“Here.” He thrust blindly into the blackness, shoving the flask in the vicinity of his uncle’s nose. “Breathe, Uncle. Breathe deep.”

Thulu did, and shuddered as though awaking from a dream. “Dani?” he murmured. “Dani, lad?”

“I’m here, Uncle.” Retracting the flask, Dani felt for the lip and replaced the cork, banging it in tight with the heel of his wounded palm, repressing a wince. All around them was blackness, and there was no longer any comfort in it. “It’s time.”

“Time?”

“Time to follow the veins of the earth,” Dani said gently. He felt for Thulu’s arm and squeezed it. “We’re under the mountains, Uncle; at least, I think we are. You’re right, there’s no going back, but there’s still forward. Somewhere, these tunnels must emerge, and somewhere there is a river, the Gorgantus River.”

“Yes.” In the blackness, Thulu’s voice was muffled, hands pressed to his face. “Perhaps. Ah, Dani! It’s hard, so hard, buried alive beneath the earth. I wish I had my digging-stick to sense the way. Maybe then …”

“You don’t need it.” Beneath his fingertips, Dani felt the sinews of his uncle’s arm shifting, the blood pulsing steadily under his skin. “Please, Uncle! You can do it, I know. It is what you trained all your life to do. Guide us.”

For a time, an endless time, there was only silence. And then, faint and ragged, a tuneless song. It rose from his belly, rumbling deep in his lungs. In the black bowels of the earth, Thulu of the Yarru-yami sang of water, closing his blind eyes and tracing the veins of the earth, singing the song of its course through the stony flesh of the World God, Uru-Alat. And his voice, at first uncertain and desperate, slowly grew in strength, syllables rolling from his lips like cataracts leaping from a mountain ledge.

“Forward,” he said at last. “You’ll have to lead, lad; there’s not enough room for me to pass you. Forward, and when the path forks, bear to the right.”

Eyes open onto utter blackness, Dani got back onto his hands and knees and began to crawl.

“HIS LORDSHIP WISHES TO SEE you.”

In the doorway of her chambers, Cerelinde took a step backward, but having delivered his message, the Havenguard remained waiting in silence, huge and impassive, three of his fellows behind him. Cerelinde glanced behind her at the tapestry with its hidden door.

“It is his Lordship’s custom to send a madling at such times,” she said, temporizing. The prospect of being accompanied solely by the Fjel filled her with deep unease. Damaged and unpredictable though the madlings were, they were not without reverence for the Lady of the Ellylon.

The Havenguard’s features creased, his leathery upper lip drew back to reveal the tips of his eyetusks. “No more since one tried to kill you, Lady.”