"In days not long passed, when first we saw yon dungheap rise up along our forest, were no tunnels that led out from it. The first 'un was a small 'un, and when they dug out the biggers, this one fell out o' use. Methinks it still be unguarded, it having been fair hidden^the mound-cats had not then what sway they do now. Here be how you may find it…"
When Skoggi had finished he turned to his son. "Now, you flipwing clodpoll, mark this well-i' case someday you be called on to relate how you was the last what saw the brave Master Tailchaser alive!" With another croaking laugh, the raven mounted into the air, Krelli wincing as he followed.
"Wait!" cried Fritti, and the two black fla-fa'az stopped and hovered. "If it doesn't matter to you who eats who, why are you helping me?"
"A fair question, Master Cat," Skoggi called raucously. "You see, as I figure it, at the rate they be going, those mound-cats'll have cleared the whole o' Ratleaf by autumn-time. 'Course, wherever they go there'll be food for us Krauka… but I be gettin' right old. I prefers to fall out o' the nest of a mornin' and find my breakfast a-waitin'. So, if you find luck, you'll be doin' me a favor to brink your Folk back to the forest!"
With a harsh caw of merriment, the ravens were gone.
"Pouncequick! Please, listen to me!"
Roofshadow walked gingerly across the prison cave and gave the kitten a not-too-gentle prod with one of her smoke-gray paws. Pouncequick let out a murmur of displeasure, but his eyes remained closed; he did not move.
Roofshadow was worried. Pouncequick had been sleeping or lying silent almost all the time since Scratchnail had brought her to the cave. The kitten had barely acknowledged her existence, raising his head only once, some time after she had arrived, to say, "Oh. Good dancing, Roofshadow," before lapsing back into his somnolent state. A few times since then he had replied to her insistent questions, but with little interest. In the corner of the cavern, Eatbugs sprawled like one dead.
"Pounce, please talk to me. I don't know how much longer I'll be left here. They'll come back for me anytime." She thought of Scratchnail, and fear made her fur crawl. The Clawguard chieftain had thrown her roughly into the prison pit with promises to come back and "deal with her" after he had made his report to the Lord of Vastnir. That must have been days ago, although the dragging Hours of darkness made it seem an even longer interval. He might return for her at any moment.
"Pouncequick!" She tried again. "Can't you understand me? We're in terrible danger!" She prodded him again. "Wake up!"
Groaning, Pouncequick rolled slightly to one side, away from her demanding paw.
"Ohhhhh, Roofshadow, why don't you leave me alone? It's lovely here, and I don't want to…" He lapsed into silence for a moment, his beatific expression twisting into a frown. "And… and… I don't want to be where I was before," he finished sadly.
Roofshadow was exasperated, and becoming a little prickly.
“What do vou mean? You're dreaming, Pounce."
The youngling shook his head, the placid look returning to his face. "No. Roofshadow, you don't understand. I'm with the white cat. I’m learning things. Please, don't be…I wish you could see, Roofshadow!" he said fiercely, eyes still tight-shut. "The light… and the singing…"
Pouncequick fell silent again, and all the fela's efforts could not make him speak more.
The abandoned tunnel mouth was just where the raven had said it would be, hidden beneath a snow-flocked gorse bush at the rim of the woods. Tailchaser pawed suspiciously at the old tailings that ringed the entrance, but detected no recent presences. Ducking beneath the sheltering bush, he scrabbled away at the dirt and debris that had partially blocked the hole. When he had cleared a whiskers-wide opening, he poked his head through and sniffed again. The tunnel interior smelled only of old dirt, and a few small animals who had briefly sheltered there.
With only the faintest waver of his newfound resolution, he stepped inside. Above the white forest the sun stood in the Hour of Smaller Shadows.
This tunnel was considerably drier than most of the others that he had walked within the mound. Its air of disuse reassured him, and he made good time padding boldly down into the depths. The glowine earth shone only fitfully here, but it was enough.
Soon he began to pass cross tunnels, and tron. some of these wafted hot, moist air. He was approaching the active byways of Vastnir. He knew he would have to be more cautious.
Since the sound was so low-pitched, so subtle, at first he did not notice that the silence of his abandoned spur tunnel had been breached. The subliminal pulse of the mound had been so familiar to him during his long imprisonment that he scarcely noted its resumption. When it finally impinged on his conscious thoughts, he realized that this time it seemed subtly different. That bothered him, and he could not say why. Then he understood.
The noise was growing gradually louder, as if he were approaching the source. Every footfall seemed to be bringing him nearer to the agent of the dull, almost inaudible throbbing. When he had been a captive in the mound it had always sounded the same: remote, yet omnipresent, as if all of Vastnir had been producing a low, rumbling drone.
Now, the sound had begun to take on distinction- booming and hissing, definitely louder; growing more so with every step Fritti took. As he rounded a bend, the shaft sloped steeply down, and a miasma of hot, wet air rolled up out of the darkness at the end of the tunnel. Tailchaser reared back, combing frantically at his face with a forepaw to clear his eyes of the clinging murk.
Still determined, despite a fluttery feeling in his middle, Fritti slit his eyes against the billowing vapors and moved forward. As he legged cautiously down the incline he passed beneath a door or opening of some kind, for suddenly the throbbing became an echoing roar, rattling and reverberating from the walls of a huge cavern that he could not see for the mist-clouds that surrounded him.
Like Grumbleroar Falls, he thought.
His fur was rapidly becoming sodden. He understood that he had stumbled upon some vast underground cataract.
The strange subterranean breezes shifted direction and the vapors swirled away. In the half-light of the glowing soil he could see the giant cavern above which he crouched, insectlike, on one of the shallow ledges that ringed the walls. Below, red-lit and foaming, surged an immense flood of water. The cavern had no floor, onh the gigantic, steaming river which passed endlessh through from one side to the other, filling the great domed cave with fogs and chaotic noise.
He felt the heat of the burning river beat up as he peered cautiously over the ledge. The pounding force of the water as it crashed against the cavern walls and disappeared into the rock beneath him made Fritti feel suddenly dizzy, disoriented by the magnitude of the spectacle. As the river boomed its way down into the darkness beneath him, flaring comets of spray jetted up, to hang finally motionless far above his head, then plummet back to their source. Fritti backed away from the edge and huddled for a while near the tunnel mouth.
Finally, the tumult began to sicken him. He pushed forward. Around the cavern, near the opposite side, he could see several tunnels, coal-black against the shadowed, crimson-brushed rock. Keeping tightly to the cavern wall he headed toward these, walking carefully along the high, clinging path above the surging river.
It was slow going. From time to time, the wind would mysteriously change and the swirling mists would descend, forcing him to stop and cling in place until he could see his way again. Inching his way around the perimeter of the monstrous chamber, he kept his eye firmly fixed to the trail before him. Occasionally he would see movement in the corner of his vision, but upon looking up find onh leaping spray. Once he thought he saw two tiny figures scuttling along one of the pathways crisscrossing the far wall, but as he squinted into the gloom the mists heaved up again. When they had receded, all seemed as it had been.