“Well,” Chaska said, shielding her eyes with one hand after the green flash faded back into a gentle puddle of light around Pip’s six feet. “That solves the candle problem. Though if we ever try to sneak past a guard-post in the dark and somebody tells Pip a joke, we’re going to light up the whole mountain like a festival barge.”
Ysabet gave Pip one more small chip of slate—noting with a quiet frown that the mineral bag was now less than half full—and retied the string. “Those lights aren’t free. That one flash burned through the chalk-spar it just swallowed as fast as a forced march.”
They proved both useful and inconvenient on the final climb up the vertical vent chimney.
So long as the stone steps were wide and dry, the faint greenish-blue constellation under Pip’s loose skin burned low and even, casting just enough soft light across the rock for Osha, Ysabet, Chaska, Lilt, and Ashaun to place their boots without stumbling. Because the glow came from beneath its own hide, it didn’t blind Pip’s two amber eyes the way a tallow flame did.
Whenever anything startled or pleased the creature, however, the lights had no manners at all.
