Serit’s steps echoed in the big empty room. They walked next to the wall, looking circumspectly all around as if the empty space could hide some secret corners.

“That’s the thing you were talking about?” they said, pointing at the triangular piece of metal. “I’ve never seen a material like that.”

“Any idea about what it might be?”

Serit knelt beside the object. It was huge when compared to them, to the point they couldn’t cover it completely even if they laid down on top of it. When they passed a hand on the surface, the metal vibrated with a low hum.

They lowered on their fours to look under the small cavity created by the curving shape of the object.

“Already checked,” Saia commented. “There’s nothing there.”

Serit sat on their talons, looking around the room with an inquisitive gaze, their fear apparently forgotten.

“The walls are perfect,” they said. “But the floor is damaged.”

Saia observed it: the hard plaques of metal that covered it curved around the object to form a shallow bowl. Serit touched them with the tip of their fingers.

“What does it mean?” Saia asked.

“I don’t know.”

While Serit examined the object, Saia perceived a movement in the general area of the room. It was a monk wearing leather reinforcements over her chest, abdomen and joints. She had a stuffed hat that made the back of her head look like a loaf of bread. She was holding a tube of metal encased and intersected by what looked like the twisted roots of a tree. Saia assumed it was dead wood until she noticed the viss moving inside it.

“Someone’s coming here,” she said.

Serit dropped down to hide behind the triangular object.

“You’re sending them away, right?”

“No.”

“Putting them to sleep?”

“No. It’s a chance to know what this place is. You could pretend to be a monk and ask her what they’re doing here.”

“Are you insane? I’m not even dressed like a monk.”

“But they don’t think it’s possible for outsiders to enter here. Look at the lock. If you act like you know what you’re doing…”

“I won’t do anything of the sort. Talk to her yourself.”

“Would you answer to a voice that comes out of nothing?”

“What does it matter? Can’t you force her?”

“Sure. Then the monks will alert Beramas as soon as they can.”

The monk had almost reached the vestibule. There was no way to fix the lock, so Saia pushed the metal door open before the monk could see it. She stopped for a moment, as if taken aback.

“Hello?” she called, entering the room. “Someone in here?”

“Come on,” Saia told Serit.

They furiously shook their head, crouched behind the piece of metal.

The monk waited a bit, then closed the door. Saia pressed it against the frame with her winds. She produced the sound of a lock popping into place.

“I’m going to find the idiot who left it open and make them regret they joined us,” the monk mumbled, her words amplified by the empty space of the room.

“What’s your plan, then?” Saia asked Serit. “Wait until she leaves?”

They glared at the ceiling, but she knew it was meant for her.

“Alright, my old shiny friend,” the monk said, raising the tool in her hands until the extremity of it was pointed at the triangular object. “Let’s see how you’re going to survive this.”

She pulled one of the roots near the end of the tube. The viss of the plant started flowing faster, from the wood to the metal and back. The roots moved to the side, revealing a pattern on top of the metal tube. The monk put a hand on top of it and pushed out her own viss. The flux of viss from the plant seemed to increase, as if it was being generated from nothing. The roots at the center of the tube grabbed each other, forming an irregular ball, or a very tight pattern.

“What is she doing?” Serit whispered, almost without emitting a sound.

Saia thought about the words of the monk. They didn’t expect the metal to survive.

“Stand,” she said. “Whatever she’s doing, it’s better if you don’t stay here.”

“If this is a way to trick me into…”

“Stand.”

The urgency in her voice seemed to convince them. They rose from the floor until their head was over the border of the triangular object.

The monk’s face drained of blood when she saw them. She pulled some of the roots, but the flux of viss didn’t slow down. She aimed the end of the tube a bit higher.

“Run!” she yelled.

Serit obeyed. They had barely left the cover of the piece of metal when the sphere of roots was shot out, tracing an arc toward the metal object. The monk stepped back and crouched next to the door, eyes closed, covering her head with both arms. Saia considered moving the ball out of the way, but it could have been even more dangerous, for all she knew. So she pushed Serit, using her winds to both propel them forward and stop their fall. Once they had landed next to the monk, she raised a barrier of wind in front of them both.

An explosion of light erased the room from her view. She expected the sound to be so intense it would hurt, but nothing came. Winds erupted from the explosion, pressing against her barrier, violent enough to slam someone against the wall and kill them. They were followed by an intense rumbling that reminded her of the first earthquake she’d ever felt at the mountain.

When the trembling ended and the light faded, Saia expected to find the room completely destroyed. The metal triangle was still there, in the same shape as when they’d found it. The floor seemed to curve a bit more, even if it was difficult to tell. The rock underneath was still maintaining its shape, but it was crisscrossed by cracks. Saia wondered how the rest of the structure managed to survive, if the monks were causing those explosions multiple times every day. Or maybe they worked differently from normal explosions.

She let the barrier dissolve when the monk raised her head.

“Who are you?” she yelled at Serit. “What in the world were you doing there?”

“Sorry,” they just whispered. They were so shaken they couldn’t stand without leaning against the wall.

“Everybody knows it’s dangerous to enter this room, even the gray idiots up there.”

Serit recoiled. Saia wanted to push them to ask more questions, but they didn’t seem to be capable of talking at the moment.

Nothing stopped her, though.

"What is this place?" she asked, using Serit's voice. The sound came out from the scarf that kept their lower face hidden.

They brought a hand to their throat, then glared down at their bag.

"Who are you?" the monk asked. "A spy? Why and how did you come here? Who do you work for?”

"It was a mistake," Saia said. "There was an incident at the library, this door opened, so I ran away. What's that thing?"

“Point at it,” she told Serit, but they didn’t move.

“As if I would tell you," the monk growled.

She started to stand, but Saia didn't let her. She put her to sleep and accompanied her fall to the ground with a wind.

"Now? Only now?" Serit said, standing. “You could have done something before she tried to kill me."

"Now we have the perfect excuse," Saia said. “They'll think she hit her head.”

She made her hat fall down, revealing blonde locks. At that moment, she caught a movement in the nearby rooms. A group of people was walking down the corridor toward the vestibule, talking calmly about the explosion as if they'd been expecting it. Saia realized that everyone must have felt it.

"You need to leave," she told Serit.

“Why? What's going on?"

“More monks.”

They stood and stumbled their way to the door. They were so tense that they somehow couldn't figure out how to open it, so Saia had to push it for them. The group of monks tried to open the vestibule’s left door right as Serit was running toward the stairs, but Saia pressed it closed to earn them time. They were already climbing up to the monastery when Saia noticed the documents and the box of tools the monks were holding.

“Wait. Wait a moment."

Serit emitted an exasperated groan as they kept climbing.

"I did enough, don't you think?"

“Please."

They extendend a hand in front of themselves, as if to make sure they weren’t walking into a wall. It passed through thin air.

They stopped and leaned with a shoulder against the wall.

"Tell me when you're finished."

Saia focused on the room. Two monks were assisting the woman on the floor, while the other two approached the triangle of metal.

"Nothing," one of them said, their face one breadth from the gray-green surface.

“Nothing visible,” the other specified. “Come on, let's take the measurements."

Saia waited for them to reach some sort of conclusion. The monk she'd put to sleep was carried to a small infirmary in a corner of a dormitory. The others compared the length and color of the metal to the tools they had at their disposal, mostly other pieces of metal or measuring tape. They left with a somber look on their faces for a nearby room and sat down at a table to write down the measurements they had taken.

"Are you done?" Serit asked.

“Not yet."

She examined the village once more. There had to be something else, a piece of metal and a weird explosion couldn't be everything there was to find. Some gray uniforms couldn't be all that tied that place to the monks of the mountain.

"I've heard something," Serit said.

It was the library door opening in the distance with a scraping of stone against stone. The monks were coming down from the library.

"Wait," Saia said.

"They'll find me. There isn’t another way out. What do I tell them?"

Another scraping sound, this time from one of the rooms. An empty one, right at the end of the secret monk village. A round portion of the rock floor was sliding to the side, revealing a hole beneath.

“At least put them to sleep," Serit whispered, crouching on the side of the staircase.

There was water under the hole, dark, moving like the sea. Something even darker started to emerge.

"I have a better idea," Saia told Serit. "Do you trust me?"

"Do I have a choice?"

“Yes.”

That gave them pause for a second.

“Go on," they said in the end.

Saia put them to sleep, then gently pushed their body into position until it looked like they had fallen from the stairs. The rest of her was focused on the thing emerging from the hole.

The top was a structure of glass that branched in every direction like a tree. It followed the shape of a bigger object underneath. She couldn’t see what it was. Her vision in that spot was somehow blurred. It suggested something dark, similar to one of Iriméze’s flying ships, but extended and elongated in a way that didn’t make sense. The more she looked at it, the more she was convinced it couldn’t pass through the hole, and yet it had almost completely emerged.

“They're here!” one of the descending monks yelled, illuminating Serit’s shape with a torch.

The monks started dragging them up. Saia tried to get her vision closer to the object, but she couldn’t go past the glass sculpture. She aimed at a branch and tried to cut it with her slashing pattern. It hit the wall, two armlengths from the spot she’d been aiming at. She was sure she could hit it next time, but the monks made another step upwards, and the structure slipped away from her domain.

Serit was dragged up all flights of stairs, the monks mumbling curses at them for reaching so far down. Avuru was waiting at the top with her arms crossed. Her gaze mellowed a bit when she saw Serit’s unconscious body carried between two monks.

“I’ve alerted the abbot. We’re going to lock them in their room.”

“It looked like they fell.”

“Then the infirmary first. Don’t put them next to Mayvaru and always keep an eye on them while you’re there.”

They nodded and left. As she was carried along the corridors with them, Saia kept thinking about the monks below. There was a second entrance. Next time, she’d have to go alone.