Chapter 41: The Buried Door

Lin Cang reached the valley at dusk, riding past the new wall that now stood waist-high along the ancient foundation. The workers had made good progress. The first course of stone rose pale and solid, and the timber frames of the main hall's roof had begun to take shape at the center of the compound.

He did not stop to inspect the walls. He went straight to the northern corner, where a group of workers stood in a circle, holding torches and keeping their distance from a dark rectangle in the earth.

Mei Ling was there, her wooden practice sword replaced by a real blade. She bowed when she saw him.

"My lord. We found it three hours ago, while cutting the trench for the corner wall. The foundation goes deeper here. We thought it was just more stone until we cleared the soil and found the frame."

Lin Cang dismounted and walked to the edge. The door was set into the pale stone foundation, flush with the surrounding rock, as if the builders had intended it to be invisible. It was twice as tall as a man and narrow, shaped for a single person. There was no handle, no hinges, only a shallow depression in the center carved in the shape of a hand.

Or a lantern.

The carving showed a figure holding a small vessel from which light poured upward. The light was represented by rays that split into jagged lines, like cracks in a bowl. Beneath the figure, more carvings showed people kneeling, their faces turned away.

"Cold," Lin Cang said. He could feel it from three paces away, the same deep chill that ran through the foundation stone.

"Yes, my lord." Mei Ling shivered. "The men who uncovered it said their tools grew numb. Two dropped their picks and would not go back."

"That was wise." Lin Cang touched the jade slip. "Matron."

Her presence came slowly, as if from a great distance. When she spoke, her voice was not mocking. It was careful.

"Close it, little rat. Cover the door with earth and build your wall over it and forget you ever saw it."

"That is not the answer I expected."

"It is the answer you need." Her presence shifted, warming against his chest. "This stone was laid before the world was shaped as you know it. It remembers a power that does not belong in your world anymore. Disturbing it is like poking a sleeping dragon with a stick."

Lin Cang looked at the hand-shaped depression. "You know what is down there."

"I know what it was. I do not know what it has become." The Matron paused. "The door is keyed to a Lantern bearer. That carving is not a warning. It is an invitation. Someone wanted the right kind of fire to find this place."

"And if I open it?"

"Then you will learn something you are not ready to learn, and the learning may cost you pieces of yourself." Her voice hardened. "But you will open it anyway, because you are a rat who cannot pass a hole without sniffing inside."

Lin Cang smiled. "You know me well."

"Well enough to mourn you early."

He turned to Mei Ling. "Bring torches. Rope. Chalk. And a bucket of fresh water. I want no one else within twenty paces of this door until I return."

"My lord, the men..."

"Will obey, or they will leave the valley." Lin Cang looked at the workers. "This door is older than any kingdom you have heard named. It may be a tomb, a shrine, or a prison. I will not ask you to enter it with me. But I will ask you to keep silent about what you have seen."

The workers bowed and withdrew. They were grateful.

Lin Cang waited for the supplies. He studied the carvings in the failing light. The kneeling figures had their faces turned away, but their hands were raised, palms open, in a gesture he had seen before: the same gesture Xiao Rou made when she offered him bandages, or food, or herself.

Devotion.

The door had been built for someone who was loved. Or feared. Or both.

Mei Ling returned with torches, rope, and Wei, who would not be kept away from an alchemist's mystery. Feng Mei came last, her wrist still wrapped but freed from the splint. Xiao Rou had pronounced it healing well enough for light work, and Feng Mei had interpreted "light work" to include descending into ancient ruins.

"Your healer will be angry," Lin Cang said.

"Your healer is always angry." Feng Mei tested the rope with her good hand. "I am not missing this. Whatever is down there tried to lure you specifically. That makes it either an ally or a trap clever enough to know your name. I want to know which."

"Practical as always."

"I am practical because you are reckless." She tied the rope to a stake driven into the earth above the door. "I go first. If the rope goes slack, pull me out and seal the door."

"And if it is a trap?"

"Then I am the one who springs it." Feng Mei smiled, fierce and brief. "You are the sect master. Sect masters are supposed to send others into danger first."

Lin Cang did not argue. She was right. And he knew that if she died, he would avenge her.

Feng Mei took a torch and descended through the doorframe. The stairs beyond were cut from the same pale stone, spiraling downward into a darkness that swallowed the torchlight faster than it should. She moved carefully, one hand on the rope, the other holding the flame before her.

After thirty steps, she called up: "Landing. A chamber. No movement. Cold as a grave."

Lin Cang followed, then Wei, then Mei Ling with the second torch. The air grew colder with each step, and the torch flames burned lower, as if the darkness pressed against them.

The chamber at the bottom was circular, perhaps twenty paces across. The walls were carved with scenes that made Wei's breath catch.

A city in the sky. A great light above it. A crack opening in the heavens. Figures falling through the crack, their hands reaching up. And at the center of the wall, a single figure holding a lantern, the light from it pouring into the crack, sealing it shut.

"The old wound," the Matron whispered in Lin Cang's mind. "Carved by someone who saw it happen."

"Who was the figure with the lantern?" Lin Cang asked silently.

For a long moment, she did not answer. When she did, her voice was old and strange.

"Someone who loved this world enough to seal a crack in the sky. Or someone who feared what the crack would let in. Even I do not know which, little rat. The carving does not say."

Lin Cang walked to the center of the chamber. There, set into the floor, was a second door. This one had no carving, only a smooth circular plate of black stone that drank the torchlight.

"Matron. What is beneath this?"

"Not a door, little rat. A lid."

"A lid to what?"

"To the reason this place was buried. Open it, and you will see why I told you to walk away."

Lin Cang looked at Feng Mei, Wei, and Mei Ling. Three women who had followed him into the dark because they trusted him not to lead them into death.

He knelt and placed his hands on the black lid.

It was cold, but beneath the cold, something pulsed. Slow. Deep. Waiting.

"Step back," he said. "All of you."

They obeyed.

Lin Cang pushed.

The lid shifted, grinding against stone that had not moved in centuries. A crack opened, and from it came a light that was not torchlight. It was crimson, faint, and impossibly old.

It was the color of the Lantern.

Lin Cang looked down into the opening and felt something look back.