As it turned out, Zogrusz’s inability to see into the blackness past the door set in the moon’s surface was because what was beyond was black, completely and utterly. A perfectly smooth tunnel of what resembled gleaming obsidian sloped down at a steep angle before suddenly jagging sharply. For a long moment, they all stood at the edge of this hole staring into the seamless dark.

“What is this place?” Anecoya shouted at the fake-Zogrusz that had reformed on the closest patch of healthy gray fungus and was watching them silently.

“Eggy has no idea,” Rhas told her from his perch on Zogrusz’s shoulder. “The door has been here since consciousness first sparked on the moon, but it had been closed until the The-One-From-The-Sky opened it. As you can see, something kills the fungus before it can get too close.”

“Do you have any guesses?” Zogrusz asked, reaching out to grasp the darkness welling up from below. His powers seemed unaffected by the strangeness of this place, at least, ribbons of shadow writhing at his command.

Rhas’s claws kneaded his flesh, and then the cat spoke. “A treasure house, perhaps, placed here by an ancient being? Or a refuge to hide from some threat?” The world-mind paused. “A prison? I’ve heard of powerful entities that could not easily be destroyed encased inside the metal cores of planets or shoved into the accretion discs of collapsing stars. Perhaps this is something similar.”

“There must be a reason Ixia’s ward did not return,” Zogrusz said uneasily, trying to extend his perception in the hopes of gaining some insight about what lurked below.

“The Wanderer was rather annoying,” Anecoya murmured. “Perhaps the tunnel goes all the way to the other side and his ward passed right through the moon and kept going in an attempt to escape the old madman.”

“Well, we still need to know what’s down there,” Zogrusz said, his claws clicking on the smooth black rock of the tunnel as he stepped from the moon’s surface. Anecoya sighed deeply, and a moment later light flickered along the gleaming black walls and ceiling as she summoned her blazing sword and joined him.

Time lost all meaning in the passage as they descended deeper and deeper. The tunnel twisted and turned, but never branched or opened up into larger chambers. Its serpentine path was almost unsettling – there seemed no reason for its odd contortions, as if the way had been laid down by madmen. No writing covered the walls, nor were there any images carved into the glassy surface, and after a while, Zogrusz began to doubt if this passage had actually been made by intelligent creatures. He knew from experience that the desire to decorate and memorialize was a powerful compulsion.

The tunnel eventually leveled off, and though it was difficult to measure the passage of time here, Zogrusz believed they had been going downwards for longer than the sun took to rise and set on Rhas’s world.

And then it abruptly ended.

“Oh my,” Rhas whispered as Anecoya sucked in her breath sharply.

Zogrusz could only stand there blinking in the light, wondering if what was before them now could possibly be real.

The passage emptied out onto a large balcony of sorts, beyond which was a space so vast it was like they were no longer underground. There was no sun, but a golden radiance infused the distant ceiling and illuminated a city unlike anything Zogrusz had ever seen before. It sprawled gracefully to the very limits of his vision, full of layered stone buildings that reminded him of beehives piled on top of each other, their higher tiers connected by slender arching bridges. Silvery domes bubbled atop squat structures, while elsewhere spires of nacreous light thrust up from the ground. Many of these structures dwarfed the largest buildings in Amotla, and Zogrusz couldn’t help but wonder how many ages it had taken to carve this place from the moon’s rock.

Against all reason – and in stark contrast to the barren surface – the city was absolutely draped with vegetation. Golden vines studded with red blossoms like drops of blood wrapped the iridescent towers, while elsewhere explosions of verdant greenery filled the balconies and sky-bridges. Down below, the streets wending between the buildings were almost completely obscured by a thick canopy, and copses of trees sprouted from atop the tiered buildings. And yet this growth did not seem unchecked; no, it looked to have been carefully sculpted and maintained and only through diligent efforts kept from completely running wild and consuming the city.

And that was the most shocking revelation about this hidden city: it was still inhabited.

“How is this possible?” Rhas murmured.

Zogrusz also wanted to know. Everywhere he looked he saw movement – on the arching bridges and the rooftop gardens and what could be glimpsed of the streets through the ruby foliage. Even the closest of the creatures were too far away to see clearly, but Zogrusz thought the manner in which they moved seemed strange. They . . . undulated, their bodies long and serpentine.

“Come on,” Anecoya said, and Zogrusz turned to see that she had started to descend a broad spiraling ramp that led down to a great park filled with twisting paths and abstract statues and a profusion of brilliantly colored blossoms artfully arranged into vast flower beds.

Zogrusz followed, the feeling of Rhas’s sharp little claws digging into his shoulder telling him that the cat was just as unnerved as he was about this hidden world. There were even birds down here, he realized, flashing jewel-bright as they flitted between the trees, and a gentle river meandered through the city pocked with circular water-craft. Zogrusz donned his man-cloak as he descended the ramp, eliciting a surprised chirp from Rhas. Surely whatever creatures lived down here would be less intimidated by his human guise.

The park at the bottom of the ramp was even more lush than it had looked from above. Ornate trellises supported all manner of blooming plants and provided shade along paths of perfectly-fitted iridescent stones. The rich fragrances wafting from the elaborate flower arrangements were almost intoxicating, and insects with beautiful painted wings had clearly been drawn by these aromas, fluttering between the blossoms.

Zogrusz stiffened in surprise when he saw a pair of the city’s denizens approaching. They did indeed look like snakes, with the front half of their long bodies lifted from the ground, and they were dressed in embroidered windings of shimmering silk that wrapped them in such a way that their short, stunted arms still had the ability to move freely. They seemed deep in conversation, forked tongues flickering, and it wasn’t until they had nearly reached where Zogrusz and Anecoya were standing dumbstruck that they stopped and shifted their attention to the strangers. Zogrusz was expecting a hissing panic, but instead the two snake-men merely stared incuriously at them, their nictating membranes slowly blinking a few times, then continued on their way.

What were these things?

Zogrusz extended a telepathic tendril, but his attempt to delve into their minds slid off something hard and smooth. There was some sort of barrier, not dissimilar to how beings like Rhas and the Wanderer shielded their thoughts.

“What is this place?” Anecoya muttered, her fingers flexing at her side like she wanted to summon her fiery sword.

“I have no idea,” Rhas answered. “There are all sorts of mysteries and oddities in the cosmos, but I’ve never heard of anything like this. A race of powerful telepaths living deep inside a moon in a thriving city, and the overmind on the surface has no idea that they are here? It’s . . . unbelievable, frankly.”

“They didn’t seem concerned to see us,” Zogrusz added, staring after the snake-men as they slithered away.

“Which either means that they are so powerful that nothing frightens them,” Rhas mused, “or that creatures that look like you two in your human forms visit often.”

“Ixia’s ward,” Anecoya said sharply. “That’s all we’re here for. We find them and get out. Someone else can solve this mystery.”

“Agreed,” Rhas said, then coughed hard enough that Zogrusz felt the cat convulse.

“What’s wrong?” Anecoya asked, concern softening her tone.

“I’ve been away too long,” Rhas replied hoarsely. “The thread that reaches back to my world is growing more and more attenuated – we minds deteriorate after leaving the web of consciousness that we arose from.”

“So you might die?” Zogrusz asked worriedly.

“I may,” Rhas conceded. “Though I am but an avatar. If I do not return to my world, the larger part of me that remained behind will be fine, and simply not be granted the memories I experienced on this journey.”

“You should have told us!” Anecoya said, anger clouding her face as she stalked closer, staring furiously at the cat.

“You both needed my help,” Rhas replied calmly. “And if I dissolve out here, this would not be the end of me . . . just this version.”

“Well, we’ll get you back in time,” Anecoya promised. “We find this ward, return him to Ixia, and get what knowledge he has about thwarting Eldritch Horrors. So we have no time to waste – the next snake I see I’m tying in a knot if it doesn’t tell us what we need to know.”

“At least they’re not insects,” Rhas murmured as they continued deeper into the park. “I hate insects.”

They followed the winding paths of iridescent stones, passing beneath trellises and arches of braided flowers. The trees here were different than any Zogrusz had seen on Rhas’s world, with thick, bulbous trunks and crimson leaves that swayed back and forth despite the lack of a breeze. There were circular stone basins set in the shade of these trees, and it took Zogrusz a little while to realize that these must be the serpent-versions of benches, though they encountered no snake-men coiled in them.

Rhas’s claws tightened again as a new sound drifted from up ahead, where an abstract stone statue loomed over the treetops. It was a song – or at least it had the cadence of a song, even if the lyrics were incomprehensible gibberish – and to Zogrusz’s ears the singer might have been a very young human. But what would a human child be doing in this city of serpent people—

“Ixia’s ward,” Zogrusz and Rhas said simultaneously as the realization struck them, and then after sharing a look of surprise they began to move faster in the direction the singing was coming from.

The path they were on soon spilled into a large circular space fringed by trees, empty except for the huge statue they’d seen from afar. A little blonde girl perched on the edge of the statue’s plinth with her legs swinging, and in her hands she held a chunk of faceted black crystal, staring into its depths as she sang her nonsense song.

“She must be who we’re looking for,” Zogrusz said, but just as he started to stride across the open space towards the girl Anecoya stopped him suddenly with a hand on his arm.

“Wait,” she said as he turned to her questioningly. “Look at the statue.”

Zogrusz frowned, but did as she asked. And then he saw it as well. What he had thought was an abstract carving was nothing of the sort – those flowing lines were in truth twisting limbs, those grooves filled with gnashing fangs, and clustered at the center of the statue was a scattering of eyes seemingly drawn from different species, all staring upwards as if watching something descend from above.

There was no doubt in Zogrusz’s mind what this thing was supposed to represent . . . he was staring at a valiant attempt to capture in stone the chaos of an Eldritch Horror’s true form.

He was not the first of his kind to come here.