“An outsider can sometimes see things better than one who is part of them,” Ganelon offered.

Random glanced at me and returned his attention to the spectacle.

“Do you think things will change any more,” he asked, “if we go down for a closer look?”

“Only one way to find out,” I said.

“Single file, then,” Random agreed. “I’ll lead.”

“All right.”

Random guided his mount to the right, the left, the right, in a long series of switchbacks which zigged us and zagged us across most of the face of the wall. Continuing in the order we had maintained all day, I followed him and Ganelon came last.

“Seems stable enough now,” Random called back.

“So far,” I said.

“Some sort of opening in the rocks below.”

I leaned forward. There was a cave mouth back to the right, on level with the oval plain. Its situation was such that it had been hidden from sight when we had occupied our higher position.

“We pass fairly near it,” I said.

“— quickly, cautiously, and silently,” Random added, drawing his blade.

I unsheathed Grayswandir, and one turn back above me Ganelon drew his own weapon.

We did not pass the opening, but turned leftward once more before we came to it. We moved within ten or fifteen feet of it, however, and I detected an unpleasant odor which I could not identify. The horses must have done a better job of it, though, or been pessimists by nature, because they flattened their ears, widened their nostrils, and made alarmed noises while turning against the reins. They calmed, however, as soon as we had made the turn and begun moving away once again. They did not suffer a relapse until we reached the end of our descent and moved to approach the damaged Pattern. They refused to go near it.