by Alan Garner
“Susan now, please. If your fingers have need of rest, half-way you will find an iron spike to grip: it is firm. I shall light you.”
It was easier than Susan expected. apart from the fact that the lamp could not light hands and feet at the same time, which was occasionally unsettling. Also, she would never have imagined how comforting an iron spike could be, When her hand closed round it, it was as though she had reached an island in a busy street. Susan was loth to leave that spike. She stretched out for the next hold. found it, and was transferring her weight. when something smashed into the wall close by her head, and splinters of rock seared her cheek. She was caught in mid-stride, and for two dreadful seconds she hung by one hand from the spike. The lamp’s beam never faltered. and Fenodyree’s calm voice checked her panic.
“A foot to the right, Susan. More; more. There. Now draw up your feet; another inch, good. You are safe. Come slowly; do not be afraid.
Across from Fenodyree, Colin had seen the stone axe spin in the lamplight and crash against the rock; and, at the same time, he had heard behind him a sword being drawn.
“Cross as quickly as you may, said Durathror’s voice in his ear. Stay not for me. I go to teach this trollspawn manners.”
And, with a ringing cry. Durathror threw himself off the ledge into empty space. As he dropped beyond the light his cloak seemed to fold about him in a curious way.
“Are you ready?” called Fenodyree.
Colin looked across, and saw his sister and Fenodyree together on the other side.
“Yes, I’m ready… but Durathror!”
“He knows what he is about. He will not be long.”
Nor was he. Colin had just gained the safety of the tunnel mouth when he heard the dwarf’s voice right behind him.
“I lead you now, cousin Three skulked below. They heard our coming and hid their torches: they died swiftly.”
He was a little breathless. or perhaps indignation had the better of him, for it was the first time he had ever been surprised in ambush.
“But how did you do it?” cried Colin, “I saw you jump off the ledge weren’t you hurt?”
Durathror threw back his head and laughed.
“Woefully!”
He held out his sword hand: the knuckle of his little finger was skinned.
“Do not jest with them,” smiled Fenodyree. “They have not long been among us, and there is still much they do not know.”
They started along the tunnel. Fenodyree walked very slowly, and when he spoke his voice was grave.
“Listen to me now. We are about to leave West Mine. Were we to stay, we should certainly die, though we took twice four hundred svarts with us, and the weirdstone of Brisingamen would be lost. We may still die: fear is in me greater than I have ever known. I say this now, so that when I lead you into seeming madness you may know that I do not act rashly—or if I do, there is no other course.
“We are to pass through the upper galleries of the Earldelving to where they touch upon another mine, the like of this, though smaller. The paths were never wide or high, and the earth has stirred many times in her sleep since they were dug: the road may no longer be as I was taught, and we may lose ourselves for ever. But it is our only chance, if chance it be, and we must take it. And here is the threshold: once beyond it. we may rest awhile.”
They were at the corner of yet another cave. Two of the three walls that they could see were like any other in the mine, rough-hewn and fluted. But the third, immediately to their right. was awesomely different. It’s face was smooth and grey, and it shot almost vertically, like a steel spade, into the ground—or rather, where the ground should have been; for at the dwarf’s feet lay a shaft, a sloping chimney of stone. And it was into this that Fenodyree was pointing.
CHAPTER 13
“Where No Svart Will Ever Tread”
Durathyor grunted, and picked up a lump of stone and tossed it into the hole. It glanced off the smooth cliff and rocketed out of sight past a bend in the shaft. For an age the hollow crashing of its fall was heard, then silence, and, when all but Fenodyree had judged that that was the end, a single, final, thump.
“We must go down there ?” whispered Susan.
“And before our courage fails. Durathror, will Valham aid us here?”
“Nay, cousin; the magic is mine alone; and I could not take you, for she was made for elves and finds my unburdened weight a trial.”
“It is as I thought. Will you stay here, then, lest svarts roll boulders on our heads?”
“That I can do, and will.”
“Good. Colin, Susan, follow me; step where I step; do not hurry. So we shall come safe to the end.”
Fenodyree began to climb down the oblique first pitch of the shaft, jamming himself into the angle between the two rock faces. Loose stones rattled down before him, and only the biggest sounded the end of their fall.
“There is room for you both here,” he called from the bend; “come singly, Colin first.”
Colin lowered himself over the edge into the gully, and worked his way down to within a yard of Fenodyree.
“That is near enough,” said the dwarf. “Susan!”
“Yes.”
“Stop when you are as close to your brother as he is to me: we must not crowd each other.”
“Right.”
It was unpleasant to crowd there helplessly while a river of stones bounced off head, shoulders, and knuckles; but Susan was not long about it.
“This is the problem,” said Fenodyree when the clatter of debris had faded away. “The shaft is like a bent knee, and we are in the crook, therefore the slope down which we can climb is on the opposite side from us. It is steeper, too. But I think I see a way. Across there, about five feet down, is a ledge. If we jump from here and grasp the ledge we shall be well on our road.
“We shall be if we miss!” said Susan.
“The deed is nothing. It is the thought that breeds fear; and we achieve little by lingering.”
And Fenodyree jumped. His fingers snatched for the rock, caught it, and he lay against the sloping wall of the shaft, and did not speak or move. At first the children thought he was unconscious, but they were soon to find for themselves how easy it was to be winded in such a fall.
“It is a good hold,” said Fenodyree. He eased himself a couple of feet from the ledge, and took up a secure position astride a corner of the shaft.
“Throw me your light.”
“But what if you drop it?” said Colin.
“I shall not drop it.”
Colin let the lamp fall, and the dwarf caught it in both hands.
“Now jump: you cannot miss.”
Can’t I? thought Colin.
He had a brief impression of blackness stretching under him, and of the ledge hurtling upwards, before the air was squashed from his lungs by vicious impact with the rock. Blue and red stars exploded in his brain, and a vacuum formed where his lungs should have been; but Fenodyree’s steadying hand was in the small of his back, and as his senses cleared, Colin realized that his fingers had closed upon the ledge, and were holding him, although he was numb from the elbows down.
When the children and Fenodyree had recovered from the effects of the drop they considered the next stage of their journey. Colin was perched just below Fenodyree, while Susan had pulled herself on to the ledge and was wishing she could spare a hand to massage her aching ribs. It felt as though every bone in her body had been shaken loose by her fall.
“There are no more bends for a distance,” said Fenodyree, “but whether there is a safe passage I cannot tell.”
The V-shaped gully continued for thirty feet, and they made good progress. Fenodyree held the lamp, leaving Colin and Susan both hands free; but light was still a problem. For when Fenodyree was above the children, their shadows hid the rock below, causing them to grope blindly for holds; and when he was below, it was difficult for him to shine the light without blinding them. He could, however, direct their feet to holds that
he had tested, so they decided on this order of descent.
At the foot of the gully three sides of the shaft opened out like the shoulder of a bottle, leaving the remaining side, the all but sheer rock face, within reach.
“We can’t go down there!” said Colin, aghast. “It’s as smooth as ice!”
“The eyes of men were ever blind,” said Fenodyree. “Can you not see the crevices and the ledges?”
The children peered down the shaft, but still it seemed to them impassable.
“Ah well, you must put your trust in me,” that is all. “We shall rest here a little, for there will be no haven after this until we near the end.”
He called up the shaft. “Is all quiet with you, cousin?”
“Ay, though the chill of this place is beyond belief! It is well I have my cloak! Svarts draw nearer, but they move slowly. I fear they will not come in time.”
“Are you ready?” said Fenodyree to the children.
“As ready as we ever shall be, I suppose,” said Susan.
“Good. Colin, you are well lodged, so your sister will go first. I shall clear a way for you as far as I can. Have patience, and rest while I am gone, for it will be a hard climb.”
Fenodyree let himself down to the full extent of his arms, and scuffed around with his toes until he had found, and cleared, a ledge: then he searched for a lower finger-hold. and in this way slowly began the descent. The wall was not quite as smooth as Colin and Susan had thought, but the accumulated sand of years rendered the many cracks and projections invisible to the children’s eyes.
Minutes, or hours, later (for it seemed an eternity in the nothingness of the shaft) the children heard Fenodyree returning. Colin switched on the lamp, and the dwarfs face, lined and grey with effort, came into view.
“All… is… clear. Or… nearly so. We must… not delay… now.”
Colin handed him the lamp, and Fenodyree climbed down to his first station, from which he guided Susan on to the rock face. As soon as she was immediately above him, he descended a little farther, and soon Colin was left alone to his thoughts.
Susan and Fenodyree moved quickly, for the holds were precarious, giving no more than finger and toe room, and often barely that. To remain still for more than a few seconds was to be in serious danger of falling. Yet momentum was hard to check, and Susan more than once came near to losing control of her speed; but, with Fenodyree’s help, she achieved a balance between these two fatal extremes.
Colin had nothing to do but to avoid cramp and to watch the dwindling oblong of light and his sisters foreshortened silhouette. And as he looked, he gradually became aware of an optical illusion. Being in total darkness himself, he could see nothing of the shaft except the small area lit by the lamp in Fenodyee’s hand; and as this drew farther away his sense of perspective and distance was lost, so that he seemed to be looking at a picture floating in space, a moving cameo that shrank but did not recede. He was so fascinated by this phenomenon that he barely noticed the cold, or the strain of being wedged in one unalterable position.
The patch of light contracted until it appeared to be no bigger than a match-box, and Colin was wondering how deep the shaft could possibly be, when the light was extinguished. But before he had time to be seriously alarmed, he heard Fenodyree’s voice shouting up to him, though what the message was he had no idea, for distance and the shaft reduced it to a foggy booming, out of which not a single intelligible word emerged. Still, the tone of the voice held no urgency, so he presumed that Susan was at the bottom and that Fenodyree was on his way up—which, in fact, was what the dwarf had intended him to understand, and Colin had not long to wait before the lamp flashed on a yard below where he was Sitting.
“Oh,” said Fenodyree. “I am a sight… weary… of this shaft! Durathror!”
“Ay?”
“When we are below… I shall call. What of the svarts?”
“They went by another road. More follow.”
The shelf on which Susan was resting lay at the foot of the wall. At this point there was a kink in the shaft, like the bend of a drainpipe, and Fenodyree had said that the true bottom of the shaft was not far below.
Susan flexed her fingers, and wriggled her toes, The bulk of the descent had not been too bad, once she had developed a rhythm, and her nerves had settled, but the fast fifty feet of the wall were perpendicular, and the strain on her fingers had proved too much, and, on three occasions, only Fenodyree’s quick reactions had saved her from coming off the rock.
The sound of the dwarf’s voice brought Susan out of her thoughts, and she saw that Colin was beginning the final stretch, the crucial fifty feet. He was lowering himself over the sharp ridge that marked the end of the inclined pitch, and it was punishing him no less than it had his sister: he would carry the bruises for days. And how Fenodyree climbed with only one free hand was a marvel. He was nearing the end of his third trip up and down the shaft, and there he was, taking Colin’s weight on his shoulder and guiding him to the next hold.
“Twenty feet more, Colin, and we shall be there! Bring your left hand down to the inside of your right knee. Your other hand will fit there, too. Steady? Now lower yourself as far as your arms will let you. There is room for your left foot. Right hand out at your shoulder’s level; not so far There. Six inches down with your right foot.” Fenodyree stepped on to the shelf. “Now your left hand to the side of your hip…”
A minute later Colin was standing beside Susan.
“We are not yet at the foot,” the dwarf reminded them. “See what awaits.”
He guided them down the shelf to the mouth of the lower end of the shalt. The shelf grew rapidly steeper, and very smooth. There were no holds at all.
“What do we do now?” cried Susan.
“We slide Oh, never fear, it is no great way, and there is sand to break your fall.”
The children remained apprehensive, but Fenodyree insisted that there was no danger, and, to prove his word, he sat at the top of the shelf and pushed off with his hands. There was a swish, silence, and a soft bump.
“It is as I said,” called Fenodyree, and he shone the light upwards.
“All right,” said Susan, “but… oh! !”
The chute was far smoother than Susan had anticipated and, caught off her guard, she tobogganed helplessly into the air, and landed at the dwarf’s feet with her knees in her stomach, winded for the second time in the space of an hour. It was small consolation that Colin fared no better. Fenodyree had not lied there was sand, but it was wet and, consequently, hard.
While the children lay croaking, Fenodyree cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted:
“Du-rath-ror!”
An answering voice echoed in the shaft.
“We shall rest here,” said Fenodyree, “but we must not stay long, for if we do not win clear of the Earldelving by sunset we shall have no choice but to stay there until the dawn, and that would he grim indeed.”
“Nay, then,” said Durathror, “let us forgo our rest.”
He was standing on the shelf at the foot of the great wall.
“But…”
“But how have you…?”
“I fell!” shouted Durathror merrily. “See!”
And he leapt down to join the children and Fenodyree. His cloak whirled about him, and he landed lightly on his feet with as little disturbance as if he had skipped from the bottom treads of a staircase.
The foot of the shaft opened into a small chamber, three or four feet high. and it was flooded except for the pyramid of sand in the middle.
Fenodyree bade the others make themselves as comfortable as possible, but it was not easy to stay dry, and, at the same time, to be out of the path of any svart-sent boulders that might land in their midst.
Colin and Susan divided the remains of the food and drink between the four of them. And as they ate, the dwarfs pieced together the events that had brought them so unexpectedly to hand in time to rescue Susan and to bring havoc among the svarts.
This was their story. Durathror and Fenodyree were walking near Castle Rock when the kestrel Windhover brought news that Grimnir had risen from the lake and had entered St Mary’s Clyffe. The dwarfs knew that where Grimnir was, there would be Firefrost, and that this may be their chance. Cadellin was prowling in the hills towards Ragnarok to find out if word of the stone had spread, for he was as anxious as Grimnir to keep its present whereabouts a secret. He could not possibly come; so the dwarfs decided to attack alone, and in no time Fenodyree had gathered his armour, and they were on their way.
They heard of the children’s arrival from Windhover, whom they had arranged to meet in the cover of the garden next to St Mary’s Clyffe. Grimnir and the Morrigan, said Windhover, were in an upper room: there was unpleasantness behind curtains downstairs. The hounds were loose.
“Do you wait by the entrance wall,” said Durathror.
“Windhover shall take me where these morthdoers hide, and I shall disturb them, and, with Dyrnwyn drive all thought of Firefrost from their heads. Wait for a space after you hear me fall upon them, seek the stone in the lower room, for there I think it will be, and so to Fundindelve, where I shall join you if I may.”
Then Durathror went with the kestrel to the room under the eaves. It was as Colin and Susan had begun to suspect: he had the power of flight. It lay in his cloak of eagle feathers, a survival from the elder days. and a token of great friendship.
When his moment came, Fenodyree ran for the door: to his surprise it was open, and he entered warily. On finding the curtained room empty he was perplexed, but he had no time to search farther, for as he was about to try the kitchen door it was thrown open, and Durathror cannoned into him. There was savage joy stamped on his face as he spun Fenodyree into the cloakroom where the children had lately been hiding, and closed the door. Seconds later Grimnir stumbled out of the kitchen, followed by Shape-shifter. The empty room, the open door.
“The dwarf has taken It!” screamed Shape-shifter, and they both rushed out into the mist.