Murtagh glanced at the arched ceiling of stone high above. “Even here?” he said in a quiet voice. He had thought there was enough room that Thorn would not feel threatened.
The dragon growled equally softly. I am sorry.
“Your wings don’t even touch the walls. You can still fight if you need, and if we have to flee, there’s space for you to turn ar—”
No. I…Thorn put a paw forward, and then trembled violently and pulled it back. He blinked, and a glistening film coated his eyes, bright in its reflection of the werelight. I want, but I cannot.
Murtagh returned to him and put his arms around Thorn’s neck. For a moment, they stood like that, and the heat from Thorn’s scales warmed Murtagh’s chest through his thin linen shirt.
“It’s all right,” he murmured. “Stay here. I’ll be quick, and then we can be gone.”
Thorn hummed, appearing abashed. I wish I were not so faulted.
A rush of sorrow, compassion, and regret overwhelmed Murtagh. Opening his mind more fully, he said, My hurts are different from yours, but I am as faulted as you, if not more. You know.
I know.
No one is perfect. No one makes it through life whole and unscathed. So do not blame yourself for what is out of your control. We are here, and we have each other. That is what is important.
Another shiver ran Thorn’s length. I will try to follow you. If—
No, no. Stay. We’ll try somewhere else, when we don’t have to worry about being stabbed in the back. Stay, and I’ll be back directly.
You promise?
I promise. Wiol ono.
CHAPTER XII
The Bad Sleep-Well
Murtagh advanced alone into the waiting darkness.
Despite his assurances to Thorn, he felt vulnerable and afraid. The chambers that lay buried beneath him were full of the unfamiliar, the unguessed, and the obscure. How could he ready himself to face that which he had yet to name?
He kept Zar’roc loose in its sheath as he descended along the cut-stone stairs that led into the cavern. The ceiling remained high, lost in a dome of shadow that the feeble illumination from the werelight could not penetrate. He could have increased the flow of energy to the werelight—fanned it bright as a miniature sun—but that might have attracted attention. Also, he heard the squeaks of roosting bats far overhead; more light would risk waking them, and that would bring the cultists down upon his position.
His footsteps seemed curiously loud as he continued down the stairs, each gritty scuff and scrape bouncing off the unseen walls and raising his pulse. The steps ran back and forth in a zigzag, and they were worn hollow in the centers from the passage of uncounted feet over the centuries. Murtagh felt a sense of not just age but antiquity. Whoever had built the stairs had done so long before Alagaësia had been a settled place. What was it Bachel had said? That the cultists had lived in Nal Gorgoth since before elves were elves…. He was starting to think she had told the truth.
The cavern maintained enough height and width for a dragon Thorn’s size—or larger—as it continued to sink deeper and deeper into the sounding earth. The air was warmer now, and moister too, and the smell of brimstone stronger still.
Murtagh wiped his palms against his trousers. He didn’t want his grip slipping on Zar’roc.
The mouth of the cave faded behind him, and soon he dwelt alone in a world of gloom. He reached back with his thoughts—farther than he realized he’d traversed—and touched Thorn’s mind. All well? he asked.
The crows are stirring, but the village yet sleeps.
Murtagh quickened his pace. I’ll try not to be much longer, but this cave…it seems bottomless.
Worry not. I will guard the entrance.
I know.
Despite the heat, Murtagh shivered. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and he felt a disconcerting presence, as if a thousand unseen eyes surrounded him in the press of dark. His nerve faltered, and he was about to increase the brightness of the werelight when…
A greenish glow appeared before him, so dim that it was barely perceptible. At first he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but after a few more yards, he realized that, no, there was indeed light ahead.
He extinguished the werelight, and the shadows rushed in. The sickly green luminescence led him on, and with every step, it swelled in strength until he saw: the cut-stone stairs ended at a rocky cave floor that extended in unknown directions. The coal-seamed rocks were mottled with membranes of virescent slime, from which emanated the low, flameless light. Poking up among the rocks were numerous mushrooms, the most common variety being a short, purple-capped toadstool with drooping gills that resembled an oyster’s inner flesh. Throughout, wisps of brimstone vapor drifted up from the cave floor, as if the earth itself were breathing and sweating.
A winding path set with flagstones like the temple courtyard extended from the bottom of the stairs and disappeared into the ringing shadows.
Murtagh swore to himself, softly, as he arrived at the bottom. He’d never seen such a place—not even in the Beor Mountains, among the tunnels and caves the dwarves built and tended. Whether or not the space was naturally occurring, he couldn’t tell. No stalactites or stalagmites were visible, and the slimed rocks were broken into pieces much like quarry stones.
He pushed his cloak back from his shoulders. I should have left it with Thorn. The heat was becoming unbearable.
He tried to estimate how far underground he was. It had to be several hundred feet, if not more. Chiseling out that many steps would have been a monumental undertaking, even with magic, and if it had been done by hand…What is so important down here?
He started along the path.
The off-putting glow from the slime and the smell of sulfur and his underlying wariness combined to turn his stomach, as if he’d eaten a duck egg that had been insufficiently cooked. He swallowed the spit that was filling his mouth and tried to ignore the feeling, though his body was telling him to flee to open skies and fresh air.
His right foot struck something hard.
A fist-sized rock rolled away. He stepped off the path and retrieved the stone. The rock glistered and gleamed as if burning from within. It was a perfect pair to the stone he’d had off Sarros in Ceunon what seemed like half a year ago.
His heart racing, he tucked the stone into the pouch on his belt.
Perhaps a hundred feet from the stairs, a huge curving wall emerged before him, rough and creviced. Three tunnels pierced the wall, and Thorn would have fit into each had he folded his wings tight and kept his belly against the ground, like a great glittering serpent. The tunnel in the middle was edged with finished stone: a ring of rectangular blocks carved with sharp-cornered lines and the same unfamiliar runes as in the village. In the center of each block was set a cabochon of opal, which reflected the slime-glow like so many cats’ eyes.
The tunnels to the left and right were plain, unfinished: rough tubes of stone that burrowed into the roots of the mountains. They did not look chiseled or hammered, and yet neither did they feel entirely natural. More than a little, they reminded Murtagh of the tunnels he’d fled through during his escape from Captain Wren’s secret chambers beneath Gil’ead—only far larger.
Faint sounds emanated from the depths of the tunnels. Whispers. Moans. Soft echoing cries that had a hooting, birdlike quality. At first he thought he was hearing speech or calls of animals, but after a time, he grew convinced it was the air itself moving through the veins of the earth that gave rise to the eerie sounds.