As he had thought, the shaft was closed by a shield of brown metal, but there was no opening in it and it would not turn. He pushed against it and thought he felt it give a little. He braced himself more firmly, pushed again. The shield gave way, as if hinged at one side. Dim light washed down into the shaft, and he smelled fresh air. He lunged upward, pulled himself through, and sprawled in a tangle of stiff brown canes. The shield clapped shut behind him. Leaf shadows trembled on his face, and he smelled the scent of green trees.
7
How Thorinn was the guest of demons, and how he repaid their hospitality.
In the year of the Broken Branches an untested warrior of the clan of Blue Snake pushed his sister into a thorn tree and wounded her grievously, whereon she cursed him, saying, "May the sky demons come for you!" The young warrior unluckily replied, "This for you, and the sky demons as well!"
A year and a day after, two sky demons entered the lodge of Blue Snake in the guise of a bareskinned person and a talking gourd. They were bound and tormented by Blue Snake and other persons of his lodge, but escaped by magic arts and slew many before they returned to the sky. Afterward the clan of Blue Snake, being weakened by these slayings, fell easy prey to the clan of Break Skulls, who took the women captive, slew and ate the others after tormenting them for five nights and days. Thus the lodge of Blue Snake fell vacant, and being an unlucky place, was not tenanted again save by moths and deathbeetles.
He found himself in a thicket of tall canes with leafy tops, which crossed over his head and shut out the sky. A bird was singing somewhere not far away. Sprawled among the canes, Thorinn listened with such pleasure that for moments he forgot what he was about.
When he turned to look at the shield, he found in its place a gray rounded boulder, half buried in the earth. Thorinn knelt to examine this, pushed against it, but it would not move. He began to feel dizzy again, and thought of lying down to sleep, but there was no room for that here, between the canes and the boulder.
He got up and began to climb, finding himself so light that he could ascend to the very tip of a cane. As he emerged from the thicket, clinging to the leafy top with only his head protruding from it, he was looking into a remote tangle of curved milky stems, as if he had somehow got into the roots of the canes instead of their tops. The illusion was so strong that he was dizzy once more and had to shut his eyes a moment. When he opened them it was no better, until he looked down along the dwindling stem of the cane. All around him at a lower level were the flat green tops of other canes, and by keeping them in view he was able to persuade himself that the world was the right way up. He saw now that the canes, tall as they had seemed before, were like grasses at the feet of those immense tangled growths whose shapes he could not quite make out. The sky was invisible, somewhere far above. Once he thought he saw a flicker of motion deep in the tangle of stems, but it did not come again. The air was still and cool. While he hung there, a silent gloom rushed over the landscape. One moment the world was full of color; next, the light dwindled and went out behind him. In the blackness, Thorinn clung without up or down, or any direction to guide him. Shortly, however, his eyes began to grow accustomed to the darkness, and he could make out the same enigmatic tangled growths as before; but all were transformed in the green skylight that filtered through the branches. A cool air had sprung up. Somewhere in the distance insects began to shrill; and there were other sounds.
In the tangle that spread wide around him, some of the wavering branches and stems were the color of cheese, some black as beetles; the hollows between them were purple, crow's-wing blue, deepest green. Thorinn heard a slithering movement not far away; then wings hummed past his head, and he ducked. He tried to slide back down the stem, but at first moved so slowly that he felt almost as if he were going the wrong way, up into the sky. He relaxed the grip of his legs, but still moved with uncanny slowness, and in the end he had to propel himself downward hand under hand.
When he was beneath the shelter of the cane tops, he came to a halt. Now that he was quiet, he could hear faint, enigmatic sounds from below: rustlings, clicks. They made him uneasy, and he began to wish that he had been quieter a moment ago. He slid down, silent except for the whisper of his hands on the stem. Now he was near enough to touch the next cane. He leaned out, grasped it, and swung over. The cane dipped slowly, grating against another; he transferred to that, and then had to kick away to prevent the cane he had just left from wiping him off again. He stopped to listen. The sounds below were nearer: click; rustle; scrape.
The stem he lay on began to vibrate. Thorinn stared into the shadows. Something was crawling up the stem: he saw the green dots of its eyes. The cane shivered again. The thing was coming closer with surprising speed; now he could make out that it had a thick dark body, a confusion of moving knobby legs like a cricket's. Thorinn rolled over and began to stand up, meaning to see if he could shake the stalk until the thing fell off; but he had forgotten how slowly things moved here, and while his feet were still drifting in a leisurely way back toward the cane, the insect-thing was suddenly in front of his nose. It had sharp mouth-parts that gleamed as they opened wide. His back stiffened, he kicked out, and hung in midair while the cane swayed above him. He saw the dark thing leap, felt it strike his legs like a sack of meal, then a stabbing pain as its jaws gripped him through the leather. He had the sword out, swung and struck—another pain, he had gashed his own leg, and the insect-thing, cut in two, went spinning away. Now the cane was drifting toward him, a little to one side. It dipped, touched him, he trying awkwardly to turn and seize it, but he went off again, thrashing his arms. Now the spinning world steadied; it was moving past his feet; the dark meadow came nearer, he bent his knees and staggered, but only with surprise: the shock of landing was no more than that of stepping off a waist-high stone. His good leg began to hurt. He put his fingers to it, found a gash in the leather and a little blood. He straightened, shifting hands on the sword again. Something moved past him. There was a thump in the grass not far away, then another, nearer. Thorinn did not stop to think; he leaped. As he went up, something small and swift passed under him. Next moment he felt a sharp blow on his good foot, a scrabbling of claws on the leather. Whatever it was, the thing slipped off and he saw it fall toward the dark grass. The tree was turning majestically around him. He twisted and revolved his arms, trying to straighten himself out, and partially succeeded. There was a sizzling noise at his ear, then something stung him on the neck. He slapped at it, and found himself gyrating again. A misshapen loop of vine came by; he grasped it, swung helplessly a moment, then pulled himself up into the tree. He stood aslant on a tree-limb or old vine, breathless, looking down at the grass an incredible distance below—twenty ells, at least, perhaps more; it was hard to tell in the greenlight. He felt exultant; if he could jump like that, no matter what was after him...
Down there in the dimlit grass, something moved. It was round and gray, and it was hanging in the air—no, rising toward him—larger, a tangle of knobby limbs—With a startled cry, Thorinn leaped backward and upward. Something dealt him a heavy blow across the back; then leaves were whipping his face. Another blow; he clutched a limb and swung to rest. The leaves below him continued to rustle. There was a thrashing, then a measured grating and crunching sound, as if something brittle and hard were being eaten.
Thorinn retreated, pulling himself upward by degrees. A creeper on which he put his hand turned supple, bent toward him, and became a long legless creature with a flickering tongue. Thorinn flung it away, and climbed still more carefully, keeping to open spaces as well as he could. He was beginning to sweat. Nearby something swayed under a massive limb. It looked like a shaggy fruit, but it was big enough to hold five men. Thorinn avoided it and climbed. A little higher, two limbs growing level and side by side had put out branches to each other, making a platform ten ells long from which, here and there, other trees grew. At the end of this platform was something that looked remarkably like a hut. Thorinn approached the platform, found it had a floor of canes interwoven with the branches. The place was silent and empty. The hut at the far end had a peaked roof and an open doorway; it was half-walled, with black space showing all around under the roof.