“Drag them into the sleeping quarters, tie and gag them,”
Padishar whispered. “Make sure they can’t escape.”
There was a quick knock at the door. Padishar waited until
the guards were dispatched, then cracked the peep window. Ev-
erything was fine, he assured the guards without, who thought
they might have heard something. The card game was breaking
up; everyone thought it would be best to start getting things in
order.
He closed the window with a reassuring smile.
After the men of the night watch were secured in the sleeping
quarters, Padishar closed the door and bolted it. He hesitated,
then ordered the locks to the entry doors thrown as well. No
point in taking any chances, he declared. They couldn’t afford
to leave any of their company behind to make certain they were
not disturbed.
With oil lamps to guide them, they descended through the
gloom of the stairwell to the lower levels of the Gatehouse, the
sound of the rain lost behind the heavy stone. The dampness
penetrated, though, so chill that Par found himself shivering.
He followed after the others in a daze, prepared to do whatever
was necessary, his mind focused on putting one foot in front of
the other until they were out of mere. There was no reason to
be frightened, he kept telling himself. It would all be over quick
enough.
At the lower level, they found the watch commander sleep-
ing-a new man, different from the one that had been waiting
for them when they bad tried to slip over the ravine wall. This
one fared no better. They subdued him without effort, bound
and gagged him, and locked him in his room.
“Leave the lamps,” Padishar ordered.
They bypassed the watch commander’s chambers and went
down to the end of the hall. A single, ironbound door stood
closed before them, twice as high as their tallest, the angular
Drutt. A massive handle, emblazoned with the wolf’s head in-
signe of the Seekers, jutted out. Padishar reached down with
both hands and twisted. The latch gave, the door slid open.
Murk and darkness filled the gap, and the stench of decay and
mold slithered in.
“Stay close, now,” Padishar whispered over his shoulder,
his eyes dangerous, and stepped out into the gloom.
Coil turned long enough to reach back and squeeze Par’s
shoulder, then followed.
They stood in a forest of jumbled tree trunks, matted brush,
vines, brambles, and impenetrable mist. The thick, sodden can-
opy of the treetops overhead all but shut out the little daylight
that remained. Mud oozed and sucked in tiny bogs all about
them. Creatures flew in ragged jumps through the jungle-birds
or something less pleasant, they couldn’t tell which. Smells as-
sailed them-the decay and me mold, but something more as
well, something even less tolerable. Sounds rose out of the murk,
distant, indistinguishable, threatening. The Pit was a well of
endless gloom.
Every nerve ending on Par Ohmsford’s body screamed at him
to get out of there.
Padishar motioned them ahead. Drutt followed, then Coil,
Par, Morgan, and Stasas, a line of rain-soaked forms. They
picked their way forward slowly, following the edge of the ra-
vine, moving in the direction of the rubble from the old Bridge
of Sendic. Par and Coil carried me grappling hooks and ropes,
the others drawn weapons. Par glanced over his shoulder mo-
mentarily and saw the light from the open door leading back
into the Gatehouse disappear into the fog. He saw the Sword of
Leah glint dully in Morgan’s hand, the rain trickling off its pol-
ished metal.
The earth they walked upon was soft and yielding, but it held
them as they pushed steadily into the gloom. The Pit had the
feel of a giant maw, open and waiting, smelling of things already
eaten, its breath the mist that closed them away. Things wriggled
and crawled through the pools of stagnant water, oozed down
decaying logs, and flashed through bits of scrub like quicksilver.
The silence was deafening; even the earlier sounds had disap-
peared at their approach. There was only the rain, slow and
steady, seeping downward through the murk.
They walked for what seemed to Par a very long time. The