The King's Fury diverted to the south, to follow the contour of a wooded saddle between two peaks. The great helium envelope swelled, pressing against the rope frames. Her huge windmill propellers whirred, beating against gravity as the nose of the craft lifted. At the crest of the saddle they finally found respite from the endless fog. The rain ceased.

  After the last droplets were wiped away Zachary peered through the windshield of the pilot's cabin to regard the oppressive landscape beyond. It was a very remote valley and there were no villages. Sheer cliffs jutted from the valley floor on either side, black and marbled with glowing blue ethersteel. The clouds floated up at the level of the escarpments, giving the impression that the entire valley was a pocket of clear air below an ocean of sun-bathed gray.

  "We have arrived," said the Eyes of Flame. The oculomancer in the red robes pointed straight down, as if seeing through the deck of the airship. "Just below us, slightly to the southeast. There you will find the cavern entrance."

  "Then I must go," Zachary said.

  He shuffled in his heavy plate armor and reached for Renna's Blade, which was leaning against the cabin wall. Dame Jill Aden, also dressed in bright red robes, marched forward. Her face was hidden behind an obsidian mask, but Zachary could see the determination in her too-blue eyes. She casually rested one hand against the spirit-lattice ethersteel short sword at her hip.

  "Do you seek a companion on your quest?" Dame Jill asked.

  Sir Torrey, one of the king's knights, marched forward as well. He stood much taller than the Aden woman, his stony face framed by his wolf's head helmet. "I wish to go with you as well," he said. "It will be a mighty deed, this quest of yours."

  Sir Zachary turned to King Vash. The burly fur-clad Red Dragon whelp nodded.

  "Very well," Zachary said. "I shall enjoy your company on this quest. Come, let us be off."

  "I have words for you first," the Eyes of Flame said. She beckoned the knights to gather around her, and then she began to speak very softly. "Conditions have changed. The scouts have lost the trail. The Morning Mist seems to be preoccupied with something and she cannot aid us. You will need to do some investigation on your own once you reach the meeting point."

  Zachary nodded. Then they left.

  Outside, Vjiskaldi airmen scurried about the deck, preparing the craft for the aggressive turn that would take them north across the saddle once again. The King's Fury would, Zachary knew, continue east into the ancient land of Renna. There the combined armies of Vjiskald and Lyn would push the Theocrats east, straight into the jaws of the Blue Wolf.

  Sir Zachary led the other knights to the heavenward guardrail and peered down over the edge. The airship was thirty feet above the valley floor, and from that vantage he could clearly see the jagged crack in the cliff face which opened up into darkness at the base.

  He grasped Renna's Blade in his hand and began to channel the bodiless witch's power. It was not ethermancy, but the weaves still worked the same way that they did back at the Eight Color Monastery, where he had studied as a youth. At present he surrounded himself and the other knights in a heaven-aspect slowfall weave. Then he leapt over the guardrail and into the airy descent toward the valley floor. The other knights followed.

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  "I am surprised that the witches would trust a man with such a weapon," Dame Jill said as they fell. "It is my understanding that they do not approve of male witches."

  "This blade does not make me a witch," Zachary explained. "I do not have access to male-specific weaves. If I had the training, I could use healing spells on others, a weave usually reserved for females."

  They landed on the valley floor, their boots crunching through the thin crust of muddy snow. On they went, through the woods and up a grassy incline to reach the jagged maw of the cavern. The other knights did have auras, but those auras did not serve them so long as they remained close to Zachary. Renna's Blade disabled all ethermancy nearby, and Zachary regretted that he could not make an exception for his allies. It fell on him to light the way, so he created a small ball of flame above his open hand. The knights went on.

  Through a twisting and narrow shaft, the way was blocked by an old wooden door set into the walls of an underground stone castle. Zachary used a life-aspect weave to enhance his strength, then he shoved the huge door aside. Beyond, the stone wall continued in a circle, completing the buried watchtower, but most of the far wall had collapsed. A trio of wooden planks pitched up atop the ruin allowed the knights to leave the watchtower into the cavern beyond.

  Nestled between the stalagmites there were a handful of crumbling bedrolls and moldy wooden boxes. Three skeletons hung from warped wooden gallows against yet another castle wall. Through a stone gateway they went into the depths of the underground castle. They passed an alcove occupied by a pair of statues, both female, holding hands. One was wearing an outfit that resembled the airmen on the King's Fury: a fur-lined leather jacket, helmet, and rimmed goggles. The second woman was wearing some type of long coat.

  "Strange," Dame Jill said. "Both of these statues are eroded. It's almost like they were brought here from outside. In fact, this entire castle might have been relocated down here somehow."

  "This region once belonged to Renna the Scientist," Zachary said. "Moving a castle underground would have been well within her power."

  "But why?"

  "There are tales among the Vjiskaldi," Sir Torrey began. "Tales so old as to be almost forgotten. There was once a religion which worshipped a pair of women, the Lady Ghost and the Consort Eternal. One was the pilot of flying machines, the other was an engineer."

  "Perhaps Renna moved the castle to preserve the remnants of that lost religion," Dame Jill offered.

  "It is more likely that she wanted to hide it," Zachary said. "Renna wanted to create the perfect religion, but before she could do that, she needed to censure the old faiths. Whatever they were."

  "Renna is said to have had vast powers," Sir Torrey said. "She could have turned every stone in this castle to liquid."

  "But if she completely destroyed the old religions, she would not be able to study them," Dame Jill said. "It makes sense that she would have buried this place instead."

  Beyond the castle and down through a sloped stone throat, the knights came upon a vast cavern filled with old wooden buildings bathed in the pale light of shimmering ethersteel stalactites. A rope bridge spanned a shallow chasm in the center of the makeshift town. The knights went on.

  At the far end of the rope bridge the lumpy stone streets were lit by flickering torches. Fresh corpses were scattered about, casting lonely shadows against the orange ambiance. The blood gathering in the gutters was shiny and slick and red, though the spatters and handprints were dry and black. Visible beyond a pair of half-doors, the interior of the town tavern was also filled with corpses, some of them still sitting at the bar, their hands still holding their tankards of ale.

  Shadows gathered in the dark places. Glowing purple eyes regarded Zachary and his companions, though there was no malice there. The oculomancers materialized from their hiding places: an old barrel, a blacksmith's forge, the open windows on the second floor of a nearby house. Zachary halted and crossed his arms.

  "Sir Zachary," one of the oculomancers said. She was clearly a Blue Dragon whelp, with hair and scales to match those of the Morning Mist. "Dame Jill Aden. Sir Torrey of Vjiskald. Well met. I am called Fia, daughter of Fjenna. We tracked Heritor Maxius to this cavern system but we lost his trail."

  "Well met Fia," Zachary said. "How did the bastard escape?"

  "Come see for yourself."