The rope lad­der sways pre­car­i­ously from side to side as Gil strug­gles to climb up. He looks down, hop­ing to catch Kiddu’s eye below him, but it’s too dark to see much—which trig­gers his ver­tigo. He clutches the splin­tered wooden rungs, shud­der­ing, try­ing to ban­ish the vision of the bot­tom­less sky from his recur­ring night­mares.

Gil grits his teeth, and pulls him­self up the rest of the way.

He emerges into a small, semi­cir­cu­lar room, lit by four can­dles. Piles of small can­vass bags rest against the the bare adobe walls.

Jaruna is there, fid­dling with his bow, along with two oth­ers—a huge man with a giant wooden club strapped to his back

 

Gil rec­og­nizes the cir­cu­lar emblem of Har­rappa on the man’s head­band and vest. The war­rior catches Gil’s glance and hefts his club over his shoul­der. It prob­a­bly weighs as much as Gil does.

, and a thin man with a broad hat.

 

The man’s hands are hid­den behind his plain robe, prob­a­bly clench­ing some hid­den weapon. Only his eyes move, trac­ing Gil like the hands of an archer aim­ing a bow.

The old man soon pulls him­self out of the hole, fol­lowed by Ayan. Only when Kiddu emerges from the ladder-hole do they tear their eyes away from Gil.

Kripa stalks out of the room into the Temple’s main cham­ber. Hat­van lingers a moment, glar­ing at Kiddu from beneath his broad-brimmed hat, and then fol­lows his com­pan­ion.

Dron­aja pulls up the rope lad­der and unrolls a faded yel­low and blue rug over the hole. He tosses the lad­der in the cor­ner of the room.

Jaruna nods in assent, and Dron­aja walks briskly out of the room too. Then Jaruna heaves a big sigh of relief.

She undoes her ban­dana, flat­tens her copi­ous hair, and reties it to cover. But she misses sev­eral of her dread­locks, and after a few sec­onds her expand­ing hair causes the stretched ban­dana to sling­shot off her head. She picks it up and dusts it off.

Kiddu pulls her dress a lit­tle lower. Now it barely cov­ers her knees. Gil tries not to stare—and notices Jaruna awk­wardly avert­ing his eyes as well.

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