poor and homeless.
They were on their way to find the Mole.
“That is how he is known,” Damson told them just before
they went out. “All of the street people call him that because
that is what he chooses to call himself. If he ever had a real
name, I doubt that he remembers it. His past is a closely kept
secret. He lives in the sewers and catacombs beneath Tyrsis, a
recluse. He almost never comes out into the light. His whole
worl is the underbelly of the city, and no one knows more about
it than he does.”
“And if there are still passageways that run beneath the pal-
ace of the Kings of Tyrsis, the Mole will know about them?”
Par pressed.
“He will know.”
“Can we trust him?”
“The problem is not whether we can trust him, but whether
he will decide to trust us. As I said, he is very reclusive. He
may not even choose to talk with us.”
And Par said simply, “He must.”
Coil said nothing. He had said little the entire day, barely a
word since they had decided to go back into the Pit. He had
swallowed the news of what they were going to do as if he had
ingested a medicine that would either cure or kill him and he
was waiting to see which it would be. He seemed to have de-
cided that it was pointless to debate the matter further or to argue
what he perceived as the folly of their course of action, so he
had taken a fatalistic stance, bowing to the inevitability of Par’s
determination and the fortune or misfortune that would befall
them because of it, and he had gone into a shell as hard and
impenetrable as iron.
He trailed now as they made their way through the murk of
the Tyrsian evening, tracking Par as closely as his own shadow,
intruding with his mute presence in a way that distressed rather
than comforted. Par didn’t like feeling that way about his brother,
but there was no help for it. Coil had determined his own role.
He would neither accept what Par was doing nor cut himself free
of it. He would simply stick it out, for better or worse, until a
resolution was reached.
Damson steered them to the top of a narrow flight of stone
steps that cut through a low wall connecting two vacant, un-
lighted buildings and wound its way downward into the dark.
Par could hear water running, a low gurgle that splashed and
chugged through some obstruction. They made a cautious de-
scent of the slick stone, finding a loose, rusted railing that of-
fered an uncertain handhold. When they reached the end of the
stairs, they found themselves on a narrow walkway that ran par-
allel to a sewer trench. It was down the trench that the water
ran, spilling from a debris-choked passageway that opened from
underneath the streets above.
Damson took the Valemen into the tunnel.
It was black inside and filled with harsh, pungent smells. The
rain disappeared behind them. Damson paused, rumbled about
m the dark for a moment, then produced a torch coated with
pitch on one end, which she managed to light with the aid of a
piece of flint. The firelight brightened the gloom enough to per-
mit them to see their way a few steps at a time, and so they
proceeded. Unseen things scurried away in the darkness ahead,
soundless but for the scratching of tiny claws. Water dripped
from the ceiling, ran down the walls, and churned steadily
through the trench. The air was chill and empty of life.
They reached a second set of stairs descending further into
the earth and took them. They passed through several levels this
time, and the sound of the water faded. The scratchings re-
mained, however, and the chill clung to them with irritating
persistence. The Valemen pulled their cloaks tighter. The stairs
ended and a new passageway began, this one narrower than the
other. They were forced to crouch in order to proceed, and the
dampness gave way to dust. They moved ahead steadily, and