dozens of times as big! Distantly she heard free water. Because she associated the sound with outside vastness, this inside seemed even larger.
All the hall’s center, a metal brazier, wider across than Gorgik was tall, flickered over its coals with low flame. As they descended, Pryn looked up to see half a dozen balconies at different heights about the walls. One corner of the hall looked as if it were still being dug out. Earth and large stones were still heaped there. On another wall she saw a carved dragon, three times a man’s height – though from the rubble piled low against it, it, too, had only recently been dug free. Overhead, large beams jutted beneath the ceiling, from which, here and there, hung tangles of rope.
As they came down the steps, someone called: ‘The Liberator!’
A roar rose from the fifty, seventy-five, possibly hundred fifty people about the hall. (Pryn, unused to crowds, had little experience by which to judge such numbers.) It quieted, but did not die. The whispers and comments of so many, echoing under the high roof, joined with the sound of falling waters.
Pryn looked aside as she reached the bottom step.
Water poured between squat columns beside one of the balconies, the falls spewing fog that wet the rock behind it, to rush, foaming and glimmering, along a two-meter-wide ditch. The conduit ran between carved balustrades; after going beneath one bridge of stone and one of wood that looked as if it had been recently built between the remains of a stone one which had fallen in, it ran off through an arched culvert in the dragon-carved wall.
Some of the floor was tiled, but most was dirt, scattered with loose stones. As they walked, Gorgik bent towhisper, ‘Yes, that stream is part of the system that feeds the public fountain …’
‘Oh,’ Pryn said, ‘yes,’ as if she had been pondering precisely the question he had answered. Was that the way one began to think like a Liberator? she wondered. It’s as though
all
of Nevèrÿon makes sense to him! At least all of this city.
They crossed the wooden bridge and passed near enough to the brazier to feel heat from its beaten, black walls. Ahead were more steps, five or six. They led up to a large seat, half covered with skins. A stone wing rose at one side from under a tiger’s pelt. From the other, a sculpted bird’s head, beak wide in a silent screech, stuck from black fur.
The others halted. Hand still on Pryn’s shoulder, Gorgik went to the steps. At the first one, he bent again. ‘Sit at the foot here.’
The third step from the bottom was covered with white hide. Pryn turned and sat on it, running her hand over it. She felt grit. White cow? Horse? (Who, she wondered, had charge of cleaning them?) She put her heels on the edge of the step below, while Gorgik mounted to the seat.
Pryn looked out at the people waiting about the hall. She looked up at Gorgik – his horny toes with their cracked edges and thickened nails pressed the black and white hair of a zebra skin four steps up and level with her nose.
‘My friends – !’ The Liberator’s voice echoed under high vaults. (Pryn glanced at the ceiling and thought of the tavern above. Had it been anywhere near the size of this subterranean vastness?) ‘It’s good to see so many familiar faces – and good to see so many new ones!’ The foot moved a little. Firelight shifted on tarnished bronze: Gorgik sat on the hide covering the seat. (Was it as dusty as the one under her own heel?) ‘Still, it reassures me that our number is small enough that I can address youinformally, that I can gather you together so that my voice reaches all of you at once, that I can walk among you and recognize which of you has been with us a while and which of you is new. Soon, our growing numbers may abolish that informality.’
Pryn again looked over the faces that had, at least a moment back, seemed numberless.
She started!
Beyond those standing nearest, she saw, in his ragged
All the hall’s center, a metal brazier, wider across than Gorgik was tall, flickered over its coals with low flame. As they descended, Pryn looked up to see half a dozen balconies at different heights about the walls. One corner of the hall looked as if it were still being dug out. Earth and large stones were still heaped there. On another wall she saw a carved dragon, three times a man’s height – though from the rubble piled low against it, it, too, had only recently been dug free. Overhead, large beams jutted beneath the ceiling, from which, here and there, hung tangles of rope.
As they came down the steps, someone called: ‘The Liberator!’
A roar rose from the fifty, seventy-five, possibly hundred fifty people about the hall. (Pryn, unused to crowds, had little experience by which to judge such numbers.) It quieted, but did not die. The whispers and comments of so many, echoing under the high roof, joined with the sound of falling waters.
Pryn looked aside as she reached the bottom step.
Water poured between squat columns beside one of the balconies, the falls spewing fog that wet the rock behind it, to rush, foaming and glimmering, along a two-meter-wide ditch. The conduit ran between carved balustrades; after going beneath one bridge of stone and one of wood that looked as if it had been recently built between the remains of a stone one which had fallen in, it ran off through an arched culvert in the dragon-carved wall.
Some of the floor was tiled, but most was dirt, scattered with loose stones. As they walked, Gorgik bent towhisper, ‘Yes, that stream is part of the system that feeds the public fountain …’
‘Oh,’ Pryn said, ‘yes,’ as if she had been pondering precisely the question he had answered. Was that the way one began to think like a Liberator? she wondered. It’s as though
all
of Nevèrÿon makes sense to him! At least all of this city.
They crossed the wooden bridge and passed near enough to the brazier to feel heat from its beaten, black walls. Ahead were more steps, five or six. They led up to a large seat, half covered with skins. A stone wing rose at one side from under a tiger’s pelt. From the other, a sculpted bird’s head, beak wide in a silent screech, stuck from black fur.
The others halted. Hand still on Pryn’s shoulder, Gorgik went to the steps. At the first one, he bent again. ‘Sit at the foot here.’
The third step from the bottom was covered with white hide. Pryn turned and sat on it, running her hand over it. She felt grit. White cow? Horse? (Who, she wondered, had charge of cleaning them?) She put her heels on the edge of the step below, while Gorgik mounted to the seat.
Pryn looked out at the people waiting about the hall. She looked up at Gorgik – his horny toes with their cracked edges and thickened nails pressed the black and white hair of a zebra skin four steps up and level with her nose.
‘My friends – !’ The Liberator’s voice echoed under high vaults. (Pryn glanced at the ceiling and thought of the tavern above. Had it been anywhere near the size of this subterranean vastness?) ‘It’s good to see so many familiar faces – and good to see so many new ones!’ The foot moved a little. Firelight shifted on tarnished bronze: Gorgik sat on the hide covering the seat. (Was it as dusty as the one under her own heel?) ‘Still, it reassures me that our number is small enough that I can address youinformally, that I can gather you together so that my voice reaches all of you at once, that I can walk among you and recognize which of you has been with us a while and which of you is new. Soon, our growing numbers may abolish that informality.’
Pryn again looked over the faces that had, at least a moment back, seemed numberless.
She started!
Beyond those standing nearest, she saw, in his ragged
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