9. Inside the Mountain

There was a long, disappointed silence.
‘Well,’ said Simon. ‘So that’s that!’
‘What do you mean?’ said Katy.
‘I mean, quest over,’ said Simon. ‘End of story. We’ve followed the instructions, done what we were told, but it’s all been a waste of time. If we ever manage to find Elyon again, you’ll just have to tell him we’re sorry — and ask him to show us the way home! There’s nothing more we can do here.’
‘Lettuce and lovage! You couldn’t be more wrong,’ said Drimwort. He took off his spectacles and polished them with his handkerchief. ‘Don’t you see? Our friend Trumblegast here has just given us the best news we could have hoped for!’
The others looked at him as if he had suddenly gone mad.
‘Good news?’ said Simon. ‘I don’t know how you work that out. You heard what Trumblegast said. There is no Olrik — apart from the one who was last around in the Dark Prince’s time, and he’s dead. How can that be good news?’
‘Trumblegast didn’t say Olrik was dead,’ said Drimwort. ‘He said that Olrik must be dead because he vanished without trace. But it doesn’t follow, does it?’
The children and Trumblegast looked at him blankly, but Xanthus began to nod his head as if he were starting to see where Drimwort was leading.
‘Tell me. What did the Prince of Darkness always do to his enemies?’ demanded Drimwort.
‘Like I said,’ replied Trumblegast. ‘He turned them to stone.’
‘Exactly!’ said Drimwort, putting his spectacles back on with a flourish. ‘He didn’t kill them — or not that I’ve ever heard tell. He turned them to stone. And I’ll wager six months’ supply of carrots that that’s what he did with Olrik and the rest!’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Katy. ‘Even if he did only turn them into stone, surely they’re as good as dead?’
‘You might think so,’ said Drimwort. ‘But that’s not the case — not at all the case.’ His eyes sparkled with excitement behind his glasses. ‘Xanthus, you can see what I’m getting at, can’t you?’
‘I think so,’ said the unicorn. ‘The old tales say that, when Elyon vanquished the Prince of Darkness and returned from the Fires of Frim, he travelled the length and breadth of Shalanor seeking out all the creatures that the Dark Prince had turned to stone. Then he played his pipes to them and they all came back to life. You’re suggesting that, if we can find Olrik, Elyon will bring him back to life too.’
‘Oh, that’s wonderful,’ said Katy. Her eyes shone with excitement. ‘He’s right, isn’t he, Trumblegast?’
Trumblegast tugged at his beard. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘It’s a nice idea, and I don’t want to go pouring no cold water on it, but — Well, the problem is not whether Elyon could bring a stone Olrik back to life — I don’t doubt that he could. It’s just that there is no stone Olrik in Mount Pendallyn. The mountain’s been searched. There’s no one in there — stone or otherwise.’
‘There’s got to be,’ said Drimwort. ‘I’m sure of it. We must search again! Will you lead us there?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Trumblegast. ‘If everyone’s agreed that that’s what we should do.’
‘I don’t see that we have any choice,’ said Xanthus.
‘I don’t either,’ said Katy.
‘All right,’ said Simon.
‘But not tonight,’ said Trumblegast. ‘The stew’s about ready. We’ll eat first, then we’ll make our preparations.’ He went and stirred the contents of the cooking pot. ‘Dang me,’ he said, half to himself. ‘That would be something, wouldn’t it? If we could find Olrik and his army, and if Elyon would bring them back to life again? Just think — like as not I’d meet my great-great-great-Uncle Gramplegast! Now that would be something!’
He stopped stirring suddenly and looked up above the trees at the other side of the stream. ‘Hello!’ he said. ‘What’s that?’
A large, ragged, black shape had detached itself from the branch of a tall pine, launched itself into the darkening sky, and was already flapping its way southward into Shalanor.
‘Oh, no,’ groaned Drimwort. ‘Roken! It’s got to be. What’s he up to?’
‘No good, that’s for sure,’ said Xanthus. ‘But there’s nothing we can do about him now. I just wonder how long he’s been hanging around here — and how much he’s heard.’
Supper that night was a businesslike affair, but none the worse for that. As they tucked into the stew (which was full of tender chunks of lamb and vegetables and rosemary) they worked out what they would need in the way of provisions and equipment; and Drimwort (who always carried a pencil and paper for when inspiration struck him) made a list. By the time they were mopping up the gravy from their bowls with chunks of crusty, fresh bread, his piece of paper looked like this:

The first bit was not, of course, part of the list at all. It was the beginning of a poem which Drimwort had started to compose while Trumblegast was laying the table. But the rest was a catalogue of things which they had decided that they would need.
The torches were not electric torches. They were like sticks with rags tied round the end, dipped in tar and ready for setting alight. Simon tried to explain what electric torches were, and though Drimwort remembered having seen Simon’s when they first met, the very idea of electricity was so far beyond Trumblegast and Xanthus that he had to give it up in the end. (‘Can’t see it, can’t taste it, can’t smell it, eh?’ said the giant. ‘But if you touch it, it gives you a shock — No, we ain’t got none of that round these parts.’)
Milk and butter were crossed out because, as soon as Drimwort had written them down, Xanthus pointed out that they would not last five minutes in the sun without the one going sour and the other melting.
The pipe and ‘baccy’ were for Trumblegast, and so were the pickled onions (‘Dried beef without pickled onions?’ he said. ‘Oh, that’ll never do.’)
And the oats were for Xanthus who said that, though he liked grass (‘What unicorn — horn or no horn — wouldn’t?’), he was just as much in need of a balanced diet as anyone else if he were to stay strong and healthy; and the same went for Chervil.
‘We’ll get everything packed up now,’ said Trumblegast. ‘Then we can get off straight after breakfast.’
They put the food and the smaller items in three satchels — one for Simon, one for Katy and one for Drimwort. With ill grace, Xanthus finally agreed to take the oats in a pair of panniers at his sides. (‘If you want them, you must carry them,’ insisted Trumblegast.) And the giant said that he would carry the rest. Chervil (who, not being able to talk, had no say in the matter) was excused from carrying anything except Drimwort. Everyone agreed that the donkey deserved as easy a time as anyone could give him.
It was very late — almost midnight — when they were finally able to settle down on their makeshift beds and mattresses, and then Trumblegast snored so loudly that no one except him could get very much sleep anyway. When he woke them at five the next morning each of them still felt tired and rather short- tempered. But after bowls of creamy porridge, ham and eggs, toast and marmalade, and several cups of strong, sweet tea, they all felt a great deal better. And, by the time Trumblegast locked the door behind them, they all felt ready to face the long and arduous journey which lay ahead.
‘It will take us the best part of three days,’ said the giant. ‘The going will not be easy.’ And he was right. I will not write page after page telling you about the first two days because, really, nothing very much happened. Hour after hour, they tramped westward through the mountains. Now and again they paused to rest or to brew some tea and eat some of the food they had taken with them. Once, when their path led them alongside a small river, they caught fish and cooked them for supper. At night, they slept under the stars wrapped in blankets and huddled together for warmth.
But, on the third morning after their departure, they wound their way round the foot of a mountain which had towered before them throughout the previous day, and then, at last, they found themselves gazing on all the splendour of Mount Pendallyn.
Its three-pointed summit was covered in snow. But it was the steep, southern slope which captured their attention. Two-thirds of the way down, a mighty waterfall sprang from the side of the mountain. First, it crashed onto a vast outcrop of rocks some way below. Then it split into a number of falls, each of which cascaded to the foot of the mountain, wreathed in spray and over-arched by shimmering rainbows.
‘The Falls of Imbrahad,’ said Trumblegast. ‘Tickle my whiskers, there ain’t no prettier sight that I know of — no, that there ain’t. Now. See where they begin? Well, somewhere back there — inside the mountain — is the cave where Olrik had his secret army.’
‘And how do we get to it?’ asked Drimwort. ‘Not over the falls, I hope!’
‘Bless you, no,’ said Trumblegast. He pointed to the mountain’s eastern slope. ‘Look to the right of the falls and a little higher. See where that gully runs all the way down to this valley? Well, just above it, to the right, there’s the entrance to a cave. Can you see it?’
‘Yes, I can,’ said Katy. ‘There are some bushes growing just below it.’
‘Aye, that’s it,’ said Trumblegast. ‘Well that’s the way in, so I’m told. Never been in there myself, and I can’t say as I fancy going in now; but if I must, I must! And if we’re going, we’d better get on our way. It’ll take us the best part of the morning to get up there.’
It did, in fact, take them longer. The route up the long gully which Trumblegast had pointed out to them was very steep and rocky. The two-legged members of the company found it difficult enough, but, for Xanthus and Chervil, it was almost impossible in places. At times, the giant had to hold the unicorn or push him from behind until his hooves could find a purchase (which did nothing for his already-wounded dignity); and the children and Drimwort had to help Chervil in the same way.
Then, when they finally reached the cave, they came up against another difficulty. Chervil stubbornly refused to set a hoof inside. After what he had endured at the hands of the dwarfs, his attitude to a large, black hole in the side of a mountain was entirely understandable. And no one blamed him, but no one wanted simply to abandon him. However, when all their efforts to coax him into going with them had failed, they decided that they had no choice but to leave him where he was, with a pile of oats to keep him company.
‘We will come back soon, though,’ whispered Katy, hugging him. ‘You just stay here and wait for us.’
Once inside the cave, Trumblegast lit one of the torches and they moved off down a high, wide tunnel which led them straight into the mountain. Their shadows danced and leaped across the walls in the light of the flames, but otherwise the tunnel was quite empty. They had hoped for some sign that Olrik’s army had passed that way but, at first, they were disappointed. Then, after they had been travelling for half an hour, Katy’s foot caught on something which clinked against the rock.
‘Look,’ she said. And she held up the hilt and rusted, broken blade of a dagger.
‘So they really were here,’ said Simon, sounding relieved.
‘Or someone was,’ said Xanthus. ‘There’s no telling whom that belonged to — or how long it’s been there.’
But the further on they went, the more certain it became that Olrik’s army really had used the route which they were taking. In the first cavern which they came to, Drimwort discovered a helmet lying behind a heap of rocks on which he and the others had sat down to rest.
‘Some soldier must have sat here too,’ he said. ‘He must have taken off his helmet for a while and forgotten all about it when he set off again.’
Then, in the flickering light of the torch, they found, scratched on the wall of the cavern, a crude drawing of a faun playing his pipes. Beneath it had been scrawled the words, ‘Elyon forever’, then, in a different hand, ‘Down with the Dark Prince’.
‘Well that clinches it,’ said Simon. ‘We know we’re on the right track so far. But which way do we go now? There are at least three tunnels leading out of here.’
‘Unless my ears deceive me,’ said Drimwort, ‘we need to take the left one. I can hear running water down there. That means a river. And it’s a river we’re looking for if we want to find the cavern Olrik once used.’
None of the others could hear anything, but they trusted to Drimwort’s ears and followed him as he led them down the left-hand passage. Unfortunately, it was damper and much lower than the first tunnel and Trumblegast had to bend almost double to get through it.
‘Dang me,’ he could be heard muttering. ‘If this don’t bring my rheumatics back, I don’t know what will.’
But after a quarter of an hour, they could all hear the sound of rushing water, and not long afterwards they came into a cavern ten times as large as the last one.
‘Wow!’ whispered Simon as Trumblegast lifted the torch high into the air. ‘It’s like a cathedral. And look at that!’
Through the centre of the cavern, cleaving its floor in two, rushed the river. In the darkness, its waters looked like ink except where they picked up and reflected the flare of the torch. And, from the domed roof, high above, milky- white stalactites (‘It has a "c" in it for "ceiling",’ said Simon) reached down towards stalagmites which, in strange, contorted shapes, rose to join them from the floor.
‘Is this it, do you think?’ asked Katy, and her voice echoed back, ‘— think — think — think.’
‘More than likely,’ said Trumblegast. ‘But you do see the problem, don’t you? There ain’t no one here. The place is empty — empty — empty.’
It was true. Though, for the next hour, they scoured the cavern using four of their torches to make sure no part of it remained unexplored, they found nothing — not a single trace of the lost army.
‘There must be another cavern, then,’ said Drimwort. ‘There’s got to be. And it must be down there — there — there.’ He pointed to where the river left the cavern which they were in and disappeared into the darkness of yet another tunnel.
‘There might be,’ said Trumblegast grudgingly. ‘But, dang me, it’s going to be a tight squeeze getting through that.’
He was right. The river did not quite take up the whole width of the tunnel, but at its sides there were only wet, slippery rocks; and the roof was even lower than that of the last tunnel.
‘Well, we’ve got to try,’ said Xanthus. ‘But, by the Pipes, we’d better make sure that no one falls in! I think the time has come to use the rope.’
Everyone agreed, so Trumblegast tied it round his waist and then around Simon, Katy, Drimwort and Xanthus.
‘That should do the trick,’ said the giant. ‘Now. I’ll take the lead and Xanthus can bring up the rear. It stands to reason that if I can get through, so can the rest of you.’
So on they went. For the best part of half an hour, they clambered their way over the treacherous rocks. They slipped and slid and grabbed each other and anything else which came to hand in an effort to stay out of the black water which rushed along beside them. Until, at last, Trumblegast called back that he had reached the end.
‘But much good it’s done us,’ he said. ‘See for yourselves!’
The tunnel opened out into another cavern, but this one, though even more enormous than the last, was one which, with the best will in the world, none of them could enter. The river, flowing into it, fell for several metres into a vast lake which filled the cavern from end to end. There was no doubt about it. They could all see clearly that it was so — even without the help of torches. For, at the far side of the lake, straight ahead of them but a long way off, daylight poured in over the top of the Falls of Imbrahad.
‘Oh, great!’ said Simon disgustedly. ‘So now we’ve got to go all that way back.’
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ said Trumblegast. ‘Like I told you — there ain’t no stone army in this mountain.’
‘Oh, yes, there is,’ said Drimwort quietly. ‘And I know exactly where it is. The problem is — how do we get to it?’
Everyone looked at the rabbit in astonishment.
‘You know where the army is?’ said Xanthus.
‘Of course,’ said Drimwort, taking off his spectacles and wiping them on his handkerchief. ‘Isn’t it obvious? It’s here — in the lake.’
‘In the lake!’ said Xanthus. ‘What would it be doing in the lake?’
‘Well it wasn’t in the lake to start with,’ said Drimwort. ‘The lake came later.’ He put his glasses back on his nose. ‘Look at where the water leaves the cave,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t it strike you as rather odd? Imagine this cave without the lake. The river drops down here, runs across the cave and — well, you tell me. How does it get out?’
‘It would have to climb up the side of the cave to where the mouth is now,’ said Xanthus slowly. ‘But that’s impossible —’
‘Exactly!’ said Drimwort. ‘The mouth of the cave has been blocked. Or very nearly. It must have been. That’s why, now, there’s hardly any space between the water and the top of the cave’s mouth. It could have been a natural roof-fall, but I’ll wager a year’s supply of lettuces that it was the Prince of Darkness who blocked it — after he’d turned the army to stone. The river was frozen then, of course, but think what would happen once the thaw set in. The river would start to run again. It would run out of this tunnel (just as it’s doing now) and down into the cavern. But then where would it go? Nowhere! It’s way out would be blocked. It would just keep on filling the cavern until it had covered the stone army and reached the top of the blockage. Then, over it would go, just as it’s doing today.’ He paused and contemplated the black, still waters stretched out below him. ‘Yes, the stone army’s under there, all right. But, as I say, the question is — how do we get to it?’
‘There’s only one way,’ said Xanthus. ‘We’ll have to drain the lake.’
‘We’ll need a big bucket!’ said Simon sarcastically.
Drimwort ignored him. ‘Of course!’ he said. ‘That’s the answer! We must unblock the cave’s mouth.’
‘And how do you propose we do that?’ asked Xanthus.
‘I don’t know,’ said Drimwort. ‘It can’t be done from this side, that’s for sure. It’ll have to be done from the other side — from behind the waterfall itself. And that’s not going to be easy!’
‘Impossible, if you ask me,’ said Xanthus.
‘We won’t know that till we try,’ said Drimwort. ‘And we’ll never find out by standing here. Come on. Let’s get back to Chervil, and then we’ll see about tackling the Falls.’