The World and Thorinn

12 How Thorinn battled flying engines in their cavern, and solved a riddle wrongly.

Down the middle of the passage ran a steady trickle of water where a torrent had run before. The darkness was broken only by his light-box and the silence by the murmur of water. He scanned the ceiling eagerly as he went, but it was unbroken, league after league. His good leg grew tired, and he stopped to rest and massage it. He drank from the little stream; like the river below, it had the taste of the stone in it. Then he went on. It seemed to him that the day must be almost over, below in the cavern. How long would his fire burn, and how long after that would the water begin to recede?

An engine had brought him into the cavern through the water, but he was no fish; if the water flowed here again before he found some exit, he must drown.

The bulk of his belongings, light as it was, strained at his shoulders with each leap, like a hand pulling him insistently back. At first, indeed, he had thought it was the geas, but it seemed that the voice in his head understood that there was no way to go down from the cavern, and it was silent. If only he could inflate the bladder, it would be easier to get up this steep tunnel, but he dared not pause long enough to do so, and even if he did, the bladder would hide the exit from him and he might never see it.

Presently the stream diminished but became more agitated—great slow swells were traveling down the tunnel at his feet, and up ahead he could see that the swells were higher and sharper. Now he could hear the melancholy sound of falling water, and now he could see it: thin sheets dropping from the ceiling far overhead, striking the tunnel floor and rebounding in slow fantastic shapes. The opening above appeared to be circular and as wide as the tunnel itself, but it was hard to tell because the air was full of streamers and floating droplets of water.

The water dripped like syrup from the opening above, fell and struck with dreamlike slowness, splattered the walls, ran down black and glistening. Thorinn leaped through, landed beyond where the tunnel was almost dry. Ahead, the tunnel continued at the same slope for another fifty ells and then curved majestically upward. Thorinn peered up, shielding the" light-box with his hand: the tunnel, now a shaft, was straight, smooth-walled and dry, as far upward as he could see.

Thorinn unwrapped his bundle and spread it out on the stone floor. He uncovered his pitch pot and brushes, tied the light-box to his arm, took the end of the cord attached to the top of the bladder, and leaped upward. Clinging by a tarry brush, he pulled the limp bladder toward him until he thought it was high enough, then dipped a section of the cord in the pot and secured it to the wall. He leaped down again, and found that the bladder was still too low: the neck of it was almost touching the basket. He measured the slack with his arm, then went up again, hauled up more cord, and secured it as before. Now the bladder was hanging properly at the bend of the tunnel where it turned upward and became a shaft. Thorinn loaded all his possessions into the space between the firepit and the wall of the basket, kindled a fire, added bits of wood, then larger pieces. The smoke rose through the open neck of the bladder; slowly it began to fill.

At first the bladder hung straight; then as it fattened, the tether on the wall above forced it to tilt outward more and more. Presently the neck of the bladder was no longer directly above the fire; much smoke was being lost. Thorinn leaned against the basket, forced it upward on the slope, but now the basket tilted, and it was all he could do to hold it level so that the fire should not spill out and ignite the basket. As he stood there, leaning with all his strength against the basket and craning his neck to see how the bladder was filling, a sudden clatter came from the tunnel below him. He turned, losing his hold on the basket, and saw with horror a great silvery sheet of water descending into the tunnel. The clatter became a roar; waves nearly as tall as the ceiling began to surge toward him; he was drenched by flying droplets where he stood. Desperately Thorinn turned and lifted the basket again. Water was leaping and frothing around his ankles, and still the roar of the cataract swelled until he was half deafened. There was a faint tug at the basket, and the neck of the bladder above him tilted back a little; the bladder was rising.

Another tug, and the basket rose half a span, but when he tried to put his weight on it, down it swung again. The water was lapping at his knees. Up went the basket, another span or so. Thorinn's only thought was to shield the fire with his body.

Up it went again, Thorinn clinging to it; he raised his legs, and still the basket hung level. It crept upward once more, and this time went on rising. The water fell away below.

Thorinn clambered carefully into the basket, on the side across from his heaped possessions, and watched the smooth shaft move by. When the end of the cord came into view, he climbed the rigging of the bladder until he could catch the loop in his hand and tug it free of the wall. He climbed higher, almost to the widest part of the bladder, and thrust against the wall with his feet until the bladder reluctantly drifted away an ell or so; then he clambered back down into the basket, feeling weak and spent. The walls of the shaft moved steadily and slowly past him. Below, the bottom was lost in darkness, and there was nothing but darkness above.

Lulled by the silence, Thorinn almost failed to notice when the movement of the walls slowed down. Hurriedly he built up the fire. The bladder hesitated, then bobbed upward, and its steady rise resumed. In this dark shaft under the earth he had no sense of motion at all; it seemed rather that the shaft itself was in movement while he hung like a beetle on a string. The walls were smooth, gray, and featureless; there was nothing to mark off one place from another, and he began to feel that something had gone wrong with time; he could not tell how long he had been in the shaft.

He built up the fire again. His stock of fuel was dwindling. He opened one of his bundles, ate some cheese and drank from the jug. The box, which had been in the same bundle, lay on the floor of the basket at his feet.

"Box," he said, "how much farther is it to the cavern you showed me?"

"It is less than ten ells."

As the box spoke, Thorinn became aware of a red glow, like the glare from an oven at night but much dimmer and darker. Seized by fear, he was at the edge of the basket ready to leap out before he mastered himself. There was no heat in the steady red glare; he felt nothing when he held out his hand to it. "Box, why is it red?" he called.

"It is red because the engines see by red light."

Now, as the bladder rose, he could see the rim of the shaft, with unfamiliar tall shapes beyond it. He strung his bow, made sure the sheaf of arrows was lying ready to hand. Now the lip of the shaft dropped away, and he saw that they were rising through a vast red-lit gulf in which a confusion of tall ovoid shapes rose one on another, with slender pedestals between them. Here and there were dots of brighter red, some so distant that they were like grains of dust. In the sullen gloom the walls and ceiling of the cavern were invisible; he could not rid himself of the conviction that he was in a great furnace, about to crisp and burst into flame. "Box, how high is this cavern?"

"It is seventy ells high."

"And the shaft goes straight through it?"

"Yes, Thorinn."

Now, as his eyes grew more accustomed to the dimness, he saw a distant movement through the aisles between the columns; a red eye winked on. It was coming closer. He reached for the box, turned it.

"Box, what is that?"

"It is an engine."

"What sort of engine?"

"It is an engine that tends other engines."

Now he could see the spidery shape behind the light, looming nearer. Another red eye winked on in the distance, then another. The first engine was so near that he could see its skeletal arms outstretched, the sheen of something round and water-bright in its belly. He felt a sudden chill around his ankles, and looked down to see that the yellow flames of his fire had magically vanished. Even the embers were not alight; there was nothing but blackened wood and sullen red ash. Incredulous, he passed his hand over the charred sticks, then touched them. They were as cool as if the fire had gone out days ago.

"Box!" he cried.

"Here am I."

But he had no time for questions. The second and third engines were soaring past the bladder; the first had disappeared below. He felt a jolt, and the bladder dipped toward the nearest columns; another, and it moved again. He leaped to the other side of the basket, and saw that two engines were pushing the bladder above, half visible beyond its bulge. Another jolt, and a hiss; the bladder was moving, dropping. Thorinn leaned over the edge of the basket and saw the shaft below drifting away out of reach. "Box!"

"Here am I."

Feverishly Thorinn piled tinder and kindling under the dead fire, got out his fire stick, saw the yellow flames curl up. After a moment there was another wave of cold, and the flames vanished. He turned to see an engine soaring by, no more than two ells away.

Trembling with fear and anger, he seized an arrow, nocked it, let fly. He saw the arrow strike fair in the center of the engine, saw the pitch-smeared cords spring out and wrap themselves around it. He heard a shriek and a clatter; the engine drifted away aslant between the columns. Another jolt came, and another. Thorinn nocked an arrow, fired at one of the engines above. He saw the pitch burst on the tail of the engine, but nothing more happened. The bladder was still drifting steadily downward away from the shaft; now it was passing between two columns of the tall shapes that stood one above another like gigantic beads on a wire. A hundred ells away, the forest ended and he glimpsed a broad open space with other shapes beyond it.

Thorinn slung his bow over his shoulder, seized two arrows and put them between his teeth. He sprang for the rigging, pulled himself up along the fat bulge.

Now he could see the two engines with their noses against the bladder, and the water-bright disks in their bellies. He jammed his foot under one of the cords of the rigging, forced his bow arm under another, and took aim at one of the engines. He struck it as he had the other, heard it shriek. Slowly it tilted, came drifting down. In the dazzle of its red eye, he saw the spidery arms reaching for him, saw the round place in its belly no longer a bright disk but four curved blades like the petals of a flower, tangled and still. He drew his sword, struck at the reaching arm, heard a clang. The engine, slowly tumbling, passed on.

Thorinn put his sword away, nocked another arrow, and shot the third engine. It died in its turn, drifting downward, its spidery arms vainly reaching. In the silence, he heard the hiss of escaping air above. He climbed higher to look, and found two long rents in the fabric; the bladder around them was crinkling, collapsing. Filled with fury, he climbed down to the basket again. He gave the box one burning glance, but did not speak to it. He tore open a bundle, found his patches, stuffed a handful of them into his belt. He dropped the bow, seized his pitch-pot and brush, and sprang up through the neck of the bladder. In the stifling red dimness, he pulled himself up by grasping folds of the bladder, found the first hole. Gripping the handle of the pitch-pot between his teeth, he dipped his brush, painted the edges thickly, then got a patch from his belt and pressed it over the rent. He climbed higher, dealt with the other hole in the same way, then lowered himself again and dropped into the basket. Below, one of the engines was drifting into the stem between two of the tall ovoids of a column. It struck with a distant clang, rebounded, slowly tumbled in the air, and resumed its gradual motion toward the floor of the cavern.

Thorinn lighted his fire again. The flames flickered up yellow, spread, caught. But the bladder had already passed through the metal forest and was slowly settling into the open space. What was to be done now? The only way to get back to the shaft was to descend and go afoot, dragging the bladder after him. He separated the burning sticks a little; the bladder continued its gentle descent. At length the basket touched the floor, scraped a little, and was still. Thorinn stepped out of the basket; relieved of his weight, it began to rise. Thorinn caught the trailing cord and felt its tug lift him almost but not quite off his feet. To be safe, he knotted the cord around his waist, but when he tried to walk, he found that his feet had no purchase on the floor; the most he could do was to hop straight upward, whereupon the bladder ponderously bobbed upward, too, then as gradually settled.

While he was puzzling over this, the shapes beyond him caught his eye. At a little distance there were four slender curving tracks of pinkish metal suspended high in the air; in the red gloom, they seemed to be aimed at two cavernous doorways in the wall beyond. Along the wall, past the metal tracks, he could make out lines of bulbous objects like metal eggs, as big as the bladder. As he watched, an egg detached itself from the row, was lifted to one of the tracks, and disappeared rapidly into a doorway. Presently another egg emerged from the other doorway in a cloud of steam, traveled along another track, and moved out of sight. Whatever these things were, they seemed to be paying no attention to him. He turned away and stared out over the tops of the forest of columns. The best thing, perhaps, would be to build up his fire again, rise to the top of the cavern, then discharge one of his arrows at the ceiling with a cord tied to it. If the pitch held, he could draw the cord in and thus pull the bladder along; then pull the arrow free, shoot it again, and so on... Out there, where the opening of the shaft must be, a tiny dot of red had winked into being. It drifted a little, then hung steady; but now he saw that it was growing brighter. It was coming toward him, and it was moving too fast to be one of the little engines he had slain. Thorinn climbed hurriedly into the basket. "Box," he said bitterly, "what is that engine?"

"It is an engine like the one that took you prisoner before. There is a danger to you, Thorinn."

"So I see."

With grim haste, Thorinn was dipping the brush in the pitch-pot, dabbing a spot the size of his fingernail onto the sole of each shoe. He unfastened the cord from about his waist, then slung the box over his shoulder, leaped out again and drifted toward the floor. "Where do those doorways go?" he demanded.

"One of them goes to a shaft where rising clouds carry things upward. The other goes to a shaft where falling water carries things down."

Thorinn's good foot touched the floor, clung. He strained forward, tugging the bladder after him. Another step, then another. The great awkward bulk of the bladder was in motion now, but it prevented him from looking back to see how close the engine was.

Lurching from good foot to bad, Thorinn tugged the bladder onward. Now he could see that there were spidery arms on the tracks, shaped to grip the metal eggs. While he watched, another dripping egg emerged from one of the doorways, traveled rapidly away, and was gone. It was no good asking the box which doorway was which, for he knew it would lie. Then he saw that was the answer.

"Box," he said, "which is the shaft that goes up?"

"It is the one on the left, Thorinn."

With a humorless grin, Thorinn leaped for the metal track on the right. The bladder bobbed up beside him. Clinging like a fly to the metal, Thorinn drew the bladder in. The red dot, now a disk, was shockingly near. He settled the bladder on the track between two spidery arms, saw them close to hold it, and tumbled into the basket as the track began to move, first slowly, then with such speed that the air whistled past his cheeks. Ahead, the doorway was blocked by a silvery pink film; it broke as the bladder entered it, and the air was suddenly full of flying droplets of spray. Bladder, basket, Thorinn and all were whirled out and downward into a chaos of roaring water.

Go down, said the voice triumphantly in his head.