For a moment, nobody spoke.
The survivor lay against his folded blanket, his eyes fixed on the map spread across Talia's knees. The effort of speaking had left him pale, and his breathing had become shallow again.
Kael was the first to break the silence.
"What road?"
The man looked toward him.
"The one they covered."
His voice was barely audible.
Lyra leaned closer. "Who covered it?"
But before he could answer, the survivor's face tightened. He tried to draw a deeper breath, failed, and pressed a trembling hand against his bandaged ribs.
Morrow was beside him immediately.
"Enough questions."
"He was about to—" Kael began.
"And he'll be about to die if we keep making him talk."
There was no humor in Morrow's voice.
He checked the man's pulse, adjusted the cloth supporting his head, and gave him a small amount of water.
"Rest," he said. "Whatever happened to that road, it can wait until you're breathing properly."
The survivor's eyes moved from Morrow to the others. For a moment, he appeared ready to protest, but the strength wasn't there. His hand relaxed against the blanket.
Seren stood near the entrance, watching the exchange.
"He told us enough."
"Not nearly enough," Talia muttered.
"Enough to know where to start."
She looked back at her map.
The glow-stone illuminated the thin blue line representing Greyhook Route, bending west between the ridges before continuing toward the trench. A smaller, faded mark lay beside it near the western approach.
The abandoned crossing.
Until tonight, Kael would have assumed it was nothing more than an old road that had fallen out of use.
He had travelled enough frontier routes to know how often that happened. Landslides, monster activity, shifting terrain, broken bridges. A road could disappear from common use within a season if maintaining it became more expensive than building another.
But people didn't normally attack caravans to steal maps of a forgotten road.
And they certainly didn't need to falsify an entire relay signal to do it.
"How old is the crossing?" he asked.
Talia examined the map's markings.
"Older than this survey. That's all I can tell you."
"When was this one made?"
"Six years ago. Revised twice since."
"And neither revision shows the original road?"
"Not properly."
She turned the map slightly.
"See this?"
Kael leaned closer.
Near the western crossing, a narrow dotted line separated from the official route and ended against a series of tightly drawn contour marks.
"Abandoned alignment," Talia explained. "That's how the current map records it. The old approach isn't considered part of the road network anymore."
"Why not?"
"According to the notation, unstable ground."
"That's rather vague."
"Welcome to frontier surveying."
Morrow glanced over his shoulder.
"Careful. Half the people who maintain these roads are probably doing their best."
"Then they should learn to write better reports."
"That's the other half."
Despite himself, Kael smiled.
Talia traced the dotted line again.
"The problem isn't that an abandoned road exists. There are abandoned roads everywhere. The problem is that someone went to considerable trouble to acquire records of this particular one."
Lyra folded her arms.
"Records from different caravans."
"Yes."
"And the valuables were left behind."
"Yes."
Kael studied the map.
"If they wanted old surveys, why attack people travelling on the current road? Why not steal the records directly from a guild archive?"
"Perhaps they already tried," Lyra said.
"Or perhaps the guild doesn't have all of them," Talia added. "Private surveyors keep their own records. Merchants commission route assessments. Expedition leaders sometimes pay for copies that never become part of the public charts."
Seren nodded.
"Which means someone could collect information from several sources without any one person knowing what they were assembling."
Kael considered that.
An official map showed travellers where they were supposed to go.
But an old survey might preserve things an official map no longer included.
Collapsed bridges. Retired markers. Changes in elevation.
Or an entire stretch of road that had been abandoned.
He looked toward the injured survivor.
"Do we know what his wagon was carrying?"
"Survey instruments and ordinary trade goods, from what we saw," Lyra replied. "But we haven't examined the remaining cargo thoroughly."
"Then we should."
Seren looked at him.
"Why?"
"Because whoever attacked him searched the wagon before leaving. If we can work out what they ignored, we might have a better idea of what they wanted."
Talia gave a small nod.
"Reasonable."
Kael glanced toward the entrance.
"And we should check the other wagons again. We were looking for survivors and signs of the attack. We weren't trying to identify the exact documents that had been taken."
"We won't be travelling through the dark to search an abandoned wagon," Seren said.
"I know."
"Good."
Seren looked toward the captive seated against the far wall.
"There's something we can examine without leaving the shelter."
The prisoner had remained remarkably quiet since the survivor woke.
His hands were secured behind him, his knives confiscated, and a dark bruise was beginning to spread along his jaw where Morrow had introduced him to the stone wall.
He watched Seren approach without speaking.
"You heard what the survivor said."
No response.
"The older road. The missing surveys. Your companion trying to draw us away from the shelter."
The prisoner stared ahead.
Seren crouched.
"I don't need you to explain everything. Start with one thing. Were you ordered to kill that man?"
The captive's expression remained unchanged.
"Or were you ordered to make sure he couldn't tell anyone what happened?"
Kael watched carefully.
The man lowered his eyes.
Not much.
But enough.
Seren waited.
The silence stretched.
Finally, the prisoner spoke.
"You shouldn't have come west."
His voice was rough, as though he hadn't used it in hours.
Morrow gave a low whistle.
"It talks."
Seren ignored him.
"Why?"
The man pressed his lips together.
"Because this isn't your business."
"People have been attacked on a public route. That makes it our business."
"You don't understand what you're interfering with."
"Then explain it."
The captive looked at him.
For an instant, something shifted behind his eyes.
Kael expected anger.
Instead, he saw what might have been uncertainty.
Then the man's expression closed again.
Seren rose.
"We'll continue this later."
As he turned away, the captive spoke once more.
"Don't take him farther west."
Everyone stopped.
The man's gaze remained fixed on the floor.
Seren turned back.
"The survivor?"
No answer.
"Why shouldn't we?"
Still nothing.
Morrow stepped closer.
"You're making this very difficult for someone who's trying not to throw you off a cliff."
"Morrow," Seren said.
"What? I said trying."
The captive refused to speak again.
But Kael couldn't stop thinking about the warning.
It was possible the man simply wanted to frighten them.
It was also possible that he knew something about the western route they didn't.
Either way, the warning created another problem.
If the attackers had already tried to kill the survivor once, leaving him in an exposed shelter wasn't safe.
Taking him farther west might be worse.
And returning east would mean abandoning the investigation for now.
Seren looked around the group.
"We'll decide at first light. Until then, we keep watch and let him recover."
He gestured toward the prisoner.
"Search his equipment again. Anything that tells us where he's been or who he's working for."
Talia was already reaching for the confiscated gear.
"And nobody goes near the upper ridge alone," Seren added.
Morrow sighed.
"There goes my evening."
"It's nearly morning."
"Even worse."
The prisoner's equipment was laid out on a folded piece of canvas.
Two short knives. A narrow coil of cord. Four remaining bolts. A small whetstone, a compact field flask and the damaged wrist launcher.
Kael studied the last item with particular interest.
It was smaller than an ordinary crossbow, built around a metal rail that ran along the user's forearm. Two short hinged arms supplied the firing force, while a concealed release allowed a bolt to be launched with a movement of the wrist. Leather straps secured the mechanism from just below the elbow to the back of the hand.
The design sacrificed range and power for concealment.
At close quarters, though, it had nearly killed the survivor.
And Kael.
He remembered the attacker's second knife rising toward him.
Then Morrow's enormous hand appearing behind the man.
A little later, and things might have ended very differently.
"Never seen one?" Talia asked.
"Not up close."
"Most people haven't. They're expensive for what they do."
She turned the launcher over.
"The mechanism has to be compact enough to wear without restricting the hand. That makes it difficult to maintain and easy to damage."
Kael looked at the scar across the casing.
"Apparently."
"Yes. Your sword did a decent job of ruining the release."
She pressed a narrow pin into the damaged housing.
Something clicked.
The mechanism shifted, but didn't engage.
"He's not firing this again without repairs."
Morrow leaned over them.
"Could always hit someone with it."
Talia looked up.
"That would be an excellent use of an expensive projectile weapon."
"Thank you."
"That wasn't praise."
"Sounded like it."
Kael reached for Grayshard, resting at his hip.
His fingers settled around the familiar hilt.
There was nothing particularly imposing about the short blade. It wasn't built like the heavy weapons he had seen experienced fighters carry, and it certainly lacked the elegance of Lyra's paired swords.
But it was his.
He had begun to understand its balance during the quarry training. The distance required for a clean cut. The movement needed to recover after a missed strike. The danger of overcommitting against an opponent with longer reach.
He was still learning.
Yet the blade had already been present during things he couldn't explain.
The quarry.
The impossible beam.
The strange reaction at the relay.
He glanced toward the captive.
The man was watching Talia examine the damaged launcher.
When Kael shifted Grayshard at his hip, the prisoner's eyes followed the movement.
Only briefly.
Then he looked away.
Kael frowned.
The reaction was similar to the one he'd noticed after the fight.
He considered asking about it.
But what would he ask?
Why do you keep looking at my sword?
The man had nearly lost an arm to it. That seemed explanation enough.
For now.
Talia finished examining the weapon and placed it beside the other equipment.
"No insignia. No registration plate. Nothing that tells us who supplied it."
"Could be homemade," Kael suggested.
"Not likely. The machining is too precise."
"Then someone sold it."
"Almost certainly."
"Can we find out who?"
Talia smiled faintly.
"Now that's a better question."
She looked toward Seren.
"If we get this back to Veyrhold, someone familiar with specialist weapon suppliers might recognize the design."
Seren nodded.
"Keep it."
Morrow glanced at the prisoner.
"He doesn't mind."
"He can file a complaint with the guild," Talia said.
"Excellent. I'll help him write it."
Kael turned away, unable to hide his smile.
Outside, the sky had begun to change.
The darkness above the eastern ridges softened into a dull grey, revealing the shapes of distant stone formations that had been invisible throughout the night.
Dawn was approaching.
And with it, the first real opportunity to examine the land surrounding the old route.
By the time the first sunlight reached the upper ridge, Seren had made his decision.
They weren't taking the survivor farther west.
Not yet.
Morrow had examined his injuries again and found no reason to believe the man could manage a long journey without considerable assistance. The route back to the relay was difficult enough for a healthy traveller. Attempting it with an injured man and a prisoner, while knowing at least one armed attacker remained nearby, would be dangerous.
But staying indefinitely wasn't an option either.
"We need to get word back to Veyrhold," Seren said. "The relay is no longer broadcasting the false clearance, but that doesn't help the people who already entered the route."
Talia nodded.
"And until someone examines the network properly, we don't know how many other stations were affected."
"Exactly."
Seren looked toward the western hills.
"We'll use the morning to establish what we're dealing with. After that, we decide whether to withdraw or continue."
He turned to Lyra.
"Take Kael and Talia. Check the old approach nearest the shelter. No more than an hour out. If you find anything dangerous, withdraw."
Lyra nodded.
"Understood."
"Don't enter an unstable crossing."
"I wasn't planning to."
"Good."
Morrow, sitting beside the survivor, raised a hand.
"Can I enter an unstable crossing?"
"No."
"Just checking."
Seren ignored him.
"Talia, take the map and whatever measuring equipment you need. I want to know whether the abandoned alignment can still be followed from here."
She began packing her tools.
"And you?"
"Morrow and I will hold the shelter. We have a wounded man, a prisoner and an unknown number of people who may still be watching us."
Kael glanced toward the captive.
The man had been given water and a small portion of food. He hadn't thanked anyone, though he'd accepted both without resistance.
"Think he'll try escaping?" Kael asked.
Morrow gave the prisoner a friendly smile.
"I hope so."
The man looked away.
"Try not to enjoy yourself," Seren said.
"No promises."
Lyra was already moving toward the entrance.
"Come on, Kael."
He collected Grayshard, checked the fastening on his wristband, and followed her into the morning light.
The air outside was cold enough to make his breath visible.
Greyhook Route stretched west beneath a pale sky, winding between steep ridges and broken rock formations. The previous night's darkness had concealed much of the surrounding terrain. In daylight, Kael could finally see how uneven the region was.
Old retaining walls rose from slopes where no road remained. Narrow gullies crossed the land at awkward angles. Farther west, the ridges grew taller and more closely packed together, their surfaces worn into irregular terraces.
The route had clearly been rebuilt more than once.
Talia consulted her map.
"According to the current survey, the earliest surviving approach should branch off somewhere northwest of the shelter."
Kael looked in that direction.
"There's no road there."
"Not anymore."
"How far?"
"Hard to say. This isn't an old survey. The abandoned alignment is only marked approximately."
Lyra adjusted Whisper and Needle at her hips.
"Then let's find something that doesn't require guessing."
They started uphill.
For the first few minutes, there was little to see beyond loose stone and patches of hardy grass. A narrow animal trail wound between the rocks, occasionally disappearing where the ground became too steep.
Kael kept his eyes on the terrain.
The attackers had already demonstrated their willingness to use elevation and narrow approaches against the group. He wasn't eager to provide another opportunity.
After a short climb, Talia stopped beside a broken stone pillar.
"Here."
Kael approached.
The pillar was half-buried beneath gravel, its exposed face covered in pale lichen. At first glance, it resembled an ordinary piece of masonry left behind by some abandoned structure.
Then he noticed the markings.
Two shallow grooves crossed the upper surface, meeting at an angle.
Below them was a series of smaller cuts.
Talia brushed away the dirt.
"Survey marker."
Lyra examined it.
"Old?"
"Very."
"How very?"
"Old enough that the person responsible for this repair should be ashamed."
She pointed toward a metal staple driven into a crack along the pillar.
The staple was badly corroded. One side had broken loose, leaving the upper stone unsupported.
Kael looked beyond it.
A line of darker rocks continued across the slope.
At first, he thought it was a natural seam.
Then he saw that the stones had been fitted together.
"There's a wall."
Lyra followed his gaze.
The structure was mostly buried, but its exposed sections ran in a straight line along the hillside before disappearing beneath a mound of loose earth.
Talia nodded.
"A retaining wall. The old road probably ran above it."
Kael stepped onto the higher ground.
The surface felt firmer beneath his boots than the surrounding gravel.
He scraped away a thin layer of dirt.
Flat stone.
Another piece lay beside it.
Then another.
"Found it."
Lyra climbed up after him.
They cleared enough dust to reveal several fitted paving stones extending west beneath the hillside.
The road was narrow, no wider than a small wagon needed, but its construction had been surprisingly careful. The stones were smooth where countless wheels had passed over them, and shallow channels along the edges suggested an old drainage system.
Kael straightened.
"So this is the road before Greyhook."
"Part of it," Talia said.
She examined the survey marker again.
"If the old route followed this retaining wall, it would have taken a more direct line west than the current road."
"Why abandon it?"
"That's what we're here to discover."
Lyra stepped onto the old paving stones.
"Well, if this thing hasn't been maintained in years, I wouldn't trust it with a loaded wagon."
Kael tested one of the stones with his boot.
It shifted.
"Fair point."
They followed the remains of the road.
In places, the original paving survived almost intact. Elsewhere, earth and broken rock had buried it completely, forcing them to climb around the obstructions and search for another exposed section.
Talia occasionally stopped to examine old markings.
Lyra watched the surrounding terrain.
Kael found himself studying the road itself.
The retaining wall had been repaired repeatedly. Different sections used different kinds of stone, and some had clearly been rebuilt after damage. Even the drainage channels changed shape as they climbed.
This wasn't a road that had been abandoned after one disaster.
People had continued trying to maintain it.
For a long time.
"Something bothering you?" Lyra asked.
Kael glanced over.
"The repairs."
"What about them?"
"There's a lot."
"Roads need repairing."
"I know. But look at this."
He crouched beside a low section of wall.
Several stones had been cut cleanly and fitted into an older structure. Their surfaces were less weathered than the surrounding masonry.
"Someone rebuilt this part after the original road was already damaged."
Talia joined him.
"Probably."
"And farther back, the drainage channel had been redirected. Before that, someone reinforced the foundation."
He looked west.
"If the road was unstable, why keep repairing it? Why not abandon it earlier?"
"Because abandoning a road costs money," Talia replied.
"And building a replacement costs more," Lyra added.
Kael nodded.
"True."
He ran his fingers along the edge of the repaired stone.
"But something eventually made them stop trying."
Neither woman answered.
They continued uphill.
A few minutes later, Lyra raised her hand.
"Hold."
Kael stopped.
Talia looked up from her map.
"What?"
Lyra pointed toward a narrow shelf of stone ahead.
"Someone's been here."
The shelf lay beside another damaged survey marker, partly sheltered by a large overhanging rock.
Kael approached carefully.
At first, he saw nothing unusual.
Then he noticed a pale patch on the marker.
Someone had scraped away the lichen.
The exposed stone was much lighter than the weathered surface around it.
Beside the clean patch, a tiny copper pin had been driven into a natural crack.
Talia's eyes narrowed.
"That's recent."
Kael looked at the pin.
"How recent?"
She crouched beside it.
"The metal hasn't oxidized much. And the lichen was removed recently enough that the scraped surface hasn't gathered much dirt."
Lyra moved around the overhang.
"There's more."
Kael followed her.
Behind the rock, a small patch of ground had been cleared of loose stones. Several shallow impressions marked the dirt, and a narrow indentation ran between two larger rocks.
Someone had stretched a line across the ground.
"Surveying equipment?" he asked.
Talia examined the marks.
"Looks like it."
She stood and looked toward the western ridge.
"This wasn't someone stopping for a rest. They were taking measurements."
Kael looked back at the copper pin.
"Could it have been an ordinary survey crew?"
"Possibly."
"But the road's abandoned."
"Abandoned doesn't mean nobody ever examines it."
Lyra crouched near the edge of the cleared area.
"Then perhaps an ordinary survey crew can explain this."
She lifted something from the dirt.
A short piece of dark cord.
One end had been neatly cut.
The other was frayed.
Kael recognized the material almost immediately.
"The prisoner had a coil like that."
Talia took the cord and examined it.
"Similar material."
"Same?"
"Could be. A lot of field equipment uses braided cord."
Kael nodded.
Not proof.
But another detail worth keeping.
Lyra looked west.
"The important thing is that someone was surveying this road recently."
Kael examined the scrape marks again.
Whoever had been there hadn't been casually exploring.
They'd cleared the marker, fixed a pin, stretched measuring lines and examined the original alignment.
The work required preparation.
And time.
He thought of the fresh ledger entry at the relay.
The false route signal.
The stolen maps.
Then he looked at Talia.
"The people who altered the relay might have been studying the old road before they started attacking caravans."
"That's possible."
"Which means the attacks weren't necessarily how they first learned about it."
Lyra gave him an approving glance.
"Now you're asking better questions."
Kael looked at her.
"How many bad ones have I asked?"
"Do you want me to count?"
"No."
"Wise decision."
Talia collected the loose cord and wrapped it in a small cloth.
"We should take this back."
Kael nodded, then looked toward the end of the stone shelf.
"There's still more road."
Lyra followed his gaze.
The paving continued west between two low ridges.
Beyond them, the ground appeared to drop away.
She considered the distance.
"We have time for a little farther."
Talia checked the position of the sun.
"Not much."
"Then we won't waste it."
They continued.
The old road ended at a ravine.
At least, that was how it appeared.
The land dropped sharply between two ridges, forming a narrow gorge filled with broken rock and the remains of ancient masonry. On the opposite side, another section of stonework emerged from the hillside, though much of it had collapsed.
Kael stopped several paces from the edge.
The gap was too wide for a wagon to cross without a bridge.
And there was no bridge.
Only a few broken supports rising from the ravine below.
Talia consulted her map.
"This might be one of the collapses that forced the realignment."
Lyra studied the opposite ridge.
"That would make sense."
Kael looked down.
The remains of the bridge were barely recognizable. Several large stone blocks lay scattered along the ravine floor, while two surviving pillars stood against the far wall.
Water had once flowed through the bottom, but the channel was dry now.
"How long ago did it collapse?" he asked.
Talia examined the masonry.
"Long enough for most of the debris to settle. The supports have been weathered for years."
Kael looked back along the old road.
"Then why were people taking measurements here recently?"
"Perhaps they wanted to know whether it could be rebuilt."
"With all those old maps?"
Talia didn't answer immediately.
Lyra stepped closer to the broken edge.
"There's something strange about the far side."
Kael followed her gaze.
The opposite road ended at a narrow platform of stone.
It was the natural continuation of the route they'd followed, but the two sections didn't align properly.
The far side appeared slightly higher and angled north.
"Could be landslide movement," Talia said.
"Could be," Lyra agreed.
Kael studied it.
Something about the arrangement bothered him.
He couldn't immediately explain why.
The ground had clearly shifted over time. Erosion and collapse could account for differences between old and new structures.
But the road itself had been built by people who understood what they were doing.
The retaining walls were carefully placed.
The drainage channels were purposeful.
The paving stones followed a consistent width.
Why, then, did the continuation appear to point in a different direction?
He moved a few steps to the left.
The two sections still failed to line up.
He stepped right.
No improvement.
Talia noticed.
"What are you doing?"
"Trying to see how the bridge connected."
"The supports are below us."
"I know."
He pointed across the ravine.
"Look at the paving."
She followed his hand.
"The far section?"
"Yes. If the bridge ran straight from here, it would meet the opposite road at an angle."
"Bridges can turn."
"Can they turn that sharply?"
Talia narrowed her eyes.
She lowered the map.
Then moved to Kael's position.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
"That's odd."
Lyra looked pleased.
"Good. I was beginning to think it was just me."
Talia took a length of wire from her bag.
"Help me with this."
They spent the next several minutes establishing the approximate direction of the original road.
Talia fixed one end of the wire to a surviving survey marker and stretched it along the edge of the paving stones. Lyra stood farther back, checking the alignment against the old retaining wall.
Kael moved between them, helping identify which sections belonged to the original construction rather than later repairs.
The result was clear enough.
The road on their side pointed toward a location farther south than the road on the opposite ridge.
There were possible explanations.
The bridge might have included a bend.
Part of the opposite slope might have shifted.
The later repairs might have altered the road's original direction.
But Kael couldn't shake the feeling that none of those explanations accounted for everything.
Talia gathered the wire.
"We'd need an older survey to know what the bridge actually looked like."
Kael glanced at the abandoned crossing marked on her map.
"Which is exactly what someone else is trying to find."
"Yes."
Lyra stood beside the broken edge.
"Let's not assume every strange stone is evidence of a conspiracy. But I'd like to see the original plans for this road."
Kael nodded.
Then something caught his attention.
Near the edge of the paving, a narrow pair of grooves crossed the dust.
He crouched.
Two parallel marks.
Close together.
Running toward the ravine.
"Wagon tracks?"
Talia came over.
She examined them without touching the ground.
"Wheel impressions."
"Old?"
"Not as old as the road."
Kael looked up.
"How can you tell?"
"The dust inside them hasn't compacted. And the edges are too clean."
She pointed toward a small ridge of displaced dirt.
"Something with wheels passed here after the last layer of loose material settled."
Lyra walked back along the grooves.
"They start farther behind us."
Kael followed.
The tracks were difficult to see in places, but once he knew what to look for, he found them again beneath patches of gravel.
A wagon had travelled along the old road.
Recently enough to leave marks that hadn't completely disappeared.
He looked toward the ravine.
"Did someone drive a wagon all the way out here?"
"Apparently," Talia said.
"Why?"
"Perhaps they didn't know the bridge was gone."
Lyra shook her head.
"Not with all those survey marks. Someone knew this place well enough to work here."
Kael returned to the broken edge.
The wheel impressions continued toward the drop.
Then disappeared where the paving ended.
He knelt and examined the surrounding ground.
No clear turning marks.
No deep furrows where a wagon had struggled to reverse.
He searched farther back.
Nothing obvious.
"Could they have taken the wagon apart?" he asked.
Talia glanced at him.
"Why?"
"To carry it across."
"Possible with enough people. Though I'd expect more evidence of unloading."
Lyra leaned over the edge and examined the ravine below.
"There's no fresh wreckage."
Kael looked down as well.
The scattered blocks and broken supports were heavily weathered.
He saw no fresh timber.
No torn canvas.
No broken wheels.
Nothing suggesting a wagon had recently fallen into the ravine.
Of course, someone could have removed the wreckage.
Or the marks could have another explanation entirely.
But the question remained.
Where had the wagon gone?
Kael sat back on his heels.
He thought of the old surveys.
Different measurements.
Different versions of the same road.
And the survivor's final warning.
They wanted the road that came before it.
Something stirred at the edge of his awareness.
Not a voice.
Not a vision.
The faint pressure he had come to associate with old Echo.
Kael became still.
He let the ordinary sounds of the morning settle around him.
Wind moving through the ravine.
Loose stones shifting beneath Lyra's boots.
Talia gathering her tools.
And beneath those sounds, something else.
A dull, repetitive creak.
Wood under tension.
A wheel turning.
Kael closed his eyes.
For a moment, he could almost hear the rhythm of a wagon moving across uneven stone.
Then the sensation faded.
He opened his eyes.
The road remained broken.
The ravine remained empty.
"Kael?"
Lyra was watching him.
He took a slow breath.
"There's Echo here."
She glanced around.
"That doesn't surprise me."
"No, I mean..."
He stopped.
What did he mean?
Old roads held memories. Hundreds of travellers might have passed through this place before the bridge collapsed.
Hearing the memory of a wagon wasn't unusual for someone with his abilities.
It didn't prove anything about the recent tracks.
"I heard wheels," he said finally.
Lyra studied him.
"From the old road?"
"I think so."
"Anything else?"
He shook his head.
"Nothing clear."
"Then don't force it."
He nodded.
She had told him that before.
During the quarry investigation, he had learned how dangerous it was to chase an impression simply because it seemed important.
Echo wasn't a collection of answers waiting to be handed to him.
Sometimes it was old noise.
Sometimes it was incomplete.
And sometimes it remembered things that didn't belong where he expected them.
Kael looked at the wheel marks again.
He had been concentrating on the wrong part of the problem.
The tracks showed a wagon approaching the missing bridge.
That was a physical observation.
The Echo suggested wagons had crossed this place in the past.
That was historical information.
Neither fact alone was particularly mysterious.
But together, they raised a possibility he couldn't ignore.
What if the people collecting old surveys weren't simply trying to discover where the bridge had stood?
What if they were trying to work out something about the conditions under which people had crossed it?
He looked toward Talia.
"When surveyors make maps, do they record when the measurements were taken?"
She glanced up.
"Usually. Why?"
"Not just the year. The actual date."
"Often. Sometimes the time as well, depending on what they're studying."
Kael thought for a moment.
"And if two surveys disagree?"
"They check the instruments, the reference points and the conditions. If they still disagree, someone has to determine which reading is reliable."
"What if both readings were reliable?"
Talia frowned.
"Then something changed between them."
"Exactly."
Lyra looked from Kael to the far ridge.
"I think I see where you're going."
Kael pointed toward the broken bridge.
"We've been assuming the old road was always in the same place, and that the surveys disagree because something went wrong."
Talia's expression became more thoughtful.
"But if the route changed between measurements..."
"Then maybe the different surveys were recording different conditions."
She looked at him for several seconds.
"That's possible in an unstable Echo region."
"Has it happened before?"
"Not on an ordinary road that I know of."
Lyra folded her arms.
"Greyhook might not be particularly ordinary."
Kael glanced toward the wagon tracks.
"I don't know whether that's what's happening here. But it would explain why someone wanted records from different times."
Talia slowly rolled up her map.
"Not prove it."
"No."
"Good."
She looked across the ravine.
"Because if you're right, the next question is considerably more troublesome."
Kael turned toward her.
"Which one?"
"What conditions would make this road different?"
Nobody answered.
For a while, the three of them stood beside the broken bridge, looking at the empty space between the two ridges.
Then Lyra checked the sun.
"We should return. Seren said an hour."
Talia nodded.
"I want another look at the old survey marker on the way back. There may be a registry reference we can use to locate the original records."
Kael rose and brushed the dust from his knees.
He took one last look across the ravine.
It was frustrating.
They had found the original road, or at least a section of it.
They had evidence of recent surveying activity.
They had discovered wheel marks that raised more questions than they answered.
But they still didn't know who had been using the road, what had happened to the missing caravans, or why someone had gone to such lengths to hide the truth.
And now they had to leave.
He turned to follow Lyra.
A sound came from the ravine.
Kael stopped.
At first, he thought it was another fragment of Echo.
A faint metallic knock.
Then another.
He looked down.
The ravine was empty.
"Did you hear that?"
Lyra turned.
"Hear what?"
Kael waited.
For several seconds, there was nothing.
Then the sound came again.
Two dull knocks.
A pause.
A third.
Talia lowered her equipment.
"That's not the wind."
Lyra moved to the broken edge.
Kael joined her.
The sound had come from somewhere below or beyond the collapsed bridge, though the rock formations made it difficult to judge the exact direction.
They listened.
Nothing.
Kael looked across the gap.
A narrow shelf of stone ran along the opposite wall, partly hidden by the surviving bridge support.
Could someone be down there?
He searched for movement.
A shadow.
A person.
Anything.
There was nothing.
"Could be someone working below," Talia suggested.
"Then why aren't they answering?" Lyra asked.
Kael looked at her.
"We haven't called out."
She considered that.
Then cupped a hand beside her mouth.
"HELLO!"
Her voice echoed across the ravine.
A few loose stones rattled down the opposite wall.
No answer.
Lyra waited.
"IS SOMEONE DOWN THERE?"
Again, nothing.
Talia frowned.
"Could be loose masonry. Perhaps something shifted."
Kael looked toward the bridge remains.
"Maybe."
He didn't sound convinced.
Neither did she.
They waited another minute.
The sound didn't return.
Finally, Lyra stepped back.
"We tell Seren. Then we decide what to do."
Kael nodded.
They gathered their equipment and started along the abandoned road.
He kept looking back.
Something about the knocking bothered him.
Not because it was impossible.
Not because it proved anything extraordinary.
But because the sound had possessed a rhythm.
Two knocks.
A pause.
One more.
He'd spent enough time around frontier workers to recognize the difference between stones falling randomly and someone striking a hard surface deliberately.
He could still be wrong.
He knew that.
But the possibility remained.
They had come looking for a road.
They had found the remains of a bridge, evidence of recent activity, and a set of wheel tracks that ended where no wagon should have been able to continue.
And somewhere near that empty crossing, something had answered their presence.
Kael glanced at Lyra.
She was looking back too.
For once, neither of them had anything to say.
Behind them, beyond the broken edge of the old road, the knocking began again.
This time, it didn't stop after three.