Free The City of Refuge: Book 1 of The Memphis Cycle by Diana Wilder

sun, was the suggestion of a gallery, filled with pillars, going deep into the black mountainside.
    “This is immense!” he exclaimed. “And yet it looks so small from the valley floor!”
    Nehesi, bestriding the threshold between warm golden sunlight and cool, silent darkness, nodded. “That's the way of stone and earth. What seems nothing from a comfortable distance becomes vast. You could lose an army in here.” The Master Quarryman took a lit torch from one of the guards and stepped forward.
    The torch billowed and sputtered, outlining Nehesi's powerful form in blazing gold. It glowed upon the ranks of square, irregularly placed massive pillars supporting the ceiling. Pillar followed pillar, deeper and deeper into the hillside, until they vanished in the blackness and the silence.
    Nebamun, gazing silently with parted lips, followed after a moment.
    Nehesi moved a few paces away from them, raised his torch high above his head, and frowned up at the ceiling. “This rock, here,” he gestured above him, “is too soft for building. I can tell from the grain.” His voice was hushed and muffled by the surrounding rock. “So they keep it as a roof, as shall we.”
    Nebamun nodded, but he did not seem to be listening.
    Nehesi's deep voice filled the silence once more. “The rubble will need to be cleared away, of course. And I'll want to look at the cave-in. Where is it?”
    “Karoya tells me it is farther in,” Khonsu answered. “Beyond this first bay.”
    “Do you mean to say this is only the first of these galleries?” Nebamun breathed. The cavern of stone caught and hushed the echoes of his voice.
    “There are four or five that I have seen, Your Grace,” Khonsu replied.
    Lord Nebamun drew a quick, awed breath.
    Nehesi spared him a glance of amused affection as he started forward. The debris left by the cave-in loomed suddenly in the torchlight; he eyed it closely. “Yes, this'll have to be cleared away before we can find out anything.”
    “But won't it collapse further if you do that?” Nebamun asked.
    “It isn't likely, from what I can tell at the moment,” Nehesi explained. “The weak part probably collapsed because of a lack of balance. Now that it is restored there won't be any danger if we work carefully.”
    “Is the rock worth quarrying?”
    “I'll have to look closely, Your Grace. And I'll want Mersu's opinion as well. It looks like good meat at first glance.”
    “Karoya's brother in law has worked with the architects at the temple of Thoth,” Khonsu said “He told me he took samples from here, thinking you might wish to inspect them.”
    “Your second is an intelligent man, Commander,” Nehesi smiled. He nodded to Nebamun. “Your Grace can look over the samples with me and see what you think.”
    The Second Prophet was standing apart from the rest, gazing into the darkness with lifted head.
    “Your Grace?” Nehesi said again when he did not respond.
    Nebamun turned back into the circle of torchlight. His eyes were shining. “Magnificent!” he breathed. “Far more splendid than anything man has built!”
    “Man quarried this,” Nehesi pointed out .
    “But only look at it! So vast, so silent, so unending…”
    “The veins of rock eventually come to an end, Your Grace. And so does this mountain.”
    “Don't waste your breath,” Mersu counseled out of the corner of his mouth.
    “Yes, but it goes down and down into the earth before it does,” Nebamun replied. “As it has done since Ptah spoke the first word!” He turned, passed through the circle of light and into the darkness, moving between the clustering pillars until all they could see of him was the faint suggestion of motion in the blackness.
    “Your Grace had better stay well clear of that cave-in!” Nehesi called with a sudden note of panic in his deep voice.
    “Now you've gone and done it, Nehesi,” Mersu said with a grin. “you should know better.”
    “But Nehesi,” Nebamun's voice came quietly back,