The older duarough snorted and said nothing. The upperlander watched them, absently.
"I know I'm young," Brandl said. "But war doesn't frighten me. It's the not knowing that does.
There's a song they're singing now, about a sorceress aboveground who's gathered an army to fight the Witch."
Collum started and turned. "If you know that, then you've been listening."
"I have." Brandl caught the older duarough's arm. "But you could tell me more."
Collum glanced in the direction Maruha had gone. He shifted uneasily. "Oh, very well," he sighed. "I'll tell you what I know, young one— but only so long as not a word goes beyond you."
The young duarough nodded eagerly. Collum set down his parchment. The pale girl saw him glance once at her, but she kept her mind and features blank. Whatever the duaroughs were saying, she told herself it did not matter.
"Now hark," Collum began. "You know how, many ages past, this world was a dead and lifeless one—until the coming of the Ancients from Oceanus. The Ancients changed this world and kindled it to life, planted herbs and grasses, fashioned peoples and living creatures. They made the tall upperlanders for the surface above, and us to run the world's engines below."
He glanced again toward the girl at the mention of her kith, then back to Brandl.
"You know all that, boy?"
"Yes, yes," the young duarough said. "Maruha saw to my learning."
Collum humphed. "And you know that the Ancients ruled wisely and well for uncounted years, until suddenly, unexpectedly, Oceanus called them home. Most departed at once in their fiery chariots, never to return. But a handful stayed behind, unwilling to abandon us. Yet even those withdrew into the desert, sealing themselves away in their great domed Cities. Only the Ravenna's remained open, and people made pilgrimages to her City of Crystalglass."
The younger duarough nodded; Collum continued.
"The Ancientlady instructed our folk in the service of those devices that manufacture the world's water and air, and she created the Ions— great guardian-beasts—to shepherd the upper-landers above. But even she in all her wisdom could not keep the world from beginning to wind down: atmosphere bleeding off into the Void, weathermakers falling slowly into disrepair."
Brandl's breath quickened. "There's a word for it," he whispered. "An Ancient word: entropy."
Collura glowered at him to be still.
"Ravenna saw but one hope against our declining world's eventual collapse," he said, "against this entropy. Since Oceanus remained deaf to her entreaties, her fellows there refusing to lend their aid across the Void, she realized that she must conjure the means to rescue us herself. Thus she withdrew into her City a dozen thousand daymonths past to begin the weaving of a mighty spell that would halt the entropy and restore the world."
Collum toyed with the folded parchment and at last put it away.
"All of this you know, Brandl."
The young duarough snorted impatiently. "Yes!"
His companion cast another furtive glance over one shoulder as if to be sure Maruha were truly gone.
Brandl leaned forward intently. As the pale girl watched them, she tried not to listen, struggling to retain the blank emptiness of her mind- lest the pin take revenge.
"After the Ravenna withdrew, we strove to live as best we could without the Ancients' guidance. Then the Witch appeared. None know who she is or whence she came, save that she is a water demon, a lorelei. She dwells beyond the desert's edge, in parched regions known as the Waste. Beneath the dark surface of a still, silent lake, her palace stands, cold as poison and fashioned of transparent stone.
"She has, through her sorceries, beleaguered the whole world with drought. Even the once mighty wellsprings of Aiderlan have ceased to flow. Her weaselhounds sniff us out belowground. Who knows what fate awaits those they seize? And she harries the upperlanders as well, stealing their young boys over the years, half a dozen of them. These she has made into darkangels— the icari—each icarus a soulless demon with a dozen dark wings blacker than shadow. Her icari in turn conquered the six strongest nations of Westernesse, transforming the guardian Ions of those lands into gargoyles.
"Then the Witch stole a seventh 'son," a prince of Avaric, Irrylath, gilding his heart with lead and making him into the beginning of a darkangel. As soon as her spell upon him could become complete, she knew she would have half the world in her grasp. In terror, the peoples of Westernesse cried out for the Ravenna to return and vanquish the Witch. But Ravenna has not returned. Her City remains sealed. None know her fate."
Collum choked, his words growing harsh.
"Some fear her dead."
Brandl tried to catch the other's eye, but the bearded duarough would not look at him. The pale girl shrugged nervously, drawn into the tale despite herself. She knew she should not listen— and yet a kind of hunger filled her, a longing for news, for word of the world above. She found herself harkening without meaning to, and the pin twinged warningly as the duaroughs resumed their talk.
"No, it is not the Ravenna who has come forth to oppose the Witch, but another, the dread sorceress Aeriel. Some say she is the Ravenna reborn; some say she is her heir. But whoever she may be, she has, by means of her great magic, freed both Prince Irrylath and the Ions from the Witch's enchantment. The Ions are no longer gargoyles, Prince Irrylath no longer a darkangel."
Collum laughed suddenly, as though hope were beginning to return to him as he warmed to his tale.
Wincing, the pale girl shuddered.
"Irrylath loathes his former mistress now and has raised a great army to Aeriel's cause. He has sworn to plunge his sword Adamantine into the Witch's heart with his own hand, for love of the sorceress Aeriel."
Brandl sighed, gazing up at the close stone ceiling above the white flame of their little fire. "Yes, that.
That is what I long to hear of. If only I could be with them," he murmured, "up there, where things matter,"
The upperlander shifted fitfully. A desperate restlessness seized her. The pain in her head throbbed.
She sat hunched, trying to block out the sound of the others' talk.
Collum grunted disapprovingly at Brandl's words. "Hold now, boy. Our life is here, along the underpaths—unless you want to run off like Maruha's worthless brother. There are few enough of us left as it is! The gears of the world won't go on turning of themselves."
"But on this war hangs the very fate of the world!" the younger duarough protested. "And it's the Witch's doing that our numbers are now so few..."
"All the more reason we should tend to our work." Once more, Collum cast his eye uneasily down the corridor Maruha had taken. "Where is she, I wonder?" he muttered. "She has been gone a rare long time."
Brandl paid no attention. He had lifted the little harp from his knees, strumming his fingers across it absently, and begun to sing.
"On Avaric's white plain,
where the icarus now wings
To steeps of Terrain
from tour-of-the-Kings,
And damozels twice-seven
his brides have all become:
Afar cry from heaven,
a long road from home—"
The pale girl listened in horror to the rime. Its music stirred her disjointed memory as words alone had not. The pin twitched, pricking her. Images swirled unbidden through her mind, stringing themselves together like beads of fire: the kingdom of Avaric ruled over by a darkangel, who stole young girls to be his brides. A darkangel become a mortal man again, astride a winged steed, raising an army to fight the Witch…
The girl gasped and trembled as the pin shivered, biting down. No force of will could stop the incomprehensible glimpses now juggling through her mind. Oblivious, Brandl in his clear, sweet voice sang on. Those words! She could not bear the tangled, shifting memories they brought. Every line of the rime caused unspeakable torment. The pin twisted, and another jab of pain went through the pale girl's head. A shriek of agony tore from her throat.
Springing to her feet, she plunged at the source of the music. Brandl looked up in astonishment as she snatched the harp from his hand. She flung it away, flailing at the young duarough. With a cry of surprise, Brandl fended her off. Collum jumped to his feet and seized her arms, pulling her away. She kicked and struggled, her bare feet shoving up sand. She felt hot metal underfoot for a moment, and then the fire went out.
"Blast!" exclaimed Collum. "She's overturned the lamp."
The girl scrambled free, one hand going to her breast, covering the pearl, hiding its light. In the pitch dark, she could see nothing, but neither could the other two. She heard them blundering about.
"Quick, boy, get it up before the oil runs out." That was Collum's harried voice.
"I'm trying!" Brandl's. "There, I've got it. Get your tinderbox."
The pale girl retreated, stumbling blindly down the jet-black corridor. Shadow: shadow everywhere!
She was wrapped in shadow, surrounded, smothered by it. She could not breathe to scream.
The sound of rummaging, of flint striking metal. A spark in the darkness behind her, then a second spark, a finger of flame. She ducked into an open tunnel's mouth. A little light strayed after her.
"What came over her, do you think?" That was Brandl, his voice already faint with distance and the distortion of the caves. "She was never wild before."
"Your blasted harp music," Collum growled. "That set her off."
"No. She was restless before, kept looking at us, like she wanted to speak."
"Nonsense!"
" You wouldn't have noticed."
Panicked, the girl turned and fled, hiding her light. She wanted only silence, blessed silence, free from pain and memories. The pin behind her ear nestled deeper, stabbing her mind. She started to whimper, and then bit off the sound, afraid of being heard. Their voices were the barest ghosts now, hardly audible above the whisper of her running feet.
