The gnome shook his head. “It will not be done, my lord. That is no skin of rock across a door: that is solid stone, encasing door and—” he winced, hands to his head. “He brought rock upon them in a trice; they were made one with it. Wicked, wicked—”

Arvid felt cold through. He had not imagined such a thing. The deaths of those knights … he should have insisted they stay farther back—

The gnome, was watching him, obviously fearful. Weak as he was, he must have realized Arvid could slay him easily.

Arvid forced his voice to calm. “Can we then use the passage through the rock that you came in?”

“Indeed, though it will be uncomfortable for you, being made for us. It is wide enough, but low.”

“More than one has told me it would do my soul good to bend,” Arvid said. He caught up the gnome’s blade; his own blood had thickened on it, and it took scrubbing with the remaining water and the dwarf’s cloak to clean it well. “Take this,” Arvid said to the gnome, and handed it over. He looked around the room and shrugged. “We might as well take the sapphire and gold as well; those above will not find it.”

With the carafe and bowl, the sapphire and gold, they descended into the crack, Arvid finding it awkward. Below, the opening the rockfolk had made was rough, wide enough for a man Arvid’s size but so low he found it easier to crawl than crouch. For a time, a little light came from the lit room behind and above, then at a turn all went black. He was acutely aware that if the gnome lied—if he had any power—he could bring rock down on Arvid and still himself escape.

But the gnome stayed close ahead, quietly warning Arvid of every twist and turn, every steep slope. Down they went, and down, this way and that. Arvid knew the city sloped down above them; Gird’s Hall and the High Lord’s Hall were on a hill. A stench came to his nose.

“Defilement,” the gnome said from the darkness ahead. “The mageborn cleft the stone to carry away their filth, long ago in your time; they dirtied clean stone, being too lazy to carry it away to the fields. The dwarf opened too close to it—”

“Sewers,” Arvid said, in Common. “Our name for such tunnels. If this is at all like other mageborn work I’ve seen, there will be a place to walk alongside. Is there an opening?”

“It is poison!” the gnome said.

“Not if we do not drink of it. Or have open—alas, I do have an open wound, and you are wiser than I.”

Past the stench, farther and farther. His knees hurt; his shoulders complained; his hands felt raw. He could feel warm blood trickling from the bandage he’d tied on his arm; he could scarcely bear weight on that hand. He tried walking in a crouch, one hand up to ward his head from the stone above, but that hurt as much after a short time. He was more and more tired of this, and afraid of being trapped. He forebore to ask the gnome how much farther, for fear of hearing an answer that would wrench a complaint from him.