The tunnels under the Abred went on for what seemed a long time. At crossways, Kilim sometimes returned from the darkness and pointed them another way, and then marched off ahead of them again, crossbow at the ready. Dwo spoke seldom, and always in that guttural tongue of theirs.

Thither and yon, they came upon fungi and lichens that glowed with a weird, greenish sheen and revealed more wonders than could be seen by the lantern’s red light.

But for long spells, Eithne could see nothing save the walls hard to each side, and the scant dozen yards of empty tunnel before and behind.

In places, the fate of the tunnels had clearly been shaped by some ancient hand. Long, straight corridors with regular walls and ceilings of crumbling bricks led to stairs with short risers carved into steep inclines. The air was cold and clammy, and tasted like copper, wet stone, and old mildew.

Yet in other places, nature and destiny had taken their own course, and the natural tunnels weaved back and forth, up, down, around and about.

Dwo put two fingers to his eyes, then pointed ahead, as if to draw her attention to something. “This is a sight not to be missed,” he said. They came around a bend in the tunnel and he lowered the lantern.

Eithne gasped as a huge, glittering chamber opened before them, its walls and floors a-glow with blue-green lichens. Hundreds of feet above arched the great stone roof, smoky in the mist that eternally a-rose. Huge stalactites hung from the roof in every conceivable shape, in shafts, in domes, in translucent sheets, like tapestries of ice. The melt water of countless millennia had carved out a magnificent colossus beneath the Abred, and built gigantic columns through the ages. Pools of water gleamed green and weird. To their left, a deep, wide crevasse wound away from them across the chamber.

Talwyn made a slow circle in place, eyes and mouth round. “Whoooooa…”

A whispered curse behind her spoke of Tommalt’s own awe and wonder.

Dwo came to a halt, and a sublime expression of love glowed from his eyes. His comrade Kilim stood not far ahead. He stared in hushed reverence at that mighty cavern, the rapt attention he’d shown to his aim lost. “Dwídortek norbek,” whispered Dwo. Kilim nodded in slow agreement.

Then he shook his head, as if to clear it, and glanced back to Dwo. “Mormalk thugimrak.”

Dwo sighed and made a sign in the air with his fist. “Kiladalrak.” The gesture reminded Eithne of the head and shaft of a hammer.

Kilim raised his crossbow again and went ahead.

Dwo looked at her. “It’s quite something, isn’t it?”

Eithne felt she understood the love he had for all the awe and majesty of that cave. “Aye, quite something.”

He nodded and took it in one more time, then gestured for them to follow along.

They walked around a colossal column of multi-colored flowstone on their right and and kept back a safe distance from the crumbling edge of the wide crevasse on their left. After a hundred and more paces, the fissure narrowed.

Eithne sucked in a breath at the sight of a bridge of stone blocks, clearly fashioned in dim antiquity by the work of once-living hands. Columns that might once have resembled dragons’ heads flanked both ends, long-since coated with quicklime and chalky alabaster. The span arched thirty yards over the abyss, with no piles to support it. The decking—with neither sidewalls nor rails—was no more than three paces wide.

Kilim, already on the far side, scanned the cavern over the sight of his crossbow, raised an open hand and waved them forward.

Eithne’s stomach rebelled and she shrank back. Dwo gave her a reassuring nod of his head and tapped hard on the stones with his hammer, eliciting a solid thunk. “Good Avac-work.”

Eithne gave him a dubious look. She stooped for a pebble, tossed it into the dark chasm, and counted: One— Two—. The stone clattered to the bottom before she reached, Three. She shook her head. “I know a fatal fall when I hear one.”

The little man frowned at her. He stepped out onto the span and jumped up and down twice, without setting off so much as a tremor. “No worries, see?” He jumped twice more—“Come on”—waved for her to follow him, and walked away with the lantern.

She had no idea how far they’d come, and no faith she could find her way back. He might not be leaving her in the dark exactly, with the glowing lichens and fungi of that vast chamber, but beyond that glow, they’d be lost without his lantern.

“Wheeee! I’m a bird!” Talwyn darted out onto the bridge with a grin and a flap of her arms.

Eithne’s stomach lurched. She snatched for the liripipe hood and missed. Damn it!

Tommalt tugged at the collar of his leather cuirass. “Uh, mum? You sure about this?”

“No.” She swallowed hard. But if that mad little tinker girl can do it… It wasn’t as if she hadn’t spanned similar heights before. But she’d never done so across an ancient bridge, slick with melt-water, over a fall the bottom of which she couldn’t see, while following two strange little men through the bowels of the Abred. With every step, she was getting farther from Father and everything else safe and familiar. Just focus on the other side, stupid girl.

With a last, deep breath, step she did, knees flexed, arms akimbo for balance.

Then another step.

And again.

And another.

Darkness yawned to either hand. A deep, black maw eager to devour her. The rocky floor ready to crack her bones.

Ahead, Dwo awaited her. She set her eyes on him. The hammer in his one hand, the lantern in the other. Just— The coils of rope across his chest. A few— The ax hung from his belt. More— His tawny beard. Steps!

Eithne jogged over the last half-dozen strides. As her boots came once more to solid ground, she let go her bated breath.

Behind her, Tommalt took the bridge with long strides and one hand stretched out toward solid ground.

His booted foot slipped. He teetered, wavered—caught his balance on the opposite leg.

His face was pale, even in the ruddy lamplight. The look he shot Eithne was full of fear and relief. Then he set his jaw and bounded the rest of the way in three long leaps.

Dwo tapped the head of his hammer gently against her thigh and pointed it up at her with a nod. “Told you so.” Then he followed Kilim the long way around a breathtaking drapery of slimy alabaster, with the chasm on their right.

Eithne glanced back at Tommalt, then at the abyss, and grumbled, “No one likes a ‘told you so.’”

Tommalt shuddered and agreed.

From the great, glittering cavern, the tunnels narrowed once more, and the glowing lichens faded until only the light of the lantern guided her way.

Kilim moved away into the darkness again. How he could see anything, Eithne didn’t know. The little men’s relationship to that strange underground world of tunnels and rock seemed familiar and casual. She wondered if they needed the lantern at all.

Tommalt muttered behind her. “We should have marked the tunnels, mum. Ain’t no way we can get ourselves out.”

She grunted at him. Indecision gnawed at her. She didn’t know where Dwo was leading them. Kilim was ahead somewhere with that crossbow and could surely hit her out of the dark from a goodly distance. The little men hadn’t tried to hurt them, but she and Tommalt also had no choice except to trust them.

Shame burned Eithne’s cheeks. She hated being so dependent, on her parents, her family, the drymyn priests and priestesses. On Eowain, and now these little men. Just like a girl, she thought, and hated herself.

To be like a man—independent and self-reliant—that needed strength, power, courage even. I don’t have it in me, she feared. I don’t deserve it, I’m not strong enough. She shook her head, thought again of Eowain. If he ever learns what I’m really like, how scared I am, he’ll never trust me…

Dwo put the fist with the hammer crosswise beside his head, then tapped once on the wall.

Eithne stopped behind him. “What is it?” She whispered, for the darkness seemed close of a sudden, the tunnels narrow, the silence a fearful thing to break.