After a time walking, the ceiling grew in height and the walls expanded subtly and became smoother and more cleanly carven. They passed more of the little tunnels and doors left and right, but had no more trouble on the straight underground road. After perhaps a half hour of walking, they passed a lumpish, heavy-browed skull that has been set to rest dustily atop one of the sconces. It was wearing a crown of bronze that was so old it had stained the bone with green streaks. Three red stones glinted in the band.
“Dwarghe,” said Caewen as they passed. “Been there a while. I wouldn’t touch the crown though.”
“Yeah. Hur. Best to leave that sort of thing well enough alone.”
Both Caewen and Dapplegrim smiled as they spoke, and seemed to find this funny, though why was beyond the boy. He looked at the skull and crown in his own private moment of contemplation. He said nothing. If there was still a ghost lingering in the dusty skull, then the shade probably would not be much pleased to hear a greeting from his mad uncle.
So they passed onward down the tunnel. They were almost at the point of needing to light another candle when a dim spark of greyish illumination appeared in the distance.
“Light at the end of the tunnel,” said the boy, more brightly than he’d said anything in hours.
Caewen was now shivering and shrugging her shoulders for warmth. She seemed to be feeling the cold much worse than anyone else, which struck the boy as worrying. He was still much wetter than her, and by all rights he should be the one most at risk in the cold tunnels. And yet, the warmth coming off Dapplegrim’s flanks had kept him from shivering. He worried that she was feeling some other, more unnatural chill. “Let’s hope it’s a way out. I don’t fancy going back the way we’ve come. The candle you lit at the entranceway must have burned out by now.”
“Hur, yes,” said Dapplegrim. “The white warths will be in the tunnel now, probably… assuming they can force themselves through the moving water. Hurm. That underground stream will give them pause too, at least.” He snorted. “You know, we might yet make it to safety yet.”
-oOo-
What they found at the source of the light was an immense chimney structure with spiral stairs running up around, and around its walls. The stairs were well made–everything carved and fitted by Dwarghe hand was well made, Caewen said–and the steps were just wide enough for Dapplegrim to clumsily clamber up them; though riding would have been perilous beyond all foolishness. Caewen went at the front, sword out, tapping stones to be sure none of them were loose or tricks, and then came the boy, and then Dapplegrim. All three were now variously limping, shivering and blanched in the skin.
The grey light filtered down from above, and because there was no railing or wall on the inside of the stairs, it flooded the whole stone chimney completely. Of course, the lack of a railing made any misstep potentially deadly, and Dapplegrim especially began to look quite worried, the higher they climbed.
He muttered frequently, saying things like, “Half-horse, not half-goat. Hur.”
After a long ascent they reached the top without mishap, and they all happily stumbled out onto a heathery hillside under the last sun of a clear evening. Far overhead and across the valley haggard-kites were sailing on the winds looking for small prey or carrion. There was no other movement anywhere bar for the breath and stir of wind across the grasses, shrubs and few scant trees of the wilderness. Looking around, the tunnel had spat them out on the upper flanks of the grey mountain’s foothills. To the west and north the mountain rose behind them like a dead god, but to the east a wide, rocky valley spread out until it washed up into a distant range ghost-blue mountains beyond. This was the wide valley they had seen from the south before leaving the road to avoid the white women, and it stretched away below them now instead.
A small cottage stood visible against the head of a hill. It looked about an hour’s walk off. Smoke was still drifting pleasantly from its chimney and its thatched roof and brick red walls looked gentle and safe.
Caewen’s voice had a cold, ragged edge to it. She sounded like she was near the end of her energies. “I see no signs of the white ghaists of the women, and the Seeress must have her ways of protecting herself against such things. If we hurry we should make her house before nightfall.”
“We’ll be safe then?” asked the boy.
She breathed something of a small sigh. “As safe as we ever are.”
As they walked across the hill-slope in the direction of the cottage, the boy ventured to say: “But you’re never really safe are you? You and Dapplegrim, I mean. You’re both in trouble a lot.”
She smiled. Gradually colour was returning to her cheeks. “Yes. That’s true enough.”
He turned then, and looked south. Long stretches of woodland lay scattered like the shadows of clouds. In places there were tiny hazes of smoke, marking out a homestead or hamlet. He wondered which of those small smudges of smoke was Wurmgloath. It looked so far, the distance they had already come, and yet, he had a strong sense that there was a great deal more distance to travel.