Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [132]
“Ah. Very well, then. Could you answer me one thing? As long as it doesn’t go against your laws, I mean. Why do your women hide themselves away? Out of modesty, like our priestesses?”
“There’s some of that, but it’s more that they hate the outside, and they shun the sunlight, too.” Garin picked up the stylus and began fiddling with it. “We’ll, hum. Don’t know how much I dare tell you.”
“Now here, it’s just curiosity on my part, so don’t trouble your heart over it.”
“My thanks. Now then. When we leave Lin Serr, think you’ll be able to carry a pack when you have to?”
“If I’ve got a few days walking first to get my muscle back, I should be able to.” Rhodry flashed him a grin. “I won’t have any choice, will I?”
Before Garin could answer a knock came at the door. Rhodry opened it to find a boy, a scant three feet high but no infant, waiting outside. Barefooted, the lad wore only a knee-length smock, though he carried a scarf of some fine white cloth. When Garin smiled and spoke to him in Dwarvish, the boy answered in the same, his voice as clear and high as a flute.
“She’s ready,” Garin told Rhodry. “Her maidservant’s just giving her a hot drink, like.”
Rhodry took the long scarf and tossed it over one shoulder. If he was going to have to walk blind at some point, he wanted to carry his own hooding. In the pale blue light from the phosphorescent walls the three of them hurried across the main cavern, skirting the maze, and turned into an alcove. Massive stone stairs led down, plunging straight and steep, much like the flights inside Cengarn, to a narrow landing below. To either side of the marbled floor, tunnels branched off, while ahead yet another flight of stairs plummeted down. Garin waved at the side tunnels.
“These lead to the high city, and truly, if we weren’t leaving so soon, I’d try to talk the council round to let you see it. It’s a nice bit of work, if I do say so myself. But with luck, well be out of here by the morrow noon.”
“I see.” Rhodry glanced down the stairs to darkness. “Doesn’t look like this scarf’s going to be all that needful.”
“Well, if you didn’t have elven blood in your veins, we wouldn’t bother, like, but you do.” Garin considered the slope for a moment. “I think me that for safety’s sake you’d best be able to see on the way down.”
With careful small steps they climbed down, keeping close to the wrought-iron handrails at the side. After some fifty feet the blue light from the landing above faded away, leaving the darkness gray to Rhodry’s half-elven sight. The steps just below him he could see, naught else. He had a brief wondering if dying was going to look like this, a peculiar light that would fade into a black like fur, as this light did at the bottom of the stairs.
“Here we are.” Garin was whispering. “Hold where you are.”
Rhodry did as he was told.
“I can’t see a thing,” he remarked.
“There’ll be light farther on.”
“Well and good, then.”
When Rhodry tied the scarf round his eyes, he truly could sense little difference. Garin laid his hand on his arm to guide him.
“Just down here. There aren’t any more steps, by the by.”
“Good. How high’s the ceiling?”
“A grand thing that you asked.” Garin sounded profoundly apologetic. “You’ll have to stoop a bit, I’m afraid.”
When at a tunnel entrance Rhodry reached up, he found the ceiling some inches shorter than he was. For some fifty paces they walked straight ahead; then Garin guided him round a corner. Through the scarf Rhodry was aware of reddish light, and he could smell charcoal mixed with a resinous incense. As they walked on, the red light faded to be replaced with a dim ghost of the usual blue phosphorescence. He heard a door open, then shut behind them; they turned a number of times; there were other doors. The dwarves need never worry, he decided, about his ever finding his way through this maze alone. Just as his back was beginning to ache from walking crouched, Baeo piped up in Dwarvish.
“The hall of the mothers,” Garin translated. “You can stand up here, Rhodry, and pull that scarf off.”
“My thanks.