She lay huddled in the cell ignoring the bread and water Derin had left her, the herbs Dlos had brought She tried to remember all that Jerthon had shown her and could not. Some of it, yes. But a haziness came over the pictures, maddening her. There was something else, though. Something that lingered in her mind, secret and urgent Had she gotten the thought from Jerthon? It was as if there was something they would not trust her with, something they had shielded from her.
But she did know. She knew. She rose so quickly the pain brought tears and began to prowl the cell. What was it that Jerthon had hidden in his thoughts, did not want her to know? How could she know something he had not intended her to see? Unless she . . .
“No! I do not have that power!” She stood staring down at the pile of hides where Jerthon had slept trying to shake off the unwanted knowledge. And she knew, with perfect clarity, that if she pushed those hides away—she thrust the hides back with her foot and saw the loose, unmortared stones underneath. She knelt folded the hides back, and began to lift out the stones.
Beneath them was a wide plank. She lifted it out and knelt there staring down into a black pit.
Crude steps went down, to disappear m darkness. Three lanterns stood on the top step; she reached for one, and struck flint adjusted the wick. Now she could see the bottom step, and the beginning of a tunnel. She started down, then turned back, leaving the lantern on the stairs.
She covered the loose stones with hides, then pulled hides over the plank and pulled that over the hole behind her as she descended.
The tunnel ran on farther than her light reached. Heavy timbers supported the roof—Venniver’s timbers, she thought, grinning. And Venniver’s stones and dragon bone mortared into the walls.
She had gone some distance when she came to a pile of loose dirt where the slaves must recently have been digging. A side tunnel opened here, smaller and unmortared. A stack of long timbers stood at the mouth. She counted twenty exactly and could hear Venniver shouting, “Where in Urdd do timbers go! Where does someone hide timbers! You don’ t . . .” She went on, smiling to herself.
Soon her way was blocked by the tunnel’s end. Shovels had been left here, a pick, an adz. A sled for carrying dirt. There was everything here. How in Urdd had they gotten it all, right out from under Venniver’s nose?
“Skeelie stole it,” Jerthon said quietly. She spun at his voice, her lantern careening light up the walls.
“Skeelie is clever and quick. She could steal Venniver’s beard off his face.” He came toward her. His clear green eyes held her. “I wish I could—could be sure of you.” He made a barrier between them that she could not broach. “Well, what you have already seen is enough to get us all killed.” He took her lantern from her and held it up; and where the tunnel had stopped in a fall of dirt, now it was suddenly open in an illusion so real and sudden she gasped. It went further than the light could reach. “That is how it will be,” Jerthon said. “We . . .” he stopped speaking, startled, as two figures appeared there ahead, young girls, their hair long down their backs. This was not a vision Jerthon was giving her, this had come unbidden. She could feel his sharp interest as the brown-haired girl began to rummage in a crevice in the tunnel wall; Jerthon caught his breath as the girl drew her hand from the niche, closed around something small and glowing; and suddenly the tunnel began to grow light, to open out, the space becoming huge and so brilliant Tayba could hardly look.
An immense space opened out before them and seemed to be expanding. There were vague mountains in the distance; but the towering winged figures close at hand made her go weak with awe, want to kneel. Their human torsos rose above the horselike bodies, tall, burnished; and their wings flashed against the brilliance of expanding light. Their eyes, their faces held wonders that made her want to cry out, drowned her in a world quite beyond her.
You are come, they cried, and their voices held a terrible joy. You must reach out, you will reach out—if you are the chosen. She was clutching Jerthon’s hand.
The vision vanished. There was blackness. Tayba had heard something drop to the floor, saw dimly that one of the girls knelt to search across the dirt for it—then that, too, vanished. She stood staring, felt Jerthon beside her, looking up to see him as stricken as she.
He shook free of the vision at last. “I have to go back. I will be missed.” He seemed not to want to speak of what he had seen, to lock it privately within. He led her back along the tunnel, then turned away from her into the side tunnel. “This goes into the pit.” He smiled for the first time, then swung away, brushing the wall with his shoulder. Loose grains of dirt fell, then dirt fell from the roof—she didn’t know what was happening, she was covered by falling dirt; she couldn’t see, felt Jerthon grab her shoulder and push her roughly away—Jerthon was there in falling dirt she saw a timber fall. Dirt roared down, she dove under the timber reaching for Jerthon, jammed her shoulder under it so it nearly knocked her flat, the pain making her cry out.
She sprawled beneath the timber’s weight covered with dirt and could feel Jerthon buried beneath her.
She twisted over, clawing at the dirt beneath her. Jerthon! His face was covered, he could not breathe. She fought dirt, twisted down into an impossible position, digging, scraping dirt with her hands. The pain in her side tore at her. She felt Jerthon try to move his leg, felt his panic. She clawed like an animal, and at last could feel his shoulder, his neck, began to dig dirt away from his face; could feel his mouth at last, felt him suck in breath. The pain in her side was like knives. She clawed dirt away from his mouth, his nose. She could feel his breath on her hand. Nausea swept her. She began to clear dirt from his eyes, could feel dirt falling on her back.
Something touched her back, she started violently, then realized someone was clearing dirt from her body. She twisted around and saw Drudd pushing a block of wood in next to her to support the timber. He wedged another block in farther down, then began digging with a small spade as she held her hands to protect Jerthon’s face. Drudd cleared her first, to get at Jerthon, then she dug beside him. Jerthon kept himself quiet with great effort, she thought. He was sweating, his jaws clenched. She thought he wanted to fight the confining dirt mindlessly, as she would have.
When he was free at last, he stood in the tunnel looking at them, very white, collecting himself. There was nothing for anyone to say. Drudd and Jerthon soon went around the slide and back up to the pit.
Shaken, Tayba returned to the cell and began replacing the plank and stones. When she had finished, she sat down on the skins wishing the nausea would pass, wishing her hands would stop trembling.
What had caused the cave-in? Had it been a natural thing, there where the tunnel was yet unsupported? Or had the Pellian Seer brought it down on Jerthon in a moment of cruel retribution for Jerthon’s part in saving Ram? Meant, she thought, shivering, to kill both of them there?
She did not know. Perhaps neither did Jerthon. Perhaps he had been too terrified to wonder or to care.
And when she thought of Jerthon’s knowledge of her, of the power within her that she would give anything to be rid of, she wondered if, were it to happen again, she would be quite so quick to gamble her life to save someone who not only knew of that power, but expected her to come to terms with it in a way she could not bear to do.