by Alan Garner
Behind her, two shadows moved out of the mist, slid along the wall, and through the open door.
“Which way now?” whispered Susan.
They were standing in a cramped hall, and there was a choice of three doors leading from it. One of these was ajar, and seemed to be a cloakroom.
“In here, then we’ll see which door she goes through.” Nor did they delay, for the masculine tread of Selina Place came to them out of the mist.
“Now let us do what we can in haste,” she said as she rejoined Grimnir. “There may be nothing threatening. but we shall not feel safe until we are master of the stone. Give it to us now.”
Grimnir unfastened a pouch at his waist, and from it drew Susan’s bracelet. Firefrost hung there, its bright depths hidden beneath a milky veil.
The Morrigan took the bracelet and placed it in the middle of the circle on the floor. She pulled the curtains over the windows and doors, and went to stand by the brazier, whose faint glow could hardly push back the darkness. She took a handful of powder from the silver plate and, sprinkling it over the coals, cried in a loud Voice:
“Demoriel, Carnefiel, Caspiel, Amenadiel! ! ”
A flame hissed upwards, filling the room with ruby light. Shape-shifter opened the book and began to read.
“Vos omnes it ministri odey et destructiones et seratores discorde…”
“What’s she up to?” said Susan.
“I don’t know, but it’s giving me gooseflesh.”
“…eo quod est noce vose coniurase ideo vos conniro et deprecur…”
“Colin, I…”
“Sh! Keep still!”
“…et odid fiat mier alve…”
Shadows began to gather about the folds of velvet tapestry in the farthest corners of the room.
For thirty minutes Colin and Susan were forced to stand in their awkward hiding-place, and it took less than half that time for the last trace of enthusiasm to evaporate. They were where they were as the result of an impulse, an inner urge that had driven them on without thought of danger. But now there was time to think, and inaction is never an aid to courage. They would probably have crept away and tried to find Cadellin, had not a dreadful sound of snuffling, which passed frequently beneath the cloakroom window, made them most unwilling to open the outer door.
And all the while Shape-shifter’s chant droned on, rising at intervals to harsh cries of command.
“Come Haborym! Come Haborym” Come Haborym!”
Then it was that the children began to feel the dry heat that was soon to become all but intolerable. It bore down upon them until the blood thumped in their ears, and the room spun sickeningly about their heads.
“Come Orobas! Come Orobas! Come Orobas!”
Was it possible? For the space of three seconds the children heard the clatter of hoofs upon bare boards, and a wild neighing rang high in the roof.
“Come Nambroth! Come Nambroth! Come Nambroth!”
A wind gripped the house by the eaves, and tried to pluck it from its sandstone roots, Something rushed by on booming winds. The lost voices of the air called to each other in the empty rooms, and the mist clung fast and did not stir.
“Coniuro et confirmo super vos potentes in nomi fortis, metuendissimi, infandi…”
Just at the moment when Susan thought she must faint, the stifling heat diminished enough to allow them to breathe in comfort: the wind died, and a heavy silence settled on the house.
After minutes of brooding quiet a door opened, and the voice of Selina Place came to the children from outside the cloakroom. She was very much out of breath.
“And… we say the stone… will… be safe. Nothing… can reach it… from… outside, Come away… this is a dangerous… brew. Should it boil over… and we near, that… would be the end… of us. Hurry. The force is growing… it is not safe to watch.”
Mistrustfully, and with many a backward glance, Grimnir joined her, and they went together through the doorway on the opposite side of the hall, and their footsteps died away.
“Well, how do we get out of this mess?” said Colin. “It looks as though we’re stuck here until she calls these animals off, and if she’s going to do any more of the stuff we’ve been listening to, I don’t think I want to wait that long.”
“Colin, we can’t go yet! My Tear’s in that room, and we’ll never have another chance!”
The air was much cooler now, and no sounds, strange or otherwise, could be heard. And Susan felt that insistent tugging at her inmost heart that had brushed aside all promises and prudence when she stared at the mist from the bridge by the station.
“But Sue, didn’t you hear old Place say that it wasn’t safe to be in there? And if she’s afraid to stay it must be dangerous.”
“I don’t care:!”ve got to try. Are you coming? Because if not,I’m going by myself.”
“Oh… all right! But we’ll wish we’d stayed in here.” They stepped out of the cloakroom and cautiously opened the left-hand door.
The dull light prevented them from seeing much at first, hut they could make out the table and the reading-desk, and the black pillar in the centre of the floor.
“All clear!” whispered Susan.
They tiptoed into the room, closed the door, and stood quite still while their eyes grew accustomed to the light and then they saw.
The pillar was alive. It climbed from out the circle that Selina Place had so laboriously made, a column of oily smoke; and in the smoke strange shapes moved, Their forms were indistinct, but the children could see enough to wish themselves elsewhere.
Even as they watched the climax came. Faster and faster the pillar whirled, and thicker and thicker the dense fumes grew, and the floor began to tremble, and the children’s heads were of a sudden full of mournful voices that reached them out of a great and terrible distance. Flecks of shadow, buzzing like flies, danced out of the tapestries and were sucked into the reeking spiral. And then, without warning, the base of the column turned blue. The buzzing rose to a demented whine—and stopped. The whole swirling mass shuddered as though a brake had been savagely applied, lost momentum, died, and drooped like the ruin of a mighty tree. Silver lightnings ran upwards through the smoke: the column wavered, broke, and collapsed into the ball of fire that rose to engulf it. A voice whimpered close by the children and passed through the doorway behind them. The blue light waned, and in its place lay Firefrost, surrounded by the scattered remnants of Shape-shifter’s magic circle.
Colin and Susan stood transfixed. Then slowly, as if afraid that the stone would vanish if she breathed or took her eyes off it, Susan moved forward and picked it up.
In the silence she unclasped the bracelet and fastened it about her wrist. She could not believe what she was doing. This moment had haunted her dreams for so many months, and there had been so many bitter awakenings.
* * *
In a small room crammed under the eaves Selina Place and Grimnir waited. Both were keyed to an almost unendurable pitch. They knew well the price of failure. Not once in a thousand years had any of their kind disobeyed the charge of Nastrond, but all at some time had stood in the outer halls of Ragnarok and looked on the Abyss. Thus did Nastrond bind evil to his will.
“It cannot be long now,” said the Morrigan. “Within five minutes the stone must…”
A trail of smoke drifted under the door and floated across the room, and a bubbling sound of tears accompanied it. The Morrigan jumped from her chair her eyes were wild, and there was sweat on her brow.
“Non licet abire! ” She threw her arms wide to bar the way. “Coniuro et confirmo super…” But the smoke curled round her towards the hearth, and leapt into the chimney mouth. A wind sighed mournfully past the windows, and was still.
“No! No,” she mumbled, groping for the door; but Grimnir had already flung it open and was rushing along the corridors to the stairs. He was half-way down the first flight when there was the sound of breaking glass, and the staircase was momentarily in shadow as a
dark figure blocked the window at its head. The Morrigan’s harsh voice cried out in fear, and Grimnir turned with the speed and menace of a hungry spider.
* * *
The noise roused Colin and Susan from their trance. Again the Morrigan shrieked.
“Here, let’s get out of this!” said Colin, and he pulled his sister into the hall. “As soon as we’re outside run like mad:!”ll be right behind you!”
Quite a hullabaloo was breaking out upstairs, and most of the sounds were by no means pleasant: at least they made the other hazard seem less formidable—until Colin opened the door. There was a rasping growl, and out of the mist came a shape that sent the children stumbling backwards into the house, and before they could close the door the hound of the Morrigan crossed the threshold and was revealed in all its malignity.
It was like a bull-terrier; except that it stood four feet high at the shoulder, and its ears, unlike the rest of the white body, were covered in coarse red hair. But what set it apart from all others was the fact that, from pointed ears to curling lip, its head and muzzle were blank. There were no eyes.
The beast paused, swinging its wedge-shaped head from side to side, and snuffing wetly with flared nostrils, and when it caught the children’s scent it moved towards them as surely as if it had eyes. Colin and Susan dived for the nearest door, and into what was obviously a kitchen, which had nothing to offer them but another door.
“We’ll have to risk it,” said Susan: that thing’ll be through in a second.” She put no trust in the flimsy latch, which was rattling furiously beneath the scrabbling of claws. But as she spoke they heard another sound; footsteps rapidly drawing near to the other door And then the latch did give way, and the hound was in the room.
Colin seized a kitchen chair. Get behind me, he whispered.
At the Sound of his voice the brute froze, but only for an instant: it had found its bearings.
“Can we reach a window?” Colin dared not take his eyes off the hound as it advanced upon them.
“No.”
“Is there another way out?”
“No.”
He was parrying the lunges and snappings with the chair, but it was heavy, and his arms ached.
“There’s a broom cupboard, or something, behind us, and the door’s ajar.”
“What good will that do?”
“I don’t know: but Grimnir may not notice us, or the dog may attack him, or… oh, anything’s better than this!”
“Is it big enough?”
“It goes up to the ceiling.”
“Right: get in.”
Susan stepped inside and held the door open for Colin as he backed towards it. The hound was biting at the chair legs and trying to paw them down. Wood crunched and splinters flew, and the chair drooped in Colin’s hands, but he was there. He hurled the chair at the snarling head, and fell backwards into the cupboard. Susan had a vision of a red tongue lolling out of a gaping mouth, and of fangs flashing white, inches from her face, before she slammed the door; and at the same moment, she heard the kitchen door being flung open. Then she fainted.
Or, at least, she thought she had fainted. Her stomach turned over, her head reeled, and she seemed to be falling into the bottomless dark. But had she fainted? Colin bumped against her in struggling to right himself: she could feel that. And the back of the cupboard was pressing into her. She pinched herself. No, she had not fainted.
Colin and Susan stood rigidly side by side, nerving themselves for the moment when the door would be opened. But the room seemed unnaturally still not a sound could they hear.
“What’s up?” whispered Colin. “It’s too quiet out there.”
“Shh!”
“I can’t see a keyhole anywhere, can you? There should be one somewhere.” He bent forward to feel.
“Ouch! ! ”
Colin let out a yell of surprise and pain, and this time Susan nearly did faint.
“Sue! There’s no door!”
“Wh-what?”
“No door! It’s something that feels like smooth rock going past very quickly, and!”ve skinned my hand on it. That’s why my ears have been popping! Were in a lift!”
Even as he spoke, the floor seemed to press against their feet, and a chill, damp, air blew upon their faces, and they were aware of a silence so profound that they could hear their hearts beating.
“Where on earth are we?” said Colin.
“It’s probably more like where in earth are we!” Susan knelt on the floor of the cupboard and stretched out her hand to where the door had been. Nothing. She reached down, and touched wet rock.
“Well, there’s a floor. Lets have our bike lamps out and see what sort of place this is.”
They took off their knapsacks and rummaged around among the lemonade and sandwiches.
By the light of the lamps they saw that they were at the mouth of a tunnel that stretched away into the darkness.
“Now what do we do?”
“We can’t go back, can we. even if we wanted to?”
“No,” said Susan, “but I don’t like the look of this.”
“Neither do I, but we haven’t really much choice; come on.”
They shouldered their packs and started off along the tunnel, but seconds later a slight noise brought them whirling round, their hearts in their mouths.
“That’s torn it!” said Colin gazing up at the shaft, into which the cupboard was disappearing. “They’ll be on to us in no time now.”
CHAPTER 10
Plankshaft
The children went as fast as they could, stumbling over the uneven floor, and bruising themselves against the walls. The air was musty, and within a minute they were gasping as though they had run a mile, but on they sped, with two thoughts in their heads—to escape from whatever was following them, and to find Cadellin or Fenodyree. If only this were Fundindelve!
The passage twisted bewilderingly, and when Susan pulled up without notice or warning, Colin could not avoid running into her, and down they sprawled, though they managed to keep hold of their lamps. There was no need to ask questions. The tunnel ended in a shaft that dropped beyond the range of their light. And hanging from a spike driven into the rock was a rope-ladder. It was wet, and covered with patches of white mould that glistened pallidly but it looked as though it would bear the children’s weight. The urgency of their plight killed all fear: they dared not hesitate. Both hands were needed for the climb, so they tucked the lamps inside their windcheaters, and went down in darkness.
The rope was slippery, and it took all their will-power to descend at an even pace. They did this by moving down rung by rung together, Colin setting the pace by counting. “One—two—three—four—five—six—seven.” He was ten rungs higher than his sister, and the urge to increase the rate was very strong; he tried not to think of what might happen if Grimnir reached the top of the ladder while they were still on it. “A hundred and forty—and one—two—three—four—five.”
“I’m at the bottom!” called Susan. “And its wet!”
The end of the ladder dangled a few inches above an island of sand that lay at the foot of the shaft, and from here four ways led off, none very inviting. Two were silted up, and two were flooded. Colin chose the shallower of the flooded tunnels, along which stray lumps of rock served as unreliable stepping-stones, and for a few yards the children made dry, if cumbersome, progress. Then Colin, in helping Susan over a particularly wide stretch of water, saw the end of the ladder begin to dance wildly about in the air. Someone obviously had started to descend.
The brown water splashed roof-high as Colin and Susan took to their heels, skidding over slimy, unseen rocks. But the tunnel sloped upwards, and to their relief, they left the water behind and were running on dry sand. This, however, was not long an asset: for soon it lay so thickly that the children were compelled to run bent double, and, finally, to scramble on hands and knees.
What if the root and floor meet, thought Susan, and we have to go back… or
wait?
Sweat was blinding her, her hair and clothes were full of sand, stones added to her bruises, and her lungs ached with the strain of drawing air out of the saturated atmosphere: but she had her Tear, and this time Susan was going to keep it, even if all the witches and warlocks that ever were came after her.
Suppose we can’t go on, though…
But almost at once her fears were allayed the lamp’s beam outlined the end of the tunnel against a blackness beyond.
“Oh, glory be,” she spluttered, and they crawled out on to a soft mound of sand. At first, they could only droop on all fours, heads sagging like winded dogs, and gulp in the cold air, which was a little more wholesome than that of the tunnel; and, from the sudden lack of resonance, they guessed that they must be in a cavern. Every movement in the tunnel had produced a magnified, hollow echo, which made their breathing now appear dry, and remote. The children staggered to their feet, and looked about them.
In shape and size it was just such another cave as the Cave of the Sleepers in Fundindelve, but instead of the light, darkness pressed in from every side. The yellow walls were streaked with browns, blacks, reds, blues, and greens—veins of mineral that traced the turn of wind and wave upon a shore, twenty million years ago.
Colin bent down and listened at the tunnel mouth.
“I can’t hear anything,” he said, “but we’d better move on, if we can.”
Losing their pursuer was an easy task. It seemed that they were in an intricate system of caverns, connected by innumerable tunnels and shafts. These caverns were remarkable. The walls curved upwards to form roofs high as a cathedral, and the distance between the walls was often so great that, at the centre of a cave, the children could imagine themselves to be trudging along a sandy beach on a windless and starless night. The loose sand killed all noise of movement, and helped the silence to prey on their nerves moreover, it made walking hot, laborious work, and the air was still not good; ten minutes under these conditions sapped their energy as much as an hour of normal tramping would have done.
