The dark elf thought a moment. "You might be right, for with great magic and many workers, the thing could be done by such ones as once ruled these lands. Would not their chief city, their grand capital, be situated on such a river as you envision?"

"If they had any inkling of what might befall them, Leda, they would utilize the natural advantages to make their secret hideaway too. The destruction would end the flow of water, but a remainder would continue deep underground – a supply for the survivors to use for generations, if not forever."

Then this passage – actually an old riverbed, it seems – should eventually bring us to the City Out of Mind itself, Gord."

There was doubt on the young man's face as he replied, "We will travel another hundred and more miles, all of it underground? This seems too farfetched."

At that Leda laughed. "You are a surface-dweller, dear Gord, and not steeped in the darkness which exists beneath the world where sun and moons shed their rays. A hundred miles? That is no distance at all! There are tens of hundreds of miles of passageways in the subterranean realms, my dearest one. Be assured, this is certainty the route for safety and survival that the lords of the lost empire laid down for themselves an eon ago."

Leda's words were indeed prophetic.

Chapter 16

A SOUND BEHIND THEM made them start. After a minute it was clear that a large body of things, whatever they were, was approaching from down the tunnel, and there was no place for Gord or Leda to go. They were in semi-secluded positions about a hundred feet in front of a guarded entranceway, a crude wall and two square towers of stone manned by a group of albino pygmies. They had spent a few minutes standing here, pondering what to do next. Now their choices were much more limited, since they could not retreat.

"I can climb and conceal myself, I think, Leda. First we must think of some way for you to hide."

"Help me up there," she replied, indicating a ledge about nine or ten feet above their heads. "And don't worry – see?" As she said that, Leda disappeared for an instant, then flashed back into Gord's view again.

The ring you took!"

Tes, from that spell-caster you flattened with the door. It fits on my little finger perfectly. Now, boost me up."

Gord made a stirrup with his interlocked fingers, and the dark elf stepped into the proffered palms. The young adventurer then lifted her to where she could grab a jutting bit of stone, placed her feet on his shoulders, and with that Leda was able to get up to the ledge. Gord saw her step into a recess there, and then she was gone from sight.

It was no challenge for him to scale the wall of the passage. The sandstone had so many projections and indentations in it that climbing it was almost as easy for him as walking up a flight of steps. Gord clambered up as far as he could without being upside down, then moved sideways until he found a place where he could squeeze between two slabs of rock. Shielded from even infravisual sight, he could still peek and see what happened, who passed, and what passed when they arrived at the blocking position ahead.

He had hidden himself just in time. A score of the mute, blond-maned baboon-things came loping along the passageway, traveling on all fours most of the time. Now and then one or two would stand upright and peer around, then resume their shambling progress. Behind them came as many of the white, midgetlike men, a half-dozen in front, ten flanking, and four at the rear, behind a double file of humans who were bent and groaning under incredible burdens. These bearers were blind in the darkness and moved with a shuffling gait to avoid stumbling. All were men, and some looked fit and hale still – but only a few. Most looked very bad off in Gord's estimation, and the way they staggered and groaned reinforced his opinion. He figured that more than half of them would never again serve as beasts of burden after this ordeal. Gord wondered if their pygmy masters would simply allow them to die or kill them out of hand. Cannibalism was likely, he suspected, with fiends such as those albino creatures were.

With sharp prodding and cruel titters, the line of pygmies and their enslaved bearers went past, never realizing that they were observed by the dark elf and Gord. When they came near the wall and its pair of towers, the pale little creatures there made hand signals, to which the leader of the train replied in kind.

Then two of the pygmies actually spoke to each other, but even Gord's acute hearing was unable to pick up their conversation. As they spoke, the rest of the albinos kicked and prodded the slaves into motion, and the procession filed through the gap between the blocky towers that guarded whatever lay beyond.

He was almost fifty feet away from where he assumed Leda to be, but it took only a brief time for Gord to slip out of his hiding place and sidestep over and down to the spot where Leda waited. As Gord descended onto the ledge, the dark elf appeared, in the act of coming forth from the niche in which she stood. "Could you see what transpired?" Gord asked her.

"No, the slaves blocked my line of sight. What happened?"

"The chief of the group made some sort of sign-talk with the captain of the guards, and then they spoke together. I don't know what was said, but the whole band marched in while they talked. What are we to do now?"

"Can you scale the wall beside the guard towers and remain unseen?" Leda asked.

"That, dear girl, is a good question. The wall is nothing, but I am not sure about how alert those little white bastards are. If they are on their guard, I doubt they could fail but to notice my activity."

"But if there was a distraction?"

"Then it should be no problem. I can be up and on the other side the moment that the sentries are occupied elsewhere."

Leda smiled at him. "That's what I hoped you'd say. I can move very quietly myself, Gord, and with the ring I can remain unseen, too. I will sneak up to the guards. When I am near or inside the gateway, I'll find something to do to cause a commotion, and that will be your cue. Watch the guards, and when they look elsewhere, or go away, make your move. Get away from the wall quickly, and I'll wait a bowshot along the path for you."

Gord helped Leda down to the floor of the tunnel, whereupon she became invisible again and went off to do her work. He crept up along the side of the tunnel until reaching the juncture where wall met cavern side. The matter was almost laughable, for the stones that were piled up to ward the passage were so badly fitted that a child could have scaled the twenty feet to the top without danger of falling. There was an ample number of sentries in the area, though, and most of them bore small arbalests of odd design. Recalling what happened to the former owner of the invisibility ring when he was struck by one of the envenomed bolts these crossbows shot, the young man was especially glad that the attention of the guards would be elsewhere when he topped their barrier.

Without making his presence known, Gord kept careful watch on the sentries. Several minutes went by, and still the guards seemed undistracted. Then the one nearest Gord, some thirty feet away on top of the wall, started to gesture violently, evidently replying to some fellow of his located closer to the towers. The first albino then let his weapon drop to his side and jogged toward the towers himself.

Now that there was no one within at least forty or fifty feet, Gord took the opportunity to climb up and over the barrier, which he accomplished in a matter of a few heartbeats. Once atop the parapet, the young thief simply crept across to the far edge, hung from the dropoff by his fingertips, and lightly dropped the fifteen feet to the rock floor beyond, collapsing into a ball and rolling away from the wall as he landed.