Silence fell, broken only by heavy breathing. But despite their fierce run, nobody was panting, and Elof felt no more tired than he had before; his limbs had been aching just as badly then. Very slowly he stooped to touch the stone at his foot, and the contact sent a shiver of excitement through him. Cold and bleak it felt, covered with lichen, but its shape, its sharp edges, were regular, formed, made. Then he looked up, and saw that the blackness had turned to gray, but it was the gray of evening, not dawn. Beside him stood Kermorvan and Ils, staring wildly at the immense heap of rocks that loomed up before them, high enough to blot out all else, spreading out like arms on either side to form a small bay or cleft. In a narrow gap at the base of the wall stood Roc, and he was gaping idiotically, not at them but past them. They looked at each other, and as they turned Ils gave a little shriek, and Kermorvan swallowed visibly. The end of the bay was open. Before them, clearcut in the cold air, a vast plain stretched out unbroken to the far horizon, flat and barren save for the frost-twisted remnants of grass and bush. The cold was devastating, the light clear but thin, as if here the sun were forever veiled. In all that chilly emptiness no bird sang, no beast moved, no figure stirred. And of island, of river there was never a trace. They were utterly alone.
Chapter Eight
- Dry Grasses
"So!" said Kermorvan stiffly, as if surprised to find he could speak. He smiled thinly. "I am glad I never doubted your earlier experience, Elof. Here we are, still together, and it seems none the worse for… whatever has become of us."
"So, indeed!" said Ils sharply, fixing Elof and the barren lands beyond in a single impartial glare. "Here we are, and where's here? It still looks like part of Taoune'la to me, and no better than the one we left, with the night drawing in. What Ve we gained?"
"Wherever we are," said Elof absently, gazing around him, "I am sure there is some purpose in it, though we may have to search for it. Perhaps the rocks would offer us some refuge…"
"A perilous one!" snorted Ils. "This whole hill is some huge ancient fall of scree and boulders, with barely enough earth about it to hold stable. It must've hit something, some standing rock or outcrop maybe, to fan out into this little notch."
Elof shook his head. "No outcrop." He tapped the stone he had touched in the darkness, and others strewn about. "This one, that, those over there; weathered, but the shapes are still visible. Something of dressed stone, something manmade… or made, anyhow."
Ils shook her head incredulously. "Strong enough to break that fall?"
"So it would seem," said Kermorvan quietly. "Some of the boulders were shaped also."
Once he had pointed it out, the fact was inescapable. Many of those immense bulks, looming against the cloud-roof, had once been subdued to a shaping hand, and this evidence of its strength held them in awe a moment. Then the rough excitement in Roc's voice broke the spell. "To Hella with those pebbles! Come see what I've found!" They saw him still standing in the gap between two tall stones, staring down as if at something on the ground and beckoning them urgently. He climbed up a little, to squeeze his rounded frame further in; then, with a sudden outraged howl and a deep bouncing, echoing rumble, he vanished. Elof and the others ran to his aid, Ils for once in the lead despite her shorter legs, bounding over the loose rock with sure-footed ease. "Hold on!" she shouted, and flung herself down on the edge of a protruding stone. "See? There's loose rubble everywhere…" But even as she spoke the edge where she knelt collapsed, the stone pulled free and tipped her down into the darkness in a flurry of rock and dust. Kermorvan, leaping up, made a futile grab at her disappearing ankles. A rumble and rattle echoed out of the dark, and a jolting shriek.
"There's rubble indeed!" Roc's sardonic tones echoed eerily out of the dark, and the sound of Ils coughing and swearing, sounding more angry than hurt. "A whole loose slide of it!"
"Are you all right?" Elof yelled.
"Aye, considering!"
"Don't move, we'll pull you up…"
A ghoulish chuckle floated up to them; Ils was evidently undaunted by her fall. "No! Do you come down! There's something you should see. But your eyes will need some light. And mind your head, long man!"
"Come down?" demanded Kermorvan. "To what purpose?" Elof tapped him on the shoulder, and indicated the stones flanking the gap, that had kept it from collapsing
or
being blocked with
debris
. Very worn and weather-scoured they were, those massive tilted slabs, but upon their inner surfaces the remains of neat edging and beveling still showed clear. Kermorvan raised his eyebrows, and nodded.
"Very well! But what can we use for light? We have only our tinderboxes, and what little oil and kindling is in them…"
Elof smiled. "I may be able to do something about that. Wait now!" From within his tunic he pulled his gauntlet of mail, and drew it on in one smooth movement. "One could wish for more sun or brighter, but still… Now where is the west?" Kermorvan pointed, and Elof swung round and extended his hand, as if he would capture in the gem at the center of the gauntlet's palm all the pearled radiance of the westward sky.
"There indeed the sun sinks," said Kermorvan grimly, as he stood waiting, wrapping his cloak round him against the intense cold. "Over Bryhaine, over Nordeney, over all that we have left. All that now depends on us, little though it knows it, upon our quest. And there remain only four of us to fulfill it!"
"The four who threw down the Mastersmith," said Elof quietly, not looking at the tall man.
"I know," Kermorvan answered. "And I think it no accident. Perhaps we were simply the hardiest, the most alert, most accustomed to long and perilous wanderings, most inured to frightening encounters. Perhaps there was something more; who am I to say? But sorely though I regret the others, I could ill have spared any of you. So, since we have come this far together, let us not be parted ere the end!" He stood straighter then, and his gray eyes shone, bleak and grim as the skies, yet as lasting, as untouchable. It was Kermorvan as he had been, and yet not so; it was as if his determination had indeed lost some of its fire, but become thereby all the harder. He had not lost his doubts; but in that awful moment by the fire he had confronted them, defeated them, made good use of them to grow stronger. It was a path Elof knew only too well, a journey he himself had made.
At last, at the end of a long cold half hour, he clamped his fingers tight across the jewel. "Will that suffice?" Kermorvan asked, as he turned to climb back to the gap.
"Even this weak sunlight is far stronger than torch or candle. If I let it out little by little it will last us many hours."
"As long as you can maintain your grip," said Kermorvan, peering doubtfully down into the darkness, and swinging himself into the gap. "I go first, to be sure you do not slip!"
"Very well, but first let us light our way!" He stepped up, and checked as he felt his feet slide out from under him. But in the same instant Kermorvan's steely grip closed on his arm, and he was able to lean forward into the darkness and stretch out his fist.
Slowly, carefully, he relaxed one finger a fraction. Light pooled in his palm, glinting on the metal of the gauntlet, so that it seemed to float disembodied in the blackness. Then the glow began to spread slowly, spilling down the slope of loose rubble to where Roc and Ils, scratched and dishevelled, were awaiting them. Kermorvan swung himself nimbly onto the treacherous slope and moved down it with ease, Elof scuffling one-handed after him and trying not to dislodge too many stones. The air underground seemed fresh and cold as outside, with none of the odors of damp and niter he would have expected; perhaps it was too cold for that.
"Now, Ils," called the warrior as the last of the slope crunched under his boots, "what is in this darksome cavern that you are so eager to show us?"
"For one, what you're standing on!" she said. "Look well!"
Kermorvan scraped idly at the layers of dust and dirt with his boot, then dropped suddenly to one knee. A plain pattern of concentric circles had appeared, in shades of red that shone startlingly rich against the dim dust. "A mosaic floor!" he exclaimed.
"And as fine as any you've trodden, I'll warrant," said Ils. "Save perhaps among my folk. But this is no work of ours I recognize."
Kermorvan rose suddenly and seized Elof by the arm, lifting it high. "And this no cavern, indeed!" A wave of pale light flooded across high smooth walls, glanced upon the angles of vaulting in the roof high overhead. Elof gazed around in astonishment; this was an intact chamber in a building, and of no mean size, at least twenty paces square. And it stood still, under the immense weight of the rock-fall that had shattered its upper levels. For how long had it endured thus? A hundred years? A thousand?
Kermorvan nodded. "A strong building, Elof, as you said. But whose, I wonder, was the strength?"
Elof looked around in astonishment. "I cannot say. But at least it offers some shelter for the night, this place."
"A damned chilly one!" Roc grunted. "At least there's no damp, though, and no nasty things crawling about. Nothing live at all!"
"Not even lichens and molds," muttered Ils. Her wide nostrils flared, and she sniffed. "And I smell no bats, which is odd; they love such places as these. The lands about must be too hostile for them. But as for us," she added, "there's just one little thing more…" She pointed to the darkness at the rear, and Elof, retrieving his arm from Kermorvan, sent light in the path of her gesture. The sudden flooding glow revealed a wide gap between floor's end and far wall, a well of blackness beneath.
"Stairs," said Ils laconically. "Used to be covered by slabs of this mosaic; see their fragments strewn about it now. And as for where they lead, well, it's too black even for my eyes down there. But the air's fresh enough, in fact it's flowing this way. What'd that suggest to you, now?"
"A tunnel…" said Elof, and whistled softly.
"You thinking what I am?" demanded Roc.
Kermorvan thumped fist into palm. "Kerys! This is the purpose in bringing us here! This is what we are meant to find!"
Elof frowned. "Perhaps. But where can it lead? Around us there is only the Waste, and this hill of stones."
"They must have fallen from somewhere," Roc pointed out. "A high place we were too deep down in that cleft to see…"
"So sudden a rise in this flat land?" mused Kermorvan. "Elof is right to doubt. A tunnel it may be, but how long? Will we have light enough? We should go back outside, and scout…" His voice tailed off. Beyond the gap the glimmer of sky had vanished, and there was now only blackness. Night had come again to the Withered Marches, and it brought them deep unease.
"Looks like we'd better camp down here, then, and wait for morning," muttered Roc. But he sounded less than happy with the prospect, and cast a suspicious glance at the sliver of darkness above. "Doesn't seem much shelter now, though…"
Elof agreed. "Not open thus to the night, and with a second unknown darkness beneath us. And we cannot even build a fire here."
Kermorvan nodded feelingly. "A tunnel may lead down or up! I think before we decide to rest, we should at least have some idea what lies below. We may find some corner there that is safer, or at least more easily watched."
Ils shrugged. "I'm ready enough. And I confess, the further I am from that black sky, the happier I'll be."
"Then we will take a morsel of food, and explore it ere we rest," said Kermorvan. "But Elof, hoard that light of yours, and warn us when it grows dim! Its last glimmer is our lifeline!"
When they had eaten a little and rested, it was with drawn sword that Kermorvan led them down the stairs. Behind him, as he commanded, came Elof, arm outstretched and already beginning to ache, and with him, her large eyes peering eagerly into the darkness, was Ils, whose duergar strength could best support him if he lost his footing on the rubble-strewn surfaces. Roc brought up the rear, casting many a nervous glance back at the shadows that rushed in as the light passed on. It was no easy descent, for though cut into hard stone the steps were narrow and steep and hollowed with wear, and at the top they were strewn with rubble that had spilled down. Very deep that stair led them, angling this way and that, so that the travelers never knew what to expect round the next corner. But for long there were only more stairs, till at last it came as a jolt to find the next step as level as the last, and hear the faint echoes of their footfalls go fluttering away into air grown suddenly wider, cooler. The stair had become a level corridor, its rounded roof supported by arches whose plainness gave no clues to their builders. Through other arches other descending stairs opened into it, but at its end, only a few paces away, there was a wall of blackness. Elof's light reached no further into it than the fringe of an enormous flagstone, and yet somehow, perhaps through a change in air or sound, the impact of space and emptiness beyond was as tangible as a wall. Involuntarily Elof clenched his fingers, and the light vanished. Quickly he held up the gauntlet again, and as he did so it clinked against metal; something creaked, slow and harsh, startlingly loud in the corridor.
"
What was that
?" hissed Kermorvan. Hastily Elof turned the light that way, and saw the warrior's tense shoulders relax a little; heavy hinge sockets protruded from the wall, and dangling from them the sorry fragments of what must once have been a strong gate. But as he stepped out into the space beyond, Kermorvan's manner was still watchful, and Elof, following him, saw why.