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kraken, in the light of the mythallar, while the crew of Night’s Secret took aboard New Moons survivors. Brennus eyed the kraken and shook his head.
    “Shar favors you indeed, brother. Forgive me for doubting.”
    Rivalen waved away the apology and ran his fingertips over the mythallar. His touch left fading streaks of shadow on the glowing crystal.
    “I tried to contact it and received no response. It does not appear damaged. What can you see?”
    Brennus cast a series of divinations. With each spell, his expression showed increasing puzzlement.
    Rivalen knew his brother could study a subject for tendays at a time. “Speak, Brennus. What is it?”
    Brennus shook his head. “I am not certain. The mythallar is weakened, though it appears to hold enough power for our purposes. But…”
    “But?”
    “But I cannot elicit even a superficial response from the sentience. For the moment, it’s as inert as any other mythallar.” Rivalen frowned. “Has its mind been destroyed?” Brennus shook his head.
    “No. The intelligence still exists. My spells detect the mind. But it is … torpid.” He looked down on the mythallar in puzzlement. “As if hibernating.” He looked at Rivalen. “To heal, perhaps?”
    “Can we awaken it?”
    Brennus shrugged.
    Rivalen offered his disappointment to the Lady of Loss as sacrifice. Even if the mythallar’s sentience was forever lost, the crystal might still be used.
    “It can serve our purpose, asleep or awake.”
    Brennus nodded absently, still puzzling over the mythallar.
    “I am going below,” Rivalen said.
    Brennus cocked an eyebrow and looked at his brother in astonishment. “Below? Now?”
    Rivalen nodded and removed the ancient Sakkoran coin from his pocket. Thousands more were probably scattered on the sea floor. If he found a quality specimen, perhaps he would add it to his collection.
    Seeing the coin, Brennus jested, “I do not think the kraken will charge you a fee for transport.”
    Rivalen smiled and said, “I want to see the ruins.” Brennus grew solemn, nodded.
    Rivalen lowered himself onto the kraken’s head. Ssessimyth’s flesh was rubbery, cold, and slick, but Rivalen sat on his knees and kept his balance. He took his holy symbol in hand and offered an imprecation to Shar. Magic coursed through him and the tingle in his chest told him the spell had taken effect—he could breathe water.
    He followed with the arcane words to another spell and when he felt the magic charge his hands, he spun shadows from the air and
    shaped them with his fingers into a short rope and a barbed piton as long as his forearm. By the time he was done, both were as solid as if they were real.
    “What are you doing?” Brennus asked, but he must have guessed, for he floated backward a few paces.
    “Remain still,” Rivalen ordered Ssessimyth, and he drove the shadow spike deep into the kraken’s flesh. The gargantuan creature seemed not to notice. Rivalen looped the rope of shadows through the piton’s eye and held both ends in his hands.
    Brennus shook his head and smiled. His fangs—a royal affectation—glinted in the starlight.
    “Descend to the ruins,” Rivalen said to Ssessimyth.
    The kraken immediately dived under the surface and shot downward like a bolt from a crossbow. The terrific speed almost stripped Rivalen from his perch, but his great strength, enhanced by the darkness, allowed him to keep his hold on the shadow rope. He expelled the air from his lungs and inhaled to fill them with water. The ever-present shadows around him held the cold and pressure of the depths at bay.
    Led downward by the soft red glow of the mythallar, the kraken dived for the bottom of the Inner Sea toward a city that had last been in the light of the sun over two thousand years earlier.
    The silence and isolation underwater surprised Rivalen. Sediment clouded the sea, probably churned when the kraken had left the bottom. It was like moving through mist. Rivalen could see only a short