Читать книгу Alan Garner Classic Collection - Alan Garner, Alan Garner - Страница 25

“Do not move,” Fenodyree whispered. “Durathror and I go to watch the moot. We shall come back as soon as we know what they intend.”

The dwarfs went so quietly that even in that silence Colin and Susan heard nothing.

Below them, some minutes later, a voice began to speak in harsh, high tones. The language was unintelligible; it was full of guttural and nasal sounds, and the words hovered and slurred most jarringly. The speaker was working himself into a state of excitement, or anger, and the crowd was carried with him. It began with a muttering, soon building to a howl at every pause in the address.

Colin felt a hand on his arm.

“Come with me,” said Fenodyree. “Shortly you will see; but keep low.”

Colin groped his way on all fours till he reached Durathror, who was lying at the edge of the platform, and mumbling into his beard. Not long after, Susan joined them. The noise below was now continuous.

“They are cowards,” said Fenodyree, “and must be driven to a frenzy to meet our swords. But he does his work well.”

“Ha, I guessed it would be so! They are powerless before sudden light, therefore they are to prepare themselves with firedrake blood; and here is the Keeper!”

The hysterical voices diminished to a murmur of intense excitement. Then, for a second, the cave was hushed.

“Down!” whispered Fenodyree. “He is taking off the cover!”

A sheet of fire sprang upwards past the ledge, and boiled against the roof.

“Eeee – agh – hooo!” roared the svarts.

The flames sank to a column twenty feet in height, which lit the cave with a red glare. A similar light had burned in St Mary’s Clyffe earlier that day.

“You may look now,” said Fenodyree.

Colin and Susan raised their heads, and the memory of what they saw remained with them ever after.

The floor and walls of the cave were covered with svarts. They swarmed like bees. The first two layers of galleries were thick with them, and the children were glad Fenodyree had climbed so high. The lion’s head, and a small space beneath its jaws, formed an island in a turbulent sea. On top of the rock stood two svarts, one black, the other white, and they were man-size.

“There you see Arthog and Slinkveal, lords of the svartalfar. Slinkveal is cunning past the thoughts of men, but Arthog it is who speaks, and carries out his brother’s word; and his heart is blacker than his hide. See now the firedrake: the eyes of svarts can look on it without pain, and it makes them strong to face the purer light of day: henceforth your lamp will be no weapon.”

The flame was rising out of a stone cup, full of a seething liquid, that was held by a hideous, wizened svart who sat cross-legged on the sand beneath the lion’s jaws. He was obviously very old, and his sagging skin was piebald, white and black.

“It is time we were gone,” said Fenodyree. “We have a comfortless road ahead. Crawl to the tunnel, and do not show your light until I give you word.”

For a few yards only, the red glow lit their way. Behind them the tumult increased again.

“There is a corner ahead,” said Fenodyree, “and once round that you may use your lamp.”

He hurried them along at a relentless pace; and he seemed very despondent. Durathror, on the other hand, was in a much improved temper, and began to laugh to himself as he jogged along behind.

“Did I not say the journey would be merry? Ha! By the blood of Lodur, it is better than all I thought! So we are to be tracked down, are we? And we are to be met at the plankshaft, I hear; and if, all else fails, they wait for us at the gate. Let us hurry to the gate, cousin Squabnose, for I would have these rat-eaters remember the gate in after-time, what few there will be to sing of it when we have passed!”

Fenodyree sighed, and shook his head.

“You forget our charge, old Limbhewer. Firefrost is more to us than life, or death in glory: we must sink our pride, and run before these goblins. The gate is not for us.”

“Not for us? Then how, pray, shall we gain the upper world? There is no other road.”

“There is: just one. And, in its fashion, it bears more perils than the gate, though these cannot be mastered by the sword. At least, if we should perish on this road, Firefrost will lie hidden for untold centuries to come; for we are going where no svart will ever tread, nor any living thing, and only I, in all the world, can tell the way.”

“But Fenodyree,” cried Susan, “what do you mean? There are lots of entrances!”

“Not here. We are in West Mine, and from it there was one exit made. But so deep did men delve that they touched upon the secret places of the earth, known only to a few; and, of those, my father was the last. There were the first mines of our people dug, ages before Fundindelve; little remains now, save the upper paths, and they are places of dread, even for dwarfs. The way is hidden, but my father taught me well. Never have I trod the paths, save in evil dreams, and I had always hoped to be spared the trial; but now it has come to that.”

“Nay, speak this no more,” growled Durathror. “I like it not.”

They travelled on without rest, talking little, for Colin and Susan had not the energy, and Durathror was subdued by what he had heard.

“It is not far,” said Fenodyree, “to … ah!”

Ahead of them a light flickered on the wall: the source of the light was hidden round a bend in the tunnel, but the dwarfs did not have to guess what to expect.

“What say you now, cousin?” whispered Durathror eagerly. “Do we run like shadows before this light, or do we snuff it out?”

Fenodyree’s face was grim.

“We are too near: we must not turn back.”

“Good! This shall we do: let the men-children stand here. Go you forward to younder opening, and stay hidden, with drawn sword, till I call. I shall wait behind this boulder. Hold your ground, Stonemaiden; be not afraid. No svart will touch you, that I can promise!”

And he melted into the dark.

The light grew stronger, and cast shadows on the wall; spindly shadows, with broad heads and hands; and round the bend came the svarts.

There were ten of them, white svarts, with pug-noses. Each carried a torch of wood that had been dipped in the flame of the firedrake’s blood. From a girdle round each of their waists hung a crude axe or hammer. The head was a roughly worked stone, kidney or dumb-bell shaped; there was a groove about the middle, round which was bent a withy lashed tight with rat-skin thongs.

Colin and Susan involuntarily shrank closer together, and the lamp trembled in Colin’s hand. The svarts halted; a deep sigh ran through them; and slowly they began to advance.

In spite of the knowledge that Durathror was close at hand, the children had to fight to stop themselves from running.

The svarts came on: the last of them was past Fenodyree. They held the torches high, and the other hand was poised to clutch. Colin flashed the lamp in their eyes, but they did no more than blink, and laugh hungrily. The children retreated a step. The svarts rushed forward. But at that moment Durathror stepped from behind the boulder, his sword Dyrnwyn in his hand, and bowed low before them, and addressed them in their own tongue.

“Hail, O eaters of toadstools! We are well met!”

The svarts fell back, mouths agape, and hissing after the fashion of giant lizards. But those to the rear of the pack had more courage.

“See!” they cried. “It is he whom we must kill! The men-children are of no matter, but our lords have long wanted his life, and for him was the moot held.”

“No! No!” screamed another. “There is the maid who tricked us, and see! see! she has the stone once more!!”

“The stone! The stone! The stone!”

“The morthbrood have played us false!”

“Or she has stolen it!”

“Seize them! We shall take the stone to ourselves!”

Their eyes glowed green and yellow as desire mastered their cowardice.

“Ho!” cried Durathror. “So there is courage in svart-alfarheim! This is a day of marvels, to be sure! Come, let my sword test the mettle of your new-grown backbones!”

“We come! We come!”

And they hurled themselves upon the dwarf.

“Gondemar!” bellowed Durathror, and he whirled Dyrnwyn above his head with both hands. Two svarts died under that stroke. They buckled at the knees, and crumbled into dust.

“Gondemar!”

Sparks flew as iron rang on stone, but there were now six svarts in the tunnel, and four torches guttering on the sand. Six to one: far too few for battle, whatever the prize. The svarts turned tail, and ran. Durathror rested on his sword.

“Cousin, it would seem Dyrnwyn is too bitter for their taste: let them then savour Widowmaker!”

Fenodyree came from hiding, and the svarts halted in dismay.

“It is the white one’s dog!”

“What does he here?”

“It is a trick!”

One of the svarts turned, and ran towards Durathror, but, seeing he was alone in this, he scuttled back to his comrades, who were by this time in distress. Fenodyree was laying about him in silence. He did not feel Durathror’s joy of battle: these creatures stood between him and his purpose, and must be killed: that was all. He was no born fighter.

The uproar grew less and less. Fenodyree’s round helmet spun under foot, and his mail shirt rang with the dint of blows: but not for long. Soon the two dwarfs stood gazing at each other across a litter of torches and stone hammers.

“I see Widowmaker is well named!” Durathror chuckled. “She has gained two upon me in this fight; I lead you now by one only. I must find me more svarts!”

“Nay, come away, cousin; we must not turn from the path, nor rest, till we are beyond their reach.”

Colin stooped to pick up a hammer. It was heavy, but balanced well.

“Shall we take a couple? They may be useful.”

“They would drag you to your death, where we are going,” said Fenodyree. “Leave them; we do not need such tainted things.”

“Durathror,” said Susan, as they journeyed on, “where do the svarts go when they disappear?”

“To dust, my Stonemaiden; to dust. They cannot endure the bite of iron: it has a virtue that dissolves their flesh – and would all creatures of Nastrond were as they!”

“Here is the first of our trials,” said Fenodyree, “but it is naught that a cool head will not overcome.”

Before them the tunnel ended in a drop: they were in the roof of a cave, and across the emptiness another tunnel lay. A broken ledge, no more than a few inches wide, and sloping outwards, ran to it along the overhanging wall.

“There are handholds,” said Fenodyree. “Give me your light, so that you may see, and have both hands free when you come.”

It looked so easy as they watched him go crabwise across the wall. He moved smoothly and surely, and in a matter of seconds he was there.

“Susan now, please. If your fingers have need of rest, halfway you will find an iron spike to grip: it is firm. I shall light you.”

It was easier than Susan expected, apart from the fact that the lamp could not light hands and feet at the same time, which was occasionally unsettling. Also, she would never have imagined how comforting an iron spike could be. When her hand closed round it, it was as though she had reached an island in a busy street. Susan was loath to leave that spike. She stretched out for the next hold, found it, and was transferring her weight, when something smashed into the wall close by her head, and splinters of rock seared her cheek. She was caught in mid-stride, and for two dreadful seconds she hung by one hand from the spike. The lamp’s beam never faltered, and Fenodyree’s calm voice checked her panic.

“A foot to the right, Susan. More; more. There. Now draw up your feet; another inch, good. You are safe. Come slowly; do not be afraid.”

Across from Fenodyree, Colin had seen the stone axe spin in the lamplight and crash against the rock; and, at the same time, he had heard behind him a sword being drawn.

“Cross as quickly as you may,” said Durathror’s voice in his ear. “Stay not for me. I go to teach this trollspawn manners.”

And, with a ringing cry, Durathror threw himself off the ledge into empty space. As he dropped beyond the light his cloak seemed to fold about him in a curious way.

“Are you ready?” called Fenodyree.

Colin looked across, and saw his sister and Fenodyree together on the other side.

“Yes, I’m ready … but Durathror!”

“He knows what he is about. He will not be long.”

Nor was he. Colin had just gained the safety of the tunnel mouth when he heard the dwarf’s voice right behind him.

“I lead you now, cousin! Three skulked below. They heard our coming and hid their torches: they died swiftly.”

He was a little breathless, or perhaps indignation had the better of him, for it was the first time he had ever been surprised in ambush.

“But how did you do it?” cried Colin. “I saw you jump off the ledge: weren’t you hurt?”

Durathror threw back his head and laughed.

“Woefully!”

He held out his sword hand: the knuckle of his little finger was skinned.

“Do not jest with them,” smiled Fenodyree. “They have not long been among us, and there is still much they do not know.”

They started along the tunnel. Fenodyree walked very slowly, and when he spoke his voice was grave.

“Listen to me now. We are about to leave West Mine. Were we to stay, we should certainly die, though we took twice four hundred svarts with us, and the weirdstone of Brisingamen would be lost. We may still die: fear is in me greater than I have ever known. I say this now, so that when I lead you into seeming madness you may know that I do not act rashly – or if I do, there is no other course.

“We are to pass through the upper galleries of the Earldelving to where they touch upon another mine, the like of this, though smaller. The paths were never wide or high, and the earth has stirred many times in her sleep since they were dug: the road may no longer be as I was taught, and we may lose ourselves for ever. But it is our only chance, if chance it be, and we must take it. And here is the threshold; once beyond it, we may rest awhile.”

They were at the corner of yet another cave. Two of the three walls that they could see were like any other in the mine, rough-hewn and fluted. But the third, immediately to their right, was awesomely different. Its face was smooth and grey, and it shot almost vertically, like a steel spade, into the ground – or rather, where the ground should have been; for at the dwarf’s feet lay a shaft, a sloping chimney of stone. And it was into this that Fenodyree was pointing.