Kindan was sad when he returned to the shed after the Gather. He found Kisk and Nuella curled up together in the straw. He woke Nuella, and Kisk stretched luxuriously in what appeared to be the beginnings of a long, active night.
“What’s wrong?” Nuella asked on the silent walk back up to the hold. Kindan told her. “It has to happen, Kindan,” she said. “The night shift only sees a Gather on a restday. You can’t be at Gathers and in the mines at the same time.”
“I know,” he replied sadly. He looked at Kisk, whose great eyes whirled green and blue in her love for him, and sighed. “But I liked singing and playing.”
“You’re not much good for singing, with your voice going up and down like that,” Nuella remarked. Kindan grunted sourly.
“You know,” Nuella said after an uncomfortable silence, “that new mine shaft’s awfully close to Father’s secret passage.”
“Secret passage?” Kindan repeated.
“Yes, the one that I used to get Master Zist back to his cottage before you the first day he came,” she answered. She smiled in memory. “You should have heard the way you reacted! All panting and then gasping in shock. I nearly burst when I heard you.”
Kindan stopped, struck by a sudden inspiration. “Nuella, can you show me that passage?”
It had taken very persuasive talk on Kindan’s part to finally get Nuella to agree to let him see the secret passageway.
“You’ll wait until after dark, of course,” Nuella told him. “Then meet me on the second-floor landing.”
“I want to bring Kisk,” Kindan objected.
“Well, of course you do,” Nuella said. “You told me that it’d be good training for her. Although I think it’d be more for you—she can see in the dark.”
Kindan shrugged. “We have to work together.”
“I understand,” Nuella said condescendingly. “So meet me tonight, after I’ve finished my lesson with Master Zist.”
“After?”
“Well, you can’t expect me to go along and miss my lessons, can you?” she asked with a touch of exasperation.
“You’re coming?”
“How are you going to find your way about without me?” she asked, tapping her foot impatiently. “It’s not as though you’ll be able to see in the dark, you know.”
Kindan gave in with a reluctant sigh. “Fine. I’ll see you tonight.” Then he frowned. “But why do you want to meet on the second floor? Why not by the kitchen?”
“Because the entrance to the secret passageway is on the second floor,” she told him simply.
From the very start, things did not go the way Kindan had planned. He found himself at the end of a line with Nuella leading Kisk.
“Why am I back here?” he complained as they reached the first turn in the passageway. He stumbled and caught himself.
“That’s why,” Nuella replied calmly. “You want Kisk to learn how to lead people safely in the dark, don’t you? Well, how can she do that if all you can teach her is how to stumble around?”
“But it’s dark in here,” Kindan said, defensively.
Nuella snorted. “It’s no darker here than it is anywhere else for me,” she said. “Honestly, Kindan, have you never tried walking with your eyes closed?”
“No,” Kindan replied, stumbling on a rock and going down hard on his knees—again.
“Well, it’s time you learned,” Nuella said. She added conversationally, “It was the first game I learned to play with Dalor.”
“Really?”
“Well, he used to tease me so much and it really got to me,” she admitted. “But my mother asked me one day why didn’t I play a game that showed my strengths, not my weaknesses. So we started playing in the dark.” She added with a laugh, “It got so that I used to move the furniture around to make Dalor trip.”
Kindan, feeling the smart from his shins, still couldn’t understand why he was behind Kisk and Nuella was in front of her. Nuella’s explanation was that she could show Kisk where to go, and it made no sense for the two of them, who could “see” well enough in the dark, to have to halt their stride just because Kindan couldn’t. But it was a pity the passageway wasn’t quite wide enough for Kindan to travel side by side with Kisk.
“How much farther is it?” he asked when he felt that they’d gone on forever. He regretted letting Nuella convince him that they should leave the glows behind. What if something happened to her? But, Kindan reflected ruefully, everything so far had happened to him.
“I told you,” Nuella’s voice carried back in a whisper from somewhere up ahead, “there are two turns, this last one and another gentler one. The sharp turn comes about one third of the way along, and the gentle turn comes about three-quarters of the way along. Of course, it’s just the opposite on the way back.”
Kisk turned her head back and blew a soft reassurance at Kindan.
“Hey! I can almost see her eyes,” he said excitedly.
“Almost?” Nuella repeated. “How can you almost see something?”
“Well, it’s hard to explain. Like maybe I can, maybe I can’t,” he replied, trying to recall the image now that Kisk had turned her head back.
Nuella’s reply was thoughtful. “Sometimes I think I can see things that way, too. It’s like when I dream. My eyes worked fine until I was about three, you know. Mother thinks that’s why I see things when I dream. It’s rather confusing, to be honest.”
Kindan, whose light-starved eyes were reporting all sorts of strange lights, nodded in understanding.
At least the air was cool and clean, he noted. He brushed his fingers against a wall, as Nuella had advised him, and corrected his course slightly. Originally he had tried holding on to Kisk’s tail, but the watch-wher had flicked it away from him impatiently.
The sound of Nuella’s breathing and the lighter, faster breathing of the watch-wher were reassuring in the darkness. Kindan stopped feeling wrong-footed—blind—and started feeling more comfortable in the darkness. He strained his ears, hoping to hear with Nuella’s ease, but admitted after a while that it was hard.
“You’re thinking too much,” Nuella’s voice piped out of the darkness. “Just listen. Don’t try so hard.”
“How did you know what I was doing?” he demanded, eyes bulging in surprise.
“Your breathing changed,” she said simply. “You took a really deep breath, then a couple of short ones, and then you started breathing in spurts.”
Kindan sighed.
“And just then you sighed because I guessed what you were thinking,” Nuella went on. She giggled. “I used to play this game with Dalor, too. It really infuriated him.”
“I can understand,” Kindan said feelingly.
“Okay,” Nuella said, “I’ll stop now. But just listen, okay?”
Kindan nodded, not worrying whether Nuella could “hear” him or not, and the three continued on in unlit silence.
After a while, Kindan noticed that his right hand was brushing against the wall. He moved to the left, but noticed a short while later that his hand was brushing the wall again.
“Is it curving now?”
“Very good,” Nuella said. “I was wondering if you’d notice.”
“So we’re almost there?”
“Yep. About fifty more paces,” Nuella told him. That had been another surprise to Kindan, being told he had to keep count of the number of paces he took. He’d forgotten to keep counting, too, and wondered if Nuella had or if she had just memorized the distances.
“Wait,” she called. “Listen.”
Kindan strained his ears. He felt Kisk turn her head this way and that.
“Can you hear it?” Nuella asked after a long moment.
“No,” Kindan confessed.
“It sounds like they’re putting up the entrance for the second shaft,” Nuella said. “It’s just through the rock on the right here.”
“How far?” Kindan wondered.