She looked up from her frowning daydream. "What? Out? Why, we have to go through the Citadel."
The young rebels groaned. "Can't we keep going in this direction?" said Shamus, pointing away from the fortress.
"That direction is the mogg warrens," Takara said. "A maze of tunnels, shafts, and mogg nests, infested with thousands of ugly, bad-tempered creatures. We wouldn't get a hundred yards inside before we were attacked, lost, or eaten."
The map room fell quiet.
At length Eladamri said, "We got in by stealth and disguise, so it's only natural we leave the same way."
"Our disguises are wearing a bit thin," Sivi said.
"We'll change them. If they're looking for an elf and five soldiers, we'll become something else."
"My face is known," said Takara.
"You could become a man," Sivi suggested.
Takara smiled thinly. "I don't think I could carry it off as well as you, My Dear."
Sivi reddened and was about to utter a sharp reply, but Eladamri cut her off.
"Our strength lies in staying together and going as quietly as we can. I've never run from a fight in my life, but there are some odds a wise warrior doesn't test. Seven of us against the entire Stronghold is not a battle, it's a prolonged execution."
They did what they could to change their appearance. Those in Rathi uniforms discarded their mantles and tore them into rags to polish their helmets and breastplates. Kireno, slimmest of the rebels, took off his breastplate and gave it to Eladamri, turning his backplate around to wear on his chest. Medd wrapped Eladamri's head in makeshift bandages to obscure his elven features.
Takara watched this with considerable amusement. "You should've been actors," she said. "You look like a touring company of bards."
Sivi reached across Garnan's waist and drew his knife. She advanced on Takara, holding the blade in a threatening manner.
"Call her off, Eladamri. I'm your valued guide, remember?"
"Liin Sivi-"
Sivi swung the knife in a wide arc. Takara tried to block by grabbing Sivi's knife hand. The Vec woman was far stronger, and Takara had to use both hands to hold off the knife. Sivi's free hand darted in. She snatched hold of Takara's long red ponytail and spun her around by tugging on it sharply. With her comrades shouting "No! No, Sivi!" she slashed Takara's hair off right where it was tied.
Sivi tossed the heavy hunk of hair on the floor and returned Gaman's knife.
Takara knelt by her shorn locks. "Why did you do that?"
"You need to change your appearance too, O Takara," Sivi said. "Without that hair and with a little dirt on your face, you can be a charwoman."
"Enough," said Eladamri sharply. "I won't have this bickering."
Medd was nearest Takara. She went to him and wordlessly demanded his knife. Sivi stood back and let the toten-vec drop from her hand. Medd wouldn't give the woman his knife, so she took it herself. Sivi flipped the lethal end of her weapon back and prepared to cast it.
Staring at the Vec woman with hollow eyes, Takara used Medd's knife to saw off even more of her hair. When he saw she didn't mean to attack Sivi, Medd gently took the knife away from Takara and offered to even up the horrid haircut.
"Your problem," Takara said to Sivi, "is that you don't go far enough."
Laughing, Sivi recoiled the toten-vec. "I'll try to remember that."
From being five soldiers, an elf, and an emaciated woman, they were now six reasonably tidy soldiers and a crop-haired, emaciated woman. They cleaned up the map room to hide the fact that they'd been there and left the tower by the upper bridge to avoid the gellerac still loose in the prison.
There were no new sentries on the bridge, so they hurried across.
"Don't like it," Sivi declared.
Takara pushed past her to take the lead. "They don't expect intruders between the Citadel and the mogg warrens," she said. "No one's that crazy."
"No one but us," Kireno said.
Medd and Shamus shrugged at each other and followed her. Kireno and Garnan went next, leaving Eladamri to shoo Sivi along.
"1 don't know if I like that woman or hate her," Sivi muttered.
"Make up your own mind," replied Eladamri. "But until we're free of this place, don't turn your back on her."
Just inches to go.
Ertai could hardly see, his eyelids were so swollen, but with his mind's magical eye he could see the cube now extended over the edge of the furnace cone. In another twenty minutes, it would be over. His last hope, the retriever, apparently failed. Belbe had not come.
Facing death, he had the odd thought that he would be contributing to the composition of Rath in a very literal way. All bodies returned to the soil, but his would disintegrate in the furnace and be whirled into the flowstone matrix. His component atoms would mingle with the substance of Rath, pass through the factory, and be pumped onto the surface along with billions of pounds of flowstone. Would there be a little patch of Rath that was Ertai? He wondered if his consciousness would survive. If so, he hoped Crovax would walk over him someday. He'd be sure to trip him.
Ertai.
He recalled a book he'd read in one of the royal libraries about the death pits of Rath. Past evincars had used the black tarry residue left over from the making of flowstone to fill in gaps in the Stronghold cavern. As it was poisonous and corrosive, some evincars had taken to tossing unwanted prisoners into this muck. As a result, the book claimed, the death pits had achieved a kind of collective sentience, melded from the souls of the people who died in it.
"Ertai!"
It was a real voice calling his name. He managed to open his right eye to a tiny slit.
"Belbe!"
The retriever worked after all! She looked splendid in her black diamond armor and Phyrexian headdress. She was tearing at the cube with her hands, but the surface was too hard and smooth. She could make no impression on it.
"Tube," he said. "Break the tube."
She jumped down and found the feeder tube on the back. No thicker than her little finger, she easily snapped it. Semi-liquid flowstone spilled across the platform until she crimped the tube shut. Tiny silver spheres danced around her feet.
She heard feet pounding on the ladder coming up the furnace cone. A man in bright armor appeared-Nasser. The narrow ledge between her and the ladder was speckled with spinning globules of flowstone, still not solidified. She guessed the radiance of the energy stream was keeping them liquid longer than normal.
"Excellency! Stay where you are! I am to bring you back to the coronation!" Nasser shouted above the crackling beam.
"I'll come back once Ertai is safe!"
"My orders are to bring you back immediately. Let the boy go!"
"No!"
He drew his sword. "You must. It is the will of Crovax."
Belbe slid her feet along to avoid stepping on the flowstone globules. She struck a fighting pose.
"You cannot compel me!"
Nasser saw the flowstone droplets and plainly understood the danger. He imitated Belbe's foot-sliding and inched close. The Rathi sergeant jabbed tentatively with his sword tip. Belbe swatted the flat of the blade away with her bare hands.
"This is senseless!" Nasser declared. "Come back with me and complete the ceremony. You can save the boy afterward!"
"I do not jump to Crovax's bidding! Go back and tell him I'll return when I choose!"
Belbe slid closer and unleashed a kick that caught Nasser at the waist. He was a strong man, and though the blow drove the wind from his chest, he kept his feet. He sheathed his sword and swung a mailed fist. Belbe blocked one punch, but the other hit her solidly on the cheek. She staggered back, slipping on bright silver pellets of flowstone. Only the weight of the cube behind her kept her from falling backward into the furnace.