«No, no, Wisp,” she assured him, picking him up and holding him close to her. «No one will hurt you. But we need light, Wisp. We cannot see in this cavern without light.»
Wisp raised his tear–streaked face. «Light, pretty thing? Oh, light — there is light. Come. Over here is light.»
Mumbling half to himself, he led them to the mouth of the cavern once more. Then, moving to the near wall, he reached into a small niche in the rock and extracted a pair of the strange lamps. As he thrust them into the cavern, the glass–enclosed interiors came alive with the same smokeless light that had burned throughout the Witch Sister’s tower.
«Light.» Wisp smiled eagerly, handing the lamps to Eretria.
She took them, keeping one for herself and handing the second to Wil. The Valeman turned back to Hebel.
«You don’t have to come any further with us if you don’t want to,” he pointed out.
«Don’t be stupid,” the old man snorted. «What if you get lost in there? You’ll need Drifter and me to get you out main, won’t you? Besides, I want a look at this Safehold pace.»
Wil could see that there was little to be gained by arguing the matter further. He nodded to Eretria. The Rover girl took a firm grip on Wisp’s hand; holding the lamp she carried before them both, she started into the cave. Wil lifted Amberle in his arms and followed. Hebel and Drifter brought up the rear.
They moved ahead cautiously. Gradually their eyes began to adjust, and they could see that the cavern ran well back into the core of Spire’s Reach, its roof and walls far beyond the glow of the lamps. The floor of the cavern was uneven, but free of obstructions, and they walked deep into the blackness. At last Wisp brought them to the rear wall of the cavern. Before them were a series of openings, little more than narrow clefts in the rock, one very much like another, splitting the cavern wall and disappearing from view.
Wisp had no problem deciding which opening he wanted. Without any hesitation at all, he chose one and led the way through. He took them into a labyrinth of cuts and turns, twisting and winding along a maze of tunnels that sloped steadily downward. The others were soon hopelessly lost. Still Wisp led them on.
Then suddenly they stood before a stairway, and the character of the tunnels underwent an abrupt change. Gone were the naturally formed rock walls, roof, and floor. The stairs and surrounding passageway were formed of stone blocks, rough–hewn and massive, but unquestionably fashioned by hand. Patches of dampness glistened on the walls and roof of the passage, and trailers of water ran upon the steps. There were sounds in the darkness below. Small bodies scattered with a scratching of tiny feet and squeaks of annoyance. Flashes of sudden movement revealed the sleek, dark forms of rats.
Wisp led them down the stairs into the darkness. For hundreds of feet the stairs wore on, bending and turning at odd angles, leveling off once or twice in small rampways, then twisting deep into the mountain. All about them, just beyond the glow of the smokeless lamps, the rats scurried through the dark, their cries faint and unpleasant in the stillness. The air grew pungent with the smell of musty dampness and decay. Still they descended, watching the steps wind away before them.
Finally the steps ended. They stood within a great hall, its high arched ceiling braced with massive columns. Broken stone benches filled the chamber, arranged in widening rows about a low, circular platform. Strange markings were carved in the stone of the columns and walls, and iron stanchions and standards rusted upon the platform. Once this chamber had been a council room or meeting hall, or perhaps even a place of offerings and strange rites, Wil thought. Once another people had gathered here. He stared about, momentarily, and then Wisp was leading them through the rows of benches and past the platform to a massive stone door that stood ajar at the far end of the hall. Beyond, another set of stairs led downward.
They descended this new stairway. Wil was growing more than a little concerned. They had come a long way into the mountain, and only Wisp had any idea at all where they were. If the Reaper caught them here…
The steps ended. They moved into another passageway. From somewhere ahead, Wil thought he heard the sound of water splashing, as if a brook were tumbling down through the stone. Wisp hurried forward eagerly, pulling at Eretria’s hand, casting anxious glances over one shoulder as if to be certain that she still followed him.
Then they were through the passage and standing in a great cavern. Gone were the stone–block walls that formed the tunnels that had led them here. This cavern was nature’s work, its walls pocked and split, its roof a mass of jagged stalactites, its floor cratered and littered with broken rock. In the darkness beyond the circle of light cast by their lamps, they could hear water rushing.
Wisp led them across the cavern, stepping nimbly through the rock, muttering as he went. Against the far wall lay stacked a mass of boulders that looked to be the result of a rock slide. Down through their midst, a narrow band of water tumbled and gathered in a pool that spread outward in a series of tiny streams, bubbling and twisting and finally disappearing into the gloom.
«Here,” Wisp announced brightly, pointing to the waterfall.
Wil lowered Amberle to her feet and stared at the little fellow blankly.
«Here,” Wisp repeated. «Door made of glass that will not break. Funny game for Wisp.»
«Wil, he means the waterfall.» Amberle spoke up suddenly. «Look closely — where the water spreads out between those rocks above the pool.»
Wil did look, seeing now what the Elven girl had seen. Where the water spilled down into the pool, it fell in a thin, even sheet between twin columns of rock, causing it to look very much as if it were a door made of glass. He moved forward several paces, watching the light cast from his lamp reflect back from the water’s surface.
«But it is not glass!» Eretria snapped. «It’s just water!»
«But would the Ellcrys remember that?» Amberle countered quickly, speaking still to the Valeman. «It has been so long for her. Much of what she once knew has become forgotten in the passing of time. On much she is confused. Perhaps she remembers this waterfall only for what it appeared to be — a door made of glass that will not break.»
Eretria looked down at Wisp. «This is the door, Wisp? You’re sure?»
Wisp nodded eagerly «Funny game, pretty thing. Play funny game with Wisp again.»
«If this is the door, then there should be a chamber beyond…» Wil started forward.
«Wisp can show!» Wisp darted ahead of him, pulling Eretria as he went. «Look, look, pretty thing! Come!»
He drew the Rover girl with him until they stood just to the right of the waterfall beside the pool into which it spilled. The wizened face glanced back briefly, and the little fellow released her hand.
«Look, pretty thing.»
An instant later he had stepped into the waterfall and disappeared. The Rover girl stared after him. Almost immediately he was back again, his fur plastered down against his body, his face beaming.
«Look,” he beckoned and seized the girl’s hand once more, pulling her after him.
In a knot. the little company passed through the waterfall, still holding the smokeless lamps before them, shielding their eyes as they slipped within the rocks. An alcove lay behind the fall, with a narrow passage beyond. Dripping, they followed it back, Wisp leading them on, until they had walked to its end, where yet another cavern lay, this one much smaller and unexpectedly dry, free of the musty dampness that filled the other, its floor sloping up into the gloom in a series of broad shelves. Wil took a deep breath. If the waterfall were the door made of glass that would not break to which the Ellcrys had directed them, then it was here, in this chamber, that they would find the Bloodfire. He walked wordlessly to the rear of the cavern and back again. There were no other tunnels leading in, no other passages. Rock walls, floor, and cavern roof reflected dully in the glow of his lamp as he held it up and looked carefully about.
The chamber was empty.
At the mouth of the cavern that opened down into Spire’s Reach, a shadow passed from the tangle of brush that clogged the bluff and disappeared soundless into Safehold In the wake of its passing, the forest ha gone suddenly still.
A rush of wild imaginings crowded Wil Ohmsford’s mind as he stood within that empty cavern and stared helplessly about. There was no Bloodfire. After all they had endured to reach Safehold, there was no Bloodfire. It was lost, perhaps gone from the earth for centuries, gone with the old world. It was a fiction, a vain hope conceived by the Ellcrys in her dying, a magic that had disappeared with the passing of the land of faerie. Or if there was a Bloodfire, it was not here. It lay somewhere else within the Wilderun, somewhere other than these caverns, and they would never find it. It lay beyond their reach. It lay hidden…
