Right now, she fought mostly on adrenaline.
" We can' t run. It' s not sporting," said Broit.
" We can' t stay and let them pick us off. We' re only two against their many."
" A Heresler fights."
" You can damned well die a Heresler, then!" snapped Inyx. She slashed and hacked her way through a small knot of gnomes and fought into the corridor, stumbling when her right leg gave way under her. She rolled, came to her feet, and braced herself for a moment against the rock wall.
To her surprise, a gnarly arm supported her until she got her leg moving properly.
" Thanks, Broit. I thought you were staying to fight."
" Let' s run. We can discuss this matter elsewhere."
" In Heresler territory?"
" Certainly."
The pair of them ran, Broit' s short legs doing a good job of keeping up with Inyx' s longer- legged strides. But run as they would, the Nichi followed, screaming their vengeance as they came. The darkhaired woman wondered what drove those gnomes. Many of them lay dead and more than a score had acquired nasty- looking wounds. If they broke off the attack, they could claim a victory.
But the Nichi attacked and attacked and attacked.
Inyx fought, turned down different corridors, fought some more, doubled back, and eventually got herself lost in the rocky maze that was Yerrary.
By the time she lunged, spitted the gnome confronting her, and watched the misshapen creature buckle and fall dead, Inyx realized she and Broit Heresler had become separated. She couldn' t even remember the exact moment- or the exact place.
" This doesn' t look too promising," she said aloud. In every direction she turned, the tunnels appeared the same. Grey rock with the clinging phosphorescent moss on the ceilings and no sign of life or shadow. " Where do I go now?"
Inyx tried to backtrack by following the faint evidence of scuffle marks on the floor, but this took her in circles. The woman tried cutting small blazes into the stone wall to show her route and quickly discovered herself even more lost in the tunnels.
Closing her eyes, she concentrated on Lan Martak. Recently, they had forged a mind to mind link that both thrilled and frightened her. Never had she been so close to any man than when she and Lan made love and the mental link formed along with the physical.
But it was closed to her.
" And why not?" she said to herself, more for the comforting sound of her words than any other reason. " He' s battling Claybore. He has no time for linking with me." She shuddered at the prospect of disturbing Lan at the wrong instant. Such would cause him great danger. Inyx almost felt guilty at the attempt, even though she desperately needed to know how to find her way through this confusing maze.
" I' ve been in worse." She harkened back to the time spent in the Twistings, a prison filled with sudden death and prisoners both human and inhuman. Inyx had survived that and thwarted Claybore. She could do it again.
" After all," the woman said, brightening, " this maze doesn' t have the monsters in it that the Lord of the Twistings put in his. This is home to a huge number of gnomes. They' d remove any monsters out of self- defense." She worried over that for a moment, then added, " Broit Heresler would certainly do that. If only to bury the bodies."
Laughing, she set off in a random direction. At one cross- tunnel, a faint breeze blew across her perspiring face. She turned and walked into it, hoping to find an entrance populated with people she could ask for directions.
The woman stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the aqueduct. Coming through a huge hole in the side of the mountain, the waterway filled with rain and spiraled the water to lower levels in Yerrary. She swallowed hard when she saw that the water set the ductways afire. The acid rain had the same effect on this artificial creation as it did on the natural plains outside Yerrary.
" What do they drink here?" she wondered. Such water would sear and burn away anyone' s innards. Inyx felt her throat tightening as she tried to remember when last she' d had a drink of water. The battles had caused her to sweat freely and she had been on another world when last she' d eaten.
Inyx walked forward until she stood only a few feet from the trough of burning water. Looking upward through the tiny entrance, she saw the leaden sky outside. The fiery rains continued to pelt down their acid punishment and what little she saw of the mountainside burned in tiny, maniacally dancing watchfires. The ductway itself was filled to the rim with the acid water.
Dropping to her knees, she peered down, trying to see where the water exited the system. Level after level below Inyx saw, until darkness robbed her of any idea exactly how deep the aqueduct went. She saw a full five hundred feet and there was no end in sight at that point.
" The mountain is the highest thing to be seen on this world and the gnomes have hollowed out the world all the way to the core." She shook her head in amazement.
Slinging her sword over her shoulder and onto her back, she edged over to the ductway and carefully swung down. The water splashed onto her fingers and burned, but not to the point of real pain. She knew she could stand the acid' s action for a while before flesh began to peel away. Still, Inyx felt the need to hurry her explorations.
Hand over hand she went down the spiraling aqueduct until she came to the next level. More tunnels. There was nothing to differentiate these from those above.
Down to the next level and the next and the next. All the same, until she came to the seventh level below her starting point. On impulse she walked through the tunnels for a short distance, then stopped and simply stared at the wall and wanted to cry.
" My mark!" she wailed. Scratched at her eye level was one of the first cuts she' d made in the stone to give her some idea as to direction in Yerrary. Somehow she had managed to go up all those levels in her wanderings and not even know it.
Then she brightened a little. She stood a much better chance of finding Lan and Krek if she stayed here than blundering about up where she had been.
" Then again, I might explore a lower level, then return here. It wouldn' t be so hard." She returned to the aqueduct of fire and lowered herself one more level. Inyx was glad she had done this, because it satisfied some of her curiosity about the gnomes' arrangements for drinking water.
The acid rainwater came to a halt at this level by pouring into a giant vat that steamed and smoked. Looking at it dissuaded her from wanting to take a quick swim. The very flesh would be stripped off her body in seconds if she immersed herself in that water. But the water itself ran from the vat into a tangle of lead pipes and from there into glass distillation units.
She explored, but found no one around. Everything appeared to be fully mechanized and didn' t require constant attention. She toyed with the idea of turning off the water and seeing who would come to fix the problem- or if anyone at all would come. The gnomish clans had their society' s jobs segmented and some clans apparently were more diligent than others about performing their tasks. Perhaps whatever clan ran the stills had simply left to go about other more entertaining activities.
She came to another vat, this one filled with crystal clear water. Hesitantly Inyx stuck her finger into the water. No burning. Nothing. Her thirst assailed her more than ever. Inyx had to make the effort. Cupping her hand, she pulled forth enough for a taste. While the water had a curiously flat taste to it, no burning sensation accompanied the coolness laving her tongue or running down her throat.
" Water. Drinkable water," she said with some satisfaction.
As she leaned forward to truly drink, a voice snapped out at her, " You' re not allowed to drink. Only the Wartton clan is allowed to decant from that vat."