Fortune's Light - Michael Jan Friedman [39]
The lower level was a little trickier. One needed a portable light source to see the colors on the walls. What was more, the corridors—tunnels, really—were narrower and more confusing than those above. The air was cold and dank, and there seemed to be too little of it, and every now and then something not entirely wholesome skittered by. So if one was prone to fits of nervousness, one was better off staying on the upper level and not venturing below ground at all.
In any case, the worst parts of both levels were inaccessible—blocked off by stone-support collapses during an earthquake a century or so ago. When Riker’s acquaintances suggested he visit the maze, those weren’t the sections they’d had in mind.
“Damn,” said Lyneea, her eyes hard and glittery in the bright sunlight. “This place is even bigger than I remembered.”
They stood before the maze’s south entrance—or exit, depending on how one looked at it—the closest one to the slope they’d ascended to get here.
Actually, there were two entrances in front of them, as there would have been wherever they tried to get in. That was just the way the maze had been designed.
“Are you sure about this, Riker?” Lyneea’s breath froze and billowed on the air. “Are you certain you want to spend the time required to search this thing—on the word of some nameless, faceless ascetic?”
He nodded. “I’m sure.”
Lyneea didn’t think much of the idea of searching the maze. If she’d had another lead, even a tenuous one, she would have refused to trudge up here. Riker was certain of that.
But of course, she didn’t have another lead, so she came along, grumbling at each and every opportunity. Apparently she saw this moment as her last chance to make her feelings known, and she wasn’t about to pass it up.
“You’re not going to listen to reason, are you?”
“Nope.”
Lyneea sighed. She considered the dual-entrance setup. “All right. Which one?”
“This one,” said Riker. He indicated the one on the right.
They entered. Immediately the temperature seemed to drop ten degrees. With the gray walls of the maze rising five to six meters from the ground, the sun’s rays couldn’t quite reach them, and Riker shivered. He could feel his mustache crusting up with ice.
And this was only the upper level.
He looked around. Ahead, on the right, he spotted a dash of color. Approaching it, he saw how little of the horizontal bar was purple and how much of it was green. It was just as it should have been—exactly the kind of symbol he’d expected to see near an entrance.
It was reassuring to know his memory was working so well. Wrapping his cloak more tightly about him, Riker followed the curve of the stone passageway.
There wasn’t room for them to walk side by side, but Lyneea was only a step or two behind him. He noted that she’d stopped grumbling, at least.
It was unlikely that Teller Conlon would have hidden the seal—or himself, for that matter—in one of the unobstructed passages. Hardly anyone ever visited the maze during carnival time, but why would he take a chance of being found by a casual stroller, especially when the collapsed sections offered so much more in the way of seclusion?
So they concentrated their efforts on the areas ruined by the earthquake. They scraped and clawed their way past fallen rocks and rubble, lowered themselves into wells of darkness with only their beamlights for illumination, dug like moles into hard ground that looked as if it might have been disturbed with a shovel or something similar.
And came up empty.
It was frustrating as hell, and Lyneea finally said so. “This is ridiculous, Riker. We would need every retainer in Madraga Criathis to comb this place effectively.”
Her words echoed slightly. Or was that some crawling thing making its exit, disturbed by the sound?
He thought about Norayan and shook his head. “We’ve got to keep this under wraps.” The sunlight was receding steadily up the stones. Outside, it had to be approaching sunset. “Look, let