The World and Thorinn

4 How Thorinn roasted two fat waterfowl for his supper, and what happened thereafter.

Thorinn sat perched on a rock, chin in his hands, staring down at the smooth glassy curve of the water where it disappeared under the overhang. The voice in his head was a remote murmur, as steady and insistent as the water itself. The rocks below him were black and glistening with spray; the water made a subdued rushing sound, so constant and pervasive that it was like the sound of blood in his own veins. Twigs, then a broad leaf, rode down the shining back of the river, curved over and shot abruptly out of sight. He must go down, but he could not.

In three days he had followed the river from the western end of the valley, where it fell in a graceful cataract straight down the face of the mountain, to its exit here at the eastern end. He had crossed the river at the shallows, half a league above, and had followed the wall of mountains all the way around the valley. They were the same everywhere: sheer gray rock, unbroken, without a fissure, a ledge, a handhold. The mountains pierced the sky, or else the sky severed the mountains. There was no exit from the valley except for the chasm into which the river fell.

The sky was dimming; it was time to think of supper, and then a place to sleep. He knew what he had tried so long to keep from knowing: the mountains were not mountains, but walls of rock; the sky not a sky, but the roof of a cavern. A fool might have known as much, for he had traveled steadily downward from the Midworld... but who could have believed that there were trees, a river, a sky underground?

He went into the forest and picked fruit, but the sight and smell of it made his stomach knot, and he threw it into the bushes. Thinking of the water-fowl that nested along the riverbank, he turned with sudden resolution. If nothing else, he could at least hunt his own food and have a meal fit to eat. The river was witchily green with reflected skylight among the dark tussocks. Wading, he moved with caution, stopping at every step to listen. A rustle from the clump ahead; as he plunged toward it, he heard a sleepy note and saw a crested head appear. He got his hands on the warm feathered neck and wrung it, cutting off the bird's sudden squawk. Another body thrashed up from the grass, wings flapping; he lunged, got that one too. With the plump bodies slung over his shoulder he waded ashore. Just as he reached the bank, the night raced overhead and the world fell into breathing blackness. He searched the forest for fallen limbs, tore them loose from the vines that clung to them with a thousand suckers, and kindled a fire on the greensward, not far from the pod-vines. He plucked and cleaned his two fowl—one was a cock, the other a young hen—then contrived a spit between two forked branches thrust into the ground, skewered his birds on it and roasted them over the fire. A faint pattering began around him; a cool drop struck his nose. Thorinn got a big leaf from the forest to cover the spit, and another for himself. In the ruddy light, the greensward was another place, walled in by darkness. Raindrops bombarded his leaves and rebounded pale in the firelight. The crisp skin curled, wept grease that sizzled in the flames; the smell that came from it made his mouth fill with water, and he ate the first fowl with raging appetite before it was properly cool enough. Nothing had ever tasted so good. He carried the second bird into the shelter of a tree and ate a leg and a breast of it; then weariness overcame him; he dropped the rest and stretched himself out. Rain rattled in the leaves high overhead; beyond the lower branches, in the faint glow of the fire, he saw it streaming coppery against the black air. He was up at first light, washed in the river, then breakfasted on the remains of the second bird. Lazy and replete, he lay down and dozed again.

Some time later he woke with a start. Half a dozen of the older children were staring at him across the ashes of his fire and the little heap of feathers, bones, and offal. Among them was the girl he had spoken to before, or one like her. Their faces were white.

Questioning voices came from behind him; more people were emerging from the forest. The children turned and ran toward them, screaming as they went. A crowd formed around the children; it grew momentarily larger and noisier. Thorinn saw faces turned toward him, staring eyes, open mouths. Bewildered, he got up, but already the people were turning away. Their voices dwindled; the whole crowd was moving back into the forest. The last of them disappeared.

When he awoke the next morning, the presents he had given them lay in a little heap at his side—pebbles, crystal, weasel's skull, scrap of cloth.

Goryat's pride, which he had taught Thorinn, was in three things only, never to turn his back on a foe, never to break an oath, always to repay an injury. Beyond this Thorinn had no idea of right and wrong, only a strong sense of justice and injustice. By his lights he had done nothing that was either wrong or unjust; yet it was obvious that he had somehow offended the people of the cavern. They no longer came to the clearing by the river, or even into the forest above it. At dusk on the seventh day, stealing down the path to the village, he had spied on them from the trees, and had seen them coming back from the opposite direction, from upriver, where they must have found a new playground. He dared not show himself, for fear they would think he had polluted their village as well by his presence. The forest was changing. For half a league around the playground, leaves hung limp and shabby from the trees; fruits still grew, but now the unripe ones were withered and hard, the rest had a bloom of corruption and gave off a nauseous smell. He began to detect the same changes in other places where he had slept and cooked his meals. He spent more and more of his time at the mouth of the river, staring at the smooth curve of the water as it fell over the lip.

He began to think of a boat, something made perhaps of the huge leaves the people used to build their huts. In his mind he saw himself floating down the current in such a boat, faster and faster... the cavern opens its mouth, the boat dives into darkness, then capsizes, and he struggles for breath in the roaring water.

No, a boat would not protect him; but what if he made two boats, and sealed them together like two halves of a nut, with himself inside? The idea aroused him, and he went into the forest for leaves of the proper size. He found them in profusion, and carried an armful down to the riverbank, but as he squatted turning them over, planning in his mind a framework of saplings on which the leaves could be stretched and gummed in place, he saw himself once more drifting down the current in his green shell... the boat strikes a rock, bursts open, the water floods in, and the man is struggling, drowning. He cast the leaves aside, angry with himself and the gods, for it seemed to him that the answer was almost within his reach. Deep in thought as he wandered upriver, he found himself again at the deserted playground. He paused, looking up the slope, and his skin prickled. He went up to the forest's edge and stood before the pod-vine. Here like green thoughts hung the very things he had been imagining: they had been here all the time, yet he had not really seen them until now. The vine was still green and fresh; one pod hung heavy; the rest were invitingly open.

He tested an empty one by striking it repeatedly, first with a stick, then with a heavy stone. It resisted his blows; the outer shell of the pod was thick and resilient. He slashed it with his sword; even then, the tough fibers within held it together.

He imagined himself cutting a pod, taking it to the river where the current was swift, lying down inside it... But would it close then, when he had cut it from its vine: and if it did, how was he to get the pod into the river?

Another, equally alarming thought: what if the water made the pod open? This, at least, he could find out by trial. He went back to the vine, grasped it above the closed pod, chopped at it with his sword. The blade rebounded at the first blow, then bit in; a milky sap oozed from the wound. Thorinn smote again, slashed the vine through.

The pod remained closed. Thorinn dragged it down the slope into the water, where it floated sluggishly among the reeds. He sat on a tussock and watched it. For a long time nothing happened. Bored and hungry, he got up and began to forage, coming back frequently to look at the floating pod. At last he found a nest of four speckled greenish eggs in one of the tussocks. He punctured one and sniffed it: it was strong-smelling but fresh. As he was tilting his head to drink the egg out of its shell, he heard a distant splash.

He turned. Nothing was to be seen, but from the direction of the pod came a thrashing sound in the water, then a choked cry. Thorinn dropped the egg and hurried. Before he could reach the spot, he saw a human form flounder upright among the reeds.

It was the boy. He stared wildly at Thorinn, then whirled and tried to run. He fell almost at once in the shallows, but was up again and struggling to the shore. Thorinn saw him reeling up the slope; at the forest's edge, he turned a white face for an instant.

Thorinn found the pod awash among the reeds. It was open and full of water; the soft pink inner surface was already swelling and slimy to the touch.

He knew, then, that the pod would remain closed long enough to carry him down the river, and then release him; but the problem of getting himself into the pod, then the pod into the river, was still unsolved. Except for this, his plans were complete. He had found the place, a steep grassy bank on the far side of the river, where the water was deep and swift. Nearby in the forest was a healthy pod-vine. When he was ready, he had only to cut a pod, take it to the bank... and then what? He saw himself getting in, the pod sliding as it slowly closed around him; the pod splashes into the river, not yet fully closed; water enters it, then it closes: and the man inside, as the pod darts down the current—is he drowning, asleep, helpless?

Or, on a gentler slope: the pod moves more slowly, closes before it reaches the brink, then catches, halts. It lies there on the bank above the river. If it does not go into the river, will it ever open?

Another day passed while he turned the problem over again and again. The rotting forest was turning black and sending out clouds of stench for half a league around the deserted playground. The waterfowl had abandoned that part of the river.

Returning to the place he had chosen, he found that the sickness had started there. The grass was turning yellow, brown at the tips. His hesitation ended. He went to the vine in the forest, found it still healthy. He cut a pod, taking care to get a good length of vine with it. Still without knowing what he meant to do, he dragged it back to the riverbank and laid it on the slope. Below, the water rushed smoothly by. He tossed in a dry twig, watched it dart away out of sight.

He was lightheaded with fasting. He thought, if water flowed here on the ground, it would wash the pod down into the river. But water ran in its own fashion. The river raced below him, cold and swift. Or fire: if he could tie the vine to a tree, perhaps by a smaller vine, then build a fire under it to burn through the vine... But what if the fire went out; or what if it spread in the dry grass, and reached the pod before it burned through the vine?

Then he saw the answer in its simplicity. He went into the forest again, cut down a tough, thin creeper and trimmed it to a single length of half a dozen ells. The creeper was strong: he could not break it in his hands.

Some dry yellow gourds caught his eye; one was nearly two ells long. He cut it from the vine; it was light and hollow; seeds rattled inside it. He imagined the gourd tied to one end of the creeper, the pod to the other, the creeper passing from one to the other around a stake or sapling. The pod, with himself inside it, would be heavier, it would pull the gourd around the stake and both would fall into the river. But if the gourd were full of water...

Kneeling on the riverbank, he cut a large hole near the stem of the gourd, then thrust it underwater and held it until the last of the air bubbled out. He raised the slippery thing with difficulty; it weighed as much as he did.

He laid the gourd down, careful not to spill it, and traced with his eye the way the line should run, from the gourd to a stake driven into the ground, then down to the pod. He saw himself puncturing the gourd, the water dribbling out. Thorinn lies down in the pod, which closes over him. At length the gourd, growing lighter, glides up the slope; the pod, moving down, keeps the line taut; the gourd reaches the stake...

But the stake should not be there. It might catch the curved neck of the gourd, the creeper knotted around it, the knobby surface of the gourd itself. Yet the stake must be there in the first place, to hold the pod.

Dissatisfied, he thought of a moveable peg, a wooden hook. He searched among the dead branches in the forest, found a forked limb with a projecting stub that was smooth and no bigger than his thumb. He held the limb this way and that: tilted up, the stub would hold the loop of cord; tilt it down, and the cord would slide off freely. But how to make it tilt? Suddenly, in his mind, gourd, forked limb, cord all came together, and he knew.

He dropped the forked limb near the gourd and went back into the forest. Half-buried in the undergrowth was a bigger limb, three ells long and as thick as his thigh. With much toil he dragged it out and set it crossways on the slope, wedging the ends behind a shrub and a stone. The smaller limb he set with its stem on the log, the forked ends on the slope above it. The projecting stub stood straight up. Now he carried the heavy gourd up behind the log and laid it down, with care, in the embrace of the forked branch. With a length of creeper he lashed the gourd securely to the branch. He picked up the rest of the creeper, made a loop in one end, slipped it over the smooth projecting stub, and leaned back with all his weight. The gourd did not move.

He tied the other end of the creeper to the pod-vine, then placed the pod directly below the log, within an ell of the bank over the river. He examined his work again, and saw that it was good. The water would run out of the punctured gourd, its weight would lessen; the greater weight of the pod would drag it forward, the forked limb would tilt, the cord would slip off the stub. All that remained was to do it. Thorinn slowly put on his garments, made sure that all his possessions were in the wallet, sheathed his sword. The pink, soft pod-halves gaped open. Below him he could hear the unending rush of the water.

Once more he examined every part of the engine he had made. He knelt behind the log, looked at the heavy-bellied curve of the gourd between the forks of the limb. He drew his sword, set the point against the bottom of the gourd, then hesitated. He found himself thinking of other ways, of somehow ascending the cataract at the other end of the valley, or finding the doorway in the sky... Go down, said the voice in his mind, and he thrust the sword in. Water spurted; when he withdrew the blade, a thin stream ran from the gash, twisting as it went, rebounding in lazy droplets from the turf below. Thorinn got up and went down the slope to the waiting pod. Its pink halves gaped in invitation. In sick disgust, he stepped into it, felt it loathsomely soft under his feet. His muscles jumped with the desire to get away from it, but he made himself sit down, then lie back in the pod's fleshy embrace. He saw a narrowing strip of sky, then the podflesh came slowly and smotheringly against his face. The rush of the water below faded to silence. He struggled to get out, and found it quite easy. The pod turned to mist, and he was free under a curious twilit sky, walking without fear in a land where interesting things were happening, and where friendly people, whose faces he could not quite see, were speaking to him in words he almost seemed to understand. He realized that he had lost his sword, and that alarmed him faintly, but when he looked again it was there, bright and shining at his waist. Then he realized it was gone again, but it did not seem to matter. The things that were happening and the things said to him were so interesting and pleasant that years went by in this way without any weariness, and it seemed to him that he could well congratulate himself on having attained this mode of life, so much better in every way than the other; and he pitied those who were still groaning with toil in that former life. He mentioned this to one or two of his companions, and they agreed entirely; he knew this by their voices, although their words never became entirely clear. Then after a long time something unpleasant began to happen. It came to him from a direction in which he could not defend himself, nor could the others help him. It had no face or meaning, but he could not ignore it; it receded, then it came back again, more brutally demanding than ever. He saw that something could be done, but it would mean giving up all his ease and pleasure to the end of time, and while he hesitated, the thing came back once more, and now it had a sound: the roar of water.