“What is it?” Kennit demanded.

“I'll have your life in my hands,” he wondered aloud.

“And I have yours in mine,” the pirate pointed out. “And your father's.”

“That's not what I mean,” Wintrow replied. His voice sounded like a dreamer's. “You are doubtless accustomed to such power. I have never even wished for it.”

CHAPTER THREE - The Crowned Rooster

HER FOOTFALLS RANG HOLLOW IN THE CAVERNOUS CORRIDOR AS JANI Khuprus hastened down it. As she strode along, she trailed her fingers down the long strip of jidzin set into the wall. Her touch triggered a faint light that moved with her down the dark hall that carried her ever deeper into the Elderlings' labyrinthine palace. Twice she had to circle dark puddles of water on the stone floor. Each time, she routinely noted to herself the location. Whenever the spring rains returned, they had the same problem. The thick layer of soil on top and the questing roots that sought through it were beginning to win the long battle with the ancient buried structure. The quiet dripping of the water was a counter rhythm to her own hurrying feet.

There had been a quake last night, not a large one by Rain Wild standards, but stronger and longer than the usual gentle shivering of the earth. She resolved not to think about it as she hurried through the dimness. This structure had withstood the great disaster that had leveled most of the ancient city; surely, she could trust it to stand a bit longer. She came at last to an arched entryway closed with a massive metal door. She ran her hands over it lightly and the Crowned Rooster embossed on the surface shimmered into life. It never failed to impress her. She could well understand her ancestor discovering this and immediately making the Crowned Rooster his own heraldic device. The cock on the door was lifting a spurred foot threateningly and his wings were half-raised in menace. Every hackle feather on his extended neck shone. A gem set in his eye sparkled blackly. Elegance and arrogance combined in him. She set a hand firmly to his breast and pushed the door open. Darkness gaped at her.

Only familiarity guided her as she descended the shallow steps that led into the immense room. As she submerged herself in the vaster darkness of the Crowned Rooster Chamber, she scowled to herself. Reyn was not here after all. She had trotted all this way seeking her son for nothing.

She paused by the wall at the bottom of the steps, looking around blindly. She started when he spoke to her from the blackness.

“Have you ever tried to imagine to yourself how this chamber must have looked when it was new? Think of it, Mother. On a day like today, the spring sun would have shone down through the crystal dome to waken all the colors in the murals. What did they do here? From the deep gouges on the floor and the random ordering of the tables, I do not think the wizardwood logs were commonly stored here. No. I think they were brought here in haste, to shelter them from whatever disaster was burying the city. So. Prior to that time, what was the purpose of this huge room with its crystal dome and decorated walls? From the ancient pots of earth, we can surmise they grew plants in here. Was it merely a sheltered garden, where one could walk in comfort even in the stormiest weather? Or was it ... ?”

“Reyn. Enough,” his mother exclaimed in annoyance. Her questing fingers found the jidzin strip on the wall. She pressed on it firmly, and several decorative panels answered her dimly. She frowned to herself. In her girlhood, they had been much brighter; each petal of every flower had shone. Now they dimmed more with each passing day. She pushed aside her dismay at the thought of them dying. There was mild irritation in her voice as she demanded, “What are you doing down here in the dark? Why aren't you in the west corridor, supervising the workers? They have found another portal, concealed in a wall of the seventh chamber. Your intuition is needed there, to divine how to open it.”

“How to destroy it, you mean,” Reyn corrected her.

“Oh, Reyn,” Jani wearily rebuked him. She was so tired of these discussions with her youngest son. Sometimes it seemed that he, who was most gifted at forcing the dwelling places of the Elderlings to give up their secrets, was also the most reluctant to employ his skills. “What would you have us do? Leave all buried and forgotten as we found it? Forsake the Rain Wilds and retreat to Bingtown to live with our kin there? That would be brief sanctuary.”

She heard the light scuff of his feet as he circled the last great log of wizardwood that remained in the Crowned Rooster Chamber. He moved like a sleepwalker as he rounded the end of it. Her heart sank as she marked how he walked, his fingers trailing along the massive trunk as he did so. He was cloaked and hooded against the damp and chill of the chamber. “No,” he said quietly. “I love the Rain Wilds as you do. I have no desire to live elsewhere. Neither do I think my people should continue to live in hiding and secrecy. Nor should we continue to plunder and destroy the ancient holdings of the Elderlings simply to pay for our own safety. I believe that instead we should restore and celebrate all we have discovered here. We should dig away the soil and ash that mask the city and reveal it once more to sunlight and moonlight. We should throw off the Satrap of Jamaillia as an overlord, deny his taxes and restrictions and trade freely wherever we wish.” His voice died down as his mother glowered at him, but he was not silenced. “Let us display who we are without shame, and say we live where and as we do, not out of shame but by choice. That is what I think we should do.”