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A treadrew on her, and she started to think it real, when suddenly her foot ht rebounded as high as her knee

They had reached the bottoht flew up to join the spoken word, circling her head In its light she saw that they had cohly hewn froe led off from the chamber into darkness There was an iron bucket next to the passage, filled hat looked like torches, sis

Lirael walked forward as the Disreputable Dog jumped down behind her, closely followed by Sa the passage Somehow she felt that it was safer not to raise her voice

The Dog sniffed at the air and nodded

"I wonder if I should take--" Lirael said, reaching out for one of the torches But even before her hand could close on it, the torch puffed into dust Lirael flinched, al, who stepped back into Sam

"Watch it!" Sam called out His voice echoed in the well shaft and reverberated past Lirael down the corridor

Lirael reached out again, erly, but the other torches also simply fell into dust When she touched the bucket, it collapsed in on itself, beco a pile of rusted shards

"Tiuess we have to go on," said Lirael, but she was really only speaking to herself They didn’t need the torches, but she would have felt better with one

"The faster the better," said the Dog She was sniffing the air again "We do not want to tarry anywhere under here"

Lirael nodded She took one step forward, then hesitated and drew her sword Charter htly on the blade as it came free of the scabbard, and the na into the inscription Lirael had seen before Or was it different? She couldn’t remember, and the words rippled away too quickly for her to be sure

"The Clayr Saord and so I was Remember the Wallht reassured Lirael, or perhaps it was just the feel of Nehima in her hand

She heard Sam draw his sword behind her He waited for a few seconds as she started on again Obviously he did not want to trip and i or Lirael frohly approved

For the first hundred paces or so, the passageas of worked stone Then that suddenly ended and they came to a tunnel that was not the work of any tool The red rock gave way to a pallid greenish-white stone that reflected the Charter lights,Lirael hood her eyes The tunnel seemed to have been eroded rather than worked, and there were the patterns of , floor, and walls Yet even these seeh Lirael didn’t knohy She just felt their strangeness

"No water ever cut this way," said Sa, too, now "Unless it flowed back and forth at the same time on different levels And I have never seen this kind of stone"

"Wein her voice that made Lirael move more quickly An anxiety she had not heard before Perhaps it was even fear

They began to walkover or falling into so tunnel continued on for what felt like several ain carved by unknown means out of the same reflective stone There were three tunnels off this, and Lirael and Sa sniffed carefully at each entrance

There was a pile of what Lirael thought was stone in one corner of the cavern, but when she looked at it more closely, she realized it was actually a mound of old, powdery bonesthe mound with the corner of her boot, she separated out several shards of tarnished silver and the frag one unbroken tooth

"Don’t touch it," Sam warned in a hasty whisper, as Lirael bent to inspect the ments

Lirael stopped, her hand still outstretched

"Why not?"

"I don’t know," replied Sa across his neck "But that’s bell reed Lirael She stood up and couldn’t help shivering herself Human bones and bell metal They had found Kalliel What was this place? And as the Dog taking so long to decide which way to go?

When she voiced the question, the Disreputable Dog stopped her sniffing and pointed her right paw to the center tunnel

"This one," she said, but Lirael noted a certain lack of enthusias The hound had not spoken with total confidence, and even her pointing had wavered If she had been in a pointing conificantly wider than the previous one, and the ceiling higher It also felt different to Lirael, and not because there was more room to move At first she couldn’t place what it was; then she realized the air around her was growing colder And she had a strange sensation around her feet and ankles, al around her heels A current that swished one way and then the other, but there was no water there

Or was there? When she looked directly in front or down, Lirael saw stone But when she looked out of the corners of her eyes, she could see dark water flowing Co back, like a wave falling upon the shore A wave that was trying to knock them down and sweep the way, it reminded her of the river of Death But she did not feel they were in Death, and apart fro cold and the peripheral view of the river, all her senses told her that she was firround

Then she s sweeter, and at that an to vibrate in their pouches Their clappers stilled by leather tongues, they could not sound, but she could feel the to break free

"The bells!" she gasped "They’re shakingI don’t knohat"

"The pipes!" cried Sam, and Lirael heard a brief cacophany as the panpipes sounded with the voices of all seven bells, before they were suddenly cut off

"No!" shouted a voice that was not instantly recognizable as Mogget’s "No!"