Heart pounding, Mat charged after Mat and Noal. "They still following?" Noal called.
"What do you think?" Mat said, catching up to the other two. "Light, but those snakes are fast!"
Mat and the other two burst into another room, identical to all of the others. Vaguely off-scale square walls, steam rising from the corners, black triangle-pattern floor tiles. There was no triangular opening at the center to get them out. Blood and bloody ashes.
Mat glanced at the three ways out, holding his ashandarei in sweaty hands. They could not do the same trick as before, bouncing back and forth between the same two rooms. Not with the Aelfinn behind them. He needed to invoke his luck. He prepared to spin, and—
"We have to keep moving!" Noal yelled. He had stopped by the doorway, dancing from one toe to the next in anxiety. "Mat! If those snakes catch us…"
Mat could hear them behind, hissing. Like the rush of a river. He picked a direction and ran.
"Throw another cylinder!" Thom said.
"That was the last one!" Mat said. "And we've only got three night-flowers." His pack was feeling light.
"Music doesn't work on them," Noal said, throwing aside his drum. "They're too angry."
Mat cursed and lit a nightflower with a striker, then tossed it over his shoulder. The three of them barreled into another room, then continued on directly through the doorway on the other side.
"I don't know what way to go, lad," Thom said. He sounded so winded! "We're lost."
"I've been picking directions at random!" Mat said.
"Only you can't go backward," Thom said. "That's probably the direction the luck wants us to go!"
The nightflower boomed, the explosion echoing through the corridors. It was not nearly as great as that of the cylinders. Mat risked a glance over his shoulder, seeing smoke and sparks fly through the tunnel. The fire slowed the Aelfinn, but soon the more daring members of the band slithered through the smoke.
"Maybe we can negotiate!" Thom panted.
"They look too angry!" Noal said.
"Mat," Thom said, "you mentioned that they knew about your eye. They answered a question about it."
"They told me I'd bloody give up half the light of the world," Mat said, skull still throbbing. "I didn't want to know, but they told me anyway."
"What else did they say?" Thom asked. "Anything that can be a clue? How did you get out last time?"
"They threw me out," Mat said.
He and the others burst into another room—no doorway—then dashed out the left-hand exit. What Thom had said before was correct. They probably needed to double back. But they could not, not with that nest of vipers following so closely!
"They threw me out of the doorframe in the Aelfinn realm," Mat said, feeling winded. "It leads to the basement of the Stone of Tear."
"Then maybe we can find that!" Thom said. "Your luck, Mat. Have it take us to the Aelfinn realm."
It might work. "All right," he said, closing his eye and spinning about.
Mat pointed in a direction and opened his eye. He was pointing directly toward the gang of Aelfinn, weaving up the corridor toward them.
"Bloody ashes!" Mat cursed, turning and running away from them, picking another corridor at random.
Thom joined him, but was looking very wearied. Mat could take Moiraine from him for a while, but Thom would be so tired he would not be able to fight. The Aelfinn were going to run them ragged, as they had Birgitte centuries ago.
In the next room, Thom stumbled to a halt, drooping, though he still held Moiraine. Like all of the chambers, this one had four ways out. But the only way that mattered was one directly toward the Aelfinn. The one they couldn't take.
"There's no winning this game," Thom said, panting. "Even if we cheat, there's no winning."
"Thom…" Mat said urgently. He handed Thom his ashandarei, then picked up Moiraine. She was so light. A good thing, too, otherwise Thom would never have lasted as long as he had.
Noal glanced at them, then down the corridor. The Aelfinn would be on them in moments. Noal met Mat's eye. "Give me your pack. I need those nightflowers."
"But—"
"No arguing!" Noal said. He dashed over and snagged one of the nightflowers. It had a very short fuse. He lit it and tossed it into the corridor. The Aelfinn were close enough that Mat could hear them scream and hiss as they saw the firework.
The boom came, sparks spurting out of the corridor and lighting the dark room. Where sparks came close to one of the rising columns of steam, that steam shied back, dancing away from the flames. The air smelled strongly of smoke and sulphur. Light, his socket was throbbing again.
"Now, Mat," Noal said, Mat's ears still ringing from the blast, "give me the pack."
"What are you doing?" Mat said warily as Noal took the pack, then fished out the last nightflower.
"You can see it, Mat," Noal said. "We need more time. You have to get far enough ahead of those vipers that you can double back a few times, let your luck work you out of this."
Noal nodded to one of the corridors, "These corridors are narrow. Good choke points. A man could stand there and only have to fight one or two at a time. He'd last maybe a few minutes."
"Noal!" Thom said, wheezing, standing with his hands on his knees near Mat's ashandarei leaning against the wall. "You can't do this."
"Yes I can," Noal said. He stepped up to the corridor, beyond which the Aelfinn gathered. "Thom, you're in no shape to fight. Mat, you're the one whose luck can find the way out. Neither of you can stay. But I can."
"There will be no coming back for you," Mat said grimly. "As soon as we double back, this flaming place will take us somewhere else."
Noal met his eye, that weathered face determined. "I know. A price, Mat. We knew this place would demand a price. Well, I've seen a lot of things, done a lot of things. I've been used, Mat, one too many times. This is as good a place as any to meet the end."
Mat stood up, lifting Moiraine, then nodded in respect to Noal. "Come on, Thom."
"But—"
"Come on!" Mat barked, dashing to one of the other doorways. Thom hesitated, then cursed and joined him, carrying Mat's torch in one hand and his ashandarei in the other. Noal stepped into the corridor behind, hefting his shortsword. Shapes moved in the smoke beyond him.
"Mat," Noal called, glancing over his shoulder.
Mat waved Thom on, but hesitated, looking back.
"If you ever meet a Malkieri," Noal said, "you tell him Jain Farstrider died clean."
"I will, Jain," Mat said. "May the light hold you."
Noal turned back to face the Aelfinn and Mat left him. There was another boom as a nightflower went off. Then Mat heard Noal's voice echo down the corridor as he screamed a battlecry. It was not in any tongue Mat had ever heard.
He and Thom entered another chamber. Thom was weeping, but Mat held his tears. Noal would die with honor. Once, Mat would have thought that kind of thinking foolish—what good was honor if you were dead? But he had too many memories of soldiers, had spent too much time with men who fought and bled for that honor, to discredit such notions now.
He closed his eye and spun, Moiraine's weight almost unbalancing him. He picked a direction and found himself pointing back the way they had come. He charged down the corridor, Thom following.