Hama opened the entrance to the tunnel again and led the way back down.

      The first part of the way was back the way they’d come, but then they took a turning and headed down a tunnel they hadn’t seen before. It was narrow and cramped, and Thomas suspected that the Kronosians had dug it themselves since the great disaster. He understood Lilly’s fears. If the Nobles should find out about these tunnels, it would go very badly for the common people who’d been using them. The wonder was that Lord Basil had never learned about them with his Ring of ESP. It was probably as Andricus had said, he supposed. With five thousand people living in the city, he couldn’t read everyone’s mind, and those who knew of the tunnels would have taken care to stay away from him.

     A few minutes later they arrived at another bowl set in the ceiling and Hama gave another coded series of knocks. The bowl was lifted a moment later, and another elderly man peered down at them. His face brightened when he saw Hama, but he frowned when he saw the small crowd of strangers behind him. “Ham?” he said suspiciously. “What’s going on?

     “Can we come in, Tomsk?” said Hama.

     Tomsk hesitated for a moment, but then nodded and lowered a rope ladder. Like Hama before him, he knew there was no point in turning away people who knew about his secret tunnel. Better to let them in and find out what they wanted and what their intentions were.

     He listened intently as Hama repeated what Andricus and the Tharians had told him, telling it as though he believed it even though he still had his doubts. “And you believe all this nonsense?” he asked when he’d finished.

     “I don’t think he believes it completely yet,” said Andricus, “but I do. I’ve seen this girl here healing people with a touch and a prayer. See this?” He showed them the slash in his steel breastplate made by the Runeblade. “I was cut badly across the chest here, but now there’s not the slightest mark on my skin. Nothing to show I was ever injured. And you must have heard the stories about them from before they fled the city.”

     “A healer?” said Tomsk, looking closely at Diana. “Aye, I have heard stories, from the days when they worked for the Nobles.”

     “Those days are gone,” assured Diana. “We don’t work for them any more.”

     “And you’re a healer, are you?” he asked. She nodded, and he rolled up a sleeve to show her a nasty bruise on his arm. “A guard gave me this just for looking at him funny. Let’s see you heal it if you’re telling the truth.”

     Diana nodded again and gently touched the bruise with the fingertips of her left hand. Normally she wouldn’t have bothered with such a minor injury, holy power being much too precious to squander in that way, but this was obviously a test which would determine how they were received by these people. She prayed obediently to Caroli, therefore, and the bruise vanished, leaving the old man gaping in wonder.

     “All right,” he said, rolling his sleeve back down again. “I believe you.” He turned to Hama. “Leave ‘em wi’ me, Ham. I’ll take care of ‘em.”

     “Good of you, Tom,” replied Hama. “I owe you one.” He said goodbye to his grandson and the Tharians and then disappeared back down into the tunnel.

     “We’re going to have to make up a cover story to account for your sudden appearance here,” said Tomsk. “Suppose we say you used to live in Konnen sector and moved down here to get away from the hustle and bustle? It’s close enough to the truth.”

     “Sounds good to me,” agreed Shaun.

     “I’ll get one of my sons to find a good place for you. There’re plenty of empty homes just a few doors from here. Wait here a minute.”

     He left through the front door and returned a few minutes later with a bearded man in his late forties wearing clay stained overalls. He was, apparently, a potter, and Thomas wondered where he got the clay from. Did the Lifegiver produce things other than food?

     “This is Morley, my eldest,” said Tomsk proudly. “He’ll get you changed into some proper clothes, and then he'll show you a few good places. You can choose the one you like the most.”

     Morley clearly wasn’t happy with this, though. He was staring at them with naked fear and also, they noticed, with resentment bordering on anger, and the Tharians once again had to give reassurances that they would die before betraying them to the Konnens. The potter didn’t look reassured, and this gave the Tharians pause for thought as they wondered whether he would save himself from Konnen retribution by betraying them to the Konnens himself. That might save him and his wife and children, but it would certainly result in the arrest and execution of his parents. They had to hope that his love for his parents was enough for him to risk himself and his own family. That wasn’t a gamble that Thomas would have wanted to make, but they had no choice. He looked at the others, and saw that they were as unhappy with the situation as he was.

     They thanked him, though, and the potter engaged in a little small talk, which was clearly an attempt to get a measure of their character and morality. This reassured the Tharians, though, as it suggested that he might risk trusting them if they could convince them that he wouldn’t regret it.

     “Everyone has a few old clothes tucked away,” he told them. “I’ll scrounge up what I can from the neighbours, the ones I know I can trust. The ones who won’t ask questions.”

     “What will they think you want them for?” asked Diana. “Won’t it be obvious you’re hiding people?”

     “We use old clothes for all kinds of things,” Morley replied. “Stuffing mattresses, making carpets. It’s really not that suspicious, but there’re people I’ll stay away from just in case. The ones who love to stick their noses in other people’s businesses.”

     He then left, and the Tharians waited uneasily, not knowing whether the next person to come through the door would be Morley returning or a squad of Konnen soldiers. They fidgeted nervously, feeling helpless, hating the thought that their fate was completely in someone else’s hands, but when the door eventually opened again, seemingly an age later, it was Morley standing there, holding armfuls of threadbare old clothes.

     They stripped down to their underwear again, Diana and Lirenna simply turning their backs on the others while they were bare from the waist up. Tomsk hid their clothes, their glass ceramic armour and Andricus’s armour back in the secret tunnel. The tharians then sorted through the old clothing, looking for something that more or less fitted and that wasn’t too worn and ragged, and a few minutes later they looked almost like Kronosians.

     “It's itchy,” said Lirenna, tugging at the threadbare fabric where it was stretched across her chest. The only shirt that fitted her had clearly belonged to a child.

     “I'm sure your delicate shayen skin will soon get used to it,” said Jerry with a grin. “You can always take it off again if it gets too bad.” She glared at him and he grinned wider.

     They were now ready to venture out into the city, but as they made to leave Tomsk gently touched Diana’s arm. "Would you like to come with me?" he said, “There’s someone I think you’d like to meet.”

     “Someone who needs healing?” asked the cleric.

     “No, or at least she didn’t the last time I saw her. No, I just think you’d like to meet her, that’s all. It can wait, if you prefer.”

     “No, why not?” replied Diana with a bright smile. “I like meeting people. Let’s go.”

     “I’ll come with you,” said Shaun with sudden concern. “Now that we’re back in the city, none of us should be going off alone.”

     “I won’t be alone,” replied Diana. “Tomsk will be with me.”

     “I’ll come anyway,” stated Shaun, however. “Two protectors are better than one.”

     “Is that all right with you?” Diana asked Tomsk.

     The old man nodded. “Fine,” he said. “Come on then.”

     He led the way out into the corridor-street. Tomsk led Shaun and Diana one way, and Morley led the others the other way. They glanced back at each other as they walked, wondering if they were wise to allow themselves to be separated in this way, but then Tomsk’s group turned a corner and they lost sight of each other.

☆☆☆

     Tomsk led Shaun and Diana down one of the radial corridor-streets to a corridor that ran parallel to the one in which his home was. It was indeed a lot less crowded here than in Konnen sector, as Andricus had said, but there were still quite a lot of people walking around, as well as children playing noisily, chasing each other and kicking leather balls around. They saw soldiers as well, and the two Tharians tensed up in fear as they passed them, but they forced themselves to remain calm and just ignore them, to do nothing that might attract attention to themselves.

     Diana could sense that her brother was feeling very vulnerable without weapon and armour, his bare chest exposed to enemy arrows and swords. Also, like her, the soles of his bare feet were soft from a lifetime of wearing boots and they were both feeling every speck of gravel and every irregularity in the stone floor, something that added to his sense of vulnerability. It was pretty obvious that he was more concerned for her than for himself, though. She could see him tensing up, readying himself to fight, every time a man looked at her, and they were looking at her a lot.

     Diana knew that men considered her to be attractive, and the Kronosian style dress she was wearing, tight across the chest and leaving her arms and legs bare, was showing off everything she had to maximum effect. "Easy," she said to Shaun in a low voice as a soldier gave her a particularly lustful look. "We can protect ourselves best by doing nothing, by copying the behaviour of everyone else."

     "I don't like this," the woodsman replied as the soldier strolled away. "If one of them tries something..."

     "I can cool them down," the cleric replied. "The soothing voice of Caroli is a powerful tool. If one of them does try something, it's very important that you do nothing. Just let me talk to them. Let the soothing voice of Caroli do its work. If you let your emotions get the better of you, though..."

     "Yeah," her brother replied. "I know. I'll try, but it's hard. Very hard."

     Eventually they came to the right door and Tomsk knocked on it with a liverspotted, slightly arthritic hand. The door opened, and a middle aged woman, her straw coloured hair tied up in a bun, looked suspiciously out. “Yes?” she asked nervously. “Oh, it’s you, Tomsk.”

     “Got someone to meet Clarissa,” said the old man. “They can be trusted. Is it all right?”

     The woman examined her visitors closely. She was very suspicious and obviously very nervous of strangers. “Who are they?” she asked. “What do they want?”

     “Who is it, mum?” came a young girl’s voice. The woman spun around sharply, about to warn her daughter to stay out of sight and keep silent, but the girl had already emerged from a doorway and was peering curiously at the visitors. Diana leaned over a little to look past her mother, who was frantically trying to shoo her daughter back to where she’d come from.

     The girl was about sixteen years old by the look of her. She had her mother’s sandy blonde hair, which she allowed to hang loose down her back and across her shoulders, and her eyes were bright, innocent and intelligent. She came forward to see them better, full of curiosity and ignoring her mother’s attempts to stop her. Shaun wondered why she was being so protective when other children were allowed to play freely in the streets. Was there some reason why Clarissa had more reason to fear the soldiers than other children? And if so, what could it be?”

     Diana found herself curiously fascinated by the child. There was something about her, something more than just her obvious beauty and innocence. She looked at her, and Clarissa looked back. Their eyes met. Their eyes locked. The child stepped forward, a look of puzzlement on her face, and this time her mother made no move to stop her.

     What was it about this child? wondered Diana in fascination. There’s something about her. Something... It occurred to her suddenly that the child was staring at her the same way, the same question running through her mind, and suddenly it hit her. Her jaw dropped in astonishment, an expression Shaun had never seen on her face before, and Clarissa’s eyes widened in wonder as the truth hit her as well. They both spoke at the same time, saying the exact same words. “Oh my Lady!”

     “What’s going on?” demanded the girl’s mother fearfully, afraid that she was being left out of something important. “Chrissy, what...”

     Clarissa had forgotten all about her, though, and leapt forward, throwing herself tearfully at Diana’s feet. “Oh my Lady!” she sobbed joyfully. “Oh my Lady! I can’t believe it!”

     Diana pulled her to her feet, her vision also blurring with tears, and they hugged each other fiercely until Tomsk, fearing that they might be seen, ushered them in through the door.