Or perhaps they hadn’t. A lot of history could be lost in a generation. One of Marcus’s grandfathers had been a minor noble of Northcoast who’d kept his grandmother as mistress. The other had been a sailor who’d made his money fishing cod and avoiding port taxes. All he knew of them was a dozen or so stories he’d heard as a boy and likely misremembered.
The ages since the fall of the Dragon Empire had swallowed that a thousand thousand times over and left only legends and stories, roads and ruins.
What little there was, though, still had the power to awe.
Larger than the palaces of Northcoast or Birancour, the vast stronghold spread out before them, sinking down into the flesh of the earth level upon terraced level. Ivy clung to the spiral towers and magnificent stone arches. A few brave trees had forced their way through seams in the great blocks of dragon’s jade, their bark bellying over the pavement and their roots spidering out in the vain search for deeper soil. Black water pooled in the low places, thick with slime. Bright-plumed parrots fluttered and complained from the trees and the towers, and tiny scarlet frogs leapt from leaf to broad leaf with a ticking sound like dry twigs breaking. Stepping out from the jungle canopy for the first time in days, Marcus stared up at an open sky the color of sapphires.
“My God,” Kit said.
“Wouldn’t think it’d be so easy to hide something that big,” Marcus said. “Any thoughts as to what we do from here?”
“I expect that reliquary itself will be in the deepest part of the ruins, guarded and barred.”
“The intent being to keep out people like us.”
“Yes.”
“Wish I’d brought a pry bar,” Marcus said. “We should find shelter for the night. This isn’t our territory, and those very hospitable Southlings who told us none of this existed won’t be pleased we proved them wrong.”
“Can you imagine it, Captain?” Master Kit asked. “This was a citadel of the dragons. These walls have stood here since before the war. Humanity might well have been feral when these stones were set.”
“Or they might have caught us all as slaves to set them. Careful. Snake.”
“What?” Kit said. Then, “Oh.” He moved to the side, and the black-and-silver serpent slid away down the steps toward the dark pools below.
By the time they found a chamber that met Marcus’s approval, the sapphire sky had darkened to indigo, the parrots had all vanished, and the evening’s swarm of midges filled the air. An early bat, its wings fluttering wildly, spun through the air above the ruins, eating its fill of the insects. The smells of decay and still water filled the air. Marcus sat with his back against a cool stone wall while Kit measured out the evening meal of nuts and the last strips of dried meat from a foxlike animal Marcus had trapped three days before. His clothes were little more than rags, and he’d had to put another hole in his belt to keep it from slipping off his hips.
The journey had thinned Kit as well. The actor’s handsome face was craggy now, and his beard looked brittle and dull. Marcus took the food with a nod of thanks and Kit lowered himself to sit across the narrow chamber. Likely it had been storage, back when it had been anything. The door had stood a bit ajar for centuries before Marcus was born, its hinges rusted away to black streaks. The ceiling was low enough that any attackers would have to come in hunched and vulnerable, and whatever animal had left its spoor in the corners hadn’t been back recently. It was as good as home.
“Start searching at first light?” Kit asked.
“That suits. And we’ll need to find something to eat. Freshwater. Ancient hoard of the dragons won’t do us much good if we starve to death.”
“I suppose not,” Kit said.
“I’ll take first watch.”
Kit nodded in the growing gloom. Even if they’d found something dry enough to burn, they couldn’t afford the luxury of a fire. Any Southling patrol would see the light of it from seven miles off, jungle or no. Kit yawned and settled down against the far wall. Marcus took his sword in its rotting sheath and laid it across his knees, preparing for the long hours of darkness. Outside their little shelter, something ticked, ticked again, and began a whirring insectile song. Another joined in, and soon the ruins were alive with the sound of inhuman life. The walls and terraces that the dragons had designed were a vast city for beetles and midges, frogs and snakes. And two men whose minds and comprehension of the world was likely nearer to the midges than the dragons. Marcus let himself wonder what the builders of his little shelter would have thought if they’d known, however many centuries ago, that in the vast span of time their work would fall this far. Despair, maybe, that all their efforts were doomed. Or pride that what they did would leave a mark on the world that, though it might change its shape and meaning, would not be erased.