Paul Thompson - Riverwind

“Come back with my pack!” Riverwind yelled. Almost all his meager possessions were in that bag.

He and Catchflea got to their feet. “Get the blanket and follow me,” Riverwind said hastily. He sheathed his saber and made for the rocks where the thief had gone. The boulders were jagged and brittle, but Riverwind clawed his way to the top. He crouched on the crest and tried to pierce the deep gloom of the ravine below. It was like trying to see into a well of midnight.

A stone flew out of the dark and struck him stingingly on the chin. Losing his balance, Riverwind sat down hard and started to slide. He slowed his descent by digging in his heels, but decided this was as easy a way to get to the bottom of the slope as any.

The slope ended, but instead of the bottom of the hill, Riverwind's feet met empty air. As his legs sailed into space, he tried to grab ground on each side to stop his headlong plunge, but the ground was loose and rocky. Trailing a train of gravel, Riverwind slid off into a void and fell, and fell, and fell.

“Catchflea, look out!” was all he could shout. Agonizing, slow seconds passed as Riverwind fell feet-first into darkness. Any moment, the hard bottom would rush up and smash him, crush the life from his body.

Riverwind flailed his arms and legs, and still he fell, air flowing up, rippling the sleeves of his jerkin and making the tassels on his pants slap against his legs. Riverwind quickly realized something else: he was falling too slowly-far too slowly. His downward speed seemed no more than if he were running at a casual lope. Or was it that the air itself was thick, clinging to him like syrup, retarding his plunge? Something was slowing his fall. Something not natural. Magic.

That realization was frightening enough to make sweat break out on his face. As the fall continued, however, Riverwind overcame his fear. He looked up. He couldn't see the hole he'd fallen into. Around him were vague suggestions of wall moving past, but when he put out an arm to make contact, his balance shifted and he tumbled face over feet. After some frantic scrambling, Riverwind regained his poise. Thereafter he kept his hands at his sides.

He had no idea how long he'd been falling. He had no idea of time. Nothing but the wind and black walls surrounded the falling plainsman. “Where am I falling to?” he asked out loud.

“And how do we get back up?” replied a distant voice above him.

Riverwind called, “Catchflea, is that you?”

“It is me, yes.”

“Where are you?”

“I should say thirty feet above you.”

Riverwind tried to see him, but it was too dark. “Did you fall into the hole too?” he said loudly.

“No, I jumped after you.”

“What!”

“Follow and descend, the acorns told me, yes?”

“Do you do everything those oak nuts tell you?” Riverwind asked.

“Everything, tall man.”

Riverwind shook his head ruefully, but, somehow, he felt better knowing he was not completely alone in this bizarre plunge. Catchflea's thin voice drifted down: “How do we get back up?”

A blue glimmer appeared below. Gingerly, Riverwind bent at the waist to see it better. The light was the same color as the strange globe he'd found above. The glimmer grew closer. Then, it-or rather, he-swept past. It was another globe. Just like the first, except that this one was mounted on the wall of the shaft.

The fall went on so long that Riverwind became impatient. The blue globe vanished overhead, though he saw Catchflea outlined briefly in the feeble aura. When another azure dot appeared far below his feet, Riverwind decided to try to knock the globe loose. He wanted to take it with him to provide some illumination. He gauged his position. The sphere should just brush his outstretched fingertips.

His precarious equilibrium failed as he reached farther out. Riverwind crashed into the wall and bounced off. His hand rapped the globe smartly. There was no chance to grab it. The globe jostled free of whatever was holding it in place and, instead of falling with him, floated up and away. It narrowly missed the old man, still falling above Riverwind.

“What was that?” Catchflea cried in alarm. When Riverwind explained, the old man cried, “Don't meddle with them! You could disrupt the spell that cushions our fall.”

The air, which had been crisp and cold as they went down, gradually got warmer and heavier. In quick succession, Riverwind passed through several rings of fiery hot stone, radiating dull red heat into the shaft. By this fleeting light he saw that the shaft at this point was about eight feet wide. The walls were smoothly polished.

He heard Catchflea exclaim as he dropped through the hot rings. After a word of encouragement to the old man, Riverwind decided to make one last effort to halt his descent. He drew his knife and attempted to drive it into the hard stone wall. The flame-hardened tip struck sparks, but didn't so much as scratch the dark rock. Riverwind lost his grip and the knife fell from his fingers. It fell far faster than he was going. A few seconds later he heard a clang from below. His knife had hit something. The bottom, perhaps?

All at once the shaft constricted to a narrow neck, as in a funnel. The strange force that restrained his fall brought Riverwind nearly to a halt in midair. Riverwind crossed his arms over his chest and slipped through the shaft's neck, banging his left hip and shoulder smartly before landing in the chamber below. Riverwind's legs folded under him, and stars swam in his eyes.

He lay stunned long enough for something soft to drape over him. By the smell he knew it was his horsehair blanket. Hard on its heels, Catchflea arrived at the funnel mouth. He hung for just a second by his fingers, then let go. The old soothsayer landed with a thud across Riverwind's chest.

“My apologies! You are not hurt, yes?” he gasped.

Riverwind coughed and lifted the skinny old man off him. “Nothing is broken,” he replied. “Considering how far we've fallen, we can thank the gods for that.” He tried to stand but became dizzy and collapsed again.

“My head is swinging like a dry gourd in the wind,” he said, clasping his head between his hands.

“I'm quite giddy myself,” Catchflea sputtered. He was lying flat on his back. Lifting an arm to point to the ceiling, he added, “There's the hole we passed through, yes. Do you think we could reach it from here?”

Riverwind rocked back on his haunches to see the aperture overhead. “That's twenty feet up,” he said. “Even if you stood on my shoulders, you couldn't reach it.” He suddenly realized how well they could see. The chamber was lit by blue globes. The lamps-each about the size of Riverwind's head-were spaced irregularly along the wall. Nearly a dozen were lit, but many others were dark.

The chamber was circular, forty feet across. The walls and floor were black basalt, dense and smooth, speckled with reflective mica. Beyond Catchflea was an open doorway, lit by a blue globe.

The floor had stopped heaving, and Riverwind's knees became solid again. He wobbled to his feet, gave Catchflea a hand, and hauled the old soothsayer up.

“What is this place?” Catchflea asked.

“I cannot tell you. Whatever it is, I don't like it.”

“Oh? We are alive, yes?”

“Yes, but for how long? How will we get out of here?” Riverwind muttered. He limped to the wall and touched a glowing orb lightly with a fingertip. The stable light writhed within its sphere, arcing from side to side as if to avoid the spot Riverwind had touched.

“What are these things?” he wondered aloud. Catchflea was at one of the others. He lifted it off the cup-shaped base carved in the rock of the wall and held the globe at arm's length.

“At least we have light,” the old man said. “Shall we go?”