Alan Garner Classic Collection. Alan Garner

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СКАЧАТЬ the children thought he was unconscious, but they were soon to find for themselves how easy it was to be winded in such a fall.

      “It is a good hold,” said Fenodyree. He eased himself a couple of feet from the ledge, and took up a secure position astride a corner of the shaft.

      “Throw me your light.”

      “But what if you drop it?” said Colin.

      “I shall not drop it.”

      Colin let the lamp fall, and the dwarf caught it in both hands.

      “Now jump; you cannot miss.”

      Can’t I? thought Colin.

      He had a brief impression of blackness stretching under him, and of the ledge hurtling upwards, before the air was squashed from his lungs by vicious impact with the rock. Blue and red stars exploded in his brain, and a vacuum formed where his lungs should have been; but Fenodyree’s steadying hand was in the small of his back, and as his senses cleared, Colin realised that his fingers had closed upon the ledge, and were holding him, although he was numb from the elbows down.

      When the children and Fenodyree had recovered from the effects of the drop they considered the next stage of their journey. Colin was perched just below Fenodyree, while Susan had pulled herself on to the ledge and was wishing she could spare a hand to massage her aching ribs. It felt as though every bone in her body had been shaken loose by her fall.

      “There are no more bends for a distance,” said Fenodyree, “but whether there is safe passage I cannot tell.”

      The V-shaped gully continued for thirty feet, and they made good progress. Fenodyree held the lamp, leaving Colin and Susan both hands free; but light was still a problem. For when Fenodyree was above the children, their shadows hid the rock below, causing them to grope blindly for holds; and when he was below, it was difficult for him to shine the light without blinding them. He could, however, direct their feet to holds that he had tested, so they decided on this order of descent.

      At the foot of the gully three sides of the shaft opened out like the shoulder of a bottle, leaving the remaining side, the all but sheer rock face, within reach.

      “We can’t go down there!” said Colin, aghast. “It’s as smooth as ice!”

      “The eyes of men were ever blind,” said Fenodyree. “Can you not see the crevices and the ledges?”

      The children peered down the shaft, but still it seemed to them impassable.

      “Ah well, you must put your trust in me, that is all. We shall rest here a little, for there will be no haven after this until we near the end.”

      He called up the shaft, “Is all quiet with you, cousin?”

      “Ay, though the chill of this place is beyond belief! It is well I have my cloak! Svarts draw nearer, but they move slowly. I fear they will not come in time.”

      “Are you ready?” said Fenodyree to the children.

      “As ready as we ever shall be, I suppose,” said Susan.

      “Good. Colin, you are well lodged, so your sister will go first. I shall clear a way for you as far as I can. Have patience, and rest while I am gone, for it will be a hard climb.”

      Fenodyree let himself down to the full extent of his arms, and scuffed around with his toes until he had found, and cleared, a ledge: then he searched for a lower finger-hold, and in this way slowly began the descent. The wall was not quite as smooth as Colin and Susan had thought, but the accumulated sand of years rendered the many cracks and projections invisible to the children’s eyes.

      Minutes, or hours, later (for it seemed an eternity in the nothingness of the shaft) the children heard Fenodyree returning. Colin switched on the lamp, and the dwarf’s face, lined and grey with effort, came into view.

      “All … is … clear. Or … nearly so. We must … not … delay … now.”

      Colin handed him the lamp, and Fenodyree climbed down to his first station, from which he guided Susan on to the rock face. As soon as she was immediately above him, he descended a little further, and soon Colin was left alone to his thoughts.

      Susan and Fenodyree moved quickly, for the holds were precarious, giving no more than finger and toe room, and often barely that. To remain still for more than a few seconds was to be in serious danger of falling. Yet momentum was hard to check, and Susan more than once came near to losing control of her speed; but, with Fenodyree’s help, she achieved a balance between these two fatal extremes.

      Colin had nothing to do but to avoid cramp and to watch the dwindling oblong of light and his sister’s foreshortened silhouette. And as he looked, he gradually became aware of an optical illusion. Being in total darkness himself, he could see nothing of the shaft except the small area lit by the lamp in Fenodyree’s hand; and as this drew further away his sense of perspective and distance was lost, so that he seemed to be looking at a picture floating in space, a moving cameo that shrank but did not recede. He was so fascinated by this phenomenon that he barely noticed the cold, or the strain of being wedged in one unalterable position.

      The patch of light contracted until it appeared to be no bigger than a match-box, and Colin was wondering how deep the shaft could possibly be, when the light was extinguished. But before he had time to be seriously alarmed, he heard Fenodyree’s voice shouting up to him, though what the message was he had no idea, for distance and the shaft reduced it to a foggy booming, out of which not a single intelligible word emerged. Still, the tone of the voice held no urgency, so he presumed that Susan was at the bottom and that Fenodyree was on his way up – which, in fact, was what the dwarf had intended him to understand, and Colin had not long to wait before the lamp flashed on a yard below where he was sitting.

      “Oh,” said Fenodyree, “I am a sight … weary … of this shaft! Durathror!”

      “Ay?”

      “When we are … below … I shall … call. What … of the svarts?”

      “They went by another road. More follow.”

      The shelf on which Susan was resting lay at the foot of the wall. At this point there was a kink in the shaft, like the bend of a drainpipe, and Fenodyree had said that the true bottom of the shaft was not far below.

      Susan flexed her fingers, and wriggled her toes. The bulk of the descent had not been too bad, once she had developed a rhythm, and her nerves had settled, but the last fifty feet of the wall were perpendicular, and the strain on her fingers had proved too much, and, on three occasions, only Fenodyree’s quick reactions had saved her from coming off the rock.

      The sound of the dwarf’s voice brought Susan out of her thoughts, and she saw that Colin was beginning the final stretch, the crucial fifty feet. He was lowering himself over the sharp ridge that marked the end of the inclined pitch, and it was punishing him no less than it had his sister: he would carry the bruises for days. And how Fenodyree climbed with only one free hand was a marvel. He was nearing the end of his third trip up and down the shaft, and there he was, taking Colin’s weight on his shoulder and guiding him to the next hold.

      “Twenty feet more, Colin, and we shall be there! Bring your left hand down to the inside of your right knee. Your other hand will fit there, too. Steady? Now lower yourself as far as your arms will СКАЧАТЬ