“I don't know… if we run, we would be lost in the tunnels. And I would not care to trust Mors's mercy if we run and are caught again.”
“He has a hard heart,” Riverwind agreed. “If I leave you here, he will never let you go, I believe. So we must escape.”
“But how? The Hestites know these caves far better than we do, yes.”
They went back and forth in low tones until a warrior and a Blue Sky digger came to take Catchflea. Mors wanted to arrange the distribution of stored grain, and he needed the old man's advice.
“I will see you again,” Riverwind said significantly.
“I am sure of it, tall man.” The old soothsayer cut a strange figure in his ragged clothes, flanked on one side by a warrior in lion-embossed armor and a male digger in black copper mesh on the other. Riverwind watched them go with many misgivings.
* * * * *
Riverwind walked the empty corridors of the palace. They were filled with wreckage left by the Blue Sky People after they despoiled the place. The plainsman stepped over bits of furniture, wall hangings, and other things he could not recognize. The Blue Sky People had a great deal of rage. Li El had been a manipulative tyrant, but Riverwind found he could not hate her. Mors, on the other hand, was an iron-fisted dreamer, and Riverwind disliked him completely. As he walked the halls, the plainsman tried to sort out why he felt that way. Some residual effect of Li El's impersonation of Goldmoon, perhaps?
He stopped suddenly as a dim figure popped out of a side corridor. The stranger stepped into a slim band of light from an open skylight.
“Hello, Di An,” said Riverwind.
“Did I startle you, giant?”
“A bit. You're not sleeping now?”
“I couldn't.” She came closer. “I have bad dreams.”
He smiled at the girl. “I have them, too, sometimes. When that happens, I go out of the village into the forest and sleep under the stars.”
Di An wrinkled her forehead in thought. “I have seen stars. Those are the little coals that glow in the dark sky?”
He nodded. It was easy to forget that Di An had been to the surface.
Di An had been to the surface!
Riverwind knelt and grasped the elf girl by the shoulders. She stiffened. “Are we friends?” he asked. “Do you trust Catchflea and me?”
In the low light, her eyes had an almost reddish cast. “I do. You saved me from Karn, back in the tunnel.”
“Catchflea and I need your help. We want to go home.”
“Mors wants the old giant to stay.”
“He wants you to stay, too. If the three of us went, we'd all get what we want.”
“Mors would be very angry,” she said. “Who would be his ambassador?”
Riverwind shook his head. “I don't have to be the one. You could do it, Di An. Your people have enough gold and gems to buy anything they need from the upper world. Catchflea and I have our own lives to lead.”
She moved out of his grasp and considered what he had said. Finally, she asked, “Is there a giant woman for you?”
He had to chuckle. Goldmoon, a giant! “Well, yes. I want to get back to Goldmoon.”
Di An looked away, a mask of frustration coming across her small, sharp face. “Our fight against Li El is finally over, and more and more I wish to have a say in what happens. No one here listens to me. I'm only a barren child. Mors doesn't really need me; any child could lead him. He doesn't listen to me either.”
Riverwind phrased his next sentence carefully. “Di An, there are many wise people in the upper world,” he said. “One of them might be able to help you.”
“Do you think so?” Her voice was loud with excitement.
“Shh. I would not say it if I didn't think so.”
Di An glanced furtively left and right. “I do know ways to the surface that no one else knows. It could be done.” Her countenance darkened. “Mors would never forgive me if I left.”
Riverwind stood. “I won't ask you to do anything you don't wish to do. But you can help yourself and your people. Time is short. I'm being sent tomorrow.”
Di An chewed her lower lip as she considered. “The old giant sleeps in the Hall of Arms. We can fetch him,” she said. Riverwind felt relief wash over him. She turned and dashed off along the dark corridor.
“Di An, wait!” he hissed. Riverwind followed, banging his shins on table legs and chairs that crouched broken in the shadows. “Wait for me!” he called hoarsely.
They met again on the short causeway leading from the palace to the Hall of Arms. Vartoom was eerily calm. The furnaces and forges were still idle, and the streets barren of elves. Hand in hand, the tall plainsman and the elf girl stole down the sloping bridge.
The Hall of Arms was filled with snores and snorts. Warriors slept in every available spot. Di An moved lightly around the recumbent forms. Riverwind had to walk with great care. More than once he nudged a sleeping soldier, but the Hestite merely grumbled and rolled away from River-wind's feet.
Catchflea lay with his back against a curving buttress, hands folded across his stomach. Di An and Riverwind stood over him. The elf girl looked to Riverwind. He nodded. She bent over to prod the old man awake, but before she touched him, Catchflea's eyes opened.
“Greetings,” he whispered. Di An was so surprised, she lost her balance and sat down hard. Her copper clothing made a loud clink against the stone floor.
“Shh,” came a voice from the darkened hall. “Tryin' t'sleep…”
Riverwind hauled Catchflea to his feet. Clumsily the three of them crept out of the hall.
“What's this about?” Catchflea said when they were on the causeway.
Riverwind ruffled Di An's short hair. “I've made a pact with Di An. She is going to guide us up and out.”
Catchflea blinked and looked toward the girl. “Oh? And what do you get out of this pact?”
“I'm to grow up,” the elf girl said importantly. Catchflea opened his mouth to say something further, but Riverwind forestalled him.
“Time is short,” the tall warrior said. “We must gather supplies and get away before Mors notices our absence.”
“Wait,” Catchflea said. “I want to consult the acorns.” Di An was baffled, so Riverwind explained what the acorns could do.
Catchflea knelt at the mouth of the cave and silently intoned the magical words. He then overturned the gourd.
“Well?” asked Riverwind.
“It's not good. Are you certain you want to hear it?”
“Go ahead.”
'The oracle says, 'One will die, one will go mad, and one will find glory.' ” No one spoke for a long time.
Finally, Riverwind cleared his throat. “You know, old man, you haven't handled those acorns in quite some time. Maybe you've forgotten how to read them.”
Catchflea scooped up the nuts. “Whatever our destiny is, we have to go meet it; it won't come to us.”
The strange trio hurried down the causeway, Di An in the lead. Before they left Vartoom behind them, Di An gathered climbing gear and food for them to carry. The food was mostly thick, heavy wheat bread filled with nuts, dried fruits, and a little meat. It was much like the pemmican Riverwind had begun this journey with. The elf girl also recovered Catchflea's acorns and gourd and Riverwind's saber. She found their possessions in a cabinet in Li El's private chambers. The old soothsayer hugged the gourd to him like a long-lost love.
Part II
Ascent
Chapter Thirteen
The Well Of Wind
Di An led them out of Vantoom, turning toward the far end of the great cavern, where the plainsmen had never been before. Here the floors and walls converged in a rocky funnel shape, with only a round black opening leading out.
There was no soil to grow things here, only rock and mineral concretions. They climbed over the jutting stones toward the hole ahead. Riverwind observed that the opening seemed too smooth and round to be natural.
“It was only a crack many cent
uries ago,” Di An said. “The sons of Hest had it widened.”
“Why?” asked Catchflea.
“For the tombs of the great,” the elf girl said. “Here are the resting places of Hest and all his sons.”
The temperature dropped suddenly when they entered the tomb cavern. The natural shape of the cave had been adapted into a vaulted corridor. Along the walls were larger than life-sized statues of Hestites in full armor. They all had the same expression, something between a sneer and a frown. The actual tombs were niches cut in the rock between the legs of the statues. Hammered bronze doors sealed each grave.
Riverwind halted before a statue of a Hestite. The warrior held a short bow in the crook of his arm. He knew the living Hestites had forgotten how to make or use bows, so he asked Di An how old the grave was.
“This is Lord Trand,” she said, reading the glyphs engraved on the tomb doors. “Victor of twenty combats. He died eighty years after Hest led the people into the caves.” She counted quietly on her fingers. “Two thousand, four hundred and eighteen years ago.”
“When the wood rotted, the Hestites were no longer able to make bows,” Catchflea mused. “Until scouts like Di An went to the surface and found ones.”
'Two thousand years ago,” Riverwind said. “Di An, how old are you?”
She scampered ahead among some tumbled rocks. “Two hundred and sixty-four,” she said.
Catchflea bumped into Riverwind's back. “Pardon! What's the matter?” he asked. Riverwind told him Di An's remarkable age. “The barren children do grow older. They just never grow up, yes?”
“Come this way!” Di An's voice wafted back. The orange glow of her mineral oil lamp rose and fell as she waved to them. Riverwind reminded himself not to treat her like a child. After all, she was more than ten times as old as he.
Di An was waiting for them in a seeming dead end. The lamp threw odd highlights on her sharp features.
“What now?” asked Riverwind.
“We must go through there.” Di An pointed down. At knee height there was an opening in the wall. It was as black as the Abyss and promised to be a tight fit for the humans.
“Go through that?” said Catchflea. “There is a better way, yes?” Di An solemnly shook her head. “Surely you didn't use this tunnel every time you went to the surface.”
“No, I mostly used the shaft you fell down,” she said. “This way should put us out on the surface near where you fell down the shaft.”
“Should?” Riverwind asked.
“I haven't gone this way in a long time.” Di An squatted and slipped into the hole easily. Riverwind motioned for Catchflea to go second.
Catchflea got down on his belly and wriggled into the hole. “Ow!” he cried, his feet still scrambling in Riverwind's sight. “Low ceiling!”
“I'll keep that in mind,” Riverwind said dryly. When the old man's feet finally disappeared, he dropped down and peered into the cramped tunnel. The old feeling of being trapped by the massive weight of stone, returned- Riverwind took a deep breath and thought of Goldmoon.
The tunnel was just barely wider than his shoulders. He had to inch along, rocking his shoulders from side to side and pushing with his toes. The only light was the bobbing lamp Di An pushed ahead of her. By common consent they had agreed to use only one lamp at a time, to conserve oil.
It was warmer in the tunnel. Catchflea's mutterings ahead were sometimes punctuated by Di An's higher-pitched voice. Sharp stones dug into Riverwind's elbows and chest, and brushing the tunnel roof invited a scalp cut. How much longer? Would they have to go all the way to the surface in this rat hole? He would go mad, suffocate, scream, and tear at the rocks. The hard, unyielding rocks…
“Stand up, Riverwind.” He opened his eyes and saw Catchf lea's much-patched moccasins in front of his face. The tunnel had opened onto a ledge in a wide vertical shaft, whose upper limit was lost in velvet darkness.
Di An sat on a boulder, munching a hunk of hard gray bread. The lamp sat between her feet, flickering. Riverwind noticed the steady breeze flowing upward in the shaft.
“Where are we?”
“The Well of Wind,” said Di An. She gnawed off a healthy piece of bread and mumbled through it, saying, “At times the wind moves so strongly here it nearly carries you off your feet.”
“How do we get out of here?” Catchflea queried.
Another big bite. “Climb,” she said.
The walls were rugged, with many jutting rocks and crevices to use for handholds. Di An dusted the bread crumbs off her lap and showed the plainsmen how to use the hooks and chains they had taken from the city. “Reach up with the hook,” she said, “catch hold of the wall and pull yourself up by the chain.” Catchflea was doubtful he could manage but in the end had little choice.
Di An scaled the wall with practiced agility. Riverwind followed, so that he could help pull Catchflea up. “How long have you been exploring these caverns?” Riverwind asked the elf girl.
“Many years,” she replied. “Before Mors enlisted me, I was a food fetcher in a tin mine. My job was to run up and down the mine tunnels, bringing food to the diggers. Before that, I worked for Rhed the mason, stamping out tiles and feeding them to the baking kiln.”
“That sounds like hard work for a girl,” Riverwind said.
Clink. Di An wedged a hook into some rocks and hauled herself hand over hand up the chain. “I began my job with Rhed when I was one hundred and forty-seven.”
A sharp downdraft flattened the climbers against the wall. Then, like a giant exhaling a breath, the wind rushed back up the shaft, whipping Riverwind's hair into his face.
“Will that continue?” yelled Catchflea, ten feet below Riverwind.
“Could get worse,” Di An replied.
“What?”
“Could get worse!” Riverwind shouted.
“Will there be any warning?” the old man asked.
“You can hear the hard blows coming down the shaft, but it's the updrafts that are most dangerous,” said Di An. Poor Catchflea couldn't hear her. Di An leaned out on one arm and shouted, “You can hear the hard blows-”
Her hook broke off the rock she was anchored to. Di An fell backward. Riverwind braced himself and snatched the trailing length of her chain. The impact the elf girl made when she reached the end of her chain almost jerked Riverwind from the wall, but he slowly raised his arm, bringing Di An back to the rock wall very near Catchflea.
“You are well, yes?” he asked.
Riverwind pulled her up to him. The chain was fastened to a copper belt that encircled her waist. He asked if she'd hurt anything in the fall. “Nothing,” she assured him. “Let's go.” He smiled at her bravery. She climbed on, using River-wind's shoulder and the top of his head as stepping stones. She reeled in her dangling hook and started all over again.
They climbed for more than an hour, ascending two hundred feet. In one way the darkness was an asset to the inexperienced Que-Shu men. If they'd been able to see how high they'd gone, vertigo might have paralyzed them both.
A broad ledge greeted them and all three gratefully rolled onto level rock. At their backs was a smooth-walled tunnel, slanting off into the darkness. Di An indicated that their route was on the other side of the shaft, a much smaller tunnel they would reach by inching around the ledge.
“What's wrong with this way?” Riverwind said, jerking a thumb at the wide, round passage.
“I saw three barren children die trying to go that way. They went in, chained together, and in less than a hundred heartbeats came tumbling out, blown by the wind like dust.” She glanced down the vertical shaft. “It is a long drop.”
Her lamp was burning low. The wick sputtered and wavered, unable to draw any fuel from the copper reservoir. Riverwind got out his lamp and lit it from Di An's, which he then blew out.
Riverwind took the lead, as he was the strongest, on the narrow ledge that ran around the shaft to the tunnel Di An had indicated. The wall bulged outward over the ledge, ma
king it devilishly hard to keep a grip. More than a few times Riverwind's hook slipped off the dark, gritty stone. Di An inched along behind him. A chain was hooked to the copper belts all three wore. Catchflea waited until the chain from Di An to him grew taut.
“Come on,” she said.
“I can't do it,” he said weakly.
“Why not?”
“My arms are not strong enough to hold me up.”
“You climbed well enough to get here,” said the elf girl.
“Using my feet and legs, yes.” Catchflea pushed his ragged sleeves up, displaying his bony arms. “See? I'll not make it.”
“You've got to try,” Riverwind called from his advanced position. “We'll help.” So saying, he doubled back on his arduous trail, pushing Di An back to the original ledge. They switched their chain linking around so that Catchflea was in the middle. “We'll keep the chain short and tight for you,” Riverwind said. “That will hold you to the wall. Then hold on as best you can.”
The old man wasn't happy, but he could hardly stay where he was. Di An took charge of the lamp so Riverwind could use both hands in climbing. The tall plainsman led off again with Catchflea in close tow.
The passage they wanted was nearly halfway around the shaft, about twenty yards along the slippery ledge. They were making fair progress when Riverwind's right hand slipped. He waved frantically to recover his balance, digging in with the hook in his left hand. The taut chain snapped at the soothsayer, whose grip was never good, and Catchflea dropped off the ledge. Di An promptly drove her grappling hook through the links of her chain into the wall and braced herself. Catchflea hit the bottom of his chain. This time Riverwind wasn't braced to keep his place. He fell backward off the ledge, leaving little Di An to anchor.
The chain snapped out straight, crushing the copper belt against Riverwind's ribs. His breath was driven out, and the grappling hook shot from his fingers. It vanished in the black shaft. It fell so far he never heard it hit bottom.
Di An was in a terrible position. She couldn't pull either man to safety, much less both. She couldn't even move for fear of losing her grip; and her belt was being hauled low on her thin hips. Catchflea dangled in midair five feet below her, and Riverwind five feet lower.
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