"Yes." He drew out a short black rod; Paks looked down, more frightened than she cared to admit. Something sizzled, and she looked quickly at the circle: it was gone. A hole in the floor revealed a spiral stair. Dust lay thick on the stone steps.

Paks took a deep breath. "Do you think we're the first to come this way? The first to be asked for help?"

"I don't know. Probably not. Only a magician could find this way down, you know. Perhaps others couldn't find a way to help and went away. You stay here a moment, while I take a quick look down." Macenion set a careful foot on the first step. Nothing happened. He went down several more, bending to look beneath the floor. Paks looked out the way they had come in, half expecting some monster to appear on their trail, but saw only Macenion's horse moving past the opening to drink at the fountain; she heard it sucking the water up. When she looked back at the hole in the floor, Macenion was coming back up. "Just below, the ceiling's much higher; we won't have any problem. And I don't see that anything's disturbed the dust. The only thing is, the stair is only one person wide—"

Paks suppressed a last shudder of doubt about the wisdom of this whole project, and grinned at him. "I suppose you'd like the fighter to go in front, eh? Well, I can't see behind myself; I'd just as soon know who's at my back." She drew her sword as she spoke. "But I'll have this out, just in case. What about light? Must I carry a candle or torch?"

"No-o—" said Macenion, climbing out of her way onto the floor. "There's light."

"What sort of light?"

"I'm not sure. It may be the same the elves used. But it's easily light enough to see."

"What if it goes out? You'd best keep some sort of flame alight, Macenion."

"Why should it go out if it's lasted this long? Oh, all right—" he answered her look of disgust. "But you're so suspicious."

"I'm alive," said Paks, "and I intend to stay that way."

"As a fighter, an adventurer?"

"Some do," said Paks, starting down the stairs. "And from what I hear, those that do stay suspicious. Magicians, too."

The stair dropped steeply, and curved to the right, back under the floor. Paks found that she did not have to duck at all; when she thought about it, she remembered that elves were, in general, taller than humans. Light filled the stairwell as far as she could see, a gentle, white light with no apparent source. She looked back once, to see the deep scuffing footprints she had made in the dust. Macenion was just in sight, several steps higher. After what she judged was the first half-turn, the steps were not so steep. She could move more easily now, and, of course, anything coming up could do so as well. She glanced back again, for Macenion, and thought of the spell he had promised to put at their backs.