Swin stands in the rain, examining the splayed white thighs, deliberately turning his mind to thoughts of care and leechcraft. He finds the pack not far away, rummages through his oddments and brings out a needle and a spool of thread. The needle is rusty. He cleans it up as best he can. Then, before releasing Erum from his bonds, Swin returns to him, lays hand on him and sews ten stitches. Erum gasps and shudders piteously. The penis itself is undamaged; when Swin has finished, it flips down and partly covers the wound. Having tied the last knot, Swin begins to cut the cords of the bindweed. It has grown, quite noticeably, up the sides of the stone and around his friend’s arms and legs, in the last twenty minutes. He takes off his shirt, tears it up, pads and binds Erum’s wound with it. The material is wet, but there is none dry to be had. Swin cuts through the remaining strands, frees his friend from the stone of sacrifice and eases him away.
Later the sun begins to break through the clouds.
Despite being shelterless, destitute and almost naked, Erum soon began to recover. He was in the domain of Yabeth, and her hand brings – among other gifts – healing of all wounds. The hot days and warm nights returned; Swin brought him herbs and fruit out of the forest, cooked them with the flesh of birds and small game, fed him with the broth. On the seventh day after Midsummer Erum looked at himself and declared that now was the time to take the stitches out. Swin said he would rather Erum did that job for himself. Erum saw the appropriateness of this. He borrowed Swin’s knife, after Swin had got it specially sharp; he went off into the wood, bravely cut the stitches one by one and removed them. The wound led, but remained clean and calm.
But that was another thing, this going-off into the woods. It has been told that on the evening of their first arrival, Swin found the line of the trees filled up with brambles and shrubs, all thriving, so that he had difficulty in finding dry wood for the fire and had to walk along the bank to find an entrance. Yet now, right opposite the stone, an entrance had appeared. Some of the plants had withered and fallen away, that was clear; but how could whole trees have been uprooted and removed, unless a silent band of Elves had come along with silver saws and glass pickaxes? Without the least sign of slashing or trampling, there it was, plain and open, a path leading west from the stone of sacrifice. The stone itself was now covered with pink flowers. The uppermost blooms and tendrils seemed to be dancing and waving about in gleeful triumph. Swin and Erum both wanted to get away from it; Swin, though he tended his friend devotedly, had an increasing desire to continue on the journey. He did not say so, for the converse that now took place between the two was all of touches, looks, handclasps... But Erum, returning up the newly-formed path, walking slowly and bow-legged, had something to say that Swin must hear at once.
‘Go down the path and look,’ said he, and sat down carefully.
Swin went down the path. It soon became smooth, with lush green grass. A hundred paces from the River it opened out into a clearing. In the middle of this space, in the midst of a patch of taller grass and flowers, the shape of a man was sitting. He was a squat figure, a statue carved in the same kind of dark stone (Swin guessed) that the boulder consisted of. There was no plinth or base: the statue rested on the ground, and the grass was growing round the man’s knees and buttocks. His head was turned towards the new pathway by which Swin had entered the clearing. His thick-lipped mouth was smiling broadly. One hand rested in his lap. The other, at the end of an outstretched arm, was pointing onward, towards the exit on the other side of the clearing. The statue was nude, with heavy buttocks and small well-shaped feet, but with the suggestion of a small fringed mat to cover the loins.
Swin bowed to it respectfully and went back. On the way he quickened his pace, suddenly anxious lest his friend should have met with some new calamity; but all was well. Erum was sitting at the end of the spit, fishing in the blue River with another rod and line that he had made. Swin sat down beside him. There was a long, peaceful pause.
‘What do you think of it?’ Swin said at last.
Erum’s answer was soft and low. ‘I think that the path and the clearing were here all the time,’ he said, ‘but they were hidden from us when we arrived. I think this is the real Gate.’
‘And the statue?’
‘It’s one of the Woses’ carvings, is it not? The wild Men of the Woods? Their images are said to have magical power.’
‘Go on.’
‘I know nothing more. Only that I think it was the Woses who drove Melohtar and me, after the Elves caught us. They goaded us with their arrows. But we never saw them. They’re very skilful.’
Swin shook his head. ‘It’s all too much,’ he murmured. ‘Monsters and elves and witches and woses... How do they all get on with each other? Who rules them?’
‘The King, I suppose. The King of Ost-en-Aderthad.’
‘But we’ve missed the way there. We’re not going to see him now.’
Erum stared at the rolling, rippling stream.
‘Erum,’ said Swin gently. There was a long pause. ‘Erum,’ he said again, ‘you understand, don’t you, what the opening of this new path means? If this is the real Gate, as you say?’
The rood slowly drooped as Erum’s fingers relaxed. Then he laid his head, like a girl, on Swin’s shoulder. Both of them were sitting bare-chested in the warmth. (Swin had no shirts left, nor had he felt any need for one, either by day or night, since Midsummer.) Swin put his right arm round Erum’s shoulders and took hold of both of Erum’s hands with his left hand.
‘Two more days,’ Erum whispered, ‘then I think I’ll be ready.’
The next stage of their journey – the penultimate stage, as it turned out – was a walk of eighty miles. The road was marked all the way, and the going was easy; such was Swin’s eagerness that he would probably have gone the whole distance in a day and a half. But Erum could not walk fast, nor far, and he needed looking after. The two men walked five slow miles down the path, following the direction of the pointed finger, before he had to stop; and next day, to his shame, he could not walk more than three. But on the third day he felt stronger, and his pain was less, and from then on they made better and better progress.
The journey was peaceful, although Swin had a sense of being constantly watched. He himself was always alert, but he never caught sight of the watchers, whether wild men of the woods or sapient creatures of some other kind. There were new, gorgeous butterflies, and loud-voiced colourful birds, and more of the long-horned deer that had been seen before, and other, fugitive animal shapes, like the coneys with ringed yellow eyes and striped furry tails that flickered and vanished among the trees at sunset. He shot at none of these; he used his last few arrows sparingly, and brought down only creatures that were plentiful and well known to him. On the fifth day there was a parting of ways, with neither statue nor fingerpost to point the travellers in the right direction; but a tall needle of grey stone, slender and polished, stood up on a firm and well-set base in the midst of the glade. To the left of this stone a narrow green track, studded with the little golden star-flowers, wandered off among the trees. The travellers’ own path seemed to continue, did in fact continue from the farther end of the glade. Erum and Swin stopped and briefly considered, and both of them had the same intimation of danger. They knew that they must continue on their way, turning neither to right nor to left, or else forfeit the permission they were enjoying. This country was perilous. Their only safety lay in the correct path. And so, with a shared nod and shrug of obedience, they walked straight on.
The land began to rise, the path winding among steep rocky dales, with tracts of brilliantly flowering furze and heather among which countless snakes and lizards basked. Then the outcrops of hard rock gave way to faces of grey or yellowish sandstone, often mantled with red flowers, or the pink bindweed that Erum called ‘witch-bells’. To the walkers it seemed as if they were entering another country, yet another of the vast immeasurable realms of Midyard; but had Swin or Erum known what the Punchkins had found, that between the Iduin and the Bleck, as well as further East, the land generally slopes upward to the coast – the two great capes of Neraegrast and Belegrast being girt with tall, impassable cliffs – it might have occurred to them that the sea was not, after all, so very far away. On the eighth day, far ahead and still higher up, they made out the darker line that was the beginning of the forest of Erynvorn; and on the ninth day their path faded away, reappeared, faded away again and vanished.
It was early afternoon. Swin and Erum stood in the midst of a high, tilted plateau. Higher hills rose all round them, and there, both southward and westward, was the line of the forest coming down – converging with the direction-line of their vanished path. The trees had a dark uninviting look. Between them and the place where Swin and Erum were, a curious shadow or depression seemed to lie on the land. Another thing was that the ground was threaded with many small streams. Though the season was now high summer, with scant rain having fallen for months, these little watercourses still tinkled and babbled among the sere grasses and pungent flowering herbs. One such, softly opening just before the travellers’ feet, seemed to suggest a continuation of their westward path. Swin and Erum exchanged another wordless glance and nod, thereby agreeing to follow the course of this stream. It ran on for a mile or more, taking in a few tiny tributaries and deepening a channel for itself, of which the banks were soft red soil. Swin and Erum noticed small breaks or steps in the surface of the ground: the soil was cracked and unstable, slowly sliding towards the mysterious depression that drew nearer and nearer. The voice of the stream grew more insistent as it splashed over shining pebbles and among dark boulders. And then all began to be revealed.
The depression was a deep bowl. Its sides were composed partly of steep or vertical buttresses and partly of gentler hillsides, on which could be seen, closely set and varied in many shades of foliage, more kinds of tree than Swin or Erum had ever heard of. Between the out-thrust masses of crumbling stone and earth, huge chines carried bright streams, even small rivers, that rippled or cascaded into a round blue lake: between half a mile and a mile wide, an almost perfect circle, like the iris of a blue eye set deep in its socket.
‘Lake Cornen,’ said Erum. ‘Wheelwater.’
Within twenty paces the channel of their stream became a cleft leading down to a verdurous chasm. After a few irresolute spilling steps down ledges of fern-strewn stone, the stream made up its mind and leaped into a foamy pool, fifty feet below. How to follow it? Swin worked his way down by trial and error, then returned to give Erum a hand. The air in the cleft was much warmer and moister. Threads and coins of brilliant sunlight were strung through the deep green shadow of numberless trees. Hanging from some of the boughs were golden-bronze fruits, odourless but packed with sweet, scarlet, liquid clusters beneath their hard rind. Erum and Swin sat down and ate several of these before moving on. Sometimes the stream wormed its way among the groves, winding below tangles of falling roses and red tumescent blackberries, or through sliding surfaces of russet-brown or blackish-brown soil; at other times, encountering lower layers of the harder rock, it formed new rills and pools and glittering, spraying waterfalls. There were fish in these pools, mayflies dancing above them and clouds of gnats; once a blue-green kingfisher flashed down. At times the going was very slow and difficult, and there was no sense of any possible way ahead; Swin and Erum clung to the knowledge that the rivulet must eventually run out into the lake; and at long last it wound into a flatter slope, a green valley-floor,. Here the trees were mostly tall alders and the leaf-canopy was higher and lighter. King-cups and marsh-marigolds grew along the banks, and the broader, quieter stream was often completely hidden by the felted leaves of enormous butterburs, whose dry brown flower-stubs, covered with their many bulbous eyes, stood up like heathen idols, threatening and warning.
Swin and Erum parted the last leaf-curtains, splashed through the muddy estuary of the friend that had guided them, and stood still to admire the legendary water that few Men had ever seen. All around the sparkling lake its bluffs and hillsides rose majestically high; higher again, vanishing into the deep-blue heaven, that single white gull was climbing away, becoming a bright speck, dwindling and slipping beyond the reach of their eyes. The many-coloured, many-fissured cliffs let down sweeping scarves and veils of sand, their pinks and oranges and purples glowing in the evening light that fell slantwise across them, deepening every fissure, dignifying every crag and knob with its own dark shadow. Crowning these cliffs, clinging on to the extreme edge of the crumbling, flowing rocks, the first pines and ashes of Erynvorn frowned down upon the lake; from these, Swin’s eye plunged down to their counterparts, the reflections vaguely formed in the rippling water, and then up again to the emerald-green line of sunlit grass or floating vegetation that separated the two. He was looking for something now, searching among the lowest crags, and very soon he found it: the dark low aperture: the two dark holes, one above, one reflected below the surface of the water. ‘Yes,’ he said.
Erum looked at him inquiringly.
‘It’s like my dream – the round lake, and the cave-mouth at the other end. That’s the door, do you see? That’s where we’ll find her.’
Erum grimaced. He was in pain, having had to make exertions during the descent, and his tanned face as pale. ‘Now?’ he asked.
Swin had a thought. ‘Let me carry you,’ he said. ‘I carried you in my dream.’
He squatted down and undid his pack, and then strapped it on Erum’s back; and Erum threw his arms round the massive chest, and Swin tucked his hands under Erum’s thighs, and the two set off on their last walk. The way was easy, smooth and grassy beyond the lake-shore, with only a few standing tree-roots to be stepped over. The light mellowed and deepened. Swin walked through a shining waterfall-curtain. The cliffs drew nearer, the dark hole became plainer and more explicitly ambiguous: threat or promise? Erum clasped Swin tightly and laid his head on his shoulder for the last time. Swin heard him murmuring a prayer.
But the cave, when they reached it, was a great disappointment. It did not recede like a back passage, did not go all the way to the bowels of the earth, no, not at all. It had a sloping, gritty floor strewn with dead leaves, slanting walls, and at the far end a vague something half-buried in the leaf-drift.
‘Oh,’ said Swin.
‘Well,’ said Erum, advancing into darkness, ‘what is that?’
It proved to be a boat. The prow was high and carved in the likeness of a bird’s head. Swin carried the boat out into the light, and shook out the leaves, dirt and dust. It was sound and fairly clean, though its grey timbers were stained with smudges of blackness from lying a long time in the deep mud. If Swin had known that this was the very boat that had carried him previously – not merely once, but twice – he would certainly have been more interested in it. A moment later Erum came out of the cave, carrying two paddles which he had also discovered. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, seeing Swin’s face.
‘That’s it, eh?’ said Swin morosely. ‘What we’re meant to do next? Go for a little paddle?’
The sun had still some way to go before it set, but the westward walls of the lake were casting a long shadow. Swin saw Erum’s hair shining against this dark background like a white-gold flame. Erum stepped forward, stood opposite Swin and offered him a paddle. ‘Your idea. Let’s do it,’ he said.
Well, said Swin to himself, why not?
All right.
He ran the light vessel out into the water, held it steady for Erum to enter, and then carefully got into it himself. The boat seemed wobbly and tricky to handle at first. They set off, plying their paddles in a leisurely manner.
Away from the shore the air was cooler though still windless. The quiet dip and plash of the two paddles was barely audible over the constant diffused noise, coming from near and far, of the waterfalls and cascades. The falls generally sounded nearer than they were, their voices being contained within the great space as within the bowl of a theatre. Beyond this, the twittering of birds could also be faintly heard. A great flock of sparrows rose out of the trees, veered to and fro and split apart. One part resettled, the other dissolved into the glowing sky.
‘There’s an odd thing about this lake,’ Erum remarked. ‘All these streams constantly draining into it, and none flowing out.’
It was true. ‘I was thinking how dark the water is,’ Swin returned. ‘These evening reflections are all very beautiful, but when you look straight down...’
They looked into the turbid depths. The water was clouded with a fine silt that became dark, fully opaque, below the depth of two feet. ‘I wonder what keeps it stirred up all the time,’ said Erum.
‘Yes. And there’s no weeds or lilies on the water, nothing of any sort,’ said Swin. He had let the boat drift round, so that they were now facing back towards the cave. The little stretch of grass before its mouth was no longer glowing in the light, but it could still be seen, together with its reflection, a second green line, dimmer and thinner, running along below. The two green lines were separated by a level band of grey. The green was grass, to be sure, and not water-weed, as he had at first thought it might be. However, staring at the two green lines, Swin felt that there was an important deduction, some really very important conclusion which... He leant over the side of the boat, scooped up a handful of water and tasted it.
‘Use your paddle!’ he snapped at Erum. ‘Quick! Come on!’
The other, who had also been thinking hard, bent forward and touched Swin’s arm. ‘No,’ he said wryly: ‘Too late.’
Something was rising out of the middle of the lake, something like a wet stone column with a rusty cap or spike. Up and up it rose, causing large circular ripples to spread outwards, until as visible it was something over twice the height of a man. It was thin, with two wider nodes spaced along its length, like the knuckles of a long finger. As more black humps and knuckles appeared around it, breaking through the surface, Swin and Erum realised that it was indeed a finger, recognisably a female finger, the finger of an old woman. The spike at the top was the nail – reddish, uneven, somewhat damaged. The other things were the other fingers and the thumb. Soon the whole gigantic hand was visible, wet and dripping, with the forefinger pointing straight up and the other three fingers curled into the palm. What was strangest about it was not how out-of-place but how in place it looked, standing out of the sheet of water at the bottom of that enormous bowl. The hand – how could they know this? but perceive it they did – was aware: it was aware of them. As they looked at it, the whole member was dragged down a little into the water, while the forefinger bowed and curled down, away from them, a little sharply: an enormous beckoning.
Then the three other fingers and the thumb rose up together, joining themselves as a curved blade; and the hand made a single, powerful sweep, scooping the water round and downwards.
And then it was gone. There was neither splash nor foam, bubbles nor ripples to show where it had been: merely a shadowy darkness on the water, hard to understand on its first appearance, like the bowl of Cornen itself. There came a sudden gust of wind and the surface was all ruffled. All round the shore, birds were twittering and crying as they flew out of the tree-tops, and now a kind of humming sound seemed to be coming out of the lake itself. It deepened to a thrumming roar. The dark bluish shadow on the agitated surface was spreading rapidly outwards. Erum understood it first. With a laugh, he took in his paddle and dropped it. ‘Dru preserve us!’ he said, and something else, but his words were drowned in the tremendous drone of the vortex that had now reached far down and extended itself far outwards. Its arc passed underneath the boat, which tilted and began to move forward much more quickly. Swin felt strong winds tugging at his hair and beard. Erum’s bright hair was flying madly about his head. Erum seemed to find it all terribly funny. Swin took in his own paddle and sat tight, gripping the bulwarks on both sides. The boat had already wheeled round a half-circle. The noise of the whirlpool was changing, almost deafeningly, to a sustained throbbing gurgle, like – why be coy about the comparison? – like water going down the plughole of the most enormous bathtub that ever was. As Swin gazed upwards he saw the tops of the trees and the sunlit cliffs crazily swinging round faster and faster, while sinking down gradually behind the top or rim of the continuous band of water. Giggling, Erum looked down into the depths of the vortex, but this was something Swin felt most reluctant to do, lest it should deprive him permanently of his reason. The upper world, the daylight world, disappeared. There was now only the short-lived world of water, deep grey-green but still faintly luminous, slithering and swirling with occasional splashes of spray. The boat stood on its side, spinning faster and faster, deeper and deeper into the funnel.