"Bring my weapons, too," he said.
The voice did not reply. Thorinn made his way to the washing-box and cleansed himself. When he came out, feeling stronger, the engine was rising through the hole with his sword, the bow, and half a dozen arrows in its arms. It thrust the weapons into the net, turned, and dropped out of sight again. The bow was cracked, the arrows had lost all their pitch, but the sword and sheath were intact. Thorinn dressed and buckled them on.
"Are you ready to answer questions now?"
"Not now, and not to you."
"If you do not answer now, no more food or water will be given." With more boldness than he felt, Thorinn answered, "You tried that once and it didn't work. It won't work next time either. Leave me alone until I eat and rest."
The voice said nothing more. Thorinn examined his bundles, unwrapped some meat, ate and drank. He was weak, but growing stronger.
"Now I'll answer questions," he said, "but only to the Monitor, not you." Before he could blink, a man in a white robe was standing there. He was an old man, three ells tall, white of mane and beard. His yellow eyes burned into Thorinn's. Around him was a lambent glow; when he turned, spidery webworks of brilliance spun on the walls. Thorinn would have fallen to his knees if he could; the breath went out of his body, and the fine hairs on his arms were standing up stiff as quills.
"I am the Monitor," the old man boomed. "Will you answer my questions, Thorinn Goryatson?" Thorinn realized in panic that he had miscalculated; before this awesome majesty he felt himself no more than a worm.
"Yes, lord," he said miserably.
"Tell me, then, where you went from the dark cave."
"There was a narrow passage—I got into it by moving stones away. Then another cave and another passage, and then I found a hole in the floor covered by a shield. Under that there was a cavern with people in it."
Behind the Monitor one of the crystals in the wall came alight, and in it Thorinn saw, as if spread out below him, the river and the forests of the flower-people. "Was it this cavern?" the old man demanded.
"Yes."
The crystal blinked, and now he saw a tiny shape floating down the river. It was the pleasure pod, and he realized with a cold shock that he himself was inside it. The pod ran down the swift current, sank under the wall of rock, and was gone.
Now the picture changed again. Thorinn was looking at the grassy bank above the river where the dead limb still lay, and the forked limb on top of it, with the punctured gourd in the fork. The gourd, he saw, was beginning to rot.
The crystal blinked again, and now he saw the whole device as he had made it—the gourd full of water holding down the fork of the limb, the creeper looped around the projecting stub at one end, tied to the pleasure pod at the other.
"Is this what you did?"
In the crystal, a tiny Thorinn pierced the gourd with his sword, watched the water begin to gush out, then turned down the slope and got into the gaping pleasure pod. There was something wrong about the Thorinn figure and the pod and the creeper: they had thin pale edges that seemed to separate them from the rest of the scene, and the figure's movements were not quite right. The pod closed over the tiny Thorinn; as the water continued to run from the gourd, the forked limb tilted, the creeper slid off the stub, the pod went down the bank into the river.
"Yes," said Thorinn, "that's what happened."
"Who taught you to make such an engine?"
"No one."
"How then did you learn to make it?"
"I don't know—I just thought about it, and then there was a picture in my head of how it must be." The Monitor looked at him in silence for an instant. There was a pale edge around him, too, as if, as if—"Where did you go from there?" the Monitor asked in a different tone.
"I was in the water. Then I went down where the stones were broken, and found a passage going upward, and then I found a hole in the wall and went into a cavern."
"Was it this cavern?"
In the crystal, he saw a tiny Thorinn sitting on the floor with treasures heaped around him. "Here, that's odd," he heard his own voice say.
"Yes," he said. The picture disappeared.
"And where did you go from there?"
"Through the roof, into a great tunnel."
"Was it a tunnel like this?"
In the crystal, he saw the vast arcs of light running away into the distance.
"Yes."
"And from there?"
"I fell into a shaft when a bird attacked me." He dared to add: "Was it your bird?"
"Yes." In the crystal, Thorinn saw himself toppling from the ledge, gaping in horror; the image expanded, blurred, and he was looking down the shaft, watching his own receding body as it floated downward, dwindling to a point, gone.
"And then?" the Monitor demanded.
"I fell into a place at the side of the shaft."
"Was it this place?"
In the crystal, he saw the ribbed floor and ceiling, the three doors at the end. "Yes. I went through one of those doors."
In the crystal, he saw the bare platform. "And from there?"
"I went into a room. Yes, that one." He saw the broken metal, the burst ceiling.
"And from there?"
"I found a passage that took me to another tunnel, and then a shaft into a cavern. From there I went through a hole in the sky into a passage, and then a tunnel, and then your engine took me prisoner. Then I woke up in another cavern, and then I got out through the waterfall."
"How did you know that the waterfall would stop if you made fire?" Thorinn peered up at the Monitor. There was certainly something about him that was like the false images in the crystal, and for that matter, it was odd that he could stand on the floor, with his robes hanging straight, when all else was afloat in the air. "Well," Thorinn said, "if it didn't, the people there would have drowned, because it kept on raining." Feeling a little bolder, he asked, "Why are you so afraid of fire?"
"I am not afraid of fire," said the Monitor.
"Well, why are you afraid of me, then? Why do you keep trying to hold me prisoner?"
"You must be held prisoner, or you may go back into the Underworld and do more harm."
"I, harm?" said Thorinn. "I've harmed nobody, except the demons who tried to kill me."
"You have done great harm everywhere."
"That can't be true. If it's not true, will you send me back to the Midworld?"
"Yes."
Thorinn's heart leaped, but in the crystal he saw the blackened forest in the cavern of the flower-people. New green vines were growing through the tangle; the clearing was deserted.
"The people of that cavern had never known that men could kill, and they were happy. It will take many years to make them happy again."
"But I didn't kill anyone," said Thorinn.
"You killed birds and ate them. The people there did not know such things could be. Now they know, and it is hard for them to love their life."
Thorinn swallowed hard. Now, in the crystal, he saw the blackened hole in the top of the demons' house. The edges were all soggy char; it had rained there, too, but not soon enough. "All right, I did that," he said, "but there was cause for it. What about the wingpeople—what harm did I do there?" The crystal blinked, and now he was looking from a height into the courtyard of the palace. Up one wall ran a sooty streak three times the height of a man.
"You taught the children how to make fire. One of the elders took the engine from them, but they will remember and make another. From this will come other engines, and from this, great killing. Their lives are spoilt, and it is all to do over."
In the crystal, Thorinn saw a procession of wingmen and women with sleeping children in their arms. They gathered in the courtyard and waited. A great gray engine lowered itself out of the sky; it was like the one that had captured Thorinn, but much larger. A door opened in its side; the wingmen went in with their burdens and came out empty-handed.