past as quickly as possible. Darkness only knew what might come leaping out of them.
The path narrowed to a quarter of a pace. Now I could just barely set my foot on it, and the danger of tumbling off the cliff was much greater. I had to cling on to the basalt with my nails in order to stay up there.
Ahead of me and a little to the right a string of six lights appeared. The path ended right beside them, at a small platform in front of an opening. There was no point in clambering into the hole—I needed to go in the other direction. I turned toward the lights and something that the map showed as a thin line barely visible on the yellowed paper. It was called Nirena’s Thread.
It was just a bridge, but it was no wider than the last few yards of the path. And what’s more, it was rounded! A genuine hair, with barely even enough space to set my foot on it, and it stretched for thirty yards and more.
I’m not afraid of heights, but this miracle of architectural design was more than I could manage. I wouldn’t have been able to take more than ten teeny-weeny steps before the inevitable moment came and I fell. There were six large magical lamps, trembling and winking, suspended in the air above the bridge.
Well, gazing at the bridge wasn’t going to make it any wider or get me any closer to the other side. I decided not to try anything too fancy and to cross the bridge in the simplest way possible—I simply lay down on Nirena’s Thread, wound my legs round it, and started pulling with my hands.
I crawled along about as fast as a caterpillar. But I moved! And it was better to move slowly but surely, without any fear of falling. Well … almost without any fear. I tried not to look down; below me there was nothing but blackness.
When I’d covered a quarter of the distance, I decided I deserved a little break and I stopped, hugging the bridge with my arms and legs as if it was the most precious thing in my life. Faint currents of warm air rose up from somewhere below me, bringing the aroma of a cesspit, and the stench made my eyes water.
I crawled forward, holding my breath until finally, I reached the opposite bank.
I gave another wide yawn and splashed water on my face from the flask in an attempt to drive away sleep. It didn’t help. But that was hardly surprising. More than twenty hours on my feet, virtually without any rest at all. My fatigue was making itself felt, remorselessly demanding rest and refusing to back down.
I closed my eyes, but told myself I wouldn’t sleep … not for anything.…
7
The Dance Of The Sunlight
I don’t know how much time went by, but I woke up suddenly, as if someone had jabbed their elbow into my side.
The maps called the place I had reached the Eighty-Sixth Northeastern Hall of Stairways. It was a hall of onyx, and the black stone greedily devoured the light of the magic lamp, so that visibility was lousy. I couldn’t risk increasing the brightness; at this stage I had to be careful with every new light and make it last for as long as possible, so that I’d be able to reach the way out.
I tried not to think about the fix I was in. Up on the outside, in the old life, I used to think that going down into Hrad Spein would make me part of the greatest and most dangerous adventure of the century. Only now I realized it was something far more serious than that. I couldn’t find the words to describe the way I felt about the present situation.
Alone. Completely alone. In almost pitch darkness, going deeper and deeper, with my remaining supplies vanishing at catastrophic speed, without the Key, without any hope of getting back out through the Doors.
What was I hoping for? Probably nothing more or less than a miracle. A Great Big Divine Miracle. Of course, the gods were just desperate to save a certain Harold; they were queuing up for the chance.
My mood could hardly have been worse.
Dozens of black staircases running upward or winding downward like corkscrews. No difference between the staircases at all, as if the architects had followed some strict system that I didn’t understand.
I walked past them for a long, long time, sometimes touching the cold stone with my fingers and listening to the silence. The onyx devoured every sound. At least, that’s what I thought until I heard the scream. Although I didn’t really hear it so much as feel it. The scream didn’t last long, it broke off a second after I heard it, and it was very far away.
I stopped and listened. Silence. After walking right through the Hall of Stairways and tramping through a few small vestibules, I reached the entrance to a hall where there was light, and quickly put out my little magical lamp.
The entrance was every bit as tall and wide as the Doors, and once again there were two statues waiting to greet me, just like at the Hall of the Slumbering Echo. An orc on the right, an elf on the left. The orc’s double- handed sword was broken, and the Firstborn was using a stiletto to poke out his own right eye with an impassive look on his face. There was already a gaping socket where his left eye should have been. I shuddered—the huge statue, five times the height of a man, seemed alive. The sculptor had certainly been granted talent from the gods.
The elf’s sword was still in one piece, but the weapon was lying on the floor, with its handle toward me. I chuckled—it wasn’t every day you could see an elf voluntarily discarding his weapon. But the elf had decided to keep his eyes and not stick any sharp objects into them. He had simply covered them with his hands.
How could I possibly understand what the builders had tried to say with these statues! There was writing on the floor. I was about to walk on past, but the letters impressed into the stone slabs flared up with a gray pearly light, forcing me to take notice of them.
At first they were orcish squiggles, then they trembled, diffused, and gathered back together as the squares, circles, and triangles used for writing by the gnomes and dwarves. A few moments later in some incredible way the gnomish scrawl rearranged itself into human letters that froze, glinting like pearls.
The letters gleamed for a few seconds, then re-formed into orcish squiggles and faded. This was probably the first moment in Hrad Spein that I thought about just giving up and trying to find another way to the sixth level.
I’m one of those people who usually listen to the inner voice of reason. And after all, the elves wouldn’t go and warn a traveler about danger for no particular reason, especially if you bore in mind that there hadn’t been any warning notices before any of the other traps I’d met. It would be better to err on the side of caution and not go blundering into a nest of vipers.
To reach the main route leading to the descent to the sixth level I only had to go through a few more halls, walking straight ahead without turning off (if the maps were telling the truth, of course).
A detour would cost me an extra day and a half of wandering through stairways, corridors, and halls, and I simply didn’t have a day and a half to spare. I was far enough behind schedule already, and the time estimates I’d given Milord Alistan weren’t worth a demon’s belch anymore.
My stay in the Palaces of Bone really was having a very bad effect on my brain. I’d started rating the value of time above my own life. Anyway, the result was a kind of momentary blackout inside my head, and I only came round when I’d already taken twenty paces across the hall that I’d been categorically advised not to enter.
That’s the way the most stupid mistakes in the universe are made. I didn’t do it, I didn’t want to, it just happened.
The fear was churning inside me like the geysers on Dragon Island. And it was about to spill over at any moment.
