There were a few other officers in the dragonlord’s militia who held the rank of captain, but only the half-elf Mariana Calanbriar was referred to as “the captain” with automatic recognition and full respect. She materialized out of the darkness, three militia fighters behind her, and trod softly across the grass to meet the centaurs. Seeing Leonidas and Linsha, she raised a slim hand and laughed. “Of course, you are here. Nine centaurs with baskets, in the middle of the night, and the Rose Knight is with them. Are you off to collect berries?”

“No,” Linsha said. “Eggs.”

Mariana’s humor vanished. She and Linsha had been the ones who found Iyesta’s body in the great chambers under the palace. She despised the Tarmaks with all her heart for their part in the death of her overlord and had vowed to do anything within her means to help retrieve the brass eggs.

“You found the eggs?” she asked.

“There is a possibility the Tarmaks have moved the eggs back into the labyrinth,” Lanther said from Tanefer’s back.

A flash of paler white on Mariana’s oval face revealed a quick smile. “Good. Then you are probably going in through the pool entrance. I’d like to come with you, but we have three more outposts to check. One of them,” she added, her voice grim in the darkness, “was wiped out.”

Lanther swore something under his breath. The centaurs and their riders stirred, muttering angrily to each other.

“That is the third watchers’ post we’ve lost,” Linsha said. “It makes me wonder if someone is telling the Brutes where they are.”

The half-elf made a slight shrug. “Maybe. Or maybe they just have an excellent tracker.”

“Have you seen any activity along the ruin’s edge?”

“We were there along the outskirts and we saw no sign of the Tarmaks. There are a few mercenary patrols out, but they are slow and not particularly determined.

If you slip in quickly along that low line of hills, you shouldn’t be spotted. Good luck!”

She waved to her men, and they moved on, shadows casting shadows on the ground. In a moment, they were gone.

Linsha tossed a salute in the direction of her friend. “Be safe,” she murmured.

The centaurs continued at a walk, moving carefully and as noiselessly as possible. They angled down along the slope of hills Mariana pointed out and followed the western foot of the rising land where their tall profiles could not be silhouetted against the night sky.

The small moon was nearly to its zenith when the party came to the farthest flung edges of the ancient city. The humans dismounted. With a signal to Tanefer, Lanther and Linsha crept forward to the brow of a small rise and looked down on Missing City.

Five hundred years ago, the land they looked upon had been vastly different. Instead of desert, large estates and magnificent gardens had filled the desolate land with beauty and provided the region with bountiful harvests. Sparkling fountains, pools, and delightful streams watered the gardens and lawns and provided tranquil settings for the Silvanesti elves who’d built the city and labored for its well-being. Beyond the estates to the south lay the vast gardens and palace of an elf prince, and bordering it were the four districts of the ancient port city of Gal Tra’kalas.

Once a thriving urban center on the southern Courrain Ocean, the fair elven city had prospered until the First Cataclysm shook the world with catastrophic changes. At some time during the shattering event, the city of Gal Tra’kalas was utterly destroyed from the breakwater that stood in the harbor to the last lovely outlying estate, leaving nothing but a barren plain of crumbling ruins. Yet the city and its inhabitants did not disappear completely. Strangely, Gal Tra’kalas remained as a phantom image, inhabited by spectral figures who continued to live their lives totally unaware of the monumental change in the world around them.

Griffin-riding elves from Silvanesti who flew over the ghostly city were appalled and reported that Gal Tra’kalas was cast down and inhabited by fiends. The elves immediately abandoned the ruin. Over the years the site came to be called the Missing City, and for centuries it hung only as an empty mirage on the edge of forgotten tales. It wasn’t until nearly four hundred years later that a Second Cataclysm occurred that once again changed the destiny of the city. Out of the empty reaches of the Plains of Dust came the Legion of Steel, who saw the potential of a shadow city, and swiftly on their heels flew a magnificent brass dragon with the strength and the desire to shape a new realm on the ruins of an ancient one. Together the Legion and the dragonlord Iyesta dwelt among the images of Gal Tra’kalas and rebuilt the city into a detailed copy of the mirage, and for years the people who flocked to the Missing City lived in peace with their ghostly neighbors.

Until nearly three months ago. On the eve of midsummer, an odd storm of ferocious intensity swept over the Missing City. When the sun rose the next day, the spectral city of the elves had vanished, obliterated once and for all. Since then, nothing had remained the same.

On this frosty night months after the storm, the old city still looked strangely forlorn and vulnerable to Linsha. In the distance, she could see the dark clusters of the real buildings that comprised the rebuilt districts and the new port. A faint light from a few torches and lamps glowed like a chain of dying embers in the darkness.

In her immediate vicinity there was nothing but sand, scrub, a few cold-hardy cacti, and some eroded piles of rock that hunkered down in the pale moonlight. One large mass of rock in particular held her interest. She concentrated on the area around the rocks but saw nothing that moved, human or otherwise.

Pursing her lips, she blew the soft cry of a night shrike, a small bird that inhabited the grassland.

Varia swooped overhead. “The way is clear,” she called in a whispery voice that only Linsha and Lanther could hear.

Lanther gestured to the others, and they hurried forward to the large heap of rock. In the dark the tall heap looked like an outcropping or a natural part of the landscape. It wasn’t until a closer inspection was made that the pile proved to be a collapsed heap of quarried stone so weathered and worn it seemed to be melded together.

“What is this?” Tanefer said sharply, for he had no experience with the labyrinth or its hidden entrances.

“Centuries ago it used to be a well until someone got the idea to turn it into a bath house,” Linsha said as she peered closely at the cracks and crannies in the rocks. She walked slowly around the old ruin. The entrance was here somewhere.

Then she remembered. The old door faced the west and was hidden behind a large rock that looked like a collapsed lintel stone. “Here,” she said and pointed to the wall.

It took three of the strongest centaurs to shove aside the slab of rock that Iyesta had once moved effortlessly. When it was done, the three stood aside, panting and sweating in the chilly air. They all looked into the black entrance that yawned before them.

“There is a short flight of stairs leading down,” Linsha told them. “It’s broad, but it’s in bad shape, so be careful. Don’t light the torches until you’ve moved the stone back.”

“Where are you going?” Lanther demanded.

“To talk to the water weird.”

The centaurs froze. “Wait,” Tanefer said. “No one said anything about a water elementalkin. Where did it come from?”

“Iyesta summoned it to protect this entrance. But I think we can get past it. Just give me a minute.”

Linsha ignored Lanther’s sharp stare and settled Varia once more on her shoulder. Moving out of the way of the group, she felt her way down the stairs to the chamber that had once been a bathing room. Behind her she heard thumps and grinding noises, the sounds of hooves on stone, and low voices muttering in annoyance. Putting the stone back in place was not as easy as moving it aside. She reached the last step and pressed back against the wall to stay out of the reach of the water weird.