Free The Phoenix Endangered by James Mallory Page A

one level to the next were wide and shallow—one must walk two or three steps between the edge of one and the next, and descend only a narrow handspan, and then walk again. Indeed, any shotor might have made such a descent in perfect comfort, could the stubborn beasts have been persuaded to venture into near-darkness, for the terraces were as broad as the passageway from which they led.
    As Shaiara knew, the Descent below the first also held gardens, and water, and sunlight, though the growth was less abundant than upon the level above. There was more damage to the Second Descent, as the roots of plants and trees that flourished on the level above had worked their way through any tiny crack in the rock they could find, levering it wide over the centuries. In the Second Descent, no barrier remained in place across an entrance—if, in fact, any had ever existed. Those hunters who wished a greater challenge than their days now held came to the Second Descent to hunt, for the creatures lurking here were difficult to track and more difficult to capture, and the Nalzindar had come to believe that this was the Descent upon whichmost of the predators who lived within Abi’Abadshar made their homes.
    Shaiara and Ciniran made their way carefully along the length of the great corridor. Their way was not unencumbered, for though it was as broad and as high as the one above, uncounted years had filled it with dung and debris and crumbled stone. With the weaving of many more baskets and the labor of moonturns, the passage could be cleared—just as the passage above was being cleared of wet sand and poisonous stone-fruit—but the material must be put somewhere, and they could not simply dump it on the sand outside. To do so would be to attract unwanted attention—and any attention at all would be unwanted. Though some of the rooms in the passage above were empty, and might be filled, Shaiara hesitated before ordering any action that would so disrupt the Balance of this place. For the moment, the Nalzindar were but guests. Bad enough that their necessity required them to hunt the fenec , the desert cat, and the wild pakh —not even for skins (for the pakh was a useless creature whose flesh was inedible even by the starving and whose skin could not be tanned), but because the Nalzindar now needed their prey to feed their own hunger. It was true that game was abundant here, but it was also true that the weight measured out by the Eternal Light into each pan of the Great Balance must tally exactly. When new predators arrived in a hunting ground, old predators must go, lest the prey be hunted to destruction. And the Nalzindar were predators.
    They reached the end of the corridor, and the shallow terraces that marked the next Descent. Ciniran paused to light the second lamp, and Shaiara blew out the first, tucking it into her pouch to let it cool before refilling it. She and Ciniran continued on, following the marks left upon the walls—first those that many Nalzindar had left in the course of going forth for a day’s hunting and harvesting, but as they went on, the marks became fewer.

    T HE T HIRD D ESCENT held little sign of life, though there was evidence here that the beasts that made Abi’Abadshar their home had occasionally ventured down here, most so long ago that their bones—all that remained—crumbled away to dust at the touch. For the first time, Shaiara’s touch discerned ornament upon the walls, though the illumination she and Ciniran carried was not enough to show her the whole of the design. She held the lamp close to the walls, hoping to see.
    Wide bands of something that might almost be carved letters—were it not for the fact that it held no shapes that Shaiara recognized—alternated with what might be more pictures like those upon the cups. But the carvings were too vast, and her lamp was too dim. There was not enough light.
    Perhaps—if they discovered a way to make proper torches, and if the smoke did not