At first they had paused every so often to listen behind them until Ronin was satisfied that they had not been observed entering the portal and that there was no pursuit. After more than half a Spell, the tunnel commenced to slant more sharply downward and they had to be more careful of their footing. The walls grew slimy and different in texture and Ronin had G'fand bring the light closer to the side. Masses of a grey-blue lichen completely covered the walls, glinting oddly in the light.

  Ronin told G'fand to gut the flame. At once they were engulfed in an eerie bluish glow. 'The lichen is phosphorescent,' G'fand exclaimed. 'I have seen the like in some of the food-growing vats. It's thrown away.' They found that they had to get used to the new light. Light colours -G'fand's shirt, for instance, where the fabric showed through the grime and dried sweat -jumped out disconcertingly; other dark colours vanished altogether unless one was very close to them.

  The low seething sound that had been with them since they first entered the tunnel grew more distinct although they were still at a loss to define it.

  They paused once to eat and rest, pulling at the tough pressed food from the bands, backs against the cushiony walls, legs stretched out before them. They talked of inconsequential matters, deliber­ately avoiding certain topics that were all too much on their minds.

  They resumed the march and presently the sound increased in volume with such a rush that they felt as if they had opened an unseen door. It washed over them, reverberating down the tunnel, and they perceived a slight change in the light.

  Just ahead they found a gigantic aperture in the wall to their right. There was a glow beyond; coloured lights swam. A promontory beckoned to them.

  They looked out into a cavern so vast that it seemed to have no end. Streaks of pastel light drew themselves upon the air, and by their uncer­tain illumination Ronin and G'fand were able to make out the enormous arch of the waterfall thundering out from a rock face, cascading down in a froth of turbid silvery spray into the bed of a snaking river glinting far far below. The echoing boom of the kinetic water reflected back at them like a physical presence enfolding them. They stood transfixed at the sight.

  G'fand said something but Ronin could not hear him for the noise. He leaned closer and repeated, 'I never knew such a thing still existed. I had read -it is something out of legend!'

  Ronin turned to him. 'Time to go,' he yelled over the roar.

  Apparently the glowing lichen needed a great deal of moisture in order to survive, for as they left the waterfall behind them, they noticed that the breeze was now less damp. With that the light became dim and they began to encounter patches of bare wall with increasing frequency until G'fand was forced to relight the torch.

  Ronin had estimated that they had descended over a kilometre - although they had actually walked many times that - when he spied some­thing ahead. A lighter patch of darkness. Cau­tiously but with an increasing sense of anticipation, they approached it. And at last they found them­selves standing at the end of the tunnel.

  Before them a wide ramp led down to a broad avenue that seemed to be roughly the centre of a dizzying jumble of buildings extending away on all sides, vanishing in the thick air. The structures were bewildering in their construction, each one a complex of styles and shapes apparently mortared together at random. Large windows crowded upon small ones, balconies cut into rooftops of abutting buildings, what they took to be doorways hung suspended five and six storeys above street level.

  G'fand gaped. And for an instant Ronin experi­enced a vertigo so intense that he almost fell. He blinked. And breathed slowly and deeply, exhaling more than he inhaled to empty his system and replenish it.

  Beside him, G'fand whispered in an awed voice, 'It is. It must be. The City of Ten Thousand Paths.' Ronin looked at his transfigured face. 'The city of our forefathers, where everything was possible. Ronin, I could have been anything I desired here. They knew - so much, so much.' He shook his head and gripped Ronin's arm. 'You do not know what this means! It is like a dream - all that I wished for and had no hope of obtaining. It is all here!'

  Ronin smiled briefly. 'Do you remember when we were young they used to frighten us when we were mischievous with tales of the City of Ten Thousand Paths?'

  G'fand could not tear his eyes away from the cityscape. 'Yes.' He nodded. 'They tried to scare me, but I paid them little heed. As a child I was afraid of nothing.'

  'And now?'

  His breath quickened. His voice was a whisper. 'And now - now I am frightened of a great many things.'

  The sweet smell of ancient decay was in the air, and the soft dry tickle at the back of the throat caused by aeons of fine dust floating like gravid spores, cloying, as if they had entered a garden filled with dying flowers.

  And they went down the broad ramp into a dense and appalling silence. The creak of their leather, the soft slap of their boots against the rough metal, seemed to be swallowed whole in that vast bowl of quietude.

  They tried to use the central avenue but found that, inexplicably, no doorways or windows were to be found on the sides of the buildings facing them. So they were obliged, perforce, to choose at random one of the narrow, twisting streets of which there were a bewildering profusion.

  Numerous balconies of all sizes sculpted with decorative cementwork hung above their heads and very little light filtered through the maze of architecture. Yet it was enough to see satisfactorily without the aid of the torch.

  And the city was not without an aura, promising a mysteriousness like the aroma of an exotic spice sniffed from far away: powerful, elusive.

  The streets were cobbled in stone, slightly rounded down the centre so that it was higher than the sides. They shone dully in the diffused light.

  There was no sign of refuse or decay out here although sections of the cobbles appeared to be so dark that it seemed as if dirt had been ground into them for centuries until it was now part of the stone.

  They heard it at the same time, their heads lifted, questing. It had sounded like the tail end of a growl. They stopped and listened but the silence had closed down upon them again so that even the sounds of their breathing seemed muffled and peculiar to them. They drew their swords, glint of light on polished metal.

  Ronin pointed with the tip of his blade to a small wooden door set in a two-storey building just behind them. G'fand nodded. They moved carefully along the cobbles, aware that they were not used to the surface. G'fand flattened himself against the wall of the building just beyond the door as Ronin inched it open with the toe of his boot and stood back.

  The interior was dark. They heard no sound. Ronin made a sign and G'fand nodded again and they went swiftly and silently through the door­way. Ronin immediately stepped to one side so that his body would not be silhouetted by the light from outside. He turned, and shoved G'fand to the side, into the shadows.

  The room appeared to be much larger than he had anticipated because it was very deep. He could make out wooden beams set at intervals along the low ceiling and the deep shadows of heavy furni­ture. Nothing moved.

  Then there came a low cough from a corner and

  now they could make out two red pinpoints, low, glowing, remote. Outside, the golden light filtered down and the silence hung like a thick winter's shroud. The pinpoints moved and there was another cough, louder, more menacing. The red eyes stared unblinkingly at him, black pupils at their centres very small. They advanced on him. Outside, the silence was a protection against danger, the light spilling like thick honey assuring safe passage. It was part of another world, as remote and unattainable as the Salamander's atrium.

  Ronin crouched, turned sideways, gripped his sword with both hands, muscles along his arms and thighs tensing as he heard the soft scraping.

  The eyes, half a metre above the floor, were not human, of that he was certain. He moved slowly to the left, attempting to coax the thing into the light from the open doorway, but it kept stead­fastly to the darkness. The scraping came again. Ronin was now almost shoulder to shoulder with G'fand.

  The thing moved towards them and below the baleful gaze of the eyes a very dim glow of long yellow teeth appeared and then winked out. A soft clicking. The cough came again, and Ronin advanced to meet the shape, moving into the deeper shadows.

  'Come back - ' G'fand whispered, but he was cut short by a clear dry laugh.

  Light blazed in front of them, illuminating the room: a torch.

  'Frost!' breathed G'fand.

  Ronin looked first at the little man, because he held the torch. He was on a staircase off to their right, which they had not been able to see before. He walked down the wooden stairs and over to the thing, which crouched two metres in front of them, touching a hand to its back. He had an odd gait.

  'Ahahaha! Hynd guards the way,' said the little man in a peculiar raspy voice. He grinned ingenuously.

  He was not over a metre in height, his gaunt face belying his thick barrel chest. He had long white hair held in place by a dark leather band and a grizzled beard with more grey than white in it. He had a high forehead and cheekbones, a long thin nose, dark green eyes set wide apart. Ronin was certain that his skin had a yellowish tinge. His mouth split again as he laughed.

  The thing, which he now scratched behind its small ears, and to which Ronin now directed his attention, had a different countenance entirely. It had a long wicked-looking snout covered in short brown fur and its large red eyes gleamed from out of a long tapering skull. Its body was perhaps two metres in length, its four legs ending in clawed toes. It had a long thin tail that whipped back and forth like a piece of wire. The body was shiny, covered in a hide ridged and scaly. The whiskers on its snout flicked the air continuously. In all, it partially resembled the rodents that inhabited the Freehold's walls. Except for the size.

  'Allow me to introduce myself,' said the little man. 'I am Bonneduce the Last.' He bowed, then cocked his head quizzically. 'And you are - ?'

  Ronin told him.

  'And of course you have already met Hynd,' laughed Bonneduce the Last, 'my friend and protector.'

  The animal coughed again, and Ronin saw clearly the sharpness of its teeth. The little man bent to its ear. 'Friends.' It was like an exhalation. 'Friends.'

  'You take a great deal for granted,' G'fand said. Ronin sheathed his sword.

  Bonneduce the Last lifted his thick eyebrows. 'Is that so? You are from up there.' He gestured. 'There is no reason for you to wish me harm. Quite the contrary.'

  'Huh,' grunted G'fand. 'You have not met with our Security daggam.'

  'How did you know we were from the Free­hold?' asked Ronin softly.

  'Bones told me,' the little man answered, his head still cocked.

  'What!' G'fand sheathed his blade.

  'But I have forgotten my manners,' said Bon­neduce the Last. 'You must forgive me setting Hynd out. After all, one cannot be too careful; no indeed, not these days.' He sighed, walked to a wall, and set the torch in a blackened metal niche. Ronin saw then that one leg was shorter than the other. 'Times past it was different, oh my, yes. One could walk the paths with no need of protec­tion at all.' He turned back to them. 'But that was a long time ago, a long time' - he shook his head -

  'before the Dark Sections. But now - ' He shrugged resignedly. 'Well, times change, bring­ing with them their own fortunes.'

  He waved an arm. 'But come, make yourselves comfortable, for I know that you have travelled hard and far this day. And please, do not be concerned with Hyrid.' He touched the animal on the snout and it lay down with a sigh. 'You see, he knows you now - your scent - he will not harm you.'

  They sat in wide comfortable chairs while Bon-neduce the Last closed the front door and went to fetch wine and food.

  The dark panelled walls, the tall heavily carved cabinets, the huge stone fireplace filled with fra­grant black wood and white ashes, the massive plush chairs in which they reclined, all exuded age and a singular kind of dignity.

  Hynd had put his long snout on his forepaws and was now asleep. From somewhere within the depths of the house they heard a soft precise ticking. G'fand rose and moved about the room, peering at objects of unreflective metal and pol­ished stone, running his fingertips along the edges of the sculpted wood. His face was dark and worried.

  Ronin looked at him. 'What troubles you?'

  G'fand tapped distractedly at the wood. 'I am ashamed to tell you. I - do not know. You told me what the Magic Man said, about there being people on the surface, people on the planet other than those in the Freehold. You know, to be told all your life that one thing is true, to believe it, even though it is not what you want to believe -oh, this is not making any sense.' He turned to Ronin. 'But now that we have actually met another being, I - ' He glanced quickly at the sleeping animal. 'Can we trust him, do you think?'

  'Pull up that chair,' Ronin said softly. 'Now listen carefully to me. This discovery is quite incredible but there are too many ramifications for me to be able to spend any time being shocked. It is true that we know virtually nothing about this man, who he is, where he comes from - although it is certain he is not from here despite the fact that he seems familiar enough with the city. Which is the point. I was sent here to find a manuscript. The Magic Man told me it would be difficult, but Chill take him! he did not explain just how difficult it would be. I think he knew precisely how much to tell me in order to keep my interest. This city is so huge that we could spend countless Cycles here and not find the manuscript.' He turned his head momentarily to make sure that they were still alone. 'Now this can be invaluable to us. I know what to look for, where it resides; perhaps he can tell us how to get there. He - '

  They heard a small noise, and the subject of their discussion returned carrying an enormous, silver tray with finely etched sides loaded with plates of fired clay, glazed and shiny, wooden bowls of food, and skins of wine.

  'I trust that I have brought you enough to eat,' he said. 'But there is more inside.' He set the tray down on a low table in front of them.

  While they ate hungrily, the little man talked.

  He turned to G'fand. 'I perceive that you are still somewhat wary of Hynd. I do not want that, so perhaps an explanation is in order. You see' - he patted his short leg as he walked over to a high wooden stool - 'I cannot move as swiftly as I once did.' He chuckled. 'I disagreed with something that tried to eat me.' He pulled over the stool and sat near them, his short leg swinging back and forth. 'He saved my life - '

  'From what?' interrupted G'fand.

  The little man's face darkened. 'You would not believe me if I told you.'

  'Oh, I would be most in - '

  'Do you know what he is?'

  'Part rodent,' Ronin said.

  Bonneduce the Last nodded, obviously pleased. 'Yes, indeed. Quite correct. But as you can see, he is a hybrid, a cross - '

  ' - between two different species of animals,' finished G'fand.

  The little man raised his eyebrows. 'Aha, we have a scholar in our midst,' he exclaimed, delighted. 'Oh, yes. Hynd is part crocodile, a water creature which I believe died out centuries ago. You see before you the product of millennia of change.' He leaned down and gently stroked the horny back. It rippled slightly and Hynd made a small sound in his sleep. 'Many peoples believed that crocodiles were gods,' he said.

  G'fand wiped his hands. 'Will you aid us, we have come in search of- '

  'Please.' Bonneduce the Last held up his hands.

  'Whatever it is will wait now. You are tired. Rest first. Then we shall talk.'

  'But we have little time,' said G'fand.

  Bonneduce the Last slipped down off the stool and walked in his odd gait to the front door. 'One does not hurry here.' He slid a thick bolt across the door. 'Darkness is here. It brings things on its heels, things you are better off not encountering.' He turned and went to the fireplace. 'That is why you met Hynd first. I knew of your coming but not when you would arrive.' He knelt and began to light the fire. 'Night was falling as you came and I take no chances, not these days anyway. Had you come in my yesterdays you would have encountered me first.' The flames shot up all at once and the room glowed with light and warmth. They began to feel drowsy with their stomachs full, the heat beside them, and the tensions of the journey finally dissipating. 'But now, we are in a different age, and nightmares stalk the world.'

  Ronin, at the edge of sleep, came awake. 'What do you mean?'

  Bonneduce the Last stood up with his back to the fire and stretched. 'More anon. Now sleep must come. Blankets are in the cupboard and here is a pitcher of water and a basin. These chairs are large and Hynd is here.' He started up the stairs, then stopped and turned. 'In the morning we shall talk of your purpose in coming to the City and I shall aid you as best I may.' They heard his uneven footsteps climbing the stairs after he was lost to sight.

  'What do you think?' G'fand asked as he opened the cupboard and pulled out two woven blankets.

  Ronin was splashing water on to his face. He shrugged. 'We have little choice. This seems to be a safer place than we could find on our own.' He removed his corselet and shirt, pouring water over the shirt in an attempt to get out the dried blood that had seeped through the corselet's mesh. 'I cannot see that he means us harm, despite what you may think of the animal. He is right, best to get some sleep. The morning will take care of itself

  Something reached down and pulled him out of sleep. At first he thought it was a sound and he was at once fully awake. The quiet sonorous ticking, the gentle collapse of ashen logs in the fireplace. Nothing more.

 

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