Her hook broke off the rock she was anchored to. Di An fell backward. Riverwind braced himself and snatched the trailing length of her chain. The impact the elf girl made when she reached the end of her chain almost jerked Riverwind from the wall, but he slowly raised his arm, bringing Di An back to the rock wall very near Catchflea.
“You are well, yes?” he asked.
Riverwind pulled her up to him. The chain was fastened to a copper belt that encircled her waist. He asked if she'd hurt anything in the fall. “Nothing,” she assured him. “Let's go.” He smiled at her bravery. She climbed on, using River-wind's shoulder and the top of his head as stepping stones. She reeled in her dangling hook and started all over again.
They climbed for more than an hour, ascending two hundred feet. In one way the darkness was an asset to the inexperienced Que-Shu men. If they'd been able to see how high they'd gone, vertigo might have paralyzed them both.
A broad ledge greeted them and all three gratefully rolled onto level rock. At their backs was a smooth- walled tunnel, slanting off into the darkness. Di An indicated that their route was on the other side of the shaft, a much smaller tunnel they would reach by inching around the ledge.
“What's wrong with this way?” Riverwind said, jerking a thumb at the wide, round passage.
“I saw three barren children die trying to go that way. They went in, chained together, and in less than a hundred heartbeats came tumbling out, blown by the wind like dust.” She glanced down the vertical shaft. “It is a long drop.”
Her lamp was burning low. The wick sputtered and wavered, unable to draw any fuel from the copper reservoir. Riverwind got out his lamp and lit it from Di An's, which he then blew out.
Riverwind took the lead, as he was the strongest, on the narrow ledge that ran around the shaft to the tunnel Di An had indicated. The wall bulged outward over the ledge, making it devilishly hard to keep a grip. More than a few times Riverwind's hook slipped off the dark, gritty stone. Di An inched along behind him. A chain was hooked to the copper belts all three wore. Catchflea waited until the chain from Di An to him grew taut.
“Come on,” she said.
“I can't do it,” he said weakly.
“Why not?”
“My arms are not strong enough to hold me up.”
“You climbed well enough to get here,” said the elf girl.
“Using my feet and legs, yes.” Catchflea pushed his ragged sleeves up, displaying his bony arms. “See? I'll not make it.”
“You've got to try,” Riverwind called from his advanced position. “We'll help.” So saying, he doubled back on his arduous trail, pushing Di An back to the original ledge. They switched their chain linking around so that Catchflea was in the middle. “We'll keep the chain short and tight for you,” Riverwind said. “That will hold you to the wall. Then hold on as best you can.”
The old man wasn't happy, but he could hardly stay where he was. Di An took charge of the lamp so Riverwind could use both hands in climbing. The tall plainsman led off again with Catchflea in close tow.
The passage they wanted was nearly halfway around the shaft, about twenty yards along the slippery ledge. They were making fair progress when Riverwind's right hand slipped. He waved frantically to recover his balance, digging in with the hook in his left hand. The taut chain snapped at the soothsayer, whose grip was never good, and Catchflea dropped off the ledge. Di An promptly drove her grappling hook through the links of her chain into the wall and braced herself. Catchflea hit the bottom of his chain. This time Riverwind wasn't braced to keep his place. He fell backward off the ledge, leaving little Di An to anchor.
The chain snapped out straight, crushing the copper belt against Riverwind's ribs. His breath was driven out, and the grappling hook shot from his fingers. It vanished in the black shaft. It fell so far he never heard it hit bottom.
Di An was in a terrible position. She couldn't pull either man to safety, much less both. She couldn't even move for fear of losing her grip; and her belt was being hauled low on her thin hips. Catchflea dangled in midair five feet below her, and Riverwind five feet lower.
“What can I do?” she said, terror and the strain tightening her voice to a squeak.
“The wall looks rough here,” Riverwind said. “I'm going to try and get a grip on it.” He shifted his weight to make himself and Catchflea swing. On his third try, he slammed into the wall. He heard Catchflea hit the rock.
“You all right, old man?”
“No! But get on with what you're doing, yes?” Riverwind found niches for his fingers and toes. He climbed sideways, rising and crabbing to his right. He drew even with Catchflea's feet, pressed against a smooth spot on the wall.
“Is the rest of the rock around as smooth as this?” River-wind grunted.
“Yes-I've nothing to grip at all,” the old man said.
Riverwind called to Di An and explained he couldn't go higher from where he was. “I'll have to go back to the ledge,” he said.
“Hurry,” was all she managed to say.
He clung to the wall like a fly, moving when a good toehold caught his eye. He thanked the gods Di An had taken over as lamp bearer. Scaling this deadly surface encumbered by the light would have been impossible for him.
“Riverwind!” Di An said sharply. “How far are you from the ledge?”
“It's just out of reach.”
“Then reach it quickly! The links in my chain are opening!”
The weight of two men on the iron ring was too much, and the pinched link was spreading. Di An could only watch helplessly as the gap grew wider and wider. “Hurry, giant! Hurry!”
Riverwind had no place to put his right foot. His left foot was firmly planted in a dished-out spot, but his right was unsupported. He stretched his right arm, digging at the gray rock with blunt fingernails, trying to scratch out a hold. Finally, the plainsman bent back on his left knee and sprang for the ledge. Just as his hand clamped on the rim, the link gave way. Catchflea fell, yelling and crying. In the half-second he had to spare, Riverwind hoisted himself onto the ledge and grasped the chain in both hands. He was nearly jerked over by Catchflea's weight, but he dug in his heels and hauled the old soothsayer to safety.
Catchflea kissed the level stone of the ledge and wept with relief at his salvation. “Thank you, merciful gods,” he said.
They were safe, but now Di An was marooned. Without a safety chain, she moved nimbly back along the rim, hopping the last two feet into Riverwind's arms.
“I've got to rest,” Catchflea said. “My insides are still swimming like salmon in a rocky stream.”
“Mine, too,” Riverwind admitted.
Without his hook, and with the chain broken, there was no question of proceeding Di An's way. The only option open was the wide, smooth tunnel, the same one that had cost the lives of three of Di An's comrades.
After a short rest, they continued. The passage was a good eight feet in diameter, so Riverwind had no trouble with headroom. The floor sloped gently upward, and progress was easy. Di An drifted to the rear, always keeping behind Catchflea. The windblast tunnel frightened her. To help take her mind off this danger, the old man began teaching her the Common language. This would help her survive in the upper world. Catchflea found she was an apt pupil.
“I wonder how the walls got to be so smooth,” Riverwind said. The lamp picked up thousands of grains of mica, making the tunnel glitter like a wall of diamonds. “There's no sign of water. The rock is dry.”
“Wind can wear down stone, yes?” the old man replied. “Sand can smooth out the roughest path if propelled by a strong enough breeze.”
“Where does the wind come from, Di An?” She didn't answer, so Riverwind repeated his question.
“The surface.” She peeked around Catchflea's narrow waist. “I hear there are great winds on the surface, where the sky is not fettered by stone walls.”
“True enough.” Riverwind smiled at her description. “There must be a considerable opening in the ground for all that wind to come in.”
“A cave?” suggested Catchflea.
“At least. I was thinking of something much larger, like a crater or some sort of sunken pit. Wind can swirl
