“corson, i’m sorry,” said Nyctasia. “This is my fault. You knew enough to keep him in sight, but I-”
“Quiet, there he is,” Corson whispered tensely. On the stone terrace high above them, near the tunnel leading to the well, Garast stood leaning over the balustrade, as if waiting for them to catch up with him. They walked slowly across the great hall, and Nyctasia waved up at him. “The door’s stuck fast,” she called quite calmly. “You’ll have to come back down and push it open.”
Garast did not move.
“Hurry up, man! We have to fetch that key.”
“I’m sure I can find it for myself,” he said. “I’ll not be needing your help anymore.”
“If you make me climb up there myself, I’ll tear you into dogmeat!” Corson shouted, but the echoes threw her words back at her mockingly. She could no more scale that steep stone cliff than she could fly over it, and Garast knew it. She looked desperately around the vast, shadowy cavern, outraged at her helplessness. “There’s sure to be another way out of here!”
Garast leaned farther over toward them, as if to confide a secret. “I think there is,” he said, “and do you know where? I think the only way out is through the door of the last hiding-place… And that door will never be opened by an outsider, nor reveal its secrets to the unworthy, while I can prevent it. You’ve seen more than is fitting already, but you’ll pay with your lives for profaning the sacred places! And when you’ve starved for your meddling, I’ll return to claim what is mine. No one but I has the right to use that key.”
Nyctasia had a sickening feeling that he was right about the way out of the cavern. It suited altogether too well with the ways of the Cymvelans. But it would be a long while before she and Corson starved to death, she reflected.
There was plenty of water. She herself was accustomed to fasting, and Corson was exceptionally strong. Could they eat bats? “It is only a few days to Yu Valeicu,” she said to Garast. “Have you forgotten?”
“Let the Edonaris guard my inheritance for me. When I tell them you’ve gone astray in the tunnels, they’ll comb the ruins for you, won’t they, my lady?
They’ll keep watch day and night-but I don’t think they’ll seek you at the bottom of an old well. I’ll help them search, though, just to be sure.” He laughed, obviously pleased with himself. “I’ll show them just where I lost you, and I’ll direct the searchers tirelessly, I promise you-”
But his laughter suddenly swelled to a shrill cry, and then he was plummeting toward them, down the long fall from the ledge, to strike the stone floor at their feet with a hard, hideous sound.
“Watch out!” called a familiar voice from overhead. “He’s the crazed bastard we stole the pouch from-that one’s dangerous!”
Nyctasia had knelt beside the still form of Garast, but now she rose and turned away. “Not anymore,” she said heavily. “His chase is done. In truth, he found the way without our help.”
“Dead?” said Newt uneasily. “Hlann, do you mean I’ve killed someone? I thought he’d break a few bones.”
“Never mind him-what are you doing here?” Corson demanded.
“What do you think? I knew you’d come after the treasure with my page of clues.
I’ve been here for a good while waiting for you to find it, and it’s taken you long enough! I watched the slavers, I watched you, I watched the slavers watching you, and the lot of you led me round in circles,” he complained. “And the rutting watchdogs nearly had me a score of times, too.”
“We really seem to give you no end of inconvenience,” said Nyctasia, leaning wearily against the wall. “But might we just trouble you a little further, to come down here and open the door to the stairway? I want to get back to the house and have a bath.”
Newt straddled the balustrade and grinned down at them. “Why should I? I could steal that key from your room and wait for you both to starve, like he said.
Then I’d have the treasure for myself.”
With a motion almost too fast to follow, Corson snatched the knife from her boot-sheath and straightened up again, arm poised to throw. “Try it, you sneaking flea,” she yelled. “Make a move anywhere but toward those stairs, and I’ll have a knife through your scrawny neck before you know it!”
Newt froze. “You daren’t. No one else knows you’re here. If you kill me, you’ll never be found.”
Nyctasia sighed, as if irritated at the quarreling of children. “Oh, she’s mad enough to do it, I’m sure. Corson, do try, please, not to be so hasty.” She pushed herself away from the wall, with an effort, and wheeled to face Newt, throwing out one arm to point at him threateningly. “As for you, thiefling, if you dare go off and leave us here, I’ll cast a curse on you with my dying breath that will shrivel the flesh from your bones! Now come open that door before I lose my patience.”
“All right, I’m coming!” He climbed off the balustrade and slid down to shelter behind it, glaring down at them between the stone palings. “But I don’t believe you can cast a spell like that, lady. Why’d you run away from Rhostshyl if you can do such things?”
Nyctasia laughed. “You’re no fool. Now why couldn’t my accusers in the city take such a sensible view of the matter? The truth is that I don’t know whether I can do it or not, because I’ve never tried. Perhaps I can’t, but-”
“But we’ll all find out soon enough, if you don’t make haste,” Corson told Newt grimly.
“Yes,” Nyctasia agreed, “I don’t like to be kept waiting. Stop pretending that you’ll abandon us here, Newt. You’re a thief, not a murderer.”
“Well, I want a share of the treasure in return.”
“Any treasure on this land belongs to the Edonaris of Vale,” Nyctasia pointed out. “But I believe that I can answer for them. That seems fair enough to me.”
She disregarded Corson’s muttered promise to see to it that Newt got everything he deserved.
“And there’s another thing,” he said suspiciously. “That one”-he pointed to Corson-“is quits with me for good and all if I help you. Your word on it!”
“Ho, I said you were no fool. But I’m afraid I can’t answer for her. What say you, Corson?”
Corson spat, disgusted at the perverse, everlasting injustice of her lot. “Oh, very well. Agreed,” she said.
Corson lifted Nyctasia over the lip of the well and then turned to look down at Newt as he struggled his way up the knotted rope. She chuckled. “After all, it consoles me to know that Raphistain ar’n Edonaris will have your head when I tell him it was you stealing from his harvesters.”
A hollow-sounding exclamation of protest rose from the shaft, followed before long by Newt’s head and arms as he climbed into view, “Thankless bitch!” he sputtered. “If not for me you’d have rotted down there forever!”
“Now, Corson,” Nyctasia interceded, “Raphe’s so enamored of you, I’m sure he’ll forgive Newt when he hears that he saved your life.”
Corson shook her head. “He loves those grapes of his better than me and the whole world beside,” she said confidently, delighted with the effect of her words on the dismayed Newt. Then, with a laugh, she grabbed his arm and hauled him up over the rim of the well-not very gently, perhaps, but she did it without breaking his arm.