Whose Sword is it, Anyway?

By Ralph Benedetto, Jr.

Part Five of Five

PART FIVE:

The Blade of Githon

"Of course the College is the perfect resting place. That way, scholars from all over the world will know exactly where to find the sword when they want to study it. We are, first and foremost, an institution of higher learning, eager to foster study and knowledge. There is no other institution prestigious enough to merit the keeping of such a treasure. "And our Board of Trustees assures me that we would only have to charge a minimal fee to scholars who wanted to study the sword."

--Comments before the Committee on Antiquities Mikhala Harpfield, Ed.D. Acquisitions Librarian College of Ru'aath

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Caitlin scrambled down the steep sides of the pit, leaving Rivenbark to stand guard in the tunnel above. The sides of the pit were smooth and slick, but Caitlin was too worried about Mal to give any thought to whether or not she could make it down without killing herself or how she was going to get back out again.

When she reached Mal's side, she discovered that he was still breathing. Closing her eyes, she breathed a silent prayer of thanks and then cradled his head in her lap and examined the growing bruise near his left temple. The skin was broken and there was a lot of blood, but the wound didn't seem to be too bad.

Much to her surprise, Caitlin realized that she was gently stroking Mal's face and that her eyes were stinging. She raised a hand to her face and discovered tears streaming down her cheeks.

At that moment, Mal began to stir. Caitlin smiled at him.

He stared up at her for a moment, his head throbbing, waiting for his eyes to focus.

"I seem to be making a habit of this sort of thing," he said thickly.

"How are you?"

Mal closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of her hand on his face. "My head hurts," he said, "And I'm a little dizzy."

"Maybe you should just lie still for a few minutes."

Mal sighed. "I like that idea very much," he said.

"You know," Caitlin told him, "You shouldn't go running around like that if you're gong to trip over your own feet."

"I'll keep that in mind."

They were quiet for a few minutes while Caitlin continued to gently stroke Mal's face. Then Caitlin said, "Don't scare me like that again, okay?"

Mal blinked a few times until Caitlin's face swam into focus. "No more missed opportunities," he said.

"What?"

Very gently, Mal reached up a hand, placed it behind Caitlin's head and pulled her face down to his. Then he kissed her. The kiss didn't last long enough, but Mal could still feel her lips on his even after it was over.

He looked anxiously up into Caitlin's eyes, and she smiled at him. Then she leaned down and kissed him again.

"It's about time!"

Both Caitlin and Mal looked up to see Rivenbark peering down at them from the edge of the pit, grinning.

"You're supposed to be keeping watch!" Caitlin reminded him.

"Right!" Rivenbark's head vanished, and Caitlin turned her attention back to Mal.

"Can you stand?" she asked.

Mal nodded and then regretted having done so as pain lanced through his head. Slowly, with Caitlin's help, he climbed to his feet. He swayed a little, and Caitlin grabbed him.

"Lean on me," she said.

Mal grinned crookedly at her. "Thanks, but I'm not sure that's such a good idea. If I lean too hard, we'll both end up on the ground."

Caitlin put both arms around Mal's waist. "Oh, shut up," she said. Then, standing on her tiptoes, she kissed him again.

"I love you," Mal told her.

"Good," she said. "Because I love you, too."

"YEEOWWWW!!!"

Along with the shout, came Rivenbark, hurtling over the edge of the pit to land on Mal and Caitlin. Mal tumbled to the ground, nearly striking his head again.

"What are you oof doing?!" Caitlin yelled furiously, glaring at Rivenbark.

The answer came not from Rivenbark, but from the tunnel above. Half a dozen shadow gnomes crowded around the edge of the pit, yelling.

"Oh, fine!" Caitlin said sarcastically. She pushed Rivenbark off of her and climbed to her feet. "You're a wonderful lookout, Rivenbark."

"I let you know they were coming," Rivenbark protested, standing up.

"Falling on me wasn't the best way to do that."

"I didn't fall, I jumped."

Mal began looking around the pit. It was about eight feet wide and fourteen or fifteen feet long. There didn't seem to be any way out of it other than up.

"There are better ways to get our attention!"

"I yelled, too!" Rivenbark said.

"Oh, I beg your pardon!" Caitlin snapped. "Maybe you should have tried yelling before you jumped. And why didn't you jump over the pit instead of into it?"

"I figured we should stick together."

Mal examined the far wall of the pit. It was as slick as glass. There was no way they were going to be able to climb it. Frowning, he began to examine the side walls.

"Maybe you should have stood guard yourself!" Rivenbark told Caitlin.

"Maybe I should have!" Caitlin yelled back.

Above them, the shadow gnomes were yelling as well, but they were armed only with swords, which they didn't want to throw at the three humans, and none of the gnomes was anxious to leap down into the pit after their former prisoners.

Mal walked toward a heavily shadowed area of one wall. The darkness there seemed a bit too solid looking to be just shadows.

"I've found a tunnel!"

Caitlin and Rivenbark turned to look at Mal. "What?" they asked in unison.

"I've found a tunnel," Mal repeated. "Come on!"

The tunnel roof was so low that Mal had to stoop to avoid bumping his head against it as he stepped into the tunnel.

Rivenbark ran to the tunnel entrance, stopped and bowed gallantly to Caitlin. "Ladies first," he said.

"Get in there!" Caitlin snapped. "I want to go last in case we're followed."

Shrugging, Rivenbark darted into the tunnel.

Caitlin look up at the shadow gnomes. They were strangely silent, all of them watching her expectantly. There was something ominous about the silence, and it made Caitlin wonder if going into the tunnel was such a good idea after all.

She peered into the darkness and then shrugged. It had to be better than becoming a prisoner again. With a sigh, she headed into the opening.

"It's pitch black in here!"

"Thank you, Rivenbark," Caitlin said, "for pointing that out to us."

"Shh," Mal said. "I need to listen."

"Listen?" Caitlin asked. "To what?"

"Sounds."

Caitlin opened her mouth to reply and then decided that it wasn't worth it. She wanted to keep as much of her attention as possible focused on what was behind them. If any of the shadow gnomes slipped after them in the darkness, they would reach her before either of the others, and she intended to be ready. They weren't going to catch her by surprise again.

"Rivenbark, put your hand on my back. Caitlin, put your hand on his. Let's go forward, slowly."

The tunnel floor was smooth and even, as were the walls, though the tunnel didn't follow anything even faintly resembling a straight line. It curved sharply every ten or twenty feet. After the first curve, the tiny amount of light that had seeped through the opening from the pit vanished as if it had never existed, leaving the three friends stranded in impenetrable darkness.

Rivenbark tried closing his eyes and discovered that it made absolutely no difference. Then he began to wonder if he actually had his eyes open when he thought he did. He opened his mouth to ask the others about it, but then he thought better of it. He didn't really want to know what Caitlin would have to say in reply.

The shadow gnomes had kept not torches or lanterns in their storage room, and though Mal knew that there were ways to magically create light, he didn't know how to do it, so all he could do was walk carefully forward with the fingertips of one hand brushing the tunnel wall and the other hand stretched out in front of him. He was trying to focus all of his attention into his ears.

The dwarves had a trick of finding their way through strange tunnels using the echoes of their footsteps as a guide. Though the darkness didn't leave them blind as it did humans, every dwarflearned to travel without his eyes. It had eventually become something of a sport with them. Many dwarves became so adept at "reading" sounds that they could make their way through strange tunnels blindfolded at a surprising rate of speed.

Mal knew the rudiments of the art, though he'd never become very good at it. At the moment, using his ears to guide him, he was doing his best to make some kind of forward progress without bumping into something and breaking his nose. It was fortunate that the floor of the tunnel was smooth and well made. He only hoped that no holes opened up suddenly before him.

Even with the Mal's efforts at listening, it was some time before he realized that he could hear a quiet whispering sound in the distance.

"What's that?" he asked, stopping abruptly.

"What's wh " Rivenbark began, also stopping abruptly as he ran into Mal's back.

"That noise."

Caitlin, all of her attention focused behind her, ran into Rivenbark.

"Ow! What's going on?"

"I hear something," Mal said. "Listen."

They stood quietly for a moment, listening to the distant whisper.

"What is that?" Caitlin asked softly.

Mal shook his head, forgetting that the others couldn't see him. "I don't know," he said. "The echoes in this place are confusing the sound."

"What do we do now?" Rivenbark asked.

"We go on," Caitlin said. "There's no point in going back."

"No," Mal agreed, "There isn't." He took a deep, slow breath. "Let's go on, then."

As they walked, the whisper began to grow steadily stronger. It increased in volume until it became a loud rushing noise that echoed down the tunnel, making hearing anything else difficult.

Mal stopped again. "You know what that sounds like to me?" he asked, almost yelling to make himself heard.

"No, what?" Rivenbark yelled back..

"I think it's..." Mal began, and then his voice stopped abruptly.

After a few seconds, Caitlin asked, "You think it's what?"

The rushing sound continued, uninterrupted.

"Mal?" Rivenbark asked. He stretched his hands out in front of him and stepped forward, only to find that there was nothing but air beneath his front foot. He scrambled wildly, trying to regain his balance, but failed. With a yell, he pitched forward into the darkness.

Hearing Rivenbark yell, Caitlin leaped forward blindly to help him. As she continued to plunge forward and down, it occurred to her that jumping into pitch darkness without the faintest idea what was ahead of her might not have been the best of all possible plans. The rushing sound filled her ears, and she could feel her heart pounding as she waved her arms and legs frantically and uselessly.

After what seemed like an eternity but could only have been a very few seconds, Caitlin splashed into achingly cold water.

She struggled blindly, clawing at the water, and suddenly found herself surfacing. She took a quick breath and tried to look around. It was still pitch black, but she could feel a strong current pulling her along.

"Mal?!" she called shrilly. "Rivenbark?!"

"Kate?"

It was Rivenbark. He sounded fairly near.

"Where are we?"

Leave it to Rivenbark to ask a question like that, Caitlin thought.

"Keep talking so that I can find you!" she called.

There was a brief pause, and then Rivenbark said, "All right. Have you heard the one about the bell tower, the two dwarves, the elf and the porcupine?"

Caitlin began to swim toward the sound of Rivenbark's voice. He seemed to be ahead of her and a little to the right. Swimming with the current while Rivenbark simply floated, it didn't take Caitlin long to reach Rivenbark's side. She grabbed his arm.

"Do you know where Mal is?" she asked, spitting out a mouthful of water.

Rivenbark broke of his story to say, "Up ahead of us, somewhere, I think."

"Keep talking, then."

It hadn't been necessary to tell him that. Rivenbark, once he began a story, always pushed remorselessly on to the end, whether his listeners wanted him to or not. After interrupting himself to answer Caitlin's question, he picked the threads of his narrative back up again effortlessly.

His stories were always confusing, convoluted and extremely long. Even so, the story was nearly over before Mal was able to rejoin his friends. Having hit the water first, he had been downstream from them and had had to swim back against the current to reach them.

Caitlin heard him splashing a few feet away, breathing heavily from his exertions. She reached out a hand, felt her fingers brush his tunic and grabbed the cloth tightly. She felt his arms encircle her waist. Keeping one arm around Rivenbark, Caitlin threw her other arm around Mal, pulled him close.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"Yes," Mal assured her, panting heavily. Swimming against the current had been grueling work.

"And then," Rivenbark concluded, "the elf says, 'Of course! How do you think I rang the bell?'"

Mal put one hand on Rivenbark's shoulder and wrapped the other around Caitlin's waist. She settled comfortably against him, still keeping her hold on Rivenbark's arm.

Rivenbark waited a moment for someone to laugh at his story, then he shrugged. He had discovered long ago that people usually had to be rather drunk to find his stories funny. Unfortunately, most people who were drunk were unable to follow the stories all the way through to the end. It was a problem that he hadn't managed to work out yet. Still, nothing was perfect. It was always best to look for the silver lining. There was always one there, even if you had to paint it in. In this case, at least he'd gotten to practice telling a story that he didn't get to tell very often. Practice is important.

"Well, what do we do now?" Caitlin asked.

"What <i>can,/i> we do?" Mal replied.

"Where are we?" Rivenbark asked.

"We're in some kind of underground river," Mal said. "And, if we're lucky, this current's sweeping us in the direction we want to go."

"It is," Rivenbark said firmly.

"How do you know?" Caitlin asked.

"Because things are going our way again, remember?"

"Now, Rivenbark..."

"And, by the way," Rivenbark interrupted her. "I did see you two kissing down there in that pit, didn't I?"

FORTY-TWO

Time passed. The river continued to sweep them into the darkness.

"We've got to do something," Caitlin said finally. "We can't just float here and let the current carry us along."

"Why not?" Rivenbark asked. "It saves wear and tear on the feet."

"We'll freeze! This water isn't getting any warmer."

"I don't know that we really have a lot of choice in the matter," Mal said.

"We could swim for the bank," Caitlin suggested.

"If there is one," Mal said.

Rivenbark frowned in Mal's direction. "Every river has a bank, even underground ones."

"There might be nothing there but an unclimbable stone wall," Mal explained. "And swimming across this current would be difficult to say the least, especially if we try to stay in physical contact with each other."

"So, what do we do?" Caitlin asked.

Mal shrugged. "Wait."

There were silent for a moment, and then Rivenbark said, "I think we're speeding up."

"How can you tell?" Caitlin asked.

"The spray," Mal said. "It's hitting with more force, I think. We are speeding up."

"What was that?!" Rivenbark yelped suddenly.

"What?!"

"Something just brushed my leg!"

"What was it?!" Caitlin yelled.

"Um..actually, I think it was my leg," Mal said.

"Is the sound getting louder?" Rivenbark asked.

"Yes," Mal said. "And we're picking up even more speed!"

In a state of rising panic, the three friends were swept down the river. The spray continued to strike them with increasing force, and the roar of the water continued to get louder.

"Do they," Rivenbark began, then he stopped to spit out a mouthful of water, "Do they have underground rapids?"

"I don't know," Mal said, "But I think we're about to oof--"

Rivenbark and Caitlin felt the impact through their arms as Mal's back slammed into a large rock.

"Are you all right?" Caitlin asked, letting go of Rivenbark and reaching toward Mal.

"Yes..." Mal said thickly. "I mean...I think so..."

Rivenbark opened his mouth to say something but began to choke as water rushed down his throat. Caitlin pounded on his back until he began to breathe again.

"Mal, this is getting serious," she said. "We can't stay here."

"We can't do much else. There's no way we can fight this current."

"Can't you do something?!" Caitlin yelled in frustration.

"No." Mal's response was characteristically quiet.

"What good are you, then?" Caitlin raged.

"None at all, I suppose."

There was a long pause. "That's not true," Caitlin said, finally. "I'm sorry, Mal."

Clinging tightly to each other to avoid being swept apart, the three friends were carried on by the racing current. Soon, the noise, the spray and the effort needed to keep from drowning made speech totally impossible. Simply continuing to breathe became difficult enough.

They were spun haphazardly from side to side, occasionally grazing rocks that jutted up from below the river's surface, sometimes being slammed into them with brutal force.

Caitlin was nearly knocked unconscious when her head struck a projecting stone, and Rivenbark thought his ankle was going to be twisted off when, for on agonizing second, it was caught in a crevice between two large rocks.

They lost track of time, feeling nothing but the pounding their bodies were taking, knowing that their skin was scraped, bruised and torn, lost in the rush of water and the driving noise that surrounded them. Then, suddenly, they were flung into the air, cartwheeling crazily through the darkness.

As she left the water, Caitlin felt her grip on Mal and Rivenbark torn away. Unexpectedly alone, her numbed mind remembered lessons in falling that Mal had given her...when? Ages ago, it seemed. She flattened her body out, spreading her arms and legs and trying to stay loose for the impact. Suddenly, she slammed into a sheet of water.

She struggled frantically, clawing at the water that surrounded her, trying to find the surface, and then she saw a shimmer of light. Light! The sight calmed her. Kicking both feet, she darted toward it and felt a warm breeze against her face. She stopped struggling and looked around.

She was in a round pool about thirty yards across. From somewhere high above her, light was streaming down. Mal and Rivenbark were in the pool with her, and the water was delightfully warm and, even more importantly, calm.

"Where are we?" she asked tiredly, treading water.

"And what happened?" Rivenbark added.

Mal swam to one edge of the pool and grabbed on to a thin rock ledge. "Come here," he called. "You have to see this!"

Caitlin and Rivenbark swam over and stared in silence at the scene before them.

Beside them, some distance away, its roar somehow muted, they could see a waterfall. It was an impressive sight. Unguessable torrents of water flowed out of the darkness above them and flowed on into the darkness below them, a vertical river.

The pool they were in was in a bowl of stone suspended form the wall of the ca