a creased, undulating surface. Mirure poked at this cautiously with the butt of her torch, but it was solid: stone.
“Liquid rock,” Taluvaz said, “turned hard and cold now, the leavings of some eruption from Lord Vimuhla’s flaming hells from under-earth. We have such fiery mountains in my land, and one can walk upon ashes and cinders for hundreds of Tsan around them.”
“Three exits hence,” the Heheganu panted. The effort of maintaining his light showed ever more clearly upon his face. “One left, one right, one there in front.”
They could see that the tunnel directly ahead of them sloped down into the frozen ripples of Lord Vimuhla’s blackened, stony sea. After a few paces the ceiling was too low to continue. Whatever lay below was sealed, now, forever.
“The left-hand passage takes us back toward the cavern where we collapsed the roof,” Harsan said. “The right, then. That should lead toward the Mouth of the World.”
There were steps here, too, however. They wound down, turned, twisted, went this way and then that, until all sense of direction was lost. The ancient adze-marks kept pace with them. The tunnel was barely wide enough to walk, not high enough for tall Mirure to stand erect.
Taluvaz kept glancing at the walls. He came up behind Harsan and pointed. “There is mould here-damo. We must once again be below the marshes.”
“There is no other way to go. Not unless you would return to the hall where our Undead pursuers lie beneath the roof stones. Or unless you have some magic to pass through Lord Vimuhla’s river of rock.”
“I speak only as a warning. Get your woman back here and give over the lead to my Mirure. She has experience. Many species of creatures live where mould dwells, some not very pleasant. And certain moulds are themselves deadly.”
“Cha! I know of this,” Harsan retorted a bit testily. “My tutors did indeed tell me that mould does more than ruin one’s bread!” Nevertheless, he called to Tlayesha, who returned reluctantly to join him. The N’luss girl and the Heheganu now led their party.
The walls took on a splotchy appearance, parti-coloured and almost gay beneath tapestries of yellow, pallid white, and dusty blue. They passed a niche to their left, a dead end, constructed perhaps to permit parties of labourers to bypass one another in the narrow tunnel. Morkudz said something to Mirure, and she sent word back to touch nothing and to move carefully without disturbing more than was necessary. The air grew close, and there was a smell as of a root-cellar long shut away from the light.
Mirure stopped. Harsan heard the whisper of her knife emerging from her thigh-sheath.
“W'hat-?” Simanuya exclaimed, but the Heheganu reached back with surprising adroitness to clap a pudgy hand over his mouth.
Harsan inched past the glassblower in time to hear the warrior girl hiss, “A man! A soldier awaits below!”
Before them, ghostly faint in the waning light of Morkudz’ globe, the corridor descended a little further, then levelled out, heaps of shapeless mould almost choking it from side to side. More festooned the walls and hung in rags and tattered banners from the ceiling.
A man did indeed stand there. He gazed toward them from under the visor of a heavy helmet, one that had cheek-pieces with lappets of mail that draped down upon his breast. Armour gleamed dully beneath a cloak of scarlet material. He held a weapon, a sword, its point buried in the mould at his feet.
“Back-!” Harsan murmured.
“No,” Mirure answered curtly without turning her head. She had her back to him, only the sheen of her bare shoulders and plaited black tresses visible in Morkudz’ dim radiance. “He has seen our light and now sees us as well.” In a louder voice she cried, “Lord Taluvaz? What would you have me do?”
Harsan did not wait for the Livyani’s reply. No other course seemed sensible. “Ohe!” he called to the warrior. “We would pass! We mean you no harm.” He could hear rustling as Taluvaz moved up behind him.
The stranger stood immobile, silent.
He tried again. “Name yourself. If you stand aside, we will leave you in peace.” What was the fellow doing down here? He was apparently alone, who knew how far beneath the warrens of the Splendid Paradise, armed only with a simple shortsword.
There was no response. Mirure edged forward, torch held out like a duelling weapon, dagger ready in her other hand.
“Come now,” Harsan almost pleaded. “Let us by. We wish no altercation, nor should you.”
The armour was like none that he had seen before. Was the fellow a foreigner? Did he understand their language? It made no sense for such a person to be in this place.
The N’luss woman advanced another pace, lips drawn back, tension rippling over the muscles of her long limbs.
Another step. Then another, until she stood only a pace or two from the man facing her. She peered.
And struck.
Harsan had his mouth open to prevent her, but the blow surprised him, and he got out only one syllable of her name before it connected.
The results were even more astounding. The torch, a stout stick ending in a lump of coarse fabric smeared with pitch, smashed into the side of the warrior’s head at ear level. The head turned, stared regretfully-and almost comically-sidewise at them for a long instant, and then bounced free to roll in the spongy white mould at its owner’s feet!
Both Mirure and Harsan yelled. The girl plunged backward into Harsan’s unready arms, and both lurched still farther back to stumble into Taluvaz and the Heheganu.
It was this that saved them. The scarlet cloak seemed to unfold, jerking and emitting tiny, horrid plopping noises. The warrior’s skeleton appeared beneath, filled now with patchy, coloured fungi as it must once have been with flesh and organs in life. A fine, pinkish haze surrounded the figure.
“Spores!” Taluvaz screamed.
Harsan found himself shouting too, and the others joined in, unable to help themselves. They all struggled back, helter-skelter, in a tangle of limbs and bodies.
They fled, retreating back to the alcove they had passed, some distance up the shallow staircase. From there they watched as the red cloak slumped and writhed amidst the ghastly mess. Rotting bones crackled, the ancient breastplate heaved and vomited puffs of bluish dust, and the sword and helmet disappeared into folds of sickly, doughy white on the floor.
Tlayesha wept and shuddered, and Itk t’Sa went to comfort her. The glassblower begged loudly and devoutly for aid from his God, mighty Ksarul. None came. Mirure’s harshly pretty, aquiline features were ashen pale, and even Taluvaz appeared shaken. Morkudz curled himself into the farthest reaches of their niche, dimmed his light to a shadowy glow, and turned his face to the wall.
Amidst all of these horrors Harsan alone found himself unmoved. There was a limit to what one soul could bear; beyond this one could only become numb, immune, almost uncaring.
The soft popping of spore pods continued for a time and then died away. They were too far, and too high, here, to be much endangered.
What they needed now was rest. And food-and water-neither of which they had.
But after resting, what then? They could not pass through the moulds. The terrible fate of the ancient warrior loomed as a signpost of almost certain death. Should they return to the chamber filled with solidified flowing rock and try the only passage left, that which would take them back toward the great hall and Lord Sarku’s Undead minions?
Harsan stood up. It was their only remaining course. He gentled Tlayesha with words of encouragement, laid a comforting hand upon Simanuya’s thick shoulder, and helped Taluvaz to his feet. Whatever the Gods willed; whatever the Weaver of Ail chose to weave…
He went to the mouth of their alcove. Faint bluish phosphorescence shown from the heaps of mould down the stair to his left.
He heard something! Sounds of movement, he thought, a slow and prolonged grating, dragging noise.
It did not come from the moulds. It approached from his right, back up the tunnel!
