They ran, pursued by clouds of dust and the sustained clamour of collapsing stones behind them. Eventually there was silence, whether from cessation or from distance they did not know.
The passage branched, and branched again. Each time the Heheganu chose that tunnel from which the wind blew forth to buffet them. Heads down and clutching what remained of their garments, they advanced into a continuous, whining, sighing blast. The air held a faint tang of something coppery, acrid, and alien.
Harsan drew up short within the opening of yet another side corridor, one that opened off to the left of the windy main gallery. All were out of breath, the Livyani more than any of them. The man sank gratefully to the floor, and Tlayesha knelt beside him. (Ever the physician, Harsan thought to himself.) Mirure, red staining the dirty bandage upon her shoulder, stood apart to watch, one of their unlit torches held ready to use as a weapon. Itk t’Sa, Simanuya, and the Heheganu squatted on their heels within the branch gallery and leaned against the seamed blocks of the wall.
“How much longer can you sustain that light?” Harsan asked the Heheganu.
“A few more hours. It draws only a little power from the Planes Beyond.” The creature held out the dancing globe of colourless radiance upon his palm. The greyish, almost noseless face already showed lines of strain, belying his words. “Then I must rest for a time.”
“An exit?” Taluvaz Arrio panted. “You spoke of an exit.” “My elder s told me of a passage near the Mouth of the World, one that leads bey ond the city walls. We should reach it soon.” Itk t’Sa turned her long, bone-white snout to look at Morkudz. “This Mouth of the World: what. is it?”
“A place from whence all of these subterranean chambers receive air.” The Heheganu pointed vaguely down the tunnel with his free hand.
“An opening into the swamps, perhaps?” Taluvaz muttered to Harsan. The glassblower nodded hopefully.
Tlayesha came to lean herself into the crook of Harsan’s arm for warmth. “You say you have never come here before,” she said to the Heheganu. “Can we not miss the exit and wander these catacombs forever? The lessons of one’s elders are not always well remembered.” She tore yet another strip from the tatters of her kilt to tie back her long hair.
Morkudz did not deign to reply.
Taluvaz Arrio fingered the cyclopean stones of the wall, great rough-hewn boulders fitted so closely together that even a Dri- ant would find it hard to squeeze between them. “I wonder who built this place,” he murmured to no one in particular. “The masons of the First Imperium were capable of such work, but this is different from their style. The Dragon Warriors? Even the Llyani?” He seemed genuinely interested.
“We had best move on,” Harsan rubbed his own and Tlayesha’s limbs for warmth. “There may be other entrances into this place. Such tunnels are the favoured dwellings of Lord Sarku’s servants.”
Taluvaz raised his head sharply, struck by an idea. “Tell me, priest, do you recognise where you are? Have you any sense of the nearness of your artifact-the Man of Gold? Can you find it from here?”
Harsan had not even thought of this. Now he felt about carefully within his mind, looked up and down the tunnel. “No. There is nothing. I am as lost as you. Perhaps as I become more familiar-”
“Possibly. But perhaps this area was built after the concealing of the Man of Gold and the placing of instructions into the teaching device you found. You would not recognise any passages added later.”
It crossed Harsan’s mind to ask how the Livyani knew of the Globe of Instruction, but that could wait. As an experiment he opened his mouth to tell the man something of what the thing had taught him, but he found his lips still sealed by the ancients’ spell. He shut his eyes and struggled in silence for a moment. Apparently the inner core of his being did not entirely trust this urt)ane, tattooed stranger. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.
Did the Livyani truly serve Prince Eselne and the Military Party? And if so, did he, Harsan, really want to give the Man of Gold over to that Prince’s faction: the generals, the lords of the high clans, and the hawk-eyed soldiers who preached war and expansion and the glory of the Imperium? He had heard talk of Prince Eselne in the monastery-who had not? The reports were good, as far as they went: a brave warrior, a ruler who admired noble action, if not always brilliant. But there were others with-or behind-the Prince who did not fit so well with Lord Thumis’ more peaceable philosophy. Still, better Eselne than Dhich’une-or Mridobu, or any of the rest…
The suggestion of a clan was something else. Taluvaz could not guess how deeply he had struck when he had mentioned that.
A clan! To be something more than “Harsan of Slave Lineage,” as the Master of the Tolek Kana Pits had named him!
He could never gain a lineage-to be “ Hi — Somebody”-since his ancestry was not known. But if only he could look to one of the great clans of the Imperium and say, “These are my people!” To him, as to most citizens of the Five Empires, this was more precious than gold and gems and slaves and palaces'… But would Eselne do this thing? The promises of princes were notorious: “written upon the surface of the stream,” people said.
Yet… Harsan had yearned for this ever since he had been brought to the Monastery of the Sapient Eye. If only it were possible…!
His head was beginning to ache, either with the cold or with all of this thinking. He wished, deeply and urgently, that these dangers and political manoeuvrings could be further postponed, pushed away, avoided yet for a time. Or ignored entirely! Forever!
No, that was wishful fancy.
Something told him, too, that further hesitation was no longer a useful option. Whether he liked it or not, he must take action. “Only a fool sits to admire the beauty of the forest fire,” as his Pe Choi foster-parents used to say.
He suddenly felt a strange sensation of freedom, a realisation of something that had lain unrecognised behind the gates Of his consciousness all along. It was as though he stood in a prison and turned to see the cell door standing open!
He was free-really free-to choose for himself whether he wanted to lead Taluvaz Arrio to the treasure or not!
To be sure, he could not speak of the Man of Gold to those who were his foes, or to those whom he instinctively mistrusted; but a conviction grew in him that he could seek the thing for himself! And if he found it, he could dispose of it as he alone saw fit: he, Harsan-not as certain mighty Princes decreed, not as he was bid by any temple hierarchy, not according to the dictates of some vast and cryptic game of power played for distant-and debatable-goals! His Skein of Destiny belonged solely to him. “Back away from any problem and prune off all that is not essential,” Zaren had told him in the Monastery of the Sapient Eye. “Then trust yourself first and the Gods second.”
Now he had the chance to find the Man of Gold. Once it was in his grasp, then all of the rest of the players of this game would have to wait for him to make his move! Taluvaz Arrio was wrong: if the thing were this valuable to the game, then he, Harsan, had a black counter to move, and he was only one step from the Sun Circle in the centre of the Den-den board! He might die for his decision; one of the great players might surround him with blacks and blues and contemptuously toss him off into the counter-box; but for a moment, at least, he, Harsan hi — Nobody, would be a power unto himself, a player with his own Skein to display to the Gods!
This newfound sense of independence was a heady one indeed!
He embraced Tlayesha quickly and got to his feet. “Come,” he said, “we have farther to go.” If he could get her out to safety, he would chance re-entering the labyrinth to search for the Man of Gold. He thought that he could convince Itk t’Sa and quite probably Simanuya to take Tlayesha-by force, if need be-on to some secure hiding place to await him. Should Taluvaz and his woman-or even the Heheganu-decide to join him in the search, then their fates were their own to endure.
They turned back into the larger passage to face the wind. Another few dozen paces and the tunnel slanted off to the left; fifty steps farther and it turned in the opposite direction; then it doubled back again and yet again in a series of zig-zags. A door-sized aperture appeared in the wall to their right, opening into a narrow gallery that ran parallel to the main tunnel, out of the moaning blast. This they entered. At intervals there were smaller embrasures in the left wall of this smaller passageway, like windows, oval and waist-high; these looked into the circular wind tunnel beyond. Harsan muttered a question to Taluvaz, but the other returned only a grimace of puzzlement. The purpose of this arrangement was a mystery.
They came at last to the Mouth of the World.
