The Pearl of the Soul of the World - By Meredith Ann Pierce Page 0,2

our last hidden hold…!"

"Oh, be still," Maruha growled, getting to her feet and dusting the sand from her. "The child is starving and thirsting and in need of our help."

Help. The word reminded the pale girl of something, something… She remembered the face of the young man again, lit only by starlight, half-turned from her. "You cannot help me," he whispered. "I can love no mortal woman while the White Witch lives." Help, help me! she wanted to cry, but the pin robbed her of speech as well as of memory. The young man's image faded even as she groped for it. She buried her face in her arms and wept. Maruha bent to touch her.

"Come, child," she said softly. "Come with us."

The girl lay unmoving, spent. Nothing made sense. She was so weary. She wanted only to rest.

Maruha took her by the arm and hauled her upright.

"Help me, Collum," she panted. "We'll have to carry her."

The bearded duarough remained where he was, arms folded. It was Brandl who came and took the upperlander's other arm. He smelled of grease and candle wax. The scent made her stomach twist and clench, she was so famished. She felt she might swoon. Maruha glared at Collum.

"Suit yourself," she snapped. "I do not know who this child is or why she wears the Witch's pin. But I do know that it marks her as no friend to our great enemy, and by the Ancientlady Ravenna, I mean to get it out."

2

Underpaths

Fish, delicious fish, each as big as her finger: grilled in oil with succulent white flesh and bones as soft as sprouting shoots. The pale girl licked her lips and searched the dish for more. She had been without the duaroughs how long now—a week of hours? A daymonth? Here below-ground, without the light of Solstar and the infinitesimal turning of the stars, she had no sense of the passage of time.

Her companions spent hours tramping the endless corridors, laying camp only at long intervals. The pearl's faint glow passed unnoticed in the darting glare of the fingerlamps the duaroughs carried. Brandl's gaze was always on her; he looked away. Maruha was the kind one, giving her food and drink, even combing out her matted hair, careful now to leave the silver pin alone. The pale girl shivered at the thought of the pin. It never ceased to pain her, but she found that as long as she did not try to remember or speak, the ache was bearable.

She and the duaroughs passed no more open water on their treks, though they crossed many more streambeds—all dry. The underpaths were desiccated, their moisture long vanished. Yet, Maruha always knew where to find water at need. From time to time, with one well-placed blow of her pick, she could release from the passage wall a thin spout. Then the girl drank greedily until Collum shouldered her aside so that he might fill their waterskins. After, Maruha stopped the flow with a peg and marked the wall with a complicated scratch. They moved on.

Whenever they came to a fork, the duaroughs paused and consulted a square of parchment: ancient, brown, and cracking along the folds. The girl saw lines crisscrossing the surface, some of them leading to a great starburst in the center. None of it meant a thing to her. She could not read.

Now and again, they came upon Ancient machinery, and each time, the duaroughs halted to examine it. Long untended, crusted with green and blood-colored flakes, most of it hardly functioned, only the faintest hum coming from its clockwork depths. Some of it did not function at all. Maruha shook her head once sadly when Collum rushed to press his ear to a device.

"We could save it," he said softly. "It wouldn't take long. Only half a hundred hours—we could save it! It hasn't been tended in years upon years."

Maruha again shook her head, more firmly now. "We're just a survey expedition. Mark it on the map, and others will come to tend it in our stead."

"If it lasts so long," Brandl murmured.

Collum rose, scowling furiously, and stalked away.

"Perish the Witch," the pale girl heard him mutter. From beneath tangled brows, he glared at her.

"Perish the Witch and all her works!"

More often than not, the paths they took were narrow and precipitous. Maruha usually went first, her fingerlamp bobbing. Brandl followed, shepherding the girl, with Collum bringing up the rear. They had taken one such way not many hours past: bits of