The Shadow Companion - Laura Anne Gilman [53]
“So,” Newt said. “There are no ways out except the way we came in. So we go back and take the other passage.”
He looked around for a place to put the Grail, but his pack was already overfull, thanks to Constans taking up residence there again. The urge to give it to Ailis, rather than let Gerard hold it, flashed through his brain, and he squelched it. The squire would not abandon them to return to Camelot with his prize. Of all three of them, Gerard had risked the most, going against Sir Matthias, facing down the dragon. He had earned the right to carry it, if nothing else. Besides, it would give him something to think about other than the pain, which had to be intense.
“Let’s go.”
As they walked, Newt felt a strange sense of unease crawling in his veins. Constans seemed to be twitchy as well, crawling out of the pack slung against the boy’s back and up to the top of Newt’s head in order to see better. After the salamander deliberately dug his claws into Newt’s scalp a few times when Newt took specific turns, the boy shrugged and started letting the lizard lead them. It was no worse a way of choosing direction than any other, he supposed.
Constans led them down branch after branch of the main artery, each hallway becoming narrower and darker.
“Your head is glowing,” Ailis noted once. Newt’s shaggy black hair was indeed lit from underneath—specifically where Constans was. The salamander’s skin was emitting a faint glow, which picked up the highlights and made it seem as though Newt’s hair were made of low-burning twigs, or faint flames.
“There are women back in Camelot who would pay good money to make their hair do that,” Ailis said. “Perhaps when we get back, you could sell Constans to them.”
“Sell?” Newt clutched at his heart dramatically, as though horrified she could suggest such a thing.
“All right then, loan. For favors in return.”
Favors were the coin of the court, in many ways; that and gossip. Newt seriously doubted that any of the ladies would be willing to owe him anything even for the use of the salamander. But it was an amusing thought to pass time while they walked through dark, stone hallways, trying not to wonder too much about what they would find—if anything.
“Wait.” Gerard stopped, resting with the sword’s point digging a scratch into the soft rock of the floor under his weight. “Do you smell that?”
“What?”
“Saltwater,” Newt said, sniffing the air as well.
“In the middle of a mountain?” Ailis blinked, looking between the two of them. “Bitter water…”
That had been the phrase she was trying to remember. Back in the Queen’s solar, what seemed like a lifetime ago, a young singer had recited a poem from an earlier generation, about a sailor’s sweetheart longing for the scent of sea to remind her of the man she missed.
“And bitter water she cried into the well
Calling the shape of her master
Mastering the water the waves he rode
And wishing him home on the next tide.”
They picked up the pace as best they could with Gerard’s leg slowing them down. Another turn, and the smell of the water mixed with something sweeter but equally sharp.
“Oh.”
“That’s…unexpected,” Newt said dryly, holding his nose, while Constans hissed in what might have been agreement or pleasure.
The passageway broadened suddenly into a bright cavern so large they could not see the ceiling or the sides. A grove of trees grew in the center, their roots digging directly into the rock as though it were the richest soil.
Newt started listing off the trees he saw there: “Rowan, oak, yew—lots of yew. Ash, hazel—none of these should be growing here. None of them should be growing together.”
“Hush,” Ailis said, but it was impossible to be annoyed, not in the face of the miracle in front of them.
“This…this is where I would have expected to find the Grail,” Gerard said slowly.
“I wonder if the dragon came from