And then, as if we had passed through the neck of a funnel, we were suddenly falling and sliding more swiftly and freely. I kicked my feet, making vague swimming motions, and felt the Fool likewise struggling alongside me. I felt us sliding to a halt, in cold wet darkness. It terrified me, and I made the final struggle that our bodies demand we make when death clutches us. Then, somehow, against all odds, I was breaking free of the snow. I gasped a breath of almost clear air and floundered toward it, dragging the Fool with me. He came limply and I feared he had already smothered.

All was darkness and cold and cascading snow and ice. I was hip-deep, pulling the Fool behind me, and then suddenly the snow let go of me. I waded out of the knee-deep stuff and then blundered clear of it. I heard the Fool take a wheezing gasp of air. I found a breath myself, and then two. Tiny settling crystals of ice still filled the air we breathed, but even so, it seemed such an improvement. We were in darkness.

I shook snow from my hair and dug handfuls of it out of my collar. My hat was gone, and one boot. All was black around us, and the only sounds were the indescribable creaks of settling snow and our own harsh breath. 'Where are we?' I gasped, and my

little human voice was the muffled squeak of a mouse in a bin full of grain.

The Fool coughed. 'Down here.' We had let go of one another, but still stood close enough for our bodies to touch. He was huddled at my feet, and I felt him doing something, and then a pale, greenish light opened out from his hands. I blinked, at first seeing no more than the glow, and then realizing that it came from a small box in his hands. 'This won't last long,' he warned me, his face ghastly in the corpse-light. 'At most a day. It is Elderling magic, of the most expensive and rare sort. Not all of my fortune went for gambling and brandy. A good portion of it is right here in my hand.'

'Thank the gods for that,' I said heartily. For a fleeting instant, I wondered if that was the sole true prayer that Web had once referred to. Dim as the light was, it was still an immeasurable comfort to me. It was just enough to light both our faces as we looked at one another. The Fool's hat had stayed on his head. His pack dangled from one strap, the other torn free from him. I was shocked it had stayed with him at all. My sword belt and sword were gone. As I watched him, he strapped his little pack shut again. We did not speak for a moment or two as we shook snow from our clothing, and then lifted our eyes to peer at our surroundings.

We could see nothing of them. Our light was too dim to show us more than the slide of snow we had emerged from and ourselves. We were in an under-ice hollow or cavern, but the Elderling lantern could not reach the walls of it. No light trickled down from above. I decided that the flood of snow that had followed us had re-sealed whatever crack we had fallen through. Then, 'Thick! Oh, Eda, give him the sense to Skill to Dutiful and Chade what has happened. I hope he just stays where he is on the sled. But when night and cold comes, what then for him? Thick!' I suddenly bellowed the word, thinking of the vague little man left sitting alone on a sled in a world of ice.

'Shush!' The Fool reprimanded me sharply. 'If he hears you shout, he may get off the sled and come toward the crack. Be quiet. His danger is less than ours, and I'm afraid you must leave him to face it alone. He'll Skill out, Fitz. His mind is not swift, perhaps, but it

works well enough and he will have plenty of time to think what to do next.'

'Perhaps,' I conceded- My heart felt squeezed. Of all the times to be deprived of my Skill, this was the worst. And then in the next instant, the loss of Nighteyes gutted me again. I missed his instincts and survivor's outlook. My heart caught in my chest. I was alone.

And drowning in self-pity. The thought was as acid as if it had truly come from Nighteyes. Get up and do something. The Fool's survival depends on you, and possibly Thick's.

I took a deep breath and lifted my eyes. The fickle green light of the little box showed me nothing, but that did not mean there was nothing to see. If there was no other way out, then we must risk causing another cascade of snow by trying to dig up through it. It there was a way out, then we should find it. It was that simple. Standing here whining like a lost cub would not avail me anything. I reached down and pulled the Fool to his feet. 'Come. There is no going back up. Let us see where we are. Moving will keep us warmer.'

'Very well.' He spoke the words so trustingly that they nearly broke my heart.

1 would have welcomed one of our snow poles, but there was no guessing where they were buried now. So, the Fool held his little box of light out in front of us, and we groped our way forward.

We encountered nothing. If we stood still and held our breaths, we could hear water dripping and the bone-deep slow breath of the ice around us. Under our feet, the ice was gritty. We could not see a ceiling above us. We were in a starless night, and our only contact with the world was the solidity under our feet and each other. We did not even see the blackness of a wall before us until we blundered against it.

We both stood touching it for a time, saying nothing. In that stillness, I became aware of the Fool shivering and the shuddering of his breath. 'Why didn't you tell me you were that cold?' I demanded of him.

He sniffed, and then laughed weakly. 'Aren't you? It seemed a useless thing to speak of it.' He dragged in another chattering breath and asked, 'Is that ice or rock?'

'Lift the light and we'll sec' He did. But then said, 'I still can't tell. But it's something we can't pass. Let's follow it.'

'It may take us right hack to where we came.'

'It may, and there's no help for that if it does. If we go all the way round and come right back here again, at least we'll know there is no way out. Here. A moment.' I set my hand to shoulder height on the wall, and then reached for my belt-knife. It was gone. Of course. The Fool still had his, and I borrowed it to scratch a rough mark on the wall. It seemed a futile gesture.

'Left or right?' I asked him. I had no sense at all of north or south.

'Left,' he said, flapping a hand vaguely in that direction.

'A moment,' I said gruffly, and unfastened my cloak. He tried to fend me off when I put it around his shoulders.

'You'll get cold!' he protested.

'I'm already cold. But my body has always warmed itself better than yours. And if you drop from cold, it will not benefit either of us. Don't worry. If I need it back, I'll let you know. Just wear it for now.'

I only realized how cold he was when he immediately surrendered. He dropped his pack to the floor and handed me the Elderling light while he fastened the cloak. He was shaking as he held it close around him. I lifted the box and decided it was not just the greenish light that made him such an odd colour. He gave me a very small smile. 'It's still warm from your body. Thank you, Fitz.'

'Thank yourself. That's the one you gave me when I was acting as your servant. Come on. Let's get moving.' I lifted his pack before he could. 'What else is in here?'

'Nothing of much use, I'm afraid. Only a few personal things I wouldn't wish ever to lose. There's a little flask of brandy in the bottom. And I think a few honey cakes. I brought them for an emergency, or perhaps a treat for Thick.' He gave a strangled laugh. 'Emergency. But not this. Even so, I think we should save them as long as we can.'

'Likely you're right. Let's go.'

He did not move to take the light, but kept his arms wrapped

around his body. So I held the light and led the way as we followed the black wall beside us. I could tell by the way he walked that his feet were going numb. Despair threatened to engulf me. Then the wolf in me dismissed it. We were still alive and moving. There was hope.