“I don’t mean you,” Gom said. “I mean you—that is, me.”
“You?” Tak sounded scandalized. “Are you completely daft? Didn’t you hear that racket? Do you want to get yourself killed?” He surveyed Gom critically. “If I did know a way for humans, I certainly wouldn’t tell you.”
The old bird prepared to fly off.
“Wait!” Gom urged. “There is one, isn’t there? And you do know it.” He stared at Tak until the old raven fluffed out his feathers nervously.
“I’ve just remembered an urgent appointment,” Tak said. “Got to go. Good-bye.”
Good-bye! Tak mustn’t go, not until he’d told all Gom needed to know. Gom thought fast: bluff was the only way.
“Good-bye,” Gom said. Bending down, he picked up a pebble and weighed it as though he meant to throw it the moment the raven left the ground. Of course, he’d never actually have thrown it, but the bird didn’t know that.
“Well!” Tak thrust his head out indignantly. “To be held to ransom in one’s own backyard! Whatever next?”
“Tell me the way onto that island and I’ll let you go,” Gom said.
“Certainly not,” the old bird snapped back. “And folk stupid enough to ignore good advice deserve all they get!”
Tak turned his back on Gom and began to peck angrily in the dirt.
Gom sighed. Stubborn old creature! He gazed down at the water, then at the island so close to the shore. There must be a tunnel, or more probably a shaft, running down to the base of the cliff, then bending under the sound to come up under the island peak like the handle of an upside-down walking stick.
Tunnels and shafts were nothing to him. He’d learned about them under Windy Mountain. But the surrounding area atop the cliff was all folds and clefts like the ones in which he and Zamul had sheltered. Finding the tunnel entrance could waste precious time. Therefore, Gom concluded, the bird must show it to him. Gom studied Tak thoughtfully. As well as being stubborn and willful and inveterate tricksters, ravens were also vain, especially about their wit and wisdom. Maybe he could outsmart this old creature after all.
“There is a way, I’m sure of it,” Gom muttered, as if to himself, yet loudly enough for Tak to hear. “But this poor thing, for all his airs, clearly doesn’t know it.”
Tak hopped around. “Don’t know? Don’t know? Of course I know!”
“You do?” His eyes gleaming, Gom pretended to think. “Is it by boat?”
“Silly!” Tak screeched. “How would you reach a boat from up here?”
“If not over, is it through the water, swimming, maybe?”
“No, indeed! You’d still not get down there. One more try.”
Gom could scarcely hide his excitement. “What a pretty riddle this is,” he said, ruffling up his hair. “The way onto that island lies not over the water, not through the water, but...”
“Go on, go on!” urged Tak.
“I’m trying. Not over, not through, but...”
“Under lies the way!”
“Under? How?” Gom held his breath. One wrong word and all would be lost.
Tak croaked derisively. “A tunnel, a tunnel! What a ninny you are!”
“Tunnel! Of course!” Gom smacked a hand to his brow, trying to hide his glee. Now to find out where its entrance was! He was just about to pitch his next question, when Tak shot loudly into the air.
“Why, you’ve tricked me, shameful creature! You want the tunnel entrance? Find it yourself!” he cried, and flew away.
“Come back!” Gom called after him, but in vain. The sun was climbing, lightening the haze. Had Zamul handed over the rune now? Gom bit his lip. He must get on, without the raven’s help.
Quickly, Gom stowed staff and pack in the cleft where he’d spent the night and was just leaving when the cliff began to tremble and shake. Gom braced himself against the cleft wall, while the ground moved under him.
A monster... that would tear you limb from limb...
The trembling grew more violent until Gom was thrown to the floor. There he stayed, his arms over his head, until all was quiet again.
As he got up faint hope stirred within him. The death’s-head monster seemed angry. Maybe Zamul hadn’t delivered the rune yet after all!
With renewed will, Gom set to work to find the secret tunnel, exploring each crevice in turn along the cliff top.
The sun was almost overhead when he found it, a fissure so narrow and crooked that he might have missed it had it not been for the tiny bright green thread snagged on a sharp rock spur at knee height.
He picked it off with care and held it up. It was a vivid green, the green of Zamul’s breeches exactly.
So, Gom thought, eyeing the crack in excitement. This was the tunnel’s entrance. Zamul had squeezed his great size through there to take a dark and surely dangerous way? He must have had help of some sort. Gom pictured the death’s-head and, shuddering, resolved to watch his step.
He held up the bright green thread for Wind to take out over the cliff edge, then, with a deep breath, he turned and squeezed through the crack.
He’d taken no more than a few steps into the tunnel beyond when daylight suddenly vanished, leaving him in darkness thick as fog. He stood quite still, listening, feeling the drafts on his face.
“Sessery!”
Mmmnnn. Who comes into my halls this time, disturbing the peace?
Gom smiled.
“Good-bye, Sessery,” he’d bade the breeze under Windy Mountain—Sessery, who’d taught him how to find his way about tunnels and shafts in the dark by judging her subtle drafts on his face. “I shan’t forget you.”
I know you won't, her mocking voice had answered. Wherever you go there'll be a relative of mine and that will be me...
Now Sessery laughed delightedly, caressing his face.
You know me, then. Or a cousin of mine, which is the same thing. What are you doing here?
“I’m trying to get down to the island. Is there a shaft leading under the sound?”
That there is, and a treacherous one too. You are the second body to come down here in a short space. But the other was not like you. He was clumsy, and noisy. I thought he'd not survive the first step down but... Her voice trailed away.
The second body to come down? Zamul? Gom’s heart began to beat faster.
“But what, Sessery?” Gom asked, trying not to sound impatient.
... the Other aided him...
Gom’s skin pricked with fear. “Other? What do you mean?”
Sessery didn’t answer. She never answered once Gom betrayed interest in what she said, but she did blow gently along the way ahead, and Gom could tell at once that a few steps farther along, the tunnel floor ended abruptly.
Step by careful step he advanced, guided by Sessery, until suddenly, just as he’d judged, level tunnel fell away sharply into vertical shaft that should lead down inside the cliff, fetching up beneath the sound. From there, a tunnel running under the sound should connect cliff to island and then bend up again under the little peak itself.
He took off his boots, tied their laces together, and slung them around his neck. Then, turning about, he lowered himself over the edge of the shaft, and slid first one foot, then the other down the rock, searching for toeholds. Secure at last, he let go of the floor above his head, and climbed, slowly, steadily, going lower and feeling the air growing colder, until suddenly, he heard a sort of growling, and a slow, rhythmic beat, as of a great heart pounding.
He paused, the sweat starting all over in spite of the cold. “Sessery? Is that the Other?”
Sessery’s light laugh answered him. Oh, no, little one. What you hear is the Deep Sound, the pulse of Great Krugk itself.
Great Krugk: the name of the sound, that he’d not been able to read on the map. Thanking Sessery, Gom climbed on.
Still he descended, until once more he felt the solid
floor of a passage under his feet. He went on slowly, aware now of the ground curving gently down. Aha,
he thought. He’d climbed down the shaft, and he was now treading the underwater tunnel from cliff to island. If he judged right, when he came to the end of that, he’d be at last under the island peak.
On he went, downward over wet, slimy rock. And on. He began to grow anxious. Surely the tunnel should have bottomed out by now?
"Sessery, aren’t I almost there?”
Oh, yes, you are, you little quick thing. And now I’m going to leave you... for I've other things to-o-o... do-o-o-o-o-o...
Sessery was gone, but sure enough, the ground began to turn upward again, until he was climbing well above sea level, under the tiny island peak.
At last the tunnel merged with a deep and noisy stream. Gom stopped, listening intently to the rushing water. If the echoes told right, the way ahead opened into a high, wide cavern.
The monster’s lair?
He pictured the bone-white skull hovering in the darkness, above whatever hideousness it possessed for a physical body, its dark eye sockets staring toward the tunnel, waiting for Gom to emerge.
Coward, he told himself sternly, and made himself walk on.
Chapter Ten
A LITTLE farther along the tunnel, Gom noticed a dim glow coming from around a wide bend in the rock wall. He stopped a moment, until, his curiosity getting the better of him, he moved on again beside the stream toward the tunnel bend. As he went, the stream got wider, and the glow, brighter.
At that bend, Gom paused once more to consider. Did the glow come from the death’s-head monster? The thing was likely around there, with Zamul. He clenched his empty hands. Fool that he was to have left his staff behind. Too late to regret it now! Gom squared his shoulders, and moved forward.
He emerged into a vast lighted cavern. The stream, too wide now to leap over, rushed straight across the cavern floor into the tunnel’s continuance at the far side. Along to his right, a little cave, or grotto, led off the main cavern. That grotto entrance was crammed with a bulging mass covered in glowing scales: the light source. From the base of this mass something long and thick, like a tail, curled out onto the cavern floor.
Gom stared.
It was a tail, attached to a great, broad, fat back: a back of extraordinary size.
The monster. It had to be.
And yet—Gom didn’t sense evil from that back. In fact it put him more in mind of Mudge. And those scales, come to think, of the warm glow from Mandrik’s skull.
Gom looked around cautiously. Zamul had come down here, the green thread had told him that and Sessery had confirmed it. Yet if he had, then the skull was here somewhere. But save for that back crammed into the tiny grotto mouth, the place seemed quite empty. So where was Zamul? And where was the skull?
Perhaps through the tunnel at the far side?
Gom started toward it, and was just even with the grotto and the monster when a sparkle caught his eye. There, just beside the little entrance, the glowing back, and the long, thick tail, shone a large pile of gemstones. Intrigued, he turned aside and moved quietly toward them, a wary eye on the tail. One blow from that and he'd be clear across the cavern floor—or worse! Closer, closer, and still the monster didn’t move.
He reached the pile, and, still mindful of the awesome bulk glowing before him, looked down. Some of the stones were set in rich ornaments and diadems of silver and gold. Some, lying like pebbles on their own, shone all colors: red and yellow and blue and green and white and—
Gom reached for the small black stone lying on top. A smooth black stone carved with many magical fine lines, hanging from an old leather thong.
Slowly he took it up. Dead as ever, but—he rubbed it between finger and thumb—it was the rune. He closed his hand over it, and squeezed.
“Amsatla-lassoom?” The question boomed out from the small grotto, muffled by the bulk of the monster’s body.
Gom leapt back, all but dropping the rune.
“Amsatla-lassoom!” The question came again, more insistently, but just as muffled: a curious sound, a blend of boom and hiss. Snake, with a measure of some other tongue Gom didn’t even recognize.
“Pardon?” Gom said, in snake, measuring the distance to the far tunnel.
The voice came again, less boom, more hiss, a strong overlay of snake, primitive snake, but at least Gom made some sense of it.
“Who be is?”
Gom stood frozen, wondering what to say.
The glowing tail tip, round and flat as a butter paddle, began to wave ominously to and fro.
“Make voice sound,” the monster demanded. “Say who be is.”
With practiced speed, Gom slipped the rune around his neck and under his shirt, and made for the far tunnel.
“To I speak, soft belly!” The words continued, boom overcoming hiss, deteriorating into an incomprehensible tirade.
Gom paused, curious. The monster was clearly very agitated and growing more so by the minute, and yet apart from its lashing tail, it hadn’t moved, not even to turn about to take a look at him.
As Gom watched, the round back heaved against the grotto’s entrance arch. The strange rumbling began again, more violently than ever. The floor tilted, sending Gom teetering toward the stream’s edge. Quickly, he righted himself and called out.
“Peace!”
This was no evil creature, for all its size, Gom was even surer, now. It was clearly in some sort of trouble, and was surely going to damage itself if it didn’t stop.
"My name is Gobblechuck,” Gom said, “Gom Gobblechuck.”
The rumbling subsided. The long tail withdrew, stacked itself into neat, tight coils, like a glowing rope. “Gom?” There followed quiet while the monster apparently considered this. “Is Gom of Katak? You be not feel is.”
“Katak?” Gom said. “What’s that?”
“If not of Katak, say who be is, and how is in this place.”
Katak again. Gom didn’t like the sound of that word. What was this Katak, that such a huge beast feared it? Even as he wondered, another question began to form at the back of his mind.
Could Katak be the skull?
“What does this Katak look like?” he started to ask, but the monster cut him off.
“Shush!”
In the stillness that followed, Gom heard only the noise of the stream rushing along behind them.
The monster cried out again.
“Is wish stay is, must step inside tail!”
Step inside tail? Gom stared, puzzled. The coils moved, the tip waved like a flag over the hole that they formed. Oh. Step down into those great coils? Gom retreated uncertainly. That back suddenly didn’t seem quite so harmless. Was this a cunning trap? Maybe the monster was an enemy after all.
He began to run across the wide cavern floor.
“Stop!” the monster cried. “Is Katak here!”
Gom halted. “Where?”
“Haste!” the monster urged him. “Is last chance hide!”
Gom hesitated. He could be wrong, but the monster really did seem to be sincere. He ran back and climbed
over the warm bright coils, and squatted down inside them. Immediately, the tail tightened about him, and the flat tip flapped shut over his head with a soft leathery thud.
Gom flinched at the muffled impact, then looked around uneasily at the glowing pile of tail that enclosed him like the inside of a lamplit well.
Was it refuge? Or trap?
How strange it was in there. He put his hands to the tail wall, saw them looking golden in the warm light. He bit his lip. Had he been too hasty? He was shut in so tight that surely no air could get through. In a little while he’d be unable to breathe! In a panic, he raised his hands, pushed against the tail tip. It held firm. He opened his mouth to cry out, but at that moment a tiny speck gleamed before him, brighter by far than the tail’s soft glow.
The speck grew before his eyes into the ghastly death’s-head, hovering like pale smoke before the grotto entrance. And somehow Gom could see it quite clearly, right through the thickness of the m
onster’s shining coils!
Katak!
This was magic, thought Gom, shrinking. Real magic. He took the useless rune, closed his hand over it protectively. If he could see the skull—could it in turn see him? He tried to twist away, to avoid those hollow eyes. But they were not upon him.
A cry, harsh and angry, grated upon Gom’s ears. A wordless wail of rage.
Gom froze. He could well guess its cause. Either Katak or Zamul had left the rune on that pile, and now it was gone. Gom remembered his vision, how Katak had found the rune out. Why did he not do so now?
Of course! Then, the rune had been alive. Now its power was dead. At this moment, Katak no more sensed the rune than he would an ordinary stone.
The harsh, angry voice filled the cavern, speaking in the monster’s alien tongue. The monster answered, sounding defiant and sullen.
What were they saying? Perhaps Katak was accusing the monster of taking the rune, and the monster was denying it. Katak was clearly growing angrier by the minute. Whatever trouble the monster was in, worse was coming, and on Gom’s account.
What now? The monster surely guessed that Gom had taken the rune. Would it regret hiding him and offer him up to save itself?
A sudden silence fell.
In that silence, the glow of the monster’s tail faded. A deathly coldness filled Gom’s hiding space. It touched Gom’s skin, and his skin went numb. It touched his heart, and for a fraction, his heart stopped beating.
Yet Gom’s awareness still remained. He still saw that death’s-head hovering before him, stark now in the darkness as it had been in the vision on the plain, looking more substantial. Even as Gom watched, the death’s-head, its eyes still upon the monster, flared malevolently.
The monster’s voice sounded out in anguished protest, then died away.
“Kataaaak...”
The skull faded, but the echoes went on and on through the dark:
Katakataaakataaaakataaaaaaaak...
The cold was agony. Whatever Katak had done in his rage to the monster, he, Gom, was caught up in it.
The Riddle and the Rune Page 10