11
I squirmed and struggled, but it was no use. Hralf, being a giant, was far stronger than me. But just as he was about to plant a slobbering kiss on my mouth, his eyes went wide and he screeched with pain. He released me and spun around. I could see Skalpa dangling by her teeth from his hind parts.
Hralf swatted at her, and she leaped to the ground and hurried into the darkness.
“A rat!” I cried. “I’ll get it!”
I raced after her, leaving Hralf clutching his bottom and yowling in pain.
Soon Skalpa and I rounded another corner of the house, where we came to a wooden door set in the ground—obviously a root cellar. Skalpa scrabbled at it. I grabbed the handle and pulled. It was so heavy—it was made for a giant, after all—that my first effort didn’t even budge it. Bracing my legs, I pulled again and managed to raise it about a foot. At once Skalpa slipped through and into the darkness. Panting and gasping, I wedged myself under the edge of the door. It pressed against me, and for a moment I feared I would be trapped there, halfway in and halfway out. I imagined Hralf finding me, and thought of the kisses he might demand to free me. That was enough. With a single mighty heave, I raised the door and slipped through.
Inside the darkness was complete. It was not only sight that was gone. Sound had disappeared, for the heavy door and the earthen walls completely shut out the noises from the giants’ bumptious party. As I stood alone in the silent blackness, a surge of terror washed over me—terror that grew when Skalpa came back and nudged against me.
Even if you suspect she’s your friend, there’s something very creepy about the feel of a giant rat nudging you in the darkness. Terror or not, there was no way around it: I was going to have to follow her. “Well, at least I don’t need to wear a dress while we do this,” I said. “Let me get out of it.”
I don’t know why I spoke out loud. I certainly didn’t expect Skalpa to understand me. Maybe I just wanted to hear the sound of my own voice.
I was eager to be relieved of the constraint of the dress. But to my disgust, I still didn’t know how to work the fastenings. Not being able to see didn’t help, of course. As I fussed with the thing, the package Roskva had given me just before we left Asgard fell to the floor. I had almost forgotten about it. Now, to my astonishment, I saw that it was actually casting a dim light in that horrible darkness. Snatching it up, I unwrapped the cloth.
Inside was a smooth-edged block about the size and thickness of my hand. It glowed with a smooth, cool light, almost as if it were a miniature moon. I ran my fingers over it in awe. Hard as stone and smooth as polished brass, it did not feel quite like either thing.
Skalpa reared up to sniff at it, squeaking curiously.
Whatever the glowing block was made of, wherever Roskva had gotten it, it was the most welcome thing imaginable. It wasn’t bright enough that I could see the cellar walls. But I could certainly see the floor in front of me, and that was enough to get started.
It’s amazing how a little light can make you feel safer and more confident.
As I breathed a silent thank-you to Roskva, Skalpa squeaked again, then darted into the darkness.
I followed her.
At the back of the root cellar, my ratty companion disappeared into a hole at the base of the wall. Though the hole was large enough for Skalpa to pass through easily, I had to struggle and squirm to follow.
“I wish I could have gotten rid of this dratted dress,” I muttered as I pulled myself forward, not even able to get up on my knees. Finally I put Roskva’s gift in my mouth and clamped it between my teeth so I could use both hands to drag myself along.
After about ten feet, we came to a broad, high tunnel. I returned Roskva’s light to my hand—which was a relief to my aching jaw.
Though I couldn’t see very far, I could tell the tunnel stretched on to both my right and my left. So it didn’t actually lead to Thrym’s home, which had been my first thought. Instead, it simply passed close by. Skalpa—or someone—had burrowed over to it from the root cellar.
Or maybe the burrowing had gone in the other direction.
The rat turned and started off to the right. I trotted after her, glad to be on my feet and moving freely. The tunnel floor was smooth and even. Skalpa kept moving faster and faster, as if testing to see if I could keep up with her. I snatched up the edge of my dress so I could move more easily. Soon we were moving at a jog, and then a full run.
It was frightening to go that fast when I couldn’t see more than three feet in front of me. I might run smack into a wall, or shoot over the edge of a cliff. But I kept telling myself that Skalpa didn’t want to die any more than I did, and she must know what she was doing. Soon I noticed the tunnel was sloping downward. The descent was gentle at first, but quickly grew quite steep.
We ran on.
Suddenly Skalpa stopped, which was when I discovered that though I could run as fast as she could, I couldn’t stop as quickly. The tricky thing about running downhill is that you can get going too fast, so that it’s hard to stop without falling. Trying to avoid treading on Skalpa, I swerved, stumbled, hit the floor, rolled, and came to a stop with half my body dangling over the edge of—well, I didn’t know of what. There was nothing but darkness below me, so I had no idea how far it was to the bottom. If I fell, it might only be for a foot or two. But it might as easily be hundreds or even thousands of feet down.
Actually, I suppose it was possible that there was no bottom at all, and if I fell I would just keep on tumbling down forever, falling on and on even after I died from lack of food and water.
I needed both hands, so I tossed Roskva’s light a few feet behind me, where it would be safe on the tunnel floor. (I was afraid if I put it in my mouth again, I might accidentally lose it in the darkness below me.) Slowly, with muscles powered by fear, I pulled myself back onto the solid rock.
Skalpa looked at me oddly, as if she was wondering what kind of human nonsense I was up to.
Now that I had time to look, I saw that to my left, not more than a foot and a half from where I had fallen, was the start of a stone bridge.
I had suspected that the tunnel we were moving through was not natural, but I’d had no way of knowing for sure. Now I was certain. This bridge was dwarf work, and no doubt about it.
Skalpa scampered onto it.
I retrieved Roskva’s light, then followed. I moved much more slowly than the rat. But since the bridge was not more than two feet wide, and had no rails on the sides, I had no intention of running.
The bridge arched upward. Moving in the small circle of light cast by Roskva’s gift, I had no idea how far the rocky ceiling vaulted above me, how wide the opening from left to right, how deep the fall below. I was a tiny speck in a vast, unseen emptiness, and it terrified me.
Skalpa kept turning and squeaking, as if impatient for me to move more quickly.
“I’m going as fast as I can,” I muttered. Realizing that this was not completely true, and that the fate of all Asgard might depend on me, I sped up a bit.
Finally we came to the end of the bridge.
Skalpa began to run again. We turned corners, trotted into side tunnels, took smaller turns from those, until despite my best efforts to keep track of where we were going, I knew I would be hopelessly lost if the rat abandoned me.
Then, from somewhere ahead, I heard a sound.
Skalpa stopped, reared up on her hind legs, tilted her head as if listening. Dropping back down she began to run fester than ever.
I hurried after her.
Now I could see a glow of light ahead of us.
I heard a pair of gruff voices and the pounding of a hammer.
I hurried to the edge of the light, then stopped.