Whirlpool!

Chapter Sixteen

Between the nodding trees, far down on the beach, Aminza could see her friends from the waking world where they worked, naked except for tiny loincloths, lashing together a raft from fallen trunks of the giant, hollow, reedy trees. Back here in the cave they had found, overhung by the mighty cliff and protected from the dank air by thick foliage, she dried out their clothes before a roaring fire and watched the two as they struggled, mist-wreathed, lashing trunks together with tough, rubbery vines.

They had been at it for hours now, and must surely be worn out, but still they straggled on. Their clothes were almost dry and Aminza, completely naked, wanted to be dressed before the men had finished their raft. She watched their activity for a while longer, then tried her clothes for dryness yet again.

She had long since given up the flimsy garments which Thinistor Udd had made her wear-had done so before the decision had been taken to set out upon this present guest-and now her clothes were of much the same cut as those of her companions. She had found them in one of Thinistor's storage caves, and doubtless they had belonged to some small adventurer sent into the mountains by Ebraim Borak, but Aminza did not like to think on the fate of their previous owner. As she dressed herself she was pleased that the soft leather of her jacket and short trousers in no way disguised her softly-rounded femininity.

Having dressed, she turned the steaming clothes of the two men where they hung on a rope stretched across the width of the cave, then peered once more from the cave's mouth. Through fringing foliage she saw the two step back from their work, hands on hips, saw them nod and grin in a self-satisfied manner. The raft was ready. As they began to strain and heave, dragging their craft a little higher up the beach, Aminza put Eldin's tiny kettle on the fire and began to boil water.

For all that their exertions would be keeping them warm, the lake was cold and the mist penetrating. They would be ready for a cup of tea and a bite to eat. Then, a night in the warmth of the cave, stretched out before a crackling, popping fire, with shadows walking on the walls ... Tomorrow would be a new day. Thinking these thoughts Aminza carefully wrapped Eldin's firestones in a scrap of dry skin which she placed in his waterproof pouch. She yawned as she watched the pair shambling up the beach, shoulders slumped.

Yes, they looked bone weary, and she could well understand that. It had been a hard day indeed. Now night was falling, and up above the mists the stars would soon be coming out in the clear skies of dreamland. Who could say but that tomorrow night they might be well away from here, sailing under those very stars, guided ever onward by the pointing knob of Thinistor Udd's wand?

With a glad little sigh, Aminza began to lay out fragrant beds of fire-dried ferns ...

HI

Morning came in an aching of bones and a throbbing of protesting muscles. It came early for Hero, and when the others awakened from their dreams within dreams he was already returning from the misted beach with a catch of three fine fishes. Thus, when they pushed their raft off an hour or so later, then- bellies were full and their spirits high.

In no time at all they drew away from die base of the great cliff and emerged from the mists into brilliant sunshine. A huge blue lake now opened before them, which looked so clean, fresh and unspoiled that Hero was prompted to state: "You know, I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that we're the first dreamers who ever chanced this way."

Eldin sorrowfully shook his great head. "Ah, no, my young friend! Truth is, I've heard of this lake before. A vast blue lake somewhere beyond the Great Bleak Mountains. Yes!"

"And?" Hero prompted.

"Eh?" grunted Eldin. "Well, this is it."

"And that's all?"

"Why, what else should there be?" the older dreamer shrugged. But he frowned a little and tugged at his beard. Then he snapped his fingers and grinned. "Ah, yes! There was something else. It's said that the lake feeds a great swamp somewhere beyond Thalarion."

"What?" cried Hero. "But how can that be? Thalarion lies in a different region of dreamland entirely. Oh, no, I can't see that at all."

"Perhaps I have it wrong," growled Eldin, and he shrugged again.

Aminza had been quiet for some little time but now she spoke up. "This is a queer lake, sure enough," she said, "but Thinistor's wand is stranger by far. Does it imagine we're fishes, d'you think?"

They could see what she meant. Dangling from a line strung between two upright poles, the wand still pointed north, but its downward-pointing angle was steeper than ever before. Could it be, they wondered, that the second wand lay deep beneath the waters of this vast lake?

"What makes you say the lake is queer?" Hero asked of Aminza.

"Well," she answered, "for one thing it's too quiet-you know what I mean?"

Eldin nodded patiently. "It's quiet, yes, of course it is- but the sun is shining bright enough. Nothing queer about that."

Aminza shuddered. "No," she said, "that's not what I meant. It's an unhealthy quiet. The air is far too still. There's no wind at all. It's like the lull before a storm. And for another thing-"

"Yes?" Hero prompted.

Aminza sighed. "You stopped paddling some time ago," she pointed out, "and yet we're still making a good forward speed."

"Eh?" said Eldin. "How can you tell?"

"I dropped a length of twine over the side," she explained, "with a twig tied at its end. The twine is now at full stretch and the twig's bobbing along nicely in our wake!"

"A current?" said Hero, the hair starting to rise at the back of his neck. "But whoever heard of a lake with a current?"

"And look!" cried Eldin, pointing a shaking finger at the steadily darkening water, where wavelets had sprung up from nowhere to collide and froth in a foamy spray.

"And that's not all," yelled Aminza as a wind suddenly blew up and snatched at the hair and clothing of the three. "Just look at Thinistor's wand now!"

They looked-and saw the difference at once. The wand no longer pointed north. Now its knob held waveringly to a north-easterly direction, and even as they watched it turned more fully to the east. Not only that but its angle had grown much more steep, so that it pointed downward at some sixty degrees directly into the lake.

Three pairs of eyes followed the pointing knob, and three sets of hackles rose as the dreamers spotted, some hundred yards away, a circular area of lake where the water shone dark blue and threw up a hazy mist of spray.

"Whirlpool!" cried Hero as the raft tilted a little in the suddenly rushing water. "We're caught in a whirlpool!"

"Hang on for dear life!" roared Eldin. "Here, Aminza, let me tie you down-and hang onto our supplies whatever you do!"

Feverishly they worked as the raft turned about the dark core of the descending chute. They lay flat and spread their bodies across the deck, lashing themselves and their bundles securely to the heaving members of their pliant vessel. And all the time the raft tilted farther onto its side and rushed faster and faster about the central funnel.

Soon, from where they lay flat on its deck as the raft churned wildly round and round, the three could look down the slope of the whirlpool into its very throat; and now the turning circle of the raft was such that they grew dizzy with its whirling. Thinistor's wand, too, still suspended from its line, was obliged to spin in order to aim its knob constantly into the center of the maelstrom, pointing out with some demon instinct the shortest route to its closest contemporary, which seemed most certainly to lie at the bottom of the lake.

And again the raft tilted, so that Eldin and Hero gasped aloud and Aminza gave a little scream as the deck became near-vertical. Then-a final jerk and a tilt-and an all-enveloping darkness as the raft slid down, down, down the great and glassy throat of the whirlpool.

The three knew that this was the end-and so were astonished to discover that it was not; for after some time the raft tilted again, regaining something of its former stability, and yet again, until it rushed along horizontally, though still it spun in crazy gyrations upon its own axis.

Now the damp and swirling air was filled with an eerie luminosity, a sort of ignis fatuus that danced upon the raft's logs, upon the bodies and faces of its passengers and their bundles ... and upon the walls and roof of the stalactite-draped tunnel through which they now raced at a fearful speed!

For indeed they had reached the lake's sinkhole-had reached and passed through it into the mighty sump which drained the lake-and now they were bound for some unknown sea of dreamland's nethercaves, wherein the waters of the whirlpool must surely empty. And at last Hero remembered Eldin's words: that the lake fed a great swamp somewhere beyond Thalarion. Perhaps it was so after all; for space in dreamlands was often paradoxical as time itself, and distances could be more than deceiving.

Sick with the motion of the raft, the three adventurers lay with lolling heads and prayed for death or whatever other future might await them; anything but the continuation of this nauseous ride. They watched the rough ceiling of the tunnel rush by, festooned with stone daggers, often mere inches away from their faces, and they felt doubly ill in the rotten and unnatural glow that lit their way as they rocketed along, seemingly through one of Hell's deepest bowels.

Then-

A light showed ahead. The clear light of day as opposed to the already fading, blue luminescence of the tunnel; and as the dim white glow became a glare so the tunnel widened and the speed of the raft slackened a little. Minutes passed and the disk of light ahead grew larger, then expanded in a final mad burst of speed and was upon them in a moment.

And out into open air they shot, propelled by a veritable spout of water, skipping over scummy depths like a stone spun by some Titan child, each bounce jarring and bruising them until their bodies felt pulped ... and finally the raft came to rest in tall reeds and lolling bullrushes.

For a long time the world turned round and round and Hero suspected that his brain must be permanently damaged. It must have been shaken loose inside his skull. A quarter of a mile away a tall cliff loomed, spouting water from a resurgence near its base. This was the emergence of that subterranean river which had spat them out like a pebble from a slingshot.

Feeling a little strength returning, Hero loosened the lashings that still held him fast and sat up. He was immediately sick into die reeds and rushes. Eldin, too, was now conscious, cursing and groaning where he lay fumbling at his fastenings. Hero, when he had recovered from his nausea, went to his assistance, freed him, then turned weakly to Aminza. A great bump on her head was turning blue, but her bosom rose and fell with a steady, reassuring rhythm.

"Well," Hero groaned and held his head for a moment, "and this must be your great swamp somewhere in Thalarion's hinterland."

"So it would seem," answered the older dreamer, tenderly examining his mass of bruises.

As life slowly flowed back into them the two questers stared about at the swamp's desolation. Some clear water existed between the raft and the cliff with its great jet of water. As for the rest: it stretched away, an endless morass of dead and shrouded trees, reeds and weeds, nodding bullrushes and gloomy papyrus. Strange orchids grew in the mushy stumps of rotted trees; vines hung everywhere, dipping knobby thin fingers in scummy soupy pools. Full of morbid plant life the lake most certainly was, but of flesh-and-blood creatures there was never a sign.

Then, staring into weed-choked distances and feeling the heat of the noonday sun upon their heads, the dreamers heard Aminza's waking cry-a strange little choking cry- and turned to her.

A green vine had crept up over the lip of the raft and was tightening about the girl's throat!