Bossman looked at him. “Which way do we go—up or down?”

Hastings spread his hands. “I see your point.”

“I don’t see it,” Aton’s friend with the black hair cut in. “We go upriver, we have water, and we’re heading for the top. What’s the matter with that?”

“We go upriver,” Hastings said calmly, “and we may find nothing but a layer of porous rock with the moisture percolating through and dipping down until it collects enough to make the river.

“Follow it down, then,” she said with affected indifference.

“How fast do you think we’ll reach the surface if we travel down?”

She looked at him suspiciously. “You fat tub. We got to go one way or the other.”

“We follow the caverns,” Bossman said, cutting off the argument. “They go up, and the wind proves they go somewhere.”

The party, not as large as it once had been, forded the river carefully and moved on. The tunnels continued to rise and expand. The glow from the walls diminished, bringing shadow; the front and rear of the column were attacked more persistently by unseen predators. Aton and Garnet walked together near the center, a little apart from the others, who gave them leeway on either side. Their position was not coincidental: the water test would be invalid if they were to fall prey to the chimera instead. They were protected by their position, but until sufficient time elapsed, close association was not desired by the others. An illness spawned by the water would find these prisoners with very little natural defense.

“You don’t curse me much, any more, Garnet,” Aton remarked.

“There’s no point, Aton. I lost.”

“Why did you cover for me?” he asked, needling her.

She closed her eyes, navigating by the sound of massed footsteps, as everyone could do now. The question needed no answer, but she spoke to the intent behind it. “Because you are like him.” This was her first reference to her life before Chthon. “Not in appearance, but in your rocklike heart. Such men, such demons as you, there is no pity in you, only purpose.”

“And you loved him, and you killed him, because he wouldn’t love you,” Aton said. “And now you love me.”

“I tried to fight it. I knew what you were the first time I saw you.”

Oh, Malice, Malice, do you taunt me as I do this lonely woman? Why must I hurt her?

“Don’t you know that I will never be yours? I will never kiss you. I will never love you.”

“I know,” she said.

“Are you going to kill me, too?”

She marched on, unable to speak.

“Or yourself, this time?”