‘Oh, Medlo, there are not but a few dozen in the world who knows that old story. It is told to children, true, but only to Sisterhood children. It is obvious why that is. We were meant to tell it, and remember it. What better place to hide a clue, a key?’
‘But the Gahlians, those we followed …’
‘Did not come this way. Look around you. Do you doubt it?’
There was thick dust on the floor, on the steps, with no tracks in it but their own. ‘How could they have missed it?’
‘There were a dozen corridors, each branching into more,’ said Jaer. ‘Something led me here, and that something did not lead the Gahlians, For them, it is only an unexplored corridor. For us … well, for us, what?’
Terascouros replied. ‘You led us. You tell us.’
He tried to relax, to let the swarming multitude within him speak, the patterns communicate with him, the understanding come. The suspended body before him did not move, and yet within him it seemed to move, to speak, to point, saying, ‘Look, there and there, at this, at that. Note, compare, how this joins to that.’ He shuddered at the onslaught.
‘What is it?’ whispered Terascouros.
‘She maintains it,’ he answered. ‘Taniel. She holds the Concealment in place. It is like a great wall which protects us all from what lies beyond.’ He turned toward one of the tall cabinets, to the crawling lights and the whispering hum. ‘There is something here, something I dreamed of. A map. A design. Something.’ His eyes fell upon one of the silvery panels and fixed there. ‘Yes. A design.’
They peered over his shoulder at the lines which branched and branched again, the tiny letters, the blinking lights. An arrow marked a place. He pointed. ‘We are in this place. There is the corridor which branched so many ways. There is the long aisle which goes eastward and ends – in what? I cannot read it.’
‘Nor I,’ confessed Terascouros. ‘It seems to say something about… would it be eggs? What has this to do with eggs?’
‘That is where we must go, eggs or no. And this place – well, we must leave it quickly, circumspectly, with reverence, being sure the door is shut behind us.’
‘You don’t think we should wake her?’
‘As the prince did Princess Moonlight? With a kiss, Teras? No. I do not think we should wake her.’
‘It was a silly question,’ the old woman admitted. ‘But, in the tale, she was awakened.’
‘No.’ Jaer said firmly. ‘Not now.’
They went back the way they had come, all three turning to stare at the one sleeping in the net of haze. The door opened as they approached it and closed behind them with the same gentle ‘tlach’ as before. They made their way back to the room from which the many corridors had radiated, and Jaer led them from that place without hesitation. They went past side ways again and again, but the way was as clear to him as though marked with lights. As they retraced their steps, Terascouros whispered a song that stirred the dust to cover their footprints. The horses clopped behind them, the two Hill ponies following the stallion.
They came to a place which lifted into vastness, a hall of chains. From the darkness above them chains hung down, swinging almost imperceptibly in some draft of air. In places they were only handspans apart, in others a man height distant. Terascouros saw a tight, secret smile on Jaer’s face. ‘Mystery, Teras. Far above us these chains are connected to something. Bells, perhaps? Or knives? Or diabolical machinery we are better not knowing of? I will tell you this. We had better not touch them, for they are not hung here for our comfort.’
He led them into the maze of chains, turning once and again, then again from one narrow aisle to another. Terascouros stumbled once, thrust out an arm to catch herself, then stood in appalled silence as a chain moved. Far above, a creaking sound echoed throughout the vast, steel-hung hall. Even when the chain stopped swinging, the sound went on and on as though something delicately balanced were poised monstrously above them. Until silence fell once again, they did not move.
The distance between the chains seemed to decrease as they went on. In some places there was barely room for the stallion to make the turns. Poised like a dancer, the black horse tiptoed into the corners with preternatural care. The ponies were not so large, but they seemed to follow the stallion as though glued to his shadow. At last they came out of the chains and stood breathing heavily at the edge of the hall, the black mouth of a tunnel opening before them. From behind them, and far above, they heard again that vast, premonitory creaking.
The rest of the tunnels were only tunnels, straight and grey in the waning torchlight. When they stopped to rest again, they heard a sound far ahead, as though it might be chanting or the sound of the sea. Jaer nodded as though he had expected this and began to study the walls on his right. ‘Somewhere here,’ he murmured, ‘shown on the map in the chamber of Taniel.’ Carved into the stone, somewhat blurred by time, were the same vines, fruits, and flowers as those on the door which Terascouros had opened. ‘Teras, can you open this as you did the other?’
‘I think, yes. Here, and here. Feel the recesses, so cunningly set behind the carving. Press once, again. Now.’
A section of stone pivoted away from the wall. Jaer stepped unhesitatingly behind it, down the short metal corridor lit by a chill glow almost like that of Murgin but without the acid glare. He stubbed his torch upon the floor, let it fall. The way was not long, ending in a chamber with three walls of the same glowing metal and one which might have
