The Pearl of the Soul of the World - By Meredith Ann Pierce Page 0,11

Maruha grimly.

Glancing back, the upperlander saw her drawing from her sark a glass ampoule. Brandl retreated swiftly. Kneeling on Collum's shoulders, Maruha shook the amber globe, then tossed it through the last brickhole. The girl glimpsed a phosphorescent flash. Coughing and shielding her nose with her sleeve, Maruha shoved the last brick into place and jumped down. Collum guided her after Brandl. Presently a stink like rotten toadstools drifted past. Uninterested, the pale girl turned away.

Come. The Call reached out to her down the broad corridor: Come.

4

Crystalglass

Collum and Brandl swung their picks, chipping furiously at a round metal aperture in the low ceiling above their heads. They were no longer in the broad pilgrims' hall, but in a smaller, narrower way.

Though the duaroughs' initial plan had been only to hide and wait, the fantastical carvings upon the walls of the pilgrims' road had drawn them on and on. The Call had begun to affect them, too—though not so strongly as the girl. The pale upperlander refused to stop, even when Maruha stumbled, faint with wound fever, and Collum and Brandl had to support her between them.

"Stay with the girl," Maruha insisted, her voice a croak.

They had come upon more weaselhounds—even there, on Ravenna's Path. Luckily only a pair of them this time, which Collum and Brandl laid low in a rush. Thereafter, the duaroughs kept a constant, darting watch. When the upperlander, oblivious to all protests and entreaties, turned off the main way into a little side corridor, they had no choice but to follow—for the inexorable Call tugged at them all and allowed them no rest.

Still the girl smiled, padding relentlessly on. They were all but carrying Maruha by then. When they heard gargling and barking in the passageway behind, accompanied now by a deeper, inhuman grunting and snuffling, Brandl's eyes widened.

"Is it… ?" He glanced at Collum, who nodded grimly.

"Aye, lad. Trolls. No eyes and twice again our size—they hunt by scent alone."

Maruha managed to raise her bowed head from her breast. "We must find an exit soon, or we're all done for," she whispered. "Blind trolls won't shun the pale girl's light."

But for the moment, they could only bolt deeper into the unknown tunnel. The narrow side passage wormed through the stone without intersection. Cursing between their teeth, the duaroughs had soon outstripped the girl, whose pace never quickened, never slackened. Now they worked desperately at the metal portal overhead, its surface overgrown with hard lime and stone daggers. It was the first exit they had found—was, in fact, their only chance of escape, for the corridor ended a half dozen paces beyond.

"Perish the lime," Collum grated. "Wherever this leads, it hasn't been used in years."

A great mass of stone daggers peeled from the aperture's rim under the onslaught of his pick and shattered on the floor. Behind him, Maruha groaned and wiped her brow with her sleeve. She reclined to one side, breathing shallowly, her wounded arm cradled to her breast. The flesh of her wrist was puffed and red, her face flushed.

"Just as well," she answered hoarsely, "or likely they'd have sealed it properly."

She cast an exhausted, harried glance back down the corridor. The sound of shrill, whistled baying and low, throaty whuffling was louder now. Brandl struck off another dagger, and Maruha weakly tugged the upperlander back as it, too, broke upon the floor, throwing fragments that rattled against the walls.

"There," Collum said at last. "Let us see if it will turn."

Teeth gritted, he handed his tool to Brandl and grappled with the hub. A little of the stone still encrusting it crumbled, but the cover itself did not budge.

"Odds and blast," he muttered.

Brandl gave Maruha both picks and, gripping the other set of handholds, he added his strength to the older duarough's. They strained again. This time the metal groaned and gradually gave. Slowly, the cover rotated. It screwed out of the ceiling, shrieking, and fell open with a clang. A brief grin lit Collum's face.

Brandl laughed. Panting, the bearded duarough dusted his hands off on his breeches. The high-pitched baying down the corridor behind them echoed in the close confines of the tunnel. Approaching footsteps boomed. Collum and Brandl hastily pulled Maruha to her feet.

Silently, the girl moved past them and climbed upward through the hatch. As she emerged, she heard Brandl following. Collum quickly boosted Maruha through, then came himself. A moment later, he pulled the hatch to, and the sound of their pursuers was abruptly cut off. Collum screwed shut