The other prisoner's cell was bigger, and the stone in its floor, devoid of any feckless individuals sitting on it, slid open easily. Eilonwy climbed through the hole into the silence, holding her bauble up before her.

The man within was sprawled on the floor against one wall, as if he'd fallen asleep sitting up and slid down to the stones without awakening. She wondered for a moment if he were already dead, but as she crept closer, the light from her bauble fell upon his closed eyes and he emitted a rumbling snort. Mumbling something that sounded like "gi'me back...me tunin' key", he threw a long, raggedly-clad arm over his face, turned away from the light, and snored.

She giggled and held the bauble high to examine him. What she saw did not impress her: a long, lean scarecrow of a man, dressed in faded, once-colorful garments that seemed to have more patches than original fabric, his gangly legs wrapped in long strips of hide in place of boots. A swatch of pale hair stuck up in wild spikes above his overthrown arm, which rested on his long nose like a log on an andiron. His prominent cleft chin made her think of a blonde hedgehog's hindquarters.

After all Taran's insistence on his companion's importance, she had expected a more imposing personage. This scraggly fellow did not look like he could have a mission more urgent than a bath and a shave.

She started to kneel next to him and then hesitated, a surge of discomfort at such proximity to a grown man running through her. To be sure, he looked nothing like the sort of men she was accustomed to seeing, and he was a friend of Taran, who seemed trustworthy, but...

Achren had never been specific about what it was that made them dangerous. Vague, dire warnings, like bees, buzzed in her mind. Do not trust them. They are animals. When you are older I will teach you how to control them, but for now, stay away from them.

She frowned and shook her head; but fear welled into her throat and prickled at the back of her neck. The light of her bauble paled and flickered; in a sudden, uncontrollable moment of panic, she dropped it, plunging the cell into darkness.

She fell to all fours in the straw, frantic, clawing for the sphere, torn between the urgency of finding it and the terror of accidentally touching the other occupant of the cell instead. But her fumbling hands finally bumped against something smooth and round, and with a low whimper of relief she clutched it to her chest. Once again the light flared and the shadows fled.

The sleeping man snorted again, stirred, and groaned. The arm over his face slid away, and he rubbed at his forehead with a long-fingered hand. His eyelids fluttered and she held her breath, backing against the opposite wall.

The movement caught his attention and his eyes flew wide; he gaped, then struggled up to a sitting position. "Great Belin," he croaked, in a voice that clearly hadn't been used for a while, "who are you?"

"I..." Her voice was small; she swallowed, trembling, fighting back the poisonous whisper in her head. "I've come to...to get you out."

He stared at her blankly. "You...I'm sorry, what?"

He looked so like a fish, his eyes and mouth formed round as river stones, that the very idea of his being dangerous struck her as absurd. Lies. Just more of Achren's lies. After all, stories were full of men who were not at all like animals. Laughter bubbled up in her throat, pushing the fear out before it, so that what came out of her mouth was an hysterical gasp. He looked alarmed. "Are...are you all right?"

She covered her mouth with one hand, stifling the giggles that wanted to burst out, and gestured toward the hole in the floor. He glanced at it, and back at her. "You came out of there?"

She nodded, gulped, and finally managed to speak. "Your friend in the other cell sent me to get you out. Can you walk?"

"My friend?" he repeated, scratching his head.

Llyr, she thought savagely. They were two of a kind. "Yes. Now come on. Don't you want to get out? Because if you'd rather sit there like a stone in the ground, I can just go, and leave you to whatever Achen has in store for you. It won't be pleasant, I can tell you that."

This seemed to shake him back to his senses. "By all means," he exclaimed, pushing himself stiffly to his feet and stretching to his full height. "A Fflam knows an opportunity when he sees one, miss. Just let me get this..."

He turned to a corner of the cell, where lay a large weather-worn leather case of an odd shape she had not noticed before. This he picked up and slung onto his back, buckling the straps while she tapped her foot. "I don't know where this stroke of luck is coming from," he remarked, brushing the moldy straw from his jacket, "but I'm very much obliged to you, lass."

Oh, wasn't he polite. Just like the noble characters in books. A warm flush crept down her face and neck and she smiled at him as she settled herself at the edge of the hole. "It's nothing. I mean, I'm just getting even with Achren, really, and you've no idea how difficult that is."

He rubbed the back of his neck and rolled his eyes. "Oh...I can imagine. Glad to assist in that effort in any small way, of course." She was lowering herself into the passage below, and he hesitated at the edge. "I, uh...have to go that way, do I?"

"It'll be a bit of a squeeze for you," she admitted, "but I'll go first with the light. Stay close behind me and you'll be all right." She dropped to the ground and held her bauble up. His long legs appeared, dangling through the hole like a spider's from its silk, and she swallowed more giggles as they waved around, searching for a foothold. "That won't work," she called up. "You have to let yourself drop through. It's only just beneath you."

"Oh, well..." his voice puffed from above. He dropped suddenly, with a yelp, stumbling to his rear when his feet couldn't quite navigate the landing. "Oof! Well." He gazed around at the earthen walls of the tunnel. "Not exactly comfortable accommodations, but it's a welcome change of scenery after that cell."

She was busy replacing the stone; listened for the crunch of the settling slab, and turned to see him staring at her with wary discomfort. "How, um," he muttered, "how did...never mind. Who did you say you were?"

"Eilonwy," she answered briskly. "And that," she pointed up, where the noise of footsteps was a muffled thump above their heads, "is the change of guard. If they find you gone now they'll raise

the alarm and make it much harder for you to get away, so if you haven't broken something, I wish you'd get up."

He needed no further motivation, and scrambled to his feet. "Lead on, lass! A Fflam is eager. To be gone from here, that is. I must say this place has been my poorest welcome yet."

She snorted as she led him down the tunnel. "You don't get welcomed here unless Achren asks for you herself. And even then you should be careful. Didn't you know that? Whatever brought you here to begin with?"

"Ah." His voice was breathless as he trotted to keep up with her. "Well, it's what I do, you see, wander. I had no way of knowing who lived here or I'd have kept my distance."

"It's very careless to visit places if you don't know who lives in them," she observed, crouching beneath a low passage. Behind her she heard him grunt.

"Great Belin, these low ceilings are a menace! What was that? Oh yes, visiting...well, I'm not always welcomed enthusiastically, I'll admit. But you'd be surprised how many decent folks there are."

"I've never met any," she declared, then added thoughtfully, "until today." She paused as the passage opened onto a gallery whose far wall displayed a confusing array of low doorways. More, in fact, than should be there. Stop it.

"I don't suppose you have, living here," he puffed, stopping next to her and stretching his lower back with a groan. He glowered at the doorways. "You do know your way, don't you?"

"Yes," she declared, more to the castle than to him, and at once found the opening she needed. "Come on...I forgot to ask your name."

"Fflewddur Fflam, at your service, my dear. Are there any more of those...ah...very low passages?"

"It's all low from here on out," she said, casting an amused look over her shoulder at his hangdog expression. "But it isn't much farther."

She ducked her head and bent at the waist as the tunnel shrank, and heard him behind her, puffing and blowing. "Slow down, can't you, child? I'm afraid I shall have to crawl." There was no room to turn her head to see him, but she could hear him scraping against the edges of the tunnel. "Beastly place. A mole couldn't have done better," he muttered. "Who dug all these ridiculous warrens? And how does the castle stand on top without it all collapsing?

"They were dug by the king who built it," she explained, "or so the legends go. As for how it stands on them..." she thought, puzzled, about the massive, incomprehensible weight of ancient stone above their heads, precariously perched over the fragile honeycomb of earthen mazes underground. By all logic it should not be standing at all, and she wondered why that fact had never occurred to her. "I have no idea, actually."

She heard the word "unnatural" muttered in a condemnatory tone, and then he lapsed into silence but for the noise of his exertions.

A final squeeze through the tightest portion of the tunnel brought them to the outside of the castle, on the backside of a boulder half-obscured by trees. She was surprised, upon emerging, to see the sky fully dark, bearing a hazy half-moon behind banks of shredded cloud. She'd been too excited about her mission to notice the passage of time.

Fflewddur Fflam, who had squeezed through the last few feet of the tunnel with nary an inch to spare, poked his spiky head out behind her and, grunting, pulled his long limbs one-by-one out of the opening. "Great Belin," he grumbled hoarsely. "It's like being born again. I'm glad I can't remember the first time."

"Hush," she ordered. Though the front gates were on the other side of the castle, there was always the chance of a sentry on the rear walls. "Follow me to the trees. You'll be safe once you're out of sight of the towers."

They quickly made their way to the darkness under the forest canopy. Fflewddur leaned against a tree with a sigh of relief. "Ahhh, smell that air. I don't mind telling you, I don't care if I don't see the inside of a castle wall for a month."

She sniffed at the air. "It is nice. Like a drink of cold water when you've been thirsty a long time." She watched him with envy as he shook the dirt out of his tattered cloak and swept it about his shoulders. He had an air of belonging, out here amidst the trees - and of course he would, given what he'd said about wandering. She wondered what it was like to sleep outside, with the leaves whispering overhead and the sweet, free air all around. Her own casement was shut every night to keep out whatever was flying about outside; you never knew, at Spiral Castle, what that might be. Her bed was hung with heavy drapes that closed around her like dark walls, a necessary evil that kept her from watching the silent shadows and pale lights that roamed through her room at night on businesses of their own; moreover the curtains muffled further the dim, indecipherable sounds that occasionally emanated from Achren's adjoining chamber. There were certain rituals that could only be performed at night, or in specific phases of the moon, and all of them - in her experience - sounded horrible.

Fflewddur brought her back to herself by clearing his throat. "Well...once again, I thank you. Eilonwy, is it?" He bowed to her with surprising grace. "I'm afraid I can't do much to return the favor, but if you're ever in-"

"Wait," she interrupted in dismay, seeing that he was about to make some sort of farewell. How could he? Disappointed in him, her spirit sank like a stone in a well. "You can't leave yet! I've got to get your horse, and then go back for Taran."

His mouth opened in confusion but she cut him off. "It's a fine thing, I must say. He put you first, insisted I rescue you before him, and here you are about to go off and leave him. It's like kicking your dog."

"But I don't - " he began weakly.
"No," she said, fuming, and turned to leave. "You wait right here. I'll be back in a moment." She left him still stammering, and headed back to the castle.