Chi Yincang led them to an open doorway. Across the threshold lay a single limp hand, palm up, fingers gently curled and defenseless. The hand belonged to a robed human, and another of the odd mana-sticks lay on the ground beside him. His face held an expression of startlement, the glazed eyes wide.
Yingtao and Lianhua stepped over him. Kyla and Mei leaped. Li flew. Kaz enjoyed the benefit of his longer legs and went across. Jinn edged around the body, but Reina stopped, horrified and staring. Kaz could tell from the expression on her face that she recognized him.
Inside the room was a platform, one which was a bizarre combination of those found in the mosui city and the one a husede named Ogden used to carry passengers between several of the upper levels of the mountain. A heavy chain passed through the center of it, mimicking the one Ogden pulled, hand over hand, to raise or lower his platform. Beneath the flat metal floor, however, Kaz could see a complex design built of glowing ki, looking almost exactly like the ki that powered and controlled the mosui platforms, just with different runes.
Everyone except Jinn and Reina piled onto the platform. Jinn pulled at her friend, screaming something, but Reina stood as if frozen, unresisting but unmoving as she stared at the body. The walls rippled around them, the air growing slightly warmer with each indrawn breath.
Feeling as if he was moving through fresh yanchong slime, Kaz stepped back off the platform, walked across the room, and picked the female up. She trembled in his grasp, but still didn’t struggle, though Jinn looked like she might attack him for touching her princess. Kaz ignored her and Li’s unhappy squawking inside his head, depositing the pink-haired female on the platform, where she immediately slumped to the floor.
Jinn followed, wrapping her arms protectively around her friend and glaring from Kaz to Chi Yincang, who had undoubtedly been the cause of the robed male’s death. Lianhua watched them all, face pale, lips tight, and grasped the chain, pulling hard. Ki flowed from her, the platform lit, and they rose, body and warped room vanishing in a surge of red ki that swallowed up the smear of crimson painting the overheated floor.
Rather than entering that strange between space, like a moment in time no one but Kaz could see, the platform continued upward, placidly following the chain piercing its center. The ki beneath Kaz’s feet shifted, then settled as the floor stilled again, leaving them gazing out at a room not much different from the one they’d just left, other than the absence of the corpse.
Lianhua tugged, and the platform began to rise again, leaving that room behind as well. The ki in the floor changed for the second time, and Kaz noticed that while it had started with a large amount of black ki, it swirled through yellow and now settled into blue.
As it did so, the platform halted with a very final sort of thump, then listed to the side, causing all of them to sway in an attempt not to lose their balance. Some of them were better at this than others, and Reina ended up falling against Kaz, who instinctively caught her and placed her upright again. He released her quickly, as the dragon on his shoulder mantled and glared. The expression was particularly fearsome from behind the pale white caps of her outgrown skin.
Reina jerked away from him, her cheeks glowing almost as pink as her hair, and snapped something he couldn’t hear. Kaz ignored her, turning to look around as Li settled back down, twining her tail firmly around his arm.
The room in which they stood this time was different. Rather than perfectly smooth, gray metal walls, they were covered in a complex repeating pattern that must have taken many artists many hours to create. As far as Kaz could tell, there were no runes involved, and the images of flowers and insects were purely decorative. He would have liked to take some time to examine it, but since the nearest wall had a broad crack running through it and was beginning to crumble, he very much doubted there was time.
Lianhua reached up and pulled the blobs from her ears, wincing as she did so. Everyone else copied her, though Kyla immediately stuffed hers back in, flattening her ears as she did so.
“This is the way we came in!” Lianhua shouted, her usually gentle voice straining to be heard over the cracking, screeching rumble that surrounded them. “There’s a portal in the garden outside. If it’s still working, we may be able to get back to the palace that way!”
For a moment, Yingtao looked like she would argue against this idea, but then she glanced at Chi Yincang and held her tongue. Kaz sighed internally. By now, he was well aware that Lianhua’s grandfather had prepared a series of traps, tests, and rules for his granddaughter, to be enforced by Chi Yincang and possibly Yingtao as well, but it seemed to him that this wasn’t the best time for them, if that was what was going on.
He looked at Yingtao. “Is the palace safe?” It was almost a howl, and almost a growl, and sounded little like a human voice, at least to his own ears. Her hands went into her sleeves, but she shook her head, just once, without looking at Lianhua or her brother.
Kaz thought about the view from Cliffcross and carefully felt the curious sense of ‘home’ that had guided him through every moment of his life. The mountain was that way, and when he’d stood at Raff’s side, looking over the Cliff, it had been there, which meant…
He crossed the room, took hold of the round handle of the door, and turned it in the way Lianhua had taught him when they went shopping in Wheldrake. It opened onto a plant-filled space, but rather than the brilliant blue sky he’d left behind, the area overhead was filled with a dark vapor that seemed to be rising from the earth itself. As he watched, the ground split, red ki pouring out in a roiling cloud that shifted to gray as it merged with the mana already in the air.
Everyone else poured out behind him, and even over the continuing noise, which had been joined by the sound of people screaming, he heard their exclamations. What did they see? Was there real smoke? Was the mana so thick that even they could finally see it? Or did it seem to them that the earth gaped into emptiness, released no stultifying power, threatened to crumble beneath them for no reason at all? Surely at least Lianhua could sense the presence rising from beneath them?
“There!” she cried, pointing at an arch of stone with a finger that was admirably steady. Kaz looked, but even from here he could tell that no power infused the dead gray rocks.
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Turning, he used ‘home’ to orient himself. He couldn’t see the way, but he knew. “The bridge is that direction,” he howled, lifting his own finger. To his internal astonishment, it was as unwavering as hers.
The words hung in the moment between one shattering rumble and the next, and Lianhua turned to look at him. Her gaze flicked to the inviting curve of stones, then toward the narrow path winding away between two bushes, their roots already exposed by crumbling dirt. She nodded.
“Lead the way,” she told him, and he did.
They weren’t the only people left on the failing pillar which had held the mage college. Most of those who remained wore simple black robes, and many sported wounds. They supported each other, limping or running with terrified or determined expressions. Almost all of them were moving in the same direction as Kaz.
Li sent back amusement, pulling gently on their combined ki like a puppy tugging another pup’s ear. Her forelegs shimmered slightly as she lifted into the air, the long curve of her body visibly more graceful than it had been just a few hours earlier. Her neck was definitely longer, and her legs seemed slimmer, the joints less rounded.
Kaz felt a strange pang go through his chest as he watched the dragon rise through the clouds of mana and, possibly, smoke. He couldn’t smell smoke, but the heat blazing upward from beneath them wasn’t burning like firemoss, but more like the searing conflagration that was the sun. Did the sun produce smoke?
The path they had started out following wanted to wander. It curved to the side, then returned to meander in the opposite direction, leading nowhere quickly. Kaz ignored it, bounding over anything short enough to jump, and circling the small trees and large bushes. Occasionally they passed statues, but most of these were already toppled or broken, scattered stones and smiling faces with empty eyes threatening to trip him as he ran.
More and more humans surrounded them, and though at first he was worried that one of them would recognize Reina or Lianhua and attack them, they had their own problems at the moment. Even Kyla drew little more than odd looks, and a few times someone veered sharply away when they saw her. Kaz’s group merged seamlessly with the mass of stumbling, shrieking humans, and soon his biggest problem was making sure he didn’t leave anyone behind.
Kaz felt his jaw clench, and wished again for proper ears and a tail. He didn’t know how to communicate his frustration and worry with this human body. Stepping to the side, he put out an arm, catching Yingtao as she ran. A flicker of amusement wormed its way through his fear when both Lianhua and Chi Yincang immediately halted as well. Kyla was only a bit behind them, with Mei perched on her shoulder, but Jinn and Reina took a little longer, their eyes following the flow of other humans running toward what they must assume was safety.
Raising his voice, Kaz repeated what Li had told him. It was hard to make them understand when they could only hear a few of the words, and after a moment he stopped trying, just shaking his head as his mind raced. The only possible safety lay in the human city surrounding them, but how did they reach it?
A rope.
It was Raff, and he had coils of rope looped around his body, draping from arms, torso, even his neck. It led up from the depths of the pit, and as Li flew closer, she could see the look of determination on Raff’s face as he continued hauling it out, hand over hand. That rope was certainly strong enough to allow someone to cross the gap, but was it long enough? If it was, how could he possibly get it to them, even if he knew they were there? He was strong, but even he couldn’t throw hundreds of pounds of rope more than five hundred feet.
Turning, Kaz traced the glistening ribbon of ki that bound him to his dragon, motioning to the others as he did so. Li was flying toward Raff. Raff had a plan. There was a chance, but the first step was making sure they were in the right spot at the right time for everything to come together.
The closer they got to the edge, the more cracks and crevices there were. These weren’t as deep as the ones closer to the center, where ki rose up in reddish-gray clouds, but they opened unexpectedly, shooting through surfaces that seemed completely safe only a moment earlier. No doubt it was due to these unexpected fissures that so many of the humans around them were limping. More and more were simply sitting on the ground, weeping hopelessly.
Kaz led his group around them, heading toward Li, watching through her eyes as Raff finally pulled up the end of the rope. The grass around him was covered in loops and coils, and Kaz felt a stirring of hope. Raff pulled his massive sword from where it was hidden in his storage pouch. With a few quick tugs, he tied the rope around the hilt, then let a few feet of rope slip between his fingers, swinging the dangling sword as if judging its weight and balance.
Kaz could see the moment when the large male realized Li was there. His eyes widened, and a huge grin split his face, white teeth flashing. He lifted his free hand in greeting, and Li dipped down, curving around him once in an easy loop that took her back out over the chasm, heading directly for Kaz and his friends.
Raff followed the line of her flight, then waved again, this time a broad swing of his arm, meant to be seen from a distance. Kaz, who had just stepped up beside the final wall encircling the crumbling college, waved back. Soon, all of them were waving and shouting, though there was no way Raff could possibly hear or understand them over the cacophony of breaking which now seemed to be coming from immediately beneath their feet.
With a final wave, Raff stepped back, bracing his feet. Letting out a bit more rope, he began to swing the sword. At first it was slow, but soon enough it whirled so quickly that it might make even Chi Yincang proud. At last, with a staggering lurch, Raff released the rope, sending the sword flying toward them, straight and true.
It fell short. Not by much. A hundred feet? Eighty? The gleaming bolt slowed, then began to fall, arching down into the boiling depths. Raff could pull it back in and try again, but it would take time, and Kaz’s feet were burning, as was his core.
Li plunged after the tumbling rope. Unthinking, Kaz lunged after her, very nearly vaulting over the wall and into the red darkness. Only Chi Yincang’s hand wrapped around his upper arm stopped him, and Kaz snapped useless human teeth at the black-haired male as he felt Li’s claws close around the rope. She was too small, too young, too weak! A dragon, yes, but just a hatchling, a pup at best, and she would be pulled down, down to whatever was coming for them all.
Kaz’s knees grew weak as he felt a terrible pull on their bond. Ki drained out of him like water from a shattered bowl. But Li rose up, the rope clutched in claws that were barely large enough to close all the way around it. The sword was now an impediment, rather than a guide, but she carried that, too, ki burning through her, through them, as their cores strained to keep up.
The sword fell, and the dragon with it, but Kaz stretched out his hand and caught Li as Chi Yincang caught the hilt of the weapon. Kaz fell back, clutching his dragon to his chest, and Chi Yincang began to pull in the rope.