Framy was a high-strung individual, but this was something out of the ordinary. Aton went.

Framy led the way upwind, far outside the habited caverns. “I been exploring,” he explained breathlessly. “I been looking for something...”

He had been looking far afield. Aton was glad for the chance to scout the outlying area; he had not had a pretext before. The strength of the gale increased as they went, and the heat blasted into their faces fiercely. They paused often to gulp huge quantities of water.

The journey seemed interminable. For more than an hour they plunged into the furnace draft, fighting mounting pressure. At last the little man stopped.

“Around that corner,” he gasped. “Put your head around, careful, so you can see it.”

Aton obliged, gripping the ridged wall as well as he could. The heat and wind intensified, and his eyes burned and blurred almost immediately. He wondered, fleetingly but not for the first time, what possible origin there could be for a subterranean holocaust such as this. He’d probably never know; the secret was protected by its own temperature.

The cave ahead was like any other, with a high ceiling and an opening at the far end from which the wind howled ravenously. The luminescence from the walls was brighter here, and of a different texture. The greater heat and agitation might be responsible—except that the glow had been decreasing up to this point. Aside from this mystery, the scene was not distinctive.

Something caught his eye. Aton studied the ceiling. There, from long corrugations, water was dropping and evaporating into the rushing air. This was where the moisture came from, for the condensers. That evaporation probably also exerted considerable cooling power. It might be the only thing that made these caverns bearable at all.

“The floor! Look at the floor!” Framy was shouting in his ear. Aton forced his bleary eyes to focus and looked.

There, at the far edge of the grotto, on the verge of the tunnel beyond, was a single glowing blue garnet.

They withdrew to relative shelter to consider the situation. “I saw it,” Aton said. “I saw it. But remember Hasty’s warning—”

Framy was practically dancing with excitement. “I don’t care what Fatsy said. I got to have that rock.”

“It would be better just to leave it alone. You’d never make it out of Chthon. That gem is death.”

Framy turned on him fiercely. “You want me to leave it so’s you can take it yourself. You want to get out worse’n anybody. I know you—”

Aton stared him down. “I’m sorry, pal,” the little man said. “I know you wouldn’t do nothing like that. But look—I just got to have it. I got to.”

Aton said nothing.