The hole was not perfectly vertical, but had a slight angle of about ten degrees, giving it a distinct upper and lower surface, for which Thomas, holding onto Lirenna's unconscious body, was extremely grateful as it gave him a chance to control his descent to a degree.

He couldn't stop completely, the smooth, glassy tunnel was much too slippery for that, but by lying flat and pressing his heels and the palms of one hand against the tunnel walls he was able to slow himself to some extent. He was still going lethally fast if he came to a sudden obstruction, but it gave him enough control over his descent to quell a near sense of panic as he rushed feet first into the unknown.

As he fell, the wizard felt the tunnel slowly bend into a more horizontal angle until friction brought him to a halt, leaving him lying on his back in a still fairly steeply sloping tunnel without enough room to sit up or enough light to see by. The total darkness and the claustrophobic feeling of being shut in on all sides brought a nervous shiver to him as he lay there, but then he gave a sudden start as he remembered that Shaun and Diana would be following close behind, very fast and feet first. It was the soldier who worried him more than the cleric, as his greater size and weight would carry him further than he, probably to a painful collision. He gave a nervous whimper and wriggled and slid his way further down the tunnel, imagining the big, heavy fighter getting closer with every passing second.

Eventually, to his relief, he and the demi shae emerged from the end of the tunnel which was level with the floor of a large open area. Another cave. He felt hands reaching down to help him to his feet. Matthew and Jerry, who'd slid down the tunnel before him.

"Don't go wandering around," he heard Matthew say in the darkness. "Jerry says there's a hole in the floor somewhere. We don't wanna fall down it."

Thomas nodded, forgetting that the other man couldn't see him in the darkness. He imagined the creature that had made the hole he'd just slid down. A wormlike creature probably, with the ability to move through solid rock as easily as earthworms move through soil. He imagined it boring its way upwards until it came to the cave, where it was forced to slither along the floor until it came to the wall where it could re-enter the rock. They were lucky that the creature had come across the cave. If they'd been less lucky, the tunnel might have led straight down to the centre of Kronos, and it was all too likely that if he fell down the hole in this cave, that was exactly where he would end up.

He heard a slithering sound coming from nearby and then Diana was calling softly for help. He groped his way along the wall but Jerry got there before him and helped the cleric crawl out of the opening. A moment later Shaun emerged as well, his greater weight having carried him all the way to the bottom in one go. "Are you all there?" he asked. "I can't see a thing."

"We're all here," Jerry replied. "I can see you all by your body heat. Be careful where you stand. Lirenna's lying just beside you."

Thomas knelt on the ground, which he was surprised to find had a slightly spongy texture. His thoughts were too fixed on Lirenna to wonder about it, though, and he felt for her hand, feeling for the pulse in her wrist. It was strong and regular and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Where are we?" he heard Matthew asking.

"Dunno," replied Jerry. "I can't see a thing."

"What about your infravision?" asked the young soldier. "You can see in the dark."

"I can see variations in temperature," corrected Jerry. There was an annoyed tone to his voice that made Thomas smile despite their situation. "I don't know how many times I'm going to have to explain this," the nome continued. "I can see your body heat, but everything else down here is a uniform temperature, so it's just a featureless blur to me. Look, let go of me will you? You're hurting me."

"Sorry," apologised Matthew. "It's just spooky, not being able to see anything."

"Funny," the nome muttered to himself. "Usually, I can at least make out the positions of the walls and ceiling. I've never known a cave to be this uniform in temperature. We're inside the smallest moon, of course. Different kind of rock, different thermal properties. I'll just have to get used to it."

Anyone got any light?" asked Shaun, who sounded as scared of the dark as his brother.

"We brought the glowbottles," replied Thomas, swinging the backpack off his shoulders and opening it. "They're in here somewhere." He fumbled around for a while, but the backpack was stuffed as full as they could possibly get it and although he pushed his hand all the way to the bottom in all four corners, he failed to find the smooth, round bottles. "Damnation!" he swore. "I can't see a thing."

"Please, my Lady," said Diana in her praying voice. "Give us some light, I beg of you. We are lost in the darkness and need your shining light to guide us. Please, my Lady, hear my plea in the hour of our need."

Gradually, her silver caroli flower began to glow with a soft, silvery light, and soon the cave was lit brightly enough for them to see to its farthest corner. "I didn't know you could do that," said Matthew in surprise, adjusting his silken bathrobe to cover his modesty.

Diana smiled. "I sometimes forget that My Lady has the power to do other things than just heal people." She looked up at the ceiling and continued the prayer, thanking the Goddess for responding to their need.

They looked around at the cave in which they now found themselves. It was bigger than they'd first thought and as well as the two smooth circular worm holes, the one they'd come in through and another near the middle of the floor where it continued down, there were two other exits, presumably dug by the Agglemonian miners in search of iron ore. That was good. With two tunnels to choose from, the Konnen guards who would soon be following would have to divide their forces to search them both. They just hoped that the tunnel they chose didn't lead to a dead end.

One other thing about the cave attracted their attention. Large patches of the cave, scattered across walls, ceiling and floor, were covered by a strange black velvety substance, and when they went to have a closer look, they saw that it was moss.

"Mana moss," said Thomas thoughtfully. "The same stuff we found along that underground river leading to the Underworld. I wondered what I was kneeling on. The miners must have carried the spores with them in their clothing or something."

Then his attention was captured by the insects and worms living in among the moss, feeding on it and each other. The mana moss, which used ambient magical energy rather than light as a source of energy, was very slow growing, but it was enough to provide the foundation of a food chain, and that was worrying because they already knew that there were rats in Kronos, and he could easily imagine the omnivorous rodents living quite happily on a diet of insects and worms and breeding in large numbers. That in turn led him to imagine the miners bringing up cats to control the rats, and possibly other forms of cave life as well. A giant amoeba, for instance, would clear a tunnel of all life; moss, insects, worms, rats and all, leaving just bare rock behind it, and so would be very useful indeed to the busy miners. He prayed fervently that it wasn't so. With all their problems, the last thing they needed was to encounter unfriendly and possibly hostile wildlife.

"That's why I couldn't see anything with my infravision," said Jerry. "The blasted moss smeared out all the temperature differences in the underlying rock. I hope this stuff isn't common down here."

"I've got a feeling it will be," replied Shaun. "It's had plenty of time to grow and spread. Come on, let's get out of here. They could be coming after us any moment." He looked nervously back at the tunnel they'd come in through.

"Can you finish healing Lenny first?" Thomas asked Diana as they prepared to leave. "We'll be able to move much faster if she can walk rather than having to be carried."

Diana looked thoughtful and Thomas remembered her concern that someone else might be injured before she had a chance to rest and clear her head. Then she nodded, though, and reached her hands under the demi shae's jacket to touch her back, her sensitive fingertips searching the smooth skin for the scar left by the knife wound. As she prayed to the Goddess for Healing, lines appeared around her eyes, making her look older as the power of the Goddess took its toll of her. A good night's sleep would take care of most of that, restoring most of her youthful beauty, but channeling the power of a God always caused a mortal to age prematurely and both Shaun and Matthew looked unhappy as they imagined their sister withered and grey while still in her forties.

It took long time before the healing had any perceptible effect, but eventually the demi shae stirred a little and made a moaning sound. Her eyes opened and she looked around in confusion.

"Where am I?" she asked sleepily, struggling to focus on Thomas's face.

"Safe," replied the wizard, grinning with happiness and relief. "For the moment, at least. Can you walk?"

"I think so," She struggled to her feet, but slipped and nearly fell. Thomas caught her under the arms and pulled her gently upright until she was standing, and she held onto him for support. "I feel a little weak," she said, still sounding sleepy. Diana began another prayer, this time a blessing, sprinkling a little holy water over her head from a bottle she took from a pocket. The demi shae brightened immediately, coming fully awake and able to stand on her own.

"Now remember," warned the cleric. "You're not fully healed, so you have to take it easy. We'll pray together again tomorrow, and if Caroli's willing that should see you fully back to rights, but until then take it easy and let me know immediately if your back starts to hurt. Okay?"

Lirenna promised, and thanked her warmly for the healing, but it was Diana who appeared the worst off of the two right then. She'd rarely channeled so much of Caroli's power in one go and had to be helped to her feet by Matthew, who steadied her as she lifted Lirenna's jacket and shirt to look at her back. The skin was completely healed, but both women were almost totally drained and would need a long rest before they were back to their usual selves.

"We need to get out of here," said Jerry, staring at the hole they'd come in through. "They could be after us at any moment."

Everyone gave a start of alarm as if they'd momentarily forgotten their peril, but then they gathered their belongings and, choosing a tunnel at random, headed down the one on the right. Thomas held his backpack in his hands as he walked, taking advantage of Diana's divinely created light to find the dim red glowbottle and the bottle of activating fluid. He hung the glowbottle by its cord around his neck and put the activating fluid in a pocket before slipping the backpack into its rightful place on his back.

"How do you feel?" he asked the demi shae from just behind her, the tunnel being not quite wide enough for them to walk side by side.

"Okay," she replied, turning her face to smile wearily at him. "A little wobbly. I thought I was dead."

"Nonsense," replied Thomas, putting an arm around her shoulders and giving her a squeeze. "You'll never die."

"Ssh!" hissed back Shaun, however. "The Konnens might be following us already. They might hear us. Keep quiet."

Thomas nodded reluctantly, and they walked on in a tense, anxious silence.

After about a hundred yards the tunnel joined up with a much larger one, wide enough for all of them to walk side by side. The ceiling arched above them and the floor was flat with ruts worn in it by centuries of ore laden carts. Mana moss grew everywhere, some of it six inches long with tough wooden stems which crunched under their feet as they walked, and they caught a brief glimpse of a small animal, probably a rat, disappearing into the darkness surrounding the cleric's circle of light.

Shaun looked both ways down the dark, echoing tunnel. "Which way?" he asked.

"That way leads out of the city," said Jerry, pointing to the right. Like all nomes, his underground sense of direction was almost infallible. "The other way leads back towards the centre of the city. You know, that room with the deep shaft in it." The others nodded, remembering.

"So we go right, then," said Matthew.

"No, that's what they'll expect us to do!" said Shaun, though. "They'll expect us to run, to try to get as far away as we can as fast as possible! They won't expect us to turn left, to head back into the city."

"No, and neither do I," replied Matthew. "We'll be trapped when we get to the end of the tunnel."

"Not necessarily," said Shaun, however. "I suspect there are several tunnels like this one, and that they all run away from the centre like the spokes of a wheel. If we can get to the centre, therefore, we can choose any tunnel we want, and they'll have to search them all to find us."

Matthew looked doubtful for a moment, but then he shrugged. "What the hell," he said. "Any plan is better than no plan. Okay, let's go."

They turned left, therefore, and ran along the tunnel, aware that they'd lost a lot of time standing and talking and that the Konnens could be right behind them.

As they ran, another thought came to Thomas. An alarming thought that made him almost stumble in mid step in fear. He looked behind at the moss they were running over and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw most of it springing back up, concealing the broken stems. He'd been afraid that they might have been leaving a trail of broken moss for the Konnens to follow, in which case they'd have been found eventually no matter how devious they were. "Thank the Gods!" he panted gratefully as he continued to run.

Sure enough, after a couple of hundred yards the tunnel opened out into a large cavern with a high ceiling. A gleam of light was shining from an opening in the ceiling. It was the bottom of the shaft that ran up through the city and on up to the observatory on the surface where, back in the golden days of the old Empire, ingots of refined iron had been sent back to Tharia via the teleportation cubicle. The crumbling remains of half a dozen ore trolleys stood in a group beneath the shaft opening, alongside the rusted ruin of the huge bucket that had once hauled the ore up to the refinery above, where the city was now. Everything was overgrown by mana moss which, they noticed with some apprehension, had animal tracks running through it. They didn't stop to get a closer look, though, but just kept on running.

As Shaun had suspected, several more tunnels ran away from the cavern, and they chose one at random, running down it with as much speed as silence would allow.

A hundred yards or so down the tunnel they stopped to rest, collapsing onto the soft mossy ground and panting heavily. "I think we should be safe for a while now," said Shaun. "There must have been at least a dozen tunnels back there, and they'll have to search every one of them to find us. So long as we keep moving, we should be safe now."

"How many men do you think they'll send after us?" asked Diana.

"Not many," replied Shaun. "They're at war, remember? They can't spare very many men. They might even just give up after a while."

"I doubt it," replied Thomas. "Lord Basil will be wanting this back." He took out the Ring of ESP and showed it to the others.

"By the Gods!" exclaimed Matthew in surprise. "How did you get that?"

"I had to take it to protect that maid who helped us," explained the wizard. "She'll tell them that we forced her to help us, but with this he'd have been able to read the truth right out of her head and you know what he does to traitors." He handed it to Lirenna. "Here," he said. "This'll compensate you for the loss of your other ring."

The demi shae took it eagerly and slipped it onto her finger, where it shrank to fit perfectly. "How does it work?" she asked.

"Ssh!" hissed Shaun suddenly, putting his hand over Diana's silver caroli flower to block its light. She took the hint and slipped it back inside her clothing, plunging them all back into darkness. "What is it?" she asked.

Shaun pointed back the way they'd come, and their hearts froze when they saw a light bobbing in the distance. "Konnens!" he whispered. "They're closer behind us than I thought. They're in the cavern already."

They got back to their feet and crept further down the tunnel as carefully and quietly as they could, not knowing how far sounds travelled down there and cursing every crunch and rustle of moss beneath their feet.