The Hidden Colony Part 3

The lighted moss bundles they had tossed into the ruin yesterday were still glowing. As Moon made his way over the cracked, uneven floor, it gave the shadowy hall the temporary illusion of an inhabited colony. It made Moon's spines twitch.

The warriors had already climbed up to the vines and branches growing in the upper part of the hall, taking guard positions. The Arbora slowly spread out, pointing and whispering in awe. Jade had gone ahead with a small group of warriors and hunters, making sure this hall and the chambers past it were clear of predators. 

Stone had shifted into his groundling form, so Moon stuck close by in case there was something lurking in wait in the heavy vegetation. But so far the place still seemed empty of everything but beetles and the occasional flying lizard swarm. "I looked at the old maps," Stone said, "Heart thought it might make me remember if there was ever any talk of an abandoned colony out here."

"Did it help?" Moon asked. Chime had said the maps didn't show anything in this area. Not that the maps were all that reliable, since they didn't know how many the court had lost in the turns since leaving the Reaches. 

"No." Stone frowned up at the mold-covered carvings. "All the old stories tend to blend together after a while."

The warriors carried the moss-lights further in. They were past the stairwell where Fair had fallen, and now Moon could see the hall curved around, maybe following the line of the disintegrating mountain-tree trunk. The place was so big, and so covered with rotting wood and dead vines, it was hard to tell. Then Moon thought back over what Stone had said, and asked, "What old stories?" 

Stone stepped closer to a wall where Bramble and Thistle were stripping vines away to reveal the carving. The shapes were sinuous, very like the Arbora art in the Indigo Cloud tree, but still no actual depictions of Raksura. "Nothing about strange colonies carved out of rock."

Moon turned back to the stairwell, stepping to the edge. The moss-lights they had dropped down it still glowed, but the shape of the statue at the bottom was too shadowy to make out. He said, "Let's go down this way."

Stone came to the edge of the well, leaning over to look down. Bramble tore herself out of the vines by the wall and yelped, "Wait!" She waved to the warriors and Arbora overhead. "We're going down this way."

Moon flicked his spines in annoyance, but stepped back as a scatter of warriors and hunters dropped to the floor and started to climb down the stairwell.  He told Stone, "Except for the carving, this could be like your old colony in the east. A ruin that Raksura moved into."

Bramble nodded. "That's what I was thinking. If a court moved in here, the Arbora could have done this carving on already existing walls."

Which reminded Moon of something he had wondered about before. He asked her, "Why didn't the Arbora do any carving in the eastern colony?"

"It was already carved. You don't carve on top of someone else's work." Bramble waved a hand. "It was frustrating, too."

"Maybe that's why I always hated that place," Stone muttered.

"That's not why you said you hated it before," Bramble pointed out. 

Fortunately, Chime reappeared from the upper part of the hall, climbing down a big vine, then dropped to the floor to join them. He said, "Spring said you were about to go down the stairwell. Jade said to wait for her." He stepped to the edge of the well and peered down. "What do you think is down there?"

"There's a big statue. I saw part of it when I was down there with Fair." Moon's spines shivered in irritation. It wasn't as if he had never explored a strange place alone before. 

Oblivious to the irritation, Chime said, "Good. We haven't found anything like that further up the hall yet and the end is blocked with branches."

Distracted, Bramble asked Stone, "So were there old stories about this area? Not about a colony, but about other people who used to live here."

Stone took a deep breath, but in the light it was clear he was thinking, and not annoyed. "Maybe. I need to look at the map again."

Then Jade came back up the hall, leaping down to land beside them. She was trailed by Balm. "Sage is in charge up here," she told Bramble and Thistle. She paused to look down the stairwell. The warriors and hunters had cleared a tunnel through the vines and were almost to the bottom. "Let's go."

Moon followed her, saying, "It isn't like I haven't done this before."

Behind him, Stone snorted. Balm said, "Yes, and we all know how that turned out," and gave Moon a poke to the ribs. 

Chime's spines flicked anxiously. "I don't want to talk about that while we're doing this."

Jade stopped just above Briar, who was nearly at the part of the stairs where the well opened out, holding a section of dead vine so Strike could cut through it.

Jade turned to Moon and said softly, "Sometimes I want to be the one to blunder into the trap first."

Moon wasn't sure he believed that was the only reason, but he said, "Just this once."

Then below them, Strike said, "That's got it!" and a section of the vines collapsed. From above the Arbora tossed down more  glowing moss bundles and some that were heavier and considerably more pointed. Thistle must be up there using the dried clumps of thornvines to spell for light.

As a warm glow filled the space below, Jade climbed down past Briar and Moon followed.

The lights revealed a large round hall, larger than Indigo Cloud's greeting hall, with big shadowy doors leading off in all directions and several openings curving down. The stairs were uneven, turned to rubble in some places by old floods. The statue stretched across the width of the hall, the lower part carved into the far wall, the wings extending out like a wide canopy.

Jade moved further into the center of the hall, staring up at it. Moon stopped beside her, staring up, as Chime, Stone, Bramble, and the other Arbora and warriors made their way down to join them. "It's a queen," Bramble said. "No, wait, it's not. It's--"

"It's a forerunner," Chime finished.

(yes, there will be a part four)