I glanced at Jodi, who nodded. We turned towards the bank.
Even as we made the decision, the Road sensed it. We rose up out of the water and found ourselves stepping easily to the stone above, gripping the iron bars which seemed strangely light now.
As we had hoped, the Lisharithada seemed as oblivious to our presence as the Nomes had been when first we met. Rokhaset’s people had learned ways of sensing us to some extent—maybe, if by no other way, by paying careful attention to pockets of “air” that seemed even emptier than usual—but the Lisharithada apparently didn’t have knowledge of, or use, such tricks. Anyway, why would they? No human being could possibly come down this far without them knowing it.
Neither Jodi nor I saw any point in conflict when it wasn’t needed. Before we passed between them, though, Jodi caught my arm and pulled me back up the walkway some distance. “Check our route.”
I nodded, and we got out the portable. Rokhaset’s map glowed up at us from the screen. The Lisharithada city was large and complex. I carefully compared the version on the screen with the printed version and made a couple annotations to be sure I could tell which ones were supposed to be above the others, tracing the route in highlighter and checking to make sure Jodi agreed with me. Then I shut the machine down again. While so far there was no sign we were being sensed, given how little we knew about their senses I didn’t want to take any chances with having more electronic equipment running near them than I had to.
We passed between the two guards, maximizing the distance between us by entering the large corridor directly in the center. After that, though, we moved to one side, figuring that, like most people, the Lisharithada wouldn’t generally crowd into the side of the corridor unless they had to and therefore wouldn’t be likely to bump us.
As we moved onward, this became a very real concern. The tunnel leading from the Road was empty, but soon it joined with another, and there were many of the city’s natives using it. The Lisharithada were a busy people. Maybe preparing for this destructive ritual demanded a hell of a lot of work, or maybe they just liked to keep busy, but whatever it was, there were dozens—hundreds—of them in the main corridors. It would have been funny if it weren’t so deadly serious—watching how we contorted, jumped, and twisted keeping out of the way of hurrying contingents of rock people. Once one of them passed within inches of me and stumbled, barely catching itself before hitting the ground. Its companion helped it up. “Pokil mondu ku?”
The fallen one responded with a quick spurt of language that I couldn’t catch, but I did get the word matturan, which made me hustle out of there. Clearly he’d gone momentarily blind near me, and that was something we definitely didn’t want anyone thinking about too much.
Jodi was more worried about their seradatho. Some of the creatures were clearly more formidably designed than those of the Nowëthada—guard dogs, so to speak, rather than work dogs. It seemed that these seradatho also didn’t have any clue we were there, but I made a point of tracking their whereabouts more closely as we moved farther inwards.
“So far, so good.” I muttered. “We’re about halfway there. Maybe we can make it all the way into their inner sanctum without them catching on. Then we can trash the equipment and get the hell out of Dodge.”
Jodi shook her head. “I wouldn’t bet on it.”
Another great cavern opened up before us, this one similar to the one we had seen back in the Nome’s area—clearly a living or gathering place, with lots of traffic. It might have been my imagination, but I thought I could see some of the patterns in their movements and the shapes of the natural-stone areas that served them as . . . what, shop stands? Houses, without roofs because of the lack of weather? Offices?
“Y’know, I think I’m seeing better.”
“You only noticed already? I’m like to be seeing twice as far as I usually can.”