“Hear what?” Sa’ida asked.
“That buzzing sound.”
Sa’ida did not. She suggested Kerian’s ears were congested from flying. Her own had popped painfully several times as Eagle Eye climbed higher in the sky.
“It sounds like music or a voice.”
“None could reach us up here, could they?”
That was true enough, ordinarily. But Kerian recalled how far her voice had carried when she stood on the huge stone platform in the center of Inath-Wakenti. She described the great disk to Sa’ida and explained how it brought voices to her ears from a great distance and likewise projected her own voice over several miles. Perhaps what she’d heard was another such distant call.
If so, Sa’ida reasoned, then why hadn’t she heard it too?
They had no answers, and Kerian felt a growing sense of urgency. Beneath them the untamed desert flowed by. The view was unutterably dull to the Lioness and her impatience rendered the endless vista even more unbearable.
For her part Sa’ida never tired of the view. The blank sands were broken now and then by a narrow circle of green grown up around a well or spring. Nomads in sand-colored gebs looked skyward when the shadow of the griffon flashed across them. Even at this height, elf and human felt their cold hostility. The nomad children were not so unfriendly. They raced madly below the passing griffon, obviously thrilled to behold such a rare sight. Pointing, jumping up and down, the children waved at the soaring flyers.
Once they plunged into a bank of clouds, a very unusual occurrence over the desert. Warm mist flowed around them. A dark shape loomed out of the murk on their right. Kerian immediately turned Eagle Eye away, banking sharply left.
“What—?” Sa’ida swallowed her question as the dark shape grew more distinct. Long and gray, it resembled a ship’s slender hull, bare of masts or sails. Glass portholes dotted its curved side. Lights gleamed within. White steam billowed from a pipe at its stern. The steam was feeding the cloud, thickening it. Mist closed in behind the machine, and as silently as it had appeared, the strange device was gone.
Astonishment kept them silent for a time. Kerian shook her head, saying, “Must be the work of gnomes. I’ve heard they build strange things.”
Sa’ida had heard the stories too, but the device seemed so elegant and purposeful, she could hardly credit it as a creation of that erratic race.
They burst abruptly into sunshine. Kerian exclaimed in surprise. During their passage through the cloud, they had inexplicably climbed several thousand feet. The air temperature had fallen greatly. Their garments, dampened by the heavy mist, chilled them to the bone.
“Look!” Kerian pointed ahead. The blue-gray slopes of the Khalkist Mountains filled the view from horizon to horizon, most prominent among them, the three snow-capped peaks that marked the entrance to the valley. Sa’ida was amazed. She’d never been more than twenty miles from Khuri-Khan in her life. She asked Kerian about the white stain atop the three peaks.
“Is it truly snow?” Kerian nodded. After a pause, Sa’ida asked, “What is snow?”
The Lioness cast about for a reply. She’d never tried to define snow for someone to whom it was utterly alien.
“It’s like rain, only much colder. When the air is cold enough, rain hardens and becomes snow.”
The priestess was as delighted as a child by this discovery. Although a wise and long-lived woman, her education had been devoted entirely to healing and the doctrines of her goddess. She pulled her heavy cloak closer around herself and enjoyed the adventure, marveling even at how very cold her nose was.
Despite Sa’ida’s pleasure in the trip, she was shivering, and Kerian thought better of continuing at this height. It would be easier if they entered Inath-Wakenti at a lower level. To their left, northwest, a square notch in the rugged range beckoned. Green with trees, its slopes were several thousand feet lower than the mountaintops directly ahead. Eagle Eye shifted course and they descended. The temperature warmed.
“Better?” Kerian asked over one shoulder, and the priestess patted her shoulder in reply.
The warmth was welcome but could not dispel Kerian’s worries. Eagle Eye had performed heroically, making such a long flight with very little rest between the journey out and the return, but she wished he could fly faster. She couldn’t escape the feeling that the strange noise she’d heard was somehow a call for help.
Trying to find the promised rescue party was no simple task for Hytanthas. Fit as any warrior, he set a rapid pace and tried to maintain it, but hunger and thirst weighed his limbs. Once his torch was exhausted, blindness only added to the strain. Still, his sovereign had promised rescue, and Hytanthas would do his utmost to seek the elves searching for him.
Trailing the fingertips of his right hand along the tunnel wall, he negotiated the featureless dark. One factor worked to his advantage. The tunnel floor was clear of debris. Beneath his feet was only hard, clean stone. He’d come across no more bodies for quite a long time. He was thankful for that mercy. The dead could tell him nothing. They only reminded him of the fate that awaited him should he not find help or an exit from the subterranean maze.
The air shivered as if from a light breeze and a voice said, “Kerian.”
Hytanthas halted.
“Kerian, this is Gil. I pray you can hear me. I’m waiting for you. Don’t give up!”
The voice belonged to the Speaker. Was Lady Kerianseray in the tunnels?
Hytanthas marshaled his scattered thoughts. The Speaker had told him the Lioness was away on a mission, flying to Khuri-Khan to bring back the priestess Sa’ida.
The Speaker continued, calling to Hamaramis to return. The general of the Speaker’s own household guard was away too?
Hytanthas shouted, “Sire, I’m coming!” He strained to hear the reply.
“Come home, everyone. I need you. I need you all.”
With that, the peculiar resonance was gone from the air. The Speaker’s pleas were at an end. Hytanthas drove a fist into his palm. His sovereign needed him, and he was blundering around in the dark. He fell to berating himself out loud, but broke off abruptly when he detected more voices. Hytanthas held his breath and listened.
He could hear quite clearly the voices and footfalls of five or six people. One tread was heavier than the rest, and the voice associated with it was lower, rougher—a human. How had a human gotten down here?
Hytanthas called to the unknown party, giving his name and identifying himself as a friend. Drained by hunger and the long sojourn in impenetrable darkness, he nevertheless steeled himself for a final push. He continued to call out as he jogged down the passage. After perhaps half a mile, he could hear the voices more clearly and he identified a female and a male as well as a human male. The number of footfalls told him there were several more elves who weren’t speaking.
He drew breath to shout, but his warrior training abruptly reasserted itself. What if these people weren’t his comrades? Ridiculous, he told himself. What other elves would be in the tunnels beneath Inath-Wakenti? But why was there a human with them?
Stricken with doubt, he fell back against the side of the tunnel. To his surprise, he discovered the wall was fluted by shallow scalloped niches. The niche at his back was just deep enough to conceal him. He flattened himself into the cover and waited, prey to all sorts of fears and uncertainties.
“I don’t see how you can be sure we’re heading southwest,” said Hamaramis testily. “I lost my sense of direction long ago!”
Vixona replied, “It’s simple. We made two right-angle turns, then the tunnel made a quarter-radius bend. Therefore we’re traveling about 270 degrees from our original heading or, measured another way, ninety degrees—”