Harsan spewed water upon cold, wet stones in total darkness. His feet had not touched bottom when he struck the river, but they had indeed passed through layers of soft, pulpy substances, and he felt nausea rising in his throat. At least the stream was deep enough to prevent him from striking any loads of broken bottles Simanuya might have previously dumped down the hole!
A hand touched his thigh. Hoping that it was Tlayesha, he reached down to grasp it. The fingers were long and slender but heavily calloused. He sensed that the hand was that of a woman: the N’luss.
“It is I, Harsan,” he managed. “The man your master came to meet. Can you make a light?”
There was no answer, but a whisper of movement and the scratch of steel against flint told him that she had understood. Tiny sparks danced against the impenetrable mantle of darkness.
Farther away, a ball of luminescence grew. It limned a squat, crouching figure. The Heheganu! The creature had enough sorcery, then, to be able to create light.
From the comer of his eye he caught the gleam of a blade emerging from a sheath in the thigh-high leather legging the N’luss woman wore. “Don’t kill him!” Harsan exclaimed. “At least not until we have learned all we can!”
“Harsan?” That was Tlayesha, her voice echoing with distance. It came from beyond the lip of the ledge above the black waters to his right. “Where are you? We-the Livyani and I-have Itk t’Sa here. She lives-”
They must be on a ledge similar to their own but on the other side of the river. Harsan took a breath and glanced around. The Heheganu’s light revealed a long tunnel, the roof low and arched, through which the Crystal River flowed silently out to the swamps beyond Purdimal. There was a crumbling ledge no wider than a man-height on Harsan’s side, and pools of stagnant water filled gaps and fissures in the ancient stones. He could not see Tlayesha in the spell’s glow, but she could assuredly see him.
The N’luss girl was on her feet, stooping beneath the rough blocks of the ceiling. A long, dark slash ran down her back from her left shoulder to the broad Chlen — hide cincture that wound about her waist below her heavy breasts. She had cast aside her bloodied tunic and sopping skirt and now stood mostly nude, feet wide apart before him, her knife menacing the Heheganu.
Motion behind them brought the girl around, weapon ready in fighting stance. The colourless radiance turned Simanuya’s leather skullcap into a ghastly mask. So, the glassblower had taken his counsel and jumped after all!
“Ohe, hold your dagger, woman!” The merchant spat out something unpleasant and edged forward, hands open and empty.
“The torches?” The Livyani’s lighter, foreign voice came from across the Crystal River.
“There, on your side, by the buttress,” Simanuya called back. To Harsan he said, “We must swim to them-or they to us. Better the first, since we-ah, certain comrades and I-have explored that side for some way. A few hundred paces and we come to a stair that leads back up to the dwellings of the Heheganu”
“I will not use it,” Harsan retorted. “One betrayal is enough.”
The Heheganu spoke for the first time. “No betrayal at all, human. Ormudzo led only the foreigner-the Livyani-to you. The assassins were Yan Koryani, I think, and the soldiers, too, were not our doing. What transpired was not our affair.”
“Let me peel the face from his ugly skull,” the N’luss girl suggested pleasantly. Her voice was rough and deep, the accent harsh and yet purring.
“Do as you would with me. Yet know that only I can bring you forth from this place. The glassblower there has only knowledge sufficient to lead you back into Old Town. If your foes have raised a hue and cry, our people will take no action. They will rearrange the mat walls and let you wander until you are taken by your enemies. The Heheganu will want no part of this.”
“We must decide, then, and act together.” The thought of diving once again into the mute, secretive waters of the Crystal River nauseated him. Yet Itk t’Sa might not survive a second wetting.
“This bank of the tunnel-” the Heheganu was saying. “I have not seen them, but my elders have told me of other exits-some beyond the city walls-”
Simanuya interrupted. “I have heard the tales. Mayhap we can get out into New Town, or outside Purdimal entirely. Then you can go your way, and I can return to see what remains of my shop! Oh, I shall demand Shamtla indeed! Come, young man, tell your comrades to come over to us. The torches are tied in a bundle with a length of cord. If your woman cannot swim she can hang onto them and kick with her feet.”
‘‘It is the Pe Choi who cannot live in water. She will prefer the mercies of the Heheganu-and all of Sarku’s legions-to another soaking.”
The Heheganu arose, his dripping robe clinging to the unfamiliar joints and curves of his body. ‘‘Since I am with you-for now-let me go to her. I can cast a dazzle upon her mind so that she will not know that she is in the water. Your comrades there can then float her across upon the glass-merchant’s bundle of torches.”
‘‘Do not trust! Let him not-” the N’luss woman began. She retrieved her garments, wrung them out again awkwardly, favouring her left arm.
The creature shrugged. “I wish to live upon this Plane of Being as much as you. More, I honour the law of noble comradeship until such time as we may mutually and favourably end the matter. ’ ’ He clenched his fist, and the light he bore went out as suddenly as though a door had closed upon it. A splash told them that he was gone.
Minutes passed, uncountable in the folds of darkness. Then the Heheganu’s cold light flared again on the other side of the river. Harsan could see only a huddle of figures there. The light went out, then appeared once more some distance downstream but on their side. Tlayesha knelt on the ledge above a bone-white huddle that must be Itk t’Sa.
The Livyani, nude now save for a loincloth, a belt of many pouches, and his gleaming pectoral breastplate, splashed his way toward them. “Come,” he called, “Morkudz, the Heheganu, asks that we follow him.”
Harsan hesitated. The N’luss girl pointed, however, and he saw that a long rectangle of dancing, ruddy light fell upon the surface of the river from above: torches held over the pit! Something-a rope ladder, probably-splashed down into the current. Prince Dhich’une’s soldiers would not so easily be denied their quarry!
Water still trickled from the spiracles in Itk t’Sa’s abdomen when Harsan reached her. She was trembling, Harsan realised that he had never before seen a Pe Choi so miserable. He joined Tlayesha, and the two of them raised her, supported her, and half-carried her along the tunnel after the others. Itk t’Sa was not heavy, and a momentary vision of the Chakan forests blotted out the dank stones: so had he borne Nekw p’Ki, one of the Pe Choi friends of his childhood, when he had broken a leg in a fall. Harsan would have given almost anything for a breath of fresh air, the scent of green trees, the warm dappling of sunlight upon the leaves.
“Here,” Morkudz broke into his revery. “The branch that leads down to the Mouth of the World.”
This was no time for questions. A sloping oval passage opened into the wall to their left. A gentle breeze, cool and yet faintly alien, came up through it. The Heheganu set foot upon the slippery stone floor and gingerly began to descend. The others followed.