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The tunnel was a twisty path that bore like a hungry worm into the flesh of the mountain. The floor was rough, litter with stones and slabs rock, and sometimes I splashed through pools where death-white fish darted from my feet. They had no eyes. The damp walls were covered with a hard, crusty rock. Sometimes it seemed to flow like water, other times it bulged like mud, and sometimes it was hard and sharp, tearing my skin where I touched it. The ceiling soared out of range of my candle in places, and in other places it dipped so low that I was forced to bend double to pass.
Then I turned right, and walked into the largest room I had ever seen, a hall for the gods. I stood on a cliff high above the floor, gazing down. There was a hole in the high ceiling, and the moonlight lit what my candle could not. To one side of me fell a stone waterfall, cascading down a hundred feet or more, but with only a trickle of moisture on its surface. To the other side of me a dragon seemed to sit on a stone pedestal, his tail wrapped around his massive legs, his wings folded over his great body. Before me stood a tree, as tall as the tree of life, and I could even make out a rodent gnawing on its roots and the cock roosting in its branches. Further on, in the dimness that was hidden like the future to mortals, I could see more shapes.
Then the moonlight disappeared, and I had only the candle to light the path just before me.
I could see a switchback trail leading down the cliff, and I followed it. I walked past meditation holes and empty fire pits – but saw no skeletons. Whoever had come here had left again – so there had to be a way out.
At the bottom of the cliff I saw a burning fire, though I had not noticed the light before I saw it. An old man, wrapped in a monk’s robe, crouched beside it. His cloudy eyes stared into the vast emptiness of the room, but at the sound of my footsteps he turned to me. I stopped, unsure of how a dumb man could talk to a blind man.
Then he smiled, showing a single, crooked tooth, and pulled a bit of bread and a flask from his bag. I took them, and ate gratefully – the walk had been long and I was tired.
But what would I give him in return? Elise wore my jewels and my clothes – I had nothing more than a monk would have.
Then I saw that he had only a stick of firewood. There was a large pile several feet away, but it was untouched. Of course it was, because he was blind and did not know it was there.
I gathered up as much wood as I could carry, and brought it back. I did this several more time, until he had a stack by his knee that would keep him for days.
He put his hand upon the stack, and smiled his toothless thanks. Then he signed a blessing on me, pointed off to his right, and signed again, "Walk out through the teeth, and do not fear."
I returned his blessing, heretical as it was for me to do so, and walked the way he showed me. I saw the teeth – a double row of spires reaching up from the floor and down from the ceiling, and stepped carefully between them.
Beyond the teeth my candle flame bent furiously away from a tunnel. It was short, and soon I stepped out behind a large rock and into the cool, damp night. The road lay ahead, and just below me waited the town of Krast.
