When he had gone two hundred and ninety ells, he turned down the nearest aisle and began counting his paces again. The endless ranks of columns moved past him in the glow of the light-box. When he paused to listen, there was no sound. When he had gone eight hundred and forty ells, a gray wall loomed up ahead: he had reached the end of the cavern. He swung himself up onto the nearest rack and began to climb it.
The bottoms of the stacks disappeared; he was climbing in the fitful glow of his light-box with darkness all around. In the silence, the rack with its gray bundles seemed to glide downward past his body, as if he were not climbing at all but hanging in midair and pulling down more and more of an endless metal serpent. In a few moments he saw a dim gray reflection overhead. It was the ceiling, and when he stood on top of the stack a moment later he could reach up and touch it with his hands. He could see the tops of other stacks to left and right, gray hummocks rising out of the darkness, but there was no sign of any opening in the roof of the cave.
He turned away from the cavern wall, leaped to the next stack, then to the next, examining the ceiling from each. When he had traversed ten stacks in this way, he leaped the aisle to the next row and began working back along it, meaning to trace a path around and around the original ten stacks, like a man winding string on a twig, until he found the opening; but he had hardly begun his second cast when it appeared, off to his left: a round black hole in the ceiling.
The shaft was circular and three spans wide, like the one that had led him into the cavern he had mistaken for the Midworld. Standing under it and stretching up his arm with the light-box, he thought he could even make out a brownish something that might be a shield closing it at the top. When he stood on his toes, he could just get his hands onto the smooth walls of the shaft; but that was no matter. He planted himself directly under the opening, bent his knees, leaped. As he shot up into the opening, he put out his arms and knees, braced himself, came to rest. A thrust and a wriggle, and he was half an ell farther up; now he could support himself with hands and one foot against one side, back against the other. Hampered a little by the bundle across his shoulders, he was still able to climb rapidly enough. In a few moments his head was touching the brown hollow disk that closed the shaft. He touched it, and it swung aside; a black cusp widened to a circle. He was up, through it into darkness that turned suddenly to a flicker of pale light.
As those vast arching shapes exploded around him in a kind of silent sizzling, Thorinn flattened himself to the floor. The cold shield was under his hand; he slapped it, felt it swing, felt the cool upward breath, then the shaft walls were burning his hands and knees as he braked his fall; the shield swung over his head and the light was gone.
With pounding heart, Thorinn hung in the shaft and stared upward. There was no sound. He tried to remember what he had seen: vast arcs of light that swooped up flickering into the darkness... What could it have been? He held himself ready to let go and drop instantly, if the shield should begin to turn; but nothing happened. At last he climbed the shaft again.
He put his hand on the shield, turned it carefully. A lozenge of darkness appeared; there was no sound, no scent of danger. Thorinn widened the opening until it was black and round above him. With painstaking caution he thrust his head up; then, bracing himself to hold the shield open, he raised his arm with the light-box. Darkness. He raised himself a little, head and shoulders through the opening; and a sudden flicker burst almost under his chin, ran away swooping and shimmering upward in multiple arcs...
When he ducked his head, the flickering died; darkness returned. He raised himself again. The lights sprang up, flickering, swooping far overhead. They steadied, burned clear and cold. Thorinn raised himself a little more, cautiously, then still more, and climbed out.
He was standing at the bottom of a vast tunnel whose walls curved up to become the ceiling an incredible distance overhead. The lines of light ringed it; the nearest of these, only an ell away, was a white ribbon that curved up, up, growing thinner until it was no more than a bright thread above. On either side of it were others, set three ells apart. In one direction they were dazzling bright, in the other much dimmer and more diffuse; he counted twenty of each. The reason for the difference, he saw, was that the rings were lighted only on one side, so that in one direction he saw not the lights themselves but their reflections in the tunnel wall. As he looked down the tunnel, the farthest rings were perfect upright circles, but those nearer to him grew fatter at the bottom until they were vast egg-shapes that leaned together overhead. He was trembling with awe; why had the box not made him understand how huge these tunnels were? He felt himself tiny and exposed; the distant rings were like giants' eyes staring. He glanced at the closed shield in the floor, then leaned to examine the nearest ring more closely. The floor was made of some smooth, hard substance; embedded in it, the ring stood up two spans high, hollow on the bright side, flat on the other, with a flat dark edge the breadth of his hand. He touched the dark surface cautiously, then the bright: one was as cool as the other.
He hopped over it and took a stride toward the next ring. Far down at the black end of the tunnel there was a flicker: a new ring inside the others. Thorinn stared at it. Something was wrong. He turned, counting the bright rings, and there were still twenty.
He began to hop in long floating strides down the middle of the tunnel. Each time he soared over one of the rings, a new one appeared ahead; the eye of blackness at the end of the tunnel remained always the same. He thought of the pictures in the box, and of the egg-shaped things that darted along the tunnels, up and down the giant shafts. And did the lights follow them wherever they went, so that where they were, there was light, and when they had passed, the tunnel waited in darkness?
He began to move faster, in order to see the bright rings run on ahead. A kind of exhilaration took him, and he ran faster and faster, as if he could catch the fleeing rings of light. The tunnel slipped by him in deathly silence, and again he began to feel that he was not moving at all, but posturing motionless in the air while the illusory tunnel flowed past him, out of one nothingness into another. Without warning, the black eye at the end of the tunnel flared bright. Thorinn stumbled to a halt. What had been a black disk an instant ago was now a globe of light, striped with faint dark lines as if it were a spinning top, and for a moment the illusion was so strong that he almost turned to flee, certain that the monstrous globe, which filled the tunnel, was whirling down upon him. Then he saw that it was not bulging, but hollow: he was looking through the end of the tunnel into some vast lighted space beyond. As he approached, the last ring of the tunnel grew enormous around him, and he saw that the space beyond was a great shaft, striped with horizontal rings of light. Here, if anywhere, the geas would make itself felt again. He set down his bundle, opened his wallet, and drew out the wrapped parcel of figurine, sticks, gray powder. He set the figurine upright on the floor, in the glow of the ring. Around it he made a circle of crossed sticks, and inside the circle poured the gray powder. He took tinder and shavings from his wallet, dropped them along the circle of sticks. He drew out his fire stick, loaded it with more tinder, drove the plunger home. A feeling of tension gathered inside him. He dropped the burning tinder on the pile, breathed it into flame, chanted, "Die, Goryat! Die, Goryat, die!" The sticks kindled, the flame ran around the circle, the gray powder flared up with a whoosh. The figurine was obscured for a moment; when the smoke cleared, its face was blackened. The tension was gone; there was an emptiness in its place. Thorinn hopped forward. Where the tunnel met the shaft, it flared out smoothly above and below; the floor dropped away with a deceptive gentleness, like water pouring over the lip of a chasm, and the light-rings became ovals instead of circles. To either side, the upright rings gave way to the horizontal rings of the shaft. He had only to descend to the lowest ring in the flared mouth of the tunnel, then step onto the nearest horizontal ring and begin to climb.
Thorinn hoisted his bundle to his shoulders again
, climbed down the slope onto the first horizontal ring. The dark upper surface of the ring was flat and level, and two spans wide; he was able to hop upon it with ease, knowing that if he stumbled he could reach up to catch himself against the lighted surface of the ring. He was aware of the gulf beside him, but did not think of it. Above, the shaft was lighted for sixty ells, then vanished into darkness.
He began to climb: one hand on the curving under-surface of the ledge above, a hop, the other hand on the top of the ledge; then both hands on top, pulling himself up; one knee over, a twist, and he was sitting on the ledge. Up to his feet, reaching for the ledge above, a hop, a twist, over and over. As he climbed, he thought of Goryat: had he really killed the old man? He was sure not. But what a shock it must have given him!
Pausing to rest, he glanced down into the great pit and thought he saw a movement, a flicker of wings. Now he was sure. The dark shape drifted nearer, growing as it came. Now he could see the cruel head tilted up, the yellow eyes staring. It was a great gray bird with pinions of polished metal. The beak opened, the great wings beat the air. Thorinn turned, drawing his sword, but all his movements were sluggish, benumbed. The bird was on him, blotting out the light; the wings buffeted his face. The ledge tilted away, gone; he was twisting in the air.
Go down, said the voice triumphantly.
6
“ ^”
How Thorinn fell five hundred leagues in a day and a night.
3215 a. d.
... For these and other weighty reasons, as, to permit an equal and governable expansion ofthe matter at the centre of our globe, which, being confin'd, must else burst forth in earthquakeand volcano whenas the burden above it shall be abated; to advantage ourselves of the aforesaidpressure and heat for the driving of our engines; as well as to increase fourfold the extent of ourlands upon the surface by the removal of the oceans to the chamber below: it is our intention todrill three shafts to the centre of the Earth, taking matter for conversion from these shafts alone,until what time they shall be complete and the central chamber hollow'd out. The energy soobtain'd, by all our calculations, will satisfy our wants during the next twenty centuries...
Thorinn was falling. The lighted ledges flashed by as swift as eyeblinks, flick, flick, an ell out of reach. The wind of his passage had grown so strong that he could open his eyes only an instant before they filled with tears. As he turned, it whipped his back, his legs, then belly and face again. The sound of it filled his skull, like a gale sweeping across the bowl of Hovenskar. It had been steady, but now it began to buffet him, turning him this way and that, so that he spun now head down, now flat in the air like a falling leaf. The ledges of the great shaft around him blurred steadily upward.
The buffeting died away, and an instant later he felt a slight jar, as if he had passed through some flimsy barrier; then the buffeting came back. A short time later the same thing happened again, and, after an equal interval, still again. His mind took up the rhythm and he knew to the instant when the next check would come. After each one he felt a dull pain in his ears. His stomach knotted and he began to vomit. Long after his stomach was empty, he continued to retch feebly.
Time passed. The wind burned his face, and whipped his garments against his body until he was sore. Weariness overcame him. He had been falling for hours, and still there was no end. His eyes were streaming tears, the lids now so swollen that he could hardly open them. He held up one arm to shield his eyes; then, that failing, fumbled at the shoulder loops of his pack. He managed to slip one arm out, then the other. The wind fought him for the pack, but he pulled it around in front of his body, picked at it with numb fingers. When he had loosened the last knot, the wind instantly unrolled the cloth, scattering the contents, and turned it into a frantically flapping rag. He clutched it with knees and elbows; little by little he succeeded in drawing it tighter from head to crotch, and at last tied the ends together. The cloth shielded his face somewhat from the wind. At intervals, looking sideward, he could catch glimpses of the streaming wall of the shaft. Closer at hand, other things were falling. He recognized the talking box, and another box with its lid burst open and a cloud of little figurines around it. They were tumbling, shifting like midges; then they streamed upward and were gone, though the box continued to fall beside him. Under the constant buffeting of the wind Thorinn grew dizzy and numb. His eyes closed more and more frequently. He roused once, with a start, to realize that he had been asleep. Nothing had changed. His eyes closed again, and presently he dreamed that he was falling down the long slope of the hillside in Hovenskar, under the half-dark, half-bright sky; the horses stood gazing in wonder as he drifted above the grass-tops toward the little hut which remained as distant as ever, no matter how long he fell. Then his dreams grew confused, and he thought he was wandering under the earth, in a tunnel that opened from the bottom of the dry well in Hovenskar; he discovered a treasure house, and robbed it of jewels, and marvelous engines, and a magic box that spoke to him in a human voice; but the box spoke nonsense. Then he had fallen down the well again, and the well had no bottom, but went down endlessly into the center of the earth.
He awoke to the buffeting of the wind. His head ached, his eyes were gummy, his mouth dry. The cloth he had wrapped around him was flapping ceaselessly against his body: through its folds he could see the wall of the shaft spinning by. He knew he had been asleep a long time; yet he was still falling, and nothing had changed. Remembering his dream, he thought: what if there is no bottom?
He stretched and groaned. He was bruised in every limb, he needed to empty his bladder, and he felt both hunger and thirst. He found the water jug in his wallet and loosened the wrappings around it. While he waited for it to fill, he munched on a piece of cheese he found in the wallet; then he carefully took out the jug, put the spout to his lips and tried to drink. Water splashed over his mouth and nose, along with gemstones that pelted his face. Thorinn hastily covered the mouth of the jug with his palm, leaving only the spout free, and tried again. This time he was more successful; a trickle of water entered his mouth, ceased, then came again as he turned. His thirst was not satisfied, but he wrapped the jug again and put it away.
He dozed again and awoke, tormented by the aching of his head. The need to empty his bladder grew unbearable, and at last he pulled down his breeks and made shift to direct the stream out through the opening in his cover, where the wind dashed it into spray. He wrapped himself up and drifted off again into numb, uneasy sleep.
He awoke with a pang of alarm. Something had changed: the wind was like a great hand that smote him on the breast and back as he turned. The wall of the shaft was moving past him more slowly, still more slowly, flick, flick... flick... flick... It slowed almost to a crawl; the wind belabored him. Past the fluttering edge of the cloth, he glimpsed a dark band between the rings of the shaft. It tipped nearer; he had only time to realize that he was falling toward it, and then the wind abruptly was gone, and he lay sprawled, dizzy and too numb to cry out his surprise, on a smooth floor that slipped away under him.
He clawed for purchase. Silence rang in his ears like a shout, and his skin tingled to the absence of the wind. The slope under him turned abruptly deeper; he was sliding, falling again. Now he did cry out, and struggled to right himself. The feeling of great space was gone; the air felt close. He struck something hard and was at rest in the heaving blackness. There was a tinkling somewhere below, then silence. After several attempts, he managed to sit upright. He was in absolute darkness. The surface under him seemed to be composed of thin metal ribs that ran crosswise to each other, leaving square holes half a span wide between them. His fingers slipped down into these apertures, and touched nothing. The ribs were hard, but not uncomfortable to sit upon; a puzzle—they felt harder to his fingers than to his buttocks.
He listened intently, heard nothing. Balancing himself with care, he opened his wallet and got out his light-box. The moss glowed dimly in the lighted end. He carefully transferred a p
inch of sky-moss from each compartment to the other. The lighted compartment went dark, and the dark one flared up brightly. He turned the box upward, saw a glimmering Crosshatch of metal over his head. This was a floor like the one he sat on, but the ribs were much more widely spaced, leaving squares two ells across. Through one of these, evidently, he had fallen.
He turned the light-box downward, with caution because the lighted end was the one from which he had lost the mica. He thought he could make out a dark floor below, but did not dare turn the box straight downward.
A few ells away lay his sword, beside a square object which he recognized as the talking box. All the rest of his looted treasures had vanished; except for the cloth, box and sword, they had all been small enough to drop through the holes in the floor, and although he swept the beam of the light-box in every direction, he could not find them.
He opened his wallet, drew out the magic jug, unwrapped it, and set it down. Most of the jewels were still in it. While he waited for the jug to fill with water, he identified by touch the rest of the things in the wallet: his fire stick, some pebbles from Hovenskar, a strip of horse-meat, a half-empty box of cheese. He ate a little of the cheese, but his thirst was so great that he could not swallow much. He tipped the jug to his lips, drank the trickle of water that came out, set the jug down again. He was dizzy, but he managed to crawl a few ells away, where he took down his breeks and relieved himself, squatting over one of the holes in the floor.
He crawled back to the talking box. It lay face up, and he could see a flicker of color in the dark crystal.
"Box," he said.
"I am here."
"Box, tell me, what is this place?"
"This is a place where things fall."
Thorinn said, "Why?"
"Why do things fall?"
"Yes."
World and Thorinn Page 8