It lasted a minute, maybe less. Then it was over.

Cautiously, over half an hour, Maddy crept closer to the pit.

The eruptions occurred at regular intervals-Maddy guessed every five minutes or so-and she was soon able to recognize the signs and get under cover when danger threatened. Even so, the going was not pleasant; the air was scarcely breathable, and soon Maddy’s shirt and hair were stuck to her skin with steam and sweat. There must be an underground river, she thought-maybe even the river Dream on its way down to Netherworld-meeting the cauldron of fire as it passed, each element fighting to dominate the other until at last they burst forth together in a spume of superheated air.

Still, she never thought of giving up. There was something in the fire pit, some force that drew her as surely as a fish on a line. This was no trick, she told herself, nor was its power anything she had encountered before. Whatever it was, it was very close, and Maddy had to curb her impatience as she inched her way forward.

Once more the geyser burst forth. Maddy, now less than twenty feet away, felt the blast in the small of her back and, as soon as it began to die down, crossed the remaining stretch of rocky floor toward her goal. She stepped up onto the lip of the well and, shielding her face with a fold of her jacket, looked straight into the eye of the pit.

It was smaller than she had expected, no wider than a foot across, and as round and regular as a water well. Her eyes had been deceived into thinking it larger by the intensity of the furnace within, and it was lucky for Maddy that she had covered her face, for already her vision was blurred, like that of someone who has looked into the noonday sun.

Jed Smith’s forge was a candle in comparison; here, metals and rocks bubbled like soup a thousand or more feet below the lip of the pit, and the stench of sulfur came to Maddy on a column of air so hot that it crisped the hairs in her nose and raised blisters on her unprotected hands.

She bore it for less than five seconds. But in those seconds Maddy saw the heart of the mountain, burning brighter than the sun. She saw the sink through which the river drained and the meeting of forces within the pit. And she saw something else in that fiery throat: something blurred and difficult to see but that spoke to her as plainly as the signatures she had followed through the passageways.

The thing was not large-the size of a watermelon-and was roughly rounded in shape. It might have been a lump of glowing rock, suspended by who knew what forces in the gullet of the pit.

Surely there could be little hope of recovering anything from such a hiding place. The most skilled climber could not reach it; even assuming he could somehow withstand the blaze, the geyser would shoot him back out of the pit like a cork from a bottle before he had covered half the distance.

Besides, any fool could see that the thing was caught fast: a flexible webwork of glamours and runes bound it tighter than the strongest of chains.

As she watched, the rock seemed to glow even brighter, like an ember beneath the blacksmith’s bellows. A thought as absurd as it was troubling struck her-It sees me-and looking down into the pit, she could almost believe she heard it now-a strong, soundless call that seemed to drill into her mind.

(Maddy! To me!)

“The Whisperer.”

Now she began to move away, breathless and almost fainting from the heat, once more using the rocks and hollows of the cavern for shelter. She could do no more for the present. All she could hope for was to recover her strength and try to think of some kind of plan or, if she could not, to find her way back to the Red Horse and tell One-Eye that, whatever his disappointment in her failure to bring back the Whisperer, he could at least be fairly sure that no one else would ever lay hands on it.

It was cooler at the edge of the cavern, and the air, though noxious, was easier to breathe. Maddy rested there for some time, letting her eyes adjust once more to the gloom. There were smaller caves set into the cavern’s sides, some barely alcoves, others as large as fair-sized rooms, which might give reasonable shelter from tremors and eruptions.

In one she found a trickle of clean water and drank gratefully, for her thirst had begun almost to equal her hunger.

In another she found a vein of dull yellow metal almost as thick as her arm running through the wall.

And in the third, much to her surprise, she found a stranger standing with his back against the wall and a loaded crossbow pointing straight into her face.

4

For a second or two she was confused. The figure in the shadows seemed to have no shape, no substance-all she could see was his eyes and a slash of light across his mouth that flickered and glowed. But if her mind was fuddled, her hands seemed to know exactly what to do. Impulsively she raised them and, without a moment’s hesitation, cast Kaen-Wildfire-as hard as she could into the stranger’s face.

Why Maddy had chosen that particular rune she could not have told you, but its effect was immediate and devastating. It struck her would-be attacker like a whip, so that he dropped his crossbow with a howl and fell to his knees on the cavern floor.

Maddy was almost as stunned as he was. She had acted on pure instinct, with no anger and no desire to harm. And now that she could see him more clearly, she was surprised to discover that her assailant was not the giant super-goblin she had imagined, but a slim red-haired person not much bigger than she was.

“Get up,” she said, kicking the crossbow out of his reach.

“My eyes,” said the stranger behind his upflung arms. “Please. My eyes.”

“Get up,” she repeated. “Show me your face.”

He looked no more than seventeen. His red hair was tied back, revealing sharp but not unpleasant features, now drawn with pain and distress. His eyes were streaming, and there was a vicious welt across the bridge of his nose where the mindbolt had struck, but otherwise-to Maddy’s relief-there seemed to be no lasting damage.

“My eyes.” In the light from the distant fire pit they were a curious, flaming green. “Gods, what hit me?”

In all events he was no goblin, but Maddy could tell at once that he was not from the valley, although there was nothing outlandish in his bearing or dress. A little ragged, perhaps, as if he had traveled rough; his leather jacket was deeply stained, and his boots were worn thin at the soles.

Slowly he got to his feet, squinting at Maddy, one hand lifted defensively in case of another attack. “Who are you, anyhow?” His accent marked him as a stranger-a northerner, from the Ridings perhaps, judging from the color of his hair. But Maddy, who had initially been alarmed at finding him, was now surprised at the depth of her relief. To see another human being after so many hours alone in the caverns was an unexpected joy, even if the stranger did not share it. “Who are you?” he repeated sharply.

Maddy told him.

“You’re not with them?” he said, jerking his head at the upper levels.

“No. Are you?”

“You’re a Fury,” he said. “I can see your glam.”

“A Fury?” Maddy looked at her runemark and saw it glowing dully on the palm of her hand. “Oh, that. It won’t hurt you, I promise.”

She could see the stranger was not convinced. Every muscle in him seemed tensed, as if he were uncertain whether to run or fight, but his eyes stayed fixed upon Maddy’s hand.

“It’s all right-I won’t spell you. What’s your name?”

“Call me Lucky,” he said. “And keep your distance.”

Maddy sat down on a rock by the entrance. “Is that better?”

“For now, yes.”

For a moment they faced each other. “Do your eyes still hurt?”

“What do you think?” he snapped.