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 let you. There is room for your left foot. Right hand out at your shoulder’s level; not so far! There. Six inches down with your right foot.” Fenodyree stepped on to the shelf. “Now your left hand to the side of your hip …”
A minute later Colin was standing beside Susan.
“We are not yet at the foot,” the dwarf reminded them. “See what awaits.”
He guided them down the shelf to the mouth of the lower end of the shaft. The shelf grew rapidly steeper, and very smooth. There were no holds at all.
“What do we do now?” cried Susan.
“We slide! Oh, never fear, it is no great way, and there is sand to break your fall.”
The children remained apprehensive, but Fenodyree insisted that there was no danger, and, to prove his word, he sat at the top of the chute and pushed off with his hands. There was a swish, silence, and a soft bump.
“It is as I said,” called Fenodyree, and he shone the light upwards.
“All right,” said Susan, “but … oh!!”
The chute was far smoother than Susan had anticipated and, caught off her guard, she tobogganed helplessly into the air, and landed at the dwarf’s feet with her knees in her stomach, winded for the second time in the space of an hour. It was small consolation that Colin fared no better. Fenodyree had not lied: there was sand, but it was wet and, consequently, hard.
While the children lay croaking, Fenodyree cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted:
“Du-rath-ror!”
An answering voice echoed in the shaft.
“We shall rest here,” said Fenodyree, “but we must not stay long, for if we do not win clear of the Earldelving by sunset we shall have no choice but to stay there until the dawn, and that would be grim indeed.”
“Nay, then,” said Durathror, “let us forgo our rest!”
He was standing on the shelf at the foot of the great wall.
“But …”
“But how have you …?”
“I fell!” shouted Durathror merrily. “See!”
And he leapt down to join the children and Fenodyree. His cloak whirled about him, and he landed lightly on his feet with as little disturbance as if he had skipped from the bottom treads of a staircase.
The foot of the shaft opened into a small chamber, three or four feet high, and it was flooded except for the pyramid of sand in the middle.
Fenodyree bade the others make themselves as comfortable as possible, but it was not easy to stay dry, and, at the same time, to be out of the path of any svart-sent boulders that might land in their midst.
Colin and Susan divided the remains of the food and drink between the four of them. And as they ate, the dwarfs pieced together the events that had brought them so unexpectedly to hand in time to rescue Susan and to bring havoc among the svarts.
This was their story. Durathror and Fenodyree were walking near Castle Rock when the kestrel Windhover brought news that Grimnir had risen from the lake and had entered St Mary’s Clyffe. The dwarfs knew that where Grimnir was, there would be Firefrost, and that this may be their chance. Cadellin was prowling in the hills towards Ragnarok to find out if word of the stone had spread, for he was as anxious as Grimnir to keep its present whereabouts a secret. He could not possibly come; so the dwarfs decided to attack alone, and in no time Fenodyree had gathered his armour, and they were on their way.
They heard of the children’s arrival from Windhover, whom they had arranged to meet in the cover of the garden next to St Mary’s Clyffe. Grimnir and the Morrigan, said Windhover, were in an upper room: there was unpleasantness behind curtains downstairs. The hounds were loose.
“Do you wait by the entrance wall,” said Durathror.
“Windhover shall take me where these morthdoers hide, and I shall disturb them, and, with Dyrnwyn, drive all thought of Firefrost from their heads. Wait for a space after you hear me fall upon them, seek the stone in the lower room, for there I think it will be, and so to Fundindelve, where I shall join you if I may.”
Then Durathror went with the kestrel to the room under the eaves. It was as Colin and Susan had begun to suspect: he had the power of flight. It lay in his cloak of eagle feathers, a survival from the elder days, and a token of great friendship.
When his moment came, Fenodyree ran for the door; to his surprise it was open, and he entered warily. On finding the curtained room empty he was perplexed, but he had no time to search further, for as he was about to try the kitchen door it was thrown open, and Durathror cannoned into him. There was savage joy stamped on his face as he spun Fenodyree into the cloakroom where the children had lately been hiding, and closed the door. Seconds later Grimnir stumbled out of the kitchen, followed by Shape-shifter. The empty room, the open door.
“The dwarf