When the four travelers awoke, many hours later, they discovered their next problem. White, fuzzy mold was all over their mushrooms.
“I’ve seen this before,” Dem shared. “They’re poison now.”
Jin tasted one, just to be sure, but quickly spat it out, and didn’t quit spitting for several minutes.
Tir frowned. “So much for our food supply, except for . . .” She pulled the rusty can of “Spinach” from the bottom of her bag. Everyone watched as she spent the next quarter hour carefully working with her mushroom knife to get the can open.
The gray-green slime that greeted them on the inside of the can caused their faces to twist.
“I see now,” Dem began, “why the Tunnel Leaders weren’t too careful about keeping this particular can locked up.”
Tir pulled some of the greenish slime out with her fingers, tasted it, and pronounced it edible. They shared the contents equally in silence, but none of the four felt like they had just eaten a satisfying meal.
With bellies soon growling again, they continued to wander among the big stalagmites and stone draperies of the huge cavern, keeping as close to the right-hand wall as possible in the fading hope of seeing Bel and Fen again.
They slowly became aware that the wall was curving away from where they guessed the river was flowing. After another half hour of walking with
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slumped shoulders and heavy feet, they sat down on a dry flowstone and peered at the Map with glazed eyes.
“Farewell, friends,” Tir whispered.
Tik nodded, remembering Fen, not very smart, but completely loyal to Bel.
After a few more minutes, Dem shook himself out of his sadness, which helped the others to do the same. “The Map only shows a small part of this big cavern. Somewhere on the other side should be a crawl-hole. I just hope there’s only one.”
“If we find one,” Jin proposed, “we could keep going along the wall ‘til we get back to the river beach, then we’ll know for sure.”
In the silence that lingered after Jin spoke, they suddenly heard three or four footsteps, on rocky ground, that quickly faded away.
Everyone remained silent and strained to hear more, but could only make out the faint sounds of their own breathing.
“I don’t think that was a person,” Dem whispered after several long minutes had passed.
“Something small, with hard feet,” Tir speculated. “What were those called?”
“Hooves,” Tik said softly in the silence.
“But . . .” Tir protested, “nothing with hooves has been alive, anywhere in the world, for centuries! ”
Tik only shrugged.
Dem put away the Map and they began to wander through the cavern again, all four travelers pondering the sound of hooves on rock that had so briefly interrupted the silence.
Soon they came to a low place between cave formations where a little water and dirt had collected. They stood and stared, glow-stones held low, for out of the mud emerged tiny hoof prints that crossed a flowstone, then disappeared into broken rocks.
“Four-legged,” Tir observed. “About the size of a . . . what were those things people used to have as pets?”
“Dogs,” Jin began, “but they didn’t have hooves.”
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Suddenly a tremendous noise of splashing, flapping, and shrill calls filled the cavern, and all four friends covered their ears. The sounds echoed off the walls, making the noise seem to come from everywhere at once.
Within a minute, the chaotic sounds died down. The travelers held their glow-stones high, but save for an occasional flash of something high in the air, they saw nothing.
Soon the shrill voices settled down into gentle cooing mixed with a flapping or splashing sound now and then.
“Cave birds!” Jin declared. “But where did they come from, and where’s the water we heard, and what do they eat? ”
With hunger beginning to gnaw at their empty stomachs, Jin’s last question lingered in their minds. Tir decided to take the idea a step further.
“And can we eat them? ”
The four travelers resumed their wandering through the huge cavern, always staying fairly near the wall. Hope of seeing their missing friends faded from their minds as hunger asserted itself more and more painfully.
The cavern was no longer silent, as the sounds of birds cooing to each other, and occasionally taking flight, was now ever-present, although the splashing sound was rare. Seldom did the wanderers actually see the birds, and they all realized that Tir’s idea for their next meal was probably not going to happen.
As they continued along the wall, some facts about the geometry of the cave began to penetrate their hunger-clouded minds. At the next halfway-comfortable place, Dem sat down, leaned against a rock, and looked up at the ceiling, still too high to be illuminated by their glow-stones. The others joined him.
“The birds are up there somewhere, probably nesting in cracks and ledges in the cavern ceiling, but we’re never right under them, and we never see any droppings. I don’t get it.”
Everyone was silent for a minute, just listening to the cooing and flapping, never directly above them.
Suddenly Tik laughed.
The others looked at him.
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“They must be in the middle. We’ve always stayed near the wall.”
Dem grinned in the light of his glow-stone.
Tir and Jin looked at each other and smiled.
They had not gone far when they became painfully aware of why they had never pointed their feet toward the middle of the cavern, not counting their earlier desire to find another river beach. As soon as the wall was no longer in sight, they felt completely lost, and every direction looked exactly the same, save for the faint trail their own feet left in places.
Tir began breathing fast and her eyes became wide with fear. Dem noticed and took her hand.
Tik and Jin felt it enough to understand, but just flashed each other quick grins.
Tir was soon able to relax, but didn’t let go of her brother’s hand. The bird sounds were getting closer. Her curiosity, even if no dinner was forthcoming, made her go on.
The middle of the cavern nearly took their breath away. A roughly circular open area, perhaps forty feet across, sloped down to a deep pool of glowing water. The slopes around the pool were covered with bird droppings, and from those sprang mushrooms of many shapes and sizes.
Even as the four stood at the top of the slope with open mouths, the surface of the still water was broken by a bird who leapt into the air, spread its wings, and made for the ceiling above, dripping water onto the mushrooms below.
“That must be how the birds get in and out!” Jin proposed excitedly.
“Is light coming from that pool, or am I seeing things?” Tir asked.
Everyone pocketed their glow-stones.
Indeed, the pool cast a dim bluish-green light that allowed them to make out the nearest stalagmites and some of the larger mushrooms on the slope.
“Glow-stones in the pool?” Jin wondered aloud.
“Wrong color,” Tik pointed out.
“Maybe . . . something growing on the rocks underwater,” Dem speculated.
Tik, still looking intently at the pool, nodded.
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After a long silence to ponder all they could see, Tir spoke. “Not much chance of bird for dinner. How about some mushrooms?”
“I never thought I’d say this,” Dem began, “but after going hungry for most of a day, the thought of more mushrooms isn’t too bad.”
Jin, only a beginning mushroom cutter back home, scrunched her face with worry. “But . . . there are so many different kinds here! How do we know which ones are edible, and which poisonous?”
Tir, a planter who had been able to watch the sorters on many occasions, smiled. “I think I can help with that. And if nothing else, there’s the old test that people have used for centuries.”
The others looked at their mushroom expert.
She grinned for a second. “Eat mushrooms for dinner, go to sleep. If you wake up the next morning, the mushrooms were edible.”