Ahead of her, Coldspray lurched out of the crevice, taking the krill’s argence with her. A moment later, Grueburn reached the opening of the walls; stumbled through it.

A sudden impression of imponderable space spread out around Linden. Stagnation seemed to clog her way as though Grueburn had carried her into a quagmire. And at every distance, water dripped and splashed and ran, an immeasurable multitude of droplets and trickling so extensive that it sounded like rain within the mountain. In Grueburn’s arms, Linden entered a drizzle devoid of boundaries. Simple reflex caused her to fling her fire upward.

The cavern was indeed immense. To Linden’s abused sight, it looked large enough to contain all of Revelstone, although surely it was not. The company’s lights reached the ceiling dimly, but failed to find the far wall: she had no way to gauge the scale of the cavity. However, her immediate vicinity resembled a shallow basin tipped slightly to one side, so that the lowest point of the curve lay somewhat to her left. There eons of dripping water had gathered into a pool so old and unrelieved that it no longer held any possibility of life. Across the millennia, the water had gone beyond mere brackish-ness to a toxic mineral concentration.

The pool seemed small because the cavern was so broad. In some other setting, it might have been considered a lake.

From its center outward, it trembled to the pulse of the bane’s approaching hunger. Ripples fled in circles, sloshing timorously onto the travertine sides of the basin.

The water fell from the tips of stalactites the size of Revelstone’s watchtower. And below each pending taper of stone rose a stalagmite. Cluttered—In some places, the stalagmites had met and melded with their sources, forming misshapen columns with constricted waists. In others, the calcified residue of ages appeared to strain for union, yearning upward drop by incessant drop, and infinitely patient. And everywhere around the monolithic deposits, water fell like light rain from lesser flaws in the porous ceiling. Within the reach of the company’s illuminations, every wet surface had been cut or sculpted into scallops and whorls delicate as filigree, and keen as knives.

Grueburn stuck out her tongue to catch a few falling drops, then spat in disgust. To the Giants around her, she shook her head sourly.

Rain splashed onto Linden’s forehead; ran into her eyes and stung. Blinking rapidly, she searched the cavern for some sign of egress or hope.