Peter Dickinson - Earth and Air

And everything around him shared the same doubleness. In the world of flesh and bone this was simply an empty, worked-out silver mine that before that had been a deep cave. But, mine or cave, in the shadow world it was and always had been an entrance to the underworld. Along it, and all around him, invisible, imperceptible, flooded the souls of the freshly dead. And ahead of him there was a dog of flesh and bone who was also, somehow, the dog Cerberus, the dreadful three-headed guardian of that realm. And a nameless stream the shadow of whose waters was the River Styx. And, waiting for him on its further shore, Eurydice. Ridiki.

The daze faded abruptly. He was aware of some other change, but couldn’t locate it. He stopped and stood listening. No, not a sound, a light, a faint orange glow from around a so-far unperceived bend in the tunnel. He moved on, step by cautious step. Even more slowly he edged round the bend. The water sounds became noticeably louder, telling him that they were made by something more than a trickle, more than a small stream. The source of light appeared, an ordinary oil lantern standing on a ledge carved into the opposite wall. Just beyond it, the dog.

A dog of the Deniakis breed, all right, though larger than most, almost twice the size of Ridiki, but very much her colouring. Its collar was fastened by a light chain to a shackle in the wall, and it was lying across the near side of the tunnel, with its head turned away from him, ears half pricked, motionless. He knew that pose only too well. It was waiting for the return of its master.

What now? In the world of flesh and bone the only sane thing would be to turn back. It was the pipes that made up his mind. Unconsciously while he hesitated he had been weighing them in his hand, but now he found himself gazing dreamily down at them. His shadow self returned, allowing him to look at them through shadow eyes, to see them for what they were in that dim light. In the world of fresh and blood he had brought them here as a tangible offering to make as part of his farewell to Ridiki, a way of telling himself that now, truly, finally, he was letting her go. But, like one of the echoes in this place of echoes, that purpose now reverberated back to him from the shadow world all changed, telling him that if he used them the pipes were a passport, a charm with which he might persuade the powers of the underworld to let him through.

Suppose it was all nonsense. Suppose the dog’s only response was to set up a clamour of barking and bring its master running. The man must be a little way off, beyond the dog’s awareness, to judge by its anxious, waiting pose. He’d have a good start. Once through the door he could run the collar through the lock-shackles and fasten it tight. It would take the man some while to force his way past that, and by then Steff would be out of the cleft and well up the hillside . . .

Before that half of his mind had finished these flesh-and-blood calculations his shadow self had moved him quietly out to the centre of the tunnel and put the pipes to his lips. He drew a calm breath and blew two sharp notes, well apart on the scale, three times repeated. All Deniakis dogs had been trained to the same signals, and since, once trained, they were going to be sold on, Nikos never allowed them to bond to a single man, but got them accustomed to obeying the commands of strangers. This was the Attention call, a musical version of the dog’s Alert. Instantly the dog heaved itself onto its haunches. Its head swung round, ears pricked. Herd dogs have excellent sight, but Steff was some way from the lantern’s dim light and the dog, he now saw, was old. Its movements had been stiff and there was something awkward about its posture, very like Ridiki’s when she was at attention.

Nevertheless it recognised a stranger, and was about to spring up and rush yelling to the reach of its chain when Steff blew a long, fluttering call— Down. Wait. Be Ready.

The dog paused, uncertain. He blew the call again. The dog subsided, though still with obvious doubt, and lay with its muzzle on its outstretched forelegs. Its hackles continued to stir as he walked confidently forward, the pipes ready at his lips, but its training held. As he neared he saw why it had so reminded him of Ridiki. The left forepaw—what would have been the hand on a human arm—was missing as far as the wrist. Once well past the dog, he turned and played the first few notes of a local lullaby. Relax. It obeyed, obviously relieved, looking in fact rather pleased with itself at having performed a known task well. It was a nice old dog, he thought, not at all dreadful. And only one head.

And the same with everything else. The tunnel he was in was now an old mine shaft and nothing more. The dead no longer flooded invisibly along it—it was empty apart from himself. And what he was doing was once again pure, reasonless, dangerous folly. Only the memory of his earlier resolution carried him on.

Another lantern glowed in the distance. Very likely that was where the dog’s master was doing whatever he was here for, but again the danger had to be faced. Twice now he had come to such a moment with nothing more to rely on than shadow certainties that he no longer felt, and twice they had compelled him to face the test. Why stop trusting them now? Still, spasms of fear shuddered through him as he stole nearer to the light, and he had to stop and wait for them to pass before he could force himself on.

Now he could see the end of the tunnel, a rock surface with a thick rope running across it through a series of old iron rings. The rail track curved round to the left, into the lantern light. The floor of the tunnel ended halfway across to the opposite wall—the gap must be the channel in which the water ran.

He edged along close to the left-hand wall, checking to the right on what he could see of that side of the chamber ahead, as more and more of it came into view. In fact it ended in a blank stone wall only a couple of paces round the corner. The water flowed out of it under a low arch.

At the tunnel’s end, huddled close against the wall, he stood and listened, but the steady rustle of the water drowned any small sounds the man might be making, if he was there. Cautiously he peeped out, just far enough to see round the corner with one eye. The lantern stood on a flatbed rail trolley, a simple wooden platform on wheels, with a hinged handle either end for pushing or pulling. The rails ended a pace or two beyond it, and the chamber a little beyond that, with a blank wall through which the water flowed out of a tunnel high enough for man to stand in. The rope along the far wall continued through more rings and on into the tunnel.

At first there seemed to be no one about, but then a man’s head and shoulders, facing away from Steff, rose from behind the trolley. For a moment he seemed to be standing in the river, but his body rocked as he lifted something heavy up onto the quayside, showing that he must be standing on some kind of boat or raft. The rope on the wall was for him to pull himself up and down the river.

Still with his back towards Steff he climbed up onto the quay and lifted his load onto the trolley and slid it forward. It was a sturdy wooden box, not large but obviously heavy. He returned to the raft and disappeared, clearly to fetch another one.

Steff had only a moment or two to think, but barely needed it. Everything he’d seen and been told seemed to click into place in his head. Somebody—probably one of the men who’d done the final survey on the mine and said it was worked out, had actually found a vein of fine silver, like what Alexander had used to pay his soldiers. He’d kept quiet about it until he could use it for himself. He’d then done a deal with Mentathos, to share the profits if he’d help. They had to keep dead quiet about it, because the silver really belonged to the mining company, and besides, if nobody knew, then they wouldn’t have to pay taxes. (The papers were always full of this sort of shady dealings, and the men talked about them over their dinners.)