"Said he was wanting."

"Oh, yes, wanting. They brought what he wanted here just an hour ago, cloven hoof and two men binding. Only four horns, but enough, enough, a little one but enough. I want nothing of him. Go on, through here."

She led the way into a cavernous passageway. Forced to bend in the low tunnel, following right behind the woman, Orem couldn't hide from the stench of her; she was foul. But the way was not long. They came to a room with a round hole in the ceiling and two heavy ropes coming down. One rope was taut and tied to a stout iron ring bolted to the floor; the other was also taut but hung free through a hole near the ring, going down deeper into the house.

The fat woman positioned them opposite her and bade them stand away from the ropes, while she fairly enveloped the fastened one in her belly and breasts, holding to the free rope with both hands. She grunted and pulled down on the free rope. The floor rose under them.

Not the whole floor, but a circle of it, and it wobbled madly. They rose past one floor, past another, and finally stopped at the third. Segrivaun lifted them a few inches clear of the floor, then began rocking back and forth. It was a terrifying motion, and Orem couldn't balance fast enough to keep from falling. But when he fell, the platform fell also, and enough to the side of the hole that it stayed as Segrivaun stepped to the caught edge and held it there with her weight.

Braisy quickly took the lamp a few steps away, to where some heavy boards lay on the floor. He took one up, spanned the hole in the floor with it, it, and shoved it under the edge of the circle of wood. Segrivaun stepped off, and now apparently the need for whispering was through.

"Get up," Braisy said impatiently.

Orem stood, stepping back quickly from the circle and the hole. Fire searing, lecher leering, number finger, Stone Road, Bone Road. The thread was complete. Orem knew that now was his chance, if he swung into the hole and dropped to the floor below, then climbed down the free rope to the bottom, then retraced all his steps—

Segrivaun's huge hand closed on his arm. Orem tried to pull away.

"There's some tried it," Segrivaun said. "They're all dead, though. All got lost in the catacombs."

I won't.

"But Braisy's paid three silvers already, he doesn't want a dead one, does he, doesn't want a lost one. Come on."

Segrivaun opened a door, and they stepped into a tiny chamber. Braisy closed the door after them and set the lamp on a high shelf. He took a deep breath. "Strip," he said. And meant it, for he began taking off all his clothes himself. Orem unbelted his shirt and pulled it over his head, uneasy at not knowing what was going to happen. Segrivaun, too, was undressing; modestly she turned her back to them and pulled acres of cloth over her head. Her buttocks, Orem saw, were as loose as her breasts, and nearly reached the floor.

Orem untied the sandals from his calves, let them drop to the ground. Braisy kicked them into a corner. Then, when Orem was too slow with his winder wrap, he yanked on it, pulled it free. The last of Orem's money dropped to the floor, rolled. Braisy had all three coins before they were still. "The last of what you owe me."

"Never miss a minim, do you?" the fat woman chuckled. She crossed her arms across her chest in a mockery of modesty; the huge black nipples of her dugs hung far below, where her hands could not possibly reach them. "They're ready in there, ready for sure."

Orem reached down and picked up his clothes, bundled them under his arm. Braisy reached out and knocked them down, then opened the door.

It was bright inside. A round room, with stone walls and no windows. A stairway came up one wall, curving. Candles hung all along the walls, and there was a small fire in a clay pot, which stank with some heavy, sweet smell that burned Orem's nose. The stones of the wall were so huge that Orem knew immediately that this was one of the towers of the Hole. One of the towers, and surely the towers were held by the guards; surely he was betrayed.

Then he saw the four-horned hart in the middle of the floor and he had no thought for walls and soldiers.

The Hart in the Tower

The hart was alive, its eyes staring in terror. It lay on its back, a helpless and unnatural pose, its four legs tied and stretched off in the four directions, pegged to the floor. At the joint of the hind leg and the belly a cut had been made, and the hart's blood was pumping out in sluggish flows into a low copper pan held by an old man. An old man who was naked but for a deerskin over his shoulders: a doeskin, for the head was hornless where it rested on his grey and tousled hair.

"Hartkiller!" Orem cried softly. And in the moment that his name for the crime hung in the stony, silent air, the hart died. Its head went slack, its tongue lolled:

It was a deep voice that rumbled out from under the doe's skin. "A boy," he said. "And from High Waterswatch, where they keep the memory of the Hart. What have you brought me?"

"His name is—"

But Braisy was silenced by the wave of a hand. The old man's long-fingered hand seemed to have too many knuckles, too many joints. A single finger rose straight into the air, but from the back of the hand, so that the angle grew painful just to watch: all the other fingers straight down, and this single finger pointing upward.

The fat woman lumbered forward. The old man dipped a finger of his other hand into the copper pan and touched the bright bloody tip of his finger to her tongue. Braisy also tasted, and Orem, too, found the finger reaching for his tongue, and licked the cooling blood. It was sweet, it was sweet, and it burned all the way into his throat.

Braisy and Segrivaun stared at him with wide and frightened eyes. What was wrong? Orem grew afraid and looked behind him, but there was nothing there. It was he who frightened them. What change had the hart's blood wrought in him, that they should look at him with such horror?

"What is the price?" asked Segrivaun in a high voice. "Oh, God, a pilgrim's trap!"

Braisy giggled nervously. "You didn't tell me, boy. Cheater, cheater, God hates all liars."

Orem did not understand. What was this talk of God and pilgrims, with a hart bled to death on the floor, with the taste of hart's blood in all their mouths?

Something hot touched his leg. Orem looked down. It was the wizard's hand, still split wide like a keener's jaws, fastened to him.

"Not a pilgrim, are you?" said the deep voice. It sounded kind. "Not a pilgrim, and yet still we see you, we all see all, when all should have vanished at the taste of hart's blood."

Vanished. They were supposed to disappear. And blamed the failure of it on him.

"Forgive me, Gallowglass," Segrivaun began.

"Forgive you? Forgive you a dozen silvers' worth, that's how I forgive you. What woe you've brought me. What trouble is here in this miserable boy. A dozen silvers, Segrivaun. You little know who guided your footsteps through the low way, Braisteneft. You little know who drew you up the spider's line, Segrivaun."

Gallowglass stood. He was tall for an old man. He faced Orem with gaze level. "And so early, and so young. What haste."

Orem did not know what the old man meant. He only knew that Gallowglass's eyes were filled with tears, and yet his face looked acquisitive.

"How long will they let you stay, do you think?" he said softly, as if to himself. "Long enough, perhaps. Too long, perhaps. But worth this, yes. If you can leant—if I can teach—"

Abruptly Gallowglass's hand flew through the air, paused directly in front of Orem's face, and that single upraised finger lowered swiftly and sat upon Orem's eyeball. Rested on the open eye, yet Orem did not blink. He just stared at the pinkish black of the old man's finger, vaguely aware that it was hot. Suddenly the finger came into impossibly clear focus. Every whorl and twist was visible, and in them he could see, as if a hundred yards below, dizzyingly far down into the finger, thousands of people milling about, screaming, reaching upward to him out of the maze of whorls, pleading with him to release them.