Riverwind

Part II
Ascent
Chapter Thirteen

Di An led them out of Vantoom, turning toward the far end of the great cavern, where the plainsmen had never been before. Here the floors and walls converged in a rocky funnel shape, with only a round black opening leading out.

There was no soil to grow things here, only rock and mineral concretions. They climbed over the jutting stones toward the hole ahead. Riverwind observed that the opening seemed too smooth and round to be natural.

“It was only a crack many centuries ago,” Di An said. “The sons of Hest had it widened.”

“Why?” asked Catchflea.

“For the tombs of the great,” the elf girl said. “Here are the resting places of Hest and all his sons.”

The temperature dropped suddenly when they entered the tomb cavern. The natural shape of the cave had been adapted into a vaulted corridor. Along the walls were larger than life-sized statues of Hestites in full armor. They all had the same expression, something between a sneer and a frown. The actual tombs were niches cut in the rock between the legs of the statues. Hammered bronze doors sealed each grave.

Riverwind halted before a statue of a Hestite. The warrior held a short bow in the crook of his arm. He knew the living Hestites had forgotten how to make or use bows, so he asked Di An how old the grave was.

“This is Lord Trand,” she said, reading the glyphs engraved on the tomb doors. “Victor of twenty combats. He died eighty years after Hest led the people into the caves.” She counted quietly on her fingers. “Two thousand, four hundred and eighteen years ago.”

“When the wood rotted, the Hestites were no longer able to make bows,” Catchflea mused. “Until scouts like Di An went to the surface and found ones.”

'Two thousand years ago,” Riverwind said. “Di An, how old are you?”

She scampered ahead among some tumbled rocks. “Two hundred and sixty-four,” she said.

Catchflea bumped into Riverwind's back. “Pardon! What's the matter?” he asked. Riverwind told him Di An's remarkable age. “The barren children do grow older. They just never grow up, yes?”

“Come this way!” Di An's voice wafted back. The orange glow of her mineral oil lamp rose and fell as she waved to them. Riverwind reminded himself not to treat her like a child. After all, she was more than ten times as old as he.

Di An was waiting for them in a seeming dead end. The lamp threw odd highlights on her sharp features.

“What now?” asked Riverwind.

“We must go through there.” Di An pointed down. At knee height there was an opening in the wall. It was as black as the Abyss and promised to be a tight fit for the humans.

“Go through that?” said Catchflea. “There is a better way, yes?” Di An solemnly shook her head. “Surely you didn't use this tunnel every time you went to the surface.”

“No, I mostly used the shaft you fell down,” she said. “This way should put us out on the surface near where you fell down the shaft.”

“Should?” Riverwind asked.

“I haven't gone this way in a long time.” Di An squatted and slipped into the hole easily. Riverwind motioned for Catchflea to go second.

Catchflea got down on his belly and wriggled into the hole. “Ow!” he cried, his feet still scrambling in Riverwind's sight. “Low ceiling!”

“I'll keep that in mind,” Riverwind said dryly. When the old man's feet finally disappeared, he dropped down and peered into the cramped tunnel. The old feeling of being trapped by the massive weight of stone, returned- Riverwind took a deep breath and thought of Goldmoon.

The tunnel was just barely wider than his shoulders. He had to inch along, rocking his shoulders from side to side and pushing with his toes. The only light was the bobbing lamp Di An pushed ahead of her. By common consent they had agreed to use only one lamp at a time, to conserve oil.

It was warmer in the tunnel. Catchflea's mutterings ahead were sometimes punctuated by Di An's higher-pitched voice. Sharp stones dug into Riverwind's elbows and chest, and brushing the tunnel roof invited a scalp cut. How much longer? Would they have to go all the way to the surface in this rat hole? He would go mad, suffocate, scream, and tear at the rocks. The hard, unyielding rocks…

“Stand up, Riverwind.” He opened his eyes and saw Catchf lea's much-patched moccasins in front of his face. The tunnel had opened onto a ledge in a wide vertical shaft, whose upper limit was lost in velvet darkness.

Di An sat on a boulder, munching a hunk of hard gray bread. The lamp sat between her feet, flickering. Riverwind noticed the steady breeze flowing upward in the shaft.

“Where are we?”

“The Well of Wind,” said Di An. She gnawed off a healthy piece of bread and mumbled through it, saying, “At times the wind moves so strongly here it nearly carries you off your feet.”

“How do we get out of here?” Catchflea queried.

Another big bite. “Climb,” she said.

The walls were rugged, with many jutting rocks and crevices to use for handholds. Di An dusted the bread crumbs off her lap and showed the plainsmen how to use the hooks and chains they had taken from the city. “Reach up with the hook,” she said, “catch hold of the wall and pull yourself up by the chain.” Catchflea was doubtful he could manage but in the end had little choice.

Di An scaled the wall with practiced agility. Riverwind followed, so that he could help pull Catchflea up. “How long have you been exploring these caverns?” Riverwind asked the elf girl.

“Many years,” she replied. “Before Mors enlisted me, I was a food fetcher in a tin mine. My job was to run up and down the mine tunnels, bringing food to the diggers. Before that, I worked for Rhed the mason, stamping out tiles and feeding them to the baking kiln.”

“That sounds like hard work for a girl,” Riverwind said.

Clink. Di An wedged a hook into some rocks and hauled herself hand over hand up the chain. “I began my job with Rhed when I was one hundred and forty-seven.”

A sharp downdraft flattened the climbers against the wall. Then, like a giant exhaling a breath, the wind rushed back up the shaft, whipping Riverwind's hair into his face.

“Will that continue?” yelled Catchflea, ten feet below Riverwind.

“Could get worse,” Di An replied.

“What?”

“Could get worse!” Riverwind shouted.

“Will there be any warning?” the old man asked.

“You can hear the hard blows coming down the shaft, but it's the updrafts that are most dangerous,” said Di An. Poor Catchflea couldn't hear her. Di An leaned out on one arm and shouted, “You can hear the hard blows-”

Her hook broke off the rock she was anchored to. Di An fell backward. Riverwind braced himself and snatched the trailing length of her chain. The impact the elf girl made when she reached the end of her chain almost jerked Riverwind from the wall, but he slowly raised his arm, bringing Di An back to the rock wall very near Catchflea.

“You are well, yes?” he asked.

Riverwind pulled her up to him. The chain was fastened to a copper belt that encircled her waist. He asked if she'd hurt anything in the fall. “Nothing,” she assured him. “Let's go.” He smiled at her bravery. She climbed on, using River-wind's shoulder and the top of his head as stepping stones. She reeled in her dangling hook and started all over again.

They climbed for more than an hour, ascending two hundred feet. In one way the darkness was an asset to the inexperienced Que-Shu men. If they'd been able to see how high they'd gone, vertigo might have paralyzed them both.

A broad ledge greeted them and all three gratefully rolled onto level rock. At their backs was a smooth-walled tunnel, slanting off into the darkness. Di An indicated that their route was on the other side of the shaft, a much smaller tunnel they would reach by inching around the ledge.

“What's wrong with this way?” Riverwind said, jerking a thumb at the wide, round passage.

“I saw three barren children die trying to go that way. They went in, chained together, and in less than a hundred heartbeats came tumbling out, blown by the wind like dust.” She glanced down the vertical shaft. “It is a long drop.”

Her lamp was burning low. The wick sputtered and wavered, unable to draw any fuel from the copper reservoir. Riverwind got out his lamp and lit it from Di An's, which he then blew out.

Riverwind took the lead, as he was the strongest, on the narrow ledge that ran around the shaft to the tunnel Di An had indicated. The wall bulged outward over the ledge, making it devilishly hard to keep a grip. More than a few times Riverwind's hook slipped off the dark, gritty stone. Di An inched along behind him. A chain was hooked to the copper belts all three wore. Catchflea waited until the chain from Di An to him grew taut.

“Come on,” she said.

“I can't do it,” he said weakly.

“Why not?”

“My arms are not strong enough to hold me up.”

“You climbed well enough to get here,” said the elf girl.

“Using my feet and legs, yes.” Catchflea pushed his ragged sleeves up, displaying his bony arms. “See? I'll not make it.”

“You've got to try,” Riverwind called from his advanced position. “We'll help.” So saying, he doubled back on his arduous trail, pushing Di An back to the original ledge. They switched their chain linking around so that Catchflea was in the middle. “We'll keep the chain short and tight for you,” Riverwind said. “That will hold you to the wall. Then hold on as best you can.”

The old man wasn't happy, but he could hardly stay where he was. Di An took charge of the lamp so Riverwind could use both hands in climbing. The tall plainsman led off again with Catchflea in close tow.

The passage they wanted was nearly halfway around the shaft, about twenty yards along the slippery ledge. They were making fair progress when Riverwind's right hand slipped. He waved frantically to recover his balance, digging in with the hook in his left hand. The taut chain snapped at the soothsayer, whose grip was never good, and Catchflea dropped off the ledge. Di An promptly drove her grappling hook through the links of her chain into the wall and braced herself. Catchflea hit the bottom of his chain. This time Riverwind wasn't braced to keep his place. He fell backward off the ledge, leaving little Di An to anchor.

The chain snapped out straight, crushing the copper belt against Riverwind's ribs. His breath was driven out, and the grappling hook shot from his fingers. It vanished in the black shaft. It fell so far he never heard it hit bottom.

Di An was in a terrible position. She couldn't pull either man to safety, much less both. She couldn't even move for fear of losing her grip; and her belt was being hauled low on her thin hips. Catchflea dangled in midair five feet below her, and Riverwind five feet lower.

“What can I do?” she said, terror and the strain tightening her voice to a squeak.

“The wall looks rough here,” Riverwind said. “I'm going to try and get a grip on it.” He shifted his weight to make himself and Catchflea swing. On his third try, he slammed into the wall. He heard Catchflea hit the rock.

“You all right, old man?”

“No! But get on with what you're doing, yes?” Riverwind found niches for his fingers and toes. He climbed sideways, rising and crabbing to his right. He drew even with Catchflea's feet, pressed against a smooth spot on the wall.

“Is the rest of the rock around as smooth as this?” River-wind grunted.

“Yes-I've nothing to grip at all,” the old man said.

Riverwind called to Di An and explained he couldn't go higher from where he was. “I'll have to go back to the ledge,” he said.

“Hurry,” was all she managed to say.

He clung to the wall like a fly, moving when a good toehold caught his eye. He thanked the gods Di An had taken over as lamp bearer. Scaling this deadly surface encumbered by the light would have been impossible for him.

“Riverwind!” Di An said sharply. “How far are you from the ledge?”

“It's just out of reach.”

“Then reach it quickly! The links in my chain are opening!”

The weight of two men on the iron ring was too much, and the pinched link was spreading. Di An could only watch helplessly as the gap grew wider and wider. “Hurry, giant! Hurry!”

Riverwind had no place to put his right foot. His left foot was firmly planted in a dished-out spot, but his right was unsupported. He stretched his right arm, digging at the gray rock with blunt fingernails, trying to scratch out a hold. Finally, the plainsman bent back on his left knee and sprang for the ledge. Just as his hand clamped on the rim, the link gave way. Catchflea fell, yelling and crying. In the half-second he had to spare, Riverwind hoisted himself onto the ledge and grasped the chain in both hands. He was nearly jerked over by Catchflea's weight, but he dug in his heels and hauled the old soothsayer to safety.

Catchflea kissed the level stone of the ledge and wept with relief at his salvation. “Thank you, merciful gods,” he said.

They were safe, but now Di An was marooned. Without a safety chain, she moved nimbly back along the rim, hopping the last two feet into Riverwind's arms.

“I've got to rest,” Catchflea said. “My insides are still swimming like salmon in a rocky stream.”

“Mine, too,” Riverwind admitted.

Without his hook, and with the chain broken, there was no question of proceeding Di An's way. The only option open was the wide, smooth tunnel, the same one that had cost the lives of three of Di An's comrades.

After a short rest, they continued. The passage was a good eight feet in diameter, so Riverwind had no trouble with headroom. The floor sloped gently upward, and progress was easy. Di An drifted to the rear, always keeping behind Catchflea. The windblast tunnel frightened her. To help take her mind off this danger, the old man began teaching her the Common language. This would help her survive in the upper world. Catchflea found she was an apt pupil.

“I wonder how the walls got to be so smooth,” Riverwind said. The lamp picked up thousands of grains of mica, making the tunnel glitter like a wall of diamonds. “There's no sign of water. The rock is dry.”

“Wind can wear down stone, yes?” the old man replied. “Sand can smooth out the roughest path if propelled by a strong enough breeze.”

“Where does the wind come from, Di An?” She didn't answer, so Riverwind repeated his question.

“The surface.” She peeked around Catchflea's narrow waist. “I hear there are great winds on the surface, where the sky is not fettered by stone walls.”

“True enough.” Riverwind smiled at her description. “There must be a considerable opening in the ground for all that wind to come in.”

“A cave?” suggested Catchflea.

“At least. I was thinking of something much larger, like a crater or some sort of sunken pit. Wind can swirl around a hole like that and be swallowed.”

The angle of the slope increased, and it became harder to keep footing on the smooth floor. Banged knees and skinned palms became common. Finally, a small plateau leveled out the tunnel, and the three travelers stopped to rest.

“Maybe it runs all the way to the surface,” Riverwind observed. He squinted ahead into the gloom.

“That would be good,” Catchflea mumbled. He was almost asleep.

Riverwind downed a swallow of bitter Hestite water and said, “I'm going to scout ahead. Stay with the old fellow.”

“Don't go far,” Di An warned. “It is death to become lost here.”

“Not to worry.” He left his shoulder pouch and went on with only the oil lamp. The ruddy sphere of light diminished as Riverwind climbed the sloping tunnel.

Di An watched until even the glow of the lamp was gone, then she sighed. She laid her head against Catchflea's shoulder. The soothsayer said in a drowsy voice, “An admirable fellow, yes?”

She started. “Yes.”

“Riverwind is pledged heart and soul to another; you should keep that in mind.”

Di An shrugged. She lowered her head to Catchflea's tattered shirt again.

Riverwind found that the wind passage suddenly forked into three directions, only a few hundred yards from where Di An and Catchf lea rested. One branch continued almost straight up; another dived sharply down from Riverwind's feet. The third slanted up at a more gradual angle. Ease of travel alone was reason enough to take that route.

The old man and the elf girl were sound asleep when the young plainsman returned. He woke them. With clumsy movements and sleepy eyes, Di An and Catchflea rose and followed Riverwind. They obediently trailed him into the left branch of the tunnel. Then a sound filled the passage, a sound like the distant call of a ram's horn.

Di An's sleepiness vanished. “The wind!” she cried. “May the gods help us!”

“What'U we do?” exclaimed Catchflea.

“Grab hold-take hold of each other! It's our only chance!” Riverwind shouted.

The booming sound grew louder. A puff of dust swirled around the trio, now huddled in a heap on the tunnel floor. A wall of wind, invisible and roaring, hit them like a hammer. Despite their combined weight, the wind got under them and pushed them down the tunnel.

Over and over they went, bump, bang, slam-screaming and praying and shouting warnings to each other as they tumbled. Once they were lifted completely off the floor and flew a few feet. Then they were back at the branching of the tunnels. They rolled into the open mouth of the downward slanting shaft.

This tunnel was short, and Riverwind's stomach lurched as their bouncing ride through the tunnel gave way to a drop through open air. The force of their plunge tore their grips apart, and Riverwind found himself alone, falling through a depthless void.