The air was full of strange smells, and it was almost noon before the last of the fogs burned away to show the narrow line of blue far above at the canyon’s rim. The river plunged between two pillars of stone onto a long slope where it spread and stilled itself, whispering between grassy banks edged with tall grasses, flowing northward toward Candor.The stream entered bamboo thickets, at first small and delicate, a dancing screen of leaves across the sun. Gradually the stems grew taller and thicker until Jaer had to fight his way among them as his feet sank deeply into the mud. The great stems speared up above him to the height of seven tall men, knocking together with a hollow, mocking sound, their high fronds cutting out the light so that he walked in a green dusk. Instead of one river there were a hundred brooklets scattering away down the slope, gloomed by shade and hidden by arching leaves, full of treacherous, moss-covered rocks.Tall stems sprang up carrying fleshy blossoms which glowed like candles when the light struck them.
