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Lorik rolled his eyes in a very human way. “I shall go, oh mighty Lord of the North. Fates forbid someone accuse you of tampering with our investigation, such as it is.”

Zoran curled his fingers under the handle and heaved it up with a grunt. “Rusty,” he muttered.

The four of them peered down into the darkness. Nyklan held his scanner over the void and switched it to emit a downward light.

“Hold it there,” Lorik said, then he scampered over the edge and climbed down the metal rungs disappearing into the darkness. His feet made an audible thump when he landed and a light swept around the space below. “Nyklan had the right of it. The room is empty.”

“What kind of room is it?” Zoran called.

“Utility control?” The light wavered as Lorik moved around. A moment later, he added, “If a tunnel lies beneath this room, I can find no access point.”

Zoran glanced at Nyklan. “What say you?”

“Only what I know,” his brother by fate replied. “Live power runs from that cable into this point. There may be a tunnel beneath it. Otherwise, I cannot say.”

“Would that we had a clearer sign,” Kaelen grumbled.

“Would that the Fates had not consigned this lot to us,” Zoran replied. “Then we would not now be in a position to decide whether and what action to take.”

“Should any chance exist that the Var’Kol survived—” Nyklan shook his head. “It hardly seems possible.”

“Yet must the possibility be considered.” Zoran clapped his hands to his thighs and stood. “Once more around the planet, then we shall journey home and debate this at the next Council meeting.”

“Where nothing will be decided,” Lorik grumbled as he climbed out of the underground room.

“Something will be decided, even if it is only between the four of us.”

Zoran turned to walk away when some instinct drew his eye to an odd flow of the landscape. He pivoted toward it, approaching it carefully, trying to discern what had caught his eye, then sucked in a sharp breath.

Lorik appeared on his right. “Is that what I think it is?”

Kaelen flowed silently into the space to Zoran’s left. “Shuttlecraft landing marks.”

“Yes,” Nyklan said as he knelt beside the disturbance. “Fairly recent as well.”

“Could it be the Var’Kol?” Lorik said.

“These could have been made by anyone,” Nyklan responded flatly. “Another warlord bringing his clan warriors here to practice maneuvers. A passing trader curious as to what lies within this accursed place.”

“Indeed,” Zoran said. “We shall approach the Warlord Council and investigate further.”

Yet as they walked away, he could not help rubbing his hand across his prickling nape. Something lay amiss in the land of the dead. Only time would tell what form that wrongness took.