The cistern was a long drowned room under the inner ward, longer than any hall in the Hold, and Idrin had never once walked the whole of it. He walked it now with the lamp held high in his right hand, because he had promised to, and because the Lash was wading ahead of him up to its middle in black water, and somebody had to see where the stones went.
The stone walk ran along the cistern’s north wall, a narrow ledge of old grey flags with no rail and no edge. In the middle of the room the water came up to a man’s knee. Along the walk it came nearly to the ankle, when the flags held, and it lapped at the lip with a small sound, very patient, as though it had been waiting a long time for a man to fall in. Idrin kept his feet on the flags. He kept his right hand on the lamp. His left hand he had tucked into the breast of his coat, where it lay like a stone in a cold pocket and did not respond to anything he asked of it.
“Left,” said Korrin, from the water. “There is a drop on the right. Keep the light on your feet.”
