Chapter 63
Hoku crossed the threshold with one hand before his eyes, peering through the spaces between his fingers as the light struck him.
Golden grass swayed midway up his shins, extending around an immense ruin ahead until the far boundary of the field was lost in darkness.
His pupils dilated. 'This field… this is the chamber?'
The stalks around his boots were dry. Hoku lowered his hand and tipped his face towards the sky.
A vast dark-red body occupied most of what he could see overhead. Its lower portion deepened almost to black, while the light escaping around the upper curve left the rest of the sky a diluted crimson, closer to the red of pomegranate than blood.
Dark markings traversed its surface. Several thickened some distance from the middle into a shape resembling a trunk, from which finer lines forked repeatedly towards the outer margin.
A heavy thud sounded behind him, interrupting his thoughts.
When Hoku lowered his head, Luenard had already moved several paces from the doorway. A few strands of his burgundy hair had fallen over the box beneath his arm.
'He was ahead of me when the candles went out…'
Hoku briefly considered the distance between them.
'I must've just passed him in the dark.'
Behind Luenard, weathered boards now occupied the doorway through which they had entered.
They were set within a bay of dark stone, with part of a moulded arch remaining over the lintel and several courses of stone broadening towards a ruined buttress on one side.
Beyond that small remnant, however, nothing resembled the structure they had just descended through.
Hoku stepped over one of the blocks and went around the side.
Grass grew flush against the rear boards and continued across the ground.
Hoku pursed his lips.
"…Where are the stairs?"
Luenard came around the masonry at a more leisurely pace. His attention rested briefly on the grass, then settled on Hoku.
"Ah, they are still beneath the study."
"But we came through this door… why is it the only thing here?"
"Because this threshold is different. The study and the chamber were never adjoining rooms. Simply put, while the door remained open, the stair beneath the study led here through it; once the door closed, the connection ended."
'So even walking through a door is complicated here… I hadn't minded the mirrors, but if doors are going to behave like this as well, maybe I should start leaving through the windows.'
Hoku suppressed the urge to sigh. "Where do we go from here, then?"
"Technically, there were several open paths, in various places around the ruin, though none of them ever functioned as entries. It has been a long time since I came here, so I cannot tell what condition they are in now, but I do remember where two of the three main routes were. We can begin there."
With that, Luenard beckoned Hoku to follow as they started towards the eastern side of the ruin.
After nearly a minute of walking, the ruin resolved into distinct sections; a long portion had lost its roof and several floors, exposing columns and open chambers; farther back, two narrow towers flanked the remnant of a high hall.
In the distance, the brown-black rise nearly blended with the surrounding darkness. Its crest rose and sank in broad swells, and several shelves of exposed rock jutted from the slope.
Something hard knocked against the back of Hoku's thigh.
He slipped a hand into his pocket and felt smooth metal beneath the curled fob chain.
He took out the compass and let the candelabrum drop into the grass. His hands closed around the metal case, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
'I may as well keep a stone for a pet… This one always comes back.'
Hoku pocketed the compass and lengthened his stride.
Close ahead, Luenard was nearing a stone arch set low in the ruined wall, with only a few yards beyond it visible before darkness concealed the rest.
Timber lay across the lower part of the arch, wedged between fallen stone and what remained of the inner wall.
As Luenard reached out to touch it, the iron strap along its length suddenly grated against the floor. The beam shifted outward until it lodged against the rubble, but pressure from within continued to drive it, the binding dragging over stone as the timber moved farther towards the field.
Hoku leaned slightly to peer through the narrow gap between the beam and the arch, but Luenard suddenly put out a hand across Hoku's path.
"Stay here for the moment. If that end comes loose too quickly, part of the entrance may come down with it."
Small pieces of stone pattered from overhead as the buried end emerged. Hoku instinctively drew back, Luenard moving aside at nearly the same moment as the beam dropped between them and descended the bank.
Dust billowed through the opening. Through the grey fall beneath the lintel, a hand closed around the inner stone.
A shoulder in a white mantle followed, with a narrow length of green metal held close alongside the body.
"Li?"
Li ducked through the arch and stepped into the grass. Still holding the green blade close to his side, he braced one hand against his thigh and drew several heavy breaths.
"I was beginning to think I'd lost the trace near the end."
Hoku stared at him, momentarily at a loss.
"If you're here, where are…"
"Most likely where we separated," Li interrupted. "I haven't seen them since, though, so they may have moved on."
Hoku pushed his fingers back through his fringe, his hand lingering loosely along his hairline as Li's breathing settled and he straightened.
"I don't believe we've met."
Luenard inclined his head with a slight smile. "You may call me Luenard. I assume you were with Hoku before he arrived here."
Li returned the courtesy with a shallower inclination. "Zhou Li. We were travelling together until he disappeared in the Fourth Passage."
Luenard's smile receded a little. "I am rather curious how you came through that entrance. I had not expected anyone to reach the chamber from that side."
'Right… how had Li come through there in the first place? Even with Luenard guiding me, we had to unseal the mural before the way into the chamber would open. Nothing he had said afterward made it seem like somewhere a person could simply wander into.'
Li brushed the grit from a fold of his mantle.
"After you disappeared, the concentration around the statue weakened considerably, although it hadn't vanished. I moved farther off and compared the trace from several places. At first, I couldn't tell whether I was still sensing the Vitalis around the statue or a weaker trace coming from somewhere else. After a while, though, one direction became distinct, and the farther I went that way, the stronger the trace became.
"It eventually brought me to another enormous statue. From there, the trace continued into a corridor. I'd been there a little while before I heard the two of you."
Li adjusted the green blade in his grip and reached for the sheath at his hip.
"Incidentally, I found something of yours there."
He drew the Sword of Thieves and offered it across.
Hoku's hand slipped from his hair. As he took back the sword, his thumb settled instinctively against the guard.
'How the hell had it ended up in that corridor?'
Hoku murmured his thanks while Li sheathed the green blade.
"Luenard…" he added with mild amusement. "I have heard your name before, though only in relation to the Third Passage. I thought you were a Keeper."
Luenard chuckled softly.
"That makes two of you. Hoku was under much the same impression when we met. I was never among the Keepers. I knew Madam Lamb from my time with the Archive, when I was still an Archivist."
"Madam Lamb?" Li's brow lifted slightly. "You knew Oliverou?"
"I knew him as Madam Lamb. More often than not, he came to the Archive in that body."
"I suppose becoming a Keeper left little opportunity for those dealings to continue."
"In person, certainly." Luenard bowed his head slightly. "Madam Lamb could no longer come to the Archive, and I had no occasion to enter the First Passage; however, our association did not depend entirely upon either of us doing so."
'I never really thought about how the contract was supposed to continue. When Luenard mentioned it before, I'd assumed it belonged to the time Madam Lamb still came to the Archive. But if Oliverou couldn't leave the First Passage and Luenard had never entered it, what had either of them still been able to do for the other?'
A few seconds passed before Li spoke again.
"Juno and I encountered several of Oliverou's puppets in the Second Passage. For a time, I thought it was another effect of the elixir, perhaps allowing those bodies to range farther than Oliverou himself."
"I would have thought much the same in your place," Luenard replied evenly. "Oliverou's elixir did allow him to act through more than one body."
"Although I can see how he might still direct them, I never quite reconciled that with their presence in the Second Passage. If the First Passage kept Oliverou there, I had no reason to assume the puppets could cross into another merely because the elixir had given them separate bodies."
"Did you consider whether another Keeper might have assisted him?"
"I did. For a time, it seemed the likelier explanation. Hoku and Mars appearing along the path I was using complicated matters, however; neither had begun there, and eventually the three of us entered the Fourth from different assignments. I found your name there as well, which made the assumption rather difficult to dismiss."
Hoku had been listening quietly, though something about Li's questions was beginning to puzzle him.
'Why hasn't he asked how the puppets got there? That was the first thing I wanted to know. Instead, he keeps finding out how many of these things Luenard might be connected to before asking how any of it worked… Ah. I never thought I'd say it, but Li is rather good at this.'
"Oliverou and I had an arrangement," Luenard said. "You are right to keep it in mind, though treating every irregularity as part of it would go well beyond what you know."
"I am not saying they share a cause. In the case of the puppets, at least, another Keeper would first have faced the same boundary before he could help Oliverou beyond the First. Whoever enabled their presence in the Second could not have been confined by a Passage."
The clasp beneath Luenard's thumb gave a quiet click.
"The Archive could still provide certain things without either of us entering the other's domain. In Oliverou's case—"
A tremor ran through the bank beneath them. Hoku instinctively steadied himself as a deep boom rolled through the ruin.
A wall of air surged through the arch, sweeping powdered stone before it. It struck Hoku across the chest and folded the grass flat around his legs. Above the lintel came a long grinding of stone.
"Down the bank, both of you!" Li called.
He seized Hoku by the sleeve and pulled him lower. Hoku tucked the Sword of Thieves against his side and went with him, his boots finding little purchase on the flattened stalks.
Halfway down, Hoku glanced back. Through the powdered haze, Luenard was still beside the arch.
"Luenard!"
Luenard looked towards him, then stepped away from the arch.
A fractured length of moulding fell behind him, struck the rubble below, and broke apart. A dark cavity remained above the lintel where it had been. Five black birds forced their way through it, wings striking stone and one another.
One skimmed over Hoku's shoulder, its heavy beak briefly filling the corner of his vision.
'Ravens?'
Farther along the wall, dark shapes swept from the roofless chambers and both narrow towers almost at once. Their cries gathered above the deep groan of the ruin.
At the foot of the bank, Li let go of Hoku's sleeve. The field rolled beneath them, and Hoku bent low with it, one palm in the grass and the Sword of Thieves across his body. The shaking eased as Luenard joined them.
By the time Hoku straightened, the leading birds had crossed half the field and dwindled to specks. Together they formed several shifting shapes, each change of direction visible despite the distance.
The largest flock swept eastward. As the foremost birds neared the distant ridge, they rose abruptly, crowding those behind until the flock parted around it and continued along either side.
From the farther tower, more birds approached on a different course. They were already well above the ridge, but veered aside before passing over it.
'That's strange… Perhaps the gust had driven the first flock upward, but those from the farther tower had already been well above the ridge, and they had not come with the wind. Could they have sensed something?'