The goblin stared at them.

In their sodden haze, they noticed he seemed reluctant to give the counter salute. "Enter, Master," Drome said, bowing deeply.

The goblin seemed to take the invitation as a command and scuttled through the dark door they guarded.

Drome laughed and seized the wineskin from his compatriot. "Here's to the-" he used a vulgar Mercadian term for goblin, one that was carefully kept from earshot of the green race "and may he fall down the stairs and break his neck!"

Sama grabbed for the skin and missed, almost tumbling off the balcony. "Go to the Nine Spheres! Don't shout that stuff so loud, or you'll get us in hot water!" He rubbed his eyes, and somewhere in his wine-soaked brain a worry stirred. "Wasn't that one awful small?"

Drome shook his head and hiccuped. Belching loudly, he sank back into his seat. "Who cares? They're all green buggers! Look a' me! I do my job, and wha's it get me? Nothing! Because green buggers are the ones that count. I been fifteen years in the guard, getting nothing but trouble. 'Cause I won't kiss up, tha's why. Know why I don' get ahead?"

" 'Cause you don't kiss up?"

"Damn right!"

Squee, meanwhile, was intent on following the trail of a bug-not just any bug, but an enormous insect. Squee's nose fairly quivered in anticipation of the delicious treat. His senses, poor of sight but keen of smell, drove him onward. The bug-almost three inches long, with a thick, juicy-looking body and long feelers protruding from its head-scurried along, heedless of its pursuer. His nose to the ground, Squee headed down a short passageway, through another door, and along a hallway. His light footsteps could scarcely be heard. He almost had it now. Just another few feet, another few inches, another- Thump!

His head struck hard stone, and he fell sprawling. He had run squarely into a brightly patterned mosaic. Similar bright patterns flashed dizzily within Squee's head. After a few moments, he was able to rise and look about. His quarry was gone. "Damn."

The passage bent left, and Squee blinked away the flashing tiles. Curious to see what might lie beyond, he ambled along the corridor to a flight of stairs that descend in a great sweeping curve. In three gentle turns, it reached a large doorway with a decorated lintel in a pointed arch. Squee pushed open the doors and found himself in a big chamber, empty except for a singular platform at one end.

A more discerning observer would have considered the room a shrine, altar to an unknown god. Squee considered the room merely inviting. He pushed and poked at the strange carvings on the altar. One, done in colored stone, depicted a large snakelike creature with a snouted, horned head. Outlined in flashing gems, its horns caught his attention. Without conscious thought, he touched them and was surprised to feel the stone beneath his feet move.

Hinged to pivot, the altar swung back slowly to reveal a broad stair plunging to unknown depths. Dark, deep places were good for bugs. This place didn't look oozy-dark, deep, and oozy was the best-but dark and deep was good enough. There was sure to be plenty of fat grubs and worms below, a tasty midday snack.

Squee scampered swiftly down the steps. The stairs were steep, but steep was good because it meant you got to the bottom quicker. Even so, it seemed to take a very long time. Miles of stairs. It would've been nice if they'd made these stairs straight up and down-then you'd get to the bottom real fast.

Voices echoed up to Squee from around a bend. Some instinct for self-preservation made him slip into a convenient niche and stand as still as he knew how. Ears pricking, he listened to the voices as they drew closer.

"… two weeks at most?"

"Not bad, but is not it possible that the schedule could be moved up to allow for a completion date in one week?"

"Is that not only possible but desirable? Will I not attempt to finish by this date? Do not the workers require some extra… encouragement?"

There was a long, drawn-out chuckle accompanying this last remark. Two dark figures brushed by the hollow where Squee stood concealed, trembling for reasons even he did not understand. The voices faded into the distance.

"Has anyone discovered what has become of the prisoners?"

"Has the master not sent them to gather the stones for him?"

"Are they not stupid pawns?" Their laughter retreated with them.

Silence once more mantled the stairs. Slowly, Squee extricated himself from the cleft in the wall. He was not sure of the entire import of what he had overheard, but he would try to remember it to recount to Hanna.

In fact, it was tempting to retreat back up the stairs and tell her now. At the best of times, Squee was a coward; he remained in Weatherlight's crew only because he amused Sisay and Gerrard. Still, the goblin had virtues even Sisay and Gerrard did not suspect. The events of Rath had deeply stirred him, and after the scolding he'd received from Gerrard, he took pride in his fierce loyalty to Weatherlight and Dominaria. Though fear nudged him back up the stairs, duty pushed him forward. Duty won.

Squee headed around the corner. A few minutes brought him to another doorway-this one even larger than the first. He slipped through it, moved to one side, and gasped in wonder.

He was standing on one side of a vast underground cavern, miles across and miles deep. Huge stone columns descended through the space, joining ceiling to floor. In some places, the columns had been carved out, and light gleamed from windows within. Scaffolds ran around the columns, and huge horns projected outward from them in a stony thicket. Catwalks clung to stalactites and stalagmites. Aerial platforms and bridges stretched across the huge, dark reaches.

"What kinda place is dis?"

It was like staring out through a nighttime thicket and seeing a complex of cobwebs joining thorn to thorn. Globe lights gleamed like golden dew along the webs. Humans, Kyren, machines, and… other things ambled spiderlike on the walkways. Some folk carried supplies. Others bore tools. Still more clambered over great, hoary things that seemed like flies caught in the giant web.

They were not flies, though. They were ships-aerial ships, most of them larger than Weatherlight. Vessels hung from the jutting thorns.

Squee had discovered an enormous underground hangar, bristling with piers and moored airships. Long and sleek, with wings of skin and carapace shells, the vessels reminded Squee of something… his small brain wracked itself trying to remember what. Then he seized upon it: the ship they'd met on Rath-Predator. That was it! Some of these ships were even larger than Predator.

Squee had once thought Weatherlight the mightiest warship. Then, they encountered Predator on Rath. Now, though, amid this multitude of mammoth vessels, Weatherlight seemed a grain of sand on an endless beach.

There were ships with two and three masts, ships whose foredecks were bigger than the entire deck of Weatherlight. There were ships that seemed to move even as they stood still. All were coppery brown or black in color. The larger ships were moored, floating impossibly in the air, line after line, layer after layer. Several smaller dinghies busily ferried workers and supplies about the hangar. Workers moved from ship to ship, ignoring the vast space over which they hung suspended.

Cannons jutted above and below decks on those ships closest to Squee. Curious, he left the wall and trotted across the stone floor toward a rail.

Squee was out in plain view before he thought better of it. He skidded to a halt, freezing in fear. A pair of human workers approached. He was sure they would haul him away. Instead, they merely bowed deferentially as they passed by.