It was a tunnel, a passage hewn by human hands, its walls covered with the writhing dragon lines, its roof the mountain.
The swathed woman swept by us.

Swiftly we followed her.

Far, far ahead was a wan gleaming.

It quivered, a faintly shimmering, ghostly curtain, a full mile away.
Now it was close; we passed through it and were out of the tunnel.
Before us stretched a narrow gorge, a sword slash in the body of the towering giant under whose feet the tunnel crept.

High above was the ribbon of the sky.
The sides were dark, but it came to me that here were no trees, no verdure of any kind.