Perhaps she fled, along with her advisers. Wherever she is, Perin grant she is safe. And who was it the princess herself had sworn by so often? Zoria—Perin’s merciful daughter. He had never thought to pray to the virgin deity before, but now he did his best to summon the memory of her kind, pale face. Yes, blessed Zoria, put your hand on her and keep her from harm.
Does Briony ever think of us? Of course, she must think of her brother all the time—but does she think of me at all? Does she even remember my name?
He forced such foolishness away. If there was anything more pitiable than mooning after an unobtainable princess, a young woman as high above him as the gods were above humanity, it was mooning while they were captives in the Twilight Lands, being marched toward the Three Brothers only knew what doom.
You think too much, Ferras Vansen. That’s what old Murroy told you, and he was right.
The sprawling avenue of broken stones and gigantic leaning statues had become even more desolate as they marched on, most of the plinths empty, the stones themselves few and far between, as though scavengers had carried them away. Even the trees had been cleared here; the valley floor, sloping up on either side, seemed as stubbly as the face of an unshaved corpse.
Vansen was also becoming more and more aware of a smell beyond that of the smoke, a strong, sulphurous odor that seemed to lie over the valley like a fog. The worst of it came from holes in the ground on either side of the road, and Vansen could not help wondering what could be under the ground that stank so badly.
“Mines,” said Barrick when Vansen voiced his question out loud. “Gyir said these are the first mines his people built, a long time ago, although the digging here began even earlier. They go down into the ground for miles.” “What did they mine here?”
“That’s all I know.” Barrick gestured with his good arm toward the faceless fairy. Gyir’s eyes were almost closed, as though he slept on his feet. “He’s still not talking.”
The road, which Vansen thought must once have been the path of an ancient streambed, began to rise as the valley floor rose. Even as they climbed the smoke remained thick in the air, turning the cheerless vista of tree stumps and broken stones into something even more dispiriting, if such was possible. They were nearing the far end of the valley, and even though the road continued to mount upward, it became clear that unless it ended in a ladder half a mile tall it would never climb high enough to take them over the jagged face of rock that hemmed the valley.
Barrick looked up at the looming peak in dismay. “There’s nowhere to go. Perhaps we’re not to be slaves after all. Perhaps they’re just going to kill us here.”
“It seems a long way to march us simply to do that, Highness,” Vansen reassured him. “Likely there is some secret pass ahead—a path through the heights.” But he also wondered, and fear began to poison him again. Soon they would be pressed against the stony cliffs with nowhere to go, the Longskulls hemming them in with sharp spears... If others had not been trudging through the growing dark ahead of him, Vansen would have tripped on the first impossibly wide, high step. As the prisoners in front clambered up, Vansen followed, turning to help the prince climb despite Barrick’s fiercely resentful looks. One massive step ran into the next, one wearying climb after another.
“It’s...a...cursed...staircase,” Barrick said, fighting for breath. They had been marching without a rest for hours, and each step was a formidable obstacle. “Like the one in front of the great temple back home—but monstrously big.” He fell silent except for his ragged breathing as he labored up two more steps behind Vansen. All around him the other prisoners were struggling at least as badly—some were simply too short to get up without help. The Longskulls clambered in and out of the procession, jabbing with their sticks and making irritated honking noises. “Gyir says that this is it,” Barrick reported at last.
“This is what, exactly?”
“Greatdeeps. The entrance to the ancient mine.” Barrick closed his eyes for a moment, listening to that silent voice. “He says we must hold hands, because to get separated here might be worse than death.”
“A cheery thought,” said Vansen as lightly as he could, but his own heart was like a stone. They continued up the great staircase, which seemed wider than the Lantern Broad in Tessis. At the top yawned a great doorway, high as a many-storied house. Compared to the twilight in the valley and on the stairs, its interior was dark as night.
“There will be a fight here, mark my words,” Vansen whispered to Barrick. It felt strangely natural to hold the boy’s hand, as though this topsy-turvy land had given him back one of his younger brothers. “No creature would let itself be driven into that without a struggle.”
But there was no struggle, or at least not much of one. As the prisoners bunched in the doorway, some moaning and slumping to the ground, some actively trying to turn back, the Longskulls charged. They had been prepared, and now they leaped up the stairs and onto the landing as a unified force, shoving, kicking, poking, and even biting until all those who could do so clambered to their feet and staggered through the door. Many were trampled, and as Vansen let himself and Barrick be drawn into the darkness, he wondered if in the long run those lying bloody and crushed on the top step might not be the lucky ones.
“Should we have tried to get away?” Barrick whispered. “Before they shoved us in here?”
“No, not unless your Gyir says we must. We do not know what is inside, but we might find a better chance for escape later on.” Vansen wished he believed that himself.
They allowed themselves to be dragged along in the river of captive creatures, out of the initial darkness into sloping, timbered tunnels lit with torches, then down, down into the heart of the mountain.
He did not notice it at first, but after a short time of trudging through the dank, hot corridors Vansen began to realize that some of the other prisoners were disappearing. The group in which they traveled was perhaps half the size now that it had been when they had first been driven through the great doors, and as he watched he saw two of the Longskulls roughly separate a group of perhaps a dozen captives—it was hard to tell in the flickering shadows, because the prisoners were of so many odd sizes and shapes—and drive them away down a cross corridor. He whispered this to Barrick, and saw the prince’s eyes widen in alarm.
“Is that because they mean something different for us? To kill us instead of making us slaves?”
“I think it’s more likely that they haven’t seen many of our kind before,” Vansen reassured him. “These Longskull things don’t seem the types to act without orders. They may want someone to tell them where we should be put.” He didn’t really want to talk—it was hard enough trying to keep some idea in his mind of what turns they’d taken, where they might be in relation to the original doorway. If there was a chance later for escape, he did not want to run blindly.
Soon there were only a few prisoners left beside themselves, a more or less manlike creature with wings like a dragonfly, taller than Vansen although much more slender, a pair of goblins with bright red skin, and one of the wizened mock-Funderlings—a Drow. This last walked just in front of Vansen, which gave him more chance to look at it the little manlike creature than he might have wanted: it had a huge, lopsided head, a stumpy body, and hands that were almost twice as big as Vansen’s, although the creature itself was far less than half his size.