The World and Thorinn

7 How Thorinn was the guest of demons, and how he repaid their hospitality.

In the year of the Broken Branches an untested warrior of the clan of Blue Snake pushed his sister into a thorn tree and wounded her grievously, whereon she cursed him, saying, "May the sky demons come for you!" The young warrior unluckily replied, "This for you, and the sky demons as well!"

A year and a day after, two sky demons entered the lodge of Blue Snake in the guise of a bareskinned person and a talking gourd. They were bound and tormented by Blue Snake and other persons of his lodge, but escaped by magic arts and slew many before they returned to the sky. Afterward the clan of Blue Snake, being weakened by these slayings, fell easy prey to the clan of Break Skulls, who took the women captive, slew and ate the others after tormenting them for five nights and days. Thus the lodge of Blue Snake fell vacant, and being an unlucky place, was not tenanted again save by moths and deathbeetles.

He found himself in a thicket of tall canes with leafy tops, which crossed over his head and shut out the sky. A bird was singing somewhere not far away. Sprawled among the canes, Thorinn listened with such pleasure that for moments he forgot what he was about.

When he turned to look at the shield, he found in its place a gray rounded boulder, half buried in the earth. Thorinn knelt to examine this, pushed against it, but it would not move. He began to feel dizzy again, and thought of lying down to sleep, but there was no room for that here, between the canes and the boulder.

He got up and began to climb, finding himself so light that he could ascend to the very tip of a cane. As he emerged from the thicket, clinging to the leafy top with only his head protruding from it, he was looking into a remote tangle of curved milky stems, as if he had somehow got into the roots of the canes instead of their tops. The illusion was so strong that he was dizzy once more and had to shut his eyes a moment. When he opened them it was no better, until he looked down along the dwindling stem of the cane. All around him at a lower level were the flat green tops of other canes, and by keeping them in view he was able to persuade himself that the world was the right way up. He saw now that the canes, tall as they had seemed before, were like grasses at the feet of those immense tangled growths whose shapes he could not quite make out. The sky was invisible, somewhere far above. Once he thought he saw a flicker of motion deep in the tangle of stems, but it did not come again. The air was still and cool. While he hung there, a silent gloom rushed over the landscape. One moment the world was full of color; next, the light dwindled and went out behind him. In the blackness, Thorinn clung without up or down, or any direction to guide him. Shortly, however, his eyes began to grow accustomed to the darkness, and he could make out the same enigmatic tangled growths as before; but all were transformed in the green skylight that filtered through the branches. A cool air had sprung up. Somewhere in the distance insects began to shrill; and there were other sounds.

In the tangle that spread wide around him, some of the wavering branches and stems were the color of cheese, some black as beetles; the hollows between them were purple, crow's-wing blue, deepest green. Thorinn heard a slithering movement not far away; then wings hummed past his head, and he ducked. He tried to slide back down the stem, but at first moved so slowly that he felt almost as if he were going the wrong way, up into the sky. He relaxed the grip of his legs, but still moved with uncanny slowness, and in the end he had to propel himself downward hand under hand.

When he was beneath the shelter of the cane tops, he came to a halt. Now that he was quiet, he could hear faint, enigmatic sounds from below: rustlings, clicks. They made him uneasy, and he began to wish that he had been quieter a moment ago. He slid down, silent except for the whisper of his hands on the stem. Now he was near enough to touch the next cane. He leaned out, grasped it, and swung over. The cane dipped slowly, grating against another; he transferred to that, and then had to kick away to prevent the cane he had just left from wiping him off again. He stopped to listen. The sounds below were nearer: click; rustle; scrape.

The stem he lay on began to vibrate. Thorinn stared into the shadows. Something was crawling up the stem: he saw the green dots of its eyes. The cane shivered again. The thing was coming closer with surprising speed; now he could make out that it had a thick dark body, a confusion of moving knobby legs like a cricket's. Thorinn rolled over and began to stand up, meaning to see if he could shake the stalk until the thing fell off; but he had forgotten how slowly things moved here, and while his feet were still drifting in a leisurely way back toward the cane, the insect-thing was suddenly in front of his nose. It had sharp mouth-parts that gleamed as they opened wide. His back stiffened, he kicked out, and hung in midair while the cane swayed above him. He saw the dark thing leap, felt it strike his legs like a sack of meal, then a stabbing pain as its jaws gripped him through the leather. He had the sword out, swung and struck—another pain, he had gashed his own leg, and the insect-thing, cut in two, went spinning away. Now the cane was drifting toward him, a little to one side. It dipped, touched him, he trying awkwardly to turn and seize it, but he went off again, thrashing his arms. Now the spinning world steadied; it was moving past his feet; the dark meadow came nearer, he bent his knees and staggered, but only with surprise: the shock of landing was no more than that of stepping off a waist-high stone. His good leg began to hurt. He put his fingers to it, found a gash in the leather and a little blood. He straightened, shifting hands on the sword again. Something moved past him. There was a thump in the grass not far away, then another, nearer. Thorinn did not stop to think; he leaped. As he went up, something small and swift passed under him. Next moment he felt a sharp blow on his good foot, a scrabbling of claws on the leather. Whatever it was, the thing slipped off and he saw it fall toward the dark grass. The tree was turning majestically around him. He twisted and revolved his arms, trying to straighten himself out, and partially succeeded. There was a sizzling noise at his ear, then something stung him on the neck. He slapped at it, and found himself gyrating again. A misshapen loop of vine came by; he grasped it, swung helplessly a moment, then pulled himself up into the tree. He stood aslant on a tree-limb or old vine, breathless, looking down at the grass an incredible distance below—twenty ells, at least, perhaps more; it was hard to tell in the greenlight. He felt exultant; if he could jump like that, no matter what was after him...

Down there in the dimlit grass, something moved. It was round and gray, and it was hanging in the air—no, rising toward him—larger, a tangle of knobby limbs—With a startled cry, Thorinn leaped backward and upward. Something dealt him a heavy blow across the back; then leaves were whipping his face. Another blow; he clutched a limb and swung to rest. The leaves below him continued to rustle. There was a thrashing, then a measured grating and crunching sound, as if something brittle and hard were being eaten.

Thorinn retreated, pulling himself upward by degrees. A creeper on which he put his hand turned supple, bent toward him, and became a long legless creature with a flickering tongue. Thorinn flung it away, and climbed still more carefully, keeping to open spaces as well as he could. He was beginning to sweat. Nearby something swayed under a massive limb. It looked like a shaggy fruit, but it was big enough to hold five men. Thorinn avoided it and climbed. A little higher, two limbs growing level and side by side had put out branches to each other, making a platform ten ells long from which, here and there, other trees grew. At the end of this platform was something that looked remarkably like a hut. Thorinn approached the platform, found it had a floor of canes interwoven with the branches. The place was silent and empty. The hut at the far end had a peaked roof and an open doorway; it was half-walled, with black space showing all around under the roof.

Thorinn's weariness took him: he went quietly up to the doorway and looked in. The hut was empty except for some mats in one corner. When he had made sure of this, Thorinn stood still and listened. The tree was full of faint movements, but none seemed near or threatening. He sat down on the mats, removed his pack and leaned against the wall, sword in hand. After a time he caught himself dozing and sat up with a start. The night was still. He closed his eyes, merely to rest them. He came awake with his heart pounding, knowing that he must not move. Outside in the greenlight, something gray and misshapen drifted down and disappeared beyond the half-wall of the hut; Thorinn felt the faint thump when it landed. It was like a man, but there was something wrong with it. He glimpsed another one falling, then heard low, grunting voices. He reached for his pack and put his arms through the loops, trying not to make a sound, but by ill luck the corner of the pack scraped against the floor. Instantly a gray form was in the doorway, another peering over the wall. Thorinn turned, dived over the opposite wall into the darkness. Something caught his leg as he went over, bringing him down hard against the platform, and he struck his head a blow that made it ring. When he tried to get up, he found his leg still held fast. The platform rustled and shook all around him. He glimpsed another gray shape and smelled its rank odor; then something struck him a harder blow on the cheekbone, and he drifted away into blackness.

When he came to himself, he could not at first remember what had happened. He was hanging in midair while a rough gray wall moved by jerks past his face. He was uncomfortable, and tried to move his limbs to ease them, but could not. His face hurt; one eye would not open. Jerk; up he went again. His arms were behind him, bent over a stick that came out under his armpit on either side, and his wrists were tied to his ankles. Voices were muttering somewhere overhead. Jerk; a dark leafy twig passed, and the gray wall became a tree-trunk, lumpy, scarred, fissured, and immense. It swung around, this way and that. Thorinn craned his head back. He saw now that a cord, attached to him somewhere behind, rose over the edge of a giant limb just above. A gray face with luminous green eyes peered down at him briefly, and was gone. Up he went again, swinging. The stick that protruded under his arm touched the tree-trunk and caught; he revolved slowly until his body was pointing out away from the tree. More voices. He rose another span and stopped; now the stick was caught under the limb. After a moment something gray and supple came over the edge of the limb and dropped toward him. He had barely time to flinch before the thing was on his back. Its legs clasped him around the hips; its arms appeared over his shoulders and pushed him away from the tree. The arms were gray and hairy; the hands were like a man's. Thorinn fell into despair, for now he knew he had been captured by demons.

He revolved again as the demon freed one end of the stick. The other end was still caught, and he swung slowly around that, then the demon freed it in turn, and he rose, swinging inward until his head struck the limb and he checked again. Then the demon leaped off his back, and in a moment he began to rise, scraping his face and chest against the wrinkled bark. Two of the creatures stood above, pulling on the cord, and others hung from the openings in the tangle nearby. They were smaller than men, their arms grotesquely long, legs short. When they had brought him within reach, two demons seized him and pulled him up level with them; the cord, meanwhile, had disappeared into a dark hole above, and they thrust him up headfirst into it. The cord tightened, he rose, and a dark passage swallowed him. He swung as he went up, first this way, then that. The wall of the passage, when he bumped it with his head or feet, seemed dry and yielding. After a time a faint glow appeared; it was less than the nightlight outside, but he could see the two demons who pulled him up out of the passage, and beyond them a deep chamber. The demons lifted him and propped him carelessly against a wall. His head and feet touched the wall, but his knees hung clear of the floor, and he realized that besides the stick under his arms, there was another set crosswise to it. It occurred to him for the first time that his pack was gone, and the box with it; whether his wallet and sword were there he could not tell.

Such light as there was came from dimly luminous patches on walls and floor, as if sky-moss had been rubbed there. In the gloom, the demons came and went. The chamber was immensely tall; although his open eye was uppermost, Thorinn could not see the top. The demons went up and down with great swiftness, using cords that hung from the upper part of the chamber and poles that stood across it. In going up, they sometimes leaped from one pole to the next, but most often climbed the cords, so lightly that they hardly seemed to touch. In coming down, they used the poles, leaping head downward from one to another until they reached the last, when they swung around and dropped to the floor. None came near Thorinn.

He tried to break or loosen the cords around his wrists, without success. Then he thought that if he could work his way upward along the one stick, the other stick, being attached to the first, would move downward along his back, and he might get some freedom for his arms. But although he was able to grip the stick between his thighs, he could not move his legs enough to accomplish anything. After a time there was a stir above, and a swarm of demons dropped into view. Three of these were females, as large as Thorinn, a head or more taller than the other demons, and he realized dimly that the others must be their young. The females crowded close around him, muttering and grunting; they took turns fingering his garments, tugging at his belt, prodding him. Their eyes were big and green. Two or three of the small demons dived down the hole in the floor, followed after a moment by the rest. Two of the big females turned, sprang up, and were lost to view in the gloom; the third went across the chamber and, hanging by one hand from some protuberance, took something out of a sack there and began to eat it.

The strain on Thorinn's shoulders and hips grew painful. He tried to ease it by flexing his body, but his legs were drawn back so tightly that he could hardly move. The female demon finished whatever she was eating and took another piece. Thorinn found that he could push outward with his feet against the wall; it meant pulling his arms even tighter against the stick, but anything was better than lying still, and he did it again and again, rocking farther out each time, until he overbalanced and fell on his face. Now he was entirely helpless; the most he could do was rock from side to side a little. The muscles of his legs and buttocks began to cramp.

After a long time the demon came back and lifted him by the stick, propping him against the wall again. She had something round in her hand; she took a bite of it, and bright juice ran down her chin. She held the thing out; its pungent smell made Thorinn swallow. He opened his dry mouth. Quickly, with her other hand, she thrust a wad of dirt and trash into his mouth. Thorinn spat it out—dry leaves, filth—and spat, and spat. Across the room the demon was grunting in a slow rhythm, and he realized at length that the creature was laughing.

More time passed. The demon left off eating and picked up a half-finished mat from the floor. She began working at it, holding it with her feet while she braided the long strips together. Thorinn remembered the sound of the river purling down endlessly against the stones, dropping away, spurting, trickling, falling in sheets below. Cool and clean, clean and cool. He saw the demon put her work away and get up. The wall shook, then small demons were erupting into the room, dozens of them, followed after a moment by bigger ones—bigger even than the females. The room was full of them, they were hanging from the walls and the climbing poles. They were all around him, they jerked him away from the wall and stood him up on his stick, crowding close, turning him this way and that, rumbling and grunting to each other. They were a head taller than Thorinn, wider but thinner than the females. Their spindly arms were stronger than they looked. One of them tugged impatiently at Thorinn's belt, then fumbled with the buckle until he got it open and dragged off the belt, which another immediately snatched away from him. A third pulled down Thorinn's breeks; a fourth yanked his head back, pulled his jaw open and stared into his mouth. The uproar was stunning; all the males grunting at once, the children and females leaping back and forth overhead, and Thorinn shoved this way and that until his head spun. He felt a sharp tug at his wrists, then a slackening. His legs were released, and a moment later one of the males was pulling off his breeks and holding them up for the others to see. Thorinn's feet trailed on the floor like dead things; it was only the stick and the demons' hands that held him upright. After a moment he felt someone working at his wrists too; then they were released, the crossed sticks pulled away and he began to fall. But the demons hauled him upright again and tugged his shirt off over his head. Someone held him up by his hair while the rest examined him minutely, feeling his skin, pressing muscles, poking fingers into ribs. Thorinn could not prevent this; he could move his arms a little, but not his legs, and his hands felt like lumps of meat. At some point they had got his shoes off, too, and were passing them around. Thorinn saw one huge male holding up the belt and pointing to it, his mouth opening and closing. In the general din he could not hear anything, but others could; they crowded toward the demon with the belt, then dispersed again, and the commotion spread. A knot of struggling figures formed halfway up the wall, broke and dropped to the floor. Other demons crowded in, wedging Thorinn tighter, but those approaching from the rear forced their way through. In the midst of these were two demon children, gripped by their hair and squalling. One of the old demons barked at them, pointing to Thorinn and then to the belt which he shook in their faces. Thorinn could see that he was pointing first to one place on the belt and then another, and guessed that they were the worn places where his wallet and sword had hung. The children answered; the old demon cuffed them. The children disappeared into the crowd, followed by some of the adults.

Thorinn's arms and legs now felt as if a thousand needles were in them. Heedless of the pain, he began trying to open and close his fingers. The crowd was thinning a little; sounds of scuffling broke out on the other side of the chamber. Thorinn saw demon children dancing up the walls with gobbets of meat in their hands. A few adults followed, and squatted on the poles munching. Now Thorinn could see that the women were cutting up the carcass of some large animal; it must have been fresh-killed, for he could see the flesh steaming.

The demon who was holding Thorinn suddenly turned him about and brought his arms together behind his back. Thorinn tried to resist, but was still too weak; the demon wrapped a cord around his wrists and knotted it. Then, holding Thorinn propped casually in one elbow, he unfastened another cord from around his waist and made a loop in the end. He dropped the loop over Thorinn's head, tightened it a little, then flung the other end of the cord to a demon who sat overhead. Thorinn felt the cord tighten under his chin, then he was rising. He stopped, hung swaying; he tried vainly to touch the floor with his good foot. The noose was too stiff for his weight alone to tighten it as long as he hung still, but at the slightest movement it crept inward across the underside of his jaw. Rather than be throttled, he held himself motionless and kept his head back.

A demon, crossing the room on his way back to the carcass, casually wiped his hand on Thorinn's body. The push set him swinging; the room lurched around him. A demon child threw down a squalid lump of something that splattered on his ribs. In a moment another missile took him on the ear, and then he was being bombarded from every side. Each blow altered the direction of his swing and made him rotate more erratically. A demon came from the shadows carrying a long stick. He poked it at Thorinn's side; the pain made him writhe in spite of himself, and the movement tightened the noose. Another demon with a stick came forward from the opposite side. Facing each other, without excitement, the two began jabbing Thorinn by turns as he swung. The sticks pierced him in the chest, the side, the buttocks, the chest again.

After a time the thrusts stopped. Thorinn opened his good eye and saw that there had been an interruption: a crowd had formed again around the old demons who sat against the wall nearby. He saw two children leaping away, then the glint of metal. It was his sword; the demons were passing it from hand to hand, and his wallet too, and now he saw a square shape that could only be his talking box. He was not sure whether he could speak. He uttered a croak, then tried again: "Box!"

"I am here."

Relief almost unmanned him. He said, "Box, tell them to untie my hands." Demons were leaning over in surprised attitudes, peering at the box. There was a flicker of color in the crystal, almost too faint to see. Now demons came leaping across the room, falling from the shadows above. The two demons with the sticks had gone with the rest. In the uproar, Thorinn cried again to the box, but could not tell if it had heard.

After a time the crowd began to disperse. Thorinn saw an old demon holding the box, and two other old ones beside him. The din of voices had died away a little, and Thorinn called, "Box, did you tell them?"

"I told them."

The two demons with the sticks were back, and now one of the old ones came forward carrying the sword. He stopped and thrust the sword several times toward Thorinn's belly without touching him, all the while carrying on a grunted exchange with the other two demons. "Box, what are they saying?" Thorinn asked.

"I do not know what they are saying."

"Then how did you talk to them?"

"I talked to them in pictures."

Thorinn went cold. "What else did you tell them?"

"They asked about the sword, and I showed them it was better than a stick for cutting." The old one with the sword stepped back; the two with sticks ranged themselves on either side of Thorinn. A fourth demon came up behind; Thorinn felt its hands on the cord around his wrists, and his heart grew big.

The cord fell away. Thorinn reached for the noose; one of the stickmen promptly leaned forward and pierced his hand. The shock was so great that Thorinn lost his wits and reached with his other hand for the noose. The stickman on the other side pierced that hand also.

The demons had gathered in a ring. The old one with the sword exchanged several remarks with the stickmen; then, apparently satisfied, he stepped forward, put the tip of the sword against Thorinn's belly and cut downward. Blood began to crawl down Thorinn's leg. In spite of himself, his hand jerked toward the noose, and again the stickman pierced it. "Box," he cried.

"Here am I."

The old demon stepped up, raising the sword. Thorinn's body writhed forward in desperation; the noose closed hard on his neck, but he seized the demon's wrist. A blow took him in the side. He kicked the demon's dim face, and the sword was in his hand. Another blow spun him around. He cut at the stickmen, making them leap back; strangling, he seized the cord above his head. The demon on the pole stood and reached for him as he flew up, the cord slackening. Air rattled into his throat. He raised the sword and smote through the demon's leg and the knotted cord and half the pole, still rising, and touched the pole to push himself still higher, the demon toppling now below him and screaming as it slowly fell in a cloud of blood (the world an uproar of grunting voices, fangs in open mouths, green eyes), and now he was at the next pole, a demon reaching for him, and he smote off its arm; then clutching the pole he climbed up and feeling the wall springy and fibrous under his hand he struck and opened a long gash, the cool night air entering, and dived through and was outside. He caught a curving branch, swung back, and glimpsed the chamber he had left as a dark sack bulging between two limbs. In his mind was a picture: Thorinn drops dwindling through the branches, the demons pursue, swarm around him, and their sticks pierce his body, limbs, face... No. He sprang for the demons' house again, clung to the fibrous wall just above the opening he had made, and waited, trembling with fear and hate. When the first gray head emerged, he struck it with the hilt of his sword. The head dropped, the body followed it and with a thrust of his foot Thorinn helped it downward. He dealt with the second in the same way, then groped for a better hand-hold and sprang upward, wedging himself between wall and limb. There was a crashing of leaves far below just as the next pair of demons emerged; they dived for it unhesitatingly and were gone. Three more followed them, then two, then many; the wall trembled as they surged out, diving in their turn. Their voices called back and forth, far below. When the tree was still except for the rattle and click of small things in the branches, Thorinn dropped to the opening again, slipped through and stood upon the pole inside. The chamber was empty except for two females who stared at him, then climbed the opposite wall with grunts of alarm. His clothing and possessions lay strewn on the floor. Thorinn descended, picked up the wallet first and put his hand in to make sure of the magic jug, light-box, and fire stick. His shoes and the cloth he had wrapped the box in were nowhere to be seen. He pulled on his shirt and breeks hastily, looped the wallet over his belt and buckled it on, thrust the sword through the belt—the scabbard was gone—then pulled out the light-box and uncapped it. Across the chamber, there were shrieks and scrambling sounds. He turned the light that way: out of their dark mystery, the walls of the chamber sprang up brown and ordinary; he glimpsed the females clinging to each other on a high pole; then he lowered the light beam, played it across the floor, saw his shoes at once and put them on. He could not find the cloth or scabbard, although he looked into some woven baskets and turned over half a dozen of the mats that covered the floor. The carcass of the half-slaughtered animal lay on thought and had a blunt muzzle. From a peg on the wall hung some cords of the kind that had been used to tie him. He took one and looped it over his shoulder. High above, the light-beam showed a platform. He leaped for it, found it empty except for baskets and mats. Above it was another, and here he found a mass of demon bodies huddled together along the wall, all females, some with children clinging to them. One of the children was holding something long and brown; Thorinn leaned closer, saw that it was his missing scabbard. He eased it out from between the demon child's fingers, little by little. When he plucked it away at last, the child sighed and turned over, but did not waken.

Thorinn leaped again, and at last came to the top of the chamber, where a row of wrapped bundles hung from a crosspole. Clinging to this, he cut a slit in the brown dome overhead. He capped the light-box and put it away, then thrust himself out into the breathing night again. Around him the topmost branches of the tree lifted themselves against a sky that seemed almost close enough to touch. Thorinn leaped to the nearest branch and began to climb. As he drifted upward, he could see that the topmost branches did indeed touch the sky, and some disappeared into it. Now the pure green was close overhead; squinting against it, he put up a hand and felt the moss cool and moist. He pulled off handfuls and stuffed them into his wallet. In the hole he had made he felt a matted fibrous substance like coarse-woven straw. He could force his fingers through it, but when he tried to pull a hank of it free, it resisted; it was all tangled together like the stalks of last season's grass. The branch trembled. He looked down and saw gray shapes leaping toward him; more were erupting from the dome below. He rose almost without thinking, gripped the sky with one hand, and swung himself out. He probed through the moss for another grip, swung again. A thrown stick went past him, struck the sky and spun silently into the void. He looked back. The demons had clustered at the end of a branch, which bending under their weight had left them ells short of the sky. Another stick slid into the moss with a tearing sound. Feeling light-headed, Thorinn plucked it out and threw it back. From a little distance, he looked back again. The demons were still clustered on the branch. He moved farther away, having an impulse to get clear of the tree: but could he survive a drop to the ground? While he hesitated, looking about him, he noticed a dark line in the sky not far ahead. He set out toward it; as he approached, the line expanded slowly to a narrow oval. When he was almost there, he turned and looked back again. Two demons were hanging under the sky, and as he watched, another leaped up. They came swinging toward him, and now he could see their eyes glinting under the green sky. He tried to move faster; his fingers slipped and he almost fell. In his mind, the sky blazed. His breath caught; he gaped with excitement. Here was the opening, a hole in the sky three spans wide. Hanging beside it, Thorinn plunged his free hand into his wallet, found the light-box and pushed the cap off with his thumb, made sure that it was the broken end, the lighted one. He drew it out and aimed the light-beam into the faces of the demons, saw their eyes clench and their bellies contract. Then he jammed the open end of the box into the sky. Brightness exploded around him. Blinking, dazzled, he looked down and saw the tree-tops green in daylight; a hurrying shadow flickered at the edge of vision and was gone. Shrieks echoed below the treetops. The demons hung from the sky, unable to move. Thorinn turned. The shaft was beside him, with a disk of brown metal at the top. He reached up, felt the shield rotate under his fingers. The opening came into view, an eye of darkness expanding until it filled the circle. Thorinn leaped up, blood drumming in his ears. He had just strength enough to pull himself through and roll aside in the darkness. The floor was as soft as goose down. He slept, and woke to drink from the magic jug, and slept again.

He woke, feverish, and plastered sky-moss over his wounds with hands that could barely hold it. He heard himself raving, and woke again listening for a voice that had just fallen silent. He fumbled for the light-box in his wallet. His hands were weak and sore, but he got the light-box out and managed to transfer a bit of moss from each compartment to the other.

He woke again knowing that he would live, and that he had passed into manhood by giving and receiving blows in battle.

There were two deep wounds in the back of his left hand, passing between the tendons and coming out at the palm. They were closed now, but the skin around them was angry for a finger's breadth. The wound in his other hand was shallower but more painful, a ragged tear slanting upward through the meat of his palm. There were puncture wounds in his chest, back, sides, and buttocks. The wound in his belly had closed; the skin all around it was red and hot to the touch. His eye was still swollen, but now he could see with it, and this, except for the nick on his leg that he had done himself, was all the tale of his wounds.

In time to come he would be proud of these scars, but he would always know that he had been sick with fear when he got them.

He was weak and very hungry. He ate some cheese from his wallet and drank more water, and presently vomited it up again, and slept. When he woke, still weaker, he ate again and this time kept the food down.

As time passed, he grew to dislike the sweet stench of his sickness. He undressed and bathed himself as well as he could, in the water from the jug, and felt a little better. He got up and explored the passage for a dozen ells in either direction, coming back to open the shield and drop his ordures into the dark world below. Go down, said the voice, but he was too weak to obey, and when he closed the shield again, the voice stopped. When he woke again, he walked a little farther, and the next time still farther, until he came to the end of the passage where it curved upward and became a steep ascending shaft, from which a faint current of air breathed in his face. He went back, ate, and slept again. When he got up, groaning with stiffness, he followed the shaft upward until after some thirty ells it broke into a larger tunnel. Lights came on in vast swooping arcs over his head as he rose, and the silent display was so gigantic that he nearly ducked in terror as he had done before.

He went back to the passage below, ate the last of his cheese, slept, and woke again. He was very hungry. He opened the shield; it was daylight below. Go down. And he must, to get food. He thought of leaving some mark in the sky so that he could find the place again; he reached for the thong that should have been around his calf, but it was not there, and he remembered that he had left them both in the demons' house. He took up the cord instead, and made a heavy knot in one end. Holding the cord, he opened the shield and dropped through. As he fell, the shield turned; he supported himself for a moment by his fingertips on the edge just before it closed, and pulled down all but the knotted end of the cord. As he let go, the shield closed on the cord, and Thorinn hung from it, then reached around and took a grip in the sky. He swung out and hung for a moment breathing and blinking in the glare. He saw the tree in the distance with its crown of branches and the dark bulge of the demons' house between them. He was suddenly certain he could not get that far. He swung toward it in trembling haste until he was well over the tree, then let go and dropped.

The branches came up under him like a bed, and he was content to sprawl there, eyes closed, until his breathing was better. The tree below and around him was a tangle of limbs and branches, creepers, vines, and other plants growing all anyhow. He dropped to the next level where there were some red berries on a vine, but they were so bitter that one taste was enough. A little way below, he found a shaggy dark fruit like the one he had seen before, but not half so big; it was less than two ells long. He found a convenient perch and stabbed into it. Under the dry leafy shell was a skin of the thickness of two fingers, and under this a pulpy greenish-brown fruit. Having split the rind as far down as he could reach, Thorinn carved out a segment of the fruit and sampled it; it was at once sweet and tart, and made him avid for more. His hands were trembling. He cut out another section and ate that, and another, until his hunger was gone. Then he cut a larger piece, wrapped it well in leaves and put it in his wallet; and still what he left behind was enough to have fed a hundred men.

He climbed to the top of the branch and saw his way past the crown of the tree and the demons' house to the cord that hung from the sky. As he neared the house, he thought of the bundles hanging under the roof-tree, and was minded to go in and take a few, for they might be food, and he had nothing with him to eat but the fruit he had cut below. He leaped up onto the brown dome, but when he felt for the cut he had made before, he found it had been sealed up from inside. He made another beside the first, spread the edges apart, glimpsed the pole below, and dropped.

He landed on the pole and clung to it a moment, trying to hear past the beating of his heart. There was no stir below. He felt the cords around the pole, and began to pull up one bundle after another without troubling to open them, only cutting the cords and tying them together in pairs, in order to hang the bundles over the pole again until he was ready for them. When he had as many bundles as he could easily carry, that is to say, six, for the smallest was as big as his head and the largest four times that size, he began to think of his lost possessions, his leg thongs and the cloth which was all he had left of his treasures, except for some jewels in the magic jug. He did not include the box in this account, for it had betrayed him once and that was enough. He squatted on the pole looking down and listening. His eyes were now so accustomed to the dimness that he could make out a faint glow here and there. A vague bulk to one side must be the topmost platform, and remembering that this was empty, he dropped to it and paused to listen again. He heard the sound of faint steady breathing below. With sword in hand, he lowered himself to the next platform, and saw the bodies of demons lying sprawled all about him. By their size and number he knew these for the males; he saw their sharp sticks leaning in bundles against the wall. The next platform was that of the children and females, and below that the lowest platform, with nothing on it but baskets and mats. From this he dropped to a pole, and so to the bottom. The floor of the chamber was deserted, except for one old female who lay near the wall and did not stir. In the gloom, something hung from the lowest pole which at first he did not recognize: then he saw that it was the talking box. He was afraid it might speak to him, but it did not. He prowled around the wall of the chamber, turning over scraps of rubbish, feeling inside baskets and under mats. He found one of his thongs almost at once, lying as if dropped carelessly on the floor. There was no trace of the cloth, though he turned over every mat except the one the old woman was lying on. As he turned away in frustration the hanging box caught his eye, and in the dim light reflected from its side he saw a series of long scratch-marks. Had the demons hung the box there, then, to torment it in his stead? So much the worse for it... Still, if he took the box, he would be thwarting the demons of their pleasure. He approached and put his hand on the cord the box hung by, and only then realized that it was his other leg-thong.

He rose to the pole and untied the thong, then retied it as a carrying loop, and with the box on his back climbed to the top of the chamber again. The sleeping demons did not stir as he passed. Clinging to the crossbar under the roof, he thought of them sleeping peacefully. Bright light was what they hated; if he were to pull off the top of their house... but then the sound would awaken them. He touched the wall with his hand. Some of the woven fronds in the dome were new, but others were old and dry as tinder. Thorinn gathered up his bundles thoughtfully, dreaming of brightness. He leaped for the slit he had made and pulled himself through into daylight. Kneeling on the brown dome, he took the fire stick from his wallet and crumbled into it a few shreds of fiber pulled from the dome. One stroke set them aglow: he blew on them cautiously until a tiny pale flame leaped up, then tipped them out into a little pile of shredded fibers. After a few moments the flame caught, began to spread. Thorinn fed it with bits of brown leaf pinched off between his fingers, then with larger ones, then with whole strips carved out with his sword. A breath of foul air came up from the demons' den, making the fire burn more briskly. It popped, sending out sparks. Pungent whitish smoke billowed up. Bits of flaming tinder were dropping through the hole. Thorinn heard a shout of alarm below, then the tree began to shake. He cut a last strip, held the tip of it in the flames until it caught, then dropped it carefully into the blackness. He leaped to the topmost branches and from there swung out under the sky. Behind him gray-white smoke was spreading like a greasy cloud, and through it he could see the red glow of the fire like a demon's eye. He reached the hanging cord without difficulty, climbed up smiling, opened the shield, and let it close behind him.