Returning to the island would be the best course of action, Agensyx said. We already know ships can be taken from there.

  You know what I’m going to say. They’d been having this conversation for over an hour. Jay was perfectly willing to admit he was being stubborn about it for no real reason, but he’d chosen his hill and he was equally willing to die on it. He’d even resorted to talking mentally to save his breath while running despite how unnatural it felt.

  I know that you have yet to give me a sufficiently acceptable reason to commit to your plan, Agensyx replied.

  What, the fact that I want to go investigate why I saw a giant stone column that was hollowed out and inhabited isn’t good enough on its own?

  The spirit looked at him flatly. You said that you only saw humanoid shapes moving. You should be well aware that humanoid monsters exist, even if you are not entirely aware of the specifics.

  Yeah, well, do any of them live in chunks of hollowed out stone or underground?

  Yes.

  Oh. He really should have guessed that. I still don’t think it’s that kind of situation. It didn’t look like the hive of any burrowing creature I’ve ever seen.

  Did your world have sapient monsters? Agensyx shook his head in exasperation, then went back to looking the direction they were moving.

  Jay didn’t answer.

  Then how would you know? the spirit continued. What would it take to dissuade you from this idea?

  Jay considered it for a second and almost immediately ran into the issue that this was something that would need more thought. Why are you so insistent that the only way this ends is badly?

  Then they were both stuck considering things. As they ran in silence for a while, Jay could feel his familiar puzzling things out and was pretty sure the reverse was true too. The snake got there first.

  Do you know how spirits begin their existence? It sounded like a non sequitur at first but the nugget of resolve Jay could feel encouraged him to go with it.

  I’m not entirely sure, he replied.

  We – they, now, I suppose – start with a purpose. A single, all-consuming purpose that forges us into a distinct shape. It gives us instincts, the outlines of a goal. But we never know what it truly means, not until we can evolve into a more corporeal form and experience the world properly.

  Jay had a brief moment of irreverence, a thought that at least this explanation was better than the spirit equivalent of the birds and the bees flashing across his mind, and he crushed it before it could seem like he was making fun of Agensyx. What was yours?

  Protection. I was always trying to shelter the smaller members of my clutch. Or, when I failed at that, the smaller spirits around me. Eventually I manifested enough to lay claim to Hollowharbor and protect the town and its people. Then, once that was safe enough, Rukai contracted me to add her safehouse to that area.

  All I know is protection, he continued. It was all I was for so long… and now I no longer feel those instincts. Whatever I am now, it is fundamentally different from what I began. Perhaps I am overcorrecting in an attempt to continue walking the paths I am familiar with.

  Ouch. This isn’t just about you anymore, is it?

  Was it ever?

  I don’t like this psychoanalysis of yours, Jay replied.

  You do not need to like it. You just ensure that you are not falling into the same trap.

  Jay scoffed. How could I be? Nothing here is the same as what I was used to. There’s no familiar ground to fall into.

  You know it is not that simple, Agensyx hummed. Think about it carefully. That is all I ask.

  Jay didn’t reply. He sped up from his comfortable jog to a true run. He had thought about it carefully, or at least carefully enough to know that this wasn’t some way of finding familiarity.

  The closest thing to familiar ground he’d come across so far in Halea was the library. Now he was delaying going back to it. That was the opposite of what the spirit was suggesting. This was him willfully jumping into another unknown situation. Because he just couldn’t get enough of those, apparently.

  When the lit-from-inside column appeared in the distance, he veered towards it. Agensyx followed.

  They didn’t talk about it.

  *

  As they got closer, the column resolved into something closer to an inverted spire. It had seemed like it was the same width the whole way up before, but the closer they got, the more clear it was that it was much thicker at the top than the bottom. Whether it was carved that way or natural, Jay couldn’t tell, but it was the first standout feature he noticed.

  The second were the walkways spiraling around the outside. They were hard to notice at first, being the same color as the stone itself, but once he realized that some of the humanoid figures were walking on the outside of the windows, they stood out a bit more. He still couldn’t tell anything about the figures themselves, though.

  The third were the graves. Halfway between dolmens and mausoleums, set into rises and ridges in the stone like doorways into the abyss itself, they were everywhere. The lintelstones looked larger than any henge’s monoliths he’d ever seen. Carved into each of them was the same phrase: “Final rest of the honored necromancer.”

  You know, I might be rethinking coming out here, Jay said.

  You were so sure of yourself coming out here. So insistent that you had thought things through. Agensyx’s thoughts had a tinge of mockery to them. Not enough to call them truly cruel, but the air of “I told you so” was definitely there.

  Yeah, yeah. He hadn’t stopped moving, though. The snake was right that he’d committed to the path, so he was going to bear that out. The phrasing on the graves was interesting too. Interesting enough to override his hesitation from seeing that many tombs that close together, at least.

  “Honored necromancer” didn’t sound like something that any group he’d heard about so far would write. Maybe they’d found a way to escape the Class Curse. Or even cure it.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Jay’s entire mission could end with whatever was in that upside-down spire. He didn’t think he’d get that lucky, but a little nugget of that hope stayed buried in his mind anyway. And until he had absolute confirmation that it wasn’t true, it would stay there.

  Where the spire met the floor, there were two circles. One was on the smooth side of the stone pillar itself, with its twin carved into the cavern’s rock. It was clear what they were there for, so Jay stepped into the one on the ground.

  It chimed, flashing a brief off-white glow and its match did the same. A door formed in the stone of the pillar, the rock cracking into its outline, which then swung open. Standing in the gap was a humanoid figure that was presumably of the same variety as the ones walking above. Jay’s first thought was that they were something like the Wanderer, the spirit of the boat he’d traveled on, since both were made of what looked like inanimate objects come to life. His second thought was that they were a golem.

  After all, what else do you call a person made of rock?

  When he spoke, his voice was gravelly. It only made sense, since his vocal cords were presumably made of the same pitted, porous rock as the rest of him. “What do you want?” Then his eyes – or at least the glowing green circles Jay was assuming were his eyes – narrowed. “Hold on. You’re not Asanti. Where did you come from?”

  “I ran here.”

  “From where?” The golem really stressed the “where” that time, as if thinking Jay didn’t get it the first time.

  “Kinicier’s Haven.”

  “Bah. Surface locations. Didn’t think you people came through here anymore. Well if you want back up to your precious sunlight, you’d best go back the way you came,” he said.

  Jay cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

  “Way up ahead’s blocked, son. Only thing up there’s a library of abridged information anyway. Blocked themselves off so they’d stop losing patrons to our better selection.”

  Holy shit. “Any chance I could get a look at that better selection?”

  The golem looked Jay up and down. “You don’t look the type. And you’d have to pay for your entry.”

  He did have money now. He’d spend it if he had to, but only if he had to. “How much?”

  “Ten gold.” The gatekeeping golem paused. “Or. Or a weighty enough secret that it could be added to the stores of knowledge. But good luck with that. Not many people have those.”

  Jay just grinned. He might have had plenty of money now, courtesy of the outer vault room, but he definitely had more secrets. “I’ll take the second option. How do you measure the value?”

  “Needs to be important. Worth putting in a book, you see? Something that needs to be recorded for the future.” The doubt in his voice grew stronger with every word. “There’s a review process to sort whatever you give us and tell if it’s good enough. Write it on the card.”

  Card? Jay had just enough time to question what card he meant before a small pillar of stone rose up from the ground, the side facing him open to reveal hollow space. There was a breeze wafting out of it, faint at first but then suddenly increasing to a pneumatic hiss. A small cylinder popped up as the noise hit its maximum and hovered there as it tapered back off.

  Jay took it and twisted open the top end, guessing that the gearlike ridges were there for that purpose. Inside was a small index card-like piece of paper. It was thick paper, almost like papyrus, and just its existence in this place and context raised a bunch of questions that he had to shove aside for now. Also in the container was a small stick of charcoal that was clearly intended to be a writing implement.

  Jay took the card and wrote seven words on it: “The Duke of Kinicier’s Haven was assassinated.” He put the card and the wannabe pencil back in the cylinder, screwed the lid back on, and – at a nod from the golem – put the whole thing back in the stone tube. It hissed downward immediately with a sound like a very weird vacuum cleaner.

  “Give the boys down there a few minutes to check into things and we’ll see if you’ve given us something worth your entry,” the rockman said.

  “It will be.”

  “Confident one, are you?” The golem chuckled, sounding oddly like a rockslide. “We’ll see. You’d be the first in a long time to make it in with some secret as your payment, but you’re also the first in a long time to show up here at all, son.”

  Agensyx shifted his weight behind Jay, the minor noise still clearly audible. He seems very insistent that you know that.

  He does, Jay agreed. But it seems true. Cinri said nobody else knew about the entrance to these caverns, after all. Maybe they really haven’t seen anyone in a long time.

  Hm. Perhaps. Or maybe there is something else, the snake hummed.

  So ask him.

  No.

  Jay gave his familiar a flat look before looking back at the golem. “So how long has it been since someone tried to get in?”

  “A few hundred years at least. I was barely a maquette the last time it happened.”

  Maquette didn’t translate the term any further for some reason, but from the way the golem said it, it must have been their word for kids. Maybe teenagers.

  “But have there been people going by in the rest of the cavern?” Jay asked.

  “Some, sure. Not many. You folks like your sunlight too much to come down here. Only other ones we saw recently were the group of fliers.” The rockman almost sounded put out about the low traffic.

  “Fliers?”

  “Whole group of ‘em came screaming past the other day. That’s what we noticed, the noise. They were really trying to get somewhere fast,” the golem said. Then his eyes flicked to the side and narrowed. “Hm. Now that’s odd, son. Looks like you’ve been approved already.”

  “Guess they knew it was good information,” Jay replied.

  “Something like that. You’ve got a guide on the way. Guess they’re making a big deal out of you being here.”

  This does not seem right, Agensyx said. I believe we should flee.

  No. Jay refused to leave. No one sent a guide for something that ended in a trap. Guides were for people who were appreciated, right?

  Another golem, this one purple-eyed and formed from smooth marble and glassy obsidian twisting around each other, moved into view over the first’s shoulder. The pair touched hands briefly, then exchanged nods. The pitted golem moved aside to make way for the new one.

  “Please, come with me,” the marble-and-obsidian golem said. “I will take you to a room prepared for non-Asanti visitors, where you may rest. Then I will be your escort for the duration of your stay.” Their voice was androgynous, and – much like the first one – they seemed not to be concerned with introducing themself.

  “I’d rather just go directly to your library,” Jay tried.

  “That is not possible. Step inside and you will be told why,” they replied, shifting to the side slightly so that he would be able to walk past.

  Ominous. Jay could feel Agensyx’s disapproval of the whole situation radiating off the familiar bond like heat from a campfire. Actually, that was something he should probably ask about.

  Jay pointed to the snake. “He’s with me. Do I need to drop in a second secret?”

  “Of course not,” the smoother golem said. “You have paid sufficiently for yourself and up to three familiars.”

  Interesting. Maybe the old captain from the Madcap Wanderer scammed him after all. Or maybe it was just a different system of value here.

  Probably that second one.

  Jay walked through the circular door, heading as far in as he could to make sure Agensyx had room. It was a tight fit. It felt like every time they needed to fit somewhere, the snake was bigger than the last time they’d had to. He hoped he was imagining the growth or they’d have to jump out of one of the windows to get out.

  “This way, please,” the obsidian and marble golem urged, moving toward one of the tunnel-shaped exits on the wall opposite the entry door. “You need the rest.”

  They followed, the trio winding their way up internal pathway after looping internal pathway. They didn’t start seeing others until they’d walked up several spirals of the ramps. Once they did, Jay quickly noticed that none of the Asanti looked identical. Most were one type of rock, some were two, and a few were more, but none were the same.

  The most similar thing about them was the odd looks they all gave Jay as he passed. He assumed they were looking at Agensyx at first, but the more he saw, the more he noticed that they were aimed squarely at him. He didn’t know what he was doing that was making them side-eye him that hard.

  He made a mental note to ask his guide when they got wherever they were going, since every attempt he had made to engage them in conversation had failed so far. They seemed too intent on moving through the growing crowds at speed.

  At least he had cool rock to look at along the way. He never was any good at geology, but there was a world of difference between that and not being able to appreciate the color-shifting, sometimes iridescent layers that formed the inside walls of the pillar. Jay was pretty sure that a few of the layers had marks like they’d been molded by hand but he would have had to stop and take a much closer look to confirm that.

  When they got to the green layer, their guide stopped abruptly at a nondistinct portion of the wall and tapped it in a brief pattern. Golden ripples spread out from where the touches had landed, fading quickly into the green, and a large round section slid open inwards after they were gone.

  “This is your suite for the duration of your stay. Please make full use of it. You have a private linkage to the athenaeum, and you should make full use of that too.” The guide hesitated and stepped closer to him, lowering their voice into a furtive near-whisper at the same time. “You will be offered a choice when you step inside. Choose as you see fit.” They stepped back and continued in the first tone. “If you need anything, tap any fragment of the wall thrice and I will answer.”

  Jay didn’t step inside immediately. “What kind of choice? Also, now that you’re talking again, do you have a name I should be calling you?”

  “I can’t speak to the choice. That is something for you alone. But if you require a name, I am Ovav. Please, step inside,” they urged.

  That was mysterious, but Jay could see the bed through the door and it looked comfortable enough that he didn’t want to push for extra details until he’d slept. He paused for a single shrug and then walked through the door. He got a brief glimpse of the lush view on the other side before a System window appeared, this one a combination he hadn’t ever seen before: black text on a white background.

  He had absolutely no idea what that meant.