Balkis shuddered at the thought, and was very glad indeed.
The stairs curved slowly in a great, uneven spiral, and the sunlight stayed with them almost to the bottom, though it became gray and dim. Finally Panyat encountered their driftwood and sent it clattering farther down—but before he did, he broke off a two-foot limb and asked Anthony, “Can you light this with your flint and steel?”
“Gladly.” Anthony took some tow from his pack, struck sparks into it, nursed the flame to life, then held the tip of the branch in until fire caught firmly. Stamping out the tow, he gave the branch to Panyat, who held it high as he led the way down.
They followed into a darkness lit only by the torch. It gleamed on the stone walls about them—there wasn't much space to light, really. After a few minutes, they heard a gurgling sound, which grew louder as the daylight faded. Then, suddenly, the walls fell away and the torchlight glowed alone in the darkness—but at their feet, it showed them a shelf of rock and the winking turbulent mass of a flowing river.
CHAPTER 20
Panyat stepped forward and the torch lit the curve of a tunnel overhead—only ten feet high at the midpoint, no doubt gnawed out by the stream itself. Stone icicles hung from it here and there, glittering in the torchlight. They could see that it was more of a brook than a river, perhaps twelve feet wide but flowing quickly.
“So this is an underground stream.” Anthony's voice was hushed, awed.
Balkis knew how he felt. There was something of the feel of a church in the solitude of the place, but something more of the awe of the underworld; she half expected to see Charon poling his boat toward them to take them into Hades. She shuddered at the thought and spoke briskly. “Well, we shall not lack for drink—but I thirst.” She knelt by the bank—with difficulty, leaning on her staff—dipped up a handful of water and drank. The water was icy cold and tasted of the rocks through which it ran, but it was infinitely refreshing. “Shall we bother filling our waterskins?”
“Let us wait until we have come to the end of the river.” Anthony turned to Panyat. “The ledge runs the whole course of the stream, does it not?”
“I know not,” the Pytanian said, “for I have not yet followed it.”
“Yet?” Balkis echoed him.
“It seems a more pleasant way to travel than slogging through the wasteland,” Panyat offered, “at least, as long as our torches last.”
“Well, we have brought enough wood to last us several days,” Anthony said judiciously. “I presume, though, that we are going to make a boat of most of it.”
“That was my thought, yes,” Panyat said.
“I mislike journeying into darkness when I know not what awaits me,” Balkis said, her voice hollow.
“Oh, the river rises past the mountains,” Panyat told her. “We know where it goes—but we also know it is the only water between the sandy sea and the foothills. If we had camels to carry bags and bags of water, why, we might manage—but since we have only our own legs …”
“And two of them are injured,” Anthony finished for him. “I see your wisdom, Panyat. Well, let us set about lashing these sticks together.” He took the coil of rope out of his pack.
Anthony was clever with his knots, and had clearly done this often. Bound together, the driftwood made a raft that was just big enough to carry them all safely. Anthony crouched, holding onto the raft, and said, “Climb aboard now, and we will be on our way.”
Balkis bridled. “Why should you be the one to hold it?”
“Because the last one aboard may fall in,” Anthony said, “and cats do not like wetting.”
Balkis smothered a laugh and took a playful swipe at his head as she stepped aboard. The raft teetered under her alarmingly, and she quickly sat down. She loved a bath in her human form, but not when the water was icy cold.
Panyat came after her, puzzled. “Why should you care if a cat does not like to be dampened?”
“I have a deep affection for them,” Balkis explained, and wondered if she should tell Panyat about her other life. He might run in fright, though, so she decided not.
Sure enough, when Anthony made to climb aboard, the raft, no longer anchored to the shelf, moved faster than he did, and in he went with a splash.
“Anthony!” Balkis cried, but he clambered aboard, grinning, while the echoes repeated his name as they faded. “Only wet to the knees,” he assured her. “The water is shallow here.”
“Thank Heaven for that!” Balkis pulled his feet into her lap. “Come, off with those wet boots!”
“I can fend for myself,” Anthony protested.
“But would not!” She peeled his boots off and wrapped his lower legs in her cloak. “I prefer a traveling companion who has not lost his feet to frostbite, thank you!”
Panyat gasped, and the two of them turned to look ahead— then caught their breaths in wonder.
The torchlight waked a thousand points of light in the roof and walls of the tunnel, the glitter of mica flakes, the glint of sapphire and emerald, the glow of ruby. They sailed through a multihued world surrounded by garnets, opals, carbuncles, topazes, chrysolites, onyxes, beryls, sardonyxes, and even, here and there, the pure white gleam of diamonds.
Anthony groaned. “So much wealth, and I cannot reach it!”
“It is well I have hold of your feet, then,” Balkis said tartly. “I would not put it past you to dive in and drown yourself trying to wrest a stone from its matrix!”
“I am not so great a fool as that,” Anthony protested, “but I am a hill farmer born and bred who has watched his father struggle and sweat to wrest a meager living from a barren hillside. I have heard him say again and again that we must never let anything of value pass us by, for we will need it when the hard times come—and I am the one passing by all this wealth with no way to stop the raft!”
“Indeed there is not.” Panyat's voice was sympathetic. “The current is too strong.”
“It whirls us along through this tunnel,” Anthony agreed, “and here I ride surrounded by ransoms for ten kings! Fortunes pass me every second, enough to keep my father and brothers in luxury the rest of their lives, and I cannot even touch the wealth I see!”
Just as well, Balkis thought—his father and brothers certainly deserved no such reward for their abuse.
Suddenly, a huge dark lump rose from the middle of the river. Glowing eyes the size of platters opened, and a huge hand with writhing, snakelike fingers slapped down to grip the edge of the raft as a glutinous voice asked, “Did you wish to stop your ride, mortal?”
“Not that badly!” Balkis slapped a hand over Anthony's mouth, for his eyes lit even as he shrank away. “What creature are you who rises from lightless depths?” At the back of her mind, she readied a banishing spell.
“I am Negation, the emptiness that hungers for everything that exists.” The monster smiled, opening a lipless, toothless maw that stretched across the whole of its head as it drew the raft in.
“You are Greed,” Balkis snapped, “and you mean to drag us down with you!”
“Feed, then!” Anthony cried, and threw something into the monster's mouth.
It swallowed automatically; then its eyes filmed over and its fingers slipped from the raft. “What exshellent flavor!” it said, speech slurred. “More!”
“I have no more, and be glad—it is very potent, and more would kill you.”
“I cannot die. I feed on ev … everyshing, I shupershede Deaph, I…” The monster's eyes rolled up as it fell back into the river.