11. The Falls of Imbrahad

By the time Katy, Simon and the others had retraced their steps through Mount Pendallyn, it was already dusk and the first stars were appearing in the eastern sky. Chervil was clearly delighted by their return and immediately began to munch the oats which he had not touched while they had been away.
‘I think that’s what we ought to do,’ said Drimwort, watching the donkey eat. ‘We’ll end up breaking our necks if we try to find our way to the Falls in the dark. Better to get some food and rest now, while we have the chance, and then set off again in daylight.’
Everyone agreed, so they lit a fire in the mouth of the cave, set a billycan of water on to boil, then broke open their remaining rations. It was not much of a feast. They had eaten the last of the beef and cheese the day before. Some bread and jam remained, and a few pickled onions, but the bread was now so stale that not even Trumblegast’s home-made blackberry jam was able to make it palatable. And no one fancied the pickled onions without beef or cheese to go with them. Only the hot tea was at all enjoyable — but even that lacked milk.
Once they had left the underground lake, an air of gloom had descended on the company and there had been few attempts at conversation. Everyone, apart from Drimwort and Katy, was weighed down by the enormity of the task which lay ahead. And even Drimwort had no idea how they might begin to tackle the demolition of the dam — if they ever managed to get behind the Falls. Finally, Katy could stand it no longer.
‘Oh, do cheer up — please,’ she said, looking at the doleful faces all around her. ‘I’m sure Elyon wouldn’t have bothered bringing us this far if he wasn’t going to get us through the next bit. We didn’t choose to come here, you know. He brought us — and he’ll show us what to do. I just know he will.’
‘She’s right,’ said Drimwort. ‘As my old dad used to say, “Don’t start digging burrows till you’ve reached some soil." Worrying about the dam tonight isn’t going to bring it down any more easily tomorrow.’
‘Dang me, if you ain’t both right,’ said Trumblegast. ‘And shame on me for being such a wet blanket. I reckon what we need is a bit of a singsong. Who knows The Ballad of Beaver Bulpin?’
Drimwort knew it and so did Xanthus — though he was very embarrassed at having to join in. The song was all about a Beaver who kept trying to escape from his wife so that he could go merry-making with his friends. But the Beaver’s wife kept catching him and punishing him in all sorts of dreadful ways; and he never did get to go out on his spree. The children soon picked up the chorus which went —

With a hey! and a ho!
And a noddy, noddy no!
Oh, I’m glad I weren’t that beaver!
With a ho! and a hey!
And a noddy, noddy nay!
I’d never have tried to leave her!

And it was with lighter hearts that, some time later, all the company except Chervil bedded down for the night just inside the cave.
Katy was the only one to wake before morning. Thinking that she could hear someone talking outside, she sat up in her blankets and listened. But there was nothing. Just the sighing of the wind and the pattering of rain. Rain! That wasn’t going to help them much tomorrow. She shivered in the damp, cold air. Oh, well — it would probably be dry by the morning. What was it Dad always said? “Rain before seven, fine by elev—” She yawned then snuggled down in the blankets and went straight back to sleep.
It was the impatient clumping of hooves that eventually wakened them all. When they opened their eyes, it was to see Chervil parading up and down inside the cave.
‘Chervil!’ said Katy. ‘Did you come in out of the rain?’
‘Rain?’ said Drimwort. ‘Has it been raining?’
‘It was pouring down during the night,’ said Katy. ‘And poor old Chervil must have decided that it was better to be inside the cave and dry — even at the risk of meeting dwarfs — than outside the cave and wet.’
‘That’s how it might seem,’ said Chervil. ‘But that isn’t quite the way it happened.’ He put his head on one side, grinned at them all and paused for effect.
‘Chervil,’ said Xanthus. ‘You can speak!’
‘You noticed!’ said Chervil. He lifted his head and tossed it proudly. ‘Yes, indeed. I’m now a breathborn donkey.’
‘But how?’ said Katy.
‘Well,’ said Chervil. ‘It’s a queer sort of story. I thought it might have been a dream but, now I’m really talking to you, I know it wasn’t. It was like this. You’d all been in bed for some time and I’d dozed off myself — standing up, you know, as donkeys do. Then, suddenly, the wind began to get up and it started raining. Well, I turned into it — stops your hair being blown the wrong way, you know — and there, standing right in front of me was this huge faun! Phew! I’ll tell you — if I could have run, I would have. But I was just too scared! Then he spoke to me. “Chervil,” he said.’ The donkey looked at Katy. ‘He knew my name, see — even though you’ve only just given it to me. “Chervil — I have long been fond of donkeys.” Well, I’ll tell you, I thought that meant he was going to kill me and eat me! But then he spoke again. He was half talking to himself, I think, and I didn’t understand what he meant — still don’t, for that matter. “In the world of Tellus,” he said, “I rode upon one, once — to declare my majesty.” He looked very sad when he said that, and I couldn’t help thinking that the donkey had probably not been too happy about it either. I thought: “I certainly wouldn’t fancy having a faun of that size riding on my back.” But then, as if he had read my mind, the mighty creature said, “Though I was not a faun in the world of Tellus.” Then he brightened up, shook his head so that raindrops flew all over, moved close to me and breathed on me. “Chervil, father of colts,” he said. “Would you like to be a breathborn beast?” Well, I mean to say, what a thing to ask. “Course I’d like to be a breathborn bea—” I said. And then I realised that I was! And the faun was laughing — I’ll swear to it. “I am going now,” he said. “But we shall meet again. At daybreak, you and the others must follow me — when you have breakfasted. Farewell, Chervil.” Then he walked off into the night. And now it’s daybreak, so I thought I’d better wake you.’
‘Oh, Chervil! I’m so happy for you,’ said Katy.
‘Me too,’ said Trumblegast. ‘But breakfast? Chance’d be a fine thing! We ain’t got nothing for breakfast — not unless anyone fancies a pickled onion. We ate the last of everything last night. And look out there.’ He pointed outside the cave. ‘Misty and damp. Hardly a day for going anywhere.’
‘It’ll probably clear soon,’ said Simon. He got up and walked across to the entrance. ‘And, hey, look at this!’ There, half-hidden in the shadows, stood a large flagon of red wine, a pitcher of water, a large pat of golden butter, a pile of fresh loaves, a platter of roast chicken and a basket of crushed oats and fresh greens.
‘Elyon!’ said Drimwort. ‘A breakfast from Elyon!’
‘Well, dang me, now ain’t that something!’ said Trumblegast. He lumbered over to the food, picked up a loaf and sniffed it suspiciously. ‘It’s real!’ he said. Then he picked up the flagon of wine and took a sip. ‘And that’s real too! Well, come on, we ain’t going to fill our bellies just by looking at it.’ He raised the flagon and took a great draught as the others came across the cave to join him.
Over their oats and greens, Chervil and Xanthus exchanged stories, and Xanthus told Chervil who Elyon was, why he had brought them to Mount Pendallyn and what they were going to try to do. The others tucked into their bread and chicken and drank the water and the wine. (‘You little folk must always mix water with your wine at this time of day,’ said Trumblegast. ‘It doesn’t matter so much when you’re a giant. But we’ll need all the clear heads we can find for what we’ve got to do today!’) Then, when they had eaten and drunk their fill, they went outside.
The mist, far from clearing, had got worse. It swathed the mountain like a thick blanket. Even the bushes which stood just by the cave’s entrance were no more than slightly darker smudges in the surrounding greyness. Everyone looked about them in dismay.
‘Well,’ said Simon. ‘That puts paid to our plans for today. We’d be crazy even to try to get to the Falls in this.’
‘The faun said we were to follow him at daybreak,’ said Chervil. ‘He was quite clear about it. “As soon as you’ve had your breakfast,” he said.’
‘Well, yes,’ said Simon. ‘But he wouldn’t have said that if he’d known how misty it was going to be.’
‘Wouldn’t he?’ said Xanthus. ‘I wonder.’ He turned to Chervil. ‘Which way did Elyon go when he left you?’ he asked the donkey.
‘Over there,’ said Chervil. He nodded his head in the direction of the Falls. ‘I think he climbed up to the left of the cave just before he vanished into the darkness.’
Katy went to the left of the cave and bent down. ‘He did,’ she said. ‘Come and see.’ She pointed to the damp, peaty earth and there, clearly visible, were neat, cloven hoof-prints, leading up into the mist.
‘Ay, they’re the prints of a faun all right,’ said Trumblegast, getting on his knees to peer at the damp ground. ‘So we know which way he wants us to go. But, dang me, I agree with young Simon. We’ll have to wait till the mist clears. We’ll end up falling and breaking our necks most likely if we set off while it stays like this.’
‘But we can’t wait,’ said Katy anxiously. ‘Not if Elyon said we were to go straight after breakfast.’
‘Maybe Chervil misunderstood Elyon,’ said Xanthus. ‘Or maybe Elyon thought we would take a lot longer over our breakfast than we have. I’m sorry, Daughter of Earth, but I’m afraid I agree with Trumblegast. Setting out in this would be courting disaster. You can hardly see the ground beneath your feet.’ He turned to the rabbit who was frowning and chewing his lip. ‘What do you think, Drimwort?’
‘I just don’t know,’ said Drimwort miserably. ‘Chervil seems pretty clear about what Elyon said, and I’d hate to disobey him — the faun, that is — but — Well, I have to agree that the only sensible thing to do is to hang on here for a while.’
‘All right,’ said Katy defiantly — though her voice sounded as if she were very close to tears. ‘All right. Stay here — if that’s what you’ve all decided. But I’m going to follow Elyon. We’ve let him down once already and I’m not going to let him down again.’ Her voice was trembling with anger and distress. ‘And if you’re honest, you all know perfectly well that he wants us to leave now.’ And with that, before anyone could stop her, she clambered up into the mist by the side of the cave and was instantly lost to sight.
‘Katy, you idiot, come back!’ shouted Simon. But there was no answer, just the sound of small stones rattling on the rocks as they fell from where Katy was dislodging them, somewhere high above. Simon looked helplessly around him. ‘Now what do we do?’ he said.
‘Well, I’m going after her,’ said Chervil. ‘She is right, you know — going off like that. That’s what Elyon wanted from all of us — a bit of trust.’
‘And I’m coming with you,’ said Drimwort.
‘We’re all coming with you,’ said Xanthus. ‘And shame on us for being such cowards.’
‘But not before we get our things,’ said Trumblegast. ‘There’s no knowing what we’ll need before we’re done. So let’s look sharp about it.’
Hurriedly, they got their satchels and packs and then followed Elyon’s tracks up into the mist. Among the hoof-prints, and in places obscuring them, were now the prints of Katy’s trainers; and everyone took comfort from the sight. Drimwort led the way because he was shortest and could make out the two sets of tracks most easily. After him went Simon and Trumblegast, then Chervil and Xanthus.
At first they were all very afraid of simply going off into the unknown and entrusting themselves to mere marks in the peat and sand, but after they had gone some way, they began to feel more at ease. The journey across the side of the mountain was actually easier than the journey up to the cave had been. At times, they wondered where Elyon was taking them, for his hoof-prints did not always lead in the direction which they felt would take them to the Falls. But the prints were distinct and left them in no doubt as to the path they must follow. And Katy’s footprints were distinct too and never deviated from the faun’s, so they knew that she had come to no harm — or not yet, at any rate.
Every few moments they called out her name, but it was not until they had been travelling for about an hour that, to their relief, they heard an answering cry coming from somewhere ahead. Minutes later they could make out her shape in the mist and soon they were reunited. Then, after a lot of shame-faced apologies (which Katy happily accepted), they continued on their way together.
For another hour or so they walked on, saying little and concentrating on finding Elyon’s tracks. Then Drimwort said, ‘Listen!’ and, in the silence, they all gradually became aware of the muffled sound of falling water, far ahead of them. They pressed on towards it and, as they did so, the mist began to thin.
Soon, the noise of water became quite deafening and the hoof-prints led them down a steep slope into an outcrop of large boulders, then disappeared. Around them, the mist swirled, thinned, then uncoiled itself until it, too, vanished. And they all looked around them in amazement. For the faun’s trail had not merely brought them to the Falls of Imbrahad — it had brought them right behind the Falls! At their backs was the wall of the dam itself. It was a densely- packed jumble of rocks which filled more than half the great mouth of the cave in which lay the underground lake. But, arching out from the top of the dam, high above their heads, was a silver, shimmering, sheet of water. It fell down in front of them, like a curtain, to the rocks far below.
‘Well, now. If that ain’t one of the prettiest sights I’ve ever seen,’ said Trumblegast.
‘It’s magnificent!’ breathed Drimwort, wiping the spray from his glasses. ‘One day, I shall write a poem about it. It quite takes your breath away.’
‘And so does that!’ said Xanthus. He was looking back across the mountain side to the cave from which they had come and tracing the path they had followed in the mist.
‘Crumbs!’ said Simon. ‘We’d never have dared try it, if we’d been able to see it.’ It was true. Elyon’s hoof-prints had led them on no safe path but on the narrowest of ledges across one sheer precipice after another.
‘It makes me feel sick just looking back at it,’ said Katy. ‘Thank goodness Elyon sent the mist to hide it from us.’
‘And thank goodness you were brave enough to set off before the mist cleared,’ said Drimwort. There was a chorus of agreement.
‘I know one thing,’ said Chervil. ‘I’m not going back that way — mist or no mist!’
‘I don’t think we’ll need to,’ said Drimwort. ‘Not if we can figure out how to deal with this.’ He was looking up at the face of the dam. ‘But where on earth do we start?’
Trumblegast was looking at the dam too. ‘That there big rock in the centre is the key,’ he said. ‘If we can shift that fellow, the water that comes through will bring down the rest.’
‘But how can we move that?’ asked Katy. ‘It’s enormous.’
‘Leverage,’ said Simon smugly. ‘We’ve done it in science. If you have a long-enough lever, you can move anything. Archimedes said that if he had somewhere to stand, he could move the world.’
‘Is this Archie-whatever-his- name-is a friend of yours then?’ asked Trumblegast. ‘He sounds a bit of a show-off to me.’
‘No,’ said Simon, laughing. ‘He lived hundreds of years ago. He was a famous philosopher and scientist. And he reckoned that, if you could stand outside the world — on the moon, perhaps — and you had a long-enough lever, you could move the world quite easily.’
‘Well, we’ve got somewhere to stand,’ said Drimwort. ‘But we haven’t got a lever and, even if we had, there’s nowhere to put it. We’d need to get it behind the rock.’
‘I think I can see a lever,’ said Xanthus. He nodded to where a tall pine was growing a little below them down the mountain side. ‘You brought your axe with you, didn’t you, Trumblegast?’
‘Bless my soul, so I did,’ said the giant. ‘I’ll soon have that down.’ He scrambled over the rocks until he reached the pine and then, with a few deft blows of his huge axe, he felled it and trimmed off all the branches. ‘Will that do?’ he said, carrying it back to them. It was like a telegraph pole.
‘It’ll be fine,’ said Simon, ‘If we can get it down the side of the rock.’
‘Leave that to me,’ said Trumblegast. He pulled and tugged at the smaller boulders at the right of the rock itself until he found one which was slightly loose, then he heaved away at it until he had torn it free. ‘Dang me,’ he said. ‘I wish I were still as strong as I used to be. But I’m not, and that’s a fact!’ He mopped his head with a big red spotted handkerchief and then turned his attention to the rock again. Putting one hand in the hole where the boulder had been, he was able to haul out the next boulder. And so he went on until he had made a space down the side of the rock big enough to take the end of the pine tree. ‘Now what?’ he said.
‘Now we need to put one end of the lever in that hole,’ said Simon. ‘We must get it in as deeply as we can. Then we must push as hard as possible against the lever’s other end.’
Trumblegast picked up the tree-trunk and inserted the narrow end into the hole. Then he joggled it around and pushed and twisted it until it went deeply down beside the rock into the dam. ‘Well, that’s a good sign,’ he said. ‘Look, there’s water trickling through alrea—’
His voice trailed into silence as the sight of the water, flowing in a tiny stream through the dam wall, gave him and all of them the same thought at the same time. Drimwort looked up at the dam side towering above them and turned pale. ‘F— f— flippers and fins,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to make sure we can get out of here quickly when that begins to fall!’
‘We must run back up there as fast as we can,’ said Xanthus. He nodded to the slope down which Elyon’s hoof-prints had led them. ‘If we can gain sufficient height, we’ll be out of harm’s way. We must make for that buttress of rock.’
‘Right,’ said Trumblegast. ‘Let’s see if that Archie fellow knew what he was talking about.’ He positioned himself at the very end of the tree-trunk, spat on his hands, and prepared to push. Xanthus walked up to the pole and pressed his great, broad chest against it. The others were not able to help because the level of the lever was too high for them to reach it, so they turned the other way and kept watch over the rock.
‘Now,’ said Trumblegast. ‘On the count of three. Ready? One — two — three — Push!’
Nothing happened.
‘Try again,’ said Trumblegast. ‘One — two — three — Push!’
There was a grinding sound and the rock began to move slightly. Water began to gush out around it in various places.
‘It’s working,’ shouted Simon, full of excitement.
‘Again,’ said Trumblegast. ‘One — two — three — Push!’
This time, there was no doubt about it. With a great groan, the rock began to move forward.
‘It’s going,’ shouted Drimwort. ‘Run for it everyone!’
Chervil galloped up the slope followed by Drimwort and the children. Xanthus ducked under the pole and went after them. Trumblegast gave one last push at the tree-trunk then let go of it and raced after the others. Behind them they could hear the crashing of rocks, the cracking of boulders, and the roar of water. But no one dared to stop and look back until they had reached the buttress. When they did, the sight was both splendid and terrifying. The silver ark of water had now become a seething torrent, twice as large and full of mud and and boulders, all being carried down the mountainside. Every few seconds, another part of the dam would collapse with a roar and the flood would increase in size and fury. Spray filled the air. On and on it went until, after about half an hour, the flow began to diminish and the water began to clear.
‘Dare we go down now, do you think?’ said Simon.
‘I don’t see why not,’ said Trumblegast. ‘Come on, we might as well be knowing the worst!’