He was careful about his ascent, choosing a ridge that would overlook the point of the minor rockslide and picking a route that provided the best natural cover. Then he settled down to watch.

For a long time nothing happened. When a whiff of some foul odor tickled his nose, he had been cramped too long in one position to be able to move fast enough—one strong hand caught his arm behind him and wrenched it up high on his shoulderblade, and another was clapped over his mouth. Jayge had always considered himself strong, but though he struggled, he could not pull himself from those clever and painful holds.

“Always said you had the brains in the family, Jayge,” Readis whispered softly in his ear. “Don’t struggle. Dushik’s watching somewhere nearby. We have to get down behind him, go in from the other side, and get her out of that pit before the snakes eat her alive. That’s your aim, isn’t it? Nod your head.” Jayge managed some movement, and the hand over his mouth eased. “Dushik’d kill you as soon as look at you, Jayge.”

“Why did you kidnap that girl?” Jayge twisted around to look at his uncle, who maintained the tight armlock. The man was filthy with slime, haggard, and red-eyed, with gaunt cheeks and a very bitter line to his lips. His clothes were ragged and equally slimy, and he had a length of slime-coated rope slung over his shoulder.

“I didn’t! I’m not mad or malicious.” Readis’s whisper ended in a hiss. “I didn’t know what Thella had in mind,” he continued, mouthing the words with little sound.

Jayge kept his answer as muted as his fury would permit. “You knew she wanted to kidnap Aramina. You arrived at the Weyr with that bogus packet of letters.”

“That was bad enough,” Readis said wincing. “Thella has a way of making things seem rational. But throwing a young girl down a snake pit is not rational. Not rational at all. I think Thella went raving mad when the dragonriders attacked the hold. You should have heard her laughing all the way up that tunnel she made the drudges cut. I don’t think you’ll believe me, but I tried to stop her loosing that avalanche. Then I was stuck, trying to save Giron. He’s dead, by the way. She nicked his throat that first night.” Readis shuddered. “I’ll show you where the girl is, and I’ll help you get her out. Then I’m disappearing, and you bask in the glory of your heroic efforts.”

Jayge believed his uncle; believed the desperation behind the scoffing words. “Let’s get her out then.”

Readis headed around the ridge, pushing his nephew in front of him.” I threw her down a water bottle and some bread when I had a chance. Hope she heard it coming and ducked. Duck!”

Jayge’s head was pushed down, his cheek slamming against a boulder. He could feel Readis suspend his breathing and did the same until his lungs threatened to burst. Finally a nudge told him that he could move and he inhaled gratefully, taking great, deep breaths. Then Readis signalled to move forward again.

It took a long time to negotiate the slope to the spot that Readis was aiming for. Jayge’s muscles were cramped with strain by the time they reached an overhang, and the sky was beginning to darken. Jayge was not comforted by the thought that it would be darker where Aramina was. Readis crawled under the ledge and disappeared. Jayge followed, inching along on his belly and elbows and pushing forward on his knees and toes. He felt the slime that coated the ground, and he wondered how anyone had managed to push an unconscious girl down the hole.

At the touch of a slimy hand on his face, he pulled away, banging his head on the roof of the low tunnel and just barely managing to bite his tongue on his curse.

“Touchy, aren’t we?” Readis commented in a low voice. “We can walk from here, and it’s not far this way. Dushik must be guarding the more accessible entrance.”

As Jayge got to his feet, he was surprised to see a dim light coming from a thin fissure far above their heads.

“Don’t speak loud when we do get to the pit,” Readis instructed, “but you do the talking. We’re going to have to haul her up. The faster the better.”

The dim light from the ceiling crack faded, and then they were in a very dark tunnel. Readis laid an arm across him, signalling for silence. For a long while they listened and heard nothing but the dripping of the water down damp walls—until the silence was abruptly broken by a soft moan that reverberated hollowly, as if from a long way down.

Suddenly a light blazed and Jayge crouched in alarm, but as his eyes adjusted, he realized that Readis had lit a dim, almost spent glowbasket. And in the faint light he could see the yawning open pit before them.

“Talk to her, Jayge,” Readis murmured. “I’m rigging a loop at the end. She’s to put it under her arms and hang on tight.”

“Aramina,” Jayge said tentatively, cupping his mouth with both hands to focus the sound as he bent over the awesome edge of the pit. “Aramina, it’s Jayge.”

“Jayge?” His name began as a scream and ended in a gasp.

“Tell her not to let everyone know,” Readis said acidly.

“Quietly, Mina,” he called, the nickname he had misunderstood that day near Benden Hold coming easily to his lips. “You’re found. A rope is being lowered.” He turned to Readis. “Can’t we send the glow down? She can bring it back up with her.”

“Good thinking.” Readis slipped the noose around the glowbasket and lowered it quickly hand over hand down the pit.

They could see the light descending deeper and deeper. Just when Jayge was beginning to think that the pit was bottomless, the glow stopped.

“Put the loop under your arms,” he told Aramina. “We’re going to pull you up fast, so hang tight.”

“Help me, Jayge,” Readis said. Jayge gripped the rope along with Readis, and it writhed in their hands as she secured it under her arms. Then they began to pull.

Aramina was not heavy, but the coarse rope was slimy, and Jayge was afraid of losing his grip. He dug his fingers into the hemp. When the rough upward movement slammed her into the pit wall, she grunted, and Jayge winced. But steadily the light came closer. Finally Jayge leaned down and grabbed her arm, nearly wrenching it from the socket as he heaved her up over the edge. She clung to him, shuddering and panting. He was lifting her farther away from her ghastly prison when they heard Readis’s gasp of warning. A black shape launched itself on Readis, and before Jayge could put out a hand, two bodies went hurtling into the pit, the screams reverberating in horrifying echoes that made Jayge clasp the girl tightly to him, trying to blot the sound from her ears.

“Come. If Thella’s near…” He tugged the shaking girl to her feet, grabbed the dying glow, and started back the way they had come.

Aramina stumbled but refused to fall. Jayge could feel the tremors shaking her. She was sobbing, and her fingers dug into the flesh of his hand. He hated to ask her to crawl up the cramped dark burrow.

He turned to her to tell her to take the glow and go first. It was only then that he realized that she was not just slimy—she was naked. Her shivering was more from the cold than from reaction or stress, and she would tear the skin from her bones crawling up that tunnel. He stripped off his jacket and thrust her arms into it. It covered her to the hips. Then he pulled off his shirt and tore it into strips to wrap around her knees and feet.

“That’ll help,” he said. “Push the glow in front of you. It’s not far to the surface. Watch your head. Go!”

An eerie moan resounded down the tunnels and corridors of the ghastly cavern system. The weird sound was enough to send her to her hands and knees to crawl, sobbing with fright, into the burrow. Jayge fervently hoped that it had been Thella who had fallen down the pit with Readis.

Somehow they made it out into the twilight. Enough of the glow remained to light their way down the slope to easier ground. He managed to locate the pack he had left behind when he had set out to investigate the rockslide and unstrapped the blanket to put around her before fumbling for his numbweed jar.