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original word used for ‘magic.’ I translated it as an adjective modifying ‘light.’ There seemed to be justification in a parallel to the next line.”
    He heard a faint growl that he was fairly certain came from Firekeeper and hastened on.
    “The language is archaic. Forms have changed. What if instead of it being ‘magic light,’ it is ‘Magic’s light’?”
    The two foreigners looked as baffled as ever, but Rascal yelped happily, “Moonlight! The Moon is Magic’s body, and so moonlight would be magic’s light.”
    Firekeeper nodded. “I remember your people’s old tales. That makes sense. So this begins to work. Moonlight, reflected, will open the way.”
    “Not so fast,” Blind Seer said. “How then do you explain all of this about reflecting back and back?”
    Firekeeper shrugged, but Powerful Tenderness answered.
    “If the door is silver, then it would reflect back light cast upon it. However, somehow the light must be handled so that it reflects repeatedly. I can see doing that with sunlight, but with something as weak as moonlight?”
    They sat in silence, contemplating.
    “There will be a full moon in a few days,” Firekeeper said at last. “The moonlight will be strongest then. We should at least try.”
    Plik stared up at the waxing moon. “I wonder how the ones who built this door managed to get moonlight into a cellar?”
    “Maybe that’s why the inscription hints at using mirrors,” Powerful Tenderness said. “There could have been a window into the cellar.”
    “It’s all very strange,” Plik said. “I know we came here to let Truth out, but what is this door? Why was it built here? How did Truth—or some part of Truth—come to be on the other side?”
    Rascal cut in, repeating his earlier question. “And why make it so hard to understand the inscription? I know what Blind Seer said—that it was meant to be hard to understand, just like the door was meant to be hard to find—but why?”
    Firekeeper shifted uneasily. “Rabbits and foxes alike hide the entrances to their dens so that they will always be able to escape, but this does not seem to be of the same order. This seems like a door that is not meant to be opened except with great difficulty.”
    Plik knew that Firekeeper had been raised by Royal Wolves, and that the Royal Beasts had as great an aversion to magic as did their northern human counterparts—an amusing parallel, since in all other things the Royal Beasts viewed themselves as in opposition to the humans. Still, Firekeeper surely had heard stories from the old days when magic was still common—and was used by those who ruled humans and annihilated Beasts with equal cruelty.
    The maimalodalum had a different relationship with Magic, but more than did the yarimaimalom or the humans who lived on the mainland, their tales included cautionary ones. After all, the beast-souled themselves had been created from an abuse of magic. Plik wondered if Firekeeper’s thoughts paralleled his own, but she said nothing aloud, so he spoke.
    “I wonder if something is locked away there,” Plik said, “something powerful, perhaps, or merely dangerous, but something so valuable that the ones who built this place did not want to destroy it.”
    “Do we leave it locked away then?” Firekeeper asked, and Plik was fairly certain she would be happy to do so. “If we do, it means abandoning Truth to her madness—or hoping she finds her way back by some other road.”
    Powerful Tenderness looked at the jaguar who had been his charge for over a year now. “Truth has grown worse, not better since we have come to this place. She is like one in whom fever has split the body and soul. I fear that even if we took her from here she would not recover.”
    “I agree,” Plik said. “Whatever is happening to her is not active magic applied against her. I would ‘hear’ that, I am sure. I think her talent for divination is splitting her mind from her body, as once it revealed omens