The next morning Bedehv directed them off towards the Mouth. From afar it appeared to be a large flat boulder blocking the floor of a canyon. When they entered the canyon, they saw the fallen boulder was in fact the immense head of a statue. From this angle they understood the warped drawing on Bedehv’s map better. A dead eyed face peered up from the ground like a swimmer gasping for air. The lower jaw was buried beneath the earth, leaving the upper teeth jutting out above like merchants’ awnings of marble. If the original statue had been roaring in triumph, now it was screaming to the heavens.

“This is a terrible omen,” Brunhilde said.

“Afraid of an old carving?” Hope mocked.

“Afraid? Of that? I’ve seen horrific statues of demons that would curl your eyes back up into your head and make you vomit blood just to look at them. I quivered once with fear when looking at them. This is nothing. But still, to crawl into a mouth is an ill omen,” Brunhilde said.

“Nobody would carve a statue with a working mouth, stomach and exit. This is just a broken shell.”

Their view of the skyward staring eyes disappeared as they approached. They entered the jagged shadows of the broken teeth.

“See?” Hope said.

She threw her arms forward and light flooded out from her, illuminating the inside. The ground was rough and broken, in the distance they saw wide stone stairs descending. The sweeping vault overhead was the white marble of the statue. Hope pictured the face as a discarded party mask, lying in the sands after an immense celebration. Hiding this entrance into an underground mystery.

“Hullo!” Brunhilde shouted. She waited for an echo that did not come.

“Be more stealthy,” Hope scolded the barbarian.

“He said it’s dead down there, are you afraid?” Brunhilde said with a grin. “Save your magic,” she said. She took out and lit a lantern that Bedehv had given them.

Hope’s light dimmed and Brunhilde strode forward. The princess lit her own lamp and took the lead, walking down the stairs into a strange courtyard. In the centre there was a circular fountain, dried and filled with grit and pebbles. Around the edges there were stone tables arranged like market stalls. The roof above showed flecks of old paint in places, fragments of blue and white, the remnants of an ersatz sky.

“A trading post between down there and up here,” Brunhilde said.

“Obviously,” Hope said.

They passed into a large carved corridor wide and tall enough for six wagons to pass through. It was clear that many at a time had used it by the grooves on the floor. Six pairs of irregular and bumpy ruts carved in the stone by years of use.

“Down it’s terrible throat,” Brunhilde said.

“Don’t be so gruesome,” Hope said.

Other tunnels split off from the main one, but they followed its gentle slope downward. They continued deeper and deeper for hours or minutes, without daylight they found it difficult to judge. Only the slow burn of the oil in their lanterns told them that time was passing.

“This is the city proper,” Hope said.

Ahead there was an immense gate. Brunhilde craned her neck to see its archway, but it was so tall that their lantern light did not reach.

“This is a sky city?” Brunhilde said.

“No. What Bedehv calls the Coil was part of a great sky city, Vis-Dimmud, a place of inventors and creators. The city was broken across the back of the earth itself. In a terrible night it was punished and rendered into pieces, scattered across the land. Whoever built this city came long after. This is just people digging in the dirt,” Hope said.

“And on that terrible night you fled Vis-Dimmud, and escaped down here?” Brunhilde said with a sly look down at Hope. She stood there in her furs, with the scar across her neck and chin burning red in the lantern light. She did look like a warrior statue, with her pale skin and fiery red braids like marble and copper. But the look on her face as she asked the question was like a naughty younger sister trying to provoke a reaction.

“I told you. I am from a far away and mysterious place that is nevertheless not a sky city.”

“Where you learned to open magical locks of the sky cities.”

“Yes.”

“And read so much about them that you can’t go a day without crowing about their superiority to everything that crawls on the ground.”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’m glad we trust each other. You know one of these days I’ll tell you what sky city I am from,” Brunhilde said. She jabbed Hope playfully in the side. A playful jab from her scarred knuckles was like a headbutt from a goat.

“You are not from a sky city,” Hope said.

“Well, one day we’ll find out,” Brunhilde said.

They passed through the gates. The city proper was a marvel of construction. The entry tunnel was carved with figures. Massive warriors stared down from the darkness, dancers cavorted in a flowing style, around the feet of it all strange animals weaved in patterns. Hope shivered at the site of the tunnel roof lowering.

The builders of the city had used natural caverns, enlarging them by cutting dwellings into the sides. Clusters of them hung from outcroppings like bird nests. At regular intervals they passed through small courtyards that could have been gathering places. From these courtyards passages lead out to more courtyards, each with doors and windows in the walls. Brunhilde stopped and peered into a few, but they all seemed the same. Emptied long ago, some filled with moss and moisture dripping from the walls, others dusty and dry, with no reason to tell why.

Hope’s memory guided them along a path, she never hesitated but chose the way forward, through courtyard after courtyard.

Their descent was stopped by something not on Bedehv’s maps. A heaving in the earth had cracked a corridor and filled it with rocks and earth.

“I know a way around,” Hope said. She led them back a way and then down a side corridor.

“Are you sure you memorised that whole thing?” Brunhilde asked. She looked at Hope’s face. Though the golden-haired princess was staring ahead her eyes seemed fixed on images in her mind.

“I had to memorise the Books of Law and Succession when I was six. That map took a blink to memorise,” Hope replied. “Let’s go down here, then we can return to our path,” she said, she pointed to a small corridor. It was an oval passage that Brunhilde would have to hunch to enter, nothing like the wide and easy passages they had traversed so far.

“Look,” Brunhilde hissed. She grabbed Hope’s arm and pointed ahead. There was a dark damp trail on the floor ahead of them. She looked down and saw that they had already walked alongside it. She knelt down and sniffed at it.

“This is fresh,” Brunhilde said.

“Blood?”

“Yes.”

“Then things do live down here. Why didn’t that spluttering little fellow warn us?” Hope said.

“Shh,” Brunhilde said. She cocked her ear to the corridor and listened. “Something is coming!” She jogged forward and set her lantern down in the middle of the corridor, then she pushed Hope back into the oval passage.

“Shut your lantern,” the barbarian whispered. She squeezed into the small space with Hope.

Hope closed her lantern off and peered around the corner. The two waited and watched. The illuminated walls and floor were an island of stone floating in space. Hope strained to hear what Brunhilde was listening to, but she could hear only their own breathing. Brunhilde’s sweaty smell pressed against her. It was not unpleasant, but her furs’ musky scent as well was too much. Hope elbowed the barbarian slowly but insistently in the stomach to get more space, but it was like pushing an ox with one finger.

Brunhilde sniffed the air, but could only smell the burning oil of the lantern and the irritatingly delicate perfume wafting from Hope. Next to her the mage was twisting and turning like a toddler trying to get comfortable.

A snuffling and scratching sound came from the darkness. A low figure scuffled into view, long arms scraping the floor. It was hunched over with a barrelled body and short legs. It approached the lantern carefully, sniffing the ground around it. It peered up and around.

“Saviour?” it called out in an inquisitive tone. There was no response from the darkness. “You dropped your light?” it called out. Its head was mostly a sloping nose, with lank hair hanging down over bulbous eyes. “Saviour?” Its head swayed back and forth, the nose pulsated.

It lifted its long arm up. The skin was grey and pebbled with boils. It carefully tapped the lantern with its thick fingers. “Saviour? Are you in your light?” it asked. Its voice was trembling with confusion.

“What is it doing?” Hope hissed to Brunhilde.

The figure in the light swung its head towards them. “Saviour? You smell… different,” it said. Its fat stubby body blocked the lantern light as it shuffled towards them.

“Stay away!” Hope shrieked.

The hideous creature stumbled backwards and fled back into the dark.

“Hey, come back!” Brunhilde shouted. She extricated herself from their hiding place and ran up to the lantern. “Hey!”

“What are you doing? It’s hideous,” Hope cried.

Brunhilde picked up her lantern but didn’t take her gaze from the corridor. “It seemed peaceful enough. Poor thing. You scared it. What was it?” She held her lantern before her and walked after the fleeing creature.

“No, no, no!” Hope shouted. She unshuttered her lantern hurriedly. “Don’t go down there! There could be hundreds of them, waiting to drag your bloody corpse into the dark. Don’t just walk into the- Don’t leave me!” She ran after the barbarian.

The corridor began to slope downward, at first slight, but then enough that they had to tense their legs not to go tumbling forwards. They heard something in the dark ahead of them. The creature was mumbling to itself.

“I offended the Saviour. I’m a bad priest! Eternal darkness take me,” it’s plaintive voice became louder and louder.

It was crouching, head against the wall, with its arms clutched over its head. Brunhilde stopped and Hope almost slid past her. Brunhilde put an arm out and Hope grabbed onto her.

“Forgive me, forgive me,” it wailed.

“Stop crying. We didn’t do anything,” Brunhilde said.

The creature tensed at her unfamiliar voice. They saw that it had the shape of a man, albeit one from a child’s drawing. Its arms were as long as its body and legs combined. Its triangular head joined its body with no apparent neck, and from head to the base of its back it was covered in scales. As it sobbed they saw that the scales were not armour, but part of its body.

“Where is the Saviour? Did he send you to punish us?” it pleaded.

“We’re not here to punish anything. Who is this Saviour?” Brunhilde said.

“I smell him on your light, and you, look like him. Your fingers like string and striding legs,” it said.

“Bedehv! Your saviour is skinny, lots of hair?” Hope said. She lifted her hand and a sketch of Bedehv appeared, drawn in golden light.

“Saviour!” the thing cried. It prostrated itself. “His crown of hair rises to the roof. His roots bring light to us,” it said. It looked carefully up at them. Behind its lank hair, bulging white eyes flicked back and forth. A thick worm-like tongue licked over two walls of thick teeth.

“My Saviour name is God-greeter,” it said.

“I’m Brunhilde. This is Hope,”

“Yes, we have been sent by your Saviour. He says not to eat us,” Hope said.

“Why would he eat us?” Brunhilde said.

“Why would I eat you?” God-greeter said.

“I don’t know what it eats,” Hope snapped

“Rock skunk, rock grubs, cave worms, grassy moss, spice moss- are you hungry?” it said. It held out a sack in its hands, blood dripped from it. “Rock skunks, I’ve been hunting.”

“No. No,” Hope said.

“We’re helping, Bedehv, the man you call Saviour,” Brunhilde said.

“Have you come for the offerings? Shall I take you to them?”

“Show us,” the barbarian replied.

“What are you doing?” Hope moaned. She pulled at Brunhilde’s arm to get her back onto their path.

Brunhilde turned her back on the snivelling thing. She lowered her voice. “He said there was nothing alive down here, what else did Bedehv lie about? Calling himself Saviour? Don’t you want to know what he’s been up to? Little desert skunk.”

“No, not really. I want to reclaim the vault treasures and get back to the surface as fast as possible. I don’t care if he’s created a religion based around worshipping an oil lantern and juggling rock skunks,” Hope replied.

“I do,” Brunhilde said. She turned back to the creature. “Lead on then, God-greeter.”

The creature leapt up with a smile and held out its hand. Brunhilde took it. Its hand was strong and callused, with heavy fingernails like chisel heads, but they moved with such delicate precision that its touch felt quite tender. It led her onward like a proud child taking a parent to see a wonderful find. Hope walked behind the two, glaring at them both.

After a short while they came to a carved-out chute in the wall. The workmanship was markedly different from anything they had seen. The stone was grooved with curves like water. It interrupted the side of the city tunnel like a giant mole tunnel.

“This is the way,” it said. It dropped its bag into the hole. Then curled into a surprisingly compact ball and rolled down into the chute. “Wahoo!”

“I am not sliding down there. This is not on the map!” Hope wailed.

“He is hiding something! Stay here. I’ll come back for you,” Brunhilde said. She dropped her pack into the hole, then clutched her lantern to her chest and sat down on the edge. With a smile over her shoulder she leapt down into the darkness. The chute dropped straight down then curved slightly until she was speeding down so fast wind pushed past her.

At the bottom the slide curved upwards. She glimpsed God-greeter standing at the top, then she was flung up into the air by the ramp. Strong hands grabbed her and righted her. She sat down on the flat platform, out of breath from laughing.

“That was just like sledding,” she said.

The strange new friend was standing at the edge, looking towards the chute. Hope’s pack came flying up and he caught it and put it to one side. They waited.

“Your friend?” he asked after a few moments. They waited a bit longer.

Light emerged from below and Hope rocketed upwards. God-greeter caught her and lay her down on the floor. She was stiff with her eyes closed.

“You’re safe,” Brunhilde said. She shook Hope gently. The mage opened her eyes and glared around. She stood up and arranged her clothing.

“Good,” she said curtly. She picked her pack up and glared, not looking at the other two.

When they had caught their breath and gathered themselves God-greeter took them into his city. The air felt more alive here, there was a gentle breeze and they heard strange snuffling sounds in the darkness. Unlike the flattened floors of the upper city, the tunnels here rose and fell like hillsides. Openings interrupted the floor and ceiling at strange angles. Sometimes more creatures like God-greeter rolled by, popping from side tunnels and disappearing into others like marbles in a giant obstacle course.

God-greeter led them on. He babbled proudly about how much work they had done and how long they had worked in the dark down here, until one day the Saviour had come, with his light.

“And we promised him offerings in exchange for his kindness,” God-greeter said. He took them into a storage cave, filled with offerings, stone carvings similar to the ones in Bedehv’s hoard. Other workers in the room turned in surprise as the lantern light illuminated the cave. They turned and God-greeter snuffled and grunted with them in a language of sound and smell. Pungent scents erupted from their conversation. After a short exchange they went back to their work. They could not help turning and peering at the lantern from time to time.

“You find all of these?” Hope asked. She picked up one of the bird carvings. It was identical in style to the ones she had seen in Bedehv’s hoard. She had little interest in or knowledge of these Age of Silence relics, but the merchant had been happy to trade for them. This was a small fortune of finds if they were all that valuable.

“Find, yes in the stone. He tasked us to carve more and more of his stone children,” God-greeter said with a leering smile.

“You make them? He’s making you copy old carvings?” Brunhilde said.

“Yes, come and see.” God-greeter took Brunhilde’s hand again and led her along to a gallery where workers hunched in stacked alcoves carved at stone blocks. At the touch of the light they peered up, bowed their heads in respect and then went back to their work. In the dark they stroked their fingers over the shapes of the stone, feeling its shape. Their fingernails were so tough that they could carve into the rock. They were coaxing shapes out of the rock as easily as a gardener would prune a bush.

“Are we not pleasing?” God-greeter said. “In the dark we dance with the stone. And in the Saviour’s light we see the things we have made.”

“Why?” Brunhilde said.

“We make these tokens for the Saviour. When one hundred upon one hundred are made, we too will be lifted into the light,” God-greeter said. He rocked onto his back so he could look upward and lifted his hands to the roof of the cavern.

“Is that a lot?” Brunhilde said, looking at Hope.

“It’s an impossible amount,” Hope said.

“Impossible, yes, but we have many carvers. Our children’s children will one day live in the eternal light,” he said. He smiled.

Brunhilde bent down to whisper to Hope. “Bedehv enslaved this thing and its friends to forge things. He’s not a scholar, he’s a scoundrel. This is even worse than lying to me,” Brunhilde said.

“It’s clever,” Hope said. “I underestimated him. Why not make a fortune and complete your life’s work at the same time?”

“How many of these poor things are working down here?” Brunhilde said.

They waited and heard not only the scraping and chipping sounds of the workers that they could see, but others in the darkness. The sounds echoed and merged into a constant grinding in the dark.

Hope walked forward into the cavern and flung her arms out. She was loathe to spend magic this far away from daylight, but curiosity overrode caution. Light blossomed up from her, it stretched out until they saw they were at the edge of a vast underground quarry. The rough circular wall held alcoves scores high. In between the columns of alcoves there were platforms, lowered and raised by workers pulling on rope. Against the work face diggers pulled and sorted stone to be carved. It was the enterprise of an entire underground colony focused on one thing. Forgery.

But at the touch of Hope’s brilliant light, all work had stopped. Labourers turned with heavy rocks in their arms, platforms lurched to a halt as rope-pullers stared slack-jawed. A thousand or more pairs of blinking eyes looked at her. A small figure, brighter than even the Saviour’s light. Her hair was a halo of gold, her cloak fluttered and glimmered with colours they had no words for. She was a sudden painful glory.

When she lowered her arms, it was the only thing that moved in that moment.

God-greeter prostrated himself and babbled and farted. Workers leapt from their alcoves, the ones higher up curled into balls to drop down onto the floor, they bounced and tumbled over each other as they fell. The entire workforce raced towards her entrancing light.