came to a level stretch of ground where the bracken thinned and gave place to rich turf, dappled with sunlight. And here, in the midst of so much beauty, they learnt too late that wizards’ words are seldom idle, and traps well sprung hold hard their prey.
Out of the ground on all sides swirled tongues of thick white mist, which merged into a rolling fog about the children’s knees; it paused, gathered itself, and leapt upwards, blotting out the sun and the world of life and light.
It was too much for Susan. Her nerve failed her. All that mattered was to escape from this chill cloud and what it must contain. She ran blindly, stumbled a score of paces, then tripped, and fell full length upon the grass.
She was not hurt, but the jolt brought her to her senses; the jolt – and something else.
In falling, she had thrown her arms out to protect herself, and as her head cleared she realised that there was no earth beneath her fingers, only emptiness. She lay there, not daring to move.
“Sue, where are you?” It was Colin’s voice, calling softly. “Are you all right?”
“I’m here. Be careful. I think I’m on the edge of a cliff, but I can’t see.”
“Keep still, then; I’ll feel my way to you.”
He crawled in the direction of Susan’s voice, but even in that short distance he partly lost his bearing, and it was several minutes before he found his sister, and having done so, he wriggled cautiously alongside her.
The turf ended under his nose, and all beyond was a sea of grey. Colin felt around for a pebble and dropped it over the edge. Three seconds passed before he heard it land.
“Good job you tripped, Sue! It’s a long way down. This must be the old quarry. Now keep quiet a minute, and listen.”
They strained their ears to catch the slightest sound, but there was nothing to be heard. They might have been the only living creatures on earth.
“We must go back to the path, Sue. And we’ve got to make as little noise as possible, because whatever it is that made this fog will be listening for us. If we don’t find the path we may easily walk round in circles until nightfall, even supposing we’re left alone as long as that.
“Let’s get away from this quarry, for a start: there’s no point in asking for trouble.”
They stood up, and holding each other’s hand, walked slowly back towards the path.
As the minutes went by, Susan grew more and more uneasy.
“Colin,” she said at last, “I hadn’t run more than a dozen steps, I’m sure, when I tripped, and we’ve been walking for a good five minutes. Do you think we’re going the right way?”
“No, I don’t. And I don’t know which is the right way, so we’ll have to hope for the best. We’ll try to walk in a straight line, and perhaps we’ll leave this fog behind.”
But they did not. Either the mist had spread out over a wide area, or, as the children began to suspect, it was moving with them. They made very slow progress; every few paces they would stop and listen, but there was only the silence of the mist, and that was as unnerving as the sound of something moving would have been. Also, it was impossible to see for more than a couple of yards in any direction, and they were frightened of falling into a hidden shaft, or even the quarry, for they had lost all sense of direction by now.
The path seemed to have vanished; but, in fact, they had crossed it some minutes earlier without knowing. As they approached, the mist had gathered thickly about their feet, hiding the ground until the path was behind them.
After a quarter of an hour Colin and Susan were shivering uncontrollably as the dampness ate into their bones. Every so often the trunk of a pine tree would loom out of the mist, so that it seemed as though they were walking through a pillared hall that had no beginning, and no end.
“We must be moving in circles, Colin. Let’s change direction instead of trying to keep in a straight line.”
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