The Westwynd Way was treacherous going, making for painfully slow progress, even though the north wind now blew at Kal's back. A severe windstorm a few nights earlier had left limbs and trees strewn across the way. To make matters worse, desultory banks of clouds would waft like billows of smoke across the sky, casting the Holding into a sombre darkness each time they hid the slender crescent of the moon. Even so, Kal made better time on Star Thistle than he would have on any other mount, for the chestnut mare had an almost supernaturally keen sense and slowed to sidestep every windfallen obstacle that she could not overleap.
It was a lonely road, little used by folk of the Holding, for the whole western side of Deepmere remained unsettled, a wild tangle of thickly wooded swales and ridges rifted with gloomy hollows. Unlike its counterpart, the Edgemere Road, which ran along the other side of the lake, the Westwynd Way followed a winding career, broken often by steep ascents and sharp downturns. Once, when Kal swung down into a low-lying little valley, still soft and marshy from the spring thaw, he noticed, amid a deafening chorus of spring peepers, fresh hoofprints where the lowlanders had gone before him.
At the top of a rise Star Thistle clopped into a rocky clearing. Kal stopped for a moment and looked back in the direction of Wrenhaven. For the first time since he had left Broadmeadows he gained a clear line of sight allowing him to make out the ancient town seat of the Holding, once a settlement of echobards, which fringed the northern shores of Deepmere just below the Wyrdlaugh Pass. Kal sat up in the saddle. Where he had been expecting to see only a few pinpoints of lamplight, there seemed to be many. Landros must have found the Warden and managed to have the alarm raised, rousing the sleepy residents of Wrenhaven from their beds. But there were now larger baleful fires springing up, reddening the far horizon of the night sky, and there were many specks of light that formed a serpentine pattern up beyond Wrenhaven in the direction of the Pass. Kal now stood in his stirrups.
The main body of Ferabek's Scorpions, positioned up at the Pass, had received the signal to begin their attack earlier than planned. The element of surprise was lost. The blaze of firelight in the distance waxed more luminous, engulfing the horizon in its kindled glow.
Reckless and desperate, knowing that his own indiscretion at the Sunken Bottle had not helped matters at all, Kal dug his heels into Star Thistle's sides, urging her on through the twisting, overgrown bridle path that now sloped down softly to a long stretch of level ground very close to the edge of Deepmere. Here on a broader straightaway Kal goaded the mare to a canter and then a gallop. Not far off, in the dark undergrowth of the forest, he heard the yip of foxes on the hunt, while to his left he felt reassured by the familiar lapping of waves that washed up against the shores of the lake. Kal came to an old stone bridge that spanned the channel of a wider stream, the Lower Skell, at the very spot where it flowed into Deepmere, broadening there into an inlet that was called Riven Oak Cove—a ghost-ridden spot, haunted by the spirit of an ancient echobard king who had here met a violent death.
Kal paused again on the bridge, listening to the rushing water that frothed and coiled around the stone piers below. He strained his ears and thought he heard the creak of oarlocks. Friend or foe? It could be either. "If only I'd kept my mouth shut at the Bottle," he chided himself under his breath.
As things stood, Enbarr and Kenulf would have explained to Ferabek that any Holdsmen escaping by boat and heading for Tarlynn's Coomb would be making for the mouth of the Skell, since the Coomb was to be found behind the bulwarks of a sheltered dingle midway up the mountainside in the valley of this same Skell. Kal could only hope that Ferabek would be too preoccupied with storming Wrenhaven to worry overmuch for the moment about any straggling survivors that might plod their way up to the Coomb. Or was it perhaps possible that Ferabek had already turned his attention to the Coomb? How long would it have taken Enbarr and Kenulf to reach Ferabek's camp from Wrenhaven? And how long had he lain bound up in the Locker? Star Thistle stamped restlessly beneath him.
It was impossible to say and idle to speculate. Wilum and Galli remained in terrible straits. Every moment counted, since any way the situation fell, Wuldor's Howe was bound to be a pressing priority with Ferabek's troops. And if the Scorpions reached the Howe first, on his own Kal did not stand a ghost of a chance of rescuing Wilum and Galli.
Kal leaned forward and stroked the neck of his mount. With a word from her master the great chestnut mare flew off again at a gallop. On the young Holdsman pressed, south along the broken road which traced the lakeshore as the miles before him dissolved beneath the horse's thundering hooves.
It was not far now, for the Westwynd Way began to curve eastwards, following the taper of the southern shores of the lake. Kal could just dimly make out the dark mass of battlements on Raven's Crag Island and then, when there came a sudden break in the drifting night clouds, the magnificent dome of the Great Glence itself, overtopped by the star-studded figure of the Shepherd in the windswept and sparkling canopy of the southern sky.
Kal passed the broad, pebbled sidepath that sloped down to Ardiel's Well. He was drawing near to the Great Glence. He reined in Star Thistle and wheeled her around, bringing her back to the lane which fell on a grade into a deep, secluded hollow thickly wooded with elm, oak, and hornbeam. In the bottom of the hollow was the Well itself, a spring of mountain water that gushed forth from the sheer rock face that bounded the northern side of the dell. He slowed his horse to a stand and dismounted. This had always been a place of peace.
How often had he walked down from the Great Glence and stood at the top of this path, watching folk come on pilgrimage to the restorative waters of the Well. But Wilum had told him of a time when this lane and the Westwynd Way all the way to the Great Glence itself had seen a solid press of people from all over Arvon and even from beyond. As the years passed, like a ground spring in the heat of summer, the flood of visitors had ebbed, dwindling to the mere trickle Kal knew. Wilum had said that the world of men had grown forgetful—forgetful of their past, forgetful of their story, forgetful of themselves. And these—a people and their history—were at the heart of this place, for legend had it that Ardiel, wasted and worn, had travelled here after the Battle of the Velinthian Bridge to lave his severely wounded shoulder with the water. The waters had cured him. From then on it had been known as Ardiel's Well.
How often had he walked down this lane! Kal sighed. He took Star Thistle, spent and wet with sweat, by her bridle and guided her along the grassy verge beside the path. Every footfall, every movement was guarded, for he could not afford to stumble once more into the hands of Grumm and Skrobb. He left Star Thistle ground-hitched down by the stone hut which enclosed the Well, its walls thickly covered by ivy-leaved toadflax, and its slate roof leaning back into the rock face. He would approach the Great Glence on foot. Kal whispered an endearment to his mare and left her chomping on the strip of lush grass that carpeted the very bottom of the quiet glade, taking with him his bow and a quiver full of arrows.
Kal began to climb the steep ridge which closed the southern end of the hollow, threading his way through the dense undergrowth. Well before he reached the brow of the ridge, he heard a horse neighing. It might be Galli's, but more likely one of the mounts of the two lowlanders. Crawling to the top, Kal could see a lone horse. It capered skittishly close by the woods that descended to Ardiel's Well, spooked by some animal or perhaps by the bodeful unease that seemed to charge the air. Kal sensed it too as he sniffed the mingled odours of honeysuckle and blackthorn which spiced the breeze—cloying and overripe. A second horse could not be seen. Kal scanned every inch of the darkened landscape for any sign of movement.
Crouched on the edge of Stillfields, he could see the Haltadans—towering forms that seemed to sway and touch the sky like dancers. Beyond the Haltadans on a prominent knoll stood the Great Glence and the Hordanu's keeil, still overlooking the level expanse of the Howe with regal haughtiness, even though in recent years they had sunk into the ground. Kal could have almost sworn that the Haltadans hovered on the brink of movement, so suggestive of life were the monoliths tonight under a star-bright canvas and the wind-driven clouds.
His mind hearkened to the legend of these large standing stones, which were purported to be the petrified shapes of the Hidden Folk, who had, in the primordial mists of time, even before the dawn of the Age of Echoes, run afoul of Wuldor's power in the First Undoing. It was in the Master Legendary that he had read that once in a century these frozen forms were allowed one night's freedom from moonrise to moonset. On these occasions they would dance and make merry and fill the Howe with their song and laughter, rejoicing in Wuldor's promise that at the end of the Ages they would be liberated from their immurement in these monoliths that dwarfed Kal now as he drew nearer to them through the grave markers and tombstones of Stillfields. He had never, however, heard tell of anyone who had actually witnessed the Freeing, though old Sarmel made his claims.
Kal nearly jumped out of his skin, his senses jarred by a deep wail which filled the darkness of the night sky beyond the apple orchard behind Ram's Knap. His heart drummed. His pace quickened to a jog. Skirting Ram's Knap, which formed an embankment at the funnelled end of the Haltadans, where the space between the two rows of standing stones narrowed, he drew closer to the Great Glence, mantled with darkness, its long perpendicular windows like the gaunt eyeless cavities of a corpse. At right angles to it slanted the keeil, whose sole window on this side was pouring out light onto a flowerbed. Very slowly, with his eye cocked for any sign of danger, Kal made for the window, using the Haltadans for cover, running from one stone figure to the next.
There was no clamour of sound nor evident sign of movement. The Black Scorpions had not yet arrived here. That much was sure. There was no telling where they were, though. If it were not for the soaring cliffs of Raven's Crag Island, with its castle sitting plumb in the middle of Deepmere, he might be able to see something, even if it were just the firefly specks of distant fires. How much more he would be able to see from the belfry that overtopped the dome of the Great Glence. No doubt, his family would be a good way towards the Coomb by now.
For himself, he had only the two lowlanders to worry about, and he stood a fair chance against them. Their eyes would be trained on the Eastmarsh Causeway, a broad avenue of cobbles which led from the Edgemere Road, forming the main approach to the Great Glence. There would be no good reason for them to be watching the rear of the Glence—not if they were not expecting to be attacked.
Kal stole up to the rounded stone slabs that rose massively to the domed pinnacle of the Great Glence, around which bats dipped and darted. Peering in through one of the darkened windows, he saw nothing to give him pause, only the bulking outline of the Glence Stone, topped by the Hordanu's stool, and the Stones of the Four Seasons. Around the exterior wall of the Great Glence he crept, passing a stout wooden door that led to an antechamber which connected the Glence to the keeil and from which there were stairs leading up into the belfry.
Kal slipped beneath the light-filled window. Laying down his longbow, he warily edged an eye past the trim of the bay window and peeked into the torchlit shadows of the keeil. Nothing to see at first except for Wilum's writing desk and on it the gilded frame of the Talamadh, catching the sputtering light of the candle that burned in a holder atop the desk and cast gloomy silhouettes onto the dark-grained oak of the wainscotting. On the top panel of the wall there loomed dusky carven figures, part of a continuous frieze that circled the keeil, illustrating in intricate detail the epic events that had ushered in the reign of Ardiel and with it the Great Harmonic Age.
Like a shadow, Kal slid towards the centre of the window, which afforded him a larger view of the inside of the keeil. There sat Wilum tied to one of his high-backed chairs, inert, his head bowed down to his chest. Moving over a little and shifting his position, he caught sight of Skrobb sitting slouched at the open front door of the keeil, casting nervous glances out into the night, a broadsword drawn. The horse neighed again. Hearing it, Skrobb straightened in the chair and looked back askance towards Wilum. Kal ducked away from the windowpane. The stillness was again broken by the insistent neighing of a horse in fright.
"Now you stay here nice and quiet like the good little Hordanu I knows you are, whiles I has a little look around." Kal heard Skrobb through the glass. "Ain't nothing but some animal giving old Strawboy the jitters. I'll just go and tie him up with the lad's horse here in front, wheres I can see them both 'til Grumm comes back with some help. He's been a long time coming." A growl rose in his throat. "I knew I oughtn't to have let him go on his own. I knew it." There was no doubting the fear in his voice.
Kal hazarded another glance. His back turned to the window, the big man brought his broadsword down on the chair he had been sitting on, reducing it to splintered boards. He stomped out and slammed the door of the keeil behind him. Grumm must have gone to fetch reinforcements, leaving his partner alone. Galli was nowhere to be seen. What had they done with him? A surge of choking anger came welling up inside him.
Reaching for his longbow, he felt for an arrow in his quiver, driven now by an awful desire for vengeance. Running back along the wall of the keeil, he nocked his arrow to the bowstring, ready to draw and let fly. When he reached the curving wall of the Glence, he saw Skrobb, stalking, with broadsword held before him, towards the horse. The animal remained skittish, pawing the ground around the maple trunk to which it stood tethered. The hulking lowlander's back was turned to Kal. It presented an ample target—an easy shot at twenty paces, like putting meat on a skewer. Kal drew back his bowstring, sighting the shaft on the small of Skrobb's back.
"Skrobb! Hold!" barked Kal.
For the briefest of moments Skrobb hesitated, casting a glance back over his shoulder. Then he broke into a loping run towards the forested slope that dipped down to Ardiel's Well. There was a crisp twang, and Kal's shaft, meant to hobble now rather than kill, sped to its mark. Skrobb groaned and kept on running even with the arrow shank sticking from the back of his thigh. There was not enough time to hail the lowlander again. If he made it to the woods, precious moments would be lost looking for him. And in the closeness of the trees, where the fighting would come to swordplay, Skrobb, aroused to a fury by his injury, would have a dangerous advantage. With the practised ease that was second nature to a Holdsman, Kal, with one quick seamless motion, picked another arrow from the quiver at his back, nocked it, drew, and released. He had aimed high—at Skrobb's right shoulder. Still not a death-dealing shot, but enough to drop the big man.
The Dinasantrian stumbled, falling near the restless horse, within a mere stone's throw of the shelter of the woods. From somewhere farther up the valley there came a steeply pitched howl, chilling Kal to the marrow of his bones. Looking up, Kal saw the thing, whatever it was, still far off in the sky, winging now this way, now that, in quick jagged movements, caught in the pale moonlight. It looked to Kal, from the cut and shape of its pinions, like a monstrous bat.
The horse, maddened to a frenzy, strained against its tether and reared up, raising its churning forelegs high into the air. Before Skrobb could move his injured body, the horse brought its hooves pummelling down upon him. Kal ran to grab the reins, trying to calm the horse. Still talking to the riled beast, he edged away from it and dragged the bleeding body of Skrobb out of harm's way, laying him on his side. Sickened by the blood and fighting his revulsion, Kal pushed each of the arrows gently through Skrobb's wounds, until the barbed head broke free of the flesh. As he drew each arrow out, the fletching emerged slick and rumpled. But it was too late. There was no breath, no pulse left in the big man, who lay bleeding in the grass, his eyes already starting to glaze over in death.
Kal's stomach churned. He turned away and retched into the grass. He fought against tears. He fought down the notion that Galli had died at the hands of Grumm and Skrobb. He fought the growing sense of despair. Again there came the fiendish, drawn-out shriek. Even the shrill sounds of the spring peepers were stilled by it, silenced by a power stronger than their seasonal instincts. Here was a creature unknown. Down in the hollow below at Ardiel's Well, Kal heard Star Thistle nickering. He pushed himself off the ground and sped back up the slope.
As Kal entered the keeil, Wilum moved his head in a listless acknowledgement of another person's presence in the room. The young man moved towards him. Wilum's eyes flashed in recognition.
"Kal? . . . Kal, lad! You're truly a sight—but how on earth did you get here? But nevermind, untie me here quickly. Hurry, lad, before Skrobb returns."
"Briacoil, Master Wilum. Not to worry. That one won't ever be coming back, not in this life. Where's Galli? What have they done with Galli? Is he dead? Where is he?" Kal's blue eyes blazed.
"Now, now, rest easy. He's alive and safe. Just finish untying me here, and we'll see about him. We'll have to act fast before the other one brings Ferabek's troops down on us."
As Kal undid the knotted coils of rope to free Wilum, he heard muffled groans coming from a closet set into the wainscotting.
"There we are," said Wilum, rising stiffly from his chair. "Don't mind that racket. It's only Galli waking from a nasty crack on the crown. Come, let's set him free." Wilum slid open the closet, revealing the crumpled figure of Galli, in a daze, but conscious.
"He'll be fine. Thick-skinned Galligaskin. I put a salve on the bump before he was stuffed in the closet. The two oafs were too busy arguing to notice. Untie him. I'll gather up the things that we must rescue. Any minute now and Wuldor's Howe will be swarming with the enemy."
From the closet in which Galli still lay, Wilum extracted a large oiled canvas sack. He strode to his writing desk and took up the Talamadh, slinging it around his shoulder by its leather strap. Shaking the sack open, he hurried back to a darkened recess of the keeil, close to the fireplace.
Kal helped Galli, still rubbing his head and groaning, to his feet. Together they tottered to where Wilum was shovelling all manner of leather-bound manuscript volumes into his satchel from a large oaken chest that lay draped in shadows.
Kal knew these volumes. They formed the most precious record of Ahn Norvys's history and lore. The bundle of parchment seized now by Wilum, Kal saw, was Hedric's Master Legendary, the great compilation, mostly in verse, of ballads, lays, formularies, and laws that had been brought together by the very first Hordanu. The rest of the hoard that Wilum pulled out of the chest consisted of the Chronicles of the Harmonic Age, a hodgepodge of writings authored by each Hordanu in succession over the centuries.
Once more a hollow wail raked the night air.
"What is that?" demanded Kal. "I saw it outside. Like a huge bat cutting through the air. And that howl . . . it gives you the chills to hear it."
"It's Ferabek unleashing yet another weapon from his armoury. A night-bred beast that defies the conventions of flesh and blood," Wilum said, pausing at his task.
"What do you mean?" asked Galli, still nursing his head.
Wilum regarded Galli, smiling. "Ah, Galli, you've weathered your blow well."
"That's because it's not just his skin that's thick. There's that dense Telessarian skull he's inherited, too."
Another low wail rose. Louder. Closer.
"There it goes again!" Kal cried. "I heard the night sounds of preying fellhawks once, when Father and I travelled one autumn to Thrysvarshold. I remember stopping on the roadside while Father drew his sword, and I was so afraid I clutched at his tunic. But this beats it all."
"There's good reason why this creature is beyond your ken. The Great Harmony has grown weak. There are many things that Ferabek may hazard, many powers of the night that fall under his sway, many creatures, for long centuries unknown within the bounds of Ahn Norvys, that he can summon forth from the underworld to do his bidding. I'll tell you later about thraganux, the night drake. For now we'd better make shift to escape its talons," said Wilum, even as he stuffed the last of the manuscripts from the chest into his sack. Reaching down into the chest once more, he grabbed hold of a small box of green stone shaped like a half-moon, which hung from a short gold chain, and then attached the end of the chain with a clasp to the Talamadh.
"Is that the Pyx of—"
"Yes. The Pyx of Roncador. And there's an end of answers to your questions. We've got to go now and fly as fast as we can. Come, Galli, you'll carry the satchel. I'll carry the Talamadh. But first I must pen a note."
Kal and Galli exchanged puzzled glances while Wilum opened his writing desk and took out a small piece of parchment, as thin as onionskin. Dipping a quill in the inkwell, he scribbled furiously.
"Wait here a moment," he bade them, as he rolled up the parchment into a tiny scroll, bound it tight with a thin golden thread, and then hurried out the front door of the keeil. Almost immediately he returned to them empty-handed.
"May the hawks and owls and all birds of prey lose their taste for my doves tonight," he half-intoned, eyes raised. "Come, lads, we've lingered here too long. Time to be off before we have unwelcome company. Kal, take the candle on the desk there and place it in that lantern . . . over there, by the door. And here's a tinderbox. Whatever you do, make sure nothing happens to the lantern. Keep it burning. We'll need light where we're going."
"Look, Master Wilum, the winding sheet." Kal pointed to the candle that flickered atop the writing desk. A thick gobbet of tallow had risen up against the wick of the candle, casting a white shroud over it. To the Holdsmen this was a sure sign of impending death.
"Aye, lad. I noted that. It does nothing to rest my heart, but let it pass for now. For some time the highlands have been dogged by uncertain foretokens of death. This is simply one more portent. Come now, hurry, lads. We hardly need dwell on omens when the events themselves stand ready to overtake us. Now we—"
"Wait! Listen! I hear hoofbeats on the Eastmarsh Causeway," said Galli, who had stepped to the door, cocking an ear to catch the whisperings of the north wind. "Aye . . . There it is. Many horses. Not far off."
"Come. This way. Out the window to the Well," said Wilum.
"But where—"
"Hush, Kal. No time for questions. Just follow me, the both of you, to Ardiel's Well."
Wilum stepped to the bay window through which Kal had earlier peered. He flung open the hinged panes, drew up the hem of his cloak, and stepped over the sill onto the soft soil of a flower bed. Kal and Galli followed, Kal guarding the light of the lantern beneath his cloak, shielding it from view, and they descended the long grassy slope. The cries of men and the clatter of hooves on the flagstone pavement of the concourse in front of the Great Glence reached them, hastening their flight. On each side loomed the towering Haltadans. Past Ram's Knap they fled, through the solemn grave markers of Stillfields, until they came to the lip of the ridge that fell off sharply towards Ardiel's Well. There were further cries, and a cohort of mounted horsemen carrying torches began to circle the Great Glence and the keeil, anxious to cut off all avenues of escape.
"Mind that lantern, Kal!" admonished Wilum, as the lamp beneath Kal's cloak clanged mutely against one of the gravestones. "If you break it . . . Take my word for it, lad."
Slipping down the incline, the three of them remained unseen. It was a close thing, too. If but one of those Black Scorpion troopers had caught a hint of the fleeing Holdsmen, it would have drawn the lot of them in hot pursuit, with nowhere to run except Ardiel's Well. Kal pushed his way through weeds and brambles and low-hanging branches, careful to keep the lantern out of harm's way. When he heard the spirited neighing of horses in the distance, his thoughts went to Star Thistle. He was glad he had left the mare ground-hitched and free to run. "Into the woods with you, girl," he whispered into the night.
Another dreadful howl, almost above them, spurred them on through the wooded thicket with its awkward footing. Though Kal held the lantern, Wilum led the way, while in the rear Galli hoisted the weighty sack around the obstacles.
They reached the bottom of the hollow. Wilum turned on the pebbled path, heading for Ardiel's Well. Opening the door, which was overhung with toadflax that had crept across it from the thickly festooned stone walls, he gestured to Kal and Galli, bidding them come down the steps behind him. Closing the door, they began to descend a short flight of stairs hewn out of rock that gave onto the floor of the Well. In the murky gloom, Kal's lantern cast fantastic flickering shadows on the walls. Here the waters of the Well cascaded out of the mouth of an ancient stone gargoyle into a square pool set into the ground. The grotesque figure, with its water-stained grimace, seemed so quaint and ornamental in daytime, when light from the door provided some illumination to the inside of the Well. Now it had taken on a leering malevolent cast. The sonorous flow of water being disgorged from its mouth made the atmosphere seem even more baleful. It masked a person's sense of hearing and rendered the ear incapable of distinguishing other sounds, making the darkness even more disconcerting.
"Here, Kal, shine your lantern here. I need to see." Wilum had stepped up onto the far side of the water pool. Adjusting the Talamadh on his shoulder, he stretched his hands out towards the gargoyle's head, standing just below its jet of water.
Kal thought he heard the baying of hounds above the sound of the water.
"But—what are you doing? We've got to get out of here. We're stuck like rats in a trap if they find us like this."
"Hush, Kal, have a little more trust in old Cloudbeard. Just give me a moment to box this dour fellow's ears." Wilum turned to the grim stone face and reached up to its jug-ears with both hands. He began twisting the head to left and right, pivoting it on its axis with a disarming boldness. Then he let go of the gargoyle's ears and stepped back. "Well now, what have I done wrong?" Wilum frowned at length. "I must be losing my memory in my old age. I'll have to try again. How does it go now? Let me think . . . What a time to forget!" He stepped again towards the fountain. "Right, right, left. I'll try that. I'm sure that's it," he muttered as he reached once more for the gargoyle's jeering face. This time, no sooner had he taken down his hands from the stone head, now restored to its original position, than there arose a low rumble above the sound of the splashing waters.
"What's that? What's happening?" cried Galli, laying down the sack and drawing his sword.
"I don't know. It's coming from inside, from over there!" shouted Kal, who had also pulled his own shortsword out of its scabbard and in doing so almost fumbled the lantern.
"The wall! It's opening!"
"Easy now," Wilum said. "Put away your weapons. Nothing to worry about. Here, Kal, give me the lantern and follow me. Quickly now, both of you."
Wide-eyed with amazement, Kal and Galli trailed Wilum's cloak-draped figure, stooping below the lintel of the secret doorway to enter a small antechamber. Its walls were of the same mortared stonework as the inside of the Well, a ceiling of huge transverse wooden beams spanning its width. Kal could see that when the door was closed the joints of mortar that separated the hidden door from the rest of the wall would look completely unobtrusive, so well had the mechanism been engineered. Once they all stood inside, Wilum reached for the handle that was fitted into the wall on his left and twisted it two full turns. The hidden door swung ponderously back into its normal place to the accompanying reverberation of hidden wheels and pulleys. With a thud they were enveloped by dead silence. For a moment Kal was choked by a surge of claustrophobic fear at their unexpected entombment. He felt the warmth of Galli's body draw closer to him. They stood, teeth chattering from chill and overwrought emotion in the penumbra of the lantern's quavering light. The two let Wilum take his bearings.
"Absolutely incredible, isn't it?" whispered Kal, heartened by the sound of his own voice.
"Who would have thought all these years that the old Well . . . ?" said Galli in awe. "Do you remember how as children we always thought there was something mysterious about the Well and made up stories about secret passageways guarded by the Hidden Folk?"
"Aye, it's a strange place, always sparked imagination—"
"Look, you'd never be able to find the seam of the door."
"It's kind of eerie. Not a place I'd come to if I didn't need to."
"No, certainly not my idea of cozy, but Cloudbeard's brought us here. So here we are—"
"Look, what's he doing there?"
Ignoring their exchange, Wilum was busy at the far end of the chamber, hunched over and peering down. Kal and Galli approached the stooped figure. He was looking down a square hole that dropped flush against the wall, with a ladder hanging down one of its sides. On a shelf close to the hole there lay a box of candles alongside some candleholders.
"You'd better equip yourself with a light as well, Kal, just in case," Wilum said as he snatched up a candle from the box and lit it from the flame ensconced in the lantern. Attaching it to a holder, he pressed the thing into Kal's hands. "Now let's get going down this ladder. It'll take us down this hole a good forty paces to a passageway that goes under Deepmere to Raven's Crag Island and ends up right in Owlpen Castle. When we get there, we'll see what we can do to salvage the manor rolls, before the Boar gets his trotters on them. There are a couple of old coracles in the castle. With any luck, they're still water-worthy enough. If we use them, we can row out to the other side of the Mere and then hike up to Tarlynn's Coomb. Come, Galli, I'll go first with the lantern, and you follow. Kal, you go last with your candle. Now let's move. Those soldiers and their hounds'll be at the Well here any moment, tearing it apart stone by stone, if needs be, trying to make out where we've disappeared to. So disappear we must."