The Spirit Ring Read online

  They reached the bottom of the vertical shaft. Henzi lowered their tools. Thur hitched his hood up over his head, to keep the rock dust out of his blond hair and off the back of his neck. The slow silence of the stone pressed on Thur's ears as they made their way down the sloping tunnel by the flickering orange glow of the oil lamps. Some men found the quiet eerie, but Thur had always found it rather comforting, patient and unvarying, enduring as a mother. It was noise, the sudden groan of shifting rock, that terrified.

  Some forty paces into the mountain the way split into two crooked forks, each following what had once been a rich vein of copper ore. One sloped steeply downward, and Thur was mildly grateful not to be hauling baskets of ore up it today. Other dark holes led off, veins played out and abandoned and robbed of their supporting timbers. They followed a more level upper branch till it dead-ended at last in a raw rock wall.

  Farel set his lamp down carefully out of the range of flying chips and hoisted his pick. "Have at it, boy."

  Thur positioned himself where his backswing wouldn't strike the other man, and they both began whaling away at the dim discoloration in the rock that was the fading stringer of ore. A half hour of work left them both gasping. "Hasn't that idiot Entlebuch started the bellows yet?" Farel wiped sweat from his brow.

  "Go yell up," suggested Thur. He shoveled their half-basketful of ore for Farel to take with him, as long as he was going. In the pause, Thur could hear distant echoes of the pounding now going on at the lower tunnel's working face. The rock was hard, the ore was thin, and they'd extended the tunnel barely fifteen feet in the last three months. Thur adjusted the leather knee pads his mother had fashioned, knelt, and attacked the face lower down. He hacked till he was winded and aching from his crouched position, then stood and leaned to rest a moment on his pick.

  Farel was not back yet. Thur glanced around, then stepped up to the rock face and leaned against its chipped and scarred surface. He spread his fingers against the discoloration and closed his eyes. The babble of his thoughts faded into an inarticulate silence, at one with the silence of the stone. He was the stone. He could feel the stringer of ore, like a tendon running through his body. Thinning ten feet in, dwindling... and yet, a few feet farther on, like a sword stroke slanting down: a rich vein, native copper glorying along like a bright frozen river, crying for the light that it might shine.... "The metal calls me," Thur whispered to himself. "I can feel it. I can."

  But who would believe him? And how did these visions come? Or were they devil-dreams, false lures? Stussi the tanner had babbled of visions in a fever once, then a long worm had slithered out of his nose, and he'd died. Thur's vision throbbed with a pulse of danger, maddeningly vague, melting away the moment his emptiness was clouded with the very question, What...? His hands clenched on the stone.

  A flicker in the corner of his eye—lamp going out? Or Farel returning? He sprang away from the rock, flushing. But there was no tramp of boots, and the lamp burned no more badly than usual.

  There. A shadow in the wavering shadows—that funny-shaped rock moved. Thur stood still, barely breathing.

  The rock stood up. It was a gnarled brown manikin, some two feet tall, with what seemed to be a leather apron like a miner's about its loins. It giggled and jumped to one side. Its black eyes glinted in the lamp glow like polished stones. It skipped over to Thur's basket and made to put in a lump of ore.

  Thur made no sudden moves. In all his time in the mines, he'd never seen a gnome so close and clear, only movements in the corners of his eyes that seemed to vanish into the walls when he made to approach them. The manikin giggled again, tilting its narrow chin aside in an attitude of comical inquiry.

  "Good morrow, little man," Thur whispered, fascinated, hoping his voice would not startle it away again.

  "Good morrow, metal-master," the kobold returned in a tinny voice. It hopped into the basket, peered over the top at Thur, and hopped out again, in quick jerky motions. Its arms and legs were thin, its toes and fingers long and splayed, with joints like the knobs of roots.

  "I'm no master." Thur smiled. He hunkered down so as to loom less threateningly, and fumbled at his belt for the leather flask his mother had filled with goat's milk before dawn. Carefully, he reached for the bateau, the wide wooden dish used for carrying out the best ore, tapped it upside down to knock out the dirt, and poured some milk into it. He shoved it invitingly toward the little creature. "You can drink. If you wish."

  It giggled again and hopped to the rim. It did not lift the vessel, but put its head down and lapped like a cat, pointed tongue flicking rapidly in and out. Its bright eyes never wavered from Thur as it drank. The milk vanished quickly. The kobold sat up, emitted a tiny but quite distinct belch, and wiped its lips with the back of one twiggy wrist. "Good!"

  "My mother fixes it, in case I thirst before dinner," Thur responded automatically, then felt a little idiotic. Surely he should be trying to catch the creature, not conversing with it. Squeeze it to get it to tell him where gold or silver lay, or something. Yet its wrinkled countenance, like a dried apple, made it seem venerable, not evil or menacing.

  It sidled toward Thur. He tensed. Slowly, one cool knobby finger reached out and touched Thur's wrist. I should seize it now. But he couldn't, didn't want to, move. The kobold jittered across the stones and rubbed up against the discolored vein in the rock. It oozed, seeming to melt—It's getting away!

  "Master Kobold," Thur croaked desperately, "tell me, where shall I find my treasure?"

  The kobold paused. Its half-lidded eyes stared directly at Thur. Its answer was a creaky chant, like the overstrained wood of a windlass lifting a heavy load. "Air and fire, metal-master, air and fire. You are earth and water. Go to the fire. Ice water will put you out. Cold earth will stop your mouth. Cold earth is good for kobolds, not for metal-masters. Grave digger, grave digger, go to the fire, and live."

  It melted into the vein, leaving only a fading giggle behind. Riddles. Ask a blasted gnome a straight and simple question, and get riddles. He should have known. The cadence of its speech had infused its words with doubled meaning. Grave digger. The solemn miner, or the man who chipped out his own tomb? Meaning himself, Thur? The sweat drying on his body had chilled him to the bone. He sank shivering to his knees. His heart was laboring, and there was a roaring in his ears like Master Kunz's furnace when the bellows played. His eyes were darkening... no, it was the lamp flame dwindling, low and weak. But there was plenty of oil....

  Farel's voice rang painfully in his ears. "By Our Lady, the air stinks in this pocket!" And then, "Hey, boy, hey...!"

  A strong hand closed around Thur's arm, hauling him roughly to his feet. Thur swayed dizzily. Farel swore, pulled Thur's arm across his own neck, and began to guide him up the tunnel.

  'Bad air," said Farel. "The ventilation bellows are pumping all right now. There must be a blockage somewhere in the pipe. Damn! Maybe the kobolds did it."

  "I saw a kobold," said Thur. His heart was still pounding, but his vision was beginning to clear, in so far as anyone had vision in these staring shadows in the heart of the mountain.

  "I hope you shied a rock at it!" said Farel.

  "I fed it some milk. It seemed to like it."

  "Idiot boy! For God's sake! We're trying to get rid of the vermin, not attract more! Feed it, and it'll be back with all its brethren. No wonder we're infested!"

  "It was the first time I ever saw one. It seemed nice."

  "Agh." Farel shook his head. "Bad air, all right, and bad dreams from it."

  They reached the fork of the tunnel. The air was fresh enough here. Farel sat Thur down beside the hollow wooden tube that piped the forced air into the lower reaches of the mine. "Stay there, while I get Master Entlebuch. Are you going to be all right?"

  Thur nodded. Farel hurried away. Thur could hear him shouting up the lift shaft over the creaks and groans of the wooden machinery. Thur was still chilled, and he wrapped his arms around his torso, drawing up his long legs. Fare
l had taken the lamp. The blackness closed in.

  In time Farel returned with Master Entlebuch, who held his lamp up to Thur's face and stared at him in worry. He questioned Thur about his symptoms, then went back down the tunnel with Farel, tapping the wooden air pipe with a stick as he went. At length, Farel came back carrying Thur's abandoned lamp and tools.

  "A piece of pipe was crushed in a rock fall. Master Entlebuch says, forget the upper tunnel today. As soon as you feel able, go join the crew on the lower face and haul baskets for a while."

  Thur nodded and rose. Farel shared flame from his lamp to rekindle Thur's. Air and fire, thought Thur. Life. He did not feel so shaky now, and he started down the lower tunnel in search of the other work crew. He was careful on the steep descending track, so as not to spill or splash his oil, and even more careful on the ladder in the vertical shaft that drove downward another thirty feet. This bottom tunnel had followed a corkscrew-twisting vein, going down, then up again. At the end he found four men, taking turns in pairs chopping at the hard rock face or sorting over the chips while catching their wind. They greeted him in tones ranging from Niklaus's habitual good cheer to Birs's melancholy grunt.

  Thur loaded a basket with good chips, heaved it to his shoulder, and carried it down and up the lower tunnel to the shaft. He emptied it into a leather bucket, climbed the ladder with the basket slung over his arm, turned the windlass and raised the bucket on its rope, refilled the basket, carted it to the upper lift shaft, dumped it in the big wooden bucket, and shouted for Henzi, who raised the load out of sight. Then Thur went back for the next load, and the next, and the next, until he lost count. He was weary with work and hunger when Henzi at last lowered a bucket packed with bread, cheese, ale, and barley water, which the men at the lower face greeted with much more animation than they'd greeted Thur.

  After dinner-break Farel joined them. "Master Entlebuch and I sawed out the broken pipe, and he's gone to get another length made to fit.” Farel was taken into the work gang with the usual acknowledging grunts. Thur did a stint with hammer and pick on the hardest part of the tunnel face, making the rock ring and the chips fly, till his arms and back and neck ached. The smell of the mine seemed to fill his head: cold dry dust, scraped metal, hot oil, the smoke-stink of burning fat (for it was not the best oil), sweat in wool, the cheese-and-onion breath of the men.

  When they finally got enough good ore to make up a heavy basket, Thur and Farel took it together. They were halfway to the ladder when the orange oil light glinted off a small gnarled shape, moving by the side of the tunnel.

  "Pesky little demon!" Farel shouted. "Begone!" He dropped his half of the basket, snatched up his pick from it, and flung it forcefully at the kobold. The shape melted into the rock with a tiny cry.

  "Ha! I think I winged it," said Farel, going to retrieve his pick, which had stuck in the stone.

  "I wish you hadn't done that," said Thur, perforce letting his side of the basket down also. He balanced their lamp atop it. "They're gentle creatures. They don't do any harm that I can see. They just get blamed if anything goes wrong."

  "No harm, my eye," growled Farel. He tugged at his pick, which had stuck fast. He yanked, then put his foot to the wall and heaved. The pick jerked free, taking a big chunk of the wall with it, and Farel fell over backward, cracking his head on a bracing timber. "No harm!" he yelped, rubbing his scalp. "You call this no harm?" He scrambled back to his feet.

  A crack was propagating from the new hole in the side of the tunnel, darkening strangely even as Thur stared. Water began to seep from the crack.

  "Uh-oh," said Farel in a choked voice, peering around Thur's shoulder.

  The mountain groaned, a deep vibration that Thur heard somehow not with his ears, but with his belly. The trickle became a spurt, then a spew, then a hard stream that shot straight out to splash and splatter against the far wall. From down the tunnel came a crash, yells, and an agonized scream.

  "The roof's coming down!" Farel cried, his voice stretched high with terror. "Run for it!" He flung his pick aside and galloped up the tunnel. Thur, horrified, ran hard on his heels, his hands held up to keep from clobbering his head on a timber in the dark.

  At the foot of the ladder, fumbled for in blackness, they paused. "Nothing else has fallen," Thur spoke into Farel's hesitation.

  "Yet," said Farel. His hand came out of nowhere, feeling for Thur; Thur grasped it. It was cold with sweat.

  "It sounded like someone was hurt back there," said Thur.

  He could hear Farel swallow. "I'll run for Master Entlebuch and get help," Farel said after a moment. "You go back and see what happened."

  "All right." Thur turned and felt his way back down the tunnel. He could sense the whole weight of the mountain pressing overhead. The great support timbers could splinter like kindling if the mountain shifted further. Cold earth will stop your mouth, grave digger.... He could not hear shouts or cries up ahead any more, only the snaky hiss of the water.

  The tilted basket of ore, the lamp still burning atop it, came in sight. The water gushing from the wall flowed away down the tunnel. Thur took up the lamp and slipped and slid down the now-muddy tunnel floor. Near the bottom of the dug-out vein's curve, a sheet of water roiled. It stretched from Thur's feet across to where the roof of the tunnel dipped to meet it. No wonder he'd heard nothing. The men at the work face were cut off in an air pocket, the water seal blanketing their cries. Until the cunning water, pushing up through whatever fissures it could find, squeezed the pocket smaller and smaller....

  A wet head broke the opaque shimmering surface, spat, and gulped air in a huge hooting gasp. A second head came up beside him. Anxiously, Thur reached out and helped the figures heave out of the water, the second clinging to the first.

  The second man had a dazed look and a cut across his forehead that, mixing with the streaming water, seemed to be bleeding buckets. The first man's eyes were rolling white with fear.

  "Are the others coming behind you?" Thur asked.

  "I don't know," Matt, the first man, panted. "I think Niklaus was pinned in the rock fall."

  "And Birs stayed with him?" Brave Birs. Braver than Thur, that was certain. If Thur's father had had such a brave workmate six years ago, he might be alive today.

  Matt shook his head. "I thought he was coming with us. But he has the horrors about water. A hedge-witch once prophesied he was safe from all deaths but drowning. He won't even drink water, just ale."

  The rising flood lapped at Thur's toes, and he stepped back. They all watched avidly, but no more heads popped up. The bleeding man swayed woozily.

  "Best you walk him out before we have to carry him," Thur observed. "Help should be coming. I'll... stand watch, here. Tell them up above to keep the ventilation bellows pumping. Maybe it will help hold the water back in there or something."

  Matt nodded and, supporting the injured man, staggered up the tunnel. Thur stood and watched the dark water rising. The longer they waited, the worse it would get, deeper and more difficult. Ice water will put you out. No other heads appeared. The water licked Thur's toes again, and again he stepped back. He muffled a tiny wail of dismay in the back of his throat, a squeak like the injured kobold's. Setting the lamp down on the floor several feet back up the tunnel, he turned and waded into the water.

  The icy shock when it came up over his boots and hit his crotch took his breath away, but he pushed on till his feet left the floor. He breathed deeply, held it, turned, and began to shove himself along the inundated tunnel roof. Down, down... he could feel the pressure growing in his ears, even as they began to numb. Then up, thank God! It was all uphill from here. He pulled himself along faster. Unless there was no air pocket on the other side, in which case he—

  His hand splashed through to unresisting air, then his head. He gasped as wildly as Matt had done. There was a little light; someone's oil lamp had stayed upright. His feet found solid ground, and he sloshed up onto dry stone. His eyes were cold, his scalp tingled, and h
is fingers were crooked numb claws. The orange-tinged air, chill as it was, seemed like a steam-house in contrast.

  Birs was standing by the water's edge, sobbing. A struggling shape in the shadows on the floor near the rock face was Niklaus, swearing at him. The swearing paused. "Thur? Is that you?"

  Thur knelt in the dimness beside Niklaus and felt for damages. The edge of a tilted slab pinned Niklaus's leg to the floor. The bone was shattered, the flesh pulpy and swelling beneath Thur's fingers. The slab was so damned big. Thur grabbed for a pick, scrabbled its point under the slab, and heaved. The rock barely shifted.

  "Birs, help me!" Thur demanded, but Birs wept on as though he neither saw nor heard, so lost in his own imagined damnation he was missing the real one going on behind his back. Thur went round and shook him by the shoulders, at first gently, then hard. "Witless, wake up!" he shouted into Birs's face.

  Birs didn't stop crying, but he did start moving. With pick, shovel, a bar, and stones shoved in so as to hold each heave's grunting progress, they raised the slab. Niklaus screamed as the blood rushed back into his leg, but still managed to jerk free and roll away.

  "The water's still rising," said Thur.

  "It was foretold!" wailed Birs.

  Thur's hands clenched as he loomed over the man. "The hedge-witch told truth. Your fate is drowning. I'll hold your head under myself if you don't help me!"