The Rune of Eldrath.

CHAPTER 7: THE DROWNED CITY

The ruins of Caer Veyl rose from a black lake like broken teeth.

Kael stood at the waterline and looked at what was left above the surface. Stone towers with their tops sheared off. Archways that led into open water. Walls that stopped halfway up and ended in rough jagged edges. Everything below was a gray-green shadow in the depths, the rest of the city taken whole when the last Rift War split the ground and let the lake in over a single night, according to the texts Kael had read in the Archives years ago. He had read the account three times because it was detailed and strange. He had not expected to be standing at the shore looking at it in person.

"The relic is down there," Garrick said.

"How far exactly," Kael said.

"The reliquary hall sat directly below the main temple. Based on the current waterline I estimate forty feet at the center. Maybe forty-five."

Kael looked at the water. It was completely still and dark and reflected the sky without distortion. "You want me to swim forty feet down into a flooded ruin to find a relic while carrying a burning mark in my palm that apparently screams when it gets close to said relic."

"The screaming is helpful in this case," Garrick said. "It will point you directly to it."

"What are you doing while I am forty feet underwater."

"Watching the surface and the bank." Garrick scanned both sides of the lake. The rift from yesterday was three miles east but three miles was not far enough for comfort. "Vespera moves her creatures through water when there is water available. Shadow beasts can cross a lakebed the same way they cross open ground."

"So I am swimming through territory her creatures might also be using," Kael said.

"Possibly," Garrick said.

"Again, not reassuring."

"I am not trying to reassure you. I am trying to make sure you go in knowing what might be down there." Garrick looked at him directly. "The rune will keep you oriented. It will pull you toward the relic once you are in range. Go down, find it, come back up. Do not stop to read the carvings."

"I was not going to stop to read the carvings," Kael said.

"You were a scribe for fourteen years," Garrick said. "You were absolutely going to stop to read the carvings."

Kael opened his mouth and then closed it because Garrick was not wrong and they both knew it.

"What do the carvings say," Kael said.

"That is not relevant right now."

"It might be. If there is something down there the carvings might tell me what it is."

"The carvings are in High Archaic," Garrick said. "It would take you four hours to read them properly and we do not have four hours. We have a rift three miles east and scouts somewhere north and a relic that needs to be in your hand before tomorrow." He met Kael's eyes. "Down. Relic. Up. That is the entire task."

"What if I run out of air before I find it."

"The rune will pull you to it faster than you think. You will have enough." Garrick paused. "You are a strong swimmer?"

"I grew up in the Archives," Kael said. "We had a washroom with a basin."

Garrick stared at him. "You cannot swim."

"I can swim," Kael said. "I learned from a book. I have practiced twice. In a river. Not a lake."

There was a long pause.

"Go straight down," Garrick said slowly. "Let the rune lead you. Do not fight the current if there is one. If you feel yourself losing direction find the light from the rune and follow it up."

"Helpful," Kael said flatly.

"I am improvising," Garrick said. "So are you. Go."

Kael took off his outer coat and his boots and set them on the bank. The ground under his bare feet was cold and wet. He held his right palm up. The rune pulsed faster than its resting rate, already reacting to what was below.

"If I am not back in three minutes," Kael started.

"Two," Garrick said. "After two I come in."

"Two minutes is not enough time to get to forty feet and back."

"Then move faster," Garrick said. He took up his position at the bank's edge with his sword out. "Go."

Kael walked into the lake.

The cold reached his chest and stopped his breath for a full second. He pushed past it and went under and the surface closed over his head and the world went completely silent.

The rune lit the water gold.

The light was not wide but in the dark water it was enough. He could see ten feet in every direction clearly, the glow moving with him as he swam down. The lakebed came up on both sides as he descended toward the center. Old stone appeared below him, paving squares and collapsed wall sections covered in dark growth, the floor of a city that had not felt air in thirty years.

The rune pulled. He followed it.

He passed through a standing archway into a long hall. The ceiling was mostly intact. Stone pillars ran along both walls, some whole, some cracked at the base and leaning. His lungs had started their first complaint. At the far end of the hall the floor dropped into a lower chamber and the pull in his palm sharpened into something specific and urgent.

He went into the lower chamber. The walls were covered in carved text he caught in passing and did not stop to read. In the center of the floor sat a stone cradle built for exactly one purpose, and inside it was the crystal spearhead. It was clear as glass, roughly the length of his forearm, with a faint internal light that pulsed in time with the rune.

His lungs pushed harder.

He crossed the chamber floor and wrapped both hands around the crystal spearhead and pulled it from the cradle.

The god roared.

No sound. A force. A wave of pressure that expanded inside his skull from the center outward, filling every part of him at once, and the gold light from the rune detonated through the chamber and lit every carved wall from floor to ceiling and Kael lost his sense of up and down completely and had to find the surface by following the light.

He swam. His chest was burning. He went through the archway and up through the dark and up through the gold light and broke the surface with a noise that was somewhere between a gasp and a shout.

He rolled onto his back and floated with the crystal spearhead held above his chest.

"Got it," he said when he had enough air.

Garrick said nothing.

Kael turned his head. Garrick stood at the water's edge with his sword drawn and his eyes not on Kael at all. They were on the water behind him.

Something enormous moved under the surface. A shadow longer than the bank was wide, rising steadily from the depths directly beneath where Kael was floating.