Gord shuddered at the thought. Even a ghastly thing like that deserved a cleaner death. Still, when it came down to it, it was a matter of their death or the slug's. Leda was more practical than he, no two ways about it. "You have saved us, girl," he said with calm admiration. "Nice work… but couldn't you have managed it some other way?"
Leda shrugged. "I don't think so, but what's the difference? The swarm of insects came to me, and the summoning has worked. We will go on, and the matter is closed. Do you really concern yourself with that slug?"
"Stupid of me, isn't it?" he replied with a tone of self-disgust. "That bastard would suck me up for lunch without thought, but it is a nasty way to die, that," he said, turning away from the thrashing thing and walking back a short distance with Leda to wait for the insects to finish their work.
After a time they proceeded forward again, stepping gingerly around the area where the bugs were still feasting on the slug's remains. "One thing is apparent now," Gord mused as they walked. "The number of life forms we have encountered lately spells it out clearly for us."
"What's that?"
"Somewhere pretty close ahead is a place where this tunnel gives way to the desert above. All these monsters and other things don't come from inside this aqueduct."
A few minutes later, Leda spoke. "You were right, Gord. There it is ahead, see?" She pointed to a wall of rock and soil about a hundred or so feet farther on up the tunnel, in front of which was a sliver of light that leaked down from the surface above. "Another barrier," she added with disgust as they approached the site.
"It would have been handy to take this tube all the way to our target, and it did seem to be heading southwest, too. Maybe there's a way past this blockage like there was before," said Gord hopefully.
A minor earthquake must have caused the collapse of the tunnel. The fall had totally blocked passage along the aqueduct, although a trickle of water issued from the broken stones and fell to the floor of the corridor. However, Gord and Leda found that they were not without alternatives. There were several dark openings in the sides and floor of the aqueduct at this point. All they needed to do was choose one of the several tunnels they could fit into.
"Now we venture into more interesting places," Leda said to the young adventurer. "This kind of thing makes me feel right at home."
"Do you remember your home, Leda?"
"No… I have no personal memory of that. Still, we drow live in such conditions, I hear – don't you? What more natural, then, than to go traipsing off under an Ashen Desert?"
Gord made a wry face but began checking out the options available. Eventually he narrowed their alternatives to two. "We can try the big hole here," he said to the girl, pointing to the place a slug must have made as a means of entering the aqueduct, "or we can follow the smaller one on the side there. It goes in our general direction, but the large one seems to turn that way also. Your choice."
"Big passage, big monster. Let's give the small one a go."
It turned out to be a good decision. They had to stoop, but the hard-walled passage went almost straight southwest, if slightly upward as well. Pretty soon it intersected with the floor of a bigger hole, the trail of a much larger slug that had come this way a long time previously, judging from the decaying condition of the tunnel it had left. Neither liked the looks of the place, but they had to follow it anyway. The smaller creature had done so, evidently, for there was no sign of its continuing passage anywhere nearby.
The new passageway took them more south than west, a bit off course, but still they were making good time. There were odd growths here, some sorts of fungoid material that needed little moisture, creeping things, and occasional chitterings – bats, rats, and probably even little mice. Leda didn't turn a hair at any of it.
"Now what?" Gord asked as they arrived at another decision point. There was nothing but dust and soil directly ahead, and only three possibilities for them. A hole slanted down, and another slug burrow intersected their tunnel at a right angle.
"Down," said Leda without hesitation. "That's where water would be. We must be close to the surface by now, and it's high time we delved downward again. With luck, we'll find a maze of new passageways there."
"What if the creators of the tunnels are there, too?"
"Have your weapons ready," Leda answered dryly.
Gord sent a large, flat stone down the slope of the passage first, listening to the sound of its slide. After several seconds he heard a faint clatter; then there was silence. "Hmmm… Be prepared to slow yourself after a couple of seconds, Leda. I think there's a drop at the bottom of this hole. Give me a short time, then set out behind me," he told her. Then Gord got out his dagger with his left hand and lowered himself gingerly into the opening.
Negotiating this passage wasn't as easy as he had hoped it would be. Gord found that by some perverse instinct, the slug that had formed; this tunnel had decided to alter course to a more steeply slanting, nearly vertical, one after about thirty feet. It took all of his strength, pushing with forearms and knees against the sides, to slow his drop into the tube. The tunnel turned slightly toward the horizontal again for a few yards. Then, without warning, there was nothing beneath his feet.
"Hellish hoppin' toads!" The expostulation came unbidden. Fortunately, so did his frantic reaction to keep from falling. As Gord felt the solid ground disappear from beneath him, he instinctively tried to halt himself. His right hand slammed hard against the side of the tube, while his left shot out to do the same. The sharp point of his dagger pierced the hardened slime that formed the passage. It held there, nearly dislocating his arm as the solid hold it gave him jerked him to a stop.
"Whew, that was a close one," Gord muttered to himself as he rested on his elbows at the edge of the hole, feeling his lower body swinging free in space. A wind blew, ruffling his truncated robe. "I must be hanging out over the edge of a chasm!" Then he heard a shuffling, grating sound from above that terrified him. Leda was sliding down the passage after him, just as he had told her – no doubt holding her sword out, ready to run him through!
Chapter 14
SOMEWHERE ABOVE, WHERE the wind sent great clouds of dust and ash flying across the rolling wastes that had once been the Grand Empire of Suel, the struggle for life continued as it had for centuries. Wire-tentacle trees snared incautious animals, as did stinging whips, the low bushes that never grew near the predatory trees' wire-tentacles. Eight-barbs and snakeweeds fought for smaller morsels, while hungry rodents and insects feasted on the seeds and sprouts of these plants. Jumping cacti and touch-me-nots caught unwary birds and other flying things, as sliver sticks shot sprays of stuff at any warm object that passed near, so that the bits of wood would lodge in flesh, grow, and flourish. Basin plants offered the mirage of water; shower shrubs gave occasional sprinkles of the precious fluid – and deadly poison thereafter as well.
The ashworms just below the surface ingested minerals and deposited wastes upon which other things fed and grew, and of course the multitude of these worms fed insects, birds, shrews, moles, and many other creatures as well. Dust archers exchanged shots with needle-birds; spotted pit vipers and deadly ash arrows slithered through the powdery land after their own prey. Dust striders and wolf spiders of large size lurked or ran, chasing or being chased by paddle-foot lizards and long, black centipedes. When darkness fell, packs of dogs, wolves, jackals, and big-footed, long-legged foxes ran over the dust. Sometimes the lurking dustfish took one of these canines, other times their packs dined on the flesh of the high-finned denizens of this place. In many forms and at many levels of activity, life went on.