“Good,” she replied. “And please, if Alric wants to know these things, fine, but don’t tell me. I could have gone the rest of my life not knowing they were there.” She shivered.
Everyone scurried out of the corridor except Myron, who lingered, staring up at the ceiling and smiling in fascination. “There are millions.”
They entered another chamber, a smaller cavern of dramatic boulders that thrust up and out. Arista thought they appeared how the timbers of a house might look if a giant stepped on it. As soon as they entered, they faced a mystery on the far wall, where three darkened passages awaited, one large, one small, and one narrow. The party waited as Royce disappeared briefly into each one. When he returned, he did not look pleased.
“Dwarf!” he snapped. “Which one?”
Magnus stepped forward and poked his head into each. He placed his hands on the stone, groping over the surface as if he were a blind man. He pressed his ear to the rock, sniffed the air in each opening, and stepped back with a perplexed look. “They all go deep, but in separate directions.”
Royce continued to stare at him.
“The stone doesn’t know where we want to go, so it can’t tell me.”
“We can’t afford to pick the wrong path,” Arista said.
“I say we choose the largest,” Alric stated confidently. “Wouldn’t that be the most sensible?”
“Why is that sensible?” Arista asked.
“Well—because it is the biggest, so it ought to go the farthest and, you know—get us there.”
“The largest might not remain that way,” Magnus replied. “Cracks in rock aren’t like rivers. They don’t taper evenly.”
Alric looked irritated. “Okay, what about you?” he asked Arista. “Can you do anything to—well—you know—find which is the right one?”
“Like what?”
“Do I need to spell it out? Like…” He waved his hands in the air in a mysterious fashion that she thought made him look silly. “Magic.”
“I knew what you meant, but what exactly do you expect me to do? Summon Novron’s ghost to point us in the right direction?”
“Can you do that?” the king asked, sounding both impressed and apprehensive.
“No!”
Alric frowned and slapped his thighs with his hands as if to indicate how horribly she had let him down. It irritated her how everyone seemed so disgusted by her talent and yet was even more upset when they found her ability lacking.
“Myron?” Hadrian said softly to the monk, who stood silently, staring at the passages.
“Three openings. What to do?” Myron said eerily.
“Myron, yes!” Alric smiled. “Tell us, which way did Hall go?”
“That’s what I am reciting to you,” he replied, trying to hide a little smile. “ ‘Three openings. What to do? I sat for an hour before I gave up trying to reason it out and just picked. I chose the closest.’ ”
Myron stopped, and when he failed to say more, Alric spoke. “The closest? What does that mean? Closest to what?”
“Is that all Hall wrote?” Arista asked. “What came next?”
Everyone crowded around the little man as he cleared his throat.
“ ‘Down, down, down, always down, never up. Slept in the corridor again. Miserable night. Food running low. Big-eyed fish looking better all the time. This is hopeless. I will die in here. I miss Sadie. I miss Ebot and Dram. I should never have come. This was a mistake. I have placed myself in my own grave. Feet are always wet. Want to sleep, but don’t want to lie in water.
“ ‘A pounding. Pounding up ahead. A way out maybe!
“ ‘Pounding stopped. I don’t think it was from the outside. I think someone else is down here—something else. I hear them—not human.
“ ‘Ba Ran Ghazel. Sea goblins. A whole patrol. Nearly found me. Lost my shoe.
“ ‘Bread moldy, salted ham nearly gone. At least there is water. Tastes bad, brackish. Slept poorly again. Bad dreams.
“ ‘I found it.’ ”
“The shoe?” Wyatt asked.
“No,” Myron replied, smiling, “the city.”
“Interesting,” Gaunt said. “But that doesn’t help us with the passages, does it? By the sound of things he traveled for days and never listed any landmark. It’s pointless.”
“We could split up,” Alric said, considering. “Two groups of three and one of four. One group is bound to reach Percepliquis.”
Arista shook her head. “That only works if we can divide up Mr. Gaunt in three parts. He is the one who has to reach the city.”
“So you keep reminding me,” Gaunt said. “But you refuse to tell me exactly what you expect me to do. I am not a man of many talents. There is nothing I can do that someone else in this party can’t. I hope to Maribor you don’t expect me to slay one of those Gilly-bran things. I’m not much of a fighter.”
“I suppose you have to—I don’t know—blow the horn.”
“Couldn’t I have done that after you returned with it?”
Arista sighed. “There’s something else. I don’t know what. I just know you have to be here.”
“And yet we have no idea where here is,” he said indignantly.
Arista sighed and sat down on a rock, staring at the entrances. As she did, Alric stared at her.
“What?” she asked.
Alric smiled and glanced back at the passages. “I was wrong. Hall went in the narrow passage on the right.”
He sounded so certain that everyone looked at him.
“Care to tell us how you know that?” Arista asked.
He grinned, obviously very pleased with himself. “Sure, but first you have to tell me why you sat there,” he said to her.
“I don’t know. I was tired of standing and this might take a while.”
“Exactly,” Alric said. “What did you say, Myron? It took an hour for Hall to decide which passage?”
“Close. ‘I sat for an hour before I gave up trying to reason it out and just picked,’ ” the monk corrected.
“He sat for an hour trying to decide,” Alric replied. “He sat right where you are.”
“How do you know?” Gaunt asked. “How do you know it was on that rock and not someplace else?”
“Ask Arista,” the king replied. “Why did you sit there and not someplace else?”
She shrugged and looked around. “I didn’t really think about it. I just sat. I guess because it looked like the most comfortable place.”
“Of course it is. Look around. That rock is perfect for sitting. All the others are sharp on the top or at steep angles or too big or small. That is the perfect sitting rock for looking at those passages! And that’s the same reason Hall chose that spot, and the closest passage is the narrow one. Hall went in there. I’m positive.”
Arista looked at Royce, who looked at Hadrian, who shrugged. “I think he might be right.”
“Sounds good to me,” Royce said.
Arista nodded. “I think so too.”
Everyone seemed pleased except for Gaunt, who frowned but said nothing.
Alric adjusted his pack and, taking the lantern from Royce, promptly led the way.
“That lad might amount to something yet,” Mauvin said, chuckling, as he followed his king.
CHAPTER 11
THE PATRIARCH