‘Good,’ Steven said, and raised the opposite end of the staff above his head. ‘Now some light.’
He focused his concentration, visualising a torch he had seen hanging in a wall sconce in Estrad. Gilmour had stolen that torch, used it to light their way – and to light his pipe, of course. Almost immediately a small yellow flame burst in the air above the raft. Bigger, Steven commanded in his mind, and as if it had heard him speak out loud, the light grew until the walls of the canyon came into view.
With their path lighted and the Capina Fair floating in a gentle current, Mark commented, ‘That’s better. We could go on like this all night.’
‘Yes, but we really ought to find some place to go ashore,’ Garec said. ‘We need repairs, and if we don’t dry out and warm up, the cold will kill us before the river ever does.’
‘We ought to rest, too,’ Steven added. ‘I could sleep until noon.’ He used the English word.
‘When?’ Brynne looked at him through sodden hair, a tangled frame about her beautiful face.
‘Noon,’ Steven smiled. ‘It means midday with some conviction.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘It means lunch,’ Mark added dryly.
‘That I understand,’ Garec said, ‘and if noon means sleeping until midday, with or without conviction, and then eating lunch, you have my complete support.’
‘How can we get ashore, though?’ Brynne asked. ‘We haven’t seen anyplace suitable since we entered this canyon.’
‘We’ll just have to keep going until we find somewhere we can tie up for the night,’ Mark suggested. ‘At least now the going will be easier.’
The raft, as if floating just above the surface of their tiny circle of water, floated surely over rocks, down abrupt cascades and across whirling eddies. They poled to avoid outcroppings of lethally sharp rocks and to maintain their position midstream, but those tasks were no more demanding than paddling across a windless lake. Steven’s flame provided light for their passage as Steven himself continued to imagine a cushioned path for them all the way through the canyon.
The magic did nothing for their fatigue, though, and the travellers continued scanning the canyon walls, looking for someplace to put ashore for a few avens’ rest. They took turns napping in pairs, but the evening chill coupled with their waterlogged clothing made proper sleep nearly impossible. Mark and Brynne huddled close together, their teeth chattering audibly. Mark brushed Brynne’s hair back from her face and cupped her cheeks in his hands while he told her silly jokes and anecdotes to help them both forget their aches.
At one point, Brynne interrupted him. ‘I don’t want you to go back home,’ she whispered.
Mark leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips. This wasn’t the place or the time he’d have chosen for this discussion.
Brynne pulled him closer and kissed him back, hard and long. He shuddered with need as her tongue moved in his mouth; just the taste of her aroused him like no woman ever had.
He pulled back slightly, and looked deep into her eyes. He put a finger on her mouth and whispered, ‘You must know how I feel. But right now, it’s academic, isn’t it? Who knows if we’ll ever find a far portal, let alone be able to use it. I do wish I could somehow let my family know where I am – no, not where I am; they’d think I was completely wacko and have me locked up, or medicated to within an inch of my life! But I want them to at least know that I’m all right, that I’m not murdered, or kidnapped or locked up. They must think we’re both dead by now – people would have come to our house days and days ago: the police, Hannah, my students, the principal at my school, friends, Steven’s boss from the bank…
‘I know people have probably been in and out of the house looking for clues to what happened to us, so I can’t imagine the far portal is still open. If they found it, they’d have detected its power, even if they didn’t know what the hell it was.’
‘You felt it?’
‘It changed the air in the room. It almost shimmered.’ He wagged his fingers to demonstrate for her. ‘If somehow the portal closed, though, they’d think it was just an ugly old rug, or maybe a tapestry.’
‘Steven is convinced that Hannah is in Eldarn.’
‘I know.’ Mark looked down at the log deck, and then back at her. ‘Hannah would have been one of the first to come looking for us. They had plans for the following day, so it may well be true.’
‘There might be others here as well?’
‘I suppose,’ he allowed, ‘although I hope that before too long someone realised that thing was dangerous and closed it up.’
‘If it’s closed, you might end up falling anywhere in your land.’ She tried to remember Gilmour’s explanation of the far portals. ‘So would Nerak.’
‘That’s right – listen to me go on, will you? The truth is I have no idea what happened after we got transported to Eldarn.’ He ran two fingers along her face and across her chin.
She reached up to take his hand. ‘Regardless, I don’t want you to go back.’
Mark looked up and saw Steven illuminated in the stafflight. With his hair cropped close and his shaven face, he looked like an accountant on a weekend rafting trip, the one in the play no one gives a second thought to. ‘A red top in Star Trek,’ he muttered to himself, ‘cannon fodder.’ Then to Brynne, ‘I don’t think he is going back,’ Mark whispered, their faces nearly touching in the darkness. ‘He’ll stay here until this is done, and then…’ His voice trailed off.
‘And then we’ll decide what happens with us.’ Brynne was back to her opening thought. The tough, knife-wielding partisan grinned, and shot him a sexy come-hither look. She ran her hand down his sodden thigh suggestively.
‘What? Here?’ Mark was a little taken aback.
She nodded.
‘Are you crazy?’ he whispered, ‘it’s forty degrees, and I know that doesn’t mean anything to you in Ronan, but where I’m from that means it’s a damn sight too cold to get naked outside on a damp raft in the middle of a bloody freezing river.’
‘We really should get out of these wet clothes,’ she said slyly, starting to peel her top off. ‘There are a few dry blankets in these packs; we can roll one out and use some to cover us.’
Mark protested, ‘But the guys are right here.’
‘Then we’ll have to be quiet. Maybe we can huddle down here between these satchels.’ She reached under his sweater, and he jumped at her frigid touch. ‘Sorry,’ she said insincerely, and blew into her fingers before returning them to his chest.
‘You aren’t going to be denied, are you?’
‘Not tonight, Mark, no.’ She giggled.
Mark had resigned himself to a torrid session of covert sex with one of the sexiest women he’d ever met when Garec shouted, ‘Look! What’s over there?’
‘Rutters,’ Brynne spat, then adjusted her tunic. Mark felt the tiny circles of cold on the flat of his stomach warm slightly as her fingertips drew away.
‘Where?’ Steven asked, trying to follow the line of Garec’s extended finger towards the canyon wall.
‘It looks like a cave,’ Brynne said, ‘a big one, a cavern maybe.’
Mark stood beside her and peered across the water. The river crashed violently against an enormous opening that jutted upwards through the granite like a jagged flaw in the cliff. There was nothing at all comforting or inviting about the cavern’s mouth. As they drew closer, he could see that the gaping crack reached nearly halfway up the canyon wall to the precipice above.
‘It’s huge,’ Steven said.
‘Yes, but we’ve no idea how far in it goes, or if there’s a decent place for us to make camp once we get inside,’ Garec said negatively.
‘True,’ Steven agreed, ‘but if we don’t take a look, we’ll never know, will we?’
Garec nodded grimly, giving in, and the two of them steered the raft towards the entrance.
As they passed from the river into the cavern, the four travellers were struck by the sudden silence. The deafening roar of the rapids had provided a steady backdrop of noise all day, and the echoes rang in their ears as they passed beneath the natural archway. As the cacophony faded, they were overwhelmed by the heavy quiet. They’d been shouting at each other all day; now the travellers spoke in hushed whispers, as if they had broken into a vast stone tomb and feared waking its residents. Steven’s flame pierced the darkness, illuminating a thin passageway ahead.