Across the room from the fallen doors, wide stairs ascended into shadows. She stood up, slung her water bottle on her shoulder again, and crossed to them. A fair-sized orchard could have grown on the amount of ground she covered. As she left the doors behind, the very vastness of the room made her feel smaller and more vulnerable. The distant whispering of the shadow denizens of the city grew louder. The deeper she went into the building, the more pervasive the lingering presence of ancient Elderlings became. She thought she caught a whisk of movement from the corner of her eye, but when she looked, no one was there. She steeled herself and went on.
It was useless to be afraid, she told herself. Afraid of what? Afraid of memories stored in stone? They couldn’t hurt her, not unless she allowed them to dominate her and draw her under their spell. And she wouldn’t. She simply wouldn’t. She had work to do. She increased the length of the stride and refused to look behind her as the whispers grew louder. The stairs were steeper than the outside steps; these, at least, had been structured for the convenience of humans. She set her hand to the banister as she ascended.
And then a hubbub broke out all around her. Three young pages rushed past her, their youthful voices accusing one another of some fault that doubtless all had committed. Coming down the stairs, scowling at the wayward pages, were at least a dozen tall folk clad in yellow robes. Their eyes gleamed, copper and silver and gold, and when one woman gestured with a long-fingered hand, Alise flinched back from a ghostly touch that never reached her. She snatched her hand from the banister, and the room quieted. But once wakened to her senses, the ghosts seemed to have gained power. The murmur of their business ebbed around her ears. She might not see them as clearly as she ascended, her hands clasped together in front of her, but she could still sense them.
Reaching a landing, Alise glanced out across a wide room. Ghosts of benches and desks stood above their own crumbled remains. She heard a bell rung impatiently and turned her head to almost see a page in a short pale yellow tunic and blue leggings dash to answer the summons. She turned back. Government business, she judged. Perhaps a hall of records, or a chamber for the establishing of laws.
Up she went. The stairs were lit only by the wide windows at each landing. The panes were clouded with thick rain streaks. The first one had shown only the neighboring buildings. From the second, she glimpsed roofs. That was as far as the grand staircase went. She crossed a spacious room to find a smaller staircase for the next ascent. But at the next landing, her hopes of viewing the city were frustrated by an opulent stained-glass window. The daylight was too dim to do it justice, but she could make out an Elderling woman with black hair and dark eyes in intense conversation with a coppery dragon. The landing opened into a sort of gallery room, tall windows admitting more light than had been present on the lower floors. The walls between the windows were decorated with friezes of Elderlings plowing fields, reaping crops . . . and preparing for war?
She stepped into the room to study them more closely. Yes. In one of the friezes, a powerfully muscled Elderling hammered sparks from a glowing blade. In another, a lithe green dragon reared on her hind legs beside a slender Elderling woman with red hair. The woman’s fists were set on her hips above her sword belt. Her rounded arms were muscled, her legs armored with what looked like flexible silver scaling. A blue dragon wore a spiked harness and glowered at Alise with scarlet eyes.
She walked the room slowly, trying to commit each picture to memory. The Elderlings and dragons were individuals, she was sure. She could almost read the inscriptions that gleamed beneath each image. She paused long before a scene of a red-and-silver dragon. The Elderling beside him was red and silver as well, and their matching armor was studded with black spikes. The man clutched a peculiar bow, short and fitted with a pulley. The dragon’s harness bristled with spikes and quivers of additional arrows. A sort of throne with a tall back and dangling straps was fixed to the dragon’s back. There the warrior had ridden into battle with his dragon. So, despite how Sintara decried Heeby allowing Rapskal to ride her, ancient Elderlings had ridden on dragons. She wondered who their enemy had been. Men? Other Elderlings? Other dragons? Her long-held perceptions of that ancient time wavered and re-formed. She had thought the Elderlings peaceful and wise, too wise for warfare. She sighed.
She lingered too long. The dimming images told her that the brief winter day was giving way to evening. Time to move on if she was to finish her tour of the building. The next stairway was a spiraling one, and she suspected she had finally come to the base of the tower she had glimpsed from outside. Her path followed the outside wall, and her way was lit by deep narrow windows that showed only tiny slices of view. She came to a door, but it was locked, as was the next, and the one after that. Surely no one would lock a door on an empty chamber? Whatever had called away the populace of this city, they must have left something behind these locked doors that had merited protection. She imagined racks of scrolls or shelves laden with books. Perhaps this was the treasure house of the city, and the doors concealed struck coins and other wealth.
