Alan Garner Classic Collection. Alan Garner
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.”
The 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