The guard came back to the ledge and followed Eli’s pointing hand.
“It’s a cable,” he said.
“It runs away from the camp.”
“Then someone ran a cable.”
Behind him, the last of the support hunters disappeared around the bend. Their lamps threw light over the wall for another moment, then left the porters in a dim pool of their own.
Tessa knelt beside the exposed line. The cable was thick as Eli’s thumb, with a braided gray sheath. A chalk mark on the stone beside it pointed toward the narrow opening.
“The survey team marked it,” she said.
“You don’t know who marked it.”
“No. I’d like to see where it goes.”
The guard glanced after the others. “The commander said to keep moving.”
“Then tell him his senior medic found a route his briefing didn’t mention.” She lifted her communicator. “Or I can.”
His expression changed at the sight of the device. “Give me a minute.”
He hurried after the formation. Tessa watched his light vanish, then stood and checked the passage again. Eli had thought she might walk straight into it, but she remained beside the cable.
“Are we waiting for him?” he asked.
“Until we know what we’re walking into, yes.”
Ada lowered the casualty case onto a flat stone. “If Rusk says no?”
“Then I’ll ask him why a marked service route isn’t in the briefing.”
“That sounds like a longer way of saying no,” Neri muttered.
Len crouched by the cable. “It’s warm.”
Eli touched the sheath. He felt it too, a faint heat beneath the damp surface. He followed the line with his fingers until he reached a shallow scrape where the braid had split. Inside was a dark material he did not recognize.
“Don’t pull it,” Tessa said.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were holding it like you were.”
He let go. From the main passage came the sound of boots and a hunter calling a warning. The silver-armored fighter shouted for space. Something struck stone, once and then again. The clash drew the guard away from the bend and toward the fight; Eli saw his lamp flash across the wall, heard an order, and then saw no more of him.
Tessa checked the communicator. Static answered her first call. On the second, another medic said the forward team was handling creatures in the main passage. No injuries reported yet.
“Tell the commander I’ve found a marked route off the camp,” Tessa said. “I’m checking whether it connects to the survey team’s equipment.”
The medic repeated the message. Tessa waited for an answer. None came.
She turned to Eli. “Come with me. Ada, keep the others here. If Rusk calls, tell him where we went.”
Ada frowned. “You’re really going in?”
“Only far enough to see what the cable connects to. If it’s a dead end, we’re back in a minute.”
Eli retrieved his lamp and notebook. He considered the copied manifest in his vest, then left it where it was. If the narrow passage led nowhere, there would be no point giving Ada another thing to protect. If it led somewhere important, he wanted the notes together.
The opening was lower than it had appeared from the main route. Eli ducked beneath the ledge and squeezed through sideways, his pack scraping the rock. Tessa followed with her medical satchel. The passage beyond was just wide enough for them to walk single file.
The cable ran along the floor. Metal brackets secured it at intervals, each driven into the stone with two bolts. Eli shone his lamp on one of them. The bolts were newer than the rusted bracket around them.
“Someone maintained this,” he said.
Tessa touched the rock beside it. “Or replaced part of it.”
“Either way, it isn’t just something the survey team dropped.”
They continued. The sounds of the fight faded behind them, replaced by a low vibration that Eli felt through his soles before he could hear it. His lamp trembled slightly in his hand.
The passage bent twice and opened onto a narrow platform. Beyond it lay a chamber larger than the camp. A series of low pillars supported the ceiling. Cables ran between them toward a central assembly of metal rings and dark stone.
The assembly pulsed.
Light gathered in the center, expanded along the rings, and faded. A moment later it returned. Each pulse made the vibration stronger. Eli put a hand against the wall and felt the rock answer.
“Stay here,” Tessa said.
She had seen the bodies before he had.
They were arranged around the mechanism, partly hidden by the pillars. One lay beside a cable junction, another against the base of a ring. Eli counted five at first, then saw a sixth beyond the assembly. Their clothes were dark with age and dust. Metal restraints bound two of them to the framework.
Tessa stepped off the platform. Eli followed with the lamp.
The first body belonged to a man in a torn work jacket. As Eli approached, pale text rose over him.
Hale Nerin.
Cause of death: blood loss.
Eli wrote the name and cause in his notebook. He moved the lamp across the jacket, searching for a guild mark. There was none, only a patch where one might once have been stitched.
Tessa crouched near the man’s legs. “Don’t touch the cable.”
“I won’t.”
“I’m telling myself too.”
A restraint ran from the man’s wrist to the nearest pillar. It was open at one end, but Eli could not tell whether someone had released it before or after his death. The other end was bolted into the metal.
Tessa examined the visible injuries. “There are cuts on his arm. I can’t tell from here what caused them.”
“The restraint?”
“Maybe. Maybe something else.” She moved her lamp to his shoulder. “There’s damage here as well.”
Eli wanted her to say the mechanism had killed him. The cables, the restraints, the way the bodies faced the rings: the conclusion seemed almost unavoidable. But Tessa had seen more bodies than he had, and she was careful with the words she chose. He wrote down what she actually said.
At the second body, Gravekeeper supplied another name and cause. At the third, it took a moment longer; Eli thought the distance and angle might be interfering. He leaned around a pillar and caught the words as the machine pulsed.
Iven Rell.
Cause of death: chest trauma.
“Iven Rell,” he said. “Chest trauma.”
Tessa looked up. “Was he on the withdrawal list?”
“No. I don’t remember him on the casualty notices either.”
“That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a notice somewhere else.”
“I know.”
She shifted to examine a restraint. The metal closed around the dead man’s wrist, with a chain running from it to the framework. A second restraint was fastened around his other arm. Both chains were intact.
Eli turned toward the mechanism. Its rings rotated a fraction with each pulse, making a dull, irregular click. A narrow gauge was mounted on one side. The needle rose when the light brightened and fell as it dimmed.
He checked his watch. Ten seconds between pulses. Then nine. On the next pulse, pale light spilled across the floor and climbed the nearest cable.
Tessa had taken out her tablet before they left the transport, but the guard had collected it. She reached automatically for the pocket where it belonged, then stopped.
“We need photographs,” she said.
“I can draw it.”
“Draw the room and the bodies. Keep the names separate from what you think happened.”
Eli opened his notebook to a fresh page. He sketched the platform, the pillars, and the rings. His pencil kept catching on the paper because his hands were shaking. The drawing was crude, but it showed the chamber’s shape and the approximate positions of the bodies. He numbered each body, then copied the names and causes beside the corresponding numbers.
Tessa went to the fourth body. Its restraints had come loose from the framework. A length of chain lay in a curve across the stone, ending near a broken bracket. She pointed to it but did not touch it.
“Record that too.”
Eli added the broken bracket. “Could somebody have tried to escape?”
“Could have. Or the bracket broke when the equipment shifted.”
He wanted more than possibilities. The commander had said the survey team withdrew. Mara had not. The bodies in this room were tied to a machine, and the machine was running. Each fact led toward something ugly, but he could not see the whole shape of it.
A pulse brightened the rings again. Somewhere beyond the chamber, rock cracked. Dust dropped from the ceiling between the pillars. Tessa stood quickly and looked up.
“Are those connected?” Eli asked.
“I don’t know.”
The gauge needle fell. The vibration in the floor weakened. After several seconds it returned, followed by another pulse.
Eli remembered the way the light at the entrance had rippled around the rain. He could not see the gate from here, but he had worked enough raids to recognize pressure changes in the air when a gate became unstable. His ears had popped once as they entered the chamber; now they did it again.
“This might be keeping something open,” he said.
“Might.” Tessa looked at the gauge. “Or it might be responding to something else. We need someone who understands it.”
“The scout?”
“If we can trust him.”
Eli thought of the scout at the camp repeating the withdrawal report. The man might not have known it was wrong. Eli had no way to tell. He looked at the bodies again and understood why Tessa had asked for a copy of the manifest that did not pass through guild hands.
“I’ll mark the entrance,” he said. “If we have to leave, somebody can find it.”
“With what?”
He took a roll of tape from his vest, tore off a strip, and stuck it to the edge of the platform. It was the same gray tape he used to repair equipment straps. In the chamber’s poor light it barely stood out.
Tessa pulled a packet of bright medical labels from her satchel. “Use these.”
He peeled one free and pressed it over the tape. A red square showed clearly against the black stone. He placed another at the bend and a third just inside the low opening. From the main route, anyone who knew to look would see it. Someone walking past with a lamp might not.
As he returned to the chamber, voices sounded behind him.
“What are you doing?”
Commander Rusk stood at the opening, one guard at each shoulder. Ada was behind them, her face tight. She looked at Eli once and then at the ground.
“I told him,” she said. “You asked me to.”
“You did right,” Tessa said.
Rusk stepped onto the platform. His eyes swept the chamber. For the first time since Eli had met him, the commander did not have an immediate answer. The pause lasted only a second.
“This area is restricted,” he said.
Tessa stood beside the fourth body. “There are people restrained to that equipment. I need to document their injuries.”
“You need to leave.”
“What is the machine?”
“An unassessed installation. It may be contaminated.”
Eli looked at the guards. Neither seemed surprised by the chamber, though that might have been the way their faces were set. One carried a compact metal case. The other had a respirator hanging from his belt.
“Why isn’t it on the briefing map?” Eli asked.
Rusk turned toward him. “Because you were briefed on the route necessary for your assignment.”
“We found it by following a cable from the survey camp. Mara Denn’s name was on the withdrawal list.”
“And you have no training to assess either this installation or the condition of that camp.”
“She’s dead.”
“I heard you the first time.” Rusk raised his voice. “Out. Now.”
The nearest guard moved toward Tessa. She stepped away from the body before he could touch her, but did not go back to the platform.
“If there’s a contamination risk, we need to know what exposure means for the rest of the team,” she said. “What are the symptoms? How long before they appear? What precautions are you using?”
“That’s being assessed.”
“By whom?”
“People qualified to do it.”
The guard with the respirator reached for it. Eli watched his hand, waiting for him to put it on. He did not. Instead he opened the metal case and removed a small instrument, which he aimed at the floor near the platform.
The instrument gave a soft tone. Rusk looked at its display, then at Eli and Tessa.
“Until we have results, you will not discuss what you’ve seen with the rest of the team. If exposure is confirmed, you’ll be isolated on return.”
“You’re ordering us not to report the bodies?” Tessa asked.
“I’m ordering you not to spread a contamination risk through the group.”
“That isn’t how information spreads contamination.”
“Speculation spreads panic. Panic gets people killed.” He gestured toward the passage. “You can make a statement after the operation.”
Eli thought of Leon Maret waiting for a record the guild could no longer find. He thought of Mara’s tag beneath the clean sheet. Rusk’s explanation could be true in part; a strange machine in a gate might pose a danger none of them understood. It also put the commander in control of who could examine the room and what they would be told.
Tessa picked up her satchel. “I want your contamination procedure in writing.”
“You’ll receive it if necessary.”
“I’m the senior medic.”
“And I am responsible for this raid.”
Eli closed his notebook before Rusk could see the drawing. He slipped it into his pack, not the vest seam where the manifest lay. If one was found, he wanted some chance that the other would survive.
The guard with the instrument moved past them to inspect the first pillar. Tessa watched him as they retreated. He did not examine Hale’s body or the restraint. His attention stayed on the machinery.
At the platform, Eli glanced back. A pulse lit the chamber. For an instant the red label he had placed at the entrance shone against the stone. The second guard saw it too. He reached down and peeled it away.
Eli kept walking.
In the narrow passage Rusk followed close enough that there was no chance to speak privately. When they emerged onto the main route, Ada returned to the casualty case and lifted one handle. Eli took the other.
“Did you see anything?” she whispered.
“Not here,” Tessa said before Eli could answer.
Ada’s eyes narrowed, but she did not ask again.
Rusk pulled a metal panel from a recess beside the opening. Eli had not noticed it before: folded flat against the wall, it looked like another section of rock-colored support. The commander swung it across the passage and fitted a locking bar into brackets on either side. One guard checked the bar; the other stayed beside Eli and Tessa.
The lock clicked.
“Come with me,” Rusk said.
They walked toward the main team under the guard’s watch. Eli counted the turns as they went, fixing the route in his memory: flooded chamber, camp shelf, cable beneath the ledge, hidden panel. He repeated the names he had read in the chamber, then stopped himself. He had written them down; repeating them too quickly might make him confuse the order.
Tessa adjusted the communicator at her belt. It remained silent.
The passage opened into a wide cavern. Hunters were assembling along a ridge of broken stone. On the far side, a dark opening beneath a shelf of rock marked the creature’s lair.
The veteran pointed toward a second passage. “Retreat route?”
Rusk indicated a narrower gap behind the formation. “As briefed.”
The ordinary hunters moved to the front. An elite team remained behind them, arranging equipment Eli had not noticed at the loading bay. One hunter set a heavy chain beside a metal anchor. Another checked a device covered by a dark cloth.
Tessa found a place behind a broken wall and began laying out bandages. She positioned her case where the wounded could reach it from the front, then looked toward the gap Rusk had identified as the retreat.
Eli set the casualty bags beside her. He kept his voice low.
“Hale Nerin,” he said. “Iven Rell.”
Tessa repeated the names. He gave her the others he had identified, along with the position of the restraints and the broken bracket. She wrote each detail in her medical notes. When he described the gauge, she added a question mark beside his suspicion about the gate.
“Don’t lose that,” he said.
“Don’t lose yours.”
Across the cavern, the creature lifted its head. The elite hunters finished setting their equipment and stepped back from the ordinary team.
Rusk raised his hand. Eli glanced toward the retreat passage, trying to see where it led. The view was blocked by a curve of rock.
The commander held his hand raised while the hunters took their positions.