying, and I’ve seen a lot of strange things.”

She walked over to him, counting each step, then made a quick calculation in her head.

“It’s eighty paces in diameter, so that’s close on eight hundred square feet,” she said. “I’d say that’s much too big to have been made.”

“Unless you had a whole tribe working at it.”

“Yes, but it looks natural. It looks…well, I imagine that from above it would look like a giant drop of water had fallen from the sky.”

“Or that sieve of mine.” He narrowed his eyes and crouched a moment, studying the pattern of stones by his feet, then shook his head again. “Vibrations,” he said quietly. “Vibrations deep in the earth.”

“Volcanic?”

“No.” He looked up at his daughter. “No, this was no quake. Quakes crack stone, or shatter it, or deposit it. They don’t grade it and sort it.”

“You’re looking tired,” she said after a moment. “Do you want to rest a while?”

She did not usually comment on how he looked, yet there was an edge of concern in her voice. Of late he had tired easily. He seemed to have lost much of the vigor he had had of old.

He did not answer her. Not that she expected him to. He was never one for small talk.

Anna looked about her once more. “How long do you think it’s been here?”

“It’s sheltered here,” he said after a moment, his eyes taking in every detail of his surroundings. “There’s not much sand drift. But judging by what there is, I’d say it’s been here quite a while. Fifty years, perhaps?”

Anna nodded. Normally she would have taken samples, yet it was not the rocks themselves but the way they were laid out that was different here.

She went over to her father. “I think we should go back. We could come here tomorrow, early.”

He nodded. “Okay. Let’s do that. I could do with a long, cool soak.”

“And strawberries and cream, too, no doubt?”

“Yes, and a large glass of brandy to finish with!”

They both laughed.

“I’ll see what I can rustle up.”

 

 

§

 

 

The lodge had been named by her father in a moment of good humor, not after the hunting lodge in which he had spent his own childhood, back in Europe, but because it was lodged into a shelf between the rock wall and the shelf below. A narrow stone bridge—hand-cut by her father some fifteen years ago, when Anna was barely three—linked it to the rest of the rocky outcrop, traversing a broad chasm that in places was close to sixty feet deep.

The outer walls of the Lodge were also of hand-cut stone, their polished surfaces laid flush. A small, beautifully carved wooden door, set deep within the white stone at the end of the narrow bridge, opened onto a long, low-ceilinged room that had been hewn from the rock.

Four additional rooms led off from that long room: three to the right, which they used as living quarters, and another, their laboratory and workshop, to the left.

Following him inside, she helped him down onto the great sofa at the end of the room, then ducked under the narrow stone lintel into the galley-kitchen at the front.

A moment later she returned, a stone tumbler of cold water held out to him.

“No, Anna. That’s too extravagant!”

“Drink it,” she said insistently. “I’ll make a special journey to the pool tonight.”

He hesitated, then, with a frown of self-disapproval, slowly gulped it down.

Anna, watching him, saw suddenly how pained he was, how close to exhaustion, and wondered how long he had struggled on like this without saying anything to her.

“You’ll rest tomorrow,” she said, her voice brooking no argument. “I can continue with the survey on my own.”

She could see he didn’t like the idea; nonetheless, he nodded.

“And the report?”

“If the report’s late, it’s late,” she said tetchily.

He turned his head, looking at her. “I gave my word.”

“You’re ill. He’ll understand. People are ill.”

“Yes, and people starve. It’s a hard world, Anna.”

“Maybe so. But we’ll survive. And you are ill. Look at you. You need rest.”

He sighed. “Okay. But a day. That’s all.”

“Good. Now let’s get you to your bed. I’ll wake you later for supper.”

 

 

§

 

 

It was dark when she heard him wake. She had been sitting there, watching the slow, inexorable movement of the stars through the tiny square of window.

Turning, she looked through to where he lay, a shadow among the shadows of the inner room.

“How are you feeling now?”

“A little better. Not so tired anyway.”

Anna stood, walked over to where the pitcher rested in its carved niche, beside the marble slab on which she prepared all their meals, and poured him a second tumbler of cold water. She had climbed down to the pool at the bottom of the chasm earlier, while he slept, and brought two pitchers back, strapped to her back, their tops stoppered to prevent them from leaking as she climbed the tricky rock face. It would last them several days if they were careful.

He sipped eagerly as she held the tumbler to his lips, then sank back onto his pallet bed.

“I was dreaming,” he said.

“Were you?”

“Of mother. I was thinking how much you’ve come to look like her.”

She did not answer him. Six years had passed, but still the subject was too raw in her memory to speak of.

“I was thinking I might stay here tomorrow,” she said, after a moment. “Finish those experiments you began last week.”

“Uhuh?”

“I thought…well, I thought I could be on hand then, if you needed me.”

“I’ll be okay. It’s only tiredness.”

“I know, but…”

“If you want to stay, stay.”

“And the experiments?”

“You know what you’re doing, Anna. You know almost as much as I do now.”

“Never,” she said, smiling across at him.

The silence stretched on. After a while she could hear his soft snoring fill the darkened room.

She moved back, into the kitchen. The moon had risen. She could see it low in the sky through the window.

Setting the tumbler down, Anna sat on the stone ledge of the window and looked out across the desert. What if it wasn’t simple tiredness? What if he was ill?

It was more than a hundred miles to Tadjinar. If her father was ill, there was no way they would make it there across the desert, even if she laid him on the cart. Not in the summer’s heat.

She would have to tend him here, using what they had.

Her head had fallen at the thought. She lifted it now. It was no good moping.

Flowers. She would paint him some flowers and place the canvas in the doorway so he would see them when he woke in the morning.

The idea of it galvanized her. She got up and went through to the workroom, lighting the oil lamp with her father’s tinderbox and setting it down on the stone tabletop on the far side of the room.

Then, humming softly to herself, she took her mother’s paintbox down from the shelf and, clearing a space for herself, began.

 

 

§

 

 

Anna?

“Yes, father?”

What do you see?

“I see…” Anna paused, the familiar litany broken momentarily as, shielding her eyes, she looked out over the dusty plain from the granite outcrop she stood upon. She had been up since before dawn, mapping the area, extending her father’s survey of this dry and forlorn land, but it was late morning now and the heat had become oppressive. She could feel it burning through the hood she wore.

She looked down, murmuring her answer. “I see stone and dust and ashes.”

It was how he had taught her. Question and answer, all day and every day; forcing her to look, to focus on what was in front of her. Yes, and to make those fine distinctions between things that were the basis of all knowledge. But today she found herself stretched thin. She did not want to focus.

Closing the notebook, she slipped the pencil back into its slot, then crouched, stowing the notebook and her father’s compass into her knapsack.

A whole week had passed, and still he had not risen from his bed. For several nights he had been delirious, and she had knelt beside him in the wavering lamplight, a bowl of precious water at her side as she bathed his brow.

The fever had eventually broken, but it had left them both exhausted. For a whole day she had slept and had woken full of hope, but her father seemed little better. The fever had come and gone, but it had left him hollowed, his face gaunt, his breathing ragged.

She had tried to feed him and look after him, but in truth there seemed little she could do but wait. And when waiting became too much for her, she had come out here, to try to do something useful. But her heart was not in it.

The Lodge was not far away, less than a mile, in fact, which was why she had chosen that location, but the walk back was tiring under the blazing desert sun. As she climbed up onto the ridge overlooking the Lodge, she found herself suddenly fearful. She had not meant to be gone so long. What if he had needed her? What if he had called out to her and she had not been there?

She hurried down the slope, that unreasonable fear growing in her, becoming almost a certainty as she ran across the narrow bridge and ducked inside into the cool darkness.

“Father?”

The pallet bed was empty. She stood in the low doorway, breathing heavily, sweat beading her brow and neck and trickling down her back. She turned, looking out through the window at the desert.

What if he’d gone out looking for her?

She hurried through, anxious now, then stopped, hearing a noise, off to her right.

“Father?”

As she entered the workroom, he looked around and smiled at her. He was sitting at the long workbench that ran the full length of the room, one of his big, leather-bound notebooks open in front of him.

“This is good, Anna,” he said without preamble. “Amanjira will be pleased. The yields are high.”

She did not answer. Her relief at seeing him up and well robbed her of words. For a moment she had thought the very worst.

He had the faintest smile on his lips now, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. Anna wanted to go across to him and hug him, but she knew that was not his way. His love for her was distant, stern, like an eagle’s love for its chicks. It was the only way they had survived out here without her mother.

“Anna?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for the painting. How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That those flowers were my favorites.”

She smiled, but found she could not say the words aloud. Because my mother told me.

 

 

§

 

 

He continued to improve the next few days, doing a little more each day, until, a week after he’d got up from his bed, he came out from the workroom and handed Anna the finished report.

“There,” he said. “Take that to Amanjira. It’s not precisely what he asked for, but he’ll welcome it all the same.”

She stared at the document, then back at her father. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“You’re not strong enough yet. The journey would exhaust you.”

“Which is why I’m not going. You know the way. You can manage the cart on your own, can’t you?”

Anna shook her head. She could, of course, but that wasn’t what she meant. “I can’t leave you. Not yet.”

He smiled. “Of course you can. I can cook. And I don’t need much water. Two pitchers should see me through until you return.”

“But…”

“No buts, Anna. If Amanjira doesn’t get that report, we don’t get paid. And who’ll pay the traders then? Besides, there are things we need in Tadjinar. I’ve made a list.”

Anna stared at him a moment, seeing how determined he was in this. “When do you want me to go?”

“This evening, immediately after sundown. You should reach the old volcano before dawn. You could take shelter in the cleft there. Sleep until the evening.”

It was what they always did, yet in reiterating it like this it almost seemed as if he were coming with her.

“Aren’t you worried?”

“Of course I am,” he answered. “But you’re a tough one, Anna. I always said you were. Just don’t let those merchants in Jaarnindu Market cheat you.”

She smiled at that. They were always trying to cheat them.

“I’ll fill the pitchers, then.”

He nodded, and without another word returned inside.

“To Tadjinar, then,” she said quietly, looking down at the report in her hands. “Let’s hope Lord Amanjira is as welcoming as my father thinks he’ll be.”

 

 

§

 

 

Amanjira was in good humor. He beamed a great smile at Anna, gestured toward the low chair that rested against the wall on one side of the great room, then he returned to his desk and sat, opening her father’s report.

As Amanjira leaned forward, his dark eyes poring over the various maps and diagrams, Anna took the chance to look about her. This was the first time she had been inside the great man’s house. Usually her father came here while she stayed at the lodging house in the old town.

The room was luxuriously decorated in white, cream, reds, and pinks. Bright sunlight filled the room, flooding in through a big, glass-paneled door that opened out onto a balcony. There was a thick rug on the floor and silk tapestries on the wall. And on the wall behind Amanjira was a portrait of the Emperor, given to him by the Emperor himself.

Everything there spoke of immense wealth.

Anna looked back at the man himself. Like herself, Amanjira was a stranger in this land, a trader from the east who had settled many years ago. Now he was one of the most important men in the empire.

Amanjira’s skin was as dark as night, so black it was almost blue, yet his features had a strangely Western cast; a well-fleshed softness that was very different from the hawkish look of these desert people.

As if a dove had flown into a nest of falcons.

But looks deceived sometimes. This dove had claws. Yes, and a wingspan that stretched from coast to coast of this dry and sandy land.

Amanjira made a tiny noise—a grunt of satisfaction—then looked across at her, nodding to himself.

“This is excellent. Your father has excelled himself, Anna.”

She waited, wondering what he would say next; what he would give her for this information.

“I shall instruct the steward to pay you in full, Anna. And tell your father that, if his findings prove correct, I shall reward him with a bonus.”

She lowered her head, surprised. So far as she knew, Amanjira had never offered them a bonus before.

“You are too kind, Lord Amanjira.”

Anna heard him rise and come across to her. “If you wish,” he said softly, “you may stay here tonight, Anna. Share a meal, perhaps, before you return home.”

She forced herself to look up. His dark eyes were looking at her with a surprising gentleness.

“Forgive me,” she said, “but I must get back. My father is not well.”

It was not entirely the truth. She wanted to stay this once and explore the alleys of the old town, but duty had to come first.

“I understand,” he said, moving back a little, as if sensitive to the sudden defensiveness in her attitude. “Is there anything I can do for him? Potions perhaps? Or special foods? Sheep’s brain is supposed to be especially nutritious.”

Anna laughed at the thought of her father eating sheep’s brain, then grew serious again, not wanting to hurt Amanjira’s feelings. “I thank you for your concern, Lord Amanjira, and for your kind offer of help, but we have all we need.”

Amanjira smiled, then gave a little bow. “So be it. But if you change your mind, do not hesitate to come to me, Anna. Lord Amanjira does not forget who his friends are.”

Again the warmth of his sentiments surprised her. She smiled. “I shall tell him what the Lord Amanjira said.”

“Good. Now hurry along, Anna. I am sure I have kept you far too long.”

 

 

§

 

 

The journey home was uneventful. Making good time, Anna arrived at the Lodge just after dawn. She had been away, in all, seven days.

Leaving the cart in the deep shadow by the ridge, she climbed up onto the bridge and tiptoed across, meaning to surprise her father, but the Lodge was empty.

Anna turned to the doorway and stood there, looking out over the silent desert.

Where would he be? Where?

She knew at once. He would be at the circle.

Leaving the cart where it was, she headed east across the narrow valley, climbing the bare rock until she came out into the early sunlight. It made sense that he would go there at this hour, before the heat grew unbearable. If she knew him, he would be out there now, digging about, turning over rocks.

Her father’s illness had driven the circle from her mind for a time, but coming back from Tadjinar, she had found herself intrigued by the problem.

It seemed almost supernatural. But neither she nor her father believed in things that could not be explained. Everything had a rational reason for its existence.

Coming up onto the ridge, Anna saw her father at once, in the sunlight on the far side of the circle, crouched down, examining something. The simple physical presence of him there reassured her. Until then she had not been sure, not absolutely sure, that he was all right.

For a time she stood there, watching him, noting how careful, how methodical he was, enjoying the sight of it enormously, as if it were a gift. Then, conscious of the sun slowly climbing the sky, she went down and joined him.

“Have you found anything?” she asked, standing beside him, careful not to cast her shadow over the place where he was looking.

He glanced up, the faintest smile on his lips. “Maybe. But not an answer.”

It was so typical of him that she laughed.

“So how was Amanjira?” he said, straightening up and turning to face her. “Did he pay us?”

She nodded, then took the heavy leather pouch from inside her cloak and handed it to him. “He was pleased. He said there might be a bonus.”

His smile was knowing. “I’m not surprised. I found silver for him.”

“Silver!” He hadn’t told her. And she, expecting nothing more than the usual detailed survey, had not even glanced at the report she had handed over to Amanjira. “Why didn’t you say?”

“It isn’t our business. Our business is to survey the rocks, not exploit them.”

She nodded at the pouch, “We make our living from the rock.”

“An honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work,” he answered, and she knew he meant it. Her father did not believe in taking any more than he needed. “Enough to live” was what he always said, begrudging no one the benefit from what he did.

“So how are you?” she asked, noting how the color had returned to his face.

“Well,” he answered, his eyes never leaving hers. “I’ve come out here every morning since you left.”

She nodded, saying nothing.

“Come,” he said suddenly, as if he had just remembered. “I have something I want to show you.”

They went through the gap between two of the converging ridges, then climbed up over a shoulder of rock onto a kind of plateau, a smooth gray slab that tilted downward into the sand, like a fallen wall that has been half buried in a sandstorm.

 

Across from them another, larger ridge rose up out of the sand, its eroded contours picked out clearly by the sun. The whiteness of the rock and the blackness of its shadowed irregularities gave it the look of carved ivory.

“There,” he said, pointing to one of the larger patches of darkness near the foot of the ridge.

“A cave?” she asked, intrigued.

“A tunnel.”

“Where does it lead?”

“Come and see.”

They went down, crossing the hot sand, then ducked inside the shadowed entrance to the tunnel. They stopped a moment, letting their eyes grow accustomed to the darkness after the brilliant sunlight outside, then turned, facing the tunnel. Anna waited as her father lit the lamp, then held it up.

“Oh!”

The tunnel ran smoothly into the rock for fifteen, twenty paces, but that was it. Beyond that it was blocked by rock fall.

Undaunted, her father walked toward it, the lamplight wavering before him. She followed, examining the walls as she went.

“It looks lavatic,” she said.

“It is,” he answered, stopping before the great fall of rock. “And I’d say it runs on deep into the earth. Or would, if this rock wasn’t in the way.”

Anna crouched and examined a small chunk of the rock. One side of it was smooth and glassy—the same material as the walls. “How recent was this fall?” she asked.

“I can only guess.”

She looked up at him. “I don’t follow you.”

“When I found no answers here, I began to look a bit wider afield. And guess what I found?”

She shrugged.

“Signs of a quake, or at least of massive earth settlement, just a few miles north of here. Recent, I’d say, from the way the rock was disturbed. And that got me thinking. There was a major quake in this region thirty years back. Even Tadjinar was affected, though mildly. It might explain our circle.”

“You think so?”

“I’d say that the quake, the rockfall here, and the circle are all connected. How, exactly, I don’t yet know. But as I’ve always said to you, we don’t know everything. But we might extend our knowledge of the earth, if we can get to the bottom of this.”

She smiled. “And the surveys?”

He waved that away. “We can do the surveys. They’re no problem. But this…this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Anna! If we can find a reason for the phenomena, who knows what else will follow?”

“So what do you suggest?”

He gestured toward the fallen rock. “I suggest we find out what’s on the other side of that.”

 

 

§

 

 

After they had eaten, Anna unpacked the cart. She had bought him a gift in the Jaarnindu Market. As she watched him unwrap it, she thought of all the gifts he had bought her over the years, some practical—her first tiny rock hammer, when she was six—and some fanciful—the three yards of bright blue silk, decorated with yellow and red butterflies that he had brought back only last year.

He stared at the leather case a moment, then flicked the catch open and pushed the lid back.

“A chess set!” he exclaimed, a look of pure delight lighting his features. “How I’ve missed playing chess!” He looked to her. “How did you know?”

Anna looked down, abashed. “It was something you said. In your sleep.”

“When I was ill, you mean?”

She nodded.

He stared at the chessboard lovingly. The pieces—hand-carved wood, stained black and white—sat in their niches in two tiny wooden boxes.

It was not a luxury item by any means. The carving was crude and the staining basic, yet that did not matter. This, to him, was far finer than any object carved from silver.

“I shall begin to teach you,” he said, looking up at her. “Tonight. We’ll spend an hour each night, playing. You’ll soon get the hang of it!”

Anna smiled. It was just as she’d thought. Gifts, she recalled him saying, aren’t frivolous things, they’re very necessary. They’re demonstrations of love and affection, and their “excess” makes life more than mere drudgery. You can do without many things, Anna, but not gifts, however small and insignificant they might seem.

So it was. She understood it much better these days.

“So how are we to do it?”

He looked to her, understanding at once what she meant. Taking one of his stone hammers from the belt at his waist he held it up. “We use these.”

‘But it’ll take ages!”

“We have ages.”

“But…”

“No buts, Anna. You mustn’t be impatient. We’ll do a little at a time. That way there’ll be no accidents, all right?”

She smiled and gave a single nod. “All right.”

“Good. Now let me rest. I must be fresh if I’m to play chess with you tonight!”

 

 

§

 

 

In the days that followed, their lives fell into a new routine. An hour before dawn they would rise and go out to the tunnel, and spend an hour or two chipping away at the rockfall. Anna did most of this work, loathe to let her father exhaust himself so soon after his illness, while he continued his survey of the surrounding area. Then, as the sun began to climb the desert sky, they went back to the Lodge and, after a light meal, began work in the laboratory.

There were samples on the shelves from years back that they had not had time to properly analyze, and her father decided that, rather than set off on another of their expeditions, they would catch up on this work and send the results to Amanjira.

Late afternoon, they would break off and take a late rest, waking as the sun went down and the air grew slowly cooler.

They would eat a meal, then settle in the main room at the center of the Lodge to read or play chess.

Anna was not sure that she liked the game at first, but soon she found herself sharing her father’s enthusiasm—if not his skill—and had to stop herself from playing too long into the night.

When finally he did retire, Anna stayed up an hour or so afterward, returning to the workroom to plan out the next stage of the survey.

No matter what her father claimed, she knew Amanjira would not be satisfied with the results of sample analyses for long. He paid her father to survey the desert, and it was those surveys he was interested in, not rock analysis—not unless those analyses could be transformed somehow into vast riches.

In the last year they had surveyed a large stretch of land to the southwest of the Lodge, three days’ walk away in the very heart of the desert. To survive at all out there they needed to plan their expeditions well. They had to know exactly where they could find shelter and what they would need to take. All their food, water, and equipment had to be hauled out there on the cart, and as they were often out there eight or ten days, they had to make provision for sixteen full days.

It was not easy, but to be truthful, she would not have wanted any other life. Amanjira might not pay them their true worth, but neither she nor her father would have wanted any other job.

She loved the rock and its ways almost as much as she loved the desert. Some saw the rock as dead, inert, but she knew otherwise. It was as alive as any other thing. It was merely that its perception of time was slow.

On the eighth day, quite early, they made the breakthrough they had been hoping for. It was not much—barely an armhole in the great pile of rock—yet they could shine a light through to the other side and see that the tunnel ran on beyond the fall.

That sight encouraged them. They worked an extra hour before going back, side by side at the rock face, chipping away at it, wearing their face masks to avoid getting splinters in their eyes.

“What do you think?” he said on the walk back. “Do you think we might make a hole big enough to squeeze through, then investigate the other side?”

Anna grinned. “Now who’s impatient?”

“You think we should clear more of it, then?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, walking on. “I think we should think about it.”

That afternoon, in the workshop, he talked about it constantly and, come the evening, rather than debate it further, she gave in.

“All right,” she said, looking up from her side of the chessboard. “But only one of us goes through at a time. And we use a rope. We don’t know what’s on the other side. If there’s more quake damage it might be dangerous.”

“Agreed,” he said, moving his Queen. “Check.” Then, smiling up at her. “Checkmate, in fact.”

 

 

§

 

 

It took them two more days to make the gap wide enough. It would be a squeeze, but to make it any bigger would have meant another week’s work at the very least.

“We’ll prepare things tonight,” he said, holding his lamp up to the gap and staring through. “You won’t need much.”

Anna smiled at that “you.” She had thought she might have to fight him over it. “So what am I looking for?”

He drew the lamp back and turned to face her. “Anything unusual. A volcanic funnel, perhaps. Vents. Any pyroclastic deposits.”

“You still think this is part of a larger volcanic system?”

“Almost certainly. These vents and boreholes are only part of it. There would have been a great basin of lava—of magma—deep down in the earth. In fact, the deeper it was, the wider spread these surface manifestations will be. The super heated lava would have found all of the weakest routes through the rock, fault lines and the like. That’s all this is, really.”

“Like the roots of a tree?”

He nodded, smiling faintly at her. Anna had never seen a tree. Not a proper tree, anyway. Only the shallow-rooted palms of Tadjinar. Most of what she knew of the world had come out of books, or had been told to her. That was the worst of living here—the narrowness of it.

Walking back with her, he raised the subject, the two of them speaking, as they always did, with their heads down, not even glancing at each other.

“Anna?”

“Yes?”

“Do you regret living here?”

“Do you?”

“I chose it.”

“And you think if I had a choice, I’d choose differently?”

“Sometimes.”

“Then you’re wrong. I love the desert.”

“But you don’t know anything else.”

“I’d still want to be here.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

 

 

§

 

 

“Mind the rope, Anna. It’s getting snagged.”

Anna paused, edging slightly to one side, then tugged gently at the rope. It came free. She was halfway through the gap in the rockfall and finding it a tighter squeeze than she’d imagined. She had managed to shrug her shoulders through the narrow hole, but her hips were another matter altogether. Nor could she see anything properly. The tiny slivers of light that peeped through the narrow gaps between her and the wall served more to emphasize how stuck she was than help her.

She could always try and heave herself through, of course, but then she’d most likely tumble down onto the floor on the other side, and it was quite a drop. Besides, only her left arm was free; the other was still wedged between her and the wall.

“Turn yourself about, Anna. Until you’re facing the ceiling. The channel’s wider than it’s tall.”

“We should have waited another week,” she said, trying to do what he said.

“Maybe. But you’re almost there now. Try and edge back a little. Yes…that’s it.”

Slowly, very slowly, she wriggled her way back, until she could feel that her head and shoulders were out over the gap. Now she had to try and free her arm. She tried to bring it up, but there wasn’t room. She’d have to turn again.

“Hold my feet,” she said.

Anna felt his hands grip the ankles of her boots firmly.

“Good. I’m going to try to turn onto my front now. At the same time I’m going to try to free my right arm.”

“All right.”

It was difficult. It felt as if the rock was trying to crush her—to pop her bones—but slowly she managed to turn herself, until she was facing the floor.

Anna could not see anything. The darkness in front of her seemed absolute. Not that the darkness itself worried her; she simply did not want to fall onto anything sharp.

“All right,” she said, as she finally freed her arm. “Now lower me slowly.”

The rock seemed to come up to touch her hands. Above her, light slowly spilled into the tunnel.

“That’s it,” she said. “Slowly now.”

She began to take her own weight, reaching forward slightly with her hands.

“All right. You can let go now. I’m down.”

Anna felt his fingers relent, his hands move back, away from her ankles. There was a faint noise from him, a grunt.

She scrambled up, then turned, brushing herself down. “Are you okay?”

He made a small noise of assent. “Just winded a little. Just give me a moment to get my breath.”

Anna went to the hole and looked back through. The lamp was on the floor by his feet where he had left it. He himself was leaning against the wall, slumped slightly, one hand on his chest.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

He nodded and looked up at her. “I’ll be okay. I didn’t realize how heavy you are, that’s all.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. Now get on. Tie the rope about your waist. I’ll pass you through the lamp.”

She stooped and picked up the rope, fastening it tightly about her waist. It was a thin, strong rope, and they had some five hundred feet of it. That should be plenty for this preliminary exploration. Satisfied, she turned and, leaning through the gap, took the lamp from him.

“This, too,” he said, handing her his protective hat.

She put the lamp down, then tried on the hat, expecting it to be too big for her, but it was a perfect fit. She fastened the leather strap under her chin, then turned, lifting the lamp so that he could see her.

“Good,” he said, his eyes shining in the lamplight. “I’ll give you an hour, then I’ll call you back. But keep your eyes open, Anna. And don’t take chances.”

“I won’t.”

“You’ve got the notebook?”

Anna patted her top pocket.

“All right. Then get going. It’s cold here.”

She smiled then turned, facing the darkness, the lamp held up before her.

 

 

§

 

 

The library overlooked the darkened lake, its long, latticed windows giving a distant view of D’ni, the city’s lamplit levels climbing the great wall of the cavern.

A fire had been lit in the great fireplace. In its flickering light four men could be seen, sitting in huge armchairs about the fire, their faces thrown into sharp contrasts of gold and black. They had eaten an hour ago; now, as it grew late, they talked.

“I don’t know how you can say that, Veovis. Not with any certainty, anyway. Where’s your proof?”

Veovis turned to face his friend, his wineglass cradled in both hands, the light from the fire winking at its ruby heart.

“But that’s just it, Fihar. I need no proof. The matter is axiomatic. You argue that those races we have knowledge of, on those Ages to which we have linked, behave morally. I agree. But they do so because we have made it our business to encourage them to do so. Their morality is not innate, but taught. And we, the D’ni, were the ones who taught it to them. So much we have known for thousands of years.”

Veovis turned slightly, looking to another of them. “You, Suahrnir. You are a Maintainer. Is it not so? Is it not one of your prime duties to encourage a stable and moral social framework among the natives of the worlds to which we link?”

Suahrnir was in his middle years and a senior member of his guild. He had already served as Keeper of the Prison Ages and was currently in charge of disposing of all failed or unstable Ages. He pondered Veovis’s words a moment, then shrugged.

“It is, yet even so I have some sympathy with Fihar’s view. We cannot say with certainty until we have seen for ourselves. That, surely, is the scientific method?”

“Nonsense!” Veovis said, leaning forward, his face suddenly animated. “Without D’ni influences and D’ni guidance, those Ages would, without a shred of doubt, be nasty little backwaters, peopled by savages! Have you not instances enough in your own experience, Suahrnir, of such backsliding? Do we not need to be constantly vigilant?”

“We do,” Suahrnir agreed.

“Imagine then, up there on the surface. If there are people living up there, then they have developed now for several thousand years without any moral guidance. They will, most certainly, be savages, little more than animals, subservient to their most basic needs. And we have seen, all of us on many Ages, how wild animals behave!”

Aitrus, who had been listening silently, now spoke up. “Unless, like the D’ni, they have an innate morality.”

Veovis smiled and turned to his friend. “I would say that the chances of that were exceeding small, wouldn’t you agree, Aitrus?”

“I…guess so.”

“There!” Veovis said, as if that capped it. “You know, it makes me shudder to think of it. A whole society governed by lust and violence!”

“And the threat of violence,” Fihar added, clearly half-convinced now by the argument.

“Exactly! And where, in such a society, would there be room for the development of true intelligence? No. The most we might expect from the surfacedwellers is a surly, grunting species, a pack of jackals who would as soon bay at the moon as hold a decent conversation!”

There was laughter at that.

“Then you think the Council should reaffirm their decision?” Aitrus asked, returning the conversation to the place where it had begun. “You believe we should have nothing to do with the surface-dwellers?”

“I do indeed,” Veovis said emphatically. “And to be honest with you, I would not have simply sealed the end of the tunnel, I would have destroyed the whole thing altogether!”

“I see.”

“Oh, Aitrus,” Veovis said, leaning toward him. “I realize what sentimental feelings you have toward that expedition, and I admire you for it, but the venture was a mistake. The Council were wrong even to consider it!”

Aitrus said nothing. He merely sipped his wine and stared into the fire.

“And now I’ve hurt your feelings.” Veovis stood. “Look, I apologize. It was, perhaps, insensitive of me.”

Aitrus looked up at him, smiling sadly. “No, Veovis. You spoke as you saw, and I admire you for that. Besides, I have come to feel that maybe you were right after all. Maybe it was a mistake.”

Veovis smiled back at him. “Then you will vote with me in Council this time?”

Aitrus shrugged. “Who knows?”

 

 

§

 

 

Less than a hundred paces down, the tunnel was blocked again, a second rockfall making it unpassable. Yet to the left of the fall, like a grinning dark mouth, was a crack in the tunnel wall, large enough for Anna to step into, if she wished.

Anna stood on the rim, her left hand holding the edge of the wall, and she leaned into it, the lamp held out.

The crack was deep. Its floor went down steeply into the dark, from which a faint, cold breeze emanated. She could hear the sound of water, muted and distant, far below, and something else—a kind of irregular knocking. A tap, tap, tap that was like the weak blow of a chisel against the rock.

Anna turned, looking back the way she had come, then, deciding that the slope was not too steep, she clipped the lamp to the top of her hard hat and stepped down, steadying herself against the walls with both hands and digging her heels in, so that she would not fall.

The crack was not as long as she’d imagined. After twenty paces it leveled out. For a moment she thought it was a dead end, for the rock seemed to fill the crack ahead of her, but just before that it twisted to the side again, almost at ninety degrees. As she turned that corner, she gave a little cry of surprise.

 

“It’s a cavern!” she yelled, not know whether he could hear her or not. “A huge cavern!”

That tapping noise was close now and the sound of flowing water much stronger.

Stepping out onto the floor of the cavern, Anna turned, looking about her. The lamp illuminated only a small part of space, yet she could see, at the edge of the light, what looked like a tiny stream, its surface winking back at her.

Water. The most precious thing of all here in the desert. More precious than the silver her father had found for Amanjira.

Anna walked over to it, conscious of the rope trailing out behind her. The stream was crystal clear. She stooped down beside it, dipping her hand into the flow, then put her fingers to her lips.

Ice cold, it was, and pure. Much better than the water in the pool.

She grinned, looking forward to telling her father of her discovery, then she turned and looked up at the ceiling, twenty yards or so overhead.

There it was! The source of the tapping noise. It looked like a bright red hanging of some kind, marble smooth yet thin, the tip of it swollen like a drop of blood. And where it hung in the breeze it tap-tap-tapped against the roof of the cavern.

Anna frowned, then turned, looking for the source of the breeze. The cavern narrowed at its near end, becoming a kind of funnel. The breeze seemed to come from there.

She sniffed the air, surprised by how fresh it was. Usually there was a stale, musty smell in these caverns. A smell of damp and stone. But this was different.

Unclipping the lamp again, she held it up, trying to make out what the red stuff was. It seemed to be trapped in the rock overhead, or to have squeezed through the rock and then congealed.

She took out her notebook; settling it on her knee, she began to write, noting down not merely what she could see but her first notions about the cavern. Such, she knew from experience, could prove important. One might notice something that one afterward overlooked, or simply forgot. It was best to jot down everything , even if most of it proved subsequently to be ill-founded.

Putting the notebook away, she took hold of the rope and pulled a length of it toward her, making sure it was not snagged in the crack. It came easily. Reassured, she walked on, toward the near end of the cavern, toward the “funnel,” glancing from side to side, keen not to miss anything.

 

Thirty paces from it, she stopped, the slight sense of wrongness she had felt earlier now welling up in her.

There, facing her, filling the whole of one end of the narrowed cavern, was a huge sheet of the red stuff. It looked like a thick, stiff curtain, except that it jutted from the rock like a lava flow.

But it wasn’t lava. Not of any kind she knew, anyway.

It made her think of the circle on the surface. Somehow these two things were connected, but just how she didn’t know.

She could not wait to tell her father of it.

Anna walked over and stood before it, lifting the lamp. It was blood red, but within that redness was a faint vein of black, like tiny wormthreads.

Perhaps it was a kind of lava.

Clipping the lamp to her hat again, she took one of the hammers from her belt and, kneeling beside the wall, tried to chip a small chunk of the stuff away.

After a moment she looked up, puzzled. The hammer had made no impression. The stuff looked soft and felt soft. It gave before the hammer. But it would not chip. Why, it wouldn’t even mark!

Not lava, then. But what precisely was it? Unless she could get a piece for analysis, there was no way of telling.

Anna stood back a couple of paces, studying the wall, trying to see if there might not, perhaps, be a small piece jutting from the rest that would prove more amendable to the hammer, but the stuff formed a smooth unvarying surface.

She turned, looking about her, then laughed. There, only a few paces from her, lay a line of tiny red beads, like fresh blood spots on the gray rock floor. She looked up, seeing how the red stuff formed a narrow vein overhead, as if, under great pressure, it had been squeezed between the lips of the rock.

And dripped.

Anna crouched and, chipping this time into the rock beneath the red stuff, managed to free four samples of it, the largest of them the size of her fist.

As she went to slip the last of them into her knapsack, she turned it beneath the light, then squeezed it in her hand. It was almost spongy, yet it was tougher than marble. Not only that, but it seemed to hold the light rather than reflect it.

It was time to get back. They would need to analyze this before they investigated any further.

Anna slipped the sack onto her shoulder, then, taking the rope in her right hand, began to cross the cavern again, coiling it slowly as she headed for the crack.

 

 

§

 

 

The others were gone. Only Veovis and Aitrus remained. They stood in the broad hallway of the Mansion, beneath the stairs, the great stone steps and the tiny harbor beyond visible through the glass of the massive front door.

“Stay the night, Aitrus. You can travel back with me in the morning. The meeting does not start until midday.”

“I would, but there are some people I must see first thing.”

“Put them off. Tell them you have to prepare for the meeting. They’ll understand. Besides, I’d really like to talk to you some more.”

“I, too. But I must not break my word.”

Veovis smiled. “I understand. Your word means much to you, and rightly so. But try and come to me before the meeting. I shall be in my office in the Guild Hall. I would fain speak with you again before you cast your vote.”

Aitrus smiled. “I have decided already, old friend. I shall abstain.”

“Abstain?”

“I feel it would be for the best. I am not convinced by either argument. It may be as you say, and that my hesitancy is only sentiment, yet I still feel as if I would be betraying Master Telanis should I vote against the motion.”

“Then so be it. Take care, dear friend.”

The two men clasped each other’s hands.

“Until tomorrow.”

“Until tomorrow,” Aitrus echoed, smiling broadly. “And thank you. The evening was a most pleasant one.”

“As ever. Now go. Before I’m angry with you.”

 

 

§

 

 

“I’ve no idea,” he said, lifting his eye from the microscope.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. It looks… artificial .”

“Impossible,” Anna said, stepping up beside him and putting her own eye to the lens.

“So tell me what it is, then. Have you ever seen stone with that kind of structure before? There’s not a crystal in it! That wasn’t formed. At least, not by any natural process. That was made!”

She shrugged. “Maybe there are processes we don’t know about.”

“And maybe I know nothing about rock!”

Anna looked up and smiled. “Maybe.”

“Well?” he said, after a moment. “Don’t you agree?”

“I don’t see how you could make something like this. The temperatures and pressures you’d need would be phenomenal. Besides, what would the stuff be doing down there, in the cavern? It makes no sense.”

“No…”

She saw the doubt creep back into his face. He looked tired again. They had been working at this puzzle now for close on ten hours.

“You should rest now,” she said. “We’ll carry on with this in the morning.”

“Yes,” he said, but it was clear his mind was still on the problem. “It has to be obvious,” he said, after a moment. “Something we’ve completely overlooked.”

But what could they have overlooked? They had been as thorough with their tests as anyone could be. Had they had twice the equipment and ten times the opportunity to study it, they would still have come up with the same results. This stuff was strange.

 

 

§

 

 

He had been cheerful that night, more cheerful than he’d been in quite some time. He had laughed and joked. And in the morning he was dead.

She had woken, remembering the dream she’d had of flowers. Blue flowers, like those she had painted for him. Getting up, she had gone through into the galley kitchen and set out their bowls and tumblers, staring out of the window briefly, conscious of how different everything looked in the dawn light. It was only then that she found him, slumped on the floor beside the workroom bench. She knew at once that he was dead, yet it was only when she actually physically touched him that it registered on her.

His flesh was cold, like stone.

For a moment she could not turn him over. For a moment there was a blankness, a total blankness in her mind. Then she blinked and looked down at him again, where he lay.

He must have come here in the night. Unheard by her. And here he had died, silently, without a word to her.

She groaned and closed her eyes, grief overwhelming her.

 

 

§

 

 

The front lobby of the great guild hall was in turmoil. Aitrus, arriving late, looked about him, then, seeing Veovis to one side of the crowd of senior guildsmen, hurried over to him.

“Veovis. What’s happening?”

“It is Lord Eneah. He was taken ill in the night.”

Lord Eneah was Lord Tulla’s replacement as head of the Council. Without his presence, or the appointment of a Deputy, the business of the Council could not be carried out.

“Then there will be no vote today.”

“Nor for a week or two if the rumors are correct. It seems the Great Lord is at death’s door.”

“Ill tidings, indeed,” said Aitrus.

While none of the D’ni elders could be considered jovial in any way that the young could recognize, Lord Eneah had maintained a sense of humor well into his third century and was wont to control the Council by means of wit rather than chastisement. If he were to die, the Council would indeed lose one of their finest servants.

“What are we to do?” Aitrus asked, looking about him at the crowded vestibule.

“Disperse, eventually,” Veovis answered, “but not until our business here is done. Now, if you would excuse me, Aitrus, I would like to take the chance to talk to one or two waverers.”

Aitrus nodded, letting Veovis go. Unlike Veovis, he had no strong political ambitions, and though he had been appointed to the Council young—as the junior representative of his Guild—it was not because he had pushed for that appointment.

He had moved swiftly through the ranks, becoming a Master in his thirty-eighth year—the youngest in almost seven centuries—and then, three years ago, he had found himself elected to the Council by his fellow guildsmen; an unexpected honor, for there were men almost twice his age, which was fifty five, who had been put up as candidates against him.

And so here he was, at the very center of things. And though his word meant little yet, and his vote was but a tiny weight on the great scales of D’ni government, he was not entirely without influence, for he was a friend of Lord Veovis.

Watching Veovis from across the pillared hallway, seeing how easily the young Lord moved among his peers, how relaxed he was dealing with the high and mighty of D’ni society, Aitrus found it strange how close they had grown since their reunion thirty years ago. If you had asked him then who might have been his closest friend and confidant in later years, he might have chosen anyone but Lord Rakeri’s son, but so it was. In the public’s eyes they were inseparable.

Inseparable, perhaps, yet very different in their natures. And maybe that was why it worked so well, for both had a perfect understanding of who the other was.

Had they been enemies, then there would have been no late-night debates, no agreements to differ, no grudging concessions between them, no final meeting of minds, and that would, in time, have been a tragedy for the Council, for many now recognized that in the persons of Veovis and Aitrus were the seeds of D’ni’s future.

Their friendship had thus proved a good omen, not merely for them but for the great D’ni State.

“Aitrus? How are you? How is your father these days?”

Aitrus turned to greet his interrogator, smiling at the old man, surprised—ever surprised—to find himself in such high company.

“He is well, Grand Master Yena. Very well, thank you.”

 

 

§

 

 

All was done. The cart was packed, her last farewells made. Anna stood on the far side of the bridge, tearful now that the moment had come, looking back into the empty Lodge.

This had been her home, her universe. She had been born here and learned her lessons in these rooms. Here she had been loved by the best two parents any child could have wished for. And now they were gone.

What remained was stone. Stone and dust and ashes.

Those ashes—her father’s—were in a tiny sealed pot she had stowed carefully on the cart, beside another that held her mother’s ashes.

She turned away, knowing she could not remain. Her future lay elsewhere. Tadjinar, perhaps, or maybe back in Europe. But not here. Not now that he was dead.

Her heart felt heavy, but that, too, she knew, would pass. Not totally, for there would be moments when she would remember and then the hurt would return, yet the grief she now felt would lessen. In time.

She clambered down. The cart was heavy and Tadjinar was far, yet as she leaned forward, taking the strain, beginning to pull it up the shallow slope, the harness ropes biting into the leather pads on her shoulders, she recalled her father’s words:

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

That much remained of him, at least. The memories, the words, and the great wisdom of the man.

She wiped the wetness from her cheeks and smiled. He was in there now, in her head, until she, too, was dust or ashes.

What do you see, Anna?

As she climbed the narrow slope that led out of the valley, she answered him, her voice clear in the desert’s stillness.

“I see the endless desert, and before me the desert moon, rising in the last light of the dusk. And I see you there, everywhere I look. I see you there.”

 

 

§

 

 

The way to Tadjinar did not take her past the circle, yet she felt compelled to see it. If her future path lay elsewhere, she would at least take the memory of it with her.

Leaving the cart hidden in a narrow gully, she set off across the sand toward the circle, the full moon lighting her way. In the moonlight it seemed more inexplicable than ever. What on earth could have caused it?

Or what in earth.

Anna crouched at the center of the circle, thinking of what her father had said that first time. It was indeed as if the earth beneath had been not just shaken but vibrated. And what could do that? Sound was pure vibration, but what sound—what mighty echo in the rock—could possibly account for this?

Perhaps the answer was in the cavern. Perhaps it was there and she had simply not seen it.

It was madness even to think of exploring again, especially alone, yet the thought of walking away, of never having tried to find an answer, was impossible. She had to go and look.

In the knapsack on her back she had all she needed. In it were her father’s hard hat, his lamp and tinderbox, the rope. As if she’d known.

Anna smiled. Of course she’d known. It was compulsion. The same compulsion to know that had driven her father all his life.

And if you find nothing, Anna?

Then she would know she had found nothing. And she would go to Tadjinar, and wherever else afterward, and leave this mystery behind her.

The tunnel was dark—a black mouth in the silvered face of the ridge. The very look of it was daunting. But she was not afraid. What was there to fear, after all?

Anna lit the lamp then walked into the tunnel. The rock fall was where they had left it, and the gap.

She studied it a moment, then nodded to herself. She would have to douse the lamp then push the knapsack through in front of her. It would not be easy in the dark, but she had done it once before.

Taking the hard hat from the sack, she pulled it on, tying the straps securely about her chin, then snuffed the lamp. The sudden darkness was intense. Stowing the lamp safely at the bottom of the sack, she pulled the drawstrings tight, then pushed it through the gap, hearing it fall with a muffled clatter.

Remembering how difficult it had been, this time she went into the gap face down, her arms out before her. Her problem last time was that she had misjudged how wide the gap was. With her arms outstretched it was much easier. The only problem now was lowering herself on the other side.

Emerging from the gap, she let her hands feel their way down the irregular surface of the rock face, her feet hooked about he edges of the gap. Then, when she was confident that the drop was not too great, she pulled herself forward, letting her legs slide into the gap, her head tucked in to her shoulders as she rolled.

In the dark, the drop seemed a lot farther than she remembered it. There was a moment’s inner panic, and then she hit the floor hard, the impact jolting her badly.

She lay there a moment, the knapsack wedged uncomfortably in her lower back. Her wrists ached from the impact and the back of her head and neck felt bruised, but there seemed to be no serious damage.

Anna sat up, reaching behind her for the bag, then winced as a sudden pain ran up the length of her left arm from the wrist to the elbow. She drew the arm back, then slowly rotated the wrist, flexing her fingers as she did so.

“Stupid,” she said, admonishing herself. “That was a very stupid thing to do.”

Yes, but she had got away with it.

Only just , a silent voice reminded her.

She turned herself around, organizing herself, taking the lamp from the knapsack and lighting it.

In its sudden glow, she looked back at the blockage and saw just how far she had fallen. It was four, almost five feet in all. She could easily have broken her wrists.

She had been lucky.

Clipping the lamp onto the hat, Anna slung the bag over her shoulder then eased herself up into a standing position.

She would have one good look around the cavern, and that was it.

And if she found something?

Anna turned, facing the darkness of the borehole, noticing the faint breeze in the tunnel for the first time.

She would decide that if and when. But first she had to look.

 

 

§

 

 

To the left of the wedge, on the shoulder of that great flattened mass of redness that protruded from the ordinary rock, was a gap. Eight feet wide and two high, it was like a scowling mouth, hidden from below by the thick, smooth lip of the strange material.

Anna had found it late in her search, after scouring every inch of the cavern, looking for something that clearly wasn’t there. Only this—this made lavatic rock—was different. Everything else was exactly as one would have expected in such a cave.

Unclipping the lamp from her hat, she leaned into that scowling mouth, holding it out before her. Inside, revealed by the glowing lamp, was a larger space—a tiny cave within a cave—its floor made entirely of the red material, its ceiling of polished black rock, like the rock in the volcanic borehole. Seeing that, she understood. Whatever it was, it had once been in a molten state, like lava, and had flowed into this space, plugging it. Or almost so.

She squeezed through, crawling on her hands and knees, then stood. The ceiling formed a bell above her. She was in a pocket within the rock.

It was like being inside the stomach of some strange animal.

At the far end, the ceiling dipped again, yet did not entirely meet the floor. There was another gap.

Anna walked across, then crouched, holding out the lamp.

The gap extended into the rock, ending some ten yards back in a solid wall of the red material.

Yet there was a breeze, a definite breeze, coming from the gap. She sniffed. It was air. Pure, unscented air.

It had to lead up again, to the surface. Yet that didn’t quite make sense, for this did not smell like desert air. She knew the smell of the desert. It left a scorched, dry taste in the mouth. This air was moist, almost sweet in its lack of minerals.

And there was something else. The light was wrong.

Dimming the lamp almost until it guttered, she set it down behind her, then looked back. Despite the sudden darkness, the wall in front of her still glowed. That glow was faint and strangely dim, as if the light itself was somehow dark , yet she was not mistaken.

There was light somewhere up ahead.

Picking up the lamp again, Anna raised the wick until the glow was bright. Then, getting down on her hands and knees, she crawled into the gap, pushing the lamp before her. Sure enough, the red stuff filled the tunnel’s end, yet just before it, to the left, another crack opened up. She edged into it, following its curving course about the swollen wall of red to her right. That curve ended abruptly, yet the crack continued, veering off at ninety degrees to her left. She followed it.

The breeze was suddenly stronger, the scent of sweet, fresh air overpowering. And there was a noise now, like the hiss of escaping gas.

The crack opened up, like the bell of a flower. To her right the red wall seemed to melt away. Ahead of her was a cave of some sort.

No, not a cave, for the floor was flat, the walls regular.

She climbed up, onto her feet, then held the lamp up high, gasping with astonishment at the sight that met her eyes.

 

 

§

 

 

Alone in his rooms, Aitrus pulled off his boots, then sat down heavily in his chair. It was a typical guild apartment, like all of those given to unmarried Masters. Sparsely furnished, the walls were of bare, unpolished stone, covered here and there with guild tapestries; thick woven things that showed machines embedded in the rock. Broad shelves in alcoves covered three of the four walls, Aitrus’s textbooks—specialist Guild works on rock mechanics, cohesion, tacheometry, elastic limit, shear strength and permeability, as well as endless works on volcanology—filling those shelves.

There were a few volumes of stories, too, including an illustrated volume of the ancient D’ni tales. This latter lay now on the small table at Aitrus’s side, where he had left it the previous evening. He picked it up now and stared at the embossed leather cover a moment, then set it down.

He was in no mood for tales. What he wanted was company, and not the usual company, but something to lift his spirits. Someone , perhaps.

It seemed not a lot to ask for, yet some days he felt it was impossible.

Aitrus sighed then stood, feeling restless.

Maybe he should take a few days off to visit his family’s Age. It was some while since he had been there and he needed a break. It would be several days at least before the Council met again and his work was up straight. No one would blame him for taking a small vacation.

He smiled. Pulling on his boots again, he went over to the door and summoned one of the house stewards. While the man waited, he scribbled a note, then, folding it, handed it to him.

“Give this to Master Telanis.”

The steward bowed, then turned and disappeared along the corridor.

Aitrus turned, looking back into the room, then, without further ado, pulled the door closed behind him.

 

 

§

 

 

The cavern, which had at first glance seemed small, was in fact massive. What Anna had first taken as the whole of it was in fact only a kind of antechamber. Beyond it was a second, larger chamber whose walls glowed with a faint, green light.

And in that chamber, dominating its echoing central spaces, rested two massive machines, their dark, imposing shapes threatening in the half-dark. Like sentinels they stood, their huge limbs raised as if in challenge.

Indeed, it had been a moment or two before she had recognized them for what they were. Her first irrational thought had been that they were insects of some kind, for they had that hard, shiny, carapaced look about them. But no insect had ever grown that large, not even under the blazing desert sun. Besides, these insects had no eyes; they had windows.

Anna walked toward them, awed not merely by their size but by the look of them. She had seen steam-driven machines in her father’s books—massive things of metal plate, bolted together with huge metal studs—but these were very different. These had a smooth, sophisticated look that was quite alien to anything she had ever seen before. These were sleek and streamlined, the way animals and insects were, as if long generations of trial and error had gone into their design .

There were long flanges running along the sides of the nearest craft and studded oval indentations. Long gashes in its underside—vents of some kind?—gave it a strange, almost predatory air.

The closer she got to them, the more in awe she felt, for it was only this close that she came to realize the scale on which their makers must have worked. The dark flank of the nearest machine, to her left, rose up at least five times her height. While the second, tucked back a little, was bigger yet.

She also saw now just how different the two were. As if each had a separate purpose. The nearest was the simpler of the two, its four great limbs ending in cone-shaped vents. The other was much more sinister and crablike, its segmented body heavily armored.

Standing beneath the first of them, she reached out and touched its dark, mirror-smooth surface. It was cool, rather than cold. Unexpectedly her fingers did not slip lightly over its surface, but caught, as if they brushed against some far rougher, more abrasive material.

Anna frowned and held the lamp close. Instead of reflecting back her image, the strange material seemed to hold the light, to draw it into its burnished green-black depths.

Out of the corner of her eye she noted something, down low near the floor of the right-hand machine. She crouched, reaching out to trace the embossed symbol with her finger.

Symbol, or letter? Or was it merely decoration?

Whichever, it was not like any written language she had ever seen.

Taking the notebook from her sack, she quickly sketched it, placing the finished sketch beside the original.

Yes. Just so.

She slipped the notebook away, then lifted the lamp, turning slowly to look about her. As she did, she tried to place the pieces of the puzzle together.

What did she have so far? The circle of rock and dust. The strange red “sealing” material. This other, green-black stone, which gave off a dim but definite light. And now these machines.

Nothing. Or, at least, nothing that made sense. Were these the remains of an ancient race that had once inhabited these parts? If so, then why had nothing else been unearthed? So great a race as this would surely have left many more traces of its existence. And why, if these were long-lost relics, did they look so new?

She stared up the huge, smooth flank of the machine toward what seemed to be a control room of some kind. There was a long, slit window up there, certainly, the upper surface of that window flush with the roof of the craft, the lower part of it forming part of the craft’s nose.

The rope was in her pack. If she could throw it up over the top of the machine and secure it on the other side, perhaps she could climb up there and look inside?

Anna slipped off her pack and took out the rope. Walking around to the front of the machine, she crouched down, holding the lamp out as she studied the chassis. Some ten, fifteen feet in, there were several small teatlike protuberances just beneath what looked like an exhaust vent. She would tie the rope to one of those.

She walked back, slowly uncoiling the rope in one hand. She really needed a weight of some kind to tie about the end of it, but the only suitable objects she had were the lamp and the tinderbox, and both were much too valuable to risk breaking.

Her first throw merely glanced against the side of the machine and fell back to the floor. Her second was better but had the same result.

Taking the end of the rope she knotted it time and time again, until there was a palm-sized fist of rope at the end of it. Satisfied, she tried again.

This time the rope sailed over the machine, the lightweight cord whistling through the air as it fell to the other side.

Laying her pack on the remaining coil, Anna walked around and collected the other end of it, then got down and crawled under the machine, winding the rope around and around one of the small protuberances until the thick end of it was wedged tightly against the machine.

 

Edging back, she stood, then tested the rope, tugging at it hard, leaning her full weight back on her heels. It held.

So far, so good. But the most difficult part was next, for the rope was far from secure. If it were to slip to the side as she was climbing, she could easily find herself in trouble.

Pulling the rope taught, she placed one booted foot against the hull of the craft and leaned back, taking the strain, feeling the sudden tension in the muscles of her calves and upper arms.

She began, leaning slightly to her right as she climbed, away from the front of the strange craft, keeping the rope taut at all times, ready at any moment to let go and drop back to the floor if it were to start slipping. But the rope held, almost as if it were glued in place. Perhaps some quality of the material, that abrasiveness she had noticed, helped, but as she continued to climb her confidence grew.

As she came up onto the broad back of the craft, she relaxed. The top of the great slit window was just in front of her now, some ten or twelve feet distant. Beyond it the nose of the craft tapered slightly, then curved steeply to the floor.

Getting down onto her hands and knees, Anna crawled slowly toward the front of the craft, until the edge of the window was just in front of her. Leaning forward carefully, she looked down, through the thick, translucent plate, into the cabin of the craft.

In the oddly muted light from the oil lamp, the cabin seemed strangely eerie, the wavering shadows threatening.

She frowned, trying to understand exactly what she was looking at. There were two seats—or, at least, they looked like seats; tubular, skeletal things with a kind of netting for the seats—and there was a control panel of some kind just in front of that, but she could make neither head nor tail of the controls, if controls they were.

The panel itself was black. There were indentations in that blackness, and more of the strange symbols, but nothing in the way of levers or buttons, unless such things were hidden.

Anna eased forward a little, trying to see into the back of the cabin, but there was only a bulkhead there, not even a door. Whoever, or whatever, had operated this must have entered the cabin through this window.

That sudden thought, that the makers of this machine might have been other than human—might have been strange, alien creatures of the rock—sent a tiny ripple of fear through her. Until that moment her awe at her discovery had kept her from thinking what these machines might mean. But now her mind embraced that thought.

What if those strange webbing seats were designed not for two, but for a single creature: one huge, grotesque being, multilimbed and clawed, like the machines it made?

No , she told herself. Whoever made this is long dead and gone. It only looks new . But that moment of fear, of vivid imagining, had left its shadow on her.

She edged back slowly, then, taking hold of the rope again, climbed down.

Retrieving the rope, Anna stowed it away, then turned to face the second machine. If the function of the first machine was masked from her, this one was self-evident. The great drills at the end of each huge, jointed limb gave it away. This was a cutter.

Anna walked over, stopping just in front of it.

A question nagged at her. Why would someone go to such trouble to cut tunnels in the earth and then seal them? Had they found something down there?

Or was it a tomb?

The thought of a tomb—a royal tomb, surely, for why else go to all this bother?—excited her. Maybe she had stumbled onto the burial vault of some great ancient emperor. If so, then who knew what was down here? If they could build machines like these, then what riches—what curiosities—might lay buried with him?

She walked slowly to the right, circling the machine, her eyes going up, searching its massive flanks, taking in every aspect of its brutal yet elegant form. It had the look of a living thing: of something that had been bred in the depths of the rock. Here and there the material of which it was made seemed folded in upon itself, like the wing-casing of an insect. Yet if it had been based on any insect that existed, it was of a strange, muscular, hydraulic kind. And there were blisters—large swellings on the hull, two or three feet in length—that had no apparent purpose.

Anna stopped. Just beyond the machine, low in the great wall of the chamber, was a hole: a perfect circle of blackness in the green-black material of the wall. She walked another few paces. Just beyond the first hole was another, and a third. Tunnels. Undoubtedly tunnels.

But leading where?

Her heart pounding, she went over to the first of them. It was a small tunnel, barely large enough to walk within, but made, not natural. The same green-black stone lined the walls. It went down, into darkness.

The second tunnel was the same. The third, to her surprise, was not a tunnel at all, but a storeroom of some kind. Broad, empty shelves lined both sides of that excavated space.

Anna stepped out then looked across.

So which was it to be? The first tunnel or the second?

Neither, she decided. Or not now, anyway. Not without first preparing for the journey. That was the proper way of going about things: the way her father had taught her.

But that would mean squeezing through the tiny gap in the rock fall once again, then walking across the desert to where the cart was hidden. That last part alone was a two-hour journey, which was fine in the moonlight, but would be an ordeal under the desert sun.

And for what? She wasn’t going to go that far in. She only wanted to see if they led anywhere.

Five hundred paces. That was all she would allow herself. And if it did not look to be leading anywhere, she would come straight back.

Okay. But which?

Without making a conscious decision, her feet led her into the right-hand tunnel.

One, two three , she counted, her left hand steadying her against the wall as she began the steady descent. Seven, eight, nine.

Five hundred. It wasn’t far.

Ahead of her the darkness stretched away, running deep into the rock, forever just beyond the bright reach of her lamp.

Eighty-two, eighty-three, eighty-four…

 

 

§

 

 

Having traveled much farther than her planned five hundred paces, Anna found that she was lost. She did not want to admit it to herself, but she was lost. After that last left-hand turn she had doubled back, but she had come out in a place she hadn’t been before. Or, at least, she couldn’t remember having been there. It was a kind of cavern, only it was small and perfectly spherical.

She had lost count an hour ago. Two hours, maybe. Who knew down here? All she knew was that the map she had been following in her head had let her down. She had made one wrong turn and everything had seemed to slip away.

It was a labyrinth—a perfect maze of interlinked tunnels, all of which looked the same and seemed to lead…nowhere.

A tomb. It had to be a tomb. And this was part of it, this maze in which she was now inextricably lost.

She would die down here, she was certain of it now.

The thought made her stop and put her hand out to steady herself. Her head was pounding.

Think, Anna. Think what you’re doing.

Anna looked up. The voice was clear in her head, almost as if he had spoken.

“I can’t think,” she answered. “I’m frightened.”

Fear’s the enemy of thought. Think, Anna. Consider what you ought to do.

She let her head clear, let the fear drain from her mind. Slowly her pulse normalized. She took one of the hammers from her belt and held it up.

“I need to mark my way.”

Slipping the hammer back into his holster, she slipped the pack from her shoulder and took out the notebook.

“I’ll make a map.”

It was what she should have done to begin with, but it was too late now. The best she could do now was to slowly chart her way back to that first straight tunnel, before the way had branched. How long that would take she did not know, but if she was methodical, if she marked each tunnel wall, each branch of it with a letter and a number, then maybe, after a while, she would see the pattern of it on the page.

It was a slender chance, but her best.

Anna turned, looking about her. The tunnel sloped down. Just beyond her it forked. She walked across and, slipping her notebook into her tunic pocket, took the hammer and chisel from her belt.

The first blow was solid—she could feel the way the hammer hit the handle of the chisel squarely and firmly—but the wall was unmarked. She stared at it in astonishment, then repeated the blow. Nothing. There was not even a scratch on the green-black surface.

It was just as before, when she had tried to take the sample.

Anna groaned. It had been her only hope. Now she really was lost.

Paper wraps stone. So use paper. Squares of paper.

Of course! She could tear pages from her notebook and leave tiny squares of paper on the floor beside each entrance. It would have exactly the same effect. At once she tore a page from the book and tore it in half, then in half again. Four pieces. It wasn’t enough. She’d soon work her way through her stock of paper. She would have to leave much smaller pieces. She tore them in half again, and then a fourth time.

There. That should do it. She had about fifty pages—that ought to be enough.

Crouching, she began to write on them—AI to AI6. She would allocate two pages to each letter, and then move on to the next. That way she would hopefully chart “areas” of the labyrinth. And if she came back to one of them, say C, she would know exactly where she was on her map, and be able to turn away in a different direction, until she knew exactly how it all fit together.

Anna looked up, smiling grimly. She wasn’t beaten yet.

 

 

§

 

 

The Guild House was in the oldest part of town, surrounded by the halls of all the major guilds. From its steps one could look out over the great sprawl of D’ni to the harbor and the great arch named after the legendary prince Kerath.

Turning from the steps through a row of fluted marble pillars, one entered a massive vestibule of irregular shape. Here, set into the floor, was a great mosaic map of the main cavern of D’ni, while the floors of the smaller rooms, leading directly off the vestibule, displayed similar mosaic maps of the lesser caverns.

The ceiling of the vestibule was not high—barely twice the height of a standing man—yet it had a pleasant look to it. Great arching beams of pale mauve stone thrust out from the walls on every side, thinning to a lacelike delicacy as they met overhead.

On the right-hand side of the main room was a great arched door. The carved stone fanned about the doorway had the look of trees, forming a natural arch in some woodland glade. Beyond it was the great Council chamber.

It had long been a standing joke that the D’ni would never excavate to the east of the main cavern, lest they had to redesign the Guild House, but the truth was that the rock to the east was home to a stable reservoir of magma, slowly cooling over the millennia, from which they had long tapped energy.

Stepping through the massively hinged doors—each door a great slab of stone three feet thick and ten high—one entered the most impressive of D’ni’s many chambers. The great dome of the ceiling seemed far overhead, eighteen huge pillars reaching up like massive arms to support it. Broad steps, which also served as seats, led down into a circular pit, in the midst of which were five huge basalt thrones.

The great shields of the guilds hung on the outer walls, along with their ancient banners.

Today the thrones were occupied, the great steps filled with seated members, here to debate whether the edict banning contact with the “outsiders,” the “surface-dwellers” as they were otherwise known, should be lifted.

For six hours they had sat, listening to the arguments for and against, but now the debate was finally coming to a close. The young Lord Veovis was speaking, standing at his place on the second steps, just before the thrones, summing up the case for maintaining things as they were, his confident eloquence making many of the older members nod their heads and smile.

As Veovis sat, there was the sound of fists drumming on the stone—the D’ni way of signaling approval. He looked about him, smiling modestly, accepting the silent looks of praise.

Across from him, just behind the thrones and to the right, some six steps up, Aitrus looked on, concerned now that the time had almost come. Veovis still thought he was going to abstain. Indeed, he was counting on it, for the matter was so finely poised that a vote or two might well decide it. But he could not abstain, and though he knew he might well damage their friendship, he had to do what he believed was right.

But knowing that made it no easier.

There was a brief murmur in the chamber, and then Lord Eneah slowly raised himself up out of his throne, his frail figure commanding the immediate attention of all. Silence fell.

Lord Eneah had been gravely ill, and his voice now as he spoke seemed fatigued; yet there was still a strength behind it.

“We have heard the arguments, Guildsmen, and many among you will have already decided what you think. Yet this is a grave matter, and before we take the irrevocable step of a vote, I feel there should be the opportunity for a more informed debate of the matters raised. We shall come to a vote in an hour, but first we shall adjourn this sitting and retire to the vestibule.”

If some were disappointed by this, they did not show it, while others nodded, as if the decision were wisdom itself. The D’ni were a patient race, after all, and many matters that might have been decided “hastily” in the chamber had been resolved in the more informal atmosphere of the vestibule.

The remaining Lords rose to their feet and made their way out, followed a moment later by the other members of the great Council.

If the great chamber had been all solemnity and dignity, the vestibule was buzzing with talk, as members went from group to group, attempting to persuade others to their cause.

Rarely in recent years had a single issue raised so much heat and passion, and now that a vote was but an hour off, both camps made great efforts to win last-minute converts to their causes.

Aitrus, who had drifted into the vestibule alone, stood beneath the great arch a moment, looking across to where Veovis stood beside Lord Eneah, who sat in a chair that had been brought out especially for him. Veovis was addressing a small crowd of elder members, undaunted by the fact that many there were a century or two older than he. Such confidence impressed Aitrus, and he knew for certain that Veovis would one day sit where Lord Eneah had sat today, in the central throne.

It was not the right time, not just now, when Veovis was among such company, yet he would have to speak to him, to tell him of his change of mind, before they returned to the great chamber.

Aitrus made his way across, smiling and greeting other guildsmen as he went. Yet he was barely halfway across when he noticed a disturbance on the far side of the vestibule.

He craned his neck, trying to see. The door guards were arguing with someone. Then, abruptly, it seemed, they stood back, allowing the newcomer to pass. It was a senior guildsman from the Guild of Messengers. In one hand he clutched a sealed letter.

As the Council members began to realize that there was an intruder among them, the noise in the vestibule slowly died. Heads turned. Guildsmen turned to face the newcomer as he made his way between them, heading directly to where Lord Eneah sat.

The vestibule and chamber were normally sacrosanct. To permit a Messenger to enter while they were in session was almost unheard of. This had to be a matter of the greatest urgency.

By the time the Messenger stepped out before Lord Eneah, a complete silence had fallen over the vestibule. Kneeling, the man bowed his head and held the letter out.

At a gesture from Lord Eneah, Veovis took the letter and, breaking the seal, handed it to the elder. Eneah slowly unfolded the single sheet, then, lifting his chin and peering at it, began to read. After a moment he looked up, a faint bemusement in his eyes.

“Guildsmen,” he said, “it appears the decision has been made for us. We have a visitor. An outsider from the surface.”

There was a moment’s stunned silence, followed by a sudden uproar in the chamber.