He remembered the jug, and looked for it: there it was, at the edge of the great pile he had made. When he took it up, it seemed to him that it was heavier than before. He shook it, and it gurgled. Without thinking, he tipped it over. Water splashed on his feet.
Thorinn righted the jug and stared at it. He shook it again, and it gurgled. He put the spout cautiously to his lips, tilted it up, tasted. It was water, cold and pure, as good as the spring water of Hovenskar. He put his head back and drank in great gulps until the jug was empty.
To make sure, he held it upside down. A single drop fell, then another, then none. He put the jug down, sat by it and watched it awhile, but nothing happened. He picked it up, turned it over: water ran out, a thin stream that stopped almost at once. But how could there be any, when the jug had been dry a few moments ago?
Resolved to wait longer this time, he turned his back on the jug and opened another bundle. This yielded a black box with rounded edges, one edge thicker than the others. It had no lid; it was open but not empty: the box was filled with a smooth bulge of glass or crystal in which he could see himself dimly reflected. If it was a mirror, it was a poor one. Down another aisle, he found many small bundles; he took one and opened it. Inside the nest of gray dough-stuff there were dozens of little boxes with bright markings on them, green, violet, yellow, red. He found the trick of opening them—you put your thumbnail under one edge of the lid, and the box sprang apart. Inside was an oblong piece of some cheesy substance. Thorinn sniffed it, then tore off a crumb and tasted it incredulously. It was cheese—bland, with an unfamiliar flavor, but cheese all the same. He ate the whole piece in two bites, then opened another box, and another, and ate until he was full. Weariness forgotten, he carried the rest of the boxes back to his treasure heap.
He picked up the little jug; it gurgled. He could not see inside it very well, but it seemed to be at least half full. He drank again, more out of curiosity than thirst, and sat down with his back against one of the bales of cloth. The black box lay nearby on the floor; Thorinn lazily reached for it with his foot and hooked it nearer. It slid, checked on some irregularity in the floor, then tipped forward on its heavy edge and stood upright. Inside, the crystal seemed to flicker with colored light for an instant.
"Here, that's odd," said Thorinn, sitting up.
The box flickered again, and a voice spoke.
Thorinn was on his feet without knowing how he had got there. His sword was in his hand. He whirled, looked this way and that, then circled the heap of treasure and peered behind the columns, looked down the aisles. He listened, heard nothing.
He went back to the box and stared at it dubiously. "Was that you?" he demanded. The voice spoke again, incomprehensibly. It was a quiet voice, calm and measured.
"Are you in there?" Thorinn asked, stooping to peer into the box. The voice replied. The dark crystal lighted up. Thorinn saw a confused pattern of light and shadow; then part of it moved, and he saw a tiny crouching figure, dressed in stained leather, with a sword in its hand. When he moved, it moved.
"Is that me?" he cried.
The voice said, "That me?"
Thorinn looked at the box with deep distrust, withdrew a little and sat down facing it. The crystal had gone dark; now it lighted up again, and he was looking as if down a tunnel at the same tiny figure, with a column of stacked bundles behind it. It was like looking at oneself in a mirror of ice. Yet when he raised his sword in his right hand, the figure raised the sword in its right hand, not its left, as in a proper mirror.
"You," said the voice.
"Yes, it's me," Thorinn replied. "How do you do that?" The crystal went dark. "How do me do that?" said the voice.
"Yes. how do you?" asked Thorinn impatiently. "What's the matter? Why do you talk that way?"
"Why do me talk that way?"
Thorinn felt baffled. "Yes, why do you talk that way?"
The crystal lighted again. "You talk."
"Well, I know I talk. I talk much better than you."
In the crystal, the tiny figure seemed to rush forward without moving until its face filled the box. Thorinn fell silent, but in the box he saw his own lips moving. "You talk?" asked the voice. The face rushed forward again, and now he saw only the mouth and chin. "You talk?" Convinced now that he had to do with some harmless and rather stupid spirit, Thorinn said, "Yes, I talk," and gesturing toward his own mouth, he spoke with exaggerated clarity, opening his mouth wide with each word. "I—talk. Talk. You understand?"
"Talk," said the voice. "I understand." The crystal darkened, lighted again, and Thorinn saw a hand. It was his own hand, but when he moved his hand, the hand in the box did not move. "That's my hand," he said.
"That's my hand."
"No, not yours—it's my hand."
"That's your hand."
"I said so, didn't I?"
"You said so. Talk." In the crystal, now he saw only one finger; the rest of the hand had turned all misty.
"That's my finger."
"That's your finger. Talk." Now he saw his thumb, and he told the voice what that was called; and then his arm, his leg, his foot, his toes, his head, his ears, his eyes, and so on until he lost patience and stood up. "You ask too many questions," he said.
"You ask."
"All right, who are you? How did you get in that box?"
"Box?"
Thorinn squatted, touched the box. "This thing. This box. How did you get in there?" The crystal lighted, and he was looking at the box: a box inside the box. The box inside was not lighted, and it stood on a yellow surface. "This box," said the voice.
"Yes, the box. How did you get inside it?"
"I are this box. Talk." The crystal glowed, and Thorinn saw a man in stiff scarlet robes, with a shimmer of green and gold behind him. "That's a man. He must be rich." The man disappeared, and he saw a woman with fair hair, dressed in similar robes. "That's a woman. Is it his wife?"
So they went on, and Thorinn told the box what a boy was called, a girl, a tree, a leaf, a branch; but sometimes the box showed him engines or other shapes he had never seen before, and he would say,
"What's that?" or "I don't know what that is." At last his head began to droop, and the pictures in the box grew so blurred that he could not make them out at all. "Talk," said the box. His head came up with a painful jerk, and he realized that he had been asleep for an instant.
"No more talk," he said thickly. "Good night." The box said nothing. Thorinn rolled over onto a pile of folded cloth, pulled an edge of it over him, and was instantly asleep.
When he awoke, he had forgotten all that had happened, and at first he did not know where he was. Then joy filled him when he saw his treasures. He pottered about among them for a while, examining this and that. If only he could get all this back to the Midworld, or even the thousandth part of it! Thinking deeply, he crawled through the opening in the wall to ease himself outside; came back and opened one of the boxes of cheese for his breakfast.
The box was silent and dark; it had said nothing since he had awakened, and that was odd, since it had been so garrulous before.
"Box, are you there?"
The crystal lighted. "I am here."
"Tell me, box, what is above this cave?"
"What is this cave?"
"This cave," Thorinn said, waving his arms. "This place here, where we are. What is above it?" He pointed upward as he spoke.
In the crystal, a brightly lighted little hollow shape appeared: it was like a long empty box with walls of glass. At one end of it there was a hollow worm: that must be the passage by which Thorinn had entered. Near the other end, a tiny thread connected the cave to a much larger tunnel above.