There was a long silence. “Well, what do you suggest?” Foraker asked finally.
Slanter shrugged. “I don’t suggest anything. I got you this far; the rest is up to you. Maybe the boy can hide you with his magic again.” He lifted his eyebrows at Jair. “How about, it—can you sing for half the night?”
Jair flushed. “There must be some way to get past the guards, Slanter!”
“Oh; it’s no problem for me.” The Gnome sniffed. “But the rest of you might have some trouble.”
“Helt has the night vision…” Foraker began thoughtfully.
But Garet Jax cut him short, beckoning to Stythys. “What suggestion would you make, Mwellret? This is your home. What would you do?”
Stythys let his lidded eyes narrow. “Findss your own way, little peopless. Sseekss another’ss foolissh aid. Leavess me be!”
Garet Jax studied him a moment, then walked over to him wordlessly, gray eyes so cold that Jair stepped back involuntarily. The Weapons Master’s finger lifted and came to rest on the Mwellret’s cloaked form.
“You seem to be telling me that you are no longer of any use to us,” he said softly.
The Mwellret seemed to shrink back within the robes then, slitted eyes glittering with hate. But he held no power over Garet Jax. The Weapons Master stood where he was, waiting.
Then a low hiss escaped the lizard’s mouth and its forked tongue licked out slowly. “Helpss you if you ssetss me free,” he whispered. “Takess you where no one sseess you.”
There was a long silence as the members of the little company glanced at one another suspiciously. “Don’t trust him,” Slanter said.
“Sstupid little Gnome cannot help you now,” Stythys sneered. “Needss my help, little friendss. Knowss wayss that no other can passs.”
“What ways do you know?” Garet Jax asked, his voice still soft.
But the Mwellret shook his head stubbornly. “Promisse firsst to sset me free, little peopless. Promisse.”
The Weapons Master’s lean face showed nothing of what he was thinking. “If you can get us into Graymark, you go free.”
Slanter’s face wrinkled with disapproval, and he spit into the earth. Standing with the others of the company, Jair waited for Stythys to say something more. But the Mwellret seemed to be thinking.
“You have our promise,” Foraker interjected, a hint of impatience in his voice. “Now tell us what way we must go.”
Stythys grinned, an evil, unpleasant smile that appeared to be almost a grimace. “Takess little peopless through Cavess of Night!”
“Why, you black… !” Slanter exploded in fury and came at the Mwellret in a rush. Helt caught him about the waist as he tried to push past and hauled him back, the Gnome yelling and struggling as if he had gone mad. Stythys’ laughter was a soft hiss as the members of the little company closed about Slanter to keep him back.
“What is it, Gnome?” Garet Jax demanded, one hand fastening about Slanter’s arm. “Do you know of these caves?”
Slanter wrenched himself free of the Weapons Master, though Helt still maintained his grip. “The Caves of Night, Garet Jax!” the Gnome snarled. “Death bins for the mountain Gnomes since the time they fell under the rule of the lizards! Thousands of my people were given over to the Caves, thrown within and lost! Now this… monster would do likewise with us!”
Garet Jax turned quickly back to Stythys. The long knife appeared as if by magic in one hand. “Be careful of your answer this time, Mwellret,” he advised softly.
But Stythys seemed unperturbed. “Liess from little Gnome. Cavess are passsagess into Graymark. Takess you beneath the mountainss, passt the walkerss. No one sseess.”
“Is there truly passage in?” Foraker asked Slanter.
The Gnome went suddenly still, rigid in Helt’s firm grip. “Doesn’t matter if there is. The Caves are no place for the living. Miles of tunnels cut within the Ravenshorn, black as any pit and filled with Procks! Have you heard of Procks? They are living things, formed of magic older than the lands—magic from the old world, it’s said. Living mouths of rock, all through the Caves. Everywhere you walk, the Procks are there in the cavern floor. One wrong step and they open, swallowing-you up, closing about you, crushing you into…” He was shaking with fury. “That was the way the lizards disposed of the mountain Gnomes—pushed them into the Caves!”
“But the Caves do offer a passage through.” Garet Jax turned Foraker’s question into a statement of fact.
“A passage useless to us!” Slanter exploded once more. “We can’t see to find our way! A dozen steps in and the Procks would have us!”
“Havess not me!” Stythys cut him short with a hiss. “Mine iss the ssecret of the Cavess of Night! Little peopless cannot passs, but my peopless know the way. Prockss cannot harm uss!”
They were all still then. Garet Jax stalked back to stand before the Mwellret. “The Caves of Night run to Graymark beneath the Ravenshorn—safe from the eyes of the walkers? And you can lead us through?”
“Yess, little friendss,” Stythys rasped softly. “Takess you through.”
Garet Jax turned to the others. For a moment no one spoke. Then Helt gave a quick nod. “There are only six of us. If we are to have any chance at all, we have to reach the fortress unseen.
Foraker and Edain Elessedil nodded as well. Jair looked at Slanter. “You’re all fools!” the Gnome exclaimed bitterly. “Blind, stupid fools! You can’t trust the lizards!”
There was an awkward silence. “You don’t have to go any farther, if you don’t want to, Slanter,” Jair told him.
The Gnome stiffened. “I can take care of myself, boy!”
“I know. I just thought that…”
“Well, keep your thoughts to yourself!” the other cut him short. “As for not going any farther, you’d be better off taking that advice yourself. But you won’t, I’m sure. So we’ll all be fools together.” He glanced darkly at Stythys. “But this fool will be keeping close watch, and if anything goes wrong in this, I’ll be there to make certain the lizard doesn’t see the end of it!”
Garet Jax turned back to Stythys. “You’ll take us through then, Mwellret. Just remember—it will be as the Gnome says. What happens to us happens as well to you. Don’t play games with us. If you try…”
Stythys’ smile was quick and hard. “No gamess with you, little friendss.”
They waited until nightfall to resume their journey, then slipped down out of the rocks above the Silver River and turned north into the mountains. Light from the gibbous moon and stars brightened the dark mass of the Ravenshorn. as it rose about them, great barren peaks towering against the deep blue of the skyline. A worn pathway ran parallel to the riverbank through a scattering of trees and brush, and the little company from Culhaven followed it in until the forestland south was lost from view.
All night they walked, Helt and Slanter in the lead, the others following in cautious silence. The dark peaks drew steadily closer about the channel of the Silver River to wall them in. Save for the steady rush of the river, it was oddly silent within these peaks, a deep and pervasive stillness wrapping about the barren rock as if Mother Nature cradled her sleeping child. As the hours slipped away, Jair found himself growing increasingly uneasy with the silence, staring about at the massive walls of rock, peering into the shadows, and searching for something he could not see yet sensed was there, watching. The company chanced upon no other living creature that night, save for the great cliff birds that winged silently overhead across their nocturnal haunts, and still the Valeman sensed that they were not alone.
A part of this feeling sprang, he knew, from the continued presence of Stythys. Trailing, he could see the black figure of the Mwellret immediately in front of him. He could feel the creature’s green eyes constantly shifting to find him, watching him, waiting. Like Slanter, he did not trust the Mwellret. Whatever promises Stythys might have made to aid them, Jair was certain that behind it all lay a ruthless determination to gain mastery over the Valeman’s Elven magic. Whatever else happened, the creature meant to have that power. The certainty of it was frightening. The days he had spent walled away in the prisons at Dun Fee Aran haunted him like a specter so terrible that nothing could ever entirely banish it. It was Stythys who was responsible for that specter, and Stythys who would see life breathed back into it once more. While Jair now seemed free of the Mwellret, he could not shake the feeling that in some insidious way the creature had not lost control of him entirely.