Tina called softly. "All well, Alent? Tugh has not passed back?"
"No, Princess," he answered, standing erect. The voices echoed through the confined space with a muffled blur.
"Let no one pass but humans, Alent."
"That is my order," he said. He had not noticed Larry, whom Tina had pushed into a shadow against the wall. The Princess waved at the guard and turned away, whispering to Larry:
"Come!"
There were rooms opening off this corridor—decrepit dungeons, most of them seemed to Larry. He had tried to keep his sense of direction, and figured they were now under the palace garden. Tina stopped abruptly. There were no lights here, only the glow from one at a distance. To Larry it was an eery business.
"Wait! I thought I heard something."
In the dead, heavy silence Larry found that there was much to hear.
Voices very dim from the palace overhead; infinitely faint music; the clammy sodden drip of moisture from the tunnel roof. And, permeating everything, the faint hum of machinery.