“So where is this grove of yours?” Ard asked.

“The east leaf,” Graelalea replied.

“The what?”

“The city,” Graelalea said, “is laid out in a triad of leaves, or sections. The Pool of Avrath makes up the south leaf. We now stand in the north leaf.”

The castle, Karigan thought, must rise up in the middle of the leaves like a blossom, the nexus of it all.

“I have walked these streets many times,” Ealdaen said, gazing at the ruins all around them. “I know every one of them, from the Great Stem to the narrowest winding. This was my home.”

Silence fell upon them, though the city still sighed hollowly.

“Then you shall lead us,” Graelalea told Ealdaen.

He nodded and they fell in line behind him, staying alert for danger hidden among the ruins. Claws scrabbled on stone and a rat much larger than any wharf rat Karigan had ever seen bounded across the road ahead of them, vanishing into rubble.

It was difficult for Karigan to imagine the city alive with Eletians despite the vision she’d once seen in the Mirror of the Moon. It was hard to believe there had once been so many Eletians walking the lands. Somehow Mornhavon, with his tremendous powers, had overcome them.

She studied Ealdaen as he strode ahead, shoulders set, the spines on his pauldrons catching the light. He looked from side to side, facial muscles taut. Did he remember those last moments in Argenthyne as he fled Mornhavon’s armies and weapons? Of course he must. What was it like for him to see his city in ruin after so many centuries? The same way she’d feel if this were Corsa or Sacor City. Devastated. Devastated not so much by the ruins left behind, but by the loss of the civilization they represented.

When they began this journey, she’d been very unsure of Ealdaen. He’d tried to kill her once, after all, and she remained wary of him even though the bonds of the group working for mutual survival had outweighed personal motives. So far. Seeing the effect of the city on him, and having seen his reaction to the remains of Telavalieth, she no longer viewed him as quite so cold and immovable.

The cluster of towers that was the castle remained to their right, its heights fading in and out with the fog. The voice of the city came again to Karigan as she trudged along, this time as a mournful song.

Karigan soon understood what Ealdaen had meant when he said he knew every “narrow winding.” There was not a single street she could discern that traveled in a straight line. The streets here put the Winding Way in her own Sacor City to shame.

They walked endless looping curves, but just when she thought they must complete a circle, they’d come to an intersection and start going around in a completely different direction. Were the Eletian road builders insane? Well, they were Eletians, and despite having journeyed so far and long with a few of them, Karigan could not say their ways were any less mysterious to her than when they’d begun. It was maddening that they must travel in such a roundabout manner when they’d reach their destination much more quickly if the streets were straight. It reminded her of one of those frustrating dreams where, try as she might, she could not get someplace she needed to be or complete a task.

There was no way to cut through the ruins that she could see that would shorten their way—at least none that looked safe—nor did the Eletians seem the least inclined to seek such a way. They appeared intent only on staying their course, circular as it was.

“The nythlings don’t like the spiral streets,” Grant muttered to himself. “No, they do not.”

Besides Grant, no one showed signs of being perturbed, so Karigan shrugged and decided the Eletians knew what was best and that she’d do well not to worry about it.

She still thought the road builders must have been insane. Or maybe drunk. Did Eletians get drunk?

Such speculation amused her, held errant masked dancers at bay. It took her mind off the pain that stabbed her leg with each step and the murk that seeped low over the city—dead neighborhood after dead neighborhood.

She could not block out the city’s voice. Sometimes it was a stream sluggishly murmuring unseen among the ruins, accompanied by a rhythmic dripping tapping out a secret message. Sounds like distant weeping chilled her, and sometimes she thought air currents chimed through the towers. It sucked her in till she could almost hear her name expelled on a deep exhalation.

She wondered if Yates, who must depend on his hearing more than ever, heard the city as she did. She thought about asking him, but she feared breaking the silence of the company might shatter something fragile, bring the sky down on them, or awaken a sleeping god.

Ealdaen halted and Karigan, so caught up in spirals and voices, looked up startled. They’d come to a wall that rose precipitously above them and above it yet soared one of the towers of Castle Argenthyne.

Predictably the wall was not straight or squared, but bent in a curve. They followed a street that flowed along its contours, the castle remaining at their right shoulders. On the other side of the street, the dank ruins and rubble abruptly ended, and the forest of Blackveil reared over them. It was clear to Karigan they’d departed the north leaf and were now heading for the east leaf, where the grove of the Sleepers awaited them.

ENMORIAL

When they arrived at the east leaf, there was no mistaking the grove. The conifers rose like towers themselves, their boles as wide as cottages, their limbs alone larger than most trees Karigan had ever seen. Roots snaked out of the ground like bridges. The members of the company, with the castle to their backs, craned their necks looking up toward the canopy, but like the towers, the treetops vanished into the mist.