out that the nearest tiger was three thousand miles away. He'd say, 'Is there any sea between where they live and here?' and people would say, 'Well, no, but?' and he'd say, 'Then it's just a matter of distance.'
Darkness was the same thing. All dreadful dark places were connected by the nature of darkness itself. Darkness was everywhere, all the time, just waiting for the lights to go out. Just like the Dungeon Dimensions, really. Just waiting for reality to snap.
He held on tight to Ginger.
'You needn't,' she said. 'I've got a grip on myself now.'
'Oh, good,' he said weakly.
'The trouble is, so have you.'
He relaxed.
'Are you cold?' she said.
'A bit. It's very clammy down here.'
'Is it your teeth I can hear chattering?'
'Who else's? No,' he added hurriedly, 'don't even think about it.'
'You know,' she said, after a while, 'I don't remember anything about tying you up. I'm not even very good at knots.'
'These were pretty good,' said Victor.
'I just remember the dream. There was this voice telling me that I must wake the - the sleeping man?'
Victor thought of the armoured figure on the slab.
'Did you get a good look at it?' he said. 'What was it like?'
'I don't know about tonight,' said Ginger cautiously. 'But in my dreams it's always looked a bit like my Uncle Oswald.'
Victor thought of a sword taller than he was. You couldn't parry a slash from something like that, it'd cut through anything. Somehow it was hard to think of anything looking like an Oswald with a sword like that.
'Why's he remind you of your Uncle Oswald?' he said.
'Because my Uncle Oswald lay quite still like that. Mind you, I only ever saw him once. And that was at his funeral.'
Victor opened his mouth - and there were distant, blurred voices. A few stones moved. A voice, a little closer now, trilled, 'Hallo, little children. This way, little children.'
'That's Rock!' said Ginger.
'I'd know that voice anywhere,' said Victor. 'Hey! Rock! It's me! Victor!'
There was a worried pause. Then Rock's voice bellowed: 'It's my friend Victor!'
'That mean we can't eat him?'
'No-one is to eat my friend Victor! We dig him out with speed!'
There was the sound of crunching. Then another troll's voice complained, 'They call this limestone? I call it tasteless.'
There was some more scrabbling. A third voice said, 'Don't see why we can't eat him.
Who'd know?'
'You uncivilized troll,' scolded Rock. 'What you thinking of? You eat people, everyone laugh at you, say, 'He very defective troll, do not know how to behave in polite society' and stop paying you three dollar a
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