The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (13 page)

Before them the tunnel ended in a drop: they were in the roof of a cave, and across the emptiness another tunnel lay. A broken ledge, no more than a few inches wide, and sloping outwards, ran to it along the overhanging wall.

“There are handholds,” said Fenodyree. “Give me your light, so that you may see, and have both hands free when you come.”

It looked so easy as they watched him go crabwise across the wall. He moved smoothly and surely, and in a matter of seconds he was there.

“Susan now, please. If your fingers have need of rest,
halfway 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 loath 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. Its 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.

D
urathror 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 realised 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 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 dwarf's 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 further, 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 sister's 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 Fenodyree's hand; and as this drew further 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 last 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 …”