We walked, stopped to rest, and walked more. Hours passed.
“Hold!” D’Natheil’s voice echoed through the stone passage.
“What is it?” I asked, squeezing past the chestnut to where D’Natheil stood frowning. He held up his hand, and my stomach constricted. Our way was blocked by a pile of rubble. “Oh.”
“I think I went wrong back where the path bent to the right. It was hard to guess which was the side passage and which the main. We don’t have a clue to tell us, I suppose?”
I tried to keep my breathing steady. “We’ve only one more riddle. I’ve assumed that it tells the final destination.”
Somewhere water dripped slowly. The soles of my feet throbbed.
“We’ll have to go back then. Only a few hundred paces. I can switch places with the Dulcé.” The Prince smiled at me in the glow of his enchantment. “Baglos and I will find our way, will we not, Dulcé?” Baglos did not answer. As we got the horses turned around, it was quite obvious why. Neither Baglos nor Polestar was anywhere in sight.
“Baglos!”
“Dulce!”
We called out together. Only our own echoes answered.
“I don’t think I quite believe this horrid day,” I said. “How could they have sent you such a dolt for a Guide?”
The Prince peered into the blackness beyond his circle of light. “When did you last mark him?”
“I’ve not been paying attention. It must have been when we stopped to adjust his boot.”
“Fires of night, that was half a league back!” D’Natheil shook his head. “Baglos has a good heart. But I’ll confess, I don’t understand him at all.”
We tied the chestnut’s halter to Firethorn’s saddle and started back the way we had come, a task easier set than accomplished. We’d had few choices of direction along the way, but looking backward was a different matter. There seemed to be passages everywhere and no distinction to be made between them.
“This is where I went wrong,” said D’Natheil, pointing around a sharp corner. “When we find the Dulcé and return here, we’ll need to go left. Easy to see now that it’s the main passage.”
“We should mark it,” I said. “I should have thought of that from the beginning.” Stupid. Stupid. Perhaps the dark would be less fearsome if you kept hold of some sense.
I pulled out my knife to scratch a mark on the stone, but the Prince stayed my hand. “Perhaps there’s an easier way.” He let out a slow breath, as if to settle himself, and then he rubbed a finger on the stone. A glowing green mark appeared. “I’ve no idea if it will last as long as we need. I hope so.”
“This is an immensely opportune time for your talents to manifest themselves. I don’t suppose you can search for Baglos as Kellea does?”
He laughed a bit. “Unfortunately not. We’ll have to hunt for him in the usual way.”
Carefully, always marking our path before losing sight of the previous mark, we picked our way back through the warren. At every opening we called for Baglos, but heard no reply save our own voices bouncing around in the hollow spaces. One hour, two hours we searched. D’Natheil’s light faded to a sickly yellow.
When we reached the place we’d last seen the Dulcé, I leaned my back against the wall and massaged one tired ankle. “Perhaps he stayed on the main route after we went wrong. He’s most likely on the other side by now, worrying about us.”
“I hope you’re right,” said the Prince. “I don’t think it would be wise to search beyond the main passage.”
He got no argument from me. I eyed his hand and the shrinking circle of light radiating from it. “Perhaps we should go all the way back to the ledge to spend the night. Try the passage again in the morning… when we’re rested.”
“Better not. The ledge will be closer to our pursuers, and the tunnel will be safer in the dark.”
“Probably so.”
We reversed direction and started up the path, proceeding slowly through the closing blackness toward the green mark, taking turns calling out for Baglos. Soon the Prince’s light encompassed no more than a single footstep. I dared not blink lest I lose sight of his hand.
“I’m sorry I can’t hold the light for you,” he said, as the last glimmer faded. “I’m not practiced at the art. We’ll follow the marks as long as we can manage, and then rest for a while. Tell me when you can no longer bear the dark, and I’ll try the light again.”
“I’ll be all right,” I said. Despite this boastful claim, doubts gnawed at me.
We passed the first green mark. “I should remove it,” said the Prince, pausing for a moment. “It will aid our pursuers. But if the Dulcé is lost…” He left it.
I was not so gracious. I would have abandoned the incompetent little fool to fend for himself.
To my surprise, I endured the next few hours quite readily. We returned to our missed turning with no sign of the Dulcé, but by that time I had to stop for other reasons. One blistered heel was raw, my ankles were wobbly, and my neck felt as if someone had hung me from a meat hook. “This isn’t a place I’d choose to spend a night,” I said, “but my feet will not move another step.”
We unsaddled the horses, pulled out our blankets, and shared some bits of cheese. The horses whuffled softly as the Prince gave them each a handful of oats from our emergency stores. “I’ll take these two and go a little farther down the passage,” he said.
“Please stay close,” I said. “Proprieties are long past.”
“As you wish.” His voice was clear and comforting in the darkness.
It never came morning, of course. The absolute blackness was only relieved when D’Natheil spoke his word of magic. With his other hand he passed me a hard biscuit. “We must hurry,” he said. Even with no light to reveal the strain on his face, I could have felt the tension in him. “I don’t think our pursuers slept.”
I hadn’t slept much either. The stone passage was hard and cold, and my tangled thoughts and worries would not stop spinning and permit any decent rest. We were off in moments, on a tedious repetition of the previous day’s journey. After two hours we stopped to rest and drink. Fortune was with us, for if we hadn’t stopped in just that place, the sound of the horses’ hooves might have masked the faint moaning. We heard it at the same time, and D’Natheil strengthened his light so we could see into the side passage.
Baglos lay in a crumpled heap at the base of a sizable step down from the main passageway. The Prince jumped down and knelt beside him, listening for breath, examining the Dulcé‘s limbs. Soon he rolled the Dulcé to his back, revealing a bloody scrape on his forehead. “Seems he’s only knocked his head a bit.”
I tossed the Prince a wineskin and a rag to clean the injury, and then clambered down beside him. No sooner had I knelt beside Baglos and dribbled a little wine on his lips than his dark eyes popped open, darting quickly from my face to that of the Prince.
“What have you done to yourself, Dulcé?” said D’Natheil.
I poured a little wine on the rag and began sponging the wound.
“Ah, my lord…” Baglos snatched the cloth from me, pressing it to his head as he pushed himself up to sitting. “Please, woman, I can take care of this. I am good for little else, it seems, but causing delay.”
“We feared you were lost,” said the Prince.
“I… was feeling ill. The incident of the morning in the river, the long climb in the heat. Ah, my lord, I was shamed and I could not—Well, I wished to maintain some dignity before you. So I held back until I had recovered, believing there would be no divided way until we emerged from the tunnel. I assumed I could follow your light, but I could not catch up with you no matter how fast I traveled. I came dizzy once more and thought to myself that I ought to wait until I had more sense about me before proceeding. But like the fool I am, I stumbled down this step…