Samlor’s surprise, the suit of mail now gaped open down the front. It was ready
to be stripped off and worn by another. The body within was shrivelled, its skin
as white as that of the grubs which burrow beneath tree bark.
Samlor wiped his edgeless blade with thumb and forefinger. A tiny streak of
blood was the only sign that it had slipped between metal lines to do murder.
The Cirdonian left both suits of armour in the room. They had not preserved
other wearers. Wizard mail and its tricks were for those who could control it,
and Samlor was all too conscious of his own humanity.
The passageway bent, then formed a tee with a narrow corridor a hundred paces
long. The corridor was closed at either end by living rock. Its far wall was, by
contrast, artificial – basalt hexagons a little more than a foot in diameter
across the flats. There was no sign of a doorway. Samlor remembered the iron
grates clanging behind him what seemed a lifetime ago. He wiped his right palm
absently on his thigh.
The caravan-master walked slowly down and back the length of the corridor, from
end to end. The basalt plaques were indistinguishable one from another. They
rose ten feet to a bare ceiling which still bore the tool-marks of its cutting.
Samlor stared at the basalt from the head of the tee, aware that the oil in his
lamp was low and that he had no way of replenishing it.
After a moment he looked down at the floor. Struck by a sudden notion, he opened
his fly and urinated at the base of the wall. The stream splashed, then rolled