A shiver went down Nemienne’s spine, but she could not tell whether this was because of the memories of the cavern under Kerre Maraddras or because of the mage’s cool tone. She asked cautiously, “Do you know what… what any of that means, any of the things that happened last night?”
The mage lifted an eyebrow and served them both porridge without answering. The rice was perfectly cooked, but Nemienne, finding herself with little appetite, only stirred hers around in the bowl.
“You saw no one else under the mountain?” Ankennes asked.
“No,” Nemienne answered, and then paused. “There might have been somebody else. Right at the beginning. He wasn’t there later. I’m not… I’m not certain he was there at all.”
“He was,” the mage said, a trifle grimly. “Briefly.” He tapped the tips of two fingers against the table, lost in thought. After a moment, he added, “Your sister is fortunate that you have the inclination toward magecraft. And that you love her. Or I suspect she, like the man you so briefly perceived, would have followed the music you heard into a darkness deeper and more constant than even the darkness under Kerre Maraddras. I gather Enkea did not lead you out?”
Nemienne admitted the cat had not, and the mage sighed. “She has her own inclinations, that creature. How did you find your way out, then? Sideways as before, back to your sisters’ house? No? You emerged in Cloisonné House?” The mage was momentarily surprised by this, but then went on after a moment, “Well, that was one of the other houses Meredde Uruddun built, I believe, and its cellars delve perhaps a little deeper among the mountains’ roots than is wise. And your keiso sister might have pulled you toward her House, I suppose. One would not have expected her bond with Cloisonné to be so strong, but clearly she has been swift to make a place there for herself.”
Nemienne hesitated. They had not found themselves in Cloisonné’s cellars, and she didn’t think Karah had had anything to do with drawing them toward Cloisonné House. But she didn’t know how to say so. “I don’t—” she began.
“But it was well done of you to find a path out,” the mage added, and rose, collecting the empty bowls and dropping them in the sink. Then he offered Nemienne a hand up. “Come along, Nemienne. It may be as well to show you the ordinary method by which most of us find our way into the heart of the mountain. I believe you may have rather an affinity for the dark after all, and possibly a natural inclination toward the Dragon of Lonne. That might be useful.”
Nemienne’s heart tried to leap up and sink at the same time. She discovered that she simultaneously feared and longed to look again at the dragon. She was sure Mage Ankennes meant to take her back to that cavern. Every detail of the dragon, every shift of the pale light across the powerful shoulder and elegant head and delicate antennae, was engraved in her memory. At the same time, she wanted to see it again and assure herself that her memory was indeed accurate and true. Distracted by this intense confusion of feeling, she let the mage draw her to her feet without speaking. Behind them, Enkea lifted her head and blinked after them with her emerald eyes, but did not volunteer to accompany them.
The black door, when the mage led her to it, was ajar again. A cold draft came through the crack, redolent of water and stone and, Nemienne thought, the subtle scent of darkness itself. She shivered.
The mage frowned as he studied the door. “Hmm.” He transferred the frown to her. “You didn’t… No,” he answered this question, whatever it had been, himself. Then, leaving this ambiguous negative unexplained, he reached out with one powerful hand to lift a tall lamp, its oil already alight, out of the air. Then he shoved the door wide.
The caverns beneath the mountain lay immediately beyond the black door. Light from the lamp streamed through the doorway to reveal white stone formed by the pressure of time and darkness into graceful draperies and tall pillars and fragile needles.
Mage Ankennes summoned a lamp for Nemienne, too. She took it gratefully and edged after the mage into the caverns. He strode out briskly, with the air of a man who knows his path well.
Nemienne followed with rather less confidence. She knew she should have felt safe in the mage’s presence, and she did, in a way. But in another way, and though she didn’t understand why, she would almost have preferred to come here again on her own, or with the unpredictable Enkea.
Though she listened carefully, Nemienne could hear nothing now that resembled piping. If Karah’s pipes had been used last time to draw a path into the dark, clearly Mage Ankennes did not need such a tool to make his own path. He continued to walk quickly, his lamp held high, its light pouring out to reveal fantastic structures of stone. Nemienne paused to admire a fragile stone needle, longer than she was tall and yet not half so wide at its widest point as her smallest finger. A drop of water clung, trembling, to its tip.