Upon entering the cavern beyond the arch, Kaz immediately realized where the grinding sounds were coming from. Like the arch, the stairs were in the process of repairing themselves. In the parts of the mountains where the staircases were maintained by kobolds, every third or fifth step was usually still covered in a layer of gold, and some effort had been made to repair the crumbling edges. Never before had Kaz seen stairs in such perfect condition.

The carvings to each side of the stairs were clear and clean, while the red lights leading into the depths burned brightly. The steps themselves, the few that he could see, were in equally pristine condition, with corners so sharp they were almost threatening.

With a gasp, Lianhua hurried forward, and Kaz was drawn with her, since he couldn’t yet stand on his own. They quickly moved to the top step, and stared as several large pieces of rubble lifted from cracked stairs, replacing themselves seamlessly into the ceiling overhead even as fresh gold rose to laminate the stone below.

This impossible repair continued for another long minute, as Kaz and Lianhua were joined by Senge, with Berz close behind her. Chi Yincang had vanished into the shadows at some point, but Kaz could just make out the shimmer of his presence to Lianhua’s left, doubtless ready to pull her away from danger, should any present itself.

At the edge of Kaz’s awareness, he knew that the arch behind them was still blazing with his stolen ki, and so he was the first to notice when its power began to fade. He turned to look back, seeing the brilliant light flicker, then dim, even as the ongoing reconstruction of the stairs slowed. As silence fell, so did the darkness, and soon the group found themselves in a cavern that would have looked no different from any other if not for the crisp gleam of the carvings, which, to Kaz’s astonishment, were actually painted, not just bare or blackened stone.

Seeing Lianhua’s hand twitch toward her pouch, Kaz took the book and pen from beneath his belt and proffered them. She started to accept, then smiled and said, “Would you draw them for me, Kaz? I’d like to try translating these runes.”

She supported Kaz as they stepped to the nearest carving, and waited until he leaned against the wall before stepping away, her eyes already scanning the image in front of them. It was more obvious than ever that these were maps, and with paint applied, anyone could tell that there were at least two more sets of stairs on this level than the kobolds knew of.

Kaz began to sketch as rapidly as he could, desperately wishing that he had different colored paints, or at least chalk. The ink was dark and clear, but it was difficult to capture shading with it, much less color. Still, Kaz knew the runes for the different colors of ki, thanks to his ring, so he made small notes next to the things that seemed to be the most important, marking out at least five of the many hues.

His hand slowed as he came to a section depicting the mosui city. The depiction was relatively small, since it was further away now, but the nine levels were there, and a miniature version of the tower protruded through it. But what he found most fascinating were the colors. White for the mines, marking frost or metal, while the yumi fields were painted in jewel tones of blue, black, and yellow. No particular color marked out the storage level, but fiery red dominated the one where the products of the lower levels were taken to be processed.

The central level contained mosui, but these wore no robes, just simple loincloths that revealed their brown, black, or occasionally white fur. Mixed among them were the first of the strange, horned kobolds, and now he could clearly see that they weren’t kobolds at all.

While the other, well-worn images had made them seem very similar to his people, fresh detail and paint revealed that they were, instead, reptilian. Scales were clearly marked on their bodies, and the horns were their own, not attached to some kind of armor or clothing. Most telling of all were the small wings folded against their backs, creating the hunched outline that had confused Kaz the first time he examined them.

In fact, they looked more like Li than Kaz, and Kaz looked around to find the little dragon examining them with more interest than she usually showed in anything that wasn’t edible. Of course, Kaz had seen her eat a great number of stones, but in this case, he could tell by the mingled surprise and curiosity in her mind that she was more interested in what the images meant than how they might taste.

Li’s parents had been a large blue and white dragon and a smaller, golden-yellow one. Most of the hatchlings had borne some combination of these colors, as did Li herself. Each time she shed, more hints of colors other than gold revealed themselves in her scales, but, like Kaz himself, her strongest form of ki was gold.

Kaz was beginning to wonder if scale and fur color might indicate something about a creature’s ki, but he hadn’t yet been able to see cores when the dragon family had fled, so he didn’t know if the blue and white dragon also had blue and white ki. If there was some link, then the dominant form of ki in these strange new beings must have been red, because nearly all of the ones pictured were some shade of red or orange.

Passing his eye over the whole image, Kaz saw that almost all of the figures pictured outside of the city were kobolds, though there were a few mosui as well. None of the reptilian creatures were outside the mosui city, at least not until he cast a glance down at the bottom. Realizing that he was leaning against the wall in such a way that he was blocking a good bit of the lower portion, Kaz moved aside, revealing the city in the Deep.

Which was almost entirely inhabited by the dragon-people.

Kaz gave a soft, surprised bark, attracting Lianhua’s attention. She came over and crouched beside him, a crease forming between her brows. Reaching out, her fingers hovered just above one of the red-scaled reptilians, and she gave a soft huff of consternation before glancing up at him.

“Is this the kobold city?” she asked.

He nodded, speechless, and sank down beside her, his hand still moving almost unconsciously across the page as he drew what he saw. “It has to be, but those aren’t kobolds,” he finally managed.

The corner of her mouth quirked up. “I see that. Hmm.” She tilted her head, much as Kaz did when he was confused or curious, and then said, “I wish I had my scrolls. If Gaoda hadn’t forced-”

She clamped her lips into a pale, angry line, then shook her head. “I knew it was a mistake to leave my resource materials behind. I should have insisted. It’s my fault I don’t have them.”

With a soft sigh, she closed her eyes, and her hands began to move as if she was turning the pages of a book much larger than the one Kaz held. “Where was it?” she murmured, and her finger traced down through thin air, before pausing and dragging sharply to the right.

“In The Way of the Mountain,” Lianhua said, “Jin Bohai mentioned seeing a strange, bipedal reptile. It was only once, and from a distance, but he described it as a horned, upright beast with blood-red scales. It had a long, broad tail and two wings, too small to allow it to fly. When it saw him, it ducked away into a cave. He tried to follow, but it was as if it had vanished into nothing, even though there were no other exits from the cave.”

Kaz met Li’s eyes, and an image flashed between them. Lianhua must have had the same thought, because her eyes popped open and she stared at the dragon, mouth open in surprise.

“I wonder if it could do the same thing you do, Li! When you, ah-” she glanced toward Chi Yincang, who had reappeared now that it was obvious there was no immediate danger, and flashed her fingers in a sort of ‘poof’ gesture.

Kaz nodded. “That’s what we thought as well. It seems to be instinctive, so perhaps these things are related to-” It was his turn to break off, though he was more concerned about kobold ears than human ones. He was certain nothing they were saying would be a surprise to Chi Yincang.

Linhua tapped the ground sharply with one finger. “If the mosui were made by feeding fulan-infected divine mole cores to humans, then perhaps these things-”

“-were created by feeding humans contaminated dragon cores,” Kaz finished, and Li and Lianhua both nodded. All of them avoided mention of kobolds in their suppositions, and Kaz was glad of it.

Lianhua’s brows drew together again, and her eyes rose, tracing the shape of the mountain carved into the wall. Kaz’s gaze followed hers, and he saw his own people, kobolds, scattered everywhere, from bottom to top, on every level and in every place except the two cities, where they were the rare ones.

It was a strange segregation, and Kaz wondered what was behind it, and what had happened to the reptilians, that they had vanished so thoroughly, leaving their city behind. Kaz’s people were territorial, but not wantonly aggressive, so he didn’t think they would have committed genocide, at least not without provocation such as that given by the mosui.

“Where did this Jin see the being he described? You said a cave, but where was it?” he asked.

Lianhua closed her eyes, fingers flipping invisible pages before she released a frustrated breath. Opening her eyes again, she shook her head. “I don’t know. I really concentrated on the parts involving any buildings or runes he found, not beasts. If I had my copy of the text, it might be there, but it’s not in my image. Jin Bohai spent most of his time wandering between the small human settlements in this area about eight hundred years ago, so it was probably at the base of the mountains, but where exactly-?” She shrugged helplessly.

After that, Kaz and Lianhua spent a quiet hour sketching and discussing the runes scattered throughout the map. According to Lianhua, most of them were numbers, but other than the ones right next to the stairs, they didn’t seem to refer to anything that made sense. In fact, even the stair numbers often skipped a dozen or more, as if there were levels not pictured, and Kaz wondered if the ‘between’ or sub-levels might have been included in the count.

At last, Lianhua sat back, looking defeated. “There must be a map key we’re missing, or the numbers don’t mean what we think they do. I wonder if everyone who used these stairs when they were created had memorized the key, or if the runes were there for the builders, and no one else bothered with them.”

On the other side of the cavern, claws scraped on stone, and Senge stood up. She had spent a good bit of the last hour pacing back and forth impatiently, but she also clearly wasn’t willing to disturb anyone who had just managed to do something that should have been impossible.

Crossing the space between them, she reached out, the sharp tip of her claw scraping the paint marking out a rune Lianhua had told Kaz meant ‘six.’ “One is safety,” she said, “Two is clear. Three is home, four is bone, five is forbidden, six is work, eight is mine, and nine is forever.”

Lianhua tilted her head back, staring up and exposing her throat in a way no kobold would have done unless they were submitting to the dominance of another. Kaz nudged her, and she blinked, then dropped her chin and stood quickly, brushing off her robes, though they were as perfectly clean and unwrinkled as ever.

“What does that mean?” she asked eagerly, staring at the kobold female. “And where did you learn it?”

Senge shrugged, clearly uncomfortable, though she didn’t drop her eyes or ears. “It’s a chant. Females learn it when they become adults.”

Lianhua looked over at Kaz, and he shook his head, then sighed. “I don’t know if Katri knew that or not. Rega never taught it to us pups, though she knew many chants and stories.”

Senge sniffed. “It’s only taught to those in the Deep. We’re the only ones who need to know it, after all.” Her eyes touched on his blue fur, and then glanced back toward the restored stairs. “Though… I had assumed you were just a lucky throwback, but you may have more pure blood in you than I thought. What tribe are you?”

Kaz opened his mouth to answer, wondering if she could tell him anything about why his tribe had left the Deep, but Li bumped her head against his jaw. Warning touched him through their bond, and Kaz realized that revealing who his mother was might not be the wisest choice. After all, Oda had left behind a mountain filled with enemies, so why should he assume the place she had begun her life would be any different?

“Longtooth,” he said, giving the original name of the tribe the humans had helped his sister take over.

Dismissal instantly flooded Senge’s expression, and she looked away. “Oh,” she said, though there was no interest left in her voice. “Not a subsidiary of one of the Great Tribes, then. I see.”

Turning back to Lianhua, Senge said, “Are you ready to go down to the Deep yet? We can wait longer if you need to.” Her tone made it very clear that that was not an option she liked.

Glancing between Kaz and the other kobolds, Lianhua held out her hands for the book and pen. He passed them over, and she smiled gratefully as she glanced down to see his meticulous sketches. She turned the page, which was nearly the last blank one, and wrote something down. Kaz saw the number runes, and assumed she must be recording the chant Senge had spoken.

When she was done, she looked up, frowning slightly. “Is there no seven? I have one through six, then eight and nine. Did I miss one?”

Senge was already edging toward the top step, and spoke without looking around. “No. I asked about that when I learned it, and my den mother told me seven wasn’t mentioned because it wasn’t for us to talk about. That’s all she would ever say.”

Both Kaz and Lianhua turned back to the map, their eyes scanning it for the missing symbol. Though Kaz hadn’t really thought about it before, it was immediately obvious that there were only two sevens on the map. One was on the mine level in the mosui city, and the other was in the center of the city in the Deep.