HUNTER OF WORLDS BY C. J. CHERRYH

Ashakh looked at Aiela for an answer, putting the burden of judging Kleph on his shoulders, treating him as nas; and he would be treated as nas if he erred, Aiela realized with a sinking feeling; but refusing would lower him forever in this iduve’s sight. Suddenly he comprehended arastiethe, the compulsion to take, and not to yield: giyre in truth did not apply with Ashakh: one did not abdicate responsibility to the next highest—one assumed, and assumed to the limit of one’s ability, and paid for errors dearly. Arastiethe was in one’s self, and had great cost.

“I’ll deal with Kleph, sir,” said Aiela, “either for good or for ill, I’ll deal with him, and he had better know it.”

“I do not mean to lead you astray,” Kleph protested again in a whisper, and he pointed and doused the wan light. There appeared in the distance a faint, almost illusory glow.

Aiela kept a firm hold on Kleph’s arm while they went, and now they trod on stone, and a masonry ceiling arched overhead high enough that Ashakh might straighten without fear for his head. They came to a place where light came from dim globes mounted along the ceiling—a path that broadened into a hall, and rimmed a descending trail that wound down and down past amaut residences, side-by-side dwellings cut into the stone of the city’s foundations. A chill damp breathed out from that pit, a musty scent of water. Aiela imagined that did he find a pebble to dislodge on the rim of that place, it would fall a great way and then—as it reached the level of the river and the water table—it would splash. They were still on the heights of Weissmouth, where the tunnels could reach to great depth. In amaut reckoning, it was a fine residential area, a pleasant place of cool dark and damp. And a sound from Kleph now would bring thousands of startled sleepers awake. It occurred to Aiela that Kleph’s strength would easily suffice to hurl him to his death in the pit, were it not fear of an armed starlord behind him.

They passed on to a closer tunnel, still one where they had headroom, and where lights glowed at the intersection of all the lesser tunnels, so that they had no need of Kleph’s little globe.

And around a corner came a startled party of amaut, who carried picks upon their shoulders and light-globes on their wrists, and who scattered shrieking and hissing in terror when they saw what was among them. In a moment all the tunnels were resounding with alarm, mad echoes pealing up and down the depths, and Aiela looked back at Ashakh, who was grimly returning his weapon to his belt.

“They would not understand nor would it stop the alarm,” said Ashakh. He turned on Kleph a look that withered. “Redeem your error. Get us to safety.”

Kleph was willing. He seized Aiela’s arm to make him hurry, but shrank from contact with Ashakh, whom he urged with gestures, and took them off into one of the side corridors. The light-globe glowed into new life, their only source of illumination now, Kleph leading them where they knew not, further and further, until Aiela refused to follow more and backed the little fellow into a wall. Kleph gave a shrieking hiss and tried to vanish into another passage, but Ashakh brought his struggling to an end by his fingers laid on Kleph’s broad chest and a look that would freeze water.

“Where do you intend to take us?” Aiela demanded, seeing that Ashakh waited his intent with the creature. “I feel us going down and down.”

“Necessary, necessary, o lord nas kame. We are near the river, descending—listen! Hear the pumps working?”

It was true. In an interval of deep silence there was a faint pulsing, like a giant’s heartbeat within the maze. When they did not move, nowhere was there another sound but that. The alarm and the shouting had long since died away. Wherever they were, it seemed unlikely that this was a main corridor.

“Is there no quicker way?” Aiela asked.

“But the great lord said to take you to safety, and I have been doing that. See, there is no alarm.”

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