Outcast of Narnia

Chapter Eight: Down the Darkest Passage

 The cave into which Edmund and Jack tumbled was not the one they had left. It was darker, wider and longer, and was thinly lit from above.

Jack rolled his twine ball all the way to the end. There was no sign of the stone that had covered it. “This is a rum go,” said Jack. “D’ya suppose someone could have followed us in there and rerouted our cord?”

There was only one solution that made sense to Edmund, but he wasn’t ready to speak it aloud.

“It wasn’t just our cord that was rerouted,” said Edmund. “The bull. Where did he come from? Have you ever seen a bull that could snort fire?”

Jack turned to Edmund, “Do you think we might have fallen into one of your stories?”

“If it is, it isn’t like any of the stories I know of,” Edmund replied.

“If I see a dwarf,” said Jack. “Maybe I’ll start to believe you. For now, we’re lost in a cave, some strange cattle have got inside, and we’re going to take a scientific approach to finding our way out. Do you see those openings there, on the other side?”

There were at least ten openings on the other side of the cave, some large and dark and ominous looking, others smaller and lit from above.

“Let’s take the best-lit one and follow it. If it doesn’t go anywhere, we’ll come back and try another.”

Jack looked up and down the large cavern, which was edged with narrow stalactites and stalagmites. “Well, I will say one thing,” said Jack. “This isn’t a littoral cave any more. It’s an erosional one.”

“Which means…”

Jack took on his professor voice: “The previous cave (littoral) showed signs of erosion by nearby ocean waves. This is much larger. It was probably a solutional limestone cave to begin with, which is where you get the stalactites and stalagmites. And then it was made even larger by an underground river, which, we hope, isn’t flowing any more. It’s the hall of the mountain king, right enough.”

Edmund looked up and down the huge cavern nervously. He thought he could see shadows flitting back and forth at one end.

“I think we’re being watched,” he said.

“Nonsense! Your imagination is running away with you.”

The boys decided that if something did come out of one of the openings, it would be better to be in the shadows, and they began edging their way around the cavern, heading for the second opening, which was the brightest. They had nearly reached the opening when there came echoing down a sound of clanking armour and marching footsteps. The passageway grew even brighter, with approaching torchlight. The boys dashed across the second and into the third opening, the darkest one, just as a troop of dwarves wearing chainmail emerged into the cavern.

“Here, you lads,” said a gruff voice. “You take that passage, we’ll take this one. We’ll work our way down until we’ve searched them all.”

“We’re not going into that one.” Jack could see him pointing at the one they were in.

“If they’re in there, good riddance, I say.”

The chief dwarf cuffed him and said, “You’ll search where I tell you to search.” But he looked nervously at the passage and said, “We’ll leave that one for last.”

“Please, Lord Griffle,” said one of the dwarves nervously. “What exactly is it we’re looking for?”

“He didn’t say. Intruders, I suspect. Locals looking for gold, although they don’t know they’d have to go through him to get it. If it was as easy as dancing in here and lifting some coin, we might have left ourselves already.” Several dwarves chuckled under their breath.