Free The Phoenix Endangered by James Mallory Page B

suffocate them—Shaiara would be able to return, and see more clearly what stories these walls told. At last they reached the terraces that led to the Fourth Descent, the limit—so far—of the Nalzindar’s explorations.
    “Narkil did not wish to continue so far,” Ciniran said quietly. “I went on alone.”
    Silently, Shaiara blessed Narkil’s hesitation, little though she cared for the fact that it had led to Ciniran’s continuing to explore by herself. “Not twice,” was all she said, and Ciniran nodded. Shaiara made fresh marks against the carved stone, indicating clearly that two young female Nalzindar had come this way early in the day. Then she lifted the lamp high, and they continued.
    S HE HAD TAKEN care to wear her heaviest cloak when they set out, for experience had taught her that the deeper one went into Abi’Abadshar, the colder it became, but they descended now into a bone-deep chill such as Shaiara had never experienced, and Ciniran, who had warned her of it, was just as uncomfortable.
    “There is another Descent below this one,” Ciniran said, and Shaiara understood the unvoiced question: is it possible that they grow colder and colder until water could become ice? Both of them knew that such a thing was possible, for at certain times of the year, ice could be harvested even in the deep desert, by leaving water out in a shallow metal pan overnight. It was a game played by the children of the Isvaieni at the Gatherings of the tribes, for the desertfolk had no need of ice.
    And it was a question Shaiara could not answer.
    The walls of the shallow terrace-passage leading to the Fourth Descent were carved as well, and Shaiara felt frustration at not being able to see what her hands discerned so clearly. In the distance, she could see the faint smears of Ciniran’s marks upon the wall, angling down and away as the passage descended. While it was true that it would be hard to lose one’s way upon the terraces—no passages led off from them, and one must go either up or down—Ciniran had marked the wall, with a true hunter’s prudence, against the possibility that she might lose her lamp and have nothing but the small glow-marks of the stone-fruit paint to guide her. Such marks as those, simple arrows indicating that a passage had been explored—no more—were not erased when the explorer retraced his or her steps, but left to stand.
    To finally reach the bottom of the terraces was a relief, for the careful counting of steps in the darkness was a great strain. Here in the Fourth Descent there was no sign of life at all, nor any sign that any creature between the city’s desertion and the Nalzindar’s arrival had ever ventured so deep. When Shaiara stooped down and ran her hand over the stone beneath her feet, it was as smooth and clean as if it were a fresh-scrubbed skinning-stone. Even the eternal dust—fine as the finest flour—which worked its way into every corner of the passages above had not made its way to this depth.
    The barriers here were of a different kind than those Shaiara had seen above. There, all were the same. Here,each one was different. All were of the same shape, but each was elaborately decorated, no two alike: some inlaid with ivory or bone or metal, others carved. Here, too, the metal upon the barriers was different—not rings, but crescent shapes like a hunter’s bow, or round balls, or only a flat disk. Holding her lamp up close by one of the barriers, Shaiara could see that it had once been painted, for flecks of color still clung to the deep furrows in the design.
    Nearly every door opened at her touch, and though she could see, by Ciniran’s marks upon them, which chambers had already been visited, Shaiara wished to see what lay within them for herself.
    The first chamber was filled with dust. Ciniran’s quiet warning stopped Shaiara before she entered, but even the opening of the barrier was enough to fill the air with a cloud that made both of them sneeze