The connection to Lianhua led up and away to their left, back behind the rune-covered wall. After a brief discussion, they all went out the door Kyla and Li had come through, since it seemed more likely that any stairs would be on the side the fallen mage had been trying to protect. For better or worse, the mage himself was beyond questioning.

Kaz carried Li, who seemed to be sleeping. Her skin was pale and beginning to split around her joints, but he knew what that meant by now. His little friend was growing again.

The dragon’s core had settled out, and where there had only been a tiny spark of red ki before, now it burned like a small inferno. He didn’t think it would stay that way, but he did believe her balance of power had shifted for good.

Jinn was in fairly good shape, at least once she emptied two water bladders. Reina, on the other hand, was still struggling. She was awake, at least enough to walk with Jinn’s help, but she didn’t speak. She did manage to drink some water, but not nearly enough. If Kaz hadn’t been able to see the mana she was drawing in, he would have tried giving her some more blue ki. As it was, he wasn’t willing to risk her draining him, but he thought that she would eventually recover on her own so long as nothing else happened to her.

Chi Yincang led the way through the dark, cool halls. Each time one of the tell-tale rectangles appeared on a wall, he would touch it, opening another room. Kaz continued to watch, trying to figure out what powered these odd portals, but the only thing he could figure out was that they must use such a small amount of mana that it was invisible to him.

Door after door opened and were left behind. While a few rooms held empty boxes or old tables or chairs, the vast majority of the rooms were completely empty and apparently unused. Kaz wondered why they had ever been created at all. In fact, the whole place was a mystery. The metal of the walls was so smooth and perfect that he had no idea how it had been made. There were no tool marks, and every corner was a precise square angle.

After an interminable journey through these perfect yet abandoned passages, they found themselves directly beneath Lianhua’s position. Chi Yincang stood there, staring at the ceiling for long seconds before lifting his weapon. Before anyone had a chance to speak, the human marked out a circle on the ceiling with the tip of the blade. Metal squealed in discordant protest, and sparks flew, falling down on the group so they had to quickly move out of the way.

Chi Yincang ignored all of this, and Kaz saw his ki rise, black and white surrounding and infusing his weapon. It was an unusual sight, usually unnecessary because the blade itself was far stronger than it should be, since Kaz didn’t think it was adamantium or mithril.

The next stroke saw the blade sink deep into the metal of the ceiling, gliding along the circle the male had already marked out. Chi Yincang stepped out of the way, and the excised disk fell to the ground with a furious clang. Above was only darkness.

Once the clamor died down, Chi Yincang glanced around at them all and hesitated. Kaz was almost certain he knew what the other male was thinking. They were burdens. If - when - they met resistance, Chi Yincang would be forced to protect most, if not all of them. If he left them behind, he could at least claim that he believed they were safe, and he could come back for them.

But they both knew what Lianhua would say to that. So once Chi Yincang made sure the space above was clear, he returned and silently knelt, offering his cupped hands to each of them so he could toss them up through the hole. When he came to Reina, he simply tucked the human princess under his arm like an over-filled gathering bag and leaped up himself.

Lianhua obviously wasn’t there, so they took a quick look around to see if they could find a way to move between levels that wouldn’t call quite so much attention to them. So far as they could tell, this level was as empty as the first. The only thing that changed was the ever-present hovering fog. The air here was clear but stale, as if no one ever even walked through it, disturbing the last breath taken by some resident in years long passed.

They found themselves back in the same place they’d started, staring down into the empty hole of their starting point. Did they go up in the same way, in the same place, and hope to find Lianhua simply waiting for them to arrive? Or did they move further away, so as to avoid drawing attention to Lianhua’s location, and hope that if someone came to investigate, they were either weak or friendly? Was she safe, wherever she was, or was she injured and in need of immediate aid?

“There has to be a way,” Jinn said, frustration and exhaustion vying for supremacy in her voice.

Kaz nodded. “Maybe we should have stayed below. Surely whoever controls this place has to be aware that the fire isn’t burning any more. They’ll send someone, and then we could track them back to the stairs. Or whatever they use to travel.”

He looked around. “I don’t think anyone even walks through here any more. There are no scents, not even lingering ones.”

Kyla nodded, her muzzle wrinkled and ears flat. “This place is abandoned. No, more than abandoned. Nothing lives here. Maybe nothing ever has.” She gave a shiver, and the fuergar by her paws leaned against her leg.

Kaz turned his attention to something he had been trying very hard not to look at. Below their paws lay a conflagration that put the ki used by the incinerator to shame. When he and Chi Yincang entered, Kaz had believed it to be a secondary incinerator, perhaps one that was no longer used, due to its faltering flame.

Ever since Li ate the crystal, stopping whatever the runes surrounding it were designed to do, that secondary source of ki had been growing brighter and somehow closer. If it was a true fire, and not just a mass of brilliantly-burning red ki, Kaz would expect his paws to be growing hot. Even if they were feet at the moment.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“I don’t think we have any more time to waste,” he said, unconsciously shifting in place. Something in his voice made everyone turn to look at him, and he pointed straight down with the hand that wasn’t cradling his dragon.

“Something is down there,” he told them, “and it’s coming up.” As if angered by his words, the ground trembled. Just a little, but enough.

They moved back into the hall, then to a room far enough away that they wouldn’t come up directly beneath Lianhua. She still wasn’t moving, which meant she was likely hiding or a captive. Either way, drawing attention to her location seemed unwise. If they were lucky, there would be another empty room above them.

They weren’t lucky.

As soon as the disc of metal dropped into their room, ki-bolts shot down after it. Chi Yincang vanished even as he leaped upwards, and a moment later a body fell through the hole. It was a young human, probably male, wearing a dark robe. His eyes were open, but dazed.

Kaz, Jinn, and Kyla all moved toward him at the same time. Kaz and Jinn were both restricted by their semi-conscious companions, so Kyla got there first. The pup held a knife in her hand, and Kaz barely managed to bark, “No!”, stopping her before she slipped it between the fallen human’s ribs.

Without hesitation, the young kobold instead kicked the male over, then jumped on top of him, grasping his hair in one hand as she laid her blade across his throat. The male gasped as he felt the edge part his skin, and to Kaz’s astonishment two great tears rolled down his cheeks as he began to sob.

“Don’t kill me!” he wheezed, white showing all the way around his deep brown irises. In his chest, mana roiled, black ki occasionally sparking, then returning to gray uniformity.

Chi Yincang appeared in mid-air, dropping to land silently beside Kyla and the human. His dark eyes assessed the situation, and a glimmer of approval brightened their depths. Reaching down, he pushed aside Kyla’s blade with a bare finger, then hooked that finger into the other human’s clothes and lifted him straight up until his feet dangled above the ground. Kyla jumped out of the way, wincing only slightly as she pulled the scar tissue forming across her right shoulder.

“Who are you?” Chi Yincang asked. “Where are Lady Lianhua and Yingtao?”

A thread of blood trickled down the male’s throat, mingling with tears to stain the fabric of his robe. “I’m just an apprentice,” the human sobbed. “They said there were intruders in the college, and sent us all down to look.”

He glanced up, tears pouring out so thickly that Kaz doubted he could actually see anything. “What did you do to Eleus?”

Chi Yincang shook him, and various fluids flew through the air, making everyone grimace and step back. “Who are ‘they’?”

“The… the teachers,” the apprentice stammered. “The headmaster. A… a few guards.”

“Are they nearby?”

Simple cunning took hold of the human’s face, and he tried to nod. “They’re very close. They’ll be here any-”

Another shake. “Try again,” Chi Yincang said, his voice frigid.

A motion caught Kaz’s eye, and he turned to see the pink-haired female stand up for the first time. She thrust her hair back with a shaking hand, and her brilliant blue eyes caught the strange male’s.

“I am Princess Reina,” she said. “You know me.” There was no doubt in her voice, and the male actually stopped struggling as Chi Yincang lowered him enough that he could look at Reina properly.

“Yes,” he whispered.

“Tell this man what he wants to know,” she said.

Instead of obeying, the apprentice only grew more frantic. His arms flew up as he struck out at Chi Yincang, who utterly ignored the futile blows. Mana began to gather around him, but before Kaz could warn Chi Yincang, the dark male threw the apprentice against the wall, where he slid down, limp and silent.

Reina gasped and hurried over. She tried to crouch, but Jinn caught her arm, pulling her back. Reina shook her head, eyes wide and horrified. “This happened because of me. Again. If only I hadn’t-”

Jinn slapped her. Not hard, but hard enough to make the princess stop speaking, pull back, and lick her lip where a single drop of blood swelled. Jinn bit her own lip at the sight, but she didn’t apologize.

“We have to figure out what’s going on,” Jinn said, voice vibrating with tension. “We finally have help, and blaming ourselves won’t do any good. Right now, we just have to reach your father and let him know there are traitors in the government, perhaps even in the royal family.”

Reina nodded, once, though a tear slipped down her filthy cheek, and the two females turned to look at Chi Yincang.

“Let’s find your lady,” Reina said, chin lifting even as her hand grasped Jinn’s.

Chi Yincang nodded, picked her up, and jumped through the hole in the ceiling. He was back a moment later for Jinn, then threw Kyla and Kaz up after the females.

They found themselves in a room completely unlike the ones below. For one thing, there was a very dead human wearing robes that matched those of the male they’d left behind. For another, furniture filled the space. A table that came up to Kyla’s chin sat to one side, with four chairs arranged around it. One of them lay on its back, the fabric covering the seat stained red. There was a shelf that held small, unfamiliar objects, and what looked like a container of some kind next to it.

A ki-stone rested in an alcove, shedding soft yellow light, and Kaz stared at it. Where had it come from? Did these humans have a way to trade with the mountain, or perhaps the mosui, after all? Or had this crystal come from somewhere else?

Kaz climbed on one of the upright chairs, reaching up to pluck the crystal from its resting place. There was a rune carved into the wall directly beneath it, and the stone went dark as soon as he picked it up. The light from his own light orb revealed that it was indeed a yellow ki-crystal, very familiar from his time in the mosui city.

The crystal still held a good amount of ki, though it was completely quiescent now that Kaz had removed it from its place. That was different from the ones in the mountain, which continued radiating light and ki even when they were moved. This one had a rune carved into it, and was shaped into an almost perfect sphere.

On his shoulder, Li shifted, one eye opening lazily. There was a white film over it, and he could feel her looking through his eyes because hers were currently cloudy. she asked.

Kaz yipped, turned, and jumped off the chair, landing in the open doorway as wood clattered to the ground behind him. In the hall, Kyla waited, though she looked distinctly impatient. Another door was open beyond the kobold, and Reina was leaning in the doorway, face pale but determined.

He hurried toward them, shoving the crystal into his pouch. He could hear murmurs in the room, but was somehow unable to understand what was being said. Was this what it was like being on the wrong side of Lianhua’s sound-obscuration rune? It made his ears hurt.

At the doorway, he hesitated, then took the final step.