Paul Thompson - Riverwind

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.