They descended for a long time, or it felt like a long time, which was not the same thing.
The light from the rim above had narrowed to a slot of dim grey by the third minute, and after that, there was only the faint red glow from far below, but their eyes adjusted.
Siphons saw better than mortals in low light; an Ascendant Candidate saw better still. Elias could see the texture of the wall in the red glow as if it were lit like an ordinary day.
The outcrops were not regular. They jutted at intervals of six to fifteen feet, and at angles that suggested the body of the pit had grown them as supports for its own internal structures rather than as steps for climbers.
Sometimes there was a clean path, and other times there were three feet between outcrops on one side and twenty-five on the other, and the descent had to traverse across the wall to find the next safe drop.
Sera adapted very quickly as her blade adhered to mucus the way it adhered to anything else, and she walked the wall indifferently, stopping at intervals to wait for the others.
Tarian moved almost as quickly as she did, as he seemed like a feather floating from one outcrop to another, while allowing him to drop onto outcrops, the rest of them would have shattered.
Theron moved like a mountain animal, heavy and careful. He did not fall again; he did, however, mutter to himself a great deal under his breath, which the others pretended not to hear.
Elara moved by not moving in any way that the others could follow. Light carried her. She would step off an outcrop, the world would soften, and she would resolve on a lower one.
The act seemed to cost her; Elias could see her breathing harder each time, but she could cross gaps the others could not.
He could hear and feel her heartbeat; she was nervous, but Elias did not think her nervousness was for herself. Her eyes kept shifting around as if she were searching for something.
That was an interesting observation, Elias thought; whatever was up with her could cause a problem later.
Kaelen moved with the wall; his ability was the manipulation of the earth and stone, but this wall did not love him the way ordinary stone did. It recognized something in him, and where he placed his palm flat, the surface would push out a small ridge for his fingers, or hollow a small step for his boot. He was the slowest, but still, he did not seem to mind.
After the fourth minute, Theron said, more or less to nobody:
"How deep does this thing go?"
"Far," Kaelen said.
"Helpful."
"You asked. I answered. You wanted distance, talk to the prince, he has the formal education about the history of this city."
Tarian, from above: "I am not estimating depths in a pit that is breathing, Vex."
"Wait." Theron stopped, one hand on the wall. "It is breathing?"
"You haven't felt it?" That was Elara, quietly, from below.
"I've been a little busy not falling."
"Put your hand on the stone. Hold it there."
A pause. Then Theron said, very quietly: "Oh. Oh."
"Welcome to the throat," Sera said.
"That is not funny, Valdris."
"It was not meant to be funny."
They descended for another minute in silence. Then Theron, again, Theron was the one who seemed to be unable to handle the silence, said,
"How does no one in the city know about this? We are inside something that goes this deep, and nobody on the surface knows? My family has been in Stormfall for nine generations. I have heard every story a child gets told to keep them out of the lower districts at night. None of them are this."
"Some of them might be," Kaelen said. "Just not the way they were told."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning, when grandmothers tell a child not to walk past a certain alley, they don't always know why. Sometimes the alley remembers, and the grandmother has only the warning and not the reason. The stories outlive what made them."
Theron was quiet for a moment. "That is a depressing thought, Ashford."
"I am told I have a depressing way about me."
"By whom?"
"Mostly my brother. He's dead now."
Another silence. This one had a different weight.
"Sorry to hear it. I am sure he died on his feet." Theron said, eventually.
"It was a while ago."
Tarian, who had been listening, finally spoke. "What I want to understand is this: whatever is below us has been here, and it is large enough to need a throat to feed itself, and yet none of the wards on this district detected it before the creatures erupted from it. So either the wards do not see what is in here, which means the people who made the wards did not know to look for it, or the wards do see what is in here, and they were told not to report it."
"That is a particularly Arathor way of framing the question," Sera observed.
The prince smiled; he seemed to be enjoying himself. "Yes. Because I am an Arathor. Forgive me for working with the tools I have."
"No forgiveness needed. Just an observation."
Theron muttered, "What does Arathor's way of framing mean?"
"It means," Sera said, "that the prince assumes someone decided what we were allowed to know, and that whoever decided it was either mistaken or deliberate. He does not consider the possibility of an accident, because his family does not believe in accidents."
"Accidents happen," Tarian said.
"Not in the houses of Lord Protectors."
"Fine. Officially accidents do not happen. Privately I am willing to entertain them. But not this. This was not an accident."
Elara, very quietly: "What does that mean for us?"
Tarian did not answer immediately. When he did, his voice had a different quality, not lighter, but more honest. "It means that one or more of the people who watched us walk into this pit knew what was down here, and let us walk into it anyway. I am not yet sure who."
"I have a guess," Kaelen said.
"So do all of us," Tarian said. "Let us just keep our thoughts with us, who knows who might be listening?"
A long silence followed that, and Elias listened to all of it without participating.
He had concluded most of it already, on the rim, when he smelled the void. The fact that the others were arriving at it now was not useful information for him, but he registered the manner of their thinking.
They were not panicking or bragging, but were thinking out loud, and were getting closer to the truth than they knew.
He approved of this, the way he approved of any well-functioning tool.
After a while, Tarian said, quietly:
"Elias."
Elias did not respond.
"Elias. I am going to ask you something, and I am the only one of us with the right to ask without preamble."
A small internal amusement at the prince's cheek. Then: "Ask."
"What do you intend to do at the bottom?"
"Kill it."
"And then?"
"None of your concern."
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