Di An chewed her lower lip as she considered. “The old giant sleeps in the Hall of Arms. We can fetch him,” she said. Riverwind felt relief wash over him. She turned and dashed off along the dark corridor.

“Di An, wait!” he hissed. Riverwind followed, banging his shins on table legs and chairs that crouched broken in the shadows. “Wait for me!” he called hoarsely.

They met again on the short causeway leading from the palace to the Hall of Arms. Vartoom was eerily calm. The furnaces and forges were still idle, and the streets barren of elves. Hand in hand, the tall plainsman and the elf girl stole down the sloping bridge.

The Hall of Arms was filled with snores and snorts. Warriors slept in every available spot. Di An moved lightly around the recumbent forms. Riverwind had to walk with great care. More than once he nudged a sleeping soldier, but the Hestite merely grumbled and rolled away from River-wind's feet.

Catchflea lay with his back against a curving buttress, hands folded across his stomach. Di An and Riverwind stood over him. The elf girl looked to Riverwind. He nodded. She bent over to prod the old man awake, but before she touched him, Catchflea's eyes opened.

“Greetings,” he whispered. Di An was so surprised, she lost her balance and sat down hard. Her copper clothing made a loud clink against the stone floor.

“Shh,” came a voice from the darkened hall. “Tryin' t'sleep…”

Riverwind hauled Catchflea to his feet. Clumsily the three of them crept out of the hall.

“What's this about?” Catchflea said when they were on the causeway.

Riverwind ruffled Di An's short hair. “I've made a pact with Di An. She is going to guide us up and out.”

Catchflea blinked and looked toward the girl. “Oh? And what do you get out of this pact?”

“I'm to grow up,” the elf girl said importantly. Catchflea opened his mouth to say something further, but Riverwind forestalled him.

“Time is short,” the tall warrior said. “We must gather supplies and get away before Mors notices our absence.”

“Wait,” Catchflea said. “I want to consult the acorns.” Di An was baffled, so Riverwind explained what the acorns could do.

Catchflea knelt at the mouth of the cave and silently intoned the magical words. He then overturned the gourd.

“Well?” asked Riverwind.

“It's not good. Are you certain you want to hear it?”

“Go ahead.”

'The oracle says, 'One will die, one will go mad, and one will find glory.' ” No one spoke for a long time.

Finally, Riverwind cleared his throat. “You know, old man, you haven't handled those acorns in quite some time. Maybe you've forgotten how to read them.”

Catchflea scooped up the nuts. “Whatever our destiny is, we have to go meet it; it won't come to us.”

The strange trio hurried down the causeway, Di An in the lead. Before they left Vartoom behind them, Di An gathered climbing gear and food for them to carry. The food was mostly thick, heavy wheat bread filled with nuts, dried fruits, and a little meat. It was much like the pemmican Riverwind had begun this journey with. The elf girl also recovered Catchflea's acorns and gourd and Riverwind's saber. She found their possessions in a cabinet in Li El's private chambers. The old soothsayer hugged the gourd to him like a long-lost love.

Di An led them out of Vantoom,, turning toward the far end of the great cavern, where the plainsmen had never been before. Here the floors and walls converged in a rocky funnel shape, with only a round black opening leading out.

There was no soil to grow things here, only rock and mineral concretions. They climbed over the jutting stones toward the hole ahead. Riverwind observed that the opening seemed too smooth and round to be natural.

“It was only a crack many centuries ago,” Di An said. “The sons of Hest had it widened.”

“Why?” asked Catchflea.

“For the tombs of the great,” the elf girl said. “Here are the resting places of Hest and all his sons.”

The temperature dropped suddenly when they entered the tomb cavern. The natural shape of the cave had been adapted into a vaulted corridor. Along the walls were larger than life-sized statues of Hestites in full armor. They all had the same expression, something between a sneer and a frown. The actual tombs were niches cut in the rock between the legs of the statues. Hammered bronze doors sealed each grave.

Riverwind halted before a statue of a Hestite. The warrior held a short bow in the crook of his arm. He knew the living Hestites had forgotten how to make or use bows, so he asked Di An how old the grave was.

“This is Lord Trand,” she said, reading the glyphs engraved on the tomb doors. “Victor of twenty combats. He died eighty years after Hest led the people into the caves.” She counted quietly on her fingers. “Two thousand, four hundred and eighteen years ago.”

“When the wood rotted, the Hestites were no longer able to make bows,” Catchflea mused. “Until scouts like Di An went to the surface and found ones.”

'Two thousand years ago,” Riverwind said. “Di An, how old are you?”

She scampered ahead among some tumbled rocks. “Two hundred and sixty-four,” she said.

Catchflea bumped into Riverwind's back. “Pardon! What's the matter?” he asked. Riverwind told him Di An's remarkable age. “The barren children do grow older. They just never grow up, yes?”

“Come this way!” Di An's voice wafted back. The orange glow of her mineral oil lamp rose and fell as she waved to them. Riverwind reminded himself not to treat her like a child. After all, she was more than ten times as old as he.

Di An was waiting for them in a seeming dead end. The lamp threw odd highlights on her sharp features.

“What now?” asked Riverwind.

“We must go through there.” Di An pointed down. At knee height there was an opening in the wall. It was as black as the Abyss and promised to be a tight fit for the humans.

“Go through that?” said Catchflea. “There is a better way, yes?” Di An solemnly shook her head. “Surely you didn't use this tunnel every time you went to the surface.”

“No, I mostly used the shaft you fell down,” she said. “This way should put us out on the surface near where you fell down the shaft.”

“Should?” Riverwind asked.

“I haven't gone this way in a long time.” Di An squatted and slipped into the hole easily. Riverwind motioned for Catchflea to go second.

Catchflea got down on his belly and wriggled into the hole. “Ow!” he cried, his feet still scrambling in Riverwind's sight. “Low ceiling!”

“I'll keep that in mind,” Riverwind said dryly. When the old man's feet finally disappeared, he dropped down and peered into the cramped tunnel. The old feeling of being trapped by the massive weight of stone, returned- Riverwind took a deep breath and thought of Goldmoon.

The tunnel was just barely wider than his shoulders. He had to inch along, rocking his shoulders from side to side and pushing with his toes. The only light was the bobbing lamp Di An pushed ahead of her. By common consent they had agreed to use only one lamp at a time, to conserve oil.

It was warmer in the tunnel. Catchflea's mutterings ahead were sometimes punctuated by Di An's higher-pitched voice. Sharp stones dug into Riverwind's elbows and chest, and brushing the tunnel roof invited a scalp cut. How much longer? Would they have to go all the way to the surface in this rat hole? He would go mad, suffocate, scream, and tear at the rocks. The hard, unyielding rocks…

“Stand up, Riverwind.” He opened his eyes and saw Catchf lea's much-patched moccasins in front of his face. The tunnel had opened onto a ledge in a wide vertical shaft, whose upper limit was lost in velvet darkness.