Warlock
as a man, but as some kind of demi-god.
Smoke drifted through the stalks now, though the heat had not reached them and would not for several minutes.
Here it is! the red-haired Tuk shouted from his position in the lead. He raised the curved blade of his machete and pointed directly ahead and at the ground.
In another moment, they were standing before a jumbled mass of stones through which the bamboo stalks grew, though not as thickly as elsewhere. Along the northern wall, the earth had parted and dropped down, giving view of darkness beyond.
In there, Shaker Sandow said.
Richter directed the men through, down a drop of seven or eight feet to a set of stairs. The stairs wound for twelve paces around a stone column and into a chamber where the air was cool and fresh, and where a breeze stirred their hair. The torches showed dark gray walls, some panels of what appeared to be wood-but was not -which still clung to the basic stone beneath. There was no furniture and no ornamentation. No one particularly cared about the crudeness of their haven.
By the time all were safe beneath the blazing land, the heat had become oppressive above, and even reached wispy fingers down to them, though the draft down there tended to carry both heat and smoke out of these rude chambers. They could hear the roar of the fire not far away, and by the time they had located the mouth of the tunnel which led toward the city, the popping, crackling, exploding fury was directly over them, consuming anything that its acidic tongues could possibly devour.
Single file, Richter said. Two torches to the front, two to the rear, and one in the middle of the procession, Move quietly, lest there be Oragonians at the other end, The moment you spot light, Tuk, outen your two torches, and everyone else will follow suit.
Holding a dagger ready in his one good hand, the burly Sergeant Growler licked his salt-encrusted lips and said, The city will be ours, and we will find ourselves returning home by air. I feel it in my bones 1
And feeling it in your bones is no certain fortune-telling, Richter said.
Again, they had taken the roles of the cheery optimist and the balancing pessimist. The men reacted with a general lifting of spirits, but also with a bit more caution-just as the two officers had wanted them to react
Maybe there is a chance for success, the Shaker thought. Maybe Lady Luck's sadism will be directed toward those who wait so smugly on the ramparts above. Perhaps she has led them to build false hopes. Gods knew, this bunch had never had much hope at all!
He felt a gnawing eagerness to be in the city, to discover the books and the machines that would await them there. Surely, there would be things even more fascinating than war machines. He wondered what the Oragonians might have passed over as useless-and which he might find to be the most priceless artifacts of all.
He dared to allow himself to think that there might be enough in the city to explain to him why his mother had had to die. Even Gregor, whose mother had left a diary, might still feel the guilt of his birth enough to want that answer.
And, too, there might be some way of saving the youth's life in the city. And again, maybe not. They walked down the dark tunnel
BOOK THREE
The City and the Dragon
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21
Down the center of the tunnel, there were two rails which were pitted with age, set almost flush with the moss-spattered stones of the floor. It looked very much as if a train had traveled here in centuries past, though the purpose of putting such a vehicle underground was one that none of them could fathom Twice, they found places where stairs lead upward from platforms that jutted out from the tunnel wall. Both of these were blocked by rubble and led nowhere. Since they could not yet have covered the mile to the city, they did not spend much time with these clogged exits but continued on their way.
In time, they found the train. It was on its side, wheels crushed against the left-hand wall, dug into the stone there. The top of the cab was pinned against the right-hand wall, and through the
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