A quick search was all they needed to confirm the horn wasn’t here. Critobulus kept his library meticulously clean and uncluttered. Out of frustration more than hope, Janu did a second search. He peered in the end of every scroll. He looked behind the jars of ingredients. He even checked for hidden compartments in the two desks.
At the main desk, Ilarion stood reading the contents of a bound book – the only such item in the library.
‘Am I reading this right?’ he asked Janu as he crouched to examine the underside of the desk.
Standing with a groan, Janu peered over at the page he had open. In a small, neat hand of sharp angles and pretentious serifs, Critobulus had written down journal entries across several dates. They were old dates, several decades past. For Ilarion’s benefit, Janu traced the words as he read them. ‘Attempts to force the dragon to eat using the bond have been unsuccessful. Dragons bonded from the shell may be more controllable. Have requested the acquisition of eggs for further experimentation. Ritual suffices for now, but appetite is unknown and overfeeding a frequent mistake. Their majesties witnessed yesterday’s feeding and were satisfied to continue investigation.’
‘What about that bit there?’ Ilarion tapped at an entry on the next page, dated two weeks later.
‘Bald patches beginning to develop on dragon’s wings, suspect due to stress, confinement, or side-effect of ingredients in supplemented diet. Attempts to exercise in a secluded area were unsuccessful. As a first subject with imperfect bond, it will likely need to be kept in confinement indefinitely. Hypothesis: if overall growth continues, wings may shrink relative to body size and become redundant. Useful for poorly bonded dragons but otherwise does not make up for loss of flight ability. Will have to observe if the same occurs with a stronger bond.’
As Janu had read, Ilarion’s face had grown darker and darker. When he reached the end of the entry, the man turned away with a hiss of breath and shook his head.
‘If that first subject is the dragon he had in there’ – Ilarion jerked his head in the direction he must think was the collapsed tunnel, a way off by Janu’s reckoning – ‘I’ll hate to see what’s become of him. Maybe that’s why they’ve stopped guarding the place. Not for Critobulus’ paranoia, but because there’s nothing left to guard. His experiments probably killed him.’
‘Him?’ Galnai asked, a curious furrow in her brow.
Ilarion grimaced. ‘He was one of Anshar’s students, long ago. Izimendalla. He lived free for almost three hundred years before they captured him.’ Eyes sparkling with the echo of a kindred wanderlust, he added, ‘Anshar said he was planning to travel the world. He never got the chance.’
In the silence that followed, Galnai examined Ilarion with open curiosity. He didn’t seem to notice, too distracted by the thought of Critobulus’ experiments, his gaze lost in the distance.
At length, she asked, ‘Why do you care so much for these dragons?’
Ilarion barked out a laugh that had Janu flinching at the volume. He gave Galnai an incredulous stare.
‘Why? You’ve seen them!’ Ilarion made an expansive gesture, as if the entire population of Kimah-Kur stood in the room with them. ‘A whole society we hardly know about, older than us, wiser than us, minding their own business until we came along and decided to ignore all that, to treat them just like any other animal.’
He rocked on his feet, closing his eyes for a moment. When they reopened, his tone had calmed somewhat, but sorrow tinged it. ‘Even my prince wants to bind them. True, he doesn’t know of their sentience like the empire does, but that is why he sent me here. To learn the empire’s secret. To find out how to bind them ourselves. To give ourselves a fighting chance if they ever decided to expand North.’
Galnai cocked an eyebrow. ‘We’re not exactly swimming in dragons back home.’
‘Oh, we have dragons. Far out in the steppe. Bigger than most of the dragons here, from what I’ve heard, but I haven’t heard much. No one has, outside fairy tales. I’m not the only person the prince has sent out to learn more, either – there are expeditions underway as we speak.’ He fiddled with the end of one moustache. ‘I find myself hoping they have been unsuccessful, wanting to write him to send an ambassador, not explorers. But I daren’t explain the whole story except in person.’
Closing the notebook, Janu held it out to Ilarion and said, ‘Well if you want to make it there in person, we should get a move on. The horn isn’t in here. We need to look elsewhere.’
Ilarion took hold of the book as if it had been smeared in dung, but tucked it into the empty weapons bag. ‘Maybe we can free Critobulus’ dragon while we’re here.’
Janu crossed to the door they hadn’t opened yet and began his usual examination. ‘If it doesn’t get us discovered, sure. Might make a useful distraction. But unless it’s good at tunnelling, it’ll be too big to fit through any of these passages. No dragon would fit.’
A grunt was the only acknowledgement he got.
Fully expecting to find a half-starved dragon on the other side of the door, Janu opened it to another room, a little smaller than this one. He let out a relieved breath. It was noticeably warmer than the last room, but Janu couldn’t see a reason for that. No suspicious emptiness this time, just a basic bed, all ready to use, and other necessities for overnight trips. Critobulus either enjoyed convenience or got fed up navigating his own traps too often. Or he liked to vary where he took his concubines. Who knew?
He took a few steps further into the room. On the same wall as the door he had walked through, a hatch had been set into the wall. Janu had seen similar in rich houses once or twice, but tugged it open and peeked inside just to confirm. As he had expected, it was a lift mechanism for transporting food from another floor to this one and sending the empty dishes back.
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After shutting the hatch, he told the others, ‘Keep it quiet in here. There’s a shaft to somewhere else in the palace. Our voices might carry.’
The others filed in. Heketas cocked his head at the closed lift mechanism.
‘Always wondered how Critobulus stayed so long down here without getting anyone to fetch him stuff from the kitchens. Wonder if the cooks know where it goes to.’
After a cursory look around, Galnai said, ‘Unless Critobulus keeps the horn under his pillow, I don’t think there’s much sense us staying here.’
Janu shook his head and pointed to the next door. ‘Have a quick look anyway. I’ll get started on this.’
The door stood on the wall to the left of their entrance, which to Janu’s internal map had it pointing right back at the collapsed tunnel and right where they needed to go. As with the other doors in this nest of twisting tunnels and chambers, it wasn’t trapped. Or he thought so, anyway. The constant all-clears after that first corridor were beginning to gnaw away at his confidence. He twisted open the knob with a small hammer of trepidation beating at his heart.
Another long corridor. Great.
Behind him, furniture creaked and bedding flumped as Galnai and Ilarion searched every corner of the room. When Janu turned, Ilarion had even lifted up the bottom plate of the lift mechanism to check for anything that might be hidden beneath. Predictably, both came up empty handed.
‘We’ll need to get our slats out again,’ Janu said, stepping aside just enough for them to see the yawning void of the corridor.
Their shoulders sagged, but they picked up the slats from where they had left them propped against the wall and headed out, lanterns aloft in one hand, slats in the other. Then they tested their way along the corridor, inch by frustrating inch. The further they walked, the hotter it grew, and soon Janu’s back, almost dry from their swim through the lake, was rebathed in sweat. Every step tightened a sense of unease in the pit of his stomach. Every sharp tap of the slats had him expecting a slew of bolts to hiss from the walls and made his back itch when they didn’t.
After far too much time for his liking, and still no sign of further traps, they reached the end of the corridor. Here it turned completely back on itself and split into two corridors running side by side.
Janu let out a frustrated growl. ‘Now he makes it into a proper maze?’ He checked the glass disc against the wall and squinted. Nothing had changed by the entrance. The sky might have been a shade lighter, but it was difficult to tell with the flickering lantern light. How long had they been at this now? How long until Critobulus decided to come down here again, if he wasn’t already waiting somewhere ahead?
Too many questions. He wouldn’t find the answers to any of them by standing still.
They continued in the manner they had grown wearily accustomed to, turning corner after corner, marking each intersection they came across, retracing their steps after each dead end.
‘I’m starting to think this just leads to the palace’s hypocaust,’ said Galnai after a while, wiping sweat from her eyes. ‘Though I can’t see Critobulus building a whole labyrinth for underfloor heating.’
Janu shrugged and kept tapping his way ahead. ‘Maybe that’s on the level above us. We’d still feel it down here.’
They turned another corner. Like the last one, this stretched into darkness ahead.
‘Can you hear water?’ Ilarion asked.
Janu stopped tapping for a moment and strained his ears, but he could only hear his own heartbeat.
Galnai nodded, though. ‘It’s faint, but I hear it.’ She turned to Heketas. ‘Is there another stream running through here?
Heketas shook his head. ‘Not that I know of. I’ve heard the water for the fountains gets pumped from somewhere down here, though. Could be that?’
With a frown, Ilarion started forwards again, the tip of his slat tip-tapping the stone. ‘I’d think we’d hear the pumps before we heard the water.’
Perhaps ten yards further down the corridor, Janu caught the first burbling notes of a stream as well. Ten yards beyond that, the corridor ended in blackness, hinting at some large, unlit chamber just beyond. Though Janu itched to snuff out his lantern, their task would be impossible without it. They couldn’t find their way blind, let alone spot any more traps, and for all they knew, Critobulus had worked some ritual to let him see in the dark.
If only such a ritual existed. If it did, Divya would know of it, but he wasn’t about to traipse all the way back through the labyrinth to fetch her.
As they approached the opening, the paved stone floor gave way to bare rock again. The four of them leaned their slats against one wall and sidled up to the end of the corridor, watching their little puddle of lantern light slide further and further without touching another wall. Heat pressed against them. It had turned the air into a thick sludge, forcing humidity down their throats with each heavy breath.
‘What now?’ Heketas’ voice was the quietest Janu had ever heard it, and he barely did.
Janu glanced about for any hint, but the cavern walls to either side were the same bare rock as the floor. He gestured with his lantern along the right wall. ‘Galnai, you hug the wall to the right, see what you can find. I’ll go left. Ilarion, Heketas, you head out into the middle. There must be something in here.’
Without another word, they split up, lone specks of light parting in the dark. Galnai’s light flickered more violently than that of Janu and Ilarion’s lanterns. She had taken a candle from one of the previous chambers, and its light illuminated the skin of her cupped hand or her chin or the nearby wall in fits and starts.
Concentrating on his own path, Janu scanned the wall and floor for anything out of the ordinary. The best he found was when the hewn rock gave way to close-packed rubble, the peaks and craters of its surface casting harsh black shadows. This must be the other end of the collapsed tunnel, then.
He slowed his steps and examined the ground as he walked. Step by step, the sound of burbling water grew louder. Just when he thought he could see the surface of a pool shimmering in the distance, he came across the first scratch marks. Dragon claws, Ilarion had said. They stretched away from the collapsed tunnel, out into the darkness.
Following the marks led his gaze to Ilarion and Heketas, their forms periodically breaking the light from the lantern they shared. It barely picked out the floor beneath their feet. Then something else in the room did.
Janu blinked. For a moment a warm light suffused the room, revealing Ilarion and Heketas in their entirety, casting long shadows on the floor behind them. Then darkness returned, even stronger than before. He squinted at the shadows beyond the lanternlight so hard that motes danced in his vision.
A long, bass rumble ground through the cavern. It reverberated through the floor, sending the small bits of debris by Janu’s feet skittering. Ripples caught the light on the distant pool, all emanating away from the centre of the cavern. Janu froze. His brain went blank. Panic sank its icy claws into his arms and chest and held them there.
In the centre of the cavern, a fire-bright glow spilled into being, framed by the sharp teeth of a giant dragon’s maw. The dragon reared up, the brightness of its flames casting half the cavern into semi-daylight. Its great horned head was the height of a small house, its skin a leathery, mottled brown. Fire spilled from its mouth in searching tongues, reflecting from the links of a great chain half embedded in the skin of its neck.
Ilarion took two steps forwards and called up to it in the dragons’ own tongue. The dragon may as well have not heard. Its mouth opened wider. The light of its eyes wheeled madly.
‘Ilarion!’ Galnai’s voice snapped Janu out of his stupor. ‘Don’t just stand there, you blithering idiot. Move!’