The cave appeared to go on into darkness, but Persephone couldn’t see where it went.
“Place is empty,” Moya declared.
Using Rain’s glowstone, the three Dherg started to explore the depths. Persephone watched their bobbing light as they walked as far as they could, which wasn’t far at all. “This can’t be all there is,” Frost said.
Brin took Persephone’s light and began studying the stack of slabs. Reaching up, she took some off the top. Persephone hoped she wouldn’t topple them onto herself.
In the distance, toward the back of the cave, she heard a clacking sound. The dwarfs were doing something. Rain was swinging his pick, grunting with effort and then grumbling in frustration.
Moya gestured toward the opening. “You think it made that hole? Balgargarath, I mean?”
Persephone looked back. The glow from the lichen just outside provided enough light to see the edges of the great crack—the rip.
Persephone shrugged.
“You’re just a wealth of knowledge, aren’t you?” The tone was playful, no sign of reproach. That Moya could find levity when trapped under the world while a six-thousand-year-old demon searched for them was comforting in a way Persephone couldn’t quite put her finger on.
“Want answers?” Persephone said. “Talk to Roan. I’m just here for the food.”
The comment brought a smile to Moya’s lips, but then her brows furrowed. “Speaking of Roan.” She looked around, nervously.
Persephone looked as well, and spotted the young woman creeping along in the dark near the wall opposite from the wandering dwarfs.
“Roan!” Moya called and swung her arm in a big arch to coax her over.
“You don’t have to nag after her like that,” Persephone said. “She’s a grown woman.”
“You know how she is. I don’t want her getting lost down here.”
“You don’t want her getting lost? Tell me exactly, where are we?”
Moya frowned. “You know what I mean. What if there’s another one of”—she gestured at Brin—“those things out there? Or the same one still following us. Could you imagine Roan being grabbed?”
Persephone hadn’t thought of that. As awful as it was to see it hugging Brin, it could have been worse. She mimicked Moya’s gesture with a bit more authority. “Roan, this way. Come over here and work on that spear thrower of yours. There’s enough light coming in from the crack.”
Roan nodded and came back to the pair. She sat down and unrolled her bundle.
Arion, Suri, and Minna joined them as well, while the three dwarfs, marked by the moving glowstone, continued their trek. Suri and Minna flopped down on the floor, but Arion remained standing. Suri ruffled the fur around the top of Minna’s head, then lay down, using the wolf as a pillow. Minna didn’t appear to mind. She curled her body around and rested her head on Suri’s shoulder, the two nuzzling each other. Arion’s serenity had faded. Persephone noted twin furrows between her eyes, all the more noticeable because of her bald head.
“Something wrong?” Persephone asked.
“We shouldn’t stay here,” Arion replied.
“Why?”
“The walls,” she said, looking around the interior.
“What about them?” Moya asked.
Suri looked over and nodded. “This place is a dead zone.”
“Dead zone?”
“Like the rols,” Suri explained. “Well…” She looked around, puzzled, and then focused on Arion with a question in her eyes. “Not exactly. Is it? It’s different but also the same somehow.”
Arion nodded. Everyone else looked baffled.
“The Art needs power,” Arion said, “The sun, trees, plants, animals, wind, rain, currents are ah…” She groped for the appropriate Rhunic words.
“They give us the power to do magic,” Suri finished for her.
“None of those things are here,” Arion said.
“So you can’t do magic inside the Agave?” Moya asked.
Both Arion and Suri nodded.
“Bad place to face Balgargarath then,” Moya said.
“Has there been a good place?” Persephone asked.
“Out there”—Arion pointed past the tear—“by the pool, there are some sources to pull from. Not much, but droplets do fall and there is the lichen. It’s something at least.”
“We’ll leave as soon as they come back.” Persephone gestured toward where the dwarfs had disappeared.
Everyone except Brin and Roan turned to watch the slow progress of the glowstone. It stopped. They were probably speaking privately. Brin was still taking the carefully stacked column apart, and Roan was studying her little spears. Persephone found it strange how the two could be so single-minded even in that place. Like children, she thought.
“I need something to catch the wind, something light,” Roan said. “Something to help it fly.” She had a habit of talking aloud to herself, which was why Persephone, Brin, and Moya usually ignored her. But Suri looked over.
“Like a feather?” the mystic asked.
Roan’s eyes brightened. “Feathers, yes. Feathers would work perfectly, I think.”
Suri reached into her bag and pulled out the handful of hawk feathers. Roan grinned. “Wonderful.”
Frost and Flood finally approached, with long faces and slow steps. Frost was tugging hard on his beard, and Flood watched his feet, looking as if he might cry.
“There’s nothing here,” Frost said wearily. “The cave goes back some, but then…” The dwarf stopped with a perplexed look.
“Then what?” Persephone asked.
“Stops…sort of.” Flood said. “There’s an opening, but we can’t get through.”
“Rain tried chipping it away, but nothing happened,” Frost said. “He’s still sitting there trying to figure it out. It’s like…it’s like the world ends here.”
“So much effort, so much risked, and all for nothing,” Flood whimpered. “There isn’t any treasure.”
“Yes, there is,” Brin declared. She had managed to disassemble nearly half the stack of tablets, carefully placing each on the ground, where she examined them with the glowstone. “This is it. This is the treasure.”
The dwarfs looked at her more than skeptically—they shot her looks of irritation as if she’d made a joke at a funeral.
“Those are just pieces of stone, Brin,” Moya said.
“No they aren’t,” the girl said. “These are tablets. Just like I was making.” She held one up and positioned the gem below it so they could see chiseled markings on its surface. “These are words. This is a story. It’s marked down in the same language as the rol symbols. And…” She looked up excitedly. “I think I can understand some of it.”
The dwarfs, who had never lost their frowns, began to scowl and shake their heads in disgust.
What did they expect? Persephone thought. Gold, diamonds? Well, certainly not etched tablets.
“What do they say?” Roan asked, already working to add the feathers to her little spears. She made a split along the wood’s shaft and slid the straightest feathers through it.