Chapter 25
Ellerie shined her lantern over the fallen stone and dirt. "This one's blocked too," she said with a sigh.
It was the third tunnel they'd found leading away from the southern area of the city to what they expected would be another section on the east side of the mountain, but just like the first two, it was blocked by a cave-in.
Boktar rapped on the tunnel wall, then shouted and listened for the echoes. "This one's man-made, so it sounds different, but I don't think there's any point in trying to dig it out. It feels like the collapsed section goes on for quite a distance. If we try to move any of it, I suspect more will fall."
"Let's go back then, and see if we can find another way," Ellerie said. "Bobo, were there any other routes that would get us to the eastern side?"
"Not that I remember, but we haven't explored any of the tunnels on the upper colonnade levels. Some of those might bypass the cave-in."
"I don't want to go back to the colonnades today. Let's stay on the southern side for now, and we can try that tomorrow."
"Maybe I can see the colonnades on my next trip," Boktar said.
"Why not tomorrow?" Ellerie asked. He'd said he planned to give the mules and drivers a two-day break before leaving again.
"The wagons need work, especially our two," he replied as they returned the way they'd come. "Nothing too serious, but I do want to replace an axle with one of the ones we took from the wagon we disassembled. It'll all take some time."
Ellerie grimaced. She was depending too much on Boktar again, like she always did, but he was the best choice for leading the drivers back to Livadi. Maybe after they had the routine down, Josip could handle the trips on his own.
It was a quarter of a mile back to the chamber where the tunnel began. Four other corridors led away from there.
"This one, right?" Corec asked, checking the chalk marks Bobo had left.
"That'll get us back to the southern junction room, if that's where we're going," Bobo said. That was what they'd named the chamber they'd found directly south of the central junction. It had a dozen tunnels leading to all corners of the southern portion of the city.
"Where do the others go?" Boktar asked.
Ellerie said, "The one to the south leads down to part of the aqueduct system. I don't know what it was used for, but there were dozens of rectangular ponds carved into the stone. There must be an underground river or lake feeding into them." She suppressed a shiver. That immense, dark cavern with the sound of dripping water had been more eerie than any other part of the ruins. "North was ... I'm not sure what it was, but we didn't find anything interesting there."
Boktar pointed to the last tunnel in the room. It led west, like the tunnel Corec had indicated. "What about that one?"
"We haven't gone that way yet," Bobo said. He held his map up in front of his lantern. "Although, that might take us back to tunnel five in the southern junction room." They'd numbered all the tunnels at the junction to help keep track of which ones they'd followed. "Should we try it, so we can cross that one off our list? If it doesn't go back, we can return here and take tunnel four instead."
"We might as well," Ellerie said.
It didn't take long to discover that the new tunnel wasn't leading them back to the junction. It sloped downward instead. Soon, they were in a new chamber they hadn't seen before. It reminded Ellerie of the junction room, but it was smaller and only had eight tunnels leading out instead of a dozen.
Treya spun in a slow circle to take it all in. "Where are we? Why haven't we seen this spot before?"
"And how far down did we go?" Ellerie asked. "Where's the southern junction?"
"We're just below it," Leena said.
"We're on a new level, then?" Bobo asked. "Seven more tunnels. The one to the north looks interesting."
The only tunnel along the northern wall was larger than the rest, twenty feet wide, with an ornate stone arch at the entrance.
Ellerie glanced around at her companions, but it was still early in the afternoon and it was clear that everyone wanted to continue. Even Nedley's smile had returned. He'd been excited about his first chance to visit the ruins, but had grown discouraged when they hadn't found anything interesting all morning.
"Let's go, then," Ellerie said.
Corec took the lead again and headed into the north tunnel, the rest of the group following behind. At regular intervals, they passed alcoves along the right wall and rusted metal doors on the left.
Boktar stopped at one of the doors. "Should we try to open it?" he asked.
"Try this one instead," Corec called out from up ahead. "It's in better shape."
They joined him, Boktar using his hammer to pound off the worst patches of rust sealing the door shut. When he pulled it open, it made a horrible screeching noise.
Inside, they found a tiny room piled high with rusted metal and other detritus.
Bobo poked through the mess with his cudgel. "Is that wood?" he asked. There were pieces left that hadn't completely rotted away yet.
Ellerie said, "We found the remains of wooden furniture back in Tir Navis, too. It must have stayed drier down here."
Bobo nodded. "Unfortunately, there's not enough left to say what any of it was." He marked a note on his copy of the map.
They tried three more of the doors before Ellerie put a stop to it. Some of the rooms were larger, and sometimes there were several grouped together, but none held anything particularly interesting.
"We can come back to the rest of these later," she said. "This corridor is obviously going somewhere. Let's follow it and see where it takes us."
Soon, the tunnel, which had continued almost directly north according to Ellerie's compass, turned abruptly to the northwest. It remained just as wide, but several ranks of four-foot-tall metal walls had been placed along either side, leaving a narrower walkway in between.
"I think those are shields," Boktar said. "Like a small defensive wall."
Corec nodded. "Archers or pikemen could stand behind them and hold off advancing troops."
"All the way down here?" Ellerie asked. "Who'd be attacking them here?"
Corec examined the nearest of the barriers. "They're curved to deflect arrows and spears, and the curve is facing the way we came in, from the city, but they look like they're permanently fixed in place, not portable. They might just be the Ancients' version of the defenses you'd see around a king's palace."
Bobo said, "Or it's like a fortress. You build it, then a village grows up around it. You build a wall around the village, but then the village becomes a town and grows beyond the wall again."
"So we're heading toward the fortress?" Ellerie said. "Or the palace?"
