the shaft.
It was not so deep as a well. Lalo landed with a splash in a sluggish stream
slippery with things he would rather not try to name. Fighting his stomach, he
realized that the Prince’s garbage had been fragrant compared to the sewers
which were his last hope against his enemy.
He slogged grimly forward, counting his steps and putting out a reluctant hand
to the slimy walls to guide his passage, listening behind him for the small
sounds that would tell him that Zanderei had followed him even here. Catching
his breath, he felt for the knife, but in all his scrambling it had been lost.
Just as well-he told himself, I would not have known how to use it anyway/
“You-Limner, you’ve done well, but what made you think you could win this game
against me?” The voice echoed dankly from water-scoured stone walls. “I’ll catch
up with you soon-wouldn’t you have preferred to have died cleanly?”
Lalo shook his head, though the other man could not see. He had reckoned his
achievements and found them wanting, but if he died now at least he had tried to
act like a man. He forced his way onward, fingers questing for the next break in
the stone. What if he was wrong? Had he misremembered, or had the tunnels
changed in thirty years?
“You will die, you know. This is the last bolthole. Your end is here.”
An end for both of us then, Lalo thought numbly. I will not mind-Then his
trembling fingers found the crack. He moved his hand along the wall, lips
whispering the numbers that had become a litany-sixty-six, sixty-seven steps…