Now the tunnel began to change; there were slight irregularities in the even curve of the ceiling and walls: yellow glassy knobs, in shape like candlewax, but hard as stone. As he went on, these irregularities made the tunnel even more unpleasant; they were like blinking eyelashes around the great staring eye. He had lost all account of the distance he had traveled; he knew that it must be ten leagues or more, and yet he could not escape the sense that he was only leaping up and down, while the stone danced toward him.
He smelled the water before he heard it, a distant rushing sound in the tunnel ahead. Moment by moment it came nearer, and the breeze freshened: now he saw that the tunnel floor was broken by a great hole, ten ells across, that went down out of sight in undulating level stripes of brown and cream-colored stone. Great blocks of rubble were heaped on either side of it, and above them he could make out a black cavity vanishing into the ceiling. It would be no great matter, he thought, to leap from the boulders into the shaft above, and it was narrow enough to climb without a rope: but he would need both hands free. He unwrapped the thong from one leg and used it to tie the light-box to his forearm. He climbed the blocks and turned the light-box downward; he could not see the bottom, but the sound of the water dinned in his ears. As he gathered himself to leap, something curious happened: he took a step he had not intended. Beneath him, the water roared.
He struggled in terror, but the stones dropped away and he was falling. Go down, said the voice in his head.
2
How Thorinn lost his sword in a lake, and became a stonemason to get it back.
It was the distant, thunderous roaring of the water that brought him up out of darkness. He was sprawled on wet stone, retching feebly. His legs were still in the water, which lapped at his middle rhythmically and insistently, over and over in the same place. When he tried to crawl out of its reach, he found his legs too heavy to move. He belched up a watery surge of vomit against the stone. After a while, groaning, he managed to drag himself an ell or so away from the water, and rolled onto his back. The light-box was still bound to his arm, but its glow was so feeble that he could barely see it. When he looked up, the darkness pressed close against his eyes. The sound of the water roared endlessly, off in the darkness. He could remember the water plunging up over his head, the helpless motion, the falling...
There had been an unaccustomed freedom when he rolled over on the stone; something was missing. He felt for the scabbard at his belt; it was there, but it was limp; the sword was gone. After an interval, some faint sound in the darkness brought him struggling up on one elbow. He listened, but the sound was not repeated: he heard only the steady, tumultuous roaring of the water. On his right cheekbone there was a thumb-sized lump, still welling blood, and his shoulder felt as if someone had clubbed it.
A touch told him that the light-box was ruined. One end was split, the mica missing and all the sky-stuff washed out of the compartment except for a few shreds clinging to the soaked wood. The dim glow came from these.
The knots in the wet thong were too much for his fingers, and at last he attacked them with his teeth, jerking at them stubbornly until they loosened enough to slip the light-box free. Holding it with care in both hands, he pried the wooden cap off the other end. The mica there was still whole. He unlatched the lid, raised it, and probed delicately in the second compartment. It was half full of chill water, in which he could feel the sodden sky-stuff afloat.
Thorinn let out the breath he had been holding. He fumbled over the stone with his free hand until he found a hollow place, then tilted the box over it, pressing the sky-stuff against the inside of the compartment and straining the water out between his fingers.
He remembered that he must put aside a portion of the dark sky-stuff. He unfastened his wallet and tipped the water out of it, then pinched up a good lump of sky-stuff between thumb and finger, and laid it carefully at the bottom of the wallet.
Now, if there was enough of the bright sky-stuff left... Thorinn scraped the inside of the ruined compartment with his forefinger, brought it up with the fingernail dimly glowing, and touched it to the sodden mass in the other half of the box. The sky-stuff bloomed into pale light, dim but beautiful to his eyes.
He shut the lid carefully upon it, then aimed the mica end of the box this way and that around him. He was sitting on a smooth flat rock that sloped gently to the water, and ran away featureless into the darkness on every other side.
Now that he had light, his first care was to recover the few strands of sky-stuff that had escaped between his fingers when he poured the water out. He dipped them up out of the puddle one by one, dried them as best he could by shaking them gently, and deposited them in the box again. Next he thought of his hurts. Dark sky-stuff, moistened and bound to a wound, was said to be healing; but he had none to spare, nor any other simples. As for magic, he knew none; he could cast runes, and find lost objects sometimes, but that was all.
He climbed stiffly erect. His sopping garments clung to him, his shoes squelched when he took a step; even his hair dripped cold down the back of his neck. He turned toward the distant roaring sound and slowly began to hop along the edge of the water, holding the light-box before him. After ten steps a black wall of rock gleamed out of the darkness. It went nearly to the water and rose overhead farther than his little light would reach. He turned away from the water, up the slope. After a few steps the stone on which he had been walking ended and gave way to other slabs, more uneven, higher and of a smaller size, while the wall curved gradually back, away from the roaring sound, until it ran parallel with the water.
In thirty paces more, Thorinn came to a head-high shelf on which some leathery fans of fungus grew. He pulled them down, found them white and doughy inside, with a strong stale odor. He nibbled at one, found it palatable, then ate all the rest and looked for more. But he found no others of that size, only a mass of larger ones joined together in long rows, dead and as hard as spearwood. He turned away in disappointment, but after a moment, thinking better of it, went back and broke loose some of the dead fungus. It came away in a long staff, like a loaf of bread. He examined the inner surface closely in the glow of the light-box: it was porous and tinder-dry. Insects had tunneled through it, leaving portions of the mass so eaten away that they collapsed under his thumb. Thorinn knelt on the cold stone, opened his wallet and got out his fire stick. The tinder was a sodden mass of fiber. Thorinn untied it and spread it out on the stone: it might dry enough to be of use, he supposed, but that would take days.
He dried his hands as well as he could by rubbing them along the rock, then picked up the staff of fungus again and began to break off small pieces. But his touch dampened them in spite of all he could do, and at last he broke the staff into two parts and began rubbing the ends together to grind off chunks and fragments. When he had a pile of these, he laid the rest of the fungus aside and picked up his fire stick. It was wet, but the plunger still slid freely enough in the cylinder. Thorinn took it apart, shook a few drops of moisture out of it, then, holding it braced against the stone between his legs, sat patiently driving the plunger in, over and over, until the cylinder grew warm to the touch and the inside was dry. He opened the fire stick then, wedged the cylinder upright into a crack in the stone, and used the shreds of fungus to pick up other shreds, preserving their dryness, and drop them into the fire stick. He put the plunger in, drove it down smartly, removed it: the shreds of fungus were glowing bright orange. He tipped them out carefully into a pile of the finest fragments and dust of the fungus; they glowed for a moment more, then went out.