The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (14 page)

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 shaft. 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 chute 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 be 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 further, 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.

“Have you the stone?” whispered Fenodyree incredulously.

“Nay, but it is in good hands!”

They came out from the cloakroom: the mist had rolled away: in the distance a hound bayed.

“I could not kill the morthdoers, since their magic is greater than my sword, but they will feel her smarts for many a day.” Durathror chuckled. “I came to join you in the end, but, entering yonder room, I saw two things to make me pause. There is a cupboard against the wall, and a hound of the Morrigan made clamour against it; but the door was closed, and I had seen what closed it – a small white hand, cousin, and Firefrost shone upon the wrist! I slew the beast: the rest you know.”

Fenodyree ran into the kitchen.

“Come out, children! Susan! Colin!” He seized the
cupboard handle. “Oh, you will be remembered when …” He stared into the shaft, and saw a square of wood begin to grown rapidly larger as it climbed towards him out of the far depths.

“And it was but luck that brought us to you when we were beyond hope,” said Durathror.

“If only we'd known!” cried Susan.

“Ay,” said Fenodyree; “‘if only'. We should have been in Fundindelve ere now.”

The children told their story, and when they described the crossing of the plank the dwarfs grew excited.

“Hair of the Moondog!” shouted Durathror. “And did you not go on?”

“Oh yes,” said Colin, “but the tunnel finished on a platform over a lake.”

Durathror put both hands to his head and groaned in mock despair.

“Had you but known it,” said Fenodyree sadly, “the water is little more than a foot deep, and the way from there leads to the gate, not half a mile distant.”

After such a revelation the children had not the heart to talk. They huddled, wrapped in their thoughts, and their thoughts were the same. Here they sat, at the bottom of a shaft, at the end of the world: they had gained the weirdstone of Brisingamen, but that success promised to be the
beginning, and not the end, of danger, and where it would lead them they dared not think.

“We must move now,” said Fenodyree.

When they switched on the light Colin and Susan examined their surroundings in detail for the first time: and an awful truth dawned on them. There was no obvious way out of the chamber. Two tunnels led off in opposite directions, but they were flooded, and the roofs dropped steadily to meet the green-tinged water.

“Fenodyree! How do we get out of here?”

“Ay, cousin,” said Durathror, “all the while since I came I have sought a way to leave, but I see none.”

Fenodyree nodded towards the smaller of the tunnels.

“Did I not say that the road was hard? Colin, is the wrapping for your food proof against water?”

“Yes, I think so. But Fen …!!”

“Then when we start, cover the light with it. You will have to trust to my eyes alone for a time.”

“And may I have your covering for Valham, my cloak?” said Durathror to Susan.

He unbuckled his feathered cloak and rolled it tightly to fit into the sandwich bag, and Susan fastened it in her pack, which if anything, seemed lighter for the load.

“Put out the light,” said Fenodyree. “And have courage.”

T
he water was so cold that it took their breath away. Even Durathror, the hardened warrior, could not stifle the cry that broke from his lips at the first shock.

They waded along the tunnel for a short distance before having to swim, and they had not gone much farther when Fenodyree stopped and told the others to wait while he went ahead. He drew a deep breath, there was a flurry and a splash, and he did not answer when Colin spoke.

“Where has he gone?” asked Susan.

“The roof and water meet where he left us,” said Durathror.

Two minutes passed before Fenodyree broke the surface again, and it was some time after that before he could speak.

“It is no distance,” he said when at length his breathing was under control, “and the air is fresh, but the roof is low for many yards, so we must swim on our backs.”

Another swirl, and he was gone.

“I'll wait about a minute,” said Susan. She was more frightened than she cared to admit, but she hoped Colin and
Durathror would think that her teeth were chattering with the cold alone.

“Right: here goes.”

“She has great courage,” said Durathror. “She hides her fear better than any of us.”

“Are you scared, too?” said Colin.

“Mortally. I will pit my wits and sword against all odds, and take joy in it. But that is not courage. Courage is fear mastered, and in battle I am not afraid. Here, though, the enemy has no guile to be countered, no substance to be cast down. Victory or defeat mean nothing to it. Whether we win or lose affects us alone. It challenges us by its presence, and the real conflict is fought within ourselves. And so I am afraid, and I know not courage.”

“Oh,” said Colin. He felt less isolated now, less shut in with his fears. “Well, I'd better be on my way.”

“Good luck to you,” said Durathror.

Colin held his dive as long as possible, but the icy water constricted his lungs, and he soon was in need of air. He rose to what he implored would be the surface, but his hands and the back of his head scraped against the roof. Flustered, he kicked himself into a shallow dive, his stomach tightening, and his head seemed about to burst. This time. No! Again he struck the roof. What was wrong? Why was there no air? Fenodyree had said … ah! He remembered! Swim on your
back: the roof is low. That's it! Colin turned frantically on to his back: the knapsack pulled at his shoulders and began to tilt him upside-down. He threshed the water and managed to right himself. And then his lips broke surface. The air rushed out of his lungs, and Colin promptly sank, swallowing a lot of water. He kicked off so violently from the tunnel floor that he nearly stunned himself on the roof, but it quelled the panic, and he lay on his back, breathing air and water by turns.

The roof was certainly low. In order to keep his lips above water he had to squash his nose against the rough stone of the ceiling, which made progress as painful as it was difficult.

After twenty yards, Colin was relieved to find that the distance between surface and roof was increasing, and, before long, he was able to turn on to his face and swim more naturally. But where were the others? He trod water.

“Hallo! Ahoy! Sue!”

“Here!”

It was Susan's voice, and not far ahead, either. Almost at once the water grew shallow, and then he was knee-deep in mud, and Fenodyree's arm was about him.

“Oh, let me sit down!”

Durathror joined them presently, and he was in great distress.

“Squabnose,” he gasped, “I have been near death many
times, but never has he stretched out his hand so close, or looked more terrible!”

Colin unwrapped the lamp to discover how it had withstood the rough passage. It was none the worse, and by its light the children saw that they were lying on a bank of red mud, soft and very sticky. Ahead of them was a tunnel, but it was far different from any in West Mine. The roof ran square to the walls, and nowhere was more than a yard high. The colours were striking, for the walls were of a deep-red shale, and the roof was a bed of emerald copper ore.

The going was difficult enough without the mud. It was not so bad for the dwarfs, but Colin and Susan developed a severe ache in neck and back very quickly. The tunnels never ran straight, and they would branch five times in as many yards. Caves were few, and seldom bigger than an average room. Water was everywhere; and what few shafts barred the way were flooded, and therefore easily crossed.

After half a mile the relatively open passages were left behind, and now even the dwarfs were forced to crawl all the time. Roof falls became frequent, too, and negotiating them was an arduous business. The children were continually surprised by the way in which it was possible to force their bodies through holes and cracks that looked as though they would have been a squeeze for a kitten, but they found that, no matter how impracticable a gap appeared, if a head and
one arm could be pushed through together, then the rest of the body would, eventually, follow.

Now and again they would come upon a stretch of rock over which the water had washed a delicate curtain. This was to be found where a vein of ore lay just above the roof: the water, trickling through the copper, over the years had spread a film of colour down the wall, ranging from the palest turquoise to the deepest sea-green.

The tunnels grew more constricted and involved. Susan particularly disliked having to worm herself round two corners at once. She thought of the picture of Alice in the White Rabbit's house, with an arm out of the window, and one foot up the chimney.

“That's just how it is here,” she grumbled; “only this ceiling's lower!”

Fenodyree called a halt in a cave into which they fitted like the segments of an orange. But they could stand partially upright, which was some relief.

“We have put the greatest distance behind us,” said Fenodyree, “but it is from here that our chief dangers lie. Between Durathror's feet is the passage that will take us to the light.”