Ghelfan sipped his wine and tapped the much-expanded map they had created. It covered the table of the main mess aboard Peggy’s Dream three pages deep, beautifully rendered in the shipwright’s elegant hand. Many levels had yet to be charted, but their goal, the Chamber of Life, was somewhere near the center and below where their existing maps extended. He was sure of it. “It’s about bloody time,” Feldrin said, and Ghelfan could see agreement in Cynthia’s dark-circled eyes. Fatigue and anguish were wearing her thin, so thin that he doubted her complete sanity. “We found inscriptions here, here, and here.” Ghelfan tapped his stylus at three spots on the map in the city’s lowest explored level and equidistant from the center. “All refer to cautions and protocols associated with the Chamber of Life. I believe the chamber itself must be one level below: here.” The area he tapped this time was a void in the center of the map where no patrols had explored—indeed, where no passages delved.
