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Hubley’s hair fluttered at her shoulders as the airship picked up speed.
“Who’s Prince Merannon?” she asked.
Avender gasped for breath, his legs pumping furiously at the pedals of the engine. Gears clicked as he worked the levers on the handlebar. Beneath the blumet decking, the driveshaft whirred.
“Tell you later....Let’s get out of here first.”
Pressing herself flat against the canvas hull, Hubley looked to see what was happening astern. The propeller whirred a couple of fathoms from her face, but, the faster it moved, the less it obscured her view. They’d already moved far enough away from the Lamp that the only thing visible in the darkness was the prince’s light, a tiny spark above the beacon’s brilliance.
The broad fins set lengthwise along the propeller tilted, causing the ship to nose downward. Small, and still too bright to look at directly, the Lamp sent Hubley’s and Avender’s long shadows stretching across the canvas to melt into the darkness ahead. Out of sight above their heads hung the bottom of the world.
Rubbing her arms against the breeze, she turned back to the cockpit. Avender’s chest swelled as he prepared for another burst of conversation. “If you’re cold, Mims packed some warmer clothes.”
Opening the knapsack, Hubley found socks and a pair of boots, a brown wool dress, and a warm cloak, all plainer than anything she’d ever worn. But her beautiful red gown was already torn in several places, and the wind was whipping right through it, so she took it off and shoved it into the pack. Perhaps her mother could mend it later on. Pulling the woolen dress over her head, she found it itched terribly against her bare skin, but the scratching was much better than the cold.
Avender was still pedaling hard when she finished; her cloak snapped in the galloping breeze as she stood beside him. Eager to know where they were going, she peppered him with questions, but he only panted and shook his head. Though she’d never flown one herself, Hubley knew the hard part about airships was getting them started. Once you reached the speed you wanted, the pedaling got a lot easier. Then only the air slowed you down. Which was why no one had ever tried using airships on the surface, where even a medium breeze would blow you off course. The Abyss, vast and deep though it was, never felt a breath of wind. Unless you were riding in an airship.
When the Malmoret Lamp had dimmed to the glow of a distant town, Avender finally stopped pedaling. Huffing and puffing, he stripped the goggles from his face and slid down from the engine’s saddle. The airship coasted along, barely losing speed.
“Are we going to find my mother?” Hubley demanded.
Avender held up a tired hand. “Hold on a minute, will you?”
Despite the cold and wind, his forehead glistened with sweat as he reached beneath the hull and pulled out a small cask wedged in among the gasbags. Grabbing a small cup from his pack, he unstopped the cask and poured himself several gulping drinks. Thirst quenched, he passed the cup to Hubley and retrieved two sacks from the same hiding place as the cask. Opening the first, he brought out a pair of apples.
The sight of food reminded Hubley she hadn’t eaten since they’d finished the bread and carrots on the stone stair, but that didn’t stop her questions. “It’s a good thing you found this airship,” she said through a mouthful of what tasted like a Bavadar Gold. “Those men would have caught us for sure.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it.” Unsheathing his knife, Avender cut them both large slabs from a fat sausage. “Mims and I left the ship there three days ago.”
Hubley’s jaw dropped. “You mean you knew we were coming here all along? Even before I did the traveling spell?”
“No. Mims didn’t tell me anything. All we did was drop off the ship, then travel back to the cabin. It was only after you brought us to the New Palace that I figured out we could use it.”
“But how could Mims have known we were coming here?”
Shrugging, Avender kept his eyes on the sausage as he cut himself another slice. “Don’t ask me. You’re the magician.”
Hubley frowned. It was almost like Avender was being stupid on purpose. “You can’t tell the future with magic,” she told him. “Everyone knows that.”
“I don’t.”
“Well, we magicians do. Trying to tell the future was one of the first things Father tried when he learned magic, but it didn’t work. Not even Fornoch can do it.”
“Then I guess Mims can’t tell the future. And she isn’t Fornoch, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ve spent enough time with her to know that much. Maybe she left ships at all the Lamps, and I just happened to help her with this one. Either way, she seems to know exactly what she’s doing. She’s a very powerful magician.”
“Not as powerful as my father.”
When Avender didn’t argue, Hubley asked again where they were going.
“Don’t know yet,” he replied, his mouth full of apple.
“You don’t know? I thought you had a plan.”
“My plan was to get us somewhere your father couldn’t follow. We’ve done that. Now we have to decide what to do next.”
As he spoke, he pulled a small, flat bundle from his pack. Certain it was a talking mirror, Hubley moved around to look over his shoulder as he unwrapped it. Smoke followed his fingers as he brushed them lightly across the surface. When the smoke cleared, the mirror showed the inside of the cabin they had left the day before rather than the cramped cockpit of the airship.
“Mims,” called Avender. “Are you there?”
The old woman appeared almost at once, anxiety and relief reflected in her face. “Finally. I’ve been scared to death Reiffen caught up with you. Where are you? Are you safe?”
“We’re in the ship you left at the Malmoret Lamp.”
“Are you still there? At the Lamp?”
“No. Prince Merannon almost caught us, so we had to leave. I’ve been pedaling hard for at least an hour, though it’s hard to tell time down here without the sun.”
The old woman’s lips pursed. “That’s too bad. If you were still at the Lamp I could fetch Ferris and bring her right to you. But I can’t travel to a ship that’s floating around in the middle of the Abyss.”
“Neither can Reiffen. Which is what gave me the idea to come down here in the first place. He’ll have to find an airship of his own if he wants to follow us.”
“The last I saw,” said Mims, “he’d gone back to Grangore. Before that, he was in Valing, though he spent some time chasing you in Malmoret, too. Don’t worry, Hubley, Ferris is fine. For once your father believed her when she said she had nothing to do with taking you.”
“Have you seen her?”
The old magician smiled. “No. I wanted to hear from you and Avender first.”
“Well, you’ve heard from us now,” said Avender. “The only thing left is to get Hubley back to her mother.”
“I agree.” Mims tapped a finger on her chin. “The question is, where’s the best place to do it?”
“Somewhere Reiffen’s never been, so he can’t travel there before we have time to even take a breath.”
“You could go back to the Malmoret Lamp. As far as I know, he’s never been there. Otherwise he’d have been waiting for you when you got to the end of the stair. I could have Ferris there in no time.”
Avender shook his head. “That’s no good. Prince Merannon might still be there. He said something about a ship already being on the way.”
“True.” The old woman tapped her chin again, her eyes turned thoughtfully toward the bottom of the glass.
“What about Backford?”
Hubley jumped up before Avender had hardly finished making the suggestion. The ship shuddered slightly. “That’s perfect! Willy and Lady Breanna are my friends! I’m sure they’ll help.”
“I didn’t mean Backford itself,” Avender cautioned. “Reiffen knows Backford almost as well as he knows Valing— he’d be on us in no time. But has he ever been to the Lamp?”
“I don’t think so,” said Mims. “He travels everywhere, so there’s no reason for him ever to use the lamps to get to the airships. Unfortunately, I’ve never been there, either.”
Avender looked surprised. “You haven’t? But what about—?”
Mims cut him off by raising her eyebrows. “Are you saying you know where I’ve been better than I do?”
He shook his head. “No. Hubley and I just thought you’d left airships at all the Lamps.”
“That’s right,” said Hubley. “You couldn’t have known we were going to be in Malmoret.”
“And I didn’t. I brought that airship to the Malmoret Lamp for an entirely different purpose. Which I won’t be able to use it for, now. It really was just luck Avender knew it was there. I’m sure, Hubley, that if your spell had taken you to Valing or Issinlough or someplace else, Avender would have come up with a different way to escape.”
“I suppose,” Avender agreed.
Hubley didn’t think he looked too convinced. And there was something else, too. “How’d you know I was going to cast a traveling spell, anyway? I didn’t even know I could do that.”
The magician raised her hands. “When we see your mother, Hubley, I’ll explain it all. Until then, be patient, though I know how hard that is for you. In the meantime, I think Avender’s made a good choice. I’ll fetch Ferris, then she and I will start down the Way. It’s going to take you at least a day of hard pedaling to get there.”
“I’ll need some sleep first.”
Mims nodded, appearing to like the plan the more she thought about it. “And I’ll need time to convince Ferris she should come with me. If we’re not at the Lamp when you arrive, start up the road. We can meet halfway. Once we do, I can take us all somewhere Reiffen will never find us. At least not till we want him to.”
Avender was about to ask another question, then thought better of it. Mims took advantage of his silence to ask one of her own.
“Is there any sign you’re being pursued?”
“Not that I’ve seen. We’re flying without lights. They can guess, but they won’t know where we’ve gone.”
“Then we’re all set. You’ve got your mirror in case you have to change the plan. Ferris and I may not be able to get to you right away, but at least we’ll know where you are.”
Mims’s hand swept close across the glass as she ended the connection. Smoke swirled, then Hubley and Avender were looking at their own reflections. Carefully rewrapping the mirror, Avender slipped it back inside his shirt.
“Which light is Backford?” Hubley asked when he was done.
Avender pointed into the darkness on their right. Two other lights gleamed in the distance, Blue Mountain nearly dead ahead, and Malmoret to the rear.
The airship had slowed considerably during the time they had been eating and talking, and Hubley expected Avender to climb back into the saddle at once. Instead he pulled blankets out from the same place where the food had been stored and began making up a small bed on the narrow deck behind the engine. “It’ll be cramped,” he said, laying the first blanket across the grating, “but we’ll be warmer if we keep together. Besides, now that we know you can travel in your sleep, I can’t risk letting you disappear.”
“But shouldn’t we keep going?” Hubley protested. “I want to see Mother now.”
“I haven’t slept in a day and a half. And I doubt you have, either, with the dreams you’ve been having. Better we both get some rest. We’re safe enough here in the middle of nowhere.”
Side by side, they lay down on the metal grate. At their feet, the engine loomed like a giant insect in the dim light, its levers and pedals so many legs and antennae. Above them, the endless darkness welled away.
To make sure he kept hold of Hubley no matter what, Avender wrapped his belt around their hands, then fell asleep almost as soon as he hung his lamp and headband over the engine. For Hubley, it wasn’t so easy. She lay on her back for a long time, her mind revolving around everything that had happened since the party. Of one thing she was sure: she wanted to see her mother. But everything else that had happened had left her completely confused. Avender much older than he should be? Her father not letting her see her mother? And who was Mims? Her parents’ apprentices had always been older than Hubley, but not that much older. Mims had to have learned her magic from someone else. But the only other person who might have taught her was the Wizard. If that were the case, how could Hubley ever trust her? Then she remembered that her father had been taught by the Wizard, and he’d come out fine. Maybe Mims had been Fornoch’s apprentice before her father, and had escaped after the fall of Ussene.
She was sure her mother would know the answers to everything, which was one more reason to find her. In the meantime, Avender was her parents’ best friend, and she was just going to have to trust him.
Giving his hand a little squeeze, she settled more comfortably in the blankets. He answered with a snort and a snore.
Of course she dreamed when she finally did fall asleep. Knowing she would had been one of the things keeping her awake. For a while the chase from the New Palace to the Malmoret Lamp tumbled through her mind; over and over she and Avender fled down stairs and ladders, always with Prince Merannon and his soldiers close behind, always with the long, dark drop of the Abyss looming beneath their feet. But gradually her dreaming delved a little deeper, and she found herself once more in her father’s cave. Blue-black shells rippled beneath the current of the shallow pool.
“Go to them, dear heart,” her father whispered. His voice was tender in her ear. “My mussels are a fine magic, and will only make you stronger.”
Again the cold pierced Hubley as she slipped into the water. The current tugged at her gown, black velvet this time instead of the ruined red, with white lace at cuffs and collar. Taking a deep breath, she ducked beneath the surface. The frigid water squeezed her chest and eyes. At her feet the mussels waited, alert as soldiers. Her cheeks bulging, she felt along the bottom with her fingers until they grazed the nearest shell. She saw herself wearing a different dress, plum-colored with a lavender sash, and knew at once this mussel had already been used. But the vision disappeared as soon as she touched another; now her frock was periwinkle with dark blue smocking. Obviously this mussel was full, too. One by one she reached for as many of the nearer shells as she could. Five, ten, a dozen: her birthday dress changed at every touch. And then she found an empty one. Seizing it with both hands, she sighed. Bubbles cascaded past her nose and ears.
The mussel opened. One by one it gobbled the bubbles from her sigh, drawing them into its shell. She found she couldn’t stop sighing; the mussel pulled air from her like a milkmaid draining a cow. Her lungs emptied. Memories from the last year spun away along with the bubbles: parts of spells her father had taught her, breakfasts they had shared, Mindrell’s clever songs. Her mind felt thinned. The memories rose up one by one, and then they were gone. Vaguely, she recalled the taking, and then even that memory was gathered in as well.
Still, she knew she had lost something. As the last few scraps of breath were scoured from her lungs, fear took the place of air. Why had her father made her do this? Was she going to drown? Desperately she tried to let go of the black shell, but her hand was stuck fast. Her body began settling toward the bottom like an airship leaking gas. The mussels gaped wide.
She woke to find Avender shaking her shoulders with his free hand. Worry pinched his eyes.
“Are you all right? That looked like the worst one yet.”
Shuddering, Hubley wrapped her arms around her shoulders and tried to shrink back into herself. She didn’t want to think about what her dream seemed to be telling her at all. But, however terrifying it might prove to be, maybe now was the time to find out what had really been happening in the world while her father had locked her up in Castle Grangore.
Swallowing her fear, she looked Avender in the eye.
“How old am I?”
He blinked twice before he replied, but this time he didn’t look away. “Why do you ask?”
“Because the dream I just had was all about those mussels. How father made me touch one and it took away all my memories. And how there were lots of others there just like it that were already full.”
“Which means...? Remember, I’m not a mage.”
“I think it was telling me I’d been in that cave lots of times before. After lots and lots of birthdays, only I don’t remember any of them. And since the mussel in my dream was stealing my memories, who knows how many years there might be in the others. There were lots of mussels in that pool. And then there’s the way you look like you’re sixty instead of thirty-three, and how Mims is too old to have been taught by my parents like she said.”
“I’m not thirty-three,” Avender admitted.
“I didn’t think so. How old are you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“How old am I? Sixteen?”
“You’re forty-one.”
Hubley felt as if Avender had sliced off her head. Nineteen or twenty, maybe. But forty-one? She’d lost her whole life!
“Mims told me the mussels in your father’s cave each hold a full year from your past,” he explained gently. “He’s been making you live the year from nine to ten over and over again for the last thirty-one years.”
Hubley tried to swallow, but her throat felt too swollen. Her bones felt hollow and cold. “How come I haven’t gotten old?”
“Your father gave you a Living Stone.”
She knew it was true. She had dreamed about that as well. A sudden feeling of power crept into her fingers and hands, as if the Stone was informing her it knew she finally knew it was there. The sense of newly discovered strength was pleasant, but Hubley was repelled all the same. She didn’t want to be forty-one.
“But why would Father do such a thing? It can’t be true!”
Avender reached to comfort her. She shied away.
“To protect you from Fornoch,” he said, letting his arms drop back to his sides. “When the Wizard threatened to take you away like he did your father, Reiffen’s answer was to hide you in Castle Grangore and not let anyone near you. Not even Ferris.”
Hubley’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You mean I haven’t seen Mother in thirty-one years?”
He nodded. Loneliness poured over her in waves of wretchedness. Flinging herself onto the blankets, she burst into years of tears. Sobs filled the darkness.
She felt better when she woke. Avender sat sleeping beside her, his hand still bound to hers. Despite everything he’d told her, she still felt like she was only ten. The other years remained something from her dreams. Not that she doubted what he’d said. Too much of what she’d thought strange about him and Mims made sense only if those thirty-one years really had happened.
The hardest part was knowing what her father had done to her. Except for the mussels, her memories of him were only good. Picnics on Aloslocin, and presents on her birthday, and him putting salve on her fingers when she first tried to cast a light spell without using a staff. And all the magic he had taught her, too.
But against that happiness Hubley knew she had to weigh the fact her father hadn’t allowed her mother to see her in a very long time. Even if Avender were lying, it had still been at least a year. And to think her father had said that her mother hadn’t come to her birthday because she was working on a spell! She couldn’t believe he’d done that, though he had always been the one most likely to forget the little things, breakfasts and goodnight kisses and trips to town, because he was always so busy with magic. Her mother, however, had always been there. And her grandmother too.
Hubley gripped the rough canvas side of the ship tightly at the thought. She hadn’t seen her Grandmother Giserre in all that time either, even though Giserre loved her son so much she’d braved the Wizards in Ussene for him. The fact Giserre had disappeared as well was even more proof that Avender was telling the truth.
Tears gathered in her eyes once more. Sniffing mightily, she rubbed them away with her free hand. Now was not the time to cry. Her parents had been in worse places when they were young: she was only being chased by a magician, not a Wizard. She’d always dreamed of having adventures the same as her parents, and now that she had her chance she wasn’t going to ruin it. So what if it was her father she was running away from rather than the last of the Three. She still had to get to her mother before he found her. Otherwise she might never see her mother again. Ever.
Brushing away a last tear, she nudged Avender in the ribs. He leapt up, his sword half-drawn.
“What’s wrong?” Swiftly, he scanned the dark around them. “Did you see something?”
“I want to see my mother,” she said. “You’ve been asleep too long. Can’t we go?”
He rubbed the spot where she’d poked him. “All right. Did you sleep well? No dreams?”
“No.”
“That’s an improvement.” Rooting around in their supplies, he passed out another pair of apples. “Maybe, now you know the truth, and you won’t have them any more.”
“Maybe.” Hubley polished her apple on the rough wool dress. “Why do you think he did it? Father, that is.”
Avender shrugged. “I’ve no idea. Mims thinks he was saving all those memories so you’d be much more powerful than Fornoch suspected if he actually did capture you. How she thought your father was going to release them, though, she didn’t say.”
“He could’ve just taught me the spells. I’d have been just as strong then. Stronger, even, if he’d let Mother help too.”
“Don’t ask me to explain why your father does what he does. I’ve never known.”
Hubley guessed a lot had happened in the years since she’d been hidden away. “Is Brizen still king?”
“Yes.”
“And Prince Merannon? Is he Brizen and Wellin’s son?”
Avender searched his sack for another apple. “I think so. I’ve never met him.”
“Wellin must be so happy. I’m just sorry he’s already grown up. I’m sure we’d have been best friends if he wasn’t.”
“I’m sure you’ll be friends anyway.”
“Does he have any brothers or sisters?”
“No.”
Hubley thought there was something suspicious about the way Avender wasn’t looking up, as if there was something more he didn’t want to tell her.
“Is there something wrong?” she asked. “Wellin is happy, isn’t she, now that she has a son?”
“I’m sorry, Hubley. Wellin’s dead.”
Despite her resolve, Hubley burst into tears once more. This time, instead of refusing her friend’s comfort, she threw herself into his arms. Of all the things Avender had told her, this was far and away the worst.
“How?” she stammered when her sobs had dropped off to hiccups and sore eyes.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t there.” Looking off into the darkness, Avender blinked a couple of times before going on. “Maybe she just got old.”
“It’s not right, Father not telling me about things like that. He should have let me see her.”
“You’re right. He should have.”
“Has anyone else died?”
“I only know what Mims has told me. To tell the truth, I’ve been away nearly as long as you.”
“You have? Where?”
“Underground.”
Hubley assumed that meant Avender had been spending his time in the Stoneways. “I wish I’d been as lucky as you. Bryddlough’s a lot more fun than Castle Grangore. At least you got to spend time with the Dwarves. Is that when you lost your hand?”
Avender looked at her sharply. “How do you know about that?”
“I heard you talking last night when you thought I was asleep. Mims said she put it back on.”
Holding up his right hand, Avender flexed his fingers. The remaining thimble gleamed.
“She did a good job,” he said.
“It was my father who did it wasn’t it,” said Hubley, the thought coming to her in a flash.
“Close enough. Mindrell did it on your father’s orders. Do you remember that too?”
“You mean I was there?”
Avender nodded.
Hubley wondered if there were other memories from the last thirty-one years she hoped she never recalled.
“Are you mad at him?” she asked.
“Who, Mindrell?”
“Him too, but are you mad at my father?”
“Yes.”
“Good, because I’m really, really mad at him.”
Later, after they had finished eating, Hubley stood awkwardly for a moment, grimacing and hopping from one foot to the other. Avender understood her need at once.
“I think I’ll go astern to check on the driveshaft,” he said. “You’ll find the chamber pot in the bow.”
He returned after she’d flung the contents of the shallow bowl far out into the dark. Now the Abyss wasn’t quite so empty as it had been before.
With Avender climbing back into the driver’s saddle, they set off. This time he didn’t have to pedal quite so hard, so Hubley could question him to her heart’s content about everything that had happened in the years she’d been hidden from the world. Avender answered as best he could, but he seemed to know very little. Hubley guessed that was because he’d spent his time wandering deep in wild cave during his years underground, otherwise he’d have known a lot more. With magic mirrors everywhere, even Issinlough heard the latest news. Meanwhile, the leagues passed. The Backford Lamp grew brighter. After they stopped for another meal and rest, it began to grow larger, too.
“We’re going to need some light now,” said Avender as the shadow of the unneret emerged above the Lamp. “I’ll never be able to moor the ship without being able to see what I’m doing.”
Crawling into the forward hold, Hubley found the small switch box right where Avender had told her she would, mounted on the blumet struts in the nose. Flipping the switch, she crawled back to the cockpit, but even on the outside it was hard to tell the bow light had been turned on. Only by squinting directly into the wind was she able to see that the air in front of the ship’s prow was no longer quite as dark as it was everywhere else around them.
Not much later they glided up beneath the bottom of the world: Avender had brought the ship in as high as he could to keep the Lamp from blinding them. Dark stone loomed just above their heads like frozen clouds. With both tail fins out, the ship slowed quickly, coasting toward the middle of an inverted tower that looked just like the one they had left behind in Malmoret, a skeleton of girders and beams suspended beneath a hole in the rock above. Seeing their approach was slightly off, Avender fiddled with one of the levers on the engine handle. The tail flap on the side of the ship farthest from the tower closed; the ship swung toward the Lamp. Avender toggled the lever again to reopen the flap; their course straightened.
Picking up a long coil of rope with a small anchor at one end, he went to the bow. The unneret grew bigger quickly; Hubley hadn’t thought they were still moving that fast. As Avender began to swing the rope and anchor in a long loop around his head, she crouched at the edge of the cockpit. The tower loomed closer on the starboard side. When it was almost beside them, he threw his rope. The anchor flashed in the bow light, then struck one of the tower struts with a loud clank. At the same time Avender tied off the other end of the line on a cleat along the edge of the cockpit, then jumped back to the engine to close the tail flaps. The anchor rattled around inside the open tower, tangling the rope on the beams and girders. The line pulled taut. Metal groaned. Hubley stumbled as the airship swayed to starboard.
“Not much of a landing,” said Avender as the ship shuddered to a stop. “But it’s a lot harder when you have to do it all alone.”
“I could’ve helped.”
“With magic?”
“No. I know more than just magic, you know.”
Mooring the ship securely to the tower, they rolled what was left of the food into Avender’s knapsack and one of the blankets, then tied the blanket around Hubley. Avender shouldered his pack and the water cask as well.
“You can never tell how far it is between water holes on a loway,” he said as he tied the cask firmly to the top of his pack. “Dwarves rarely think of humans when they delve.”
Hubley reminded herself that Lady Breeanna had come this way when she’d escaped from the Battle of Backford. If someone as silly as Lady Breeanna could do it, then so could she.
Finding no sign of Mims or Ferris at the Lamp, they ate another quick meal, then headed up into the stone. This time Hubley didn’t find climbing the narrow ladder in the side of the well nearly as bad as she had before. Perhaps it was easier to look up than down. Or maybe she was getting used to endless drops after the long flight over the Abyss. Reaching the top, she found herself in another cave, the walls wavering in and out of shadow as Avender helped her up. But one shadow stayed still no matter how many times Avender swung his headlamp across it: the entrance to the Backford Way.
For a long time they followed the tunnel beyond, clambering up through rough tubes that twisted and turned through the rock. When Hubley asked Avender why the Dwarves hadn’t cut a straight stair the way they had in Malmoret, he replied that this was a different sort of passage.
“The Backford Way is more secret than the ones you’re used to. As secret as the one in Valing, or the one Nolo has always talked about digging to the Inner Sea.”
“There’s a Dwarf Way to the Inner Sea?”
“They hadn’t finished it the last I heard, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it’s done now.”
“But how do they keep all the water from draining out?”
Avender ducked around a knob of stone. “The same way they build lifts. Dwarves can build doors so tight, water can’t seep through at all. So they build a room with watertight doors on either side, and open them one at a time depending which way they want to go. Nolo calls it an air lock.”
“But why would they want to have a way to the Inner Sea?”
“To hunt for pearls. And to look around. Nolo’s always wanted to have a way to explore the bottom of the ocean. Didn’t your mother ever tell you about the time she and Nolo met those pirates in the Pearl Islands?”
Dimly, as if she were dredging the memory up from the same sea bottom Nolo wanted to explore, Hubley remembered the tale.
They rested once along the way, in a relatively flat cave where a low ridge of stone served as a bench on the side of the wall, and ate another meal. Hubley’s legs were already sore from all the climbing but, not being in as much of a hurry this time, she hadn’t asked Avender to carry her. But the thought that each step was bringing her closer to her mother made her jump up again after a very short rest, despite her tender thighs.
Not much later, Hubley noticed a change in the path. Sniffing cautiously, she thought the air seemed thicker than before.
“Water,” she announced the minute she figured it out. “Can you smell it?”
“I can. Look. The walls are wet.”
The darker patches on the rock glistened as Avender swung his lamp round to examine them.
“If you stop and listen for a moment,” he went on, “you’ll hear running water.”
Hubley held her breath. Sure enough, water muttered somewhere in the distance ahead.
The stream, or whatever it was, took longer to reach than she thought. Or maybe she was expecting it so much that every footstep seemed to last half an hour. But the sound of the water grew louder, the ceiling of the cave began to drip, and the floor grew slippery underfoot, until at last they reached the end of the tunnel and came out into a narrow chasm in the rock.
A stream rushed by at their feet, the water boiling along like the Ambore where it poured out of Grangore through Eggdrop and Tappet Flume. But where the Ambore boiled white and pale green, here the water was dark as ink. Even Avender’s lamp couldn’t pierce the surface: the gem’s light was too thin for the surging flood. Hubley imagined coiling serpents and large, file-toothed fish lurking just out of sight, ready to drag her in the moment she tried to cross.
“Here’s a good spot.”
She looked up to find Avender working his way carefully along the slippery bank to a place where the floor of the cave came down to the level of the water. Several large rocks marked a passage across the stream, the last set under an opening in the wall on the other side that Hubley suspected was the next section of the loway. Beyond the stones the river burst out from under a shallow rock shelf which Hubley could just make out in the dim light of Avender’s lamp. Where the current led downstream, it was too dark to tell. But the fact that there were other openings into the cave was plain from several thin trickles that spattered down from holes in the ceiling. Two crashed into the stream before and behind Avender, while another splashed against the stone directly across from her. With a few ferns and some green moss to cover the rocks, the spot would make an enchanting glen. But underground it was only damp and bare.
Kneeling on the flattest of the rocks that crossed the stream, Avender unstopped the cask and dipped it in the water.
“Boy, that’s cold. Cold as the Hart—”
Something pale and enormous landed on his back. With a cry, Avender pitched forward into the icy stream. A second pallid figure brought a large rock down sharply on the back of his head.
A cold hand wrapped around Hubley’s mouth as the cave went dark. Strong arms yanked her away.