The other two were a bit more difficult. She made a confident guess that the panel with the sleeping dragon was Dragon Camp, but Avempartha was a mystery. The name gave no clue.

She flipped through her field book, looking for help, but found none. Pivoting sideways to put her back against the tunnel wall, she picked up the stick of graphite and tapped the word Avempartha repeatedly as if torture might force the word to cough up a clue.

“Partha,” she said. Partha was a word in ancient elvish, a verb meaning to fall.

Farilane picked up her lamp and studied the panels, searching for a scene depicting someone tripping or falling. Perhaps Avem is a person who was slain? With this in mind, she searched the battle scenes but found nothing specific enough.

I could try each. Eventually I would pick the correct one . . . right? She shook her head. Wishful thinking.

Dwarfs were short, ugly, superstitious, dishonest, and greedy, but she knew from personal experience that they weren’t stupid. She might get more than one chance to open the doors, but then the lock would seal according to a timer and not be accessible for a specific duration—maybe a day, maybe a decade, maybe forever. Dwarfs were fun like that.

“Ah-vem-par-tha.” She sounded the word out carefully. What does Avem mean? She ran the term through every language she knew. Avech was Fir Ran Ghazel for flower. What kind of messed-up language has the word flower sounding like a cat hacking up a hairball? She was pretty sure that Avam was a term for sculpture or artistry in old elvish, but it also might mean to collect. Avr meant green. The only word in Belgriclungreian that came close was Veem, which she was pretty sure was part of a profanity. Most dwarven words seemed to be that way—not a happy people. And Grenmorian really didn’t have any words that came close, but then again, the language of giants didn’t have many words.

Had to be a name then: Somebody fell. But she saw no images of anyone or anything—

“Water-fall!” The idea hit her so suddenly, she said it out loud. Her voice echoed back off the doors as if they agreed with her conclusion.

A total guess, but at least there was some rationale behind it. Stowing her field book away, Farilane stood, and reaching high, she pressed the upper left square with both her hands. When the panel sank in, she let out an involuntary hoot of delight. She’d expected it, depended on it. But nothing was ever certain, and the joy of a correct guess came with a rush.

“That’s one,” she told herself and the door, which was fitting since the bronze work of art was involved in this, too, and its cooperation was crucial.