As they neared the bottom, the fog created a false dusk, but Karigan perceived a change in the terrain. The stairs meandered through a field of vast boulders, which must have tumbled down the slope in some long ago time, for they were well settled and blanketed by deep moss. Ferns the size of small trees protruded between the boulders, their blotched and blackened leaflets sutured together with the strands of spiderwebs. Wiry beards of lichen draped down from the branches above, which those ahead slashed out of their path. It was as if they entered an ever more primeval world.
“Thank the gods,” Yates muttered when they finally reached level ground. Karigan was relieved herself.
Graelalea did not pause to give them a rest, however. They continued along a path that was more mud and ooze than anything else, the ferns rising around them like a forest. Soon they came to a sludgy stream and followed its bank for a while. Pitcher plants grew alongside it, but not the normal sized, diminutive ones Karigan was accustomed to. These, like the ferns, were oversized vessels the size of wine casks.
One of the pitcher plants quivered. The hind legs of some mammal, like a hare, kicked over the lips of the carnivorous plant, unable to free itself. Karigan looked away, sickened.
“You know,” Ard said, “it all sort of works.”
“What does?” she asked.
“The forest. It is in balance with itself, the predators and the prey. Even the plants have adapted to it.”
“You’re saying the forest is healthy?”
“It’s a twisted place for certain,” Ard replied, “yet it is in balance with itself. Perhaps in time it would come to resemble more of what we’re familiar with on our side of the wall.”
As long as Mornhavon doesn’t come back, Karigan thought.
“The balance is wrong on both sides of the wall,” Spiney said from the end of the line. “All the etherea trapped here, and barely any on the other side. This is not balance.”
“What d’ya want then?” Ard asked acerbically. “To knock down the wall?”
They waited for Spiney’s answer. Karigan knew it was exactly what some Eletians wanted, possibly including Spiney, who had once tried to kill her for, in his opinion, interfering with the wall. The Eletian, however, did not respond.
Graelalea halted, and before them was a delicate span that crossed the stream. To Karigan’s eyes the arch was almost paper thin, entirely unlike any other bridge she’d ever seen, without voissoires or keystone, without spandrel or abutment walls, just the treadway, impossible and eloquent in its simplicity. It was carpeted and draped with moss so it was impossible to see how it was made, but if it was stone, it surpassed even the legendary craft of the D’Yers.
“Telavalieth lies across the stream,” Graelalea said. “Or what remains of it.” Without another word, she stepped onto the bridge.
Karigan expected the bridge, fragile as it looked and subject to the ravages of centuries, to collapse, but it did not. The rest of them followed, and when Karigan reached the apex of the arch, she was glad the bridge still stood, for she would not have liked crossing through the stream. It was murky and stank of rot, and several glistening snakelike somethings slurped in the stagnant water. She hastened the rest of the way to the opposite bank.
“What do you suppose that was in the water?” she whispered to Yates.
“I didn’t see anything,” he replied with a frown.
They trudged onward and soon Karigan discerned an opening before them, a lighter shade of gray. The Eletians took off at a run. The Sacoridians hesitated for but a moment, then pursued the Eletians. When they reached a clearing they halted. It was as if something had come in and scraped the forest floor to its bedrock. Nothing grew there, not even the pervasive moss and lichens, even though the clearing did not look recent. In fact, the rock was smooth as though melted and fused. What kind of power could do that to granite?
On the edges of the clearing stood crumbling buildings wrapped in tree roots as if the very trees were intent upon crushing them little by little over the passage of years.
“Gods,” Ard muttered.
Spiney fell to his knees and loosed a keening wail that rocked Karigan backward. The other Eletians bowed their heads. Everything in the woods stilled.
“What is it?” Grant demanded.
“Telavalieth had a small grove for its Sleepers,” Lhean answered. “We are standing in it.”
“Sleepers? What do you mean Sleepers? And what grove? What happened to it?”
“When our folk tire of the waking world, they leave it for the long sleep and become the hearts of great trees until they are ready for the world again.”
Karigan remembered the Eletian prince Jametari explaining it to her. If she lived an endless life like the Eletians, she imagined she’d want a respite as well.
“Your people turn into trees?” Grant was incredulous.
“No,” Lhean said with an edge of annoyance to his voice.
By now Spiney lay prone on the ground. He did not shake with tears. He made no sound.
“Lhean,” Karigan said quietly, and pointed. “Is he all right?”
“Ealdaen is of Argenthyne. It may be he knew one who dwelled here.”
Ealdaen. So Spiney had a name, and if he was of Argenthyne, then he must have fled before Mornhavon’s invasion a millennium ago ...
“What happened to this grove?” Ard asked.
Spiney—Ealdaen—rose to his feet and turned his searing gaze upon Ard. “Mornhavon seak mortes.” Then he strode off.