They squeezed through a narrow portion of the passage. A few paces beyond it, the level path dropped into a sharp decline. Ushahin led them onward, down and down, until a blue-white glow was visible ahead, as bright and concentrated as the sculpted node of Godslayer’s dagger.

“Do you see it?” he asked.

“Aye.” Tanaros’ jaw was set and hard. “It is no more than Vorax told me.”

A roaring sound was in the air, and an acrid odor, like the breath of dragons. Ushahin grinned, his mismatched eyes glittering with reflected marrow-light. “Come see it, then.”

They descended the remainder of the way with Ushahin leading, sure-footed on the pathways that were his own, his aching joints at ease in the hot, stifling air. There, all the way to the bottom of the decline.

A new chasm had erupted.

There was the old one, patched over by Vorax’s Staccians. They had made a fair job of it for mortal Men. The old path was clearly visible, scuffed with gouges where a slab of stone had been dragged with great effort, capping the breach. It was braced by beams that had been soaked in water, already faintly charred by the heat of the marrow-fire, but holding. Rocks and rubble had filled the gaps.

And there, to the left of it—a gaping wound, emitting a violent, erratic light. Above it, a vaulted hollow soared. At the bottom, far, far below, the Source of the marrow-fire blazed and roared like a furnace. Heedless of danger, Tanaros stood at the edge and looked downward.

The sides of the sheer drop beneath his feet were jagged and raw. The marrow-fire was so bright it seared his eyes. He gazed upward, where his shadow was cast large and stark, flickering upon the hollow chamber of the ceiling. It, too, appeared new, as though hunks of rock had been sheared away.

Tanaros frowned. “There is some fault in the foundation that causes this. Small wonder, cousin, when it is built upon this.” He turned to Ushahin. “Have you spoken of it to his Lordship?”

“Yes,” Ushahin said simply.

“And?”

In the stifling heat, Ushahin wrapped his arms around himself as if to ward off a chill. His voice, when he answered, held an unwonted note of fear. “His Lordship says the foundation is sound.”

Tanaros returned his gaze to the fiery, seething depths of the chasm. For a long moment, he was silent. When he spoke, it was without turning. “I will ask again, Dream-spinner. What does this have to do with corruption?”