Fantasy or SF book with hieroglyphic puzzle wall?

[oregonjade]

OK, this is one of those vague memories...

a book with one scene where the female heroine has to figure out a puzzle wall in a cave. I believe it had sliding pieces. They (I think a male? Possibly injured? Or two people?) may have traveled through that passage to a abandoned city where there was a spaceship of some sort... or something. And the city may have lit itself, or powered itself, or been alive in some way...

At the time, I was reading a lot of Eric Flint, David Drake, Dave Freer, Mercedes Lackey (though I don't think it was hers), and Elizabeth Peters... it might very well be one of these authors or someone similar.

 

[oregonjade]

bump - still looking, no new info, really...

 

[WickedWitch]

I was drawing a complete blank on this book, and then I suddendly remembered: this scene is at the end of David Brin's Glory Season. This is a very good book about a "lost world" ruled by women, twin teenage girls who are trying to find a job to support themselves, and a (human) male who is sent to learn about their world.

 

[oregonjade]

Hmmm. That one looks interesting, but definitely isn't it. I'm pretty sure there aren't parents involved in this one...

 

[WickedWitch]

The END, not the beginning. Specifically, chapters 23 to 25.