A drear day followed for Hero and Eldin, one which hardly brightened at all past dawn, but continued the same, in gray drizzle and rolling banks of mist, until evening. Then the weather changed (albeit slightly) for the better; the descending sun, falling far to the south-west, seemed finally to burn its way through cloud-layers high and low, drying out the steamy earth; evening's first stars became visible like ghost-lights in the sky, phosphorescent fire trapped high overhead. Or, as Eldin described it:
“It's like lying on your back in a bowl of thin milk, staring up at fireflies floating on the surface.”
“Never tried it,” said Hero, “but I'm sure you're right. Just as soggy, too!”
They'd put on a change of clothes, were drying out their first sets on a pole over the remains of a cooking fire built in the mouth of a shallow cave. Supper had consisted of roasted rabbit and crusts of dry bread, washed down with tepid tea: satisfying, if not especially savory. Now, as night drew in, the fire was dying into its own embers, and the pair had no plans to replenish it. Its low flicker illuminated the mouth of their cave with yellow light.
One hundred yards away in the same quarry, there was another cave, deeper and darker than this one. But then, there were many caves. The quarry was honeycombed with old onyx works.
“How long has it been?” Hero asked morosely, of no one in particular.
Eldin answered anyway. “Four days and three nights, this being the fourth. On the first night we lost our yak.”
“
You
lost our yak!” Hero accused. “Tethering it to the merest twig like that. Ate the twig and bolted, didn't it.” It wasn't a question, just a statement of fact. “We were lucky we'd unloaded the beast.”
“Trained!” Eldin scowled.
“Huh!”
.
“Trained, I tell you!” the Wanderer insisted. “That damned Inquanokky who sold us the scrawny beast ⦠I'll wager he's sold that same yak a dozen times before ever we bought it! And the first chance it getsâoff like a homing pigeon. Right now, it'll be back in a field with the rest of the pack.”
“Herd,” said Hero.
“'Course you did,” said Eldin. “Else you're deaf as a post.”
Hero ignored him. “Second night, we
could
have had a room at that farmhouse.”
Eldin shuffled a bit where he sat. “Well, we did all right,” he said under his breath.
“We slept in a leaky barn!” Hero barked. “Because
you
kept ogling the old boy's daughtersâwho were ugly as hell anyway!”
Eldin knew it was true so didn't argue this point. Instead he made one of his own. “Now
last
night,” he said, “that must have been the worst of the lot! It drizzled on and off and neither one of us got a decent kip, taking turns to watch and all. Dry one minute and soaked the next, turning myself round by the fire to warm all sidesâlike a chicken on a spit. This morning I felt three-quarters poached! You and your too-fertile imagination. Augen and augers and auguries, indeed!”
“It was uncomfortable, guaranteed,” said Hero. “But this morning we both had marrow in our bones, right? It was the fire kept him awayâ”
“âif he was anywhere nearâ”
“âand the fact that one of us was alert at all times.”
“Eh? Alert?” Eldin looked mildly surprised. “Ah, alert! Oh, yesâof course.”
“What?”
Hero howled, jumping up and nearly cracking
his head on the cave's ceiling. “Tell me you're joking!”
“Er, I'm joking. Yes,” said Eldin.
“Tell me right now, this moment!”
“But I alreadyâ”
“Are you saying you didn't keep your watch? Is that what you're saying?”
“I mean, I didn't lie down, you understand,” he held up his hands placatingly. “I
was
sitting up!”
“Sitting up? Sitting up asleep? It's a wonder you weren't
eaten
up! And me lying there, unconcerned, because I knew that good old faithful Eldin was keeping watch!”
“We had a damn great roaring
fire
!” Eldin finally exploded. “Old Augeren's afraid of light, remember?”
“But we don't know that for sure.”
“We know it sure enough that tonight we're deliberately luring the bugger by
not
keeping a fire!”
“Tonight's different,” Hero said, his disgust visibly mounting. “Tonight we've a cave at our backs. Tonight we'll be awakeâboth of usâall night. Or will we? I mean, I'm damned if I know whether to trust you any more. I can't believe it, don't
want
to believe it. Sleeping on the job like that. You, my dearest, most faithfulâ” He nearly choked on that last word, turned away.
Eldin felt bad, stood up. It seemed he'd really done it this time. It wasn't deliberateânever thatâbut the fire had been so warm! “I mean,” he said, “âdamn me, lad, but I didn't actually, well,
sleep
. I just probably nodded off a bit, that's all.”
Hero kept his back turned, allowed his head to droop tiredly, let his broad shoulders slump. He made no answer, but merely sighed.
“I meanâ” Eldin was desperate now, “is there no way I can make it up to you?”
Hero's shoulders slumped more yet.
“I'd do almost anything ⦔
“Anything?” Hero straightened up a little but didn't look at the other.
“Anything, aye,” said Eldin gruffly. He put his hand tentatively on the younger quester's shoulder.
Hero turned and grinnedâa grin like the jerk of the line that fixes the hook in the fish's mouth. “Very well,” he said. “There's an hour yet to full dark. I'm getting an hour's shut-eye while
you
keep watch. Wake me up when the last embers are dead, right?”
“Why ⦠you â¦
you
!” Eldin hissed. “Of all theâ”
Hero's eyes widened in warning. He tilted his head up and out into the night, said:
“Shhh!
Listen!”
Eldin held his breath, listened, heard ⦠something!
“He's ⦠that way,”
Hero whispered, casually stooping, pouring water from the kettle on to the fire's embers. Steam rose up, hissing to match his whispering:
“Probably hasn't seen you, just me. The night wind's from his direction, so he's unlikely to have heard us either. Keep back, out of sight. Let him come. And when he jumps me, you jump him!”
Hero was right. The older quester stood further back in the cave and to one side of the fire, and the soundâa slithering of pebbles in the dark, a furtive scraping of stoneâhad come from along the foot of the old diggings. Who or whatever it was, out there in the night, might not have seen Eldinâbut he would certainly have seen Hero.
Eldin shrank back, became one with the shadows of the cave. His sword came out of its scabbard easy as silk, soundlessly. All clowning was done now, buffooning and mock-arguments put aside. This was for
real. When it came to stealth, Eldin was like a cat in the dark. And when it came to acting, never a one like Hero.
He was acting now, playing the role of the lone traveler, maybe a prospector, making camp out here in the misty night after a long day's panning or grubbing. He stood tall, threw up his arms and stretched, apparently easing his joints. Then he yawned, long and audibly, and scratched himself for a moment before hunkering down and pulling a blanket round his shoulders. He hadn't killed the fire completely; red embers made his face ruddy, glinted on the steel he shielded with his blanket. In one hand a knife, and in the other a sharpened stake!
Eldin couldn't help but admire his partner. Cool as a cucumber, Hero, but sharp as a razor. Why, just listen to him now: whistling away to himself, however tunelessly, and keeping away the night's evil spirits. All except one â¦
There came more sounds: shale sliding, a low pantingâa sob! Thenâ
Something rushed, floundered out of the dark. A ragged thing, long arms reaching. Swift as thought, it fell on Hero!
Hero tried to turn as the thing crushed his huddled figure down. He tried to direct his sharp stake; failed, as desperately strong arms clutched him tight.
Heart in mouth, Eldin pounced.
“Son! Son! Is that you?” the ragged apparition hugged Hero in its smothering embrace. “Ah, my boyâmy
dear
boy! I thoughtâ”
Eldin grabbed the gabbling thing's hair and yanked; at the same time, Hero got his muscles bunched under him and came erect. The night-comer was sent flying, sprawling, and in the next moment the questers were on
him. Eldin's sword went aloft, twin-gripped in hands like a pair of hams; Hero's stake was poised on high as he slid on his knees in scree and pebbles beside â¦
Beside the prone body of a pale, frightened, red-eyed man!
Still taking no chances, Eldin lowered the point of his sword to the stranger's throat. Hero balanced his stake over the man's heart, applied enough pressure to hold it there.
The red eyes in the white mask of a face went from Hero to Eldin, back to Hero. “Not ⦠not my son?” said the stranger, quite obviously a man of Inquanok. Tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. “Then he's surely dead!”
Hero tossed his stake aside, put away his knife, cradled the sharp-featured, strong-backed quarrier in his arms. The man sobbed like a child. Eldin, less certainly, sheathed his sword.
“Dead?” said the Wanderer. “Your son? I don't know about that, but
you
certainly came close!”
“Careful, old lad,” Hero's voice was low. “Show some compassion. He's about at wit's end.”
“My son! My poor boyâtaken by Augeren!” the man sobbed. Blindly he pushed Hero aside, crawled wearily to the fire's embers, let his unashamed tears fall into them. Behind those tears, his eyes were shrouded in horror.
Hero and Eldin stared at each other, followed their visitor to the fire. Hero blew on the embers, got some fresh sticks of dry timber going. As the shadows fled the cave, he said: “You'll be hungry, perhaps?”
“Starved,” the stranger answered. “I've spent the whole dreary day searching for my boy.” His eyes focused. He looked at Hero and Eldin and slowly his gaze
turned bitter. “You'll be the two outsiders, questers come to kill the beast.
Hah!
”
Hero gave him dried meat, filled the kettle from a skin and put it on the fire. “We have to find him, before we can kill him,” he said.
“Anyway,” said Eldin, “don't go blaming us for your son's disappearance, or death, or whatever. We weren't with him. You were!”
The man hung his head, sobbed between his knees.
Hero gave Eldin a dig in the ribs with his elbow, asked: “Did you actually see this Augeren? Maybe you'd better tell us all of it ⦔
The stranger got himself under control, ate meat and a little dry bread. Then, while Eldin brewed tea and Hero built the fire a little higher, he told his tale.
“I'm not actually a quarrier,” he began, “but I do have an eye for onyx. My name's Geeler Maas, and I work for a handful of sculptors in Inquanok who carve figurines and other small, intricate ornaments. They'll accept only the finest onyx, which I supply. I find it in the old diggings, fragments too small to have any real commercial valueâto your average quarrier's or merchant's standards, anyway. Sometimes I'll see a piece just lying there; at others there'll be a vein almost worked out, but showing a special luster only an expert can recognize. It's slim pickings, but I'm my own boss. My family eats well enough, anyway. My ⦠my family ⦔ And his mouth and chin quivered a little.
Hero passed him a small stone mug of hot tea. “Go on,” he said, after a moment.
“I was training my son in the business,” Geeler at last continued. “My son, Ilfer. One day, Ilfer Maas was going to be a dealer in fine marbles, rare onyxes and agates â¦
“Anyway, this was his fourth or fifth trip out with
me, and he was getting good at it. But pickings were especially poor this time, and we'd stayed out longer than normal. Last night, what with the miserable weather and all, I was in a bit of a mood. I'd got this bottle of muth-dew to warm my bones, which I'd drawn fromâjust a drop, you understandâeach night. Alas, last night I ⦠may my ancestral gods forgive me!”
“You swigged the lot, eh?” Eldin guessed. “Well, and you'll not be the first who fell foul of muth!”
“When I woke up this morning,” Geeler continued, “first lightâIlfer was gone. No sign of a struggle, just his blankets, empty, clay cold. He'd been gone for hours. I thought: âMaybe he couldn't sleep! Or perhaps he's gone to fetch wood for a fire, or else just stretching his legs.' I called and called for him, wandering here and there, until I was forced to one final conclusion. Augeren had got him! After that ⦠I chased about until I was near exhausted, yelled myself hoarse, maybe went a little mad. Then I saw your fire. And for a moment I thought, hoped, prayed â¦