"You 'olds it by the neck, and then you twists the body so…"
Twisting the body of the 'bottle' exposed a glass portal, through which shone a powerful beam of light.
"Glowstones." Martan began to explain, but Gawain nodded his understanding.
"I've seen them before, in Elvendere. They allow no fire there.”
"Very wise of 'em I'm sure, livin' in trees like they're said to do. An' very wise not to be lightin' no fires in the workin's neither."
They stepped forward into the fissure, and then Martan paused again. "Well, kick my arse an' call me whitebeard! See here!"
Gawain stepped closer, and added his lamp to Martan's.
"See there, Serre? Someone's been a-workin' the entrance! There, tryin' to make it bigger…that's 'uman workin', that is."
"How do you know?"
"Dwarf don't need to make the shaft so 'igh, does 'e? See there? They got what, about twenty paces in, then gave up."
"Why would they give up?"
Martan shrugged. "Dunno. P'raps they found a better way in or out? That explains the fresh spoil out yonder though. I'd say these workin' were…"
"Fresh," Gawain interjected, "maybe a year or two?"
Martan's face cracked into a broad grin. "Why Serre, I do believes yer learning a miner's ways!"
Gawain smiled back, and shone his lamp on the ground around the entrance. "No sign of recent passage."
"No," Martan agreed. "Not for a year or two at least. You'll have to stoop low when we goes in, Serre. The workin's beyond these fresh cuts were dwarf-dug. And we speaks in whispers, Serre. Loud noises don't go too well in the mines, an' voices travel far."
Gawain nodded, and moments later they entered the tunnel. Twenty paces in, Gawain had to stoop, and it became pitch-black save for the light from their glowstone lamps. Yet further, and silence enveloped them like the darkness, and Gawain had an uneasy sense of the mountain's weight above him.
The tunnel ran almost arrow-straight at a steep downward slope for some considerable distance. Gawain lost all sense of time, and his back was beginning to protest by the time the shaft opened up into a small chamber and he could stand upright again.
Martan turned around, and shone the lamp up at the shaft's roof. "More 'uman work. See there? They was trying to heighten the tunnel at both ends. More fresh spoil 'ere an' all."
"Odd that they went to so much trouble, and then ceased." Gawain whispered back.
"Aye. Well, this be the first chamber. We can rest 'ere a bit afore we go on, if you needs a stretch?"
"I do. How long have we walked?"
"Lost time, eh? Goes like that in the mines. No sun nor moon to tell time by. By my guts, which're beginning a rumbling, it's evenin' in outworld."
"So long?"
"Aye. We're well down and under.” Martan sat on the bare rock floor, and fished in his pack for his cake of frak, while Gawain shone his lamp around the chamber.
Apart from the exit, three more tunnels gaped black and uninviting in the walls. One had been worked just like the exit, the roof chipped away to gain height.
"Which route do we take to the chasm you spoke of, Martan? Would it be that one?"
Martan, chewing a mouthful of the leather-tough frak, shook his head, and pointed to another.
Gawain frowned, and sat down, and rummaged in his own pack. Merrin had packed two great cakes of frak inside, and judging by the seemingly tiny amount shaved off one of them, they would last a long time.
While he chewed the tough but wholesome frak, Gawain mused. The chasm seemed somehow important, but the recent workings on the other tunnel suggested that they would be better following it, rather than the low-ceilinged route indicated by the old miner.
"Where does that one lead?" Gawain mumbled while he chewed, indicating the fresh-worked route.
"West, parallel to the farak gorin above. It dies out maybe ten mile along. No ore."
"Ten miles?"
"Aye. Not much of a dig, but when yer sees no traces, comes a point when it's easier to try another direction."
"Not much of a dig? Ten miles?"
Martan looked surprised. "Aye. You'll find loads o' little runs like that 'un all over the place. They leads nowhere."
Gawain was stunned at the scale of the works. That dwarven miners would consider a ten mile dig through solid rock to be 'not much of a dig' was astounding.
"How far is the chasm?" he whispered, not sure he wanted to know.
"Fair ways off, and fair ways down. There's chambers like this 'un along the way, so's you'll have a chance to stretch yer back afore it's bent permanent."
Gawain could see the old miner's eyes sparkling in the lamplight while he prized another slice of frak from his cake. A 'fair ways off'? Gawain thought. If ten miles was not much of a dig, how far was 'a fair ways off'?
When they'd eaten, Martan led the way through the tunnels once more. Time had little meaning, and the world was reduced to a tube lit for twenty paces ahead of them, darkness beyond, and damp walls either side. The rest chambers, as Martan called them, were really little more than small cave-like rooms, from which sprung other tunnels. They slept when they were tired, and moved on when they awoke. Soon, Gawain even began to lose count of the 'sleeps', by which he'd attempted to measure the days and nights.
Martan had chuckled at that, and explained that it mattered not. With no sun nor moon to tell time by, folk adopted a strange routine of waking and sleeping which bore no resemblance to the patterns and routines of 'outworld'. Gawain instead tried counting the number of times they paused to refill their waterskins from trickles and rivulets than ran down the tunnel walls at intervals. Even that was a poor clock.
Once, while filling their skins, Gawain followed Martan's lead and pressed his ear to the rock wall. A distant rushing and rumbling could be heard.
"Underground river, or stream." Martan explained. "That's why this tunnel veers sharp ahead, not a good idea to bore into that lot."
Gawain agreed, and shuddered, and drew his cloak tighter around himself. It was cold in the tunnels, a constant and unvarying temperature, and he was grateful for the cloak's fur lining.
Some time later, or at least five sleeps later, whatever that might mean in outworld time, Martan paused and cocked his head, listening. Gawain strained his ears, but heard nothing but the constant drip of water, and his own breathing.
"What is it?" he whispered at length.
"Thought I 'eard tooling. Iron on rock. We're nearing the chasm, no more chambers between here and that great divide."
"Where are we?"
"Near the chasm."
"But where, with respect to the mountain?"
"From outworld, we're near the heart of the range." Martan shrugged. "Distance don't mean much really. We been goin' up an' down, east an' west, followin' the cuts as were made in search of ore. In the workin's, you can walk thirty mile, and end up 'alf a mile from where you started."
Gawain's heart sank. His back ached from stooping so low, his knees were scraped, and he was tired. But he took some comfort in the knowledge that Morloch and the Ramoths had not been able to take advantage of the old dwarven workings to travel straight through the teeth from one side to the other.
"Are you ready? Not far now ‘til we reach the rip. Then we can eat, and sleep."
"Aye."
And so they trudged on, Gawain's back and legs protesting every inch. Hours later, or so it seemed to Gawain, Martan stopped and listened again. Then continued on. Finally, the tunnel opened up, the ceiling became high enough for Gawain to stand upright, and the walls became jagged, natural rather than dwarf-dug. And a breeze began to waft over their faces, bringing with it fresh chill air and a sensation of a vast open space beyond the light from their lamps.