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The corridor slanted downward and water had seeped in through cracks in the stone, making the way slippery. A number of times one or the other of the brothers had nearly slipped and fallen down.
The darkness consumed the edges of the light their brands threw out and pressed in against their spirits, too. Endamir had tried a number of times to get a feeling of where Malris and Tasa were, but either the pair was too far away or something deliberately hindered their effort to communicate. ‘Perhaps it is simply the thickness of the stone corridor,’ he said to himself after another futile attempt; that, and the fact that many thicknesses of earth and rock again hover all about us.’
The sound of the hammering grew louder the longer they went on. The corridor, itself, took several turnings, but he noted as they had gone along that there seemed to be no passageways running off it to either side.
They had used a number of the torches they’d brought with them when Endamir halted them at another turning of the corridor and said perhaps they had better go back. ‘Once we run out of what brands we have left, we will be in utter darkness. Let us go back to the opening and make another plan.’
He was just pushing them to turn round and retreat when one of them cried out. ‘Look there, behind you! There’s a light!’
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