The corridor pinched tighter the farther he went. Stones leaned inward like bad teeth. Water tracked down them in thin threads and found his collar. The cut on his forearm throbbed in time with the bell he couldn't hear anymore.
Kellan kept the dagger low. Drawn, it shaved sound off the world.
Cold seeped in. Hunger showed up right after, dragging a headache with it. He tried not to think about food. Tried not to think about anything.
Left or right?
He picked left. The wall brushed his shoulder and left grit on his shirt. The floor dipped and his heel slid. He caught the rail and felt damp wood crumble under his fingers. Great. He steadied, waited for breath to quiet, then moved again.
The passage climbed and leveled out at a service door. Iron straps. Swollen hinges. He leaned his weight and the door gave a grudging inch. The gap smelled like old wax and salt.
Inside was a narrow gallery with slits looking inward at the dome's base. Blue light breathed through the cracks. It made his skin feel thin. Somewhere below, the drowned choir stood in neat rows and poured water into a basin. He didn't look long.
He kept going.
A ladder rose in the corner. Two rungs snapped and nearly sent him through. He hugged the side and climbed slow, cheek pressed to cold iron. At the top, the hatch lifted into a crawlspace where he had to go on elbows. Dust stuck to his wet sleeves. Cobwebs weren't webs. He didn't look too hard at them.
You wanted this, he told himself. You asked for a head start. Enjoy it.
He pushed on until the crawlspace broke into a small landing under a rib of the dome. The boards here flexed under his weight. He tested each one with a toe before trusting it. Halfway across, a nail gave and his foot punched through.
The board bit his calf. He swallowed a shout and pulled free. Splinters tore skin. For a second the world narrowed to the pain and the bright edge of panic that wanted to take it.
No.
He breathed. In. Out. He pressed his palm over the bleeding and kept moving, slower now, every step deliberate.
A narrow stair dropped to a maintenance ring. Candlesticks bolted to the wall held stubs of drowned wicks. He took the stair and joined the ring, following it around until he reached a small grille that looked into a side chapel.
Benches faced an empty altar. The floor was damp, not flooded. A rope hung by the door, cut clean.
He slipped through the grille and landed soft. The dagger drank the sound of it. It didn't drink the ache in his leg. He limped to the rope and touched the frayed end. Fresh once. Not now.
"Someone tried," he murmured.
He checked the room for anything useful. A drawer under the altar stuck, then slid open. Inside were small vials. Salt. Oil. Old incense beads. He took a length of clean cloth from a shelf and wrapped his calf tight. The sting quieted to a steady throb. Better.
He almost missed the writing on the wall. Low, near the floor, chalk faded by damp.
Ring three times when the crack stutters. If she answers, do not look at her hands.
He stared at it until the words felt thin. Then he stepped back into the maintenance ring.
The blue light strobed, turning the damp air into glass for a heartbeat. The bell answered with a low note that he felt more than heard. The stutter. Once. Twice. Then the beat found itself again.
He glanced at the cut rope and kept moving.
The ring led him to another hatch, this one looking down into a shaft with a ladder and a chain beside it. The chain ended in a weight shaped like a tongue. He leaned out and saw the bell's lip far below. Not the tower he'd visited. Another bell. Closer to the dome. The chain had been locked to a peg that was now split.
He didn't touch it.
The ladder carried him to a narrow door that opened on a balcony just under the dome's ribs. Wind lived here—thin, stale wind that had been trapped for years and only remembered how to move in circling drafts. The balcony rail was stone carved like rope. It swayed under his hand. He didn't trust it.
Across the gap, a matching balcony jutted from the opposite rib. Between them, a bridging plank had once been set. It lay crooked now, one end on his side, the other hanging loose over nothing.
He crouched and pulled the plank back inch by inch until it balanced. Then he nudged it out, slow and patient, until the far end found the other balcony. The board bowed in the middle. Water dripped from somewhere above and pattered on it.
"Don't break," he whispered. "Please."
He didn't look down. He walked the plank with small steps, knees bent, free hand on the dome rib. In the middle, the board flexed and made a tired sound. He kept moving. The dagger shaved the scrape of his soles to almost nothing. Almost.
He made the far side and let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
The balcony door opened into a storage recess where tools waited in a rack. Most were useless with rust. One pry bar looked serviceable. He took it. The weight felt honest in his hand.
He followed the recess into a corridor and almost ran into a dead end where the wall had buckled inward. A crack big enough for a shoulder cut across it. He turned sideways and shoved through. Stone scraped his back and ribs. For a moment he stuck and had to exhale everything to slide free.
The passage ended at a grated overlook. He peered through.
Below, a round room held a pool of clear water ringed by steps. Light from the dome spilled down in a shaft and turned the surface bright. On the far side, an arch led deeper into the palace. A figure stood at the pool's edge, hunched. It dipped a bowl into the water and poured it back over its head like a baptism that didn't take.
Kellan waited. The figure shivered and did it again. It wasn't drowned. It wasn't whole either. Its back was too smooth where scapula should have been. Skin knitted wrong.
He eased back from the grate. The corridor offered a sloped chute for runoff with handholds chipped into the side. He took it, boots sliding, hip bumping the wall. At the bottom, he landed in a shallow gutter. The arch was two turns ahead.
He crept forward, dagger low. The Memory shaved the sound of his steps to dull thumps he could feel more than hear.
His calf burned. His arm ached. He was tired of being cold. He was tired of the taste of salt in his mouth. He wanted a door that opened to a room where things were simple for five minutes.
Not happening.
He reached the arch and looked around the edge.
The pool room stood empty. Wet footprints led to a side door and then stopped at the waterline as if the person had decided to walk into the reflection instead.
He followed the prints to the door and pushed. It opened onto a short hall with niches cut into the wall. In each niche, a bowl. He lifted one. It was heavy for its size, carved from something that wasn't stone or metal and wasn't happy to be touched.
He put it back.
A soft sound came from behind him, like fingers trailing over the surface of the pool.
He turned. Nothing there. The water calmed as if it had only been a breath.
Fine. Keep moving.
The hall bent inward and brought him to a final stair. It climbed toward a pair of tall doors sealed with a bronze bar and a circle of sigils. The bar was engraved with the same soft letters he kept seeing. The sigils were newer, hammered over older ones.
He set the pry bar under the bronze and leaned. The bar groaned and lifted a finger's width. Enough to slip a hand. He eased the bar up, inch by inch, until the weight settled on his shoulder and then into his hands. He set it aside carefully.
The doors didn't open on their own. He pushed one. It moved an inch, then two, then a crack wide enough for him to slide through.
Blue light hit him full in the face.
He squinted and stepped inside.
The chamber beyond was quiet enough that the dagger had nothing left to eat. He let it rest at his side and listened. The wound-beat under the dome was louder here, not a sound so much as a shove. It pushed against his ribs and then let them spring back.
Kellan swallowed and thought, I'm almost there. Then he thought, I hope I'm wrong.
He took another step and the blue light strobed.
Something moved above him.
Kellan looked up just enough to see shapes between the ribs—three points of pale, not-eyes, watching from the dark seam where stone met the dome's inner skin. The blue light strobed and they slid sideways like crabs.
"Not good," he whispered.
He backed toward a service alcove, keeping the dagger low so the Memory would shave his footsteps thin. The alcove held a winch and a bundle of old rope frozen stiff with salt. The rope would not save him. The winch might.
The shapes pulled free of the seam and unfolded into long, narrow things that clung to the ribs with jointed hands. Not statues. Not drowned. Something built for these angles. They clicked when they moved. It sounded like teeth.
Kellan ducked into the alcove and put the pry bar under the winch handle. The chain ran up into the ribs toward a maintenance shutter. If he cranked it, he could raise the shutter and maybe force them to shift. Or he could make a lot of noise and die.
He cranked.
The dagger drank some of the noise, not all. The chain grated. The shutter above lifted a hand's width. Dust fell like snow. One of the crawlers skittered to the gap and stuck its head in, sniffing. It tapped at the edge with two fingers.
"Come on," Kellan muttered. "Look somewhere else."
The shutter stuck. Of course it did. He leaned his weight and the bar bit his palm. The crawler cocked its head and then swung down, folding to fit the wall like a hinge. It reached the balcony rail and flowed over it in a motion that should have been slow but wasn't.
No more cranking.
Kellan let go and ran.
He kept to the wall, shoulder brushing damp stone, dagger low, pry bar high. The balcony curved toward a narrow door he'd seen earlier. He hit it with his hip. It didn't open. He hit it again. It moved a crack and stopped against a swollen sill.
Behind him, nails—or whatever those were—scraped stone.
He jammed the pry bar into the gap and levered. The wood split with a sound that turned his stomach. He shoved through and fell into a short stairwell that bent immediately. He pulled the door and it stuck on the bar and stayed half open. Fine.
Down the stairs, a low vault opened onto a corridor swimming with damp air. His calf screamed at him. His hands were slick with sweat and dust and old salt. He used the wall to keep from slipping.
The corridor turned and ended at a grate. Beyond it, a culvert ran under the palace toward the ring. Water moved there, slow and black, tugging at scraps of weed. The grate was bolted in four places. The bolts were old.
Kellan slammed the pry bar into the first one and leaned. It squealed and spun. He moved to the second. Behind him, something clicked on the stairs. He twisted the second bolt half a turn, the third a quarter. The fourth wouldn't move at all.
He looked back. The crawler hung at the turn, upside down, flat to the wall. It tilted its head. White not-eyes blinked for the first time—sideways, a shutter sliding over and back.
"Fuck off," he said, and didn't recognize his own voice.
He went back to the fourth bolt and hit it with the bar. Once. Twice. The head snapped clean. The grate sagged. He grabbed it with both hands and lifted, then dragged it to the side until it wedged crooked.
The crawler dropped from the ceiling and came in low, limbs splayed.
Kellan stepped into it and swung. The bar cracked across a forearm. The limb bent the wrong way and still reached for his throat. He shoved the dagger up under it and felt metal catch in whatever passed for a tendon. The Memory ate the sound of it badly. There should have been a scream. There wasn't.
They went down together. The crawler's knees found his ribs and tried to fold him. He drove the bar into its neck. No good. No neck. He felt for a joint and didn't find one. It felt like pushing on a bundled rope.
It went for his face.
He turned his head and let it get his shoulder instead. Cloth tore. Skin went hot and then cold. He slammed the bar into the joint of its nearest leg, then used the wall behind him to lever the thing sideways toward the gap he'd made.
"Go," he grunted, teeth clenched. "Go in the fucking water."
It held the threshold with two hands that were too many hands. He kicked a wrist. It slipped. He kicked again. It slid and caught and slid again.
The culvert took it.
The crawler dropped into the dark and stuck to the wet stone for an instant, then the slow pull of the water took it further, shoulders first, head last. Its not-eyes kept on him while it went.
{You have slain a Dormant Monster, Rib-Crawler}
Kellan slammed the grate back into place. The broken bolt let it hang crooked, but it was enough to make a barrier. He dragged a stone stool—how had that gotten here?—and wedged it under the lower corner.
He stood with his hands on his knees until the shake left his legs. The cut on his shoulder bled warmly down his chest and into his shirt. He didn't have more cloth. He used one corner of the shirt anyway and tied it off. It would hold until it didn't.
He listened. No more clicks on the stairs. He didn't fool himself. There had been more than one shape above the ribs. The others were hunting some other path or waiting.
"Keep moving," he told himself. "You stop, you freeze. You freeze, you drown."
The corridor offered one more turn and a narrow door with a sigil plate. The plate had been hammered until the sign was just a dent. He pushed the door and it swung open into a low room with shelves. Tools. Buckets. A coil of tarred line that had stayed flexible. He looped it over his shoulder.
{You have received a Memory: Salt Laced Thread
Type: Accessory.
Description: Consecrated thread that remembers drowning. When used to bind a wound, it drinks a little blood and water and tightens when the beat falters.}
Kellan let out a short breath that wasn't quite a laugh. "I'll take it."
He threaded the needle with shaking hands and put three ugly stitches in his shoulder, then wrapped the mess with a strip torn from his shirt. The salt burned hard, then eased into a steady sting. The bleeding slowed.
The storage room had a hatch in the ceiling with a pull. He tied the tarred line into a loop, hooked it to the pull, and stepped back. One hard tug brought the hatch down in a ragged cough of dust. Above, a short ladder led to another maintenance ring, this one closer to the crack.
He climbed. The blue light spilled over him. The wound-beat shoved and receded.
At the top, the ring ran straight to a set of narrow doors banded in bronze. The bands were cracked. The sigils had been scored out and replaced with simpler ones—circles within circles. The air smelled like salt and old grief.
He put his palm on the door.
Ask her why, the note had said.
"Yeah," he said, voice low. "I'm trying."
Something nudged the other side of the door. Not a knock. Like someone's hand had been resting there.
He took his hand away.
The bell tolled. The dome missed a beat. Water whispered in the walls.
Kellan squared his shoulders, set the quiet in his grip, and pushed.