The rock dust settled slowly like a light snow falling on a still winter day.
Gradually, their hearts stopped pounding so hard in their chests, and the thumping of his pulse no longer filled Nowar's ears like a drum solo.
The creature with tentacles instead of arms and legs looked up at them. "You... are from... Above?"
Nowar and Luz nodded dumbly. Luz was the first to find her voice. "We came down here, and we got lost and we don't know how to get back."
The creature flexed and extended it's wounded tentacle experimentally. "I... can help... I take you there."
"What is your name?" asked Nowar, "What are you?"
"I am Ooru. I am... the last."
"I'm Nowar, and this is my friend Luz. We're humans."
"I never met a ... hu-man before," Ooru said. "Come, you follow me."
The little creature scuttled off at a brisk walking pace, and Luz and Nowar followed along behind him, hurrying as fast as they were able. Occasionally, Ooru paused to let the children catch up with him and rest. "Must hurry," he said anxiously, "Stone Eaters are on the move."
They followed Ooru through a maze of tall buildings and narrow streets. Both Nowar and Luz quickly lost any sense of direction. There were no landmarks that they could pick out in the dim canyons of the city, and the little square with the water fountain was now far behind them. They were tired now, hungry and thirsty. Always there was the insistent rumble beneath them, sometimes stronger, sometimes quieter, but never quite going away.
Finally Nowar spoke up. "Ooru, could we stop and rest for a minute? And have a snack?"
"You have... food?" The little creature froze in it's tracks and looked up at him, small eyes wide.
"Yes," said Nowar, "Do you want to share our lunch?"
"Ooru hasn't eaten hu-man food in many orbits of the sun. Nothing but mushrooms and fungus. Ooru would be honored to share your food-stuff."
The three travelers sat down the bottom step of a stairway leading up into ziggurat-like building. Nowar opened his backpack and took out the sandwiches, chips, and fruit that his Daddy had packed for him so long ago, early that morning. The three sat and ate, and drank juice. Ooru seemed to savor every single bite, greedily devouring the half of a turkey-and-cheese sandwich he was offered, and daintily plucking barbecue potato chips out of the bag with his tentacles, careful not to eat more than his fair share.
"Come," he said when they had eaten about half the food in Nowar's pack. The rumbling sound, still fairly quiet, had slowly grown louder while they were sitting. "You come. We are close now."
Indeed, the streets and buildings now seemed to look almost familiar to Luz and Nowar, though they still wouldn't have been able to say where the tunnel to Budsurry was, they were almost certain that this was the part of the city that they had first seen.
They rounded a corner, following a broad avenue that seemed to have fewer and smaller buildings lining either side. There was rubble in the road, chunks of broken, shattered rock. There was more and more of this as they went on. At last the way became impassable, a tumbled rubble field of broken stone. There was no more road, no way forward.
"The tunnel to above..." rasped Ooru, "It is gone."
