We saw nothing more disturbing than rats and a few scattered animal bones before we came to a sharp corner. The stream disappeared into a culvert, the narrow ledge broadening to a more walkable pathway. I stopped, examining something that flashed overhead. “Someone has strung electric lights here. Should we chance turning them on?”

“Oh, yes, please,” Cyrene said, rubbing her arms against the chill air. “Anything is better than walking in the dark.”

“Better not,” Maata said. “Just in case someone is down here.”

“She has a point,” I said, and continued up the path until we came to a point where the passage divided. “Great. Left or right?”

Maata smelled the air in both passages and shrugged. “No idea.”

“Cy?” I asked.

She shook her head. “The water is deep in the earth here. That’s all I can tell you.”

I tossed a mental coin and headed up the right path. “We can always turn around and come back if we have to.”

“Assuming we can find our way back,” Cyrene said in a morbid voice.

“Stop being so pessimistic. It hasn’t been bad so far, and there are lights we can turn on if the batteries die . . . oh.” Our passageway came to an abrupt end in the form of a pile of debris. “I guess we go back the other way.”

I had turned around and taken a step back the way we came when Maata stopped me. “We should go this way.”

“Why?”

She stood stock still for a few seconds. “I sense anger. Intense anger.”

“You think someone is near us?” I asked in a whisper, unable to keep from glancing around. There was nothing to see but rocks, dirt, and broken wood from where the supporting struts had splintered.

“Yes.”

I flashed the meager light on the obstruction. “That’s all well and fine, but we’ll have to take the other passage. We can’t get through this mess.”

Maata’s teeth flashed in the dim light. She patted a bit of rock emerging from the debris. “I may not be good in underwater adventuring, but this is the earth. It knows me and will heed my wishes. Stand back, the pair of you. I’ll ask the earth to allow us to pass.”

To my amazement, she did as she promised. Cyrene and I watched as she managed to clear a hole at the top of the debris pile seemingly effortlessly, just as if the earth was obliging her.

“It’s too bad you’re a dragon,” Cyrene said admiringly as Maata stepped back and dusted off her hands. “You’d have made a great elemental being.”

“Some say the first dragon sprang from an elemental being, which is why all dragons have an affinity for one element. I think we can get through that opening if we’re careful.”