Ahead, the street deadended. They rounded the corner of the building they were following and discovered that the street widened into a square. At the square’s center was an odd depression with steps leading down on all sides to a basin from which a statue rose, a winged figure with streamers and ribbons trailing from its body. Almost without thinking, they turned into the square, beguiled by its look, so different from anything else they had seen. A park, they thought to themselves without speaking. What was it doing here?
They were halfway across the street when they heard the catch that secured the trapdoor beneath them release.
They had no chance of saving themselves. They were standing in the center of the door when it dropped, and they plunged into the void beneath. They fell a long way, struck the side of a chute, and began to slide head-downward. The chute was rough, its surface littered with loose rock that cut and bit into their faces and hands. They clawed frantically in an attempt to slow their descent, heedless of the pain. Boots and knees dug in; hands and fingers grasped. The slide broadened and its slope decreased. They quit rolling, flattened themselves in a spread-eagle position, and came to a grinding halt.
Morgan lifted his head gingerly and peered about. He lay facedown on a slab of rock that stretched so far away into the shadows on either side that he could not see its end. Loose rock lay upon the slide like a carpet, bits and pieces of it still tumbling away. There was a faint glimmer of light from somewhere above, a narrow shaft that sought in vain to penetrate the gloom, so thin that it barely reached to where Morgan lay. He forced himself to look down. Horner Dees lay some twenty feet below him on his right, sprawled on his back with his arms and legs thrown wide, unmoving. Farther down, like a giant, hungry mouth, was a chasm of impenetrable blackness.
Morgan swallowed against the dust in his throat. “Horner?” he whispered hoarsely.
“Here,” the other said, his voice a faint rasp.
“Are you all right?”
There was a grunt. “Nothing broken, I think.”
Morgan took a moment to look about. All he could see was the slide, the shaft of light above, and the chasm below. “Can you move?” he called down softly.
There was silence for a moment, then the sound of rocks clattering away into the dark. “No,” the reply came. “I’m too fat and old, Highlander. If I try to get up to you, I’ll start sliding and won’t be able to stop.”
Morgan heard the strain in his voice. And the fear. Dees was helpless, lying on that loose rock like a leaf on glass; even the slightest movement would send him spinning away into the void.
Me, too, if I make any attempt to help, the Highlander thought darkly.
Yet he knew that he had to try.
He took a deep breath and brought his hand up slowly to his mouth. A shower of loose rock rattled away, but his body stayed in place on the slide. He brushed at the silt on his lips and closed his eyes, thinking. There was a rope in his backpack, a thin, strong coil, some fifty feet of it. His eyes opened again. Could he find a way to fasten it to something and haul himself up?
Familiar rumbling shook the earth, rising from below, shaking the carpet of rock about him so that small showers of it slid into the abyss. There was a thunderous huffing and a great, long sigh as if an enormous amount of air was being released.
Morgan Leah glanced down, cold to the bone. In the depths below, right beneath where they hung, the Maw Grint lay sleeping.
Morgan looked up again quickly. His breath came in short, frantic gasps, and he had to struggle to overcome an almost overpowering urge to claw his way out of there as fast as he could. The Maw Grint. That close. It was huge beyond belief; even his vague glimpse of it had been enough to tell him that. He couldn’t begin to guess how much of it there was, where it began and ended, how far it stretched away.
He gripped at the rock until his hands hurt, fighting back against his fear and nausea. He had to get out of there! He had to find a way!
Almost without thinking about what he was doing, he reached beneath his stomach and began working free the broken remains of the Sword of Leah. It was a slow, agonizing process, for he was unable to lift up without fear of beginning his slide down again. And now, more than he had ever wanted anything, he did not want that.
“Don’t try to move, Horner!” he called down softly, his voice dry and rough. “Stay where you are!”
There was no response. Morgan inched the Sword of Leah clear of its scabbard and out from under him, bringing it level with his face. The polished metal surface of the broken blade glittered brightly in the faint light. He pushed it above his head with one hand, then reached up with the other until he could grip it firmly with both. Turning the jagged end of the blade downward, he began to slide it into the rock. He felt it bite into the stone slab beneath.
Please! he begged.
Jamming the Sword of Leah into the stone, he hauled himself up. The blade held, and he pulled his face level with its handle. Bits of rock fell away beneath him, tumbling and sliding into the void. The Maw Grint did not stir.
Morgan freed the Sword, reached upward to jam it into the rock again, gripped it with every ounce of strength he possessed, and pulled himself level once more. He closed his eyes and lay next to it panting, then felt a rush of heat surge through his body. The magic? He opened his eyes quickly to see, searching the Sword’s gleaming length. Nothing.
Holding himself in place with one hand, he used the other to dive into his pack and secure the length of rope and a grappling hook. A handful of cooking implements and a blanket worked free in the process and fell onto the chute. Ignoring them, the Highlander slipped the rope about his waist and shoulders and tied it in a harness.
“Horner!” he whispered.
The old Tracker looked up, and Morgan threw the rope to him. It fell across his body, and he seized it with both hands. He started to slip almost immediately, swinging over until he was beneath Morgan. Then the rope went taut, catching him. The shock to Morgan’s body was staggering, an immense, wrenching weight that threatened to pull him down. But he had both hands fastened once more on the Sword of Leah, and the blade held firm.
“Climb to me!” he whispered down harshly.
Horner Dees began to do so, slowly, torturously, hand over hand up the rope and the slide. As he passed the cooking implements and blanket that had fallen from Morgan’s pack, he kicked them free, and they tumbled farther down in a shower of rock.
This time the Maw Grint coughed and came awake.
It grunted, a huffing sound that reverberated against the stone walls. It lifted itself, its massive body thudding against the walls of the tunnel in which it slept, shaking the earth violently. It rolled and pitched and began to move. Morgan hung on to the pommel of his sword, and Dees clung to the slender rope, both gritting their teeth against the strain on muscle and bone. The Maw Grint shook itself, and Tracker and Highlander could hear a spraying sound and then a hiss of steam.
The Maw Grint slid away into the black and the sound of its passing faded. Morgan and Dees looked down cautiously.
An odd, greenish stain was working its way up the stone of the chute, just visible at the far edge of the shaft of light several dozen feet below Dees. It glistened darkly and steamed like a fire advancing through brush. They watched as it reached the blanket that had fallen from Morgan’s pack. When it touched it, the rough wool turned instantly to stone.