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uncharacteristic excitement.
"I think we're through," he announced cheerily.
"Through? Through where? Surely not the mountains." Clothahump
frowned. "It could not be. The range is too massive to be so narrow. And the
legends..."
"No, no, sir. Not through the mountains. But the airspace above the
upper river has suddenly expanded from but a few inches to one many feet high.
There is a substantial cave, far more interesting to look at than this
homogeneous tunnel. We can travel above now, and there's some light as well."
"What kind of light?" Flor wanted to know.
"You'll see."
Preparations were made. Buoyant material did not have to be dragged
or shoved downward this time. Instead, they simply had to raise it to the
upper stream and insert it, whereupon it would instantly bob to the second
surface. Mudge was waiting to slip a line on such packages and drag them to
shore.
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When all their stores had been transferred, the nonaquatics climbed
the mast rope and pushed themselves into the upper river. It was far easier to
ascend than that first uncertain dive had been.
Jon-Tom broke the surface with wind to spare. He remained there a
while, treading water as he inspected the cavern into which the river emerged.
The boatman had understated its size in his usual phlegmatic
fashion. The cave was enormous. Off to his left Jon-Tom could see the abrupt
cessation of the solid stone wall that had formed a tight lid on the upper
stream for so many days. Little debris drifted this far on the river, and what
few pieces and bits of wood tumbled by were worn almost smooth from the
continual buffeting against that unyielding overhang.
More amazing were the cavern walls. They appeared to be coated with
millions of tiny lights. He swam lazily toward the nearby beach, crawled out
and selected a towel with which to dry himself, and moved to inspect the
nearest glowing rocks.
The lights were predominantly gold in hue, though a few odd bursts
and patches of red, blue, green, and yellow were visible. The bioluminescents
were lichens and fungi of many species, ranging from mere colored smears
against the rock to elaborate mushrooms and step fungi. Individually their
lumen output was insignificant, but in the millions they illuminated the
cavern as thoroughly as an evening sun.
He was kneeling to examine a cluster of bright blue toadstools when
a vast rush and burble sounded behind him. He turned, instinctively expecting
to see some unmentionable river monster rising from the depths. It was only
their boat.
The first days on board he'd wondered at the purpose of great
collapsed intestines, carefully scraped and dried, that lined the little
craft's hold. Now he knew. Having been inflated in turn they'd given the boat
sufficient lifting power to rise like a balloon from the lower river right up
to the surface of its twin.
Now it bobbed uncertainly as Bribbens rushed to open the valves
sealing each inflated stomach before they could lift the ship from its second
surface to the ceiling of the cavern. Water ran off the decks and out the
seacocks. Mudge pumped furiously to purge the remaining water from the hold.
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Dry and dressed, the passengers were soon traveling once more
eastward. The scenery had improved greatly. Jon-Tom hoped the cavern would not
shrink around them and force them again down to the dull surface of the
understream.
He needn't have worried. Instead of compacting, the cavern grew
larger. It seemed endless, stretching vast and fluorescent ahead of them.
Phosphorescent growths made the river an artist's palette, oils of
many colors all run together and anarchically brilliant. Gigantic stalactites
drooped like teeth from the distant ceiling. Some were far larger than the
boat. They drifted past huge panels of flowstone, frozen rivers of stained
calcite. Helictites curled and twisted from the walls, twitching at gravity
like so many crystalline whiskers. Fungi flashed from diem all.
On both sides they could see passages branching from the main
cavern. Jon-Tom had a powerful urge to grab a lamp and do some casual
spelunking. But Clothahump reminded hiru there would be ample exploring to do
without deviating frori their course. So long as the river continued to run
eastward they would keep to the boat.
The size and magnificence of the cavern kept him fror.i thinking
about the composition of the Sloomaz-ayor-le-Weenti:
It was disconcerting to sail along a river that flowed not o.rock or
sand but on air.
"How do you know it even has a solid bottom?" Plor onc,asked their
boatman. "Maybe it's a triple or quadruple-river?"
Bribbens rested in his seat at the stem, one arm draped protectively
across the steering oar.
"Because I've been in and out of it many times, lady. Anyway, no
matter where you are on the river the anchors always bite into the second
bottom."
Here and there the warm glow of the bioluminescents would fade and
then vanish. At such times they had to rely on the lamps for light until they
reached another fluorescent section.
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It didn't bother Pog. He'd finally recovered from his lengthy
grumpiness. To him the darkness was natural, and he enjoyed the stretches of
no-light. They could hear him swooping and darting beyond the range of the
boat's lamps, playing dodgem with the cave formations. Sometimes he'd leave
the boat for long stretches of time, much to Clothahump's displeasure and
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