Waterborne (Wanderlust 3)

Chapter Eighteen

The canal was, Elorie explained, just as old as the pyramids they were going to see. Which meant it was thousands of years old, and still in excellent condition.

At least, the part near the town was. Nearly twice as wide as the Wanderlust, with straight, well maintained stone walls. It wasn't until the second day that they saw why Elorie had said they couldn't take the Wanderlust.

"The stories say it was an earthquake," Elorie explained. "Little ones are common enough in this part of Alvara, but it must have been a big one."

The skeletons of ancient buildings stood on either side of the canal. Collapsed walls slanted into the water, and entire buildings lay across the canal, creating an obstacle course that would have ripped out the bottom of the Wanderlust. Tanden and Soren stowed the Waterborne's sails and used oars to maneuver around the rubble.

There was a sort of sad beauty to the ruins. As he helped row, Tanden saw fish darting between the underwater rubble. Turtles sunned themselves on bits of walls. Long-legged birds strolled in the shallows. On the banks of the canal, trees grew through gaping roofs and windows, and ferns coated crumbling walls.

They rowed between the struts of what had once been a large bridge. Soren had to pull down the mast so it wouldn't get caught in hanging vines. Tanden moved to help him lift it back into place once they had cleared the bridge, and left Jale to work his oar.

Jale asked the question Tanden was thinking. "Do you know if the city was ruined after people had already left?"

Elorie wasn't helping. She sat at the back of the Waterborne, arms comfortably draped over the sides, trailing her fingers in the water. She shrugged. "I don't know. Whoever made this, and the pyramids, maybe they weren't even Alvarian. It was so long ago. Alvarians don't build like this anymore. Every city like this I've ever heard of is in ruins."

Tanden pressed his shoulder against the mast, steadying it while Soren finished with the latches that held it in place. "There are more?"

"I've never seen any others," Elorie said. "I've only heard about them. They're all around Southern Alvara, in the mountains or lost to the jungles. This is the only one on a waterway, I think."

"What about the bridge in the canyon?" Soren asked.

"There might be ruins." Elorie said. "I don't know."

Tanden took his oar from Jale and continued working. "Pre-Alvarian? That's fascinating. There are pyramids in Deorun. I wonder if they're related somehow." He and Soren steered the Waterborne around a line of rubble that looked like it may have been a watchtower. As they came around the other side, the canal took a sharp turn.

The next section of canal was not quite clear of rubble, but it was not nearly as clogged. Tanden thought they could probably lower one of the sails, at least partially, and he was about to call the order out to Soren when something at the very end of the canal caught his eye.

From their distance, it looked like the canal ended at an enormous staircase, the steps sized for giants. But as Tanden's eyes followed the steps up, the outline of the building, partially hidden by trees, came into focus. And once he knew what shape he was looking for, he saw two more, on either side of the canal.

Three pyramids. Massive structures, with stepped sides instead of the smooth Deoran pyramids. Each was topped with a rectangular building that looked a lot like the temples they had seen in Balagaya and Danilaex.

Like the ruins along the canal, each pyramids was covered with vegetation. Trees and hanging vines, ferns and bushes. At first glance there was no visible damage from the earthquake, but they looked sturdy enough to weather anything.