Kaz had been gone for almost three days, and it felt like three years. Kyla lay on her belly, staring into the cozy space she’d made for Mei, using grass and branches. The fuergar had immediately vanished into it, only to reemerge a few moments later to begin gathering more grass and anything else soft she could find. She had even plucked some of Kyla’s loose fur while she was sleeping! Now, the rotund rodent spent all of her time in the tiny hut, while Kyla brought her water and fed her Kaz’s metal bars.
“Are you sure she’s all right?” Kyla demanded again, rolling over to stare up at Yingtao, who was standing beside Lianhua. The taller female had proven to be quite knowledgeable about medicine, and without Kaz, Kyla had turned to her instead.
A small smile passed over Yingtao’s lips, and amusement brightened her eyes. There was definitely something the other female wasn’t telling her, and Kyla didn’t like it at all. Worse, it seemed like all of the humans were in on it, except possibly Lianhua, who was oblivious to everything except the runes carved into the archway that would contain the portal into the mountain.
“Quite sure,” Yingtao said. “Though I’d still recommend watching her very closely over the next few days.” She hesitated, then reached into her sleeves, coming out with some round, golden coins. “Here. In case she needs more metal.”
Kyla sat up, accepting the coins. She was more than a little surprised by the gesture, since Yingtao was almost as good a trader as Idla, and everyone knew Idla didn’t give anything away for free. Kyla was not looking forward to negotiating with the strict old chief on the human’s behalf, though at least she knew the true value of Idla’s goods, which would prevent the chief from pretending something was rarer than it was.
“Kyla?” The absent voice made her turn around, meeting Lianhua’s eyes. There was a wide streak of dirt on the female’s cheek. Yingtao saw it at the same moment, and took out a small square of brightly colored cloth, which she used to wipe the smudge away. Lianhua blinked, then smiled blindingly at Yingtao before catching the taller female’s hand in hers and kissing the back. “Thank you,” she said, and Yingtao’s cheeks turned red as Lianhua looked at Kyla again.
“Do you know what this rune means?” Lianhua asked, pointing to it. This one was half-buried in the ground, but Kyla sent one more glance toward her sleeping fuergar before climbing to her paws and brushing grass from her fur.
Kyla had been certain that she would be able to let the kobolds inside the mountain know that she was outside, waiting. After all, the howls told of runes she was supposed to be able to fill with her power, lighting a corresponding rune inside the mountain. Unfortunately, the portal was completely covered in runes, and even though Kyla used her power until she was drained, none of them seemed to do anything. Certainly, no one had opened the portal, and the day it was scheduled to open was drawing close.
Now, Lianhua was trying to translate the runes, to see if they contained any instructions or if any particular one was more promising than the others. At least, that was what she said she was doing, but mostly she just moved a few inches at a time, all the while writing in one of her little books. Yingtao was always there beside her, ready to bring an apparently endless supply of tea and food, and draw anything that Lianhua didn’t feel she could capture properly by herself.
Kyla crouched beside Lianhua, staring at the weathered stone that vanished into the dirt. Lianhua had pulled grass and other small plants away from the column, but bits of dirt still clung to it. Brushing away what she could, Kyla traced the curves of the rune with the tip of a claw.
“Isn’t it just the number three?” she asked finally, unable to see why Lianhua had called her over. Numbers were the first thing any pup learned, since they were simple to draw and understand.
Lianhua shook her head. “Numbers don’t have modifiers, they just are. But look here.” she pointed to a faint notch Kyla had taken for a chip in the stone. “This is the modifier for ‘eternal’, and in the size quadrant, it’s…I don’t even know what that is.” She huffed a breath, but Kyla could tell she was actually enjoying herself, which was perhaps the strangest thing about all of this. “Could you tell me the number howl again?”
Kyla knew perfectly well that Lianhua had written the howl down, because the human had shown it to her when she asked if Kyla knew what it meant, but she dutifully repeated it anyway. “One is safety, two is clear, three is home, four is bone, five is forbidden, six is work, eight is mine, and nine is forever.”
Lianhua nodded, taking another book from her pouch and opening it. Kyla had no idea how she could tell them apart, or remember what was in which one, but somehow whenever she took one out, it always had what she was looking for in it. This time she was apparently looking for a picture of a map, though it wasn’t drawn in her usual stark, sharp lines. No, this one was full of shadows and depth, looking like it might rise up off the page.
“Kaz drew that,” Lianhua said with a smile, tracing a gentle finger over the lines on the page. It wasn’t perfect, even Kyla could tell that, but there was an energy to it, a sense that the essence of the thing had been captured in time, and she held her breath for fear that she would damage it.
Yingtao shook her head. “He has real talent,” she said. “I’d love to see what he could do after receiving proper training.”
Lianhua’s smile took on a melancholy edge, and she looked up at the mountain that towered over them. “I don’t know if he’ll ever get the chance to receive that training. I hope he will.” Then she shook off whatever dark thought she’d had, and said, “But look at the numbers.”
Her finger tapped the page, pointing out the runes carved into the stone map. Kaz hadn’t been able to fit everything in without making it unreadable, so he’d marked the placement, and then drawn the actual runes around the edges, along with rough, simple runes to indicate color, where necessary. “One is safety. Those runes are in the cities, but also in a few places around the Deep.”
Kyla peered at it. “I think those are the main dens of the great tribes. They’re the only ones that never move, since they have water from the underground river, as well as their own small yumi fields. Those haven’t done well since we lost the Woodblades, though, so they’ve had to share what comes out of the fields near the Tree.”
Lianhua nodded. “That makes sense. ‘Two is clear.’ Those are almost all in the upper levels, with a few in the mid.” This time Kyla had nothing to contribute, so she shrugged. She knew only the broadest of generalities about life in the levels above the Deep.
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“All right,” Lianhua murmured, “We’ll put that aside for the moment. Given how much less of everything there is in the upper levels, this could be pretty literal. Nothing here, move on. Which brings us to three. ‘Three is home.’ I’d think that would mean the dens or cities, and there is some crossover, but there are only three threes.”
Her finger tapped the page, going from the image of the Tree, to the city in the mid-levels, and then to the only spot that was also marked with an eight. “Who lives - or lived - in these three places, and why is the same version of the number carved into this arch?”
“The dragon skeleton is at the top of the Tree,” Kyla offered. “And the last one is near the forges. Don’t dragons like fire?” They all paused and looked around, as if expecting a response from someone who wasn’t there.
“I think our dragon prefers water, but she does like it very, very hot,” Lianhua said, laughing a little. “I don’t know about other dragons, but it does seem likely that they also prefer hot places. Both Huo Hu and Meng Yan Hai mention dragons breathing flame, while Ling Qiao claimed there was a dragon breeding ground in the heart of the Yan Gu volcano. Of course, that claim was weakened by Yue Ta, who put together an expedition in 579 AD. The whole expedition died when the gases produced by the volcano smothered them in their sleep, but in 621 AD, Yue Ming, Yue Ta’s grandson, discovered their camp, along with Yue Ta’s records, which showed that he’d found some evidence that dragons had once nested there, but no definitive proof. In fact, he believed that bandits had used the caldera as a place to hide their stolen goods, and started the dragon rumors to keep other people away.”
Kyla and Yingtao waited patiently until Lianhua finished. Fortunately, Raff was out hunting again, and the Elder Longs were in the tent nearby, so no one felt the need to hurry her along. Presumably Chi Yincang was somewhere nearby, but he certainly wasn’t going to pop out of wherever he hid just so he could tell Lianhua to get to the point.
“Anyway,” Lianhua said, finally coming back to what they were talking about, “so maybe three is something about dragons?” Then her eyes narrowed, and she bit down on her lip. “Or maybe it’s about dragon servants. We know Nucai is in or under the Tree, and Zhangwo lived in the mid-level city. Kyla, do you know where Dongwu lived?”
Kyla’s ears flattened. Dongwu was the name of the human who had ‘created’ the kobolds. She might or might not have been the Voice, but otherwise there were no howls about her, at least not that Kyla knew of. “No,” she said, voice tight. “Not even Tegra’s book says much about the person who led the experiments. She hated Qiangde and his servants, but I’m not sure she even knew this Dongwu’s name. If she did, it was a rune I didn’t know how to translate.”
Lianhua shook her head. “Dongwu, you’re as mysterious as ever,” she murmured, and by now Kyla recognized the look in her eyes. Lianhua wanted to know more, and she would pick and pry at every clue until she got an answer. She was also oddly good at making leaps of intuition that turned out to be correct, so Kyla didn’t discount the possibility that she was right about the meaning of the number three, as well.
“But none of that tells us why this version of the number rune is here,” Lianhua said, frowning at the mark. “What I do know is that at some point it got chipped. See, look at the spur on the drawing, and what looks like a terminal on the portal.” She pointed to the very bottom of the rune in both places, which was helpful, because Kyla had no idea what she was talking about.
“It still says ‘three’ either way, because over time, even runes shift, so you have to know the era they were created in order to be certain of an accurate translation. But without the spur marking the fourth quadrant, it doesn’t match, which is strange, because these should be from the same era as the other numbers, which don’t have equivalent alterations.
“Normally, that quadrant indicates ownership or location, depending on context, but of course there really isn’t much context here. It’s almost like someone took the most important words out of a poem or song and just slapped them up here. Other than the numbers, the runes are things like ‘ethereal’, ‘solace’, and ‘ineffable’. At least I think that was ineffable. It might also be ‘eggplant’, but that just doesn’t make as much sense. Unfortunately, time and weather have worn away some of the finer marks, but in this case, I think something hit the column pretty hard, chipping off that spur.”
Looking to her right, Lianhua said, “Chi Yincang, would you come here, please?”
Instantly, the dark warrior dropped out of the air, landing lightly in the soft soil. Somehow, in spite of the fact that it was still damp from a light rain that morning, he didn’t leave even the slightest trace of his passage as he walked over to Lianhua. Kneeling beside her, he said, “Yes, Lady Long.”
Lianhua sighed very, very softly, then showed Chi Yincang the page. Pointing to the carving, she said, “Can you add this spur back on the terminal?”
Chi Yincang dipped his head in acknowledgement, then spent a moment staring at Kaz’s drawing. When he was satisfied, he raised his hand, and his long, bladed weapon appeared as if from nowhere. Kaz said it was stored in the ring on his middle finger, and Kyla would very much like to have a ring like that. Of course, she would use it to store cheese, but to each their own.
Using only the deadly tip of the blade on the end of the pole, Chi Yincang made a short, decisive stroke against the stone. The tiniest sliver fell into the grass, and then the weapon vanished again, leaving Chi Yincang waiting to see if Lianhua needed anything else. Seeing that she didn’t, he jumped straight up from his crouch in one smooth motion, disappearing into thin air once again.
Turning to Kyla, Lianhua said, “Try putting your ki into it now. Just a little, at least at first. Right here.” She pointed to the center of the ‘three’ rune.
Three is home. Kyla nodded and reached out, pressing a finger to the same spot Lianhua had just touched. Gathering her power, she did what she would have done to create a light on the tip of her finger, focusing on keeping it small but bright. At first, she thought this would be as much a failure as every other time, but then the rune shimmered, and the entire arch glowed for the barest moment. No portal opened, however, and Kyla sat back.
“Should I try a power-bolt?” she asked, though she felt oddly shaky, given how little power she’d meant to use.
Lianhua’s eyes were bright, and her pen was scratching at the page of yet another book. She glanced up. “What? Oh, no. That was perfect. Thank you.” She looked back down at the page, clearly having forgotten Kyla was even there.
Yingtao gave a small laugh, smiling at Kyla conspiratorially. “She’ll be like this for a while, I think. Perhaps you should check on Mei until she’s ready to talk again.”
Kyla’s ears perked up instantly. How long had they been talking? It seemed like forever, with all of Lianhua’s meandering howls. Quickly, she hurried back over to Mei’s little hut, peering inside. There was her fuergar, sleeping deeply on her side, in that way she had only started to do when she grew too round to sleep normally. But as Kyla watched, her belly rippled, like something inside was trying to come out, and Kyla threw herself backward, then forward again. Her hands stretched out as if to snatch her friend from the hut, but stopped. What if she hurt Mei even more? What if whatever was inside her burst out?
A soft laugh came from behind her, and Kyla whipped around, staring up at Yingtao, who wore the broadest smile Kyla had ever seen on her face. “Did you finally figure it out?”
“What’s wrong with her?” Kyla asked, her voice barely a whimper, and the smile vanished.
Yingtao crouched down, reaching out toward Kyla, who backed away. Yingtao had known about this, but hadn’t helped Mei? Had Kaz known, too? “Oh, no,” Yingtao said with surprising gentleness. “Your little friend is going to be a mother soon, that’s all. She’s perfectly fine. Her body is just working hard to grow her babies.”
Kyla turned huge eyes back toward the little hut, then toward Yingtao again. Finally, her tail began to wag with the most enthusiastic thumps ever, and she clutched her hands in front of her. “Eeeeep!” she said, unable to form coherent words.
Yingtao reached out and patted Kyla’s head. “That sums it up perfectly.”