They moved past the rotting ruin quickly, the woman pulling her veil a little tighter around her mouth and nose as her only concession to the horror. The tunnel appeared to have been an old one, carved from the sandstone by slow hand spans. Here and there weathered wooden beams braced the walls, though what use they were against the stone was uncertain A faint whisper of air from the far end of the passage suggested that it wasn’t merely an artifical cave.

Above them the crashing of boots could be heard along with the shouts of discovery as the soldiers discovered the body of the man who had called himself *BLANK* An authoritative voice cut through the babble like the peel of a bell.

“Find the woman and do not look into her eyes, upon your souls,” the voice instructed, it had a cultured oily quality though clearly well used to being order.

“And the man?” a rougher voice demanded with the sharp burr of the Southern Desert.
“The slave is nothing, kill him if you must.” The voices began to fade as they moved down the tunnel. As they progressed the light grew quickly brighter till it burned like the shimmer of the sand at midday. Dust motes danced in the increasing light until they reached an ancient grate of rusted iron. Beyond the grate stretched on of the great canals that drew the waters of the Tagria through the city. The smooth stonework dropped thirty feet to the sluggish water below. Forward progress was bared as effectively as a stone wall by the grate. 

Behind them came a shout of triumph and the scraping of timber on stone as the entrance to the tunnel was discovered. It would be mere moments before the pursuers were upon them.

“Peace be upon you,” *BLANK* murmured when the slave turned with a trapped look in his eyes. Stepping forward she placed a hand upon the stone and began to whisper almost inaudibly, slender fingers tracing the intersection of stone and iron. As her finger trailed a flow of fine sand, as if from an hourglass began to fall away, first slowly and then with increasing speed until the dust began to fill the air and make breathing difficult. The sandstone seemed to melt away, loosening its grip on the iron as it was reduced to blowing grit.
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