The high salines

They followed the glow without following it completely.

Nym refused to take a light for an outing. It could come from a mushroom, a mineral or a narrow opening that would only let a child pass. Zaelyra had therefore marked three routes: the one that led straight to the glow, the one that bypassed it, and the one that allowed you to return to the stop without crossing the ravine.

"Which one do we choose?" asked Brakka.

"Those who will walk on the road," Zaelyra replied. "Not only those who draw the map."

They held councils near the pools, away from the children. The detour was longer, but the draft of air was maintained there. The direct path crossed a slope of gray sand. No one knew what was under the dust. The third route passed near the glow, then stopped in front of a crevasse.

"If we walk along the sand, we will know before hiring everyone," says Nym. "Two scouts, tightrope. No charges."

"What if the ground gives way?" asked the guard.

"They come back on the rope."

"What if the rope gives way?"

Nym looked at him. "Then we will have learned that the rope was not enough."

The guard did not appreciate the answer, but offered to take the lead. The young drow with a chin cut volunteered to accompany him. They left without long weapons, with two spikes, a safety rope and a covered lamp.

Zaelyra remained on the edge of the sand with the others. The scouts advanced with short steps, testing the ground with a metal rod. For a few minutes, nothing changed. Then the stem sank to the guard.

The guard stepped back. The surface opened, letting sand flow into a narrow fault. A warm breath rose from below.

"Not the direct road," he shouted.

The girl planted a piton in a vein of rock. They came back together, without anyone pulling the rope. Nym measured the current. He went up a deep duct, loaded with a saline smell.

"It's not an opening to the surface," he says. "It's an old drying well."

"Do you recognize him?" asked Pell.

"I recognize the smell. Mine sometimes use similar chambers to preserve the roots. This one is bigger."

The route of the glow remained the only one that had not been verified. They engaged in small groups, leaving the most vulnerable in the shelter with Brakka. Kethra remained with them, although she had initially claimed not to need rest.

"You're hurt? Zaelyra asked.

"I'm tired. It's not the same thing."

"It can become it."

"So I'll stop when I can't walk anymore."

"Don't force us to guess."

Kethra stared at her, then nodded. "I'll tell you."

The glow got stronger as they moved forward. It did not come from a crack in the ceiling, but from a series of shallow basins. Milky crystals lined the edges and sent back the light of the mushrooms of the gallery. From afar, one could have thought that a pale day was filtering from above.

Zaelyra squats. An iridescent film covered the water.

"We don't drink," says Nym.

Pell had already approached a gourd. He moved him away.

"We don't know anything about it," he says.

"There you go. Nym put a piece of cloth in the water. He changed his color almost immediately. "Now at least we know it contains something that wasn't on the fabric."

They looked for a dry passage around the basins. The gallery widened behind a curtain of petrified roots. There, the air was colder and had a regular noise: three strokes, one pause, then three others.

Rhylor put his hand on the wall. "A signal."

They answered with a single note, the agreed code to announce their presence without pretending that they were friends.

The rhythm behind the rock stopped.

A voice rose in the tunnel. "How many of you are?"

"Fourteen in this gallery," replied Zaelyra. "Others are waiting behind."

"Armed?"

"Some."

"Drows?"

"Most of it."

There was a silence. Then a stone panel pivoted, just enough to reveal a dark eye and the tip of a spear.

"Go back to where you came from."

"We are looking for a passage to the west."

"You'll find one elsewhere."

Zaelyra didn't ask to be opened for them. She only asked for the name of the room.

"Why?"

"So as not to confuse it with another on our map."

"She has no name."

"So we will rate it as the room of pale pools."

"Do what you want. As long as you leave."

The door closed.

Nym had noticed a small air duct at ground level. He was blowing in jerks, at the same pace as the blows struck behind the wall. Someone used it to measure pressure, not to communicate.

"They know we're here," he said. "But they also want to know if the air changes when we approach."

"Do you want to use the conduit? Zaelyra asked.

"No. I want them to know that we have seen it and that we will not touch it."

He placed a copper slat next to the opening, without inserting it. The shots resumed: three, then a pause. The panel did not open.

They retreated. A lateral passage went up to the High Salines, an old series of drying chambers. The name appeared on Ithryl's trade maps, but none indicated the occupants. Zaelyra wondered if the walled stop and these rooms had been used for the same network. A road could keep its name when the people who used it had disappeared.

The first staircase was covered with salt crystals. They cracked under the boots. Half-height, they found a niche containing broken bowls and a clay figurine representing an animal with long ears.

"A toy?" asked Pell.

"Or an offering," said Ithryl.

Zaelyra left the figurine where it was. She noted its location, but not its exact shape. It was not up to him to transform the memory of a stranger into a travel curiosity.

At the top, the corridor opened onto terraces carved into a huge rocky pocket. The walls shone with white dust. Corridors rose in steps, each separated by empty basins. An old pipe brought air from a natural chimney.

They were not alone.

A svirfneblin stood on the middle terrace. She had put her tool on the floor and raised her hands, palms open. A small axe hung from his belt. His hair was pulled into two short braids, tightened by copper rings.

"You crossed the bridge? She asked.

"Yes," says Zaelyra.

"And the walled door?"

"We didn't open it."

The woman looked at Nym. "You found the conduit."

"I saw it. I didn't touch it."

"Good."

"You knocked behind the wall? Zaelyra asked.

The svirfneblin took the time to answer. "Not me."

She introduced herself as Ilda Brisecendre, guardian of the pipes of the old salt pan. She did not pretend to speak for those who lived behind the door. The terraces now served as shelter for some Svirfneblin families, refugees after the collapse of their neighborhood further east.

"Will you let us pass?" asked Rhylor.

"I don't decide alone. And you don't have to stay to get an answer."

"We need to know if the road to the west continues."

"She continues. It is not open to your group."

The tone was calm, but Ilda's hand remained near her axe. She had recognized the armor of the drows and the bags of the relay. Nothing obliged Zaelyra to interpret her distrust as an insult.

"What would make you change your mind? She asked.

"That you don't do like the last ones."

"What happened to them?"

"They came in without asking. They took water, opened a door and swore they would come back before nightfall. They never came back."

"Drows?"

"People who knew they would be more afraid if we called them drows."

Ilda pointed to the terraces, where several silhouettes had withdrawn behind the pillars. "You can wait at the threshold until the council hears you. Not closer. The water of the basins is reserved for those who live here."

Nym bowed slightly. "We won't take it."

Zaelyra took out a copy of the map, the one that showed the passage from the bridge, but not the other roads. She put it on the stone in the middle of the terrace and stepped back.

"You can check our brands. We noted what we did not control."

Ilda did not approach. "Why give it to us?"

"It's not a gift. It shows the bridge and the low corridor. You can keep it, destroy it or correct it."

"You don't know what we're going to do with it."

"No."

Ilda waved to a young man posted behind a pillar. He went down cautiously, picked up the map from a corner and brought it to the caretaker.

She studied the route. "Your bridge is badly marked. The left edge sagging two days ago."

Nym approached one step, without crossing the limit. "We went through it this morning."

"So he's collapsed since then."

"Are you sure?"

"I sent my nephew there with a basket of salt."

She corrected the sign with the coal. Zaelyra retained the date. A map was not true because someone had checked it once; it was true for a specific place and time.

"The council will receive you after the rest," says Ilda. "You won't sleep in our rooms. You will keep your weapons in their sheaths. Whoever breaks this rule will leave alone."

Brakka stiffens. "You can't impose on us—"

Zaelyra raised her hand. "We can refuse."

Ilda nodded. "Yes."

"What if we accept?"

"You will have a threshold to rest while we decide. Nothing more."

Zaelyra turned to the travelers. Everyone heard the rule and its limits. After a short exchange, they accepted. Kethra put down her dagger with the other weapons, the handle facing her.

"Do you think they'll let us pass? She asked.

"I don't know."

"What if their answer is no?"

"We're going to find another way."

"It still doesn't look like a plan."

"This is the rest of the plan, when it doesn't work."

Ilda made them bring water in cups that she immediately retrieved. She offered no food or indoor shelter. Zaelyra does not confuse this measure with hostility. The Svirfneblins had granted what they could without giving up what they did not want to share.

When the pale glow reached the upper terraces, the inhabitants got to work. They scraped the salt, checked the pipes, then rolled canvas plates on wooden frames. Their lives had not stopped to welcome travelers.

Zaelyra corrected the charcoal map. Next to the road, she wrote: Les Salines hautes - passage subject to the agreement of the inhabitants. Unusual water.

Ilda read the sentence.

"You could only write 'closed passage'."

"It would be wrong. You let us in to the threshold."

"It's not a permission to pass."

"That's why I specified the limit."

Ilda had a thin smile. He disappeared almost immediately, but Zaelyra saw him.

"Maybe the council will want to hear from you, after all."