The Star Below

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Thorinn, son of Goryat, stood in the darkness and listened. Stone hung heavy over his head, leagues of stone and earth, stretching upward black and silent.

Behind him the sound of the cataract down which he had floated to this place had receded to a dull murmur, and he could hear the gurgle of lesser streams running away somewhere below him. The falling curtains of water were all around Him, ghostly silver and silent, pricked with the jewels of floating droplets. Drifting water-points burst on His lips with tiny cool kisses.

There were gaps in the falling curtains, tom by the irregular stone above. He put his Head through the widest of these openings, saw other broken slabs, other curtains of water beyond.

Following the cool air, He made his way among the gray and silver curtains that hung everywhere from the ceiling. Rivulets ran toward Him underfoot among the slabs of stone, and he knew by this that the floor was slanting upward. At length the falling curtains of water grew less numerous, and the sound diminished to a mournful pattering behind him. Ahead, the cavern broke into a tortured complexity of shapes in which he found a narrow passage leading upward. He paused to tip out the water from his wallet and to dry His Hair as well as he could with his hands; then he followed the passage. It coiled away ahead of him, always upward, always rounded, irregular, dry and empty in the glow of his light-box.

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