He awoke to the buffeting of the wind. His head ached, his eyes were gummy, his mouth dry. The cloth he had wrapped around him was flapping ceaselessly against his body: through its folds he could see the wall of the shaft spinning by. He knew he had been asleep a long time; yet he was still falling, and nothing had changed. Remembering his dream, he thought: what if there is no bottom?
He stretched and groaned. He was bruised in every limb, he needed to empty his bladder, and he felt both hunger and thirst. He found the water jug in his wallet and loosened the wrappings around it. While he waited for it to fill, he munched on a piece of cheese he found in the wallet; then he carefully took out the jug, put the spout to his lips and tried to drink. Water splashed over his mouth and nose, along with gemstones that pelted his face. Thorinn hastily covered the mouth of the jug with his palm, leaving only the spout free, and tried again. This time he was more successful; a trickle of water entered his mouth, ceased, then came again as he turned. His thirst was not satisfied, but he wrapped the jug again and put it away.
He dozed again and awoke, tormented by the aching of his head. The need to empty his bladder grew unbearable, and at last he pulled down his breeks and made shift to direct the stream out through the opening in his cover, where the wind dashed it into spray. He wrapped himself up and drifted off again into numb, uneasy sleep.
He awoke with a pang of alarm. Something had changed: the wind was like a great hand that smote him on the breast and back as he turned. The wall of the shaft was moving past him more slowly, still more slowly, flick, flick... flick... flick... It slowed almost to a crawl; the wind belabored him. Past the fluttering edge of the cloth, he glimpsed a dark band between the rings of the shaft. It tipped nearer; he had only time to realize that he was falling toward it, and then the wind abruptly was gone, and he lay sprawled, dizzy and too numb to cry out his surprise, on a smooth floor that slipped away under him.
He clawed for purchase. Silence rang in his ears like a shout, and his skin tingled to the absence of the wind. The slope under him turned abruptly deeper; he was sliding, falling again. Now he did cry out, and struggled to right himself. The feeling of great space was gone; the air felt close. He struck something hard and was at rest in the heaving blackness. There was a tinkling somewhere below, then silence. After several attempts, he managed to sit upright. He was in absolute darkness. The surface under him seemed to be composed of thin metal ribs that ran crosswise to each other, leaving square holes half a span wide between them. His fingers slipped down into these apertures, and touched nothing. The ribs were hard, but not uncomfortable to sit upon; a puzzle—they felt harder to his fingers than to his buttocks.
He listened intently, heard nothing. Balancing himself with care, he opened his wallet and got out his light-box. The moss glowed dimly in the lighted end. He carefully transferred a pinch of sky-moss from each compartment to the other. The lighted compartment went dark, and the dark one flared up brightly. He turned the box upward, saw a glimmering Crosshatch of metal over his head. This was a floor like the one he sat on, but the ribs were much more widely spaced, leaving squares two ells across. Through one of these, evidently, he had fallen.
He turned the light-box downward, with caution because the lighted end was the one from which he had lost the mica. He thought he could make out a dark floor below, but did not dare turn the box straight downward.
A few ells away lay his sword, beside a square object which he recognized as the talking box. All the rest of his looted treasures had vanished; except for the cloth, box and sword, they had all been small enough to drop through the holes in the floor, and although he swept the beam of the light-box in every direction, he could not find them.
He opened his wallet, drew out the magic jug, unwrapped it, and set it down. Most of the jewels were still in it. While he waited for the jug to fill with water, he identified by touch the rest of the things in the wallet: his fire stick, some pebbles from Hovenskar, a strip of horse-meat, a half-empty box of cheese. He ate a little of the cheese, but his thirst was so great that he could not swallow much. He tipped the jug to his lips, drank the trickle of water that came out, set the jug down again. He was dizzy, but he managed to crawl a few ells away, where he took down his breeks and relieved himself, squatting over one of the holes in the floor.
He crawled back to the talking box. It lay face up, and he could see a flicker of color in the dark crystal.
"Box," he said.
"I am here."
"Box, tell me, what is this place?"
"This is a place where things fall."
Thorinn said, "Why?"
"Why do things fall?"
"Yes."
"All things fall to other things." The crystal lighted up, and he could see some sort of complicated shape moving across it. "I don't mean that," he said impatiently. "I mean, why here? What is this place for?" The crystal went dark. "This place is to take things that fall here. This place not, then things fall to the bottom, on heads of people."
Thorinn considered this. "Are there people at the bottom?"
"Yes."
"How far is it to the bottom?"
"It is two hundred hundreds of hundreds and sixty hundreds of hundreds of ells." Thorinn frowned. "You mean thousands?" he ventured.
"What is a thousand?"
"A thousand is ten hundreds."
"It is two thousands of thousands and six hundreds of thousands of ells." Thorinn tried to imagine such a number, and gave it up. "Well then, how far is it to the top again?"
"It is four thousands of thousands and four hundreds of thousands of ells." Thorinn put his head in his hands. He remembered the fall, the wind buffeting him, such a wind as he had never felt even riding Stonebreaker into the teeth of a gale in Hovenskar. He must have been falling ten times as fast as a horse could gallop, at least... and it had gone on for hours. He remembered the rings of the shaft wall whipping by him till they blurred together. He thought of that going on hour after hour, while he slept, still falling...
"Box, are there people living near here?"
"Yes."
"Which is the best way to get to them?"
"Engines will come to take things from this place. Engines will take you to the people." Thorinn disliked the sound of this. "Show me these engines," he said. Colors began to appear in the crystal. "Wait a minute," Thorinn said, and hitched himself across the ribbed floor until he could reach the box and turn it upright. The crystal had gone dark. He moved back a little, to see better. "All right."