Thom clapped him on the shoulder. “Mat, lad, that was insane. And effective. Somehow.”

“About what you should expect from me,” Mat said, pulling down the brim of his hat. “I’ve been in this room before. We’re on track. If Moiraine still lives, then she’ll be somewhere past here.”

Chapter 54

The Light of the World

Thom held up his torch, inspecting the enormous star-shaped black columns and their glowing yellow lines. Those lines gave the entire room a sickly light, making Thom look wan and jaundiced.

Mat remembered the stink of this place, that musty staleness. Now that he knew what to look for, he could smell something else, too. The musky stink of an animal’s den. A predator’s lair.

There were five corridors leading out of the room, one at each inner point of the star shape. He remembered passing through one of those passageways, but had there not been only one way out before?

“Wonder how high up the pillars go,” Thom said, raising his torch higher and squinting.

Mat held his ashandarei in a firmer grip, palms sweaty. They had entered the foxes’ den. He felt at his medallion. The Eelfinn had not used the Power on him before, but they had to have some understanding of it, did they not? Of course, Ogier could not channel. Perhaps that meant Eelfinn could not either.

Rustling sounds came from the edges of the room. Shadows shifted and moved. The Eelfinn were in there, in that darkness. “Thom,” Mat said. “We should play some more music.”

Thom watched that darkness. He did not object; he raised his flute and began playing. The sound seemed lonely in the vast room.

“Mat,” Noal said, kneeling near the center of the room. “Look at this.”

“I know,” Mat said. “It looks like glass but feels like stone.”

“No, not that,” Noal said. “There’s something here.”

Mat edged over to Noal. Thom joined them, watching and playing as Noal used his lantern to illuminate a melted lump of slag on the floor, perhaps the size of a small chest. It was black, but a deeper, less reflective black than the floor and the columns.

“What do you make of it?” Noal asked. “Maybe one of the trapdoors?”

“No,” Mat said. “It’s not that.”

The other two looked at him.

“It’s the doorframe,” Mat said, feeling sick. “The redstone doorframe. When I came through it before, it was in the center of a room like this. When it melted on the other side…”

“It melted here too,” Noal said.

The three stared at it. Thom’s music sounded haunting.

“Well,” Mat said. “We knew it wasn’t a way out in the first place. We’ll have to bargain our way free.” And I’ll make bloody sure not to get hanged this time.

“Will the dice lead us?” Noal asked, rising.