“We’ll need something to light the way,” said Macenion suddenly. “Whatever the elves used may not be working, and I don’t want to use magical light until it’s needed.” He was going through his own pack. “This should do. This oil—these candles—and yes, I can set a spell at our backs that will keep out any trouble—at least give us warning. We probably won’t be that long, but I suppose we should take water and some food.”
“How about the fountain? Is it safe?”
“I should think so. Try it.” Macenion held out his water bottle to Paks. She frowned.
“If it’s elvish, you try it first.”
“What a brave warrior! Very well, then.” Macenion dipped his bottle in the fountain pool. Nothing happened. “You see? Just water.”
“Good.” Paks, too, filled her water bottle from the fountain pool, then bent to drink directly from it. The water was cold and had a faint mineral tang. Although the water seemed perfectly clear, she could not see the bottom of the pool. Somehow, after drinking, she no longer considered not following Macenion under the ruins.
Macenion led the way through a tangle of ivy into the building. From within, Paks could see that the original domed roof had been pierced by a number of skylights, each with an ornamental molding around it. The interior walls had been inlaid with many-colored stones that formed a dazzling array of designs. The floor was a mosaic of cool grays and soft greens, rounded pebbles that looked like those in any mountain stream, but chosen carefully to match in size and shape.
“Here it is,” said Macenion, pointing to a circle of darker stones laid in the center of the room.
“What?”
Macenion looked smug. “The door—the way in.”
“That?”
“Yes.” He drew out a short black rod; Paks looked down, more frightened than she cared to admit. Something sizzled, and she looked quickly at the circle: it was gone. A hole in the floor revealed a spiral stair. Dust lay thick on the stone steps.
Paks took a deep breath. “Do you think we’re the first to come this way? The first to be asked for help?”
“I don’t know. Probably not. Only a magician could find this way down, you know. Perhaps others couldn’t find a way to help and went away. You stay here a moment, while I take a quick look down.” Macenion set a careful foot on the first step. Nothing happened. He went down several more, bending to look beneath the floor. Paks looked out the way they had come in, half expecting some monster to appear on their trail, but saw only Macenion’s horse moving past the opening to drink at the fountain; she heard it sucking the water up. When she looked back at the hole in the floor, Macenion was coming back up. “Just below, the ceiling’s much higher; we won’t have any problem. And I don’t see that anything’s disturbed the dust. The only thing is, the stair is only one person wide—”
Paks suppressed a last shudder of doubt about the wisdom of this whole project, and grinned at him. “I suppose you’d like the fighter to go in front, eh? Well, I can’t see behind myself; I’d just as soon know who’s at my back.” She drew her sword as she spoke. “But I’ll have this out, just in case. What about light? Must I carry a candle or torch?”
“No-o—” said Macenion, climbing out of her way onto the floor. “There’s light.”
“What sort of light?”
“I’m not sure. It may be the same the elves used. But it’s easily light enough to see.”
“What if it goes out? You’d best keep some sort of flame alight, Macenion.”
“Why should it go out if it’s lasted this long? Oh, all right—” he answered her look of disgust. “But you’re so suspicious.”
“I’m alive,” said Paks, “and I intend to stay that way.”
“As a fighter, an adventurer?”
“Some do,” said Paks, starting down the stairs. “And from what I hear, those that do stay suspicious. Magicians, too.”
The stair dropped steeply, and curved to the right, back under the floor. Paks found that she did not have to duck at all; when she thought about it, she remembered that elves were, in general, taller than humans. Light filled the stairwell as far as she could see, a gentle, white light with no apparent source. She looked back once, to see the deep scuffing footprints she had made in the dust. Macenion was just in sight, several steps higher. After what she judged was the first half-turn, the steps were not so steep. She could move more easily now, and, of course, anything coming up could do so as well. She glanced back again, for Macenion, and thought of the spell he had promised to put at their backs.
“What did you do up there?” she asked softly, nodding upward.
“It’s open,” he said. “If I’d closed it, and anything happened to me, you couldn’t get out that way. But I put a spell on the opening that should repel anything from outside trying to get in. And just in case, I put another spell on it to give us an alarm if something does go through.”
All that sounded impressive to Paksenarrion. She hoped it would work. “Do you know how far down this goes?”
“No. It should open into a wide hall at the bottom, though.”
Paks went on. The mysterious light bothered her. The silence bothered her. She felt her hand grow sweaty on her sword hilt, and that bothered her. Nothing had happened; no danger appeared, and yet her breath came short, just as if she were a recruit in her first battle. She concentrated on the construction of the stair: pale gray stone underfoot, and slightly darker gray stone on the walls and vaulted ceiling. The stair treads were ribbed, under the dust, and when she touched the walls, she found them lightly incised with an intricate design. Remembering Macenion’s warning, she took her fingers off the wall. She looked back over her shoulder again. Macenion, too, had one hand on the wall; when he met her eyes he smiled at her.
“It’s decoration and information both,” he said. “I can read some of it, though I’d have to stand here a long time to figure it out. But for those who lived here, it would be a way of telling how far they had come, though that’s not what it says, exactly.” He moved his hand along the section of wall nearest him. “This, for example, is part of an old song: ‘The Long Ride of Torre.’ Do you know it?”
Paks nodded. “If that’s the same Torre as Torre’s Necklace.”
“Of course. Do you know the story?”
“Yes.” Paks turned again and kept stepping down. The dust seemed no thicker, and with no changes in light or silence, she had a hard time judging how far they had come. At last she saw an opening ahead, rather than a curving wall. As she came to the last step, and waited for Macenion to close in behind her, she could see a space of dusty stone paving, and nothing else. Although it was light beyond the opening, any walls were too far away to show.
“Now this, I believe, was the winterhall,” said Macenion, peering past her. “Go on, Paksenarrion.”
“And have whatever’s waiting beside the door take my head off? Let’s be careful.” Paks unslung her small shield and reached for Macenion’s walking staff.
He jerked it away. “What?”
Paks sighed. “Remember what I just said about doorways? Better a piece of wood than my neck.”
“Oh, all right.” Macenion handed over his staff grumpily. Paks tied the shield quickly to one end, and stuck it through the door. Nothing happened. She pulled it back, handed Macenion his staff, tightened the shield on her arm, and slipped quickly through the doorway, putting her back to the wall beside it.
She stood in a large bare hall, lit by the same mysterious means as the stair. It stretched away on either side on the doorway she’d come through for twice the distance of its width. No furniture remained, and dust covered the broad floor. Macenion came through after her, and looked up. Paks followed his gaze. Far overhead the arched ceiling was formed into intricate branches and vaults, a tracery of stone such as Paks had never seen. Between ribs of dark stone, patterns of smaller colored ones gave almost the effect of a forest overhead.