Kaz had lost count of stairs at just over three thousand. His legs didn’t tire, but Li’s did, and the unchanging view ahead and behind them made them feel like they were trapped in an unending staircase.

   Li asked, far from the first time. He couldn’t blame her, though. They’d agreed to try the stairs they’d found on the otherwise empty and apparently unfinished level below Xundu’s lake. After two thousand stairs and a quick flight ahead that revealed no change, however, Li had suggested they turn around and go back up to the city. Yes, they’d have to break through the platform that led to the hoyi nest, since they didn’t know how to call it back down, but it wasn’t like it would actually inconvenience anyone if it wasn’t there.

  Kaz had been convinced that the end must be just out of sight, however, and since then Li had rather pointedly asked questions ranging from ‘Are we there yet?’ to the current one about another platform, which presumably would have taken them straight to wherever they were going. Of course, there was also the possibility that they just would have ended up on yet another vacant level, while these stairs were so long that they had to end up in the Deep somewhere. Unless, of course, they, too, were unfinished on the end, which was a possibility Kaz hadn’t dared voice.

  “Yes,” Kaz said, as patiently as he could. “It was just bare stone. We would have been able to see the ki.” There had been small holes carved into the stone, and the pattern of those holes was reminiscent of the placement of ki-stones on other levels, but the fact that they were still empty was the best evidence Kaz had that someone had still been working on it when Qiangde and the dragons had died. Interestingly, there were no tools or debris visible, so whoever the workers were, they must have had a way to carry everything with them when they left.

  Li sighed and flapped her wings, only beating him about the head a little as she lifted off and flew down the stairs. She just went a short distance at a time, since there could well be another Xundu - or something worse - when the stairs did end.

   she asked, resuming the game they had been playing to stave off boredom for some unknown period of time.

  Kaz thought about it. Copper fuergar were actually tougher than gold ones, but gold were usually smarter. Would he rather be tough or smart? In the mountain, being soft could get you killed, but being stupid was even worse, unless you were huge like an adult yanchong or deadly in some other way, like…well, almost everything.

   he sent finally.

   she said smugly.

   Kaz gave up. Li played games the way she wanted to play them, and arguing about it wasn’t going to help.

  

  The sound of that single word was enough to send ki pouring into his legs, and Kaz began bounding down the stairs, his ears brushing the ceiling at the top of each leap.

   Li wailed, opening their bond wider as an invitation to look through her eyes. Kaz slowed so he wouldn’t trip and fall the rest of the way down, and looked.

  Not that there was much to see. The stairs ended in a wall that looked as unfinished as the ones in the partial level they’d left so far above them. The surface was uneven, with the marks of tools clearly visible on it. Worse, when Li looked down, Kaz could see that the stairs beneath her were also incomplete. Their shapes were roughed out, but nothing like the smooth surfaces he was used to, and they weren’t just broken, like so many in the heights.

  Li and the wall came into view, with the dragon sitting a few steps above the bottom, her wings slumped around her. She turned as he approached, revealing vapor swirling around her snout and huge, shimmering eyes.

  Kaz sat beside her and gathered her into his arms. “I’ll carry you,” he said, and she bit him.

  

  Kaz almost laughed, but said, “You’ve had ki-crystals, too.” Though he had to admit that since realizing his pouch was completely full, he’d been trying to clear out some of the things he knew he had a lot of, which included a good deal of the preserved food he’d acquired at Raff’s house, as well as the mosses and mushrooms he’d habitually gathered as they passed through the mountain.

   she muttered.

  For all that Li could complain about almost anything, she was rarely more than half-serious about it. In fact, she rarely spoke at all about the things that bothered her most, but he could tell that this time she meant it. She must have been trying to keep a good attitude for his sake, but now he realized she was truly worried that they might be trapped in this place.

  Kaz rubbed the spot on his shoulder where her teeth had barely dimpled the skin, because he knew she’d appreciate the gesture. Then he leaned forward until his nose touched hers, ignoring the cold vapor that settled on the fur along his muzzle. he promised, and they sat like that as Li’s clicking and mist slowly died down, leaving them in silence.

  Or rather, what should have been silence. Instead, they heard a muffled but distinct banging sound, and Kaz’s ears twisted, trying to figure out where it was coming from. It was hard to tell, since sounds echoed strangely through stone, but eventually, Kaz was almost certain it was coming from ahead of them, through the apparently unfinished wall.

   Li asked, eyes wide and fascinated as she stared at the stone, which continued to be as inert and uninteresting as it had been when she arrived.

   Kaz said, keeping his words silent, not only so his voice wouldn’t cover the muted sounds, but also so whatever it was wouldn’t hear them as well.

   Li asked.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Kaz held up a hand, pushing even more ki into his eyes as he stared at the blank wall. Was that really ki? And not just the flickers of ki and mana he got from plants and the miniscule things that lived in stone, but a lot of ki. Enough ki to be visible even through however-much stone lay between him and it, and for some reason natural things like stone and metal blocked his sight in a way human - or kobold - made walls didn’t.

   he said. He frowned, leaning forward until his nose pressed against the stone, which wasn’t nearly as pleasant as Li’s smooth scales. The ki was amazingly steady, and almost completely red.

  Something moved, and Kaz fell backwards, twisting his tail as he landed on the stair beside Li again. There were two things there, but one had been on top or in front of the other. One of those two things was definitely moving, while the other wasn’t, so one living thing and one giant crystal, or something like that? The ki didn’t look like what he saw in crystals, though, since that was usually still, like a pool of water waiting to be drunk.

  Then the second bright thing moved, white and red separating from the column of red alone. One part of it lifted, then fell again, and the sound of two more things striking against each other started anew, making Kaz realize it had stopped for a while. he wondered, and was almost startled when Li answered.

   the dragon said, and he caught an edge of desperation in her voice that she must have been hiding before. Li was a creature of open spaces and bright skies, not winding tunnels and cool, still darkness. Not knowing how or when she would be able to leave the mountain must be terrifying for her.

   she said as she felt his guilt rising. Her voice was full of absolute confidence, chasing away the hint of fear, and she leaned into Kaz, then pointed toward the blur of brilliant ki.

  Kaz tapped his pouch, which gladly spit his mage-knife into his hand. He had been wearing the weapon on his belt, but honestly, it was in the way more than it was useful, so he’d put it in the pouch and then all but forgotten about it. He wasn’t going to cut through who-knew-how-much stone with his claws, though, not even after sheathing them in ki.

  The blade of the knife lit as Kaz pushed ki into it, and he sank it to the hilt in the unfinished wall ahead of them. Slicing to one side, he made a long cut, then three more, shaping out a block almost as large as he was. Which continued to sit in place as he and Li stared at it.

   Li asked.

  Kaz sighed and angled the blade, cutting a wedge along a corner of his original rectangle. The small, angular piece slid from its place and clattered to the ground, making Kaz dance back instinctively as chips sprayed from both the rough-cut stair and the fallen block. Kaz stopped, eyed the wall again, then turned and looked up the stairs behind them.

   he told Li.

  She gave him a look that said she knew that, and then swelled, quickly becoming large enough that she could pick up the fallen stone in her mouth. She took it back up the stairs a few steps, and placed it neatly to one side. Kaz nodded his approval and continued to cut, rapidly producing enough blocks that the side of the stairs was covered for several steps up, and he was standing in a hole that had somehow become progressively smaller.

   Li asked as she deposited a chunk of stone that had at least eight sides at the top of a pile that was slightly less precarious than the others. Since Kaz couldn’t cut proper squares, the blocks didn’t sit neatly on top of each other, no matter how precisely Li placed them. After a few minor rockslides, Li had begun to put only a few of the oddly-shaped pieces on each step, and now stood a good twelve steps above the start of the hole.

  Kaz paused and adjusted his vision, which he’d pushed down so he wouldn’t be blinded by the constant flame ahead. He was finding that though it had seemed like both ki-sources were directly ahead of him, only the steady one actually was. The moving source was also down some distance, which actually made more sense, if both things were on whatever level these stairs had been intended to access. The steps had to still be going down for a reason, after all.

   he said.

  Li looked pointedly at the many small stacks of blocks piled between them, then sighed.

  Kaz shook his head, turning back and cutting away another block, which he placed behind him. It was getting harder and harder to cut the stone, though he didn’t want to tell Li. The stone in the mid-levels was far harder than that of the heights, but that of the Deep was harder still. That was why Goldblades did most of the mining, using special tools made by the Mithrilblades. Maybe something about having Earth ki made it easier to chip away at the stone?

  Kaz bent forward, resting his forehead against the sharply cut stone ahead of him. It felt oddly hot, but he ignored that as he belatedly realized he was still using his normal mix of ki to power his knife. What if he tried using only Earth ki, or perhaps a mix of Metal and Earth?

  Shifting his grip, he pulled only Earth ki from his cycle, feeding it into the knife. Then he tried making another cut, and the knife sank into the stone like a lopo-tongue through flesh. He tried again with a few different combinations of mostly Earth and Metal ki, finding that the best was about nine parts Earth, and one part Metal. This made the blocks he was cutting practically fall out on their own, and he was soon creating pieces that were much closer to square. Li gave him approving clicks as she carried them away, and Kaz became so focused on his much-easier task that he forgot to watch where he was going. At least, he did until the stone beneath his paws became so hot that even he noticed, and the tip of his blade suddenly broke through into open air.

  Kaz froze, then cautiously withdrew his blade, allowing in a small rush of overheated air that smelled of hot metal and stone. He also realized that at some point the banging noises had stopped, and instead he could hear voices.

  “-to tell you to get out of this mountain,” a rasping voice said. “You’re not wanted here. It was one thing when the mountain was only open twice a year for trading, but now?” The speaker gave a growling laugh that didn’t quite sound like a kobold. “Humans only ruin things, and as soon as I…we figure out how to close the portal again, it’s going to stay closed. Things were just fine here without any interference from the outside.”

  Kaz’s ears were fully upright and pointed at the tiny hole. What was this? The portal was stuck open? The one that led out of the mountain? How was that possible? If the chiefs were being forced to feed it, they would eventually die when their cores were drained. Idla would be first, with her damaged core, but what about Gram, Avli, and Kyla’s sister, Ija?

  Li pressed against his back, and he could tell she was listening as intently as he was. The two of them were crammed into the rather sharp-walled hole he hadn’t widened as much as he should have, and he was afraid that if the wall ahead was now as thin as he thought it might be, they could just fall through it if he lost his balance.

  “No,” said a familiar voice, though it had a tone of authority he hadn’t heard often. “Respectfully, you’re not one of the great chiefs, and you have no right to tell us what to do. If and when they tell us to go, we will, but-”

  “I am the ultimate great chief!” The rough voice roared, and ki suddenly flooded from it, pressing viciously against Kaz, Li, and the other two sources of ki that Kaz hadn’t been able to see against the inferno of the two original ones. Kyla was especially difficult to make out, with her predominantly Fire ki, but Lianhua’s blue, black, and gold flared as she tried to resist the powerful force pushing them down.

  Tried and failed. Both Kyla and Lianhua’s ki were now lying flat, and if the floor was as hot as the stone Kaz was touching, he hoped they weren’t burning. Worse, past them was Yingtao’s blue ki with a trace of black, and Raff’s mana, which was lit with more sparks of red ki than Kaz remembered. They were also both pinned to the floor, and he had a feeling they were less flame-resistant than Kyla and Lianhua, especially Yingtao.

  Behind Kaz, Li opened her mouth and began to roar.