The Caverns of Kronos

The Old Mines - Part 6

     It was amazing how different the tunnels looked when they were properly illuminated. Although a few of the lights were dark, probably because of some accident up on the surface that had broken or tilted the mirrors, enough were lit that the tunnel looked like an overgrown trail through dense undergrowth, every surface being covered by greenery to a depth of almost two feet in places. They could almost imagine that the fern covered ceiling was the overhanging branches of shrubs and small trees growing alongside their path, and that the greenish light filtering through obscuring leaves and fronds came from the actual yellow sun. Only the low gravity spoiled the effect, and added the conflicting illusion that they were swimming just above the bed of a shallow sea, the dense green seaweed above them obscuring their view of the waves overhead.

     The sunlight and the presence of so much life all around them had an amazingly revitalising effect on Lirenna, and Thomas felt his heart swelling with joy as he watched her almost literally coming back to life. The sparkle came back into her eyes, the gloss came back to her hair and the lines on her face were smoothed away as the sickness of the soul that had been afflicting her for so many weeks left her, and when she laughed for the first time since leaving the surface of Tharia, tears came to Thomas’s eyes and he thought that his heart would burst. Surely no human heart could contain so much happiness, so much relief without rupturing! From somewhere up ahead came the sound of birdsong, and Lirenna’s cry of delight was so much in contrast to her earlier mood that the others simply couldn’t help laughing in return.

     “Birds!” she cried joyously. “What are birds doing up here?”

     “Canaries,” said Jerry. “The trogs often take canaries and other small birds down into their mines, to check for gas and bad air. I bet the moon trogs did the same. A few must have escaped and learned how to survive on their own.”

     When Thomas looked at Lirenna, he saw that there were tears in her eyes, brimming over until they broke away into small salty globules drifting away in the tunnel. “I never thought I’d hear birdsong again!” she sobbed. “Oh Tom!”

     Thomas realised that he was grinning like an idiot but he didn’t care. He’d never been so happy in his life.

     The new mood of joy and happiness wasn’t to last, though, as Kronos revealed another of its secrets a few minutes later. One moment they were drifting along the tunnel, pulling and guiding themselves by grabbing hold of the vegetation all around them, the iron rungs now being buried out of reach beneath a considerable depth of damp organic matter. The next they were jolted out of their complacency by a whirlwind of teeth, claws and fur exploding from an opening in the tunnel they hadn’t seen until it was too late.

     The animal hit Jerry full on, breaking his hold on a small woody shrub and knocking him, spinning out of control, into the middle of the tunnel. The creature hung onto him by the shoulders with its forepaws, its claws digging through his clothes and deep into his flesh, and scratched at his stomach with its long clawed hind legs, and as the others got their first good look at it, they saw that it was huge cat. A chestnut coloured tabby grown to the size of a large dog, its ears folded flat against the sides of its head and its teeth bared as it spat directly into the tiny nome’s face as he searched frantically for his knife.

     The first two kicks from its hind legs tore his clothes to shreds, the third one ripped deep gashes in his stomach, spilling out a crimson cloud of floating blood droplets. The fourth would have disemboweled him, but a pair of firebolts from Thomas’s pointing finger hit it in the flank. The huge cat spun away in surprise and pain, pushing itself away back towards the cover of its tunnel and sending Jerry flying in the opposite direction to bounce off the fern covered tunnel wall, a spray of blood droplets still fountaining from his wounds.