Destiny

Chapter 10

Her dreams were filled with sky.

A strong breeze sang in her ears and played over her bare arms and legs. It was both pleasant and shockingly chilly. She walked along a narrow marble causeway surrounded on all sides by open blue sky. Neither end of the path was visible; the marble simply blended into the sky before and behind. On each side stone monuments reared up, each shaped vaguely like an elf. She amused herself by affixing identities to the amorphous blocks: Alhana, delicately slim, strong as steel; Samar, standing so rigidly at attention his back might snap from the strain; Porthios, lean and angular, turned slightly away from the causeway. The flowing figure with arms spread wide could only be Gilthas. But what of the gnomish shape at his side? As she studied it, the rounded block moved, the egg-shaped head turning. It had her face.

Kerian flinched awake. She was still surrounded by sky, but this was no dream. A chilly wind chapped her face. She was leaning forward against Eagle Eye’s neck. Below her dangling fingers the wastes of Khur whirled by, their pale brown color gone gray by starlight. After sunset, she had cinched her saddle straps tight and allowed herself to nap. Eagle Eye snorted and bobbed his head, sensing his rider was finally awake.

Clouds billowed around them, blue-white in the starlight.

Khur did not often play host to clouds, and she immediately wondered if Eagle Eye had veered off course. A check of the stars and the horizons fore and aft confirmed it. Without her watchful hand on the reins, the strong headwind had pushed Eagle Eye slightly eastward, toward the Gulf of Khur, the horn-shaped bay west of the Khurman Sea. Proximity to the sea accounted for the clouds.

Khuri-Khan near the west coast of the gulf. She loosened the reins from the saddle horn and turned Eagle Eye southwest. The griffon’s wings rose and fell in a smooth rhythm. His eye injury had slowed him only a short while. He had adapted quickly, although he continued to favor the injured side. They should reach Khuri-Khan well before midnight. Kerian was pleased. She had no time for diplomacy or combat. She intended to swoop into the night-cloaked city, locate Sa’ida, and wing away again as quickly as possible.

The coast appeared, lines of breakers foaming white under Eagle Eye’s left wing. Kerian followed the coastline until the sprawling, manmade mountain that was Khuri-Khan appeared. Gilthas had admired the city’s alien beauty the squat towers and encircling wall built of native stone, strengthened by a facing of tiles glazed in creamy shades or bold, primary hues. He had a taste for the exotic, even though he lived austerely. For her part, Kerian found the city gaudy, and crude. The fine Temple of Elir-Sana was the only structure she found at all attractive.

Her eye was drawn to the dark scar that marred the land west of the city-all that remained of Khurinost, the tent city that had been the elves’ home for five years. Burned and thoroughly looted, the makeshift city was only a field of ashes standing out starkly against the pallid desert sand.

She steered Eagle Eye down into the lowest layer of clouds. By remaining within their shelter for as long as possible she would be hidden from observers on the ground and from the sentinels on the city wall. When griffon and rider emerged from the cloud, they were well inside the city’s outer defenses.

The Khuri yl Nor, the “Palace of the Setting Sun’ frowned down on the city from atop its artificial hill. Markets, known as souks, were paved with terra cotta, making them stand out as pink patches against the dark sea of rooftops. All were empty at this hour. The Temple of Elir-Sana glowed like a pearl on a bed of coals. Its dome, thirty-five feet in diameter and made of a single piece of pale blue marble, was truly a marvel. None knew how the long-ago Khurs had managed to polish marble to the thickness of a fingernail then raise the delicate dome into place. Farther down the ceremonial street were the other temples of Khur’s gods. The spiky towers of the sanctuary of the fierce desert deity Torghan had been built to resemble upthrust spears. Sacred flames billowed from tower tops at several temples, but there were no people in sight on any of them.

At her command Eagle Eye spread his broad wings and glided in, silent as an owl descending on its prey. The low wall surrounding the Temple of Elir-Sana was decorated by brass chimes. The griffon’s rear claws missed the chimes by inches, and he alighted inside the temple enclosure, Kerian dismounted, a little dizzied by the sudden cessation of motion after such a long flight. She bent her knees and stretched her back, glad to be on firm ground again. She led Eagle Eye to a small pool of water in the courtyard and let him drink. When he finished, she fed him from the store of food in one saddlebag. He caught the skinned rabbit she tossed and bolted it down in a single gulp. She threw him another, the last. It was a lot of meat for the hungry elves in Inath-Wakenti to sacrifice, but it wouldn’t do for her mission to fail because of Eagle Eye’s hunger. Her own pangs she ignored.

Tying the griffon to a stanchion by the pool, Kerian headed for the temple’s entrance. As she did so, she heard a scuffling sound and saw movement on one of the buildings outside the wall. Something darted away into the shadows. She stared at the spot a long time. Was it an errant husband, a prowling cat, or a spy? Unable to discern more, Kerian hurried on.

The temple door had no knocker. Instead, a brass chime, gracefully formed, hung on the doorpost. Kerian struck it once. The sound was lovely but faint. As she started to ring it again, the door swung inward. A young acolyte stood in the opening, a fat candle in one hand.

“Who calls at such an ill-fated hour?” she grumbled.

“I have urgent business with your holy mistress. Let me in please.”

“The holy lady sees no one at this hour—”

Firmly but gently, Kerian put a hand on the acolyte’s chest and pushed her back through the deep portal.

“I’ve no time for manners. The lives of thousands are at stake.” Not to mention the life of her brave, misguided husband. “I would not intrude otherwise. Rouse your mistress now, or I’ll do it myself.”

The girl eyed her silently. The Lioness had left her heavy cloak on Eagle Eye’s saddle. The acolyte saw a leather-clad tattooed Kagonesti whose short, burnished gold hair stood out in disarray around a face chapped brick-red by the wind. Despite the weariness that darkened Kerian’s brown eyes, the girl also saw the resolve in them.

“Very well.” The acolyte departed, her white geb swirling around her ankles as she strode swiftly away.

Alone Kerian attempted to contain her impatience. Elir-Sana might be a Khurish deity, but Kerian would not defile her house by stomping to and fro, much as she might itch to do just that. Another short, thick candle provided the only light in the antechamber. The air was as Kerian remembered it—clean and fresh, unlike the incense-heavy atmosphere in most shrines—and she could hear the gentle rise and fall of singing, muffled by the thick stone walls However late the hour, the Temple of Elir-Sana was not sleeping.

When she rested a hand on her sword hilt, another thought occurred to her: weapons were not allowed here. She unbuckled her sword belt and wrapped the belt around the scabbard. Her desire not to offend ended there. She tucked the sword beneath one arm. She wouldn’t surrender her blade.

A quartet of priestesses arrived. Older than the girl who had answered the door, each carried a wooden staff as thick as her wrist. Although they leaned on the staffs like walking sticks, Kerian had no doubt the priestesses had been summoned in case the temple required protection. The four didn’t speak, apparently content to stand and stare at her forever. She could barely restrain herself. If Sa’ida didn’t come soon, she would search the stone pile room by room.

“It is not lawful to bring weapons within.”

Kerian recognized the low, slightly husky voice immediately. Sa’ida, high priestess of Elir-Sana, appeared out of the gloom, trailed by the young doorkeeper. The stern look on the holy lady’s face changed to astonishment as she took in the sight of her late-night visitor.

“Lady Kerianseray?” she exclaimed. “Venea said an armed elf had entered. She didn’t say it was you!”

“I didn’t introduce myself.”

Sa’ida dismissed the somber foursome of priestesses. “You surprise me. I never thought to see you again.”

“I surprise myself, Holy Mistress.” Kerian’s gaze flickered toward the acolyte. Taking the hint, Sa’ida sent Venea away.

The last time priestess and Kagonesti warrior had met, the elves still dwelled in the tent settlement by the city wall. Gilthas had sent Kerian to learn what Sa’ida, leader of the esteemed priestesses of Elir-Sana, might know of the purportedly mythical Valley of the Blue Sands. In the temple courtyard, Kerian and her escort, Hytanthas Ambrodel, had been set upon by murderous Khurs. Sa’ida herself had identified the men as followers of the Torghan sect; she recognized the crimson condor tattoo that marked the would-be killers.

When they were alone, Kerian drew a deep breath and said, “I am sorry to intrude, but I come on a vital mission for my people—to ask you to come back with me to the Valley of the Blue Sands.”

To forestall the expected argument, she gave the priestess no time to reply, but immediately launched into an explanation of the valley’s haunted nature, how no animals lived there, and that thousands of elves were slowly starving.

“It is a sad tale, but I’m no farmer,” Sa’ida said when Kerian finally paused.

“You’re a healer, and many are sick. You have the power of holy magic. You can banish the spirits that keep animal life from flourishing.” Kerian swallowed, fighting her emotions. “And you can save the Speaker of the Sun and Stars:’

She described Gilthas’s illness and explained the elf healers could do little more than slow the human malady’s inevitable victory. Since the Speaker had most likely contracted the disease in Khurinost, didn’t Sa’ida have an obligation to help him overcome it?

The priestess shook her head. “You have my sympathy, lady, and as always, my admiration for your courage, but I cannot leave the sacred confines of the temple for so long. I took an oath to dwell here.”

“You need be gone only a few days.” Kerian told her that Eagle Eye was waiting in the courtyard. He would take them both there and back in short order.

“Fly!” Sa’ida paled. “Human beings are not meant to fly!”

The Lioness dryly agreed with her. “But in this case you must make an exception. I beg of you.”

“I cannot,” Sa’ida said, not without regret. “I am sorry.”

Kerian persisted employing all the arguments she had marshaled during the long flight south and repeatedly assuring the priestess that Eagle Eye would bring her back to the temple as soon as possible. But Sa’ida would not be budged. The situation in Khuri-Khan was volatile, she explained. Even if her vows did not preclude it, her absence at such a time might be used as an opening for greater violence. She sympathized with the elves’ predicament. She offered to prepare special nostroms for the Speaker, but she would not go with the Lioness to the forbidden valley.

Their exchange was interrupted by a commotion outside. The chime had rung, and the acolyte, Venea, went to open the door. As it swung inward, a gout of flame came with it, setting the girl’s gown on fire. She fell screaming to the floor. Hands spread wide, Sa’ida shouted a brief spell and the flames died. The priestess called for aid as loud voices sounded outside.

Kerian rushed to close the door but found the opening blocked by a pile of blazing debris. Beyond it, highlighted by the flames, were several figures. They hurled javelins at her, crying, “Laddad! Spawn of evil! Give us the foreigner to kill!”

The four guardian priestesses arrived. Together, they and the Lioness shoved the heavy panel closed and secured it. One of guardians panted, “Holy Mistress, those are men! Men in the sacred compound!”

“Not only men,” Sa’ida said grimly. “Followers of Torghan!”

She ordered the temple sealed. Kerian expected the women to race about, shutting doors, but they did not. They remained where they were, each woman lifting her clasped hands to her chin. Their lips moved in silent invocation. Distant slams began to echo through the temple. The structure was windowless with only a handful of entrances. The multiple banging sounds meant more was happening than the mere shutting of physical portals.

When the clamor ended, Sa’ida rounded on Kerian. “You brought them here!” she charged.

“Never! My mission is secret!”

“It is secret no longer. The Sons of Torghan must have been watching the goddess’s house.”

The high priestess spoke in low tones to her followers. The other women departed. Turning to Kerian, Sa’ida said, “Not since the dragon’s day has this place been so violated. You must leave at once!”

“Every time I come to this place, I’m set upon by Torghanist fanatics!” Kerian snapped back. Striving for a calmer tone, she added, “Who do you think they fight for, their god or their paymaster?”

The high priestess was concerned for her temple and its inhabitants, but Kerian’s point was well taken. Both of them knew Nerakan coin was behind much of the Khurs’ supposed religious outrage.

“My apologies, Lady Kerianseray. You are blameless,” Sa’ida said. “You must go before they breach the wards we have erected. If they do not find you here they will not dare further outrages against this temple.” Given time, clerics of Torghan could overcome the protective spells. So could certain orders of Nerakan Knights.

“Your beast is in the courtyard.” Kerian didn’t ask how Sa’ida knew that but had no doubt she was correct. “I will drive them back, and you can reach him. Your destiny lies in the Silent Vale, not here. Good luck to you and your people.”

Kerian believed a wise warrior made her own luck. If Sa’ida wouldn’t come willingly, Kerian would get her by hook or by crook. Once the holy lady was in Inath-Wakenti, once she saw their suffering, she would understand how great was their need and would forgive her rash act. The Lioness drew her sword as Sa’ida turned toward the entrance. She would have to choose her moment carefully.

Kerian counted to three, and Sa’ida threw open the door. A wall of bright blue light surrounded the temple. In the courtyard beyond that protective barrier skulked a gang of masked Khurs armed with clubs and daggers. As the women emerged, the Khurs set up a shout.

“Don’t worry,” Sa’ida said. “We can pass through the barrier, but they cannot.”

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than Kerian grabbed her wrist and dashed through the shimmering blue wall. They were on the other side before Sa’ida could catch her breath.

A Torghanist attacked with a club. Kerian parried high, swept under his upraised arm, and thrust through his chest. A second man stepped in, aiming a dagger at her belly. A heartbeat later, his severed hand, still gripping the knife, lay on the ground. Shocked by their comrades’ quick defeat, the Khurs edged back but continued to pace the women as Kerian made for her griffon.

Sa’ida hissed, “You know you cannot force me! Let me go!”

“I’m sorry. In the valley you will see.”

The priestess’s wrist seemed to turn to smoke. One moment, she was in the Lioness’s grip; in the next, she was free. Before she could flee, a Torghanist ran up behind her, dagger raised high. Kerian lunged, knocking the woman out of the dagger’s path. Her sword caught the Khur in the throat, but the need to shove Sa’ida out of the way had thrown off her aim. Rather than a killing stroke, she scored a bloody line across his neck. He drove his own weapon’s point toward her shoulder.

Her reflexes saved her life, but the dagger pierced her high on the right arm. Kerian aimed a backhanded stroke at her attacker, and the Khur’s head went flying from his shoulders.

More than two dozen Torghanists swarmed into the courtyard. Judging by the torches outside the wall, even more were gathered in the street. Their spies must have summoned every loyal Son of Torghan in the city.

Sa’ida sat on the ground, dazed. Blood trickled from a cut on her forehead. Kerian hauled her to her feet.

“If you want to keep living, come with me!”

The woman was too dazed to answer. Kerian whistled shrilly and was answered by a loud and even more piercing cry. Following the sound, the Lioness spotted Eagle Eye on the far side of the courtyard. The four foolish Torghanists who had tried to subdue him lay torn and bleeding at his feet. Catching sight of Kerian, he reared and rent the air with another shriek. He came galloping to her, awkward on the ground but too fearsome to be stopped.

He bent his forelegs to allow Kerian to heave Sa’ida aboard.

A weak, “No, no,” came from the priestess.

The Torghanists were converging on them. Griffon or no griffon, they knew the penalty for allowing their prey to escape. An arrow flickered past Kerian’s nose. She wrapped the reins around her fist as a group of men entered the gate in the wall. They weren’t Khurs. They wore western clothes. One was tall and gray-bearded. The others carried crossbows. Nerakans!

The bowmen suddenly turned their faces away, and Sa’ida cried, “Your eyes!”

The warning came too late. A tremendous flash filled the courtyard, and an unseen force slammed into Eagle Eye, knocking him onto his side and spilling his passengers to the pavement. A mass of shouting Torghanists rose up like a black wave and engulfed them. Dazed, blind from the flash, Kerian felt her sword snatched away. A rough burlap sack was dragged down over her head, her hands bound in heavy cords. Blows rained down on the sack, and the fight was over.

Hytanthas lay still, cheek pressed to the cold tunnel floor. A dull boom had awakened him, and he wondered whether it was real or yet another hallucination. Wandering in the tunnels, he had found himself prone to all sorts of imaginings. He’d heard approaching footfalls, the clatter of rocks, whispering voices, even the clang of metal on metal. All proved to be unreal.

For a time he’d kept the light globe burning constantly. Each time it went out, he struck it to rekindle its light, but the resulting glow was weaker and weaker. Inevitably he struck it too hard and the outer shell cracked. Whatever volatile spirit had been held inside escaped, the stream of faintly luminescent purple smoke flitting away down the tunnel. When it was gone, the darkness again closed in.

By then Hytanthas hardly cared. Prowling the endless dark was leaching away his sanity and his resolve. Once he had been hungry and thirsty. Those appetites had dulled. He no longer wondered at his strange inability to see in the dark. Time itself was meaningless. He had no idea how long he’d been down here. Perhaps the exit he sought did not exist. Perhaps he was dead and did not realize it yet. Was that how the apparitions in the valley had come to be? Was he just another of those spirits, doomed to roam the blackness for all eternity?

A second boom sent vibrations through the stone beneath his cheek and blasted away his despair. That was no hallucination! That was real!

He hurried down the passage, seeking the source of the sound. Friend or foe, it didn’t matter. He could not remain alone in this terrible place.

The sound of a voice came to his ears. It was speaking his own language! He shouted, “Hello! Hello, can you hear me?”

After a long moment of heart-pounding silence, the single voice replied, “Who said that? Where are you?”

He gave his name and rank. Another interval of silence ensued; then a different voice said, “This is the Speaker. What proof can you give that you are Hytanthas Ambrodel?”

The notion that his sovereign might also be lost in the tunnels did not dampen Hytanthas’s relief. He was so glad not to be alone, he nearly wept. He named his father and mother, sketched his service in Qualinesti and Khur, and related how he’d been transported to the tunnels by the lights of Inath-Wakenti and had been awakened by the Lioness’s voice.

“Where are you, Great Speaker?” he asked.

“A long way away.” The reply came only after a long pause.

Hytanthas didn’t believe it. The Speaker must be close since they could converse. “I’m coming to you, sire!” he cried.

He began to run. Every two dozen steps he called out to the Speaker again, assuring Gilthas he was on the way. When he tripped on the loose debris covering the tunnel floor, he picked himself up and went on, never slackening his pace. The Speaker called to him, but he ran wildly, and it wasn’t until after his third such fall that he heard the Speaker say, “Take care! I am on the surface, not underground and I fear I may be miles away from you.”

It seemed ridiculous. Hytanthas had heard of mountaineers conversing across wide valleys by using echoes, but surely this was different. He heard no echoes, only the strange delay before the Speaker’s answers. Still, he heeded the Speaker’s words and slackened his pace, trying to look around and choose his path more carefully.

“Where are you, sire?”

“On a wide stone platform in the center of the valley”—some words were lost—“Where are you?”

Rather plaintively Hytanthas explained he didn’t know exactly where he was but thought himself in one of the tunnels under the valley.

Conversing back and forth, they established that each could hear the other better now than when they’d begun. it seemed Hytanthas might be closing the distance between them. The young warrior began counting paces softly. He’d left five thousand behind when Gilthas spoke again, sounding much closer. In fact, Hytanthas could hear his sovereign’s teeth chattering.

“The air above this disk is cold indeed,” the Speaker confirmed. “Too cold to be natural.”

“How fare the people?” asked Hytanthas slumping down to rest for a moment.

Holding on, said Gilthas. Food was dwindling fast. Porthios, Alhana, and most of the warriors had departed for Qualinesti, and Lady Kerianseray had flown off to bring back Sa’ida to help ward off the ghosts and will-o’-the-wisps. Hytanthas knew the holy lady. She had aided him and Planchet when they were caught inside Khuri-Khan after the khan’s curfew. If not for her intervention, they would have been murdered by bloodthirsty Torghanists.

When the Speaker told him he’d been missing for more than a week, the warrior shook his head in amazement. No wonder he felt wrung out.

The Speaker assured him his griffon was fine, although pining for his rider. The elves had found the vast stone platform at the focal point of the valley. Standing on its center, one could hear things from all over Inath-Wakenti. Gilthas had been experimenting with the effect when he heard Hytanthas calling for help. He asked what the warrior had found in the tunnels.

“Nothing but bones.” Hytanthas explained how his discovery of the body of one of Lady Kerianseray’s warriors, as well as layer upon layer of desiccated animal bones, had led him to conclude that the animal life captured by the will-o’-the-wisps was transferred into the tunnels to die.

“Take courage, Captain,” Gilthas said. “We’ll get you out.”

Hytanthas jogged onward. After a time he reported, “Sire, I have found a body.”

The corpse was that of another elf warrior, although blind as he was Hytanthas couldn’t identify him. The dead elf was lying faceup with a dagger buried in his throat. Hytanthas’s first fearful thought was of murder, then his hand went to the warrior’s scabbard. It was empty. The blade in the elf’s throat must be his own.

Haltingly, Hytanthas described what he’d found. The Speaker was shocked the warrior would have given up on finding escape.

“Perhaps he was grievously injured before he was transported to the tunnel?” Gilthas suggested.

Hytanthas’s examination of the body revealed only the one wound. But unlike his king, the young captain could understand how the elf might succumb. Without the voice of his sovereign to buoy his spirits, Hytanthas himself might have given in to despair.

He found a crust of bread in the dead elf’s belt pouch. It fell to powder in his mouth, but he choked it down anyway. Shifting position, he put his hand down on something hard and sharp. The characteristic shape and feel told him it was a piece of knapped flint. Perhaps the lost warrior had been trying to start a fire and the stone had gotten away from him. Disoriented by the darkness, he’d been unable to locate it and had given up, though the flint lay just a few feet away.

Piling up strips of the dead elf’s cloak, Hytanthas struck the flint against the hasp of the dagger. Bright orange sparks showered onto the tinder. He nursed them carefully until they flickered to life. His triumph was quickly tempered by grief. As the feeble light illuminated the features of the dead elf, he recognized Ullian, who had been in the Speaker’s service for only a short time. Hytanthas was one of the few who knew of the human blood in his heritage, and Ullian had been a staunch comrade.

The Speaker congratulated him on his acquisition of light. Putting aside his sadness, Hytanthas tore Ullian’s cloak into strips then wrapped the strips around the end of his sword to form a torch. The tunnels were a maze, but as long as he could see, he might be able to find a way out. There was nothing he could do for his lost comrades. All he could do was try to survive.

Torchlight brought a fresh revelation—wall paintings around him leaped and danced in the flickering light. He described the frescoes to the Speaker. Beautiful scenes of gardens and parkland covered both walls. The paintings had been rendered with amazing skill, giving them an unusual feeling of depth. The colors were so fresh, they might have been painted just the day before. The only jarring notes were the portraits of lean, angular looking elves, rendered life size, interspersed with the peaceful sylvan scenes. The elves glowered balefully at the viewer.

The Speaker theorized the paintings had been done by the people who’d once lived in the valley. The very ones whose spirits still haunted it.

With the aid of his makeshift torch, Hytanthas soon found a crossing tunnel, which branched off to the right. When he reached the intersection, he halted, uncertain which way to go. The tunnels looked identical.

“Are there portraits at the intersection?” the Speaker asked. Hytanthas said there were. “Do they face any particular direction?”

Hytanthas dutifully studied the portraits. Those in his original tunnel looked toward the intersection. Those in the crossing tunnel faced away from the intersection. The news excited the Speaker.

“You should take the new tunnel! I believe the paintings face something important, like a way out.”

With no better alternative, Hytanthas did as the Speaker suggested. After being so long deprived of company, the young captain felt miraculously refreshed and talked almost nonstop as he walked. The Speaker listened silently, now and then prompting him with questions. Hytanthas reported the thinning of the debris on the floor. Fewer and fewer bits of bone crunched beneath his boots. Then he saw something more interesting to report.

“Sire, the tunnel ahead slopes down. And a white mist swirls near the floor.”

His voice had taken on a hollow quality, as though he spoke inside a large, empty room. The Speaker asked about the frescoes. They were gone. Where the tunnel began its downward slope, the frescoes ended.

He was seeking the surface, not a passage to take him farther down. Still, the tunnel might level out and begin to climb. He told the Speaker he would scout ahead. If the passage continued to slope downward after a hundred steps, he would go back.

The tunnel walls were plain gray stone, unadorned by paintings of any sort. The white mist filled the passage from side to side. First curling about Hytanthas’s ankles, it deepened as he advanced until it reached to his chest. It was cold and clammy, and remarkably cohesive. He swept a hand through it, and the mist rippled like water rather than flying about like fog. The air grew steadily colder. Hytanthas’s garments sagged with damp. Water dripped from his hair down his back. Reaching another branching of paths, he halted. The intersection was very wide, at least twenty feet across. A sense of unease filled Hytanthas. He couldn’t see anything untoward, but he sensed danger nearby.

Gilthas urged him to go back, but Hytanthas drew his dagger and moved forward slowly. His caution was well founded. The toe of his left boot suddenly found open air rather than solid rock.

There was a great hole in the floor, nearly as wide as the tunnel. He dropped a bone chip into the hole. His keen ears never heard the chip hit bottom.

As he turned to go, the air around him trembled once then again. A loud boom echoed down the passageway.

The Speaker heard it as well and demanded to know what was happening. A wind had begun to blow, Hytanthas told him. The mist was being drawn down the pit. The pull was strong. it tossed Hytanthas’s long hair and dried the dampness from his clothes. When all the mist was gone, the wind ceased.

“I see light in the hole!” Hytanthas exclaimed. Deep within was a pale white glow. It showed him the sides of the shaft were polished smooth and free of embellishment.

When a minute passed with no other occurrences, Hytanthas turned and retraced his steps to the crossing tunnel.

He had no idea what might be in the deep hole, but as he walked, a more pressing question came to his mind. The rush of air suggested the tunnels had been unsealed somewhere. The last time that happened, he had heard the Speaker’s voice. Who knew what had been admitted into the tunnels?