They made their way along the dark tunnel, up to their ankles in water, and slowly the light from the open shaft down which they had come faded into darkness. They walked steadily on, for what seemed like a very long time. Bowman said nothing, but he was afraid of the dark. They could hear many strange sounds around them, of water gurgling and dripping, and the echo of their own steps. They passed other channels flowing into their tunnel, and they could sense that the tunnel was becoming bigger the further they went.
Then for the first time they heard a sound that was watery, but not made by water. It was some way behind them, and it was unmistakable: splosh, splosh, splosh. Someone was following them.
They hurried on faster. The water was deeper now, and pulled at their legs. There was a glow of faint light ahead, and a thundery sound. Behind them they could still hear the steady footfall of their pursuer.
All at once the tunnel emerged into a long cave, through the middle of which ran a fast-flowing river. The light which faintly illuminated the glistening cave walls came from a low wide hole at the far end, through which the river plunged out of sight. The tunnel water now drained away to join the river, and they found themselves on a smooth bank of dry rock.
Almost at once, Bowman felt something terrible, very close by.
‘We can’t stop here,’ he said. ‘We must go, quickly.’
‘Home,’ said a deep voice. ‘Go home.’
Kestrel jumped, and looked into the darkness.
‘Bo? Was that you?’
‘No,’ said Bowman, trembling violently. ‘There’s someone else here.’
‘Just a friend,’ said the deep voice. ‘A friend in need.’
‘Where are you?’ said Kestrel. ‘I can’t see you.’
In answer, there came the hiss of a match being struck, and then a bright arc of flame as a burning torch curved through the air to land on the ground a few feet away from them. It lay there, hissing and crackling, throwing out a circle of amber light. Out of the darkness beyond, into the soft fringe of its glow, stepped a small figure with white hair. He walked with the slow steps of a little old man, but as he came closer to the flickering light they saw that he was a boy of about their own age: only his hair was completely white, and his skin was dry and wrinkly. He stood there gazing steadily at them, and then he spoke.
‘You can see me now.’
It was the deep voice they had heard before, the voice of an old man. The effect of this worn and husky voice coming from the child’s body was peculiarly frightening.
‘The old children,’ said Kestrel. ‘The ones I saw before.’
‘We were so looking forward to having you join our class,’ said the white-haired child. ‘But all’s well that ends well, as they say. Follow me, and I’ll lead you back.’
‘We’re not going back,’ said Kestrel.
‘Not going back?’ The soothing voice made her defiance sound childish. ‘Don’t you understand? Without my help, you’ll never find the way out of here. You will die here.’
There was a sound of laughter in the darkness. The white-haired child smiled.
‘My friends find that amusing.’
And into the pool of light, one by one, stepped other children, some white-haired like himself, some bald, all prematurely aged. At first it seemed there were only a few, but more and more came shuffling out of the shadows, first ten, then twenty, then thirty and more. Bowman stared at them, and shivered.
‘We’re your little helpers,’ said the white-haired child. And all the old children laughed again, with the deep rumbling laughter of grown-ups. ‘You help us, and we’ll help you. That’s fair, isn’t it?’
He took a step closer, and reached out one hand.
‘Come with me.’
Behind him all the other old children were moving closer, with little shuffling steps. As they came, they too reached out their hands. They didn’t seem aggressive, so much as curious.
‘My friends want to stroke you,’ said their leader, his voice sounding deep and soft and far away.
Bowman was so frightened that the only thought in his head was how to get away. He stepped back, out of reach of the fluttering arms. But behind him now was the river, flowing rapidly towards its underground hole. The old children shuffled closer, and he felt a hand brush his arm. As it did so, an unfamiliar sensation swept through him: it was as if some of his strength had been sucked out of him, leaving him tired and sleepy.
Kess! he called silently, desperately. Help me!
‘Get away from him!’ cried Kestrel.
She stepped boldly forward and swung one arm at the white-haired child, meaning to knock him to the ground. But as her fist touched his body, the blow weakened, and she felt her arm go limp. She swung at him again, and she felt herself grow weaker still. The air round her seemed to become thick and squashy, and sounds grew far away, and blurred.
Bo! she called to him. Something’s happening to me.
Bowman could see her falling to her knees, and could feel the overwhelming weariness that was taking possession of her body. He knew he should go to her help, but he was frozen: immobilised by terror.
Come away, Kess, he pleaded. Come away.
I can’t.
He knew it, he could feel it. She was growing faint, as if already the old children were carrying her away.
I can’t move, Bo. Help me.
He watched them gather round her, but he was sick with fear, and he did nothing; and knowing he was doing nothing, he wept for shame.
Suddenly there came a crash and a splash, and something came charging out of the tunnel behind them. It roared like a wild animal, and struck out on all sides with wind-milling arms.
‘Kakka-kakka-kak!’ it cried. ‘Bubba-bubba-bubba-kak!’
The old children jumped back in alarm. The whirlwind passed Bowman, pushing him off the bank and into the fast-moving river. The splash doused the flaming torch. In the sudden darkness, Kestrel felt herself being dragged to the river’s edge, and toppled into the water. There came a third splash, and there were three of them tumbling round and round in the current, being swept towards the roaring hole.
The cold water revived Kestrel, and she began to kick. Forcing herself to the surface, she gulped air. Then she saw the low roof of rock approaching, and ducked back down under water, and was sucked through the hole. A few moments of raging water, and suddenly she was flying through air and spray, and falling, falling with the streams of water, down and down, fighting for breath, thinking, This is the end, this is the smash, when all at once, with a plop and a long yielding hiss, she found she had landed in soft deep mud.
10
In the salt caves
Once she had recovered from the shock of her fall, Kestrel smelled the sick-making air and realised that she had landed in a part of the Underlake. Up above was the great arching roof of salt rock she had seen before, and not far off was one of the several holes in the cave’s roof, through which fell such light as there was in this shadowy land. Before her stretched a dark gleaming region of water and stinking mud. Behind, the gushing waterfall down which they had fallen. She searched for the platform with the jetty, and the moored barges, but they must have been in some other part of the great salt caves, lost in the gloom.
She heard a low whimper, and turning, saw Bowman, floundering in the mud.
‘Are you all right, Bo?’
‘Yes,’ he said, and then started to cry; a little out of relief that they had survived, but mostly from shame.
‘Don’t cry, Bo,’ said Kestrel. ‘We don’t have the time.’
‘Yes, I know. I’m sorry.’
Silently he begged her forgiveness.
I should have helped you. I was so afraid.
‘This is the Underlake,’ said Kestrel aloud, to turn his thoughts to practical matters. ‘There’s a way out on to the plains, I’m sure.’
She turned to look across the watery mud, and as she did so a half familiar form rose up, spluttering and grunting. It
got itself upright, and wiped the mud from its face, and beamed at her.
‘Mumpo!’
‘Hallo, Kess,’ said Mumpo happily.
‘It was you!’
‘I saw you go down the hole,’ he said. ‘I followed you. I’m your friend.’
‘Mumpo, you saved me!’
‘They were going to hurt you. I won’t let anyone hurt you, Kess.’
She gazed at him, covered from head to toe in mud, and marvelled that he could look so pleased with himself. But then, they were all just as muddy, and all stank as much as each other now.
‘Mumpo,’ she said, ‘you were brave and strong, and I’ll always thank you for saving me. But you must go back.’
Mumpo’s face fell.
‘I want to be with you, Kess.’
‘No, Mumpo.’ She spoke kindly but firmly, as if to a small child. ‘It’s me they’re looking for, not you. You have to go home.’
‘I can’t, Kess,’ said Mumpo simply. ‘My legs are stuck.’
That was when Kestrel and Bowman realised that they were sinking. Not fast, but steadily.
‘It’s all right,’ said Kestrel. ‘I’ve been here before. We’ll only sink as far as our knees.’
She tried to pull her leg out, and found she couldn’t.
Kess, said her brother silently. What if they come after us?
She looked round, in all directions, but there was no sign of the old children.
If they do, Kestrel replied, they’ll get stuck too.
So there they stood, their drenched clothing clinging to their shivering bodies, breathing the fetid air, feeling themselves sinking. When they had sunk past their knees, Bowman said,
‘We’re still sinking.’
‘There has to be a bottom somewhere,’ said Kestrel.
‘Why?’
‘We can’t just sink all the way.’
‘Why not?’
For a while, nobody said anything, and they went on sinking. Then Mumpo broke the silence.
‘I like you, Kess. You’re my friend.’
‘Oh, shut up, Mumpo. I’m sorry. I know you saved me, but honestly .. .’
Another silence fell. By now they had sunk to their waists.
‘Do you like me, Kess?’ said Mumpo.
‘A bit,’ said Kestrel.
‘We’re friends,’ said Mumpo happily. ‘We like each other.’
His idiotic cheerfulness at last goaded Kestrel into saying aloud what she’d been afraid even to think.
‘You stupid pongo! Don’t you get it? We’re going to be sucked under the mud!’
Mumpo stared at her in utter astonishment.
‘Are you sure, Kess?’
‘Take a look round. Who’s going to pull us out?’
He looked round, and saw nobody. His face crumpled with fear, and he started to scream.
‘Help! I’m sinking! Help! I’ll go under! Help!’
‘Oh, shut up. There’s nobody to help.’
But Mumpo only screamed louder; which was just as well, because Kestrel was wrong. There was somebody to help.
Not so far off, a small round mudman named Willum was stooped over the lake surface hunting for tixa leaves. Tixa grew wild in unexpected places, and the only way to find it was to wander about half looking for it in a slow dreamy sort of way for several hours. If you looked too hard at the murky grey surface of the lake you could never see the tixa plants, which were murky-coloured too. You had to not look, and that way, you caught sight of them out of the corner of your eye. Then if you found some, you picked the leaves and put them in your bag, keeping one to chew as you went on. Chewing tixa leaves made you feel slow and dreamy, and that made you even better at finding them.
When Willum heard the faraway screams, he straightened up and peered through the gloom, and tried for once to look.
‘My, oh my,’ he murmured to himself, smiling. He didn’t know he was smiling. He’d been out most of the day, chewing tixa most of the time, and really he should be thinking about going home. The nut-socks strung round his neck were full, and his wife would have expected him back long ago.
But the shrill shrieks didn’t stop, so Willum decided to set off towards them, following the network of trails that all the mudpeople learned as soon as they could walk. These trails ran beneath the surface of the mud, sometimes just below, sometimes down to the knees. There was a way of walking the trails which all the mudpeople had, a slow steady stride, easing one foot in, easing the other out, in a swinging even pace. You couldn’t go fast, you just swung along, particularly after a day of tixa hunting.
All this time, the children went on sinking. The mud was up to their necks now, and still their desperately wriggling toes could feel no hard ground. Kestrel was frightened, and would have started to cry, if it wasn’t that Mumpo was crying enough for all of them.
‘Yaa-aa waa-aaa!’ shrieked Mumpo, exactly like a baby. ‘Yaa-aaa waa-aaa!’
None of them heard Willum approaching behind them until he spoke.
‘Oh my sweet earth!’ he exclaimed, coming to a stop on the nearest part of the trail.
‘Yaa-aaa waa – Glup!’
Mumpo suddenly went quiet: not because help was at hand, but because his mouth had filled with mud. All three children tried to twist their heads round, but they couldn’t.
‘Help us!’ said Bowman, choking on mud.
‘I should think so,’ said Willum.
Like every mudman out on the lake, he carried a rope, wound several times round his plump waist. He unwound it now, and threw it neatly over the surface of the lake so that it lay within reach of the three children.
‘Take ahold,’ he said. ‘Slow, mind.’
As the children worked their hands up out of the mud, and towards the rope, Willum noticed a bunch of tixa growing right by them. It was a big bunch, with broad mature leaves, the very best sort.
‘They leaves,’ he said. ‘Just you bring they along too, eh?’
The children’s efforts to reach the rope were making them sink faster, and now the mud was half suffocating them. Willum was so excited by the sight of the tixa leaves he forgot this.
‘They leaves,’ he said again, pointing. ‘Take ahold of they, eh?’
Bowman had the rope now, and pulled hard on it, very nearly jerking Willum off the trail. With his other hand, Bowman reached for his sister, and held her while she too took the rope. Kestrel in turn reached for Mumpo, who was the one nearest to the tixa plants.
‘Pull!’ cried Bowman, feeling them start to sink again. ‘Pull!’
‘I should think so,’ said Willum, not pulling. ‘Just you fetch me they leaves.’
It was pure chance that Mumpo’s hand, scrabbling for the rope, closed over the tixa plant. And as soon as Willum saw that he had it, he proceeded to pull. Leaning forward to get all his weight on the rope, he set off along the trail hauling like a pack mule. His short sturdy legs were immensely strong, like all the mudpeople’s, and soon the children felt themselves rising up out of the clinging mud.
With a spluttering gasp, Kestrel freed her face, and drew a huge gulping breath. Mumpo spat the mud out of his mouth and started howling again. And Bowman, panting, heart hammering, tried hard not to think what would have happened to them if the mudman hadn’t found them.
When they felt the solid land of the trail beneath them, they collapsed and lay there in a mud-coated heap, made weak by the shock of it all. Willum bent over Mumpo and took the tixa leaves from his hand.
‘That’ll do. Thanky kindly.’
He was very pleased. He broke off the tip of one leaf, brushed the mud off, and popped it in his mouth. The rest went in his little bag.
He turned then to studying the children he had pulled out of the lake. Who were they? Not mud people, certainly. They were far too thin, and no mud people wandered off the trails into the deeps, not without being roped. They must have come from up yonder.
‘I know who you’m are,’ he said to them. ‘You’m skinnies.’ r />
They followed the small round mudman down winding trails that only he could see, across the dark surface of the Underlake. Too exhausted to ask questions, they tramped along behind him in single file, still holding the rope. Their legs ached from the effort of pulling them in and out of the mud, but on and on they went, until dusk started to gather in the great sky-holes above.
Willum sung softly as he went along, and occasionally chuckled to himself. What a stroke of luck it was finding the skinnies! he was thinking. Won’t Jum be surprised! And he laughed aloud just thinking about it.
Willum had wandered far in his day’s hunting, and by the time they were back again by his home it was almost night. The shadows were so deep that the children could no longer see where they were going, and kept to the trail by feeling the tug of the rope. But now at last, Willum had come to a stop, and with a sigh of satisfaction announced to them,
‘No place like home, eh?’
No place indeed: there were no signs of any house or shelter of any kind, but for a thin wisp of smoke rising from a small hole in the ground. The children stood and shivered, fearful and exhausted, and looked round.
‘Follow me, little skinnies. Mind the steps.’
With these words, he walked straight down into the ground. Kestrel, following behind, found that her feet went through the mud into a sudden hole, where there seemed to be a descending staircase.
‘Mouth shut,’ said Willum. ‘Eyes shut.’
One moment Kestrel felt the mud round her neck, the next moment her mouth and nose and eyes were clogged and smothered, and the next moment she had stepped down into a smoky firelit underground room. Bowman followed, and then Mumpo, both spitting and pushing mud from their eyes. Above them, at the top of the staircase, the mud had resealed itself like a lid.
‘Well, Willum,’ said a cross voice. ‘A pretty time you’ve been.’
‘Ah, but looky, Jum!’
Willum stood aside, to display the children. A round mud-coated woman sat on a stool by the fire, stirring a pot and scowling.
‘What’s this, then?’ she said.
‘Skinnies, my love.’
‘Skinnies, is it?’
She lumbered up from her seat and came over to them. She patted them with her muddy hand and stroked their trembling cheeks.