"Of course," Nophel said. "We're working together, and there has to be trust." Peer nodded at him, but his single good eye could not convey any such emotion. It moved from sad to pained and back again, and she had rarely seen any other expression. She wondered what it must be like holding all that inside.
"Keep the strings short and taut," Alexia said, as she frowned and faded again. She closed her eyes as she went, and Peer wondered whether she was praying.
It struck her that she knew none of the Unseen's religious allegiances. Originally Scarlet Blades, they would have been raised Hanharan, steeped in that religion from a very early age and sermonized regularly once they were initiated into the Blades. And even three years ago, Alexia had worked against the Watchers, leading to Peer's imprisonment and torture. But since their transformation, surely much would have changed.
Now was not the time to ask. Indeed, if there had ever been a time, it was long past.
They approached the soul-fire. Peer concentrated, watching the tight string before her, turning left when it veered that way and then heading straight into the shimmering curtain. It stank of a baby's skin and a rash-plague sufferer's final breath. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, and The faces scream and rage, their pain illimitable, the shrieks beyond any contemplation of sanity, and they surge around her like walls of stone flowing as fluid, always threatening to crush her, squeeze the air from her lungs, suck the blood from her veins, and she opens her mouth to scream but can taste only the soul-fire, rancid things, and fine grapes.
Why didn't you tell us? she thought, and then they were through. She went to her knees and heard Nophel's groan ahead of her, but her string quickly pulled taut.
"You could have warned us," she said, but if the Unseen responded, she did not hear. He tugged at the string and she stood, glancing back at Malia's pale face behind her.
"Well, that was nice," Malia gasped. Behind her, the soul-fire made no sound as it fell and burned.
They moved on, their Unseen guides not pausing. The ground headed upward, steepening sharply. They followed the slope, then at some unknown signal turned left, approaching a wall of rock that loomed from the darkness like the edge of the world.
Nophel glanced back over his shoulder and whispered, "Sometimes guards, sometimes not. She'll go ahead to see." His string relaxed and the end hit the ground, and Peer saw his head move slightly as he watched Alexia's progress.
She returned quickly, manifesting again as she walked and sighing when she stopped, resting her hands on her knees for a moment.
"Sick?" Peer asked.
"Been running," she said, but she was not out of breath. "It's quiet. But beyond the wall, some of their things keep watch. You have your swords?"
"What things?" Malia asked.
"Like hounds, except slower. Blind. Don't let them bite you." Alexia looked at where the other two Unseen would be standing. She gave a quick hand signal, then started to fade again.
"What was that?" Peer asked. "Alexia?" But the Unseen was already moving away, then she disappeared completely, the end of Nophel's string grasped in her hand. "Nophel?" Peer asked.
"Just telling them to keep watch," he said. "As must we all."
The gap in the stone wall was obvious only when they drew very close and she saw the end of Nophel's string pass inside. He followed, and then Peer was in as well, walls brushing both arms as the path narrowed even further. She held the torch in the same hand as her string and tried to reach her sword, but the little man pulled her on, and she could not turn enough between those sheer walls to draw her weapon.
From ahead, she heard a quiet, strangled shout. Nophel's torch danced about, then extinguished altogether.
"Here!" he shouted. "Peer!"
She ran, shoving the Unseen man aside and bursting from the short tunnel. Nophel was on the ground with a black creature standing over him, its jaws wide as it lowered its head toward his throat. As Peer was reaching for her sword, it screamed, darting its jaw to the right at the wound that had suddenly opened in its flank. Alexia withdrew her sword and buried it in the creature's shoulder. Nophel slid aside as the creature dropped dead.
"You all right?" Peer asked, and he nodded sharply.
"Watch for yourself," he said, standing. She did, shining the torch around as the end of her string led her forward again. She smiled uncertainly, hoping that if he was looking, the short man would see it as an apology.
Several shadowy shapes stalked them. Malia's small crossbow sang, a thud and a whine signifying a hit. Two more creatures came at Nophel and Peer. She gripped her sword hard and then stepped aside. The first thing snapped at where she'd been standing, and she swept the blade down across the back of its neck. It stuck fast in the thing's flesh, driving it to the ground. It died without a whimper.
Malia's crossbow whispered again, and then the things were dead.
"That wasn't too hard," Malia said.
"Alexia says there are usually Dragarians controlling them," Nophel said. "This is the first time she's heard of them being loose down here."
They moved on, heading upward through carved tunnels and encountering no more obstacles. Several times Alexia called a halt while she explored ahead, but the Unseen never found anything to concern them. At one point she and Nophel had a whispered conversation, which he relayed back to Peer and Malia.
"She's never known it so quiet down here. We're taking one of the main routes in from the Echoes. Usually the Unseen go in other directions, passing through guarded caverns or traps. But there are no traps set, and she's seen no guards."
"Which means what?" Peer asked.
"It means they don't care anymore," Malia said. Peer closed her eyes as a shiver went through her, and when she looked again, Nophel was listening to Alexia's unheard words once more.
"We're almost there," he said. "A few hundred steps and we'll be able to see inside the first dome."
"And what's in there?" Peer asked, but Alexia apparently did not respond. Nophel headed off with his string taut before him. Peer and Malia followed, and for the first time Peer smelled something that could be described as fresh air. It carried the mouthwatering hint of baking bread, and she realized just how hungry she was. Dragarian food, she thought. Might not agree. But they had been removed from the world for only five hundred years.
How different could they be?
Alexia brought them up into the bed of a dried canal, hiding them where it passed into an area of raised ground piled against the inside of the dome. Here they could sit and watch with impunity, taking time to observe, to see, to understand.
And to wonder.
In enclosing their land, the Dragarians had made themselves aware of the air. Much of the ground that Peer could see seemed to have been abandoned-tall buildings had tumbled, and lower structures were fallen into disrepair. Windows were smashed and doors broken from hinges. The Dragarians had started building up and out, and from where they squatted she could see no large expanses of open space inside the dome. Elaborate bridges spanned between buildings that seemed to hang in midair. Rope ladders rose and fell. Networks of cables were strung at apparently random angles and places, and directly above where they hid she could see dozens of cables fixed into the inner surface of the dome structure. The wall curved inward above them, and it was encrusted with hundreds of small structures, many of them interlinked by walkways and bridges. Windows stared out upon the space, and lights flickered in some.
It was not dark inside. Great swaths of the dome were left clear of fixtures, and sunlight somehow shone through. Peer had no idea how. There had never been talk of the domes having differing materials in their structures-no glass sections, no area that appeared to slide open and closed as the sun rose and set-and yet here it was, warm fresh sunlight streaming inside and bathing the interior. It even found its way down to the ground, courtesy of the mirrored finish to many of the hanging structures.
Mechanical things slid across that massive space on fine wires, clouds of smoke hanging behind them and dispersing slowly to the air. Peer could hear the gently clasping wheels that must drag them along the cables and the rattle of cogs and springs.
On the way in, she'd had time to wonder what she would see. A continuation of what was outside, perhaps, an echo of Echo City yet on its own level. And there were some who believed that this society must have gone to ruin, that after the construction of these incredible domes, the Dragarians' isolation would have caused strife, war, and regression. These people expected the domes to be inhabited by the animallike descendants of Dragar's believers, and the ruins themselves would be a wild hunting ground.
Surely no one could have anticipated this.
"Where are they all?" Malia whispered, and Peer gasped. She'd been so amazed by the scenery that she had not yet noticed it was uninhabited.
"I don't know," Nophel said. "Alexia, will you…?" She was already fading in again, her mouth open in surprise. The other two Unseen followed suit. They leaned against the canal bank with the others, looking pale and exhausted but most of all amazed.
"I've never seen it deserted," Alexia said. "It's always… alive."
"I don't like it," the thin man said, and to Peer he sounded like a frightened child.
"So if they've all gone," Malia said, "how the fuck are we going to find Rufus?"
Peer closed her eyes, breathing deeply and yet unable to drive down the burgeoning fear. "It's obvious," she said. "Don't you see?"
"No," Malia said angrily.
"You know who they think Rufus is. They think he's Dragar. We find where all the Dragarians have gone, and there we'll find him."