With a lightning leap the dwarf was beside me, the huge rock missing him by a hair breadth as it swung into place! We were in Cimmerian darkness.

I felt for my pocket-flash and recalled with distress that I had left it behind with my medicine kit when we fled from the gardens.

But Rador seemed to need no light.
"Grip hands!" he ordered.

We crept, single file, holding to each other like children, through the black.

At last the green dwarf paused.
"Await me here," he whispered.