"It begins here," said Silien.
Suddenly they heard the sound of muffled shouts and doors banging. The morgs had discovered their escape.
They plunged forward into the labyrinth. They made several turnings, still feeling the way along the walls with their fingers and choosing at random the path to take.
They lapsed into silence. Collun found it eerie, walking without sight. He remembered old Neggan, the blind weaver back in Inkberrow. Collun had never thought before about what it must be like, living in darkness as she did. He understood now why she wove elaborate stories into her cloth. They must have brought some color and light into her dark world, even if she could not see them.
"There was a riddle," Silien finally broke the silence, his voice a faint whisper. "It was given to the maiden to help her find her way out. It provided a clue to the puzzle. I never learned the riddle, nor its answer..." His voice trailed away, then came again, softly, "Fara remembers only the first line of it. 'I go naked in winter yet feel no chill.' That is all."
"A riddle, eh?" said Talisen, his voice eager. "Well, then, I should be able to get us through this labyrinth in no time at all. 'I go naked in winter...' Just give me a few moments." He began muttering to himself. The rest of them lapsed again into silence.
After what seemed an eternity of groping in the dark, of doubling back from dead ends and starting over, Silien gave a soft sigh and said, "I can go no farther." He slipped to the ground where he stood and was immediately asleep.
"We will have to carry him," said Collun. He and Talisen hoisted Silien up, draping one of the Ellyl's arms around Collun's neck, the other around Talisen's. Brie moved into the lead with Fara at her side.
As he walked, Collun thought about the riddle fragment. He considered asking Brie's opinion, but he hesitated. The strain was still there between them. He had tried many times to identify its cause, but he could not. Nor could he bring himself to ask her.
After several hours of carrying Silien, Collun and Talisen began to tire. They dragged on for some time but finally had to rest. They laid the Ellyl gently on the tunnel floor. Talisen went a short distance away to concentrate on the riddle. Collun could hear Brie breathing nearby. He took a step toward her, then stopped.
"Brie?" Collun said tentatively.
"Yes?" Her voice was cold. Collun could hear Fara's purr and guessed that Brie was stroking the animal's back.
"Why do you journey with us?" Collun blurted out.
"In our present circumstances it would seem I have little choice," Brie responded dryly.
"But why did you stay with us after we got to Temair?"
Brie didn't answer for a moment. "Did you want me to leave you then?"
"No!" Collun exclaimed. "That is, we have, uh, come to rely on your bow."
"I see." He could hear her move away from him. Collun reached out to stop her, but then let his arm fall back to his side. He felt a numbness inside him, and for some reason the words in Goban's letter came back to him.
Collun felt his way back to the Ellyl. "Silien?"
"Yes." He was awake.
"How do you feel?" Collun queried.
"A little better," the Ellyl replied huskily. And suddenly he began to sing. At first his voice was so soft that Collun did not even recognize it as singing. It was like the time in the Forest of Eld. The song had no rhyme, it told no story, it did not even have recognizable words—yet somehow Collun knew it was a song. It painted pictures of fire and smoke behind his eyes, and when it was done, the darkness was gone. A soft pink light glowed in Silien's hand. He held it before him so they could see the place where they stood.
It was a tunnel carved of rock, just higher than the tallest of them. They stood at a turning. There was a drawing on the wall just below eye level.
As they walked forward they found more drawings. They were spaced at irregular intervals, and at each turning there was a picture. The designs depicted many different things—a ring-tailed mouse, a blade of grass glistening with moisture, a salmon leaping high above a stream. Each one was exquisite. The spray of periwinkle next to Collun was so lifelike he felt he could reach over and pluck it.
"Ellyl drawings," said Silien.
"They are beautiful," replied Talisen.
"I wonder if they were drawn for decoration only," said Brie.
"You mean you think they may be clues, like the riddle?" queried Talisen. "By Amergin, the answer is on the tip of my tongue! I have heard it before, I am sure. 'I go naked in winter...' Are you sure Fara can remember no more of it, Silien?"
"I am sure." The Ellyl's voice was hollow with fatigue. "Fara has no patience for riddling. Let us move ahead. Perhaps the pictures will tell us more." Silien held up the light in his hand and they walked on. They came to several turnings and randomly chose the way to go.
"'In winter...'" Talisen was still muttering irritably to himself. "I would swear I know this riddle. I heard it once in a song." He slid his harp around again and began to finger the strings. "I can even picture the face of the bard who sang it to me. He was very old, and his voice had more cracks than the plates Farmer Whicklow used to throw at me."
They passed the painting of a spindly legged lamb, then a cluster of ripe huckleberries. Talisen gave a sigh and for a moment stopped playing. "I cannot concentrate for all the clamor my stomach is making. By chance, does anyone have food with them?" No one replied. "I thought not," he responded gloomily.
They came to another turning and paused. Collun absently ran his finger around the edge of the silver-green leaf etched onto the stone beside him. His eyes fell on a small pile of what he thought were rocks. But when he peered more closely at them, he gasped. It was a pile of bones.
He tried without success to stifle the horrible, unbidden thought that flooded his mind. Ever since he had woken in the darkness of the dungeon, he wondered if Nessa had been there, too. And what if, like them, she had escaped into the labyrinth and gotten lost in the pitch-black twistings and turnings? He knelt down by the small pile.
"Those have lain here a long, long time," came Brie's voice from over Collun's shoulder. "Too long."
"Are you sure?" Collun stared down at the grisly heap.
"Yes. If they were your sister's, they would still have some flesh on them," Brie said, her voice matter-of-fact and still distant. She moved away.
"Yet they are too new to be those of the Ellyl maiden for whom the labyrinth was built," said Silien, holding the light over the bones. "Some other victim of Lord Bricriu's treachery, perhaps."
Suddenly Talisen's random playing took on form and he let out a triumphant laugh. "I have found it," he said, his voice loud with excitement. "Listen. It is not exactly the same, but it is close enough.
"'In spring I am gay,
in handsome array.
In summer more clothing I wear.
When colder it grows,
I fling off my clothes,
And in winter quite naked appear.'
"There," Talisen finished with a flourish. "Can you guess the answer? It is simple, really."
There was a short silence.
"A tree, of course," Talisen cried out impatiently.
"But what does it mean? Could the labyrinth be fashioned in the manner of the roots of a tree?" asked Brie.
Collun had been listening with half an ear, his eyes still fastened on the bones. But then something stirred in his memory. The picture at the turning. It had been a leaf. A mulberry leaf. He stood and crossed to the design. He stared at it.
"Perhaps it points the way out," he said more to himself than the others.
"What?" asked Talisen.
"Where the leaf of a tree is, perhaps that is the turning we are to take."