shrugged. “Somebody find somethin’. Highbulp go see.” He
tasted the stew. “Good,” he said. He tasted again, then
turned away, philosophically. “Life like stew,” he said.
“Fulla rats an’ turnips.”
The Lady Drule glanced after him, mildly bewildered,
then glanced around the cavern. Only a few of the males
were there, some asleep, some more interested in eating
than in following the Highbulp around, and two or three
who had started on the trek into the tunnel, then lost interest
and turned back.
She could see them clearly, she noticed. The cavern
suddenly was very well lighted, light flooding in from the
entrance and growing brighter by the moment. Near the fire,
a sleeping gully dwarf rolled over, sat up and blinked,
shading his eyes. “Huh!” he said. “Mornain’ already?”
The light grew, its color changing from angry red to
orange, to yellow and then to brilliant white, nearly blinding
them, even in the shadows of the cavern. Other sleeping
souls awoke and gaped about them.
“What happenin’?” the Lady Drule wondered. Hunch
returned with a bowl and filled it with stew. “Get-tin’
lighter,” he said, absently. Abruptly there was a howling at
the entrance, and a gust of wind like an oven blast swept
into the cave. The stew in Hunch’s bowl seemed to come
alive. It spewed up and out, showering gravy halfway
across the chamber. The bowl followed, wrenched from the
Grand Notioner’s grip, and Hunch followed that, rolling
and shouting, his mop-handle flailing.
Everywhere, then, gully dwarves were scurrying for
cover – stumbling, falling, rolling, fleeing from the brilliant,
howling entrance. They scurried into crevices, rolled into
holes, dodged behind erosion pillars . . . and abruptly there
was silence. The bright light still flooded in from the
entrance, but now not quite so blinding. The roaring wind
died away and the howling diminished to a low, continuing
rumble almost below hearing.
Silence . . . then the rumbling increased. The floor of
the cavern seemed to dance, vibrating to the sound. Bits of
stone and showers of dust fell from the walls, and chunks of
rock parted from the ceiling to crash downward. A rattling,
bouncing flood of gravel buried the stew pot and the fire,
and there was a new sound above the rumbling – the high,
keening wail of stone splitting.
The cavern’s entrance collapsed with a roar. Tons of
broken stone slid across the opening, burying it, sealing it.
Within, the rumbling and the rattle of rockfall were a chaos
of noise, but now the noise built in darkness, for there was
no light to see.
*****
The tunnel from the back of the cavern called This
Place wound deep into the capstone of the hill, bending and
turning, always angling upward. His Royalness Gorge III,
Highbulp and leader of clans, was somewhat to the rear of
his expedition when the rest of them rounded a bend in the
rising tunnel and saw the light ahead. Somewhere along the
way, Gorge had decided that his feet were sore, and had
taken to limping whenever he thought about it.
But when he heard the shouts and exclamations ahead
of him – cries of, “Hey! This pretty!” and “Nice stuff, huh?”
and “Where that light comin’ from?” – he forgot his limp
and hurried to see what was going on. Rounding a bend, he
found a traffic tie-up in a well-lighted cave, where the light
seemed to grow brighter moment by moment. The first
arrivals there had stopped in awe; others had piled into them
from behind, and several had fallen down. Wading around
and through tangles of his subjects, Gorge pushed past them
and stopped. The cavern was a wide oval, an erosion
chamber where ancient seeps had collected, and at the top
of it was a hole that opened to the sky … a sky that suddenly
was as bright as day.
“What goin’ on here?” Gorge demanded. “What light
through yonder . . . yon . . . why hole all lit up?”
“Dunno,” several of his subjects explained. Then one of
them pointed aside. “See, Highbulp? Pretty rocks.”
He looked, and his eyes widened. One entire wall of
the cavern glistened like brilliant gold, layer upon layer of