Wistala could smell metal through the hole. She thrust her nose in, following an instinct that wasn’t quite hunger and wasn’t quite lust.
But nothing but dusty darkness met her exploring tongue—though the dust did taste of refined metal.
“Where is it?” she asked, withdrawing her head.
Yari-Tab bunched up in the darkness, eyes widening.
“Where’s what? The hole’s full of it!”
“No, it isn’t. What kind of trick is this?” She felt her griff drop and begin to rattle, and the cat backed away.
“I wouldn’t play a trick on a tchatlassat! Never!”
“Take a look,” Wistala said.
“I . . . I can’t seem to move.”
“Fears and tears, I’m not going to hurt you.”
Wistala lay down in hungry despair, feeling frustrated. After a long moment, the cat padded to the hole and entered.
Yari-Tab reemerged. “The rats. Wouldn’t you know it.”
“What would they use coin for?”
“I’ve never made it past wondering why they eat tail-stinkies that are better off buried, myself.”
“Well, might as well ask them.”
“Ask who?”
“The rats, of course. They took it.”
Her ears went flat. “The rats? Are you frothing? They can only just vocalize. Hardly more sense than mouse-jibber.”
Wistala picked herself up and started back for the sluice. “Are you coming?”
“Do you even understand Rodent?”
“Err—”
Yari-Tab bounded after her. “Then I’m coming. Someone sensible ought to come on this expedition. This story will be worth yowling till it echos, if you pull it off.”
They returned to the opening to Deep Run. They heard rats flee ahead of them as they climbed the dirt pile.
“Inspecting your claw-work.”
“Where to next?” Wistala asked once they climbed down to the pathway beside the muddy water. She saw glittering red rat eyes on a high ledge that ran near the top of the tunnel.
“I don’t know. You instigated this dogbrained hunt. Follow the strongest smells until we corner some.”
This underground felt wrong to her; everything was even and proportioned and unnatural. She felt vaguely tense and unsettled as she explored.
They came to an outpouring of water from some aboveground entry. The fall was about as wide as she was long and fed a swampy mass of tangled water plants, here and there sending out buds on long stems like dragon necks.
“Can you jump that?” she asked, looking at the waterfall. The rats slipped through it under a low, wet overhang of fallen-away masonry.
“No. Too long,” Yari-Tab answered.