Page 98 (1/2)
Did Lord Ottonor’s shadow try to crawl into ht in a deep sleep that we ive life to his dead flesh?
What lies buried beneath the City of the Dead? Is this the corpse of old Efea, the secret at the heart of the land?
You know the lies they tell you but you don’t know the truth, so Coriander said to ht-hand wall of the right-hand passageway I a a way out of this maze "Kal, you have the chalk"
"I’ll mark the junctions, Jes," he calls forward We both kno to unravel afor pitfalls and traps The ragged rock scrapes at ht reveals the -dead worke or erased the mark another maze traveler carved in the rock to show their path Suddenly an unseen creature crawls over h "
"I’d have sive o on
Te pass a cleft that leads to an air shaft In the first the shaft is partially collapsed In the second we smell a fetid aroma, and the mark on the shaft indicates it is the tohteen years earlier Perhaps his oracle and her attendants have died
We reach a circular space like a distended gourd There are three possible exits Ro-eentleness She is unconscious and does not wake even when the babies fuss hungrily Cook and Maraya let theainst a wall The oracle stares so blankly I wonder what she sees
Around with head on knees, next to the opening that is the first to the right According to ht, yet the opening isn’t even tall enough to walk upright Its sloped confines hook away into the rock What if the tunnel closes and we are stuck and can’t turn around? How can Mother crawl if she can’t even wake up?
I sit with her hand in ile thread
Kalliarkos crouches besideis another air shaft," he says "It’s clear of debris, and it doesn’t stink I’ll cliet out more quickly that way Everyone needs a rest anyway"
He vanishes up the shaft, taking no light, clis its teeth intothis co in co of thirst, lost in aup beside me, Ro-emnu smiles the way a tomcat prowls "What is your next coy proceeding?"
"I would like to see you do better! Since you seem to believe you know so much!"