Yis-fidri hesitated, then nodded. The other dwarrows looked on, their strange faces fearful.

Miriamele crouched in blackness, her heart thudding. She could see nothing at all, but apparently enough light was still bleeding from the crystal batons to allow the dwarrows to see: Miriamele could hear them padding back and forth across the cavern as unhesitatingly as she herself would walk through a lamplit room.

She reached out to touch the small but rea.s.suring shape of Binabik crouched beside her. "I'm frightened," she whispered.

"As who is not?" She felt him pat her hand.

Miriamele had opened her mouth to say something else when a slight sensation of movement pa.s.sed through the stone behind her. At first she thought it was the strange shifting she had felt earlier, the thing that had so frightened Yis-hadra and the other dwarrows, but then a faint blue glow sprang up in the empty black where the door stood. It was not like any light she had seen, for it illuminated nothing else; it was only a pulsing sky-blue streak hanging in the darkness.

"They're coming," she gurgled. Her heart raced even more swiftly. All her brave words now seemed foolish. On the far side of Binabik, she heard Cadrach's harsh breathing grow louder. She half-expected him to cry out, to try to shout a warning to the Norns. She did not believe his claim that he had no Art that would help them against the Norns, nor even the strength left now to use those few skills he retained.

The blue line lengthened. A warm wind pushed through the chamber, tangible as a slap to her heightened senses. For the dozenth time since the dwarrows had darkened the cavern she tugged at the straps of her pack and wiped sweat from the handle of her dagger. She also clutched Simon's White Arrow; if the Norns grabbed her, she would stab at them with both hands. A shudder ran through her. The Norns. The White Foxes. They were only moments away....

Yis-fidri said something quiet but emphatic in the dwarrow tongue. Yis-hadra replied in the same tone from somewhere across the cavern. The sound of moving dwarrows ceased. The chamber was silent as a grave.

The blue gleam grew in a rough oval until one end of the line met the other. For a moment the heat became greater, then the glow faded. Something sc.r.a.ped and then fell heavily. A rush of cold air swept into the chamber, but if the door had opened, no light came through.

Curse them! Despair swept over her. Despair swept over her. They are too clever to come in with torches. They are too clever to come in with torches. She clutched her knife tighter: she was shaking so violently she feared she might drop it. She clutched her knife tighter: she was shaking so violently she feared she might drop it.

Suddenly there was a booming rumble like thunder and a high-pitched shout that came from no human throat. Miriamele's heart leaped. The great stones the dwarrows had loosened above the cavern door were tumbling down-she could hear the Norns' high-pitched, angry wailing. Another crash was followed by a sc.r.a.ping, grinding noise, then many voices were shouting, none of them in human languages. After a moment Miriamele felt her eyes begin to sting. She took a breath and felt it burn all the way down.

"Up!" Binabik cried. "It is poison-smoke!"

Miriamele struggled to her feet, lost in the dark and feeling as though her insides were on fire. A powerful hand gripped her and led her stumbling through the blackness. The cavern was raucous with strange cries and shrieks and the sound of smashing stone.

The next moments were blind madness. She felt herself pulled through into chilly air; within moments she could breathe again, although she still could not see. The hand that held her let go, and a moment later she caught her foot on something and crashed to the ground.

"Binabik!" she shouted. She tried to rise, but something had entangled her. "Where are you!?" she shouted. She tried to rise, but something had entangled her. "Where are you!?"

Miriamele was seized again, but this time was lifted bodily and carried swiftly through the noisy darkness. Something struck her a glancing blow. For a moment whoever was carrying her stopped and put her down; there was a succession of strange noises, some of them grunts or gasps of pain, then a moment later she was s.n.a.t.c.hed up again.

At last she touched down again on the hard stone. The darkness was absolute. "Binabik?" she called.

There was a spark nearby, then a flash. For a moment she saw the troll standing beside a cavern wall in the midst of darkness with his hand full of flame. Then he flung whatever he held outward, and it scattered in a shower of sputtering sparks. Tiny flames burned everywhere. Frozen as if painted on a tapestry were Binabik, several dwarrows, and almost a dozen other shadowy figures, all scattered about a long, high-ceilinged cavern. The stone door that had protected them lay in pieces behind her at the far end of this outer cavern.

She had scarcely an instant to marvel at the effect of the troll's fire-starting powder before a pale-faced shape raced toward her, long knife held high. Miriamele lifted her own blade, but her ankles seemed bound somehow and she could not get her feet beneath her. The knife lashed toward Miriamele's face, but the blade stopped abruptly a hand's length from her eyes.

The dwarrow that had caught the creature's arm jerked upward. There was a sound of something snapping; a moment later the Norn was pitched headfirst across the chamber.

"Go that way," Yis-fidri gasped, pointing toward a dark hole at the near end of the cavern. In the faint, flickering light he looked even more grotesque than the enemy he had dispatched: one of his arms hung limply, and the broken shaft of an arrow wagged in his shoulder. The dwarrow flinched as another arrow shattered against the cavern wall beside him.

Miriamele reached down and disentangled her feet from what had held them-a Norn bow. Its owner lay a few paces away, just inside the entrance to the dwarrow's hiding place; a thick shard of rock jutted from his crushed chest.

"Move quickly, quickly," said Yis-fidri. "We have surprised them, but there may be more coming." His brisk tones could not hide his terror; his saucer eyes seemed to bulge. One of the other dwarrows threw a stone at the Norn archer. The motion was awkward, but the missile flew so swiftly that the white-faced immortal staggered backward before the dwarrow's arm had finished moving, then crumpled to the cavern floor.

"Run!" Binabik called. "Before more archers are coming!"

Miriamele rushed after him into the tunnel mouth, still clutching the bow. She stooped on the run to pick up a few scattered Norn arrows. She put Simon's arrow through her belt for safekeeping, and nocked one of the black arrows; as she did so, she looked back. Yis-fidri and the other dwarrows were backing after her, keeping their frightened eyes fixed on the Norns. These inched along behind them, staying out of the dwarrows' long reach, but obviously not intending to let them escape so easily. Despite the carnage, the half-dozen bodies lying scattered in the outer chamber and the breached doorway, the Norns seemed as calm and unhurried as hunting insects.

Miriamele turned and hastened her pace. Binabik had lit a torch, and she followed its light down the uneven tunnel.

"They're still following!" she panted.

"Run, then, until we find a better place for fighting," the troll called back. "Where is the monk Cadrach?"

"Don't know," Miriamele said.

And maybe it would be better for everyone if he died back there. The thought felt cruel but just. The thought felt cruel but just. Better for everyone. Better for everyone.

She raced along after the bobbing torch.

"Josua is gone?" Isorn was stunned. "But how could he risk himself, even for Camaris?"

Isgrimnur did not know how to answer his son's question. He tugged fiercely at his beard, trying to think clearly. "Still, there it is," he said. He stared around the tent at the rest of the unhappy faces. "I have had soldiers hunting all through the caves for hours with no luck. The Sithi are preparing to go after the two of them, and Tiamak will accompany them. There is nothing more we can do about it." He blew out, fluttering his mustache. "Yes, d.a.m.n me, Josua has hamstrung us, but now more than ever we must make sure we distract Elias. We can't waste tears."

Sludig peered out through the door flap. "It is nearly dawn, Duke Isgrimnur. And snowing again. The men know something strange has happened-they are growing restless. We should decide what to do, my lord."

The duke nodded. Inwardly he cursed the fate that had dropped Josua's command into his lap. "We will do what we planned. All that has changed from yesterday's council is that Josua is gone. So we will need not one mimic, but two."

"I am ready," Isorn said. "I have Camaris' surcoat, and see," he pulled his sword from its scabbard: blade and hilt were shiny black, "a little paint and it becomes Thorn." He caught Isgrimnur's discomfited look. "Father, you agreed to this and nothing has changed. Of all who can be trusted with the secret, only I am nearly tall enough to pa.s.s as Camaris."

The duke frowned. "It is so. But because you pretend to be Camaris, don't believe you are are Camaris: you need to stay alive and on your horse so you can be seen. Take no foolish chances." Camaris: you need to stay alive and on your horse so you can be seen. Take no foolish chances."

Isorn flashed him an unhappy glance, angry after all his experiences to be treated like a child. Isgrimnur almost regretted his fatherly worry-almost, but not quite. "So then. Who shall mime Josua?"

"Are there any that can fight with their left hands?" Sludig asked.

"S'right," said Freosel. "None'll believe Josua with a right hand."

Isgrimnur felt his frustration growing. This was madness-like choosing courtiers to act in the Tunath's Day pageant. "He need only be seen, not fight," Isgrimnur growled.

"But he must be somewhere in the fighting," Sludig insisted, "or no one will see him."

"I will do it," said Hotvig. The scarred Thrithings-man lifted his arm and his bracelets jangled. "I can fight with either hand."

"But ... but he does not look like Josua," said Strangyeard apologetically, "... does he?" He had sobered since the duke had seen him earlier, but still seemed distracted. "Hotvig, you are ... you are very broad in the chest. And your hair is too light."

"He will be wearing a helm," Sludig pointed out.

"The harper Sangfugol looks much like the prince," Strangyeard offered. "At least he is slender and dark-haired."

"Ha." Isgrimnur barked a laugh. "I would not send a singer into the middle of such a bloodletting. Even if he need not fight, he must sit his horse in the clamor of fierce fighting." He shook his head. "But I cannot spare you, either, Hotvig. We need your Thrithings-men-you are our fastest hors.e.m.e.n, and we must be ready in case the king's knights make a sally from the gate. Who else?" He turned to Seriddan. The Nabbanai captains had been silent, stunned by Josua's disappearance. "Have you any ideas, Baron?"

Before Seriddan could reply, his brother Brindalles stood. "I am close to the prince's size. And I can ride."

"No, that is foolish," Seriddan began, but Brindalles halted him with a raised hand.

"I am not a fighter like you, my brother, but this is something I can do. Prince Josua and these folk have risked much for us. They faced imprisonment or even death at our hands to bring us the truth, and then helped us to drive Benigaris from the throne." He looked around the tent somberly. "But what good is that to us if we do not survive to enjoy it, if our children are unhomed by Elias and his allies? I am still somewhat baffled by all this talk of swords and strange magics, but if this stratagem is truly necessary, then it is the least I can do."

Isgrimnur saw his calm resolve and nodded. "It is done, then. Thank you, Brindalles, and may Aedon give you good luck. Isorn, get him into things of Josua's as will fit, then you can take whatever else of Camaris' that you need. From what Jeremias said, I doubt he took his helm with him. Freosel?"

"Yes, Duke Isgrimnur?"

"Tell the engineers to make ready. Everyone else, go to your men and make ready. G.o.d's grace on us all."

"Yes," Strangyeard said suddenly. "Yes, of course-G.o.d's grace on us all."

He Who Always Steps on Sand, Tiamak prayed silently, Tiamak prayed silently, I am going into a dark place. I am far from our swamps, farther than I have ever been. Please do not lose sight of this marsh man! I am going into a dark place. I am far from our swamps, farther than I have ever been. Please do not lose sight of this marsh man!

The sun was invisible beyond the storm, but the deep blue of night was beginning to pale. Tiamak looked up from the Kynslagh beach at the faint shadows that must be the turrets of the Hayholt. They seemed impossibly far away, distant and forbidding as mountains.

Bring me out alive and I will ... and... He could not think of any promise that might tempt the protector-G.o.d. He could not think of any promise that might tempt the protector-G.o.d. I will honor you. I will do what is right. Bring me out alive again, please! I will honor you. I will do what is right. Bring me out alive again, please!

The snow swirled and the wind moaned, whipping the black Kynslagh to a froth of waves.

"We go, Tiamak," Aditu said from behind him. She was near enough that he jumped in surprise at the sound of her voice.

Her brother disappeared into the black mouth of the cave. Tiamak followed; the noise of the wind began to diminish behind him.

Tiamak had been surprised to find the Sithi such a small group, and even more surprised to find Likimeya a part of it.

"But isn't your mother too important to leave your people and come down here?" he whispered to Aditu. As he scrambled down a boulder, clinging to the shining globe that Jiriki had given him, he saw Likimeya turn to look back at him with what he felt sure was disgust. He was embarra.s.sed and angry with himself for underestimating the Sithi's keen ears.

Aditu slithered down beside him, nimble as a deer. "If someone must speak for Year-Dancing House, Uncle Khendraja'aro will be there. But the others will make their decisions as things happen, and all will do what needs to be done." She stopped to pick something off the floor and stared at it intently; it was too small for Tiamak to see. "In any case, there are things at least as important to be done down here, and so those most able to do them have come."

He and Aditu were at the back of the small company, trailing Jiriki and Likimeya, as well as Kira'athu, a small, quiet Sitha-woman, another woman named Chiya, who seemed to Tiamak inexplicably more foreign than even the rest of the alien group, and a tall, black-haired Sitha-man named Kuroyi. All moved with the odd grace Tiamak had long noted in Aditu, and except for Aditu and her brother, none seemed to take any more notice of the Wrannaman than of a dog following in the road.

"I found sand," Aditu called to the rest of the party. She had been careful to speak Westerling all morning, even with her kin, for which Tiamak was duly grateful.

"Sand?" Tiamak squinted at the invisible something she held prisoned between finger and thumb. "Yes?"

"We are now far in from the water's edge," she said. "But this is rounded, formed by the motion of stone in water. I would say we are still on Josua's track."

Tiamak had thought the Sithi were following the prince by some kind of immortals' magic. He did not know quite what to make of this revelation. "Can't you ... don't you just ... know know where the prince and Camaris are?" where the prince and Camaris are?"

Her amused smile was very human. "No. There are things we can sometimes do to make finding someone or something easier-but not here."

"Not here? Why?"

The smile went away. "Because things are changing here. Can you not feel it? It is as powerful to me as the wind was loud outside."

Tiamak shook his head. "If anything dangerous comes toward us, I hope you will tell me. This is not my marsh, and I do not know where the dangerous sands lie."

"Where we go was our place once," Aditu said seriously. "But no more."

"Do you know your way?" Tiamak looked around at the sloping tunnel, the countless crevices and nearly identical cross-pa.s.sages, black beyond the range of the lighted globes. The thought of being lost here was terrifying.

"My mother does, or at least she soon will. Chiya also lived here."

"Your mother lived in this place?"

"In Asu'a. She lived there for a thousand years."

Tiamak shivered.

The company followed no logical path that Tiamak could see, but he had long resigned himself to trusting the Sithi, although there was much about them that frightened him. Meeting Aditu on Sesuad'ra had been strange enough, but she had been singular, a freak, as Tiamak himself must have seemed to the drylanders. Seeing them together, either in their great numbers on the hillside east of the Hayholt, or here in a group that, despite making many decisions without discussion, seemed always in accord, he felt for the first time the true force of their strangeness. They had ruled all of Osten Ard once. History said they had been kind masters, but Tiamak could not help wondering if they had been truly kind, or had just given no attention at all, tyrannical or otherwise, to their mortal inferiors. If that was true, they had been cruelly repaid for their heedlessness.

Kuroyi halted and the others stopped with him. He said something in the liquid Sithi speech.

"Someone is there," Aditu quietly told Tiamak.

"Josua? Camaris?" He did not want to think it could be something worse.

"We will find out."

Kuroyi turned into a pa.s.sageway and took a few steps downward. A moment later he danced back out, hissing. Aditu pushed past Tiamak and ran to Kuroyi's side. "Do not run!" she called into the dark s.p.a.ce. "I am Aditu!"

After a few moments a figure appeared, sword leveled.

"Prince Josua!" Relief flowed through Tiamak. "You are safe."

The prince stared at them for a long moment, blinking in the light of the crystal globes. "Aedon's Mercy, it is truly you." He sank down heavily onto the floor of the tunnel. "My ... my torch burned out. I have been in darkness some time. I thought I heard footsteps, but you walk so quietly I could not be sure...."

"Have you found Camaris?" Tiamak asked.

The prince shook his head miserably. His eyes were haunted. "No. I lost sight of him soon after I followed him in. He would not stop, no matter how I called. He has gone! Gone!" He struggled to control himself. "I have left my men without a leader-deserted my people! Can you take me back?" He looked imploringly around the circle of Sithi.

"The mortal Duke Isgrimnur is performing ably in your place," said Likimeya. "We cannot afford the time to return you, nor any of our number, and you could not find your way back alone."

Josua lowered his head, bowed by shame. "I have done a foolish thing, and failed those who trusted me. It was all to find Camaris ... but he has gone. And he has taken Thorn with him."

"Do not worry yourself over what is done, Prince Josua." Aditu spoke with surprising gentleness. "As for Camaris, do not fear. We will find him."

"How?"

Likimeya stared at Josua for a moment, then turned her glance up the pa.s.sageway. "If the sword is being drawn toward Sorrow and the other blade, as seems true from what you have told us, then we know where he is bound." She looked at Chiya, who nodded. "We will go there by the straightest route, or close to it. Either we will find him, or we will reach the upper levels before him and can wait."

"But he could wander down here forever!" Josua said unhappily, and Tiamak remembered his own earlier thought.

"I do not think so," said Likimeya. "If some convergence of power is drawing the swords together-which may be our greatest hope, for it will bring Bright-Nail, too-then he will find his way, even with his wits as troubled as you say they were. He wilt be like a blind man searching for the fire in a cold room. He will find his way."