They were Gulnagel Fjel; lowlanders, the swift runners, with their grey-brown hides, lean haunches and yellowing talons. They could take down a deer at a dead run, leaping from hill to hill. There were four, and they watched him. Having saved his life, they waited for guidance. Among the races of Lesser Shapers, only Men and Ellylon had received Haomane’s Gift, the gift of thought. Speros crouched by the pool, fervently wiping his numb lips, careful to make sure that not a single drop got into his mouth. Thirsting or not, what it might do inside him, he didn’t dare guess. One thing was sure, he wouldn’t touch that water again.

“All right.” He stared at the reflected blue in its depths, then craned his head, squinting. It hurt to look at the sky, even a tiny disk of it. The shaft stretched above him to dizzying heights, and at the top of it lay open skies and freedom. “Up. We need to go up.”

It was a despairing thought, here at the bottom of the world. To his surprise, one of the Gulnagel grinned and flexed his yellow talons.

“Not a problem, boss,” he said cheerfully. “Up it is”

EVERYWHERE.

Nowhere.

It was dark where he was, and he was not dead. At least he didn’t think so. In the darkness, Tanaros flexed his hands. He had hands; he felt them. The fingers of his right hand closed around something hard.

A sword-hilt, he thought.

And, I am lost in the Marasoumië.

What happened to people who got lost in the Ways? Sometimes the Ways spat them out, in some unknowable location, deep beneath the earth. Sometimes the Ways did not. And then they died, of course.

Unless they were immortal.

It was Malthus’ doing, may he be cursed with the same fate. In the darkness, Tanaros gave a bitter smile. It had been a near thing at the end. He had hesitated when he saw the boy. He shouldn’t have done that. It had given the Counselor time, an instant’s time to invoke the Marasoumië’s power and send them hurtling away, the boy and his protector, flinging them desperately across the warp and weft of the Ways, enfolded in his enchantments.

A pity, that. But it was all, nearly all, the old wizard had left in him. Tanaros had struck, then; had let the rage course through his veins, had swung his sword with all his might at his enemy’s neck. Ah, it had felt good! The black blade had bitten deep into the wood of the wizard’s staff when Malthus had parried; bitten deep and stuck fast in the spellbound wood.