Medilus 1, 1278: Herd Tolvana campsite at the Ancient Order outpost ruins of Shmiara. Who thought this was a good idea anyway?

We hit the books in the Archive for another hour, digging into Merchant Herd camp tactics. Along the way, we made five plans, discarded three, and I picked one of the last two—mostly on a guess. Still, this wasn’t my plan; it was ours. That, more than anything, made it feel like the right choice.

It was later that evening before we set out. Cloaked and soot-smeared, we crept across the flat expanse around the centaur camp in a ragged line.

I didn’t stop sweating until we reached the outpost ruins. After that, I shook like a leaf. It wasn’t from the cold evening wind, but because of what we’d just pulled off.

“By the Lady Deep, it worked,” I whispered, dragging off my sand-colored cloak. I stuffed it out of sight in a forgotten closet for the trip out.

Kiyosi grinned, looking around at the broken-toothed stone ruin.

“Setting a campfire on the flatlands near the trade road was brilliant.” He shrugged off his own battered, dirt-smeared cloak, stashing it with mine.

I brushed a hand reverently along the stones of the outpost walls. It felt like the dust and rocks whispered their history in my ears. Visions of battlements, soldiers, and tradesfolk from centuries past, drifted through my thoughts like ghosts.

“Hey, you know the rule,” I replied, studying the walls. “Never set a campfire on the flatlands unless you want to be seen. Can’t take credit for the cloaks, that’s Atha.”

Skarri removed her cloak, which Mikasi accepted with a smile to hide it with his own.

“I’ve never heard of these cloaks.” She brushed her fingers along the ragged edge of hers before Mikasi hurried away. “Dirt-stained wool, sewn with grass clumps to make you look like… well… the ground.”

“Is nothing,” Atha rumbled. The minotaur shed his own cloak, which had made him look like an escaped rock from the Mandami Hills. “My aunt use Hairgrass cloaks when she rustle mountain goats or smuggle cheese. Goats and shepherds never see her coming. Move, wait, move again. Easy.”

Past arrow slits and narrow windows, we saw a forest of brown wooden banner poles rising over a sea of canvas centaur tents. A solid reminder of how close we were to genuine trouble. I pursed my lips, ran through three options for what to do if caught, then saved them for later.

A persistent unease nagged at my nerves until I almost twitched.

“I still think this was a little too easy,” I grumbled, despite my elation at our not getting caught. “The lack of guards here in the old outpost feels a little rude.”

Kiyosi gave me a perturbed glance, swatting the air with his whip-like tail.

“What? Would it help if I said ‘halt, who goes there’ a few times?”

I shot a sour expression at him, but he deftly countered with a grin. It’s hard to stay exasperated at him, so I gave up and grinned back.

“All right, spread out,” I whispered. “Watch the noise; it’ll echo in here. But look for anything related to the Sunfate Sisters. Judging by what I saw underground, that’s how the stonemasons marked their way.”

We split up, picking our way over ancient fallen stones and through cracked doorways. Shadows rubbing shoulders with history and its ghosts, both avoiding being seen.

The ruins were a collapsed stone lung, full of ancient wars and older paranoia. I saw a glimpse of the Ancient Order fortifications, holding the place up like a mythical titan. Brickwork from ancient armies and cultures was piled on top like a cake made by a drunk baker. No two were alike, which resulted in a mad maze of hallways and rooms, some even with a ceiling. I swore I could almost smell the ancient blood in the mortar.

It didn’t take long before we uncovered a lone, weather-beaten wooden door. In the moonlight, I found a faint carving at the bottom of the doorframe that closely resembled the face of the Sunbound Sister. It was so small, it almost looked like Ancient Order graffiti, not a deliberate trail marker. To the right of the door was a narrow window that looked out over the cracked clay line where the Bromcour River once ran.

I stared at the door, then the riverbed. Kiyosi’s hand on my shoulder rattled me out of my wool-gathering.

“What?” he whispered.

I glanced back at the door.

“There’s something about this door and the dried riverbed out there.” Worry lines creased my forehead as I crouched. “I found a Sunfate Sister symbol down here at the floor. The door is almost at the outer wall. So, false trail?”

Kiyosi knelt beside me, brushing his fingertips over the carving. After a moment’s thought, he shook his head.

“I don’t think so. These outposts were supposedly built during the Ancient Order’s Brass and Gold Crusades. If you’re right, those stonemasons were avoiding the Ancient Order, and trying not to get murdered to keep the Iraxi secret. Their trail wouldn’t be out in the open.”

“Hm,” I grunted, raising my eyebrows. “So what… down?”

Kiyosi gave me a grim smile that lacked any humor.

“Down to catacombs or a narrow room. We’d better get the others.”

As it turned out, someone from Herd Tolvana had either thought ahead or was just that paranoid. A small group of centaur soldiers—three at most—patrolled the ruin’s hallways. It took some care, but we avoided them and didn’t get lost. A half-hour later, we’d collected the others and returned to the splintered door. We headed inside, with some tiny lanterns and my Sun Orb to cut the darkness.

The door was, in fact, a way down. At first, it was forgotten old storage with rotten bags and barrels. But another half-hidden door and stairs later, we found something far more interesting.

“Good call.” I patted Kiyosi on the arm. “Catacombs.”

“Ancient Order, too,” Mikasi added, gently brushing his fingertips along the ancient sandstone-cream brick walls. “Perfectly aligned and smooth. Almost no mortar. But why would the viprin stonemasons come this way?”

Atha grunted, stomping past us to peer inside burial alcoves with a lantern, then inside what looked to be a prisoner cell.

“I’m no Windtracer, so history is just so much dust to me. But this,” he waved a calloused, fur-covered minotaur hand at the cells, “is disguise. Look around. Hyu want to hide something? Easy! You go work for hyu enemy, and hide it under their nose.”

Skarri pursed her scaled lips. “More lessons from your cheese-smuggling aunt?”

Atha folded his arms over his chest with a satisfied expression. “I have very smart aunt, even if she in bad business.”

Right then, the ground rumbled beneath us. Skarri and Atha looked alarmed, but Kiyosi and Mikasi ignored it. I shook my head and sighed, giving the tunnels a withered glance.

“That happened in the other Deepland tunnels; the ground must be unstable around here. Everyone, watch your step.”

“What do we look for?” Skarri asked. “More Sunfate Sister icons?” She glanced down the nearest hallway, holding a lantern high. “These passages are very straight.”

I nodded while Mikasi offered the details.

“Yes! The Ancient Order loved efficiency. So their catacombs were for burials but also prisoners, too. They’ll be straight, laid out like a grating. We could get lost, but I brought some chalk to mark the walls so we’ll find our way back.”

“Good idea on the chalk,” I said. Then to Skarri I added, “Atha’s got a really good point. If the stonemasons were hiding this entrance under the Ancient Order’s nose, it’ll be a concealed door.”

I waved at the nearest corridor.

“Look around for any Sunfate Sister faces. The Ancient Order loved to use mosaic wall art to depict great events. That would be a fantastic place to put a hidden entrance.”

Everyone spread out, except Kiyosi, who hovered next to me while we searched.

“So, the water elemental?” he asked quietly.

I shook my head.

“Gone. Her name was—is—Azure’sella. We had a long conversation after we lost Elkerton and his knee-breakers. She was worried that if she stayed, it would draw too much ugly attention our way.” I knelt down in front of a large mural of a Crusade battle; there was a curious pattern along the edge. “Getting that model out of the reflection pool set her loose from some nasty ‘bargain’ she’d been caught up in.”

Kiyosi peered closely at the mural’s upper edge.

“No Sunfate anything here. Just elaborate knotwork,” he said, then glanced at me. “A bargain with who?”

I stood up, brushing my hands against my trousers before we continued along the hallway.

“Viprin shamans.” I frowned at the memories. “Not sure Azure knew all the details, since it was way before her time. But her people owed the shamans a debt. To pay it back, they were sending someone to stand guard for ten years at a stretch in that old underground temple.”

Kiyosi stopped dead in his tracks, whip-tail swatting the air. I watched him do the mathematical acrobatics in his head.

“Tela, that’s… centuries. Nearly a thousand years. Really? Over a debt?”

I nodded, sharing his mild horror with a look.

“Over a debt,” I echoed.

“That’s unsettling,” he said somberly. “Also sounds desperate. If those shamans were that desperate, what other lengths did they go to in protecting the Iraxi relic? How much of all this was shaped by that desperation?”

My mind flashed back to when I bargained with Liru to save Kiyosi’s life. That put me in debt to a viprin shaman. I worried about how much it would really take to pay back my debt, and if I’d survive to the end. Suddenly, I realized Kiyosi was studying me with his ‘healer diagnosing a patient’ expression.

“What?” I asked irritably.

He arched an eyebrow at me.

“I was going to ask you that.”

I harumphed, then scrubbed a hand over my face, trying to wipe off sweat and strain. Mostly, I managed the first, not the second.

“Thinking too much.” I stared at my hands. “Feeling like all this keeps getting more knotted up by the moment.”

Kiyosi reached over, gently squeezing my shoulder.

“Then we get a knife and cut the knot. Worry at it a piece at a time.”

I gave him a thin smile, patting his hand.

“Found it!” Mikasi’s voice echoed from another hallway.

We sprinted down the corridor, past murals and prison cells until we found the halfling inventor with Skarri studying one of the larger murals. This one was another battle, but I thought I recognized the Mandami Hills in the artwork. Atha stampeded up a few seconds later.

Mikasi and Skarri were hunched over what looked like a decorative band of sun-yellow knotwork tiles that framed the mural. The inventor touched one of the delicate knots, grinning. At the center, was a tiny carving of a Sunfate Sister face. I looked in awe at the interwoven knotwork bands—there were hundreds.

“Every knot?” I murmured.

“Yes! Every one,” Mikasi replied. “They’re in a pattern except for here. Three faces aren’t in the right place.”

He tapped a trio of knots that weren’t at all close to each other. But sure enough, each one held a Sunfate Sister face. I saw what Mikasi meant instantly.

“They’re out of order. Skarri, correct me on this. Aren’t the sisters supposed to be arranged from Sunbound to Storm-shed to Hungered Sister, east to west, following the sun?”

“Correct,” she hissed, coiling her tail underneath her.

“Another lock,” Kiyosi mused. “Which could have a good old-fashioned trap in it. Old trap might mean residues of mold or poisons. Check the knotwork. Look for black stains, even an odd smell; though the smell might be a long shot.”

I folded my arms, studying the carved knots with the others. Those three faces really were the only ones out of order, and easily half an Ancient Order meter apart.

“Order. Patterns. Flow. The knotwork looks like it flows.” I mumbled, leaning closer to inspect the mural. “No stains or odd smells.” I touched one of the out-of-order faces.

It wiggled.

“I wonder…”

The piece didn’t come loose when I tugged at it, but it did move. In fact, it slid. When it did, I grinned.

“Oh, I get it. By the Lady Deep, this is a slide puzzle.” I traced the wagon-lengths of knotwork with my eyes. “Damn, there’s a lot. All right—everyone trace the knotwork. We’ll need to slide these three pieces, and some of the correct faces around, until everything is back in order.”

We got to work. It was slow, and mind-numbingly tedious. But twenty minutes later, the last piece clicked into place. A section of the mural split off from the wall and swung inward. Beyond was a long room with a blue-tiled floor, walls, and ceiling. A large inscription filled the floor just past the doorway.

“Only the penitent and reflective may pass,” I translated. “Ominous.”

The moment I stepped inside, there was a soft click. I ducked, and a finger-length dart sliced over my head. I swore it took off a few hairs. Slowly, I let out a breath I didn’t know I held.

“So, anyone feeling penitent and reflective today?” I said over my shoulder.

“Windtracers,” Atha grumbled. “How hyu lot stay alive is beyond me.”

The ground trembled again, as if the stones chuckled at our expense.