I stumbled down the creaking wooden steps in the gloom, wholly fixated upon and making my way toward a tiny, welcome spot of light in the darkness, a torch far below me. Upward and behind, I heard nothing from the Ty Bach.
I reached the bottom and found myself on a frighteningly narrow dirt trail, which ran alongside an underground canal down the stone-topped tunnel into the black unknown on either side of me. My blood ran cold: the boat, there was no boat to carry me out of this place! Stepping down on to the path, I snatched the only torch next to the stair and began to move to my right, down the current, in the hope that the gondola which I had previously been assured would always be here had just floated a little away.
I believe I had gone two turns down the path along that darksome canal, when the sounds of violence erupted behind me. The creatures had found my trail! Rashly, I tossed my torch into the canal as they would be certain to find me by its light, only afterward realizing that I now had no light to find my way down the tunnel by! Momentarily panicked and short of breath, I flailed in the dark until my fingers brushed the cold and unforgiving stone of the wall. Grateful, I realized I could find my way forward by keeping my hands on the wall. I began to make my way carefully along it and down the path, as quickly as I could.
The noises behind me abated somewhat but did not disappear and after some time, I realized they must be following me! Resolute, I continued on my way for what seemed like many hours. My feet had begun to ache. A small stone had worked its way into my shoe and under my heel and the pain was excruciating but I dared not take my hands from the wall to remove it. I felt I might lose my way and fall into the dark and frozen waters of the canal or, alternatively, lose direction and make my way backward toward my pursuers! The pain of my heel, however, was as nothing to the pain of my hands upon the cold wall. As I went along, frigidly cold dew upon the stone coated my fingers and ran down my arms into my sleeves. I occasionally brushed what felt like living creatures which scuttled out from under my touch. At one point, I came along some strange, white moss, which began to glow with a cold light like the moon when I touched it. Amazed but joyous, I gathered handfuls of it and stumbled down the path with it lighting my way. I was saddened near to madness when it quickly faded, possibly I had killed it when I pulled it away from the walls into my hands. It may have been the unnatural warmth of my body in that frozen place. I was reduced to bringing my hands back to the unforgiving cold and punishing texture of the stone to find my way.
Hunger overcame me. I stumbled on. I shivered with the unrelenting cold. I stumbled on. I became convinced that I would die in this lightless hell, that no one would find my bones, that the world would never know my fate and forever wonder. Visions of a hot, fresh, chicken vindaloo danced through my head and I drooled helplessly. I was exhausted, there was no knowing how long I had gone sleeplessly down the tunnel but I did not dare to stop and sleep in this place, no! The noises behind me were diminished, at times completely gone, only to come again, faintly and unpredictably.
I stumbled on. My hands brushed something unexpected: a warm, smooth surface in the wall, not stone! Intrigued, I felt at it gingerly, frantically, to find an ovoid embedded in the wall, egg shaped and most certainly not stone. Without knowing why, I scrabbled at it frantically and then, suddenly the wall gave forth before me and I fell through into open space, arms and legs pinwheeling desperately in the air! I fetched up suddenly, slamming spread-eagled into the ground without warning, all the wind knocked from my lungs and my heart thudding in terror like a runaway ewe! I lay stunned, and gradually perceived a light. In my hand I held the object that I had found in the wall. It was an egg. An egg carved of wood. Some golden wood, pine perhaps, so cunningly fashioned that I could feel no grain upon its surface. The egg glowed. It glowed with a soft, warm and golden light that surrounded me and gave me hope. I held it and sat laughing with joy and so it was some time before I lifted my head to look at my surroundings.
