The Sea of Time Read Online Free PDF Page B

thicket of pillars held up the roof. As she entered, a murmur as if of conversation died.
    “Hello?”
    Only silence answered her, and flickers of movement seen out of the corner of her eyes. There were definitely people in the room, standing behind the pillars, shifting as she moved to stay out of sight.
    “I’m looking for a Kencyr named Graykin,” she told the room at large.
    “So are we,” replied a husky whisper at her elbow, making her jump. One of the gray figures had joined her. She could see half of his face under the hood—a sharp nose and a narrow chin, thin lips pursed as if at the taste of something nasty.
    “How long has he been missing?”
    “Fourteen days. Are you one of his clients?”
    How to answer that? “We have done business before. Is this the Intelligencers’ Hall?”
    “It is.”
    Belatedly, it occurred to Jame that she didn’t know what Graykin’s relationship was to the spies’ guild. If he hadn’t registered with it, they might well be hunting him.
    More gray figures detached themselves from the pillars and the wall to surround her. They smelled of dust and dank, like dirty linen. Now she could see them clearly direct on, but out of the corner of her eye the room appeared to be empty.
    “Who speaks for you?” she asked.
    “One who is not here. I will show you where he was last seen.”
    That confused Jame. “Where who was?”
    The thin lips twisted without mirth. “The one whom you seek.”
    There seemed no answer to that except to follow her gray guide out of the room and down the stair that angled around the corners of the tower. They passed a door at each level, all shut, but by the dingy underwear hanging from balcony wash lines Jame guessed that the guild occupied the entire structure. She tried to keep her focus on the spy who led her as he flickered in and out of view. Her sense was that he was playing with her. Whatever Graykin’s association with the guild, hers with him had gained her little credit.
    At last they reached the ground on a dirty back street many rings removed from the city’s colorful center.
    “There,” said her guide, indicating a wide circular hole in the roadway, its cover dragged to one side.
    Jame peered into the depths. “The Undercliff?”
    “Yes,” he said, and pushed her in.
    IV
    JAME FELL HEADFIRST into darkness, trapped air snatching at her clothes. Close-set walls echoed back her startled cry. Above, the circle of light receded but, twisting, she saw a dim glow below. Its ghostly light shone on the bars of a ladder flashing past beside her. She reached for it. Its rungs rapped her knuckles sharply, then she caught it. The wrench nearly dislocated both shoulders. For a second she dangled there, breathing hard and scrabbling for a foothold, then her grip weakened and she fell again, onto a sloping pile of rubble at the ladder’s foot.
    Sweet Trinity. She would never take the mere falling down of stairs seriously again.
    When she got her breath back, Jame propped herself up and looked around. She had come to rest against the wall of a huge cave. Light filtered into it through the vines curtaining its mouth. The shadowy, stalactite-fanged roof must have been a good two hundred feet up and it was nearly as wide side to side. Its floor, while undulating, gave the impression of having been cleared of all obstacles and trampled smooth.
    A number of people had turned to witness her sudden descent. Their curiosity satisfied, they went back to work. Jame saw that she had fallen into a subterranean marketplace. As above, so below? Getting shakily to her feet, she limped over to the nearest stall where the merchant in charge handed her a tin of cold water.
    “Dropping in on us, eh?”
    Jame gratefully drained the cup. The water tasted strongly of iron. “Am I welcome?”
    “So long as you don’t come to spy.”
    Still collecting her wits, she inspected his wares. Very dingy they seemed—scraps of thin gray cloth, a vest, a codpiece.
    “Woven