As with most of the other hidden doors Kaz had found, this one was decorated with a map. It focused on the mid-levels, and for the first time he was able to pick out the rune for the number seven, carved from stone and painted in a rich, deep red. Not terribly surprisingly, the sevens marked the levels he’d just passed through, though he was startled to see that the level containing the yumi fields was also a seven. Had the xiyi or mosui originally worked in those fields instead of his people? Or were the husede brought here for that purpose? And why had Kaz’s - or rather Dongwu’s - kobolds been the only ones forbidden to enter? Or had they?

Kaz desperately wished he could ask someone who knew the answers to all of these questions, but everyone involved was long dead except for Nucai. Kaz very much doubted that ancient being was interested in explaining anything.

Well, the important thing was that they had found the way out, so Kaz stepped forward to place his palm against the center of the image. Once again, the ki-crystal that powered the door was hidden within the tower Zhangwo had occupied, and Kaz pressed his finger into the hole until he could touch it. He had a moment to realize that this one was larger than the others, and then an enormous section of the wall began to rotate.

As with the platform in the hoyi nest, floor, wall, and anyone standing nearby all moved together. Kaz swayed as a fifty-foot arch of stone, along with the piece of wall contained within it, shifted and spun in place, making a loud grinding sound and sinking several inches into the ground as it did so. Water sloshed, then began to drain rapidly from the lake and down the tunnel revealed by the opening of the door. If Kaz hadn’t dug his claws into the ground, he would have been washed away by the current, and Li flapped her wings, lifting from the ground with an irritated hiss.

Heishe quickly shrank, allowing her smaller form to be carried toward Kaz, who scooped her out of the water and placed her back around his waist. When the Snake’s massive bulk vanished from the water, the surface of the lake once again settled below the level of the surrounding rock, leaving Kaz standing on a wet ledge, his fur dripping.

Li settled beside him again, but looked very unhappy about it. Lifting each paw, she shook it, then put them all back down with a beleaguered sigh. she asked plaintively, and Kaz chuckled as he brought his red ki to the surface, drying his fur and producing a cloud of warm steam that Li leaned into.

Kaz stared up at the archway above them as the steam cleared. “I don’t think that snake-shiyan could fit through here. How was he supposed to get out?”

Li stared at him, then obviously decided to go along with it, and sent him an image of a very ugly white dragon shoving the many-headed snake through the gap until it popped out like a plug from a water bladder.

Kaz chuffed, but looked down at the perfectly round section of stone that had sunk into the ground beneath him. If the only other door he’d ever seen like this had turned out to be a platform, what were the odds that this one was, too? Perhaps more importantly, what were the odds that it wasn’t? It seemed to be stuck at the moment, but if it became unstuck while they were standing on it, what would happen?

Carefully, Kaz took several steps deeper into the tunnel, followed by Li, who was still suggesting ridiculous names for the snake-creature. Only when they were both off the potential platform did Kaz stop and turn, kneeling as he brushed at the surface of the stone. To his physical eyes, it looked like completely normal rock, complete with natural cracks and an uneven surface, but when he sent a flush of ki out through it, faint flickers came back to him.

Li finally caught on to what he was doing and stared down at the wide circle of sunken stone they’d just been standing on.

Kaz nodded, cautiously giving the stones a bit more power. “It’s completely out of ki. Maybe that’s why the other one wasn’t working? Did you notice that there was nothing living in this cavern other than the creature?”

Li chided.

That was fair, but not the point. “Xun..du, then. Nothing lived here but Xundu.”

Li said.

Kaz shrugged. “Xunma is a type of moss that stings if you touch it with bare skin, but tastes good in soup. The fronds look a bit like serpent heads.” He lifted his hand, using the fingers as a mouth to snap at her playfully. Li caught his fingers in her mouth and bit down very, very gently until he laughed and shook his head, relaxing his hand. “It’s a good name.”

Li sighed, but she seemed pleased that he was making an effort.

Kaz straightened, his ears twitching. “Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe something about this place kept outside power from making its way in, or maybe Xundu absorbed power somehow, leaving none for anything else. All I know is that I can name a dozen plants and insects that would love this place, and in a thousand years, at least some of them should have found their way here, but none did. And then there’s this platform. I think these crystals are intact, not broken like the ones that burn out naturally. If I recharge it, we may actually be able to ride it to its next destination.”

Li asked, clearly suspicious. After all, they’d been trapped on these few levels for days after the last platform carried them away. How could they be sure that taking this one wouldn’t just make their situation even worse?

Kaz stepped back, pressing against the wall so he could see the carvings on the half-turned wall. Yes, there were the sevens and the xiyi, but no sign of a many-headed serpent. Had this place even been meant for Xundu, or was it for-

“Dragons,” Kaz said, staring up at the dark passage in the ceiling. It opened over the deepest part of the lake, so if there had once been a platform to carry dragons and xiyi between this level and the egg-chambers, it was likely far below water now. Was it possible that when this space was created or discovered, there was no water in it, and Qiangde had had the lake created just for his last experiment?

Li asked, cocking her head to the side.

“This passage isn’t big enough for Xundu,” Kaz said, finding that the name was already coming to him more easily. “But it is large enough for dragons to walk through, especially young ones. What if this leads to a way out of the mountain?” His eyes scanned the map, finding the level they were on primarily because the one above it held egg-like ovals and many xiyi. Sure enough, one side of it trailed off, fading and vanishing into the sloping side of what Kaz now recognized as the outside of the mountain.

Li’s eyes brightened, and she looked down the dark passage.

Kaz’s heart clenched at her eagerness, but he nodded. “There may even be stairs leading down, so we don’t have to try the platform at all. If we fly, it’ll be faster.”

Li looked around and stretched out her wings. For a moment she seemed slightly fuzzy around the edges, and then she swelled to her largest size. Her wingtips weren’t even close to the sides of the passage, and she nodded in satisfaction, then dipped her shoulder so he could swing his leg over her neck.

Time was always difficult to judge in the mountain, so its occupants based their lives around feelings of hunger and weariness, or the time it took for a torch to burn out. Kaz and Li no longer felt either of these things in the way they once had, and Kaz’s light would never go out so long as he had ki, but Kaz was fairly certain it took no more than an hour to reach the end of the tunnel, even given that they stopped several times to examine suspiciously flat sections of wall that always turned out to be nothing.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

When their light revealed a rapidly-approaching wall directly ahead of them, Li slowed, then landed, running several feet as she tried to lose the speed she’d built up over the last several minutes of flight. Kaz climbed off her back, and stared at the blank circle of stone that completely blocked the path ahead. It was the same fifty-foot diameter as the tunnel itself, and Kaz stopped twenty-five feet away, crouching down to touch the floor.

“Nothing,” Kaz said, with mingled relief and disappointment, as he sent several pulses of ki into the ground ahead. “I don’t think there’s a platform here.”

Li asked, already moving past him to stare up at the blank wall. She reared back, placing her front paws on the wall as she tried to push her own ki out the same way Kaz did. She managed it, but while she was excellent at fine control, these larger uses of power were more challenging. Still, if there had been ki crystals embedded in the wall, they should have reacted to her. Nothing happened, and she dropped back down, releasing a thick cloud of frustrated fog.

she asked, glaring at the wall.

But Kaz’s ears were half-lowered as he frowned around. “It’s possible they just didn’t finish whatever they were planning to do,” he said, “but it looks very complete. And this wall is absolutely flat, not natural-looking at all.” He walked from one side of the passage to the other, sending his own ki into the walls and even the ceiling. Nothing reacted, and he finally stopped, shaking his head. “I think we’ll have to go back and try the platform.”

Li glared at the stone that blocked their path, but started to turn away. Then she kept turning, ending up right back where she’d started, facing the flat surface again.

Kaz looked around. There was still no sign of any plant life, and hadn’t been anywhere along the way. Then he realized that he still had most of the ki blocked from his eyes so the constant cloud of mana that had only grown thicker as they descended through the mountain wouldn’t block his normal sight. Releasing that block, he blinked, startled by what he saw, or rather, didn’t. “There’s no ki, and no mana, either. Or so little that I can’t see it.”

Li gave a little click of satisfaction, then moved toward the wall again.

“Would eventually run out of ki, unless they produced their own, like Xundu,” Kaz finished as Li began to push against the right side of the wall. “So whatever this is, it would need to work without ki or mana.”

Li asked as the wall shifted forward ever so slightly.

“Just a door,” Kaz said, stepping up beside her to add his own strength. The door swung forward again, just slightly, and they both looked at each other, dug in their claws, and shoved. This time the stone scraped softly, and they stumbled forward as it moved several feet. The wall was quite thick, but soft, filtered light streamed in through a gap a little more than a foot wide. Kaz could fit through, but they would have to open it wider in order for Li to make it.

Li stepped forward, thrusting her nose into the gap. She drew in a deep breath, her ribs spreading wide as she took in the scents. she said, her eyes closing in pleasure.

“Should we open it wider?” Kaz asked, eyeing the slab of stone. “If it leads outside, it won’t help us, though I suppose now we know how the xiyi and dragons left the mountain.”

Shaking her head, Li stepped back, then began to shrink. She still wasn’t as good at growing smaller as she was at being big, so different bits of her wavered and shrank at slightly different times, but soon enough she was down to her smallest size again. Kaz picked her up and squeezed through the gap.

They stood in the back of a large, deep overhang. Sunlight filtered in from cracks overhead, and the wind whistled through stones, creating an eerie sound that added to the loneliness of the few drifting snowflakes that fell just beyond the opening ahead. Kaz padded out to where shadow met light and peered down the steep side of the mountain.

Li said, rising from his arms to lean out, stretching her wings. For a moment he thought she might try to fly, but then a particularly powerful gust of wind picked up a flurry of snow, and she pulled back, shivering.

Kaz nodded. Taking a few more steps closer to the sharp dropoff , he twisted around, trying to look back up the mountain. Sure enough, he could make out the tops of a stand of spindly trees with narrow, surprisingly green leaves. He’d seen several such groups of trees as they’d flown by, and suspected that this one, too, surrounded one of the many brilliantly blue lakes that dotted the mountainside.

“That’s probably where the water for Xundu’s lake came from,” he said, pointing, then looked down the craggy, nearly vertical drop below. “I feel sorry for the xiyi if they really did leave this way. I wonder how many of them didn’t make it to the bottom.”

Li shuddered, though this time he wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or thinking about the fates of the fleeing xiyi. Either way, Kaz used red ki to warm them both, and she settled back against him with a sigh.

she said reluctantly, even as she turned her face up to the sunlight.

She was right. The platform at the beginning of the tunnel was now their best chance to reach the Deep on time. Kaz went back, enjoying being able to hold Li close again, and began to slip through the gap in the door. Halfway through, he stopped.

“What’s that?” he asked, peering at a narrow band of gray that almost blended into the similarly gray stone around it. It was a little too consistent, though, and Kaz lifted a finger to prod at it, giving it a bit of ki almost out of habit. He jerked his hand back as that ki was instantly rejected, flowing back into his finger in a very unpleasant way.

Li glared at him.

Kaz’s ears lowered and he nearly gave a whine of apology. She was right, and he knew it. She wasn’t the only one who’d told him that, either, and if Li told Lianhua and Kyla what Kaz had been doing, those females would also be upset with him.

“But what is it?” he asked, trying to turn her attention back to what was really important, which was clearly not whether he’d been poking at things when he had no idea what they were.

Graciously allowing herself to be distracted, Li cautiously sent a very small burst of ki toward the material, but unlike Kaz, she didn’t maintain a connection to the power. It was like a tiny ki-bolt, and it bounced almost like it had hit a shield, striking Kaz and making him jump. He was almost entirely certain it was an accident, however, so he didn’t comment on it.

“This has to be the reason there’s no ki or mana in the tunnel or cavern,” Kaz said, prodding it with a completely unpowered finger. Nothing happened, and he tried again, this time rubbing his finger against a surface that was unnaturally smooth. Next, he tried scratching it, and found that without using ki to strengthen his claws, he couldn’t even scuff it.

Seeing that Kaz was still messing with it, Li sent out another ki-bolt, this time a little stronger. It popped against Kaz’s arm when it bounced back, and a tiny wisp of smoke carried the scent of burned fur to his nose. Li said, not sounding at all apologetic, and Kaz sighed.

“All right,” he said, and slid the rest of the way through the door. He moved several feet from the opening, and turned to look at it. “Maybe I should-”

Li said firmly.

Kaz hesitated. “But someone might use it.”

Li agreed.

That made Kaz think of something else, and he asked, “Do you think the xiyi remember this is here?”

Li said gently,

It was, but Kaz realized he’d had some idea of controlling exactly how that happened. That wasn’t right, though, was it? If he truly hoped some of the xiyi might make this mountain their home again, he had to allow it to be their home, and that meant allowing them to decide when and if they stayed here.

Yes, the xiyi and his people would have to figure out exactly what that meant for all of them, but he didn’t want to decide what that would look like. He might have to step in to make sure that nothing like what Thabil and Qiyi had been doing in the former mosui city happened again, but otherwise they needed to work it out for themselves.

As he stepped away from the opening, he felt wind swirl in to pluck at his fur, trying to chill him again. He leaned over and set Li on the ground, where she immediately began to grow, quickly reaching her largest size. Kaz climbed onto her back, and she ran a few steps, wings beating, before leaving the open door behind.