The wind's twelve quarters - vol 2 by Ursula K. Le Guin Page A

backmost level, behind an angle of quartz intrusion which
the miners had left jutting out as a supporting buttress, he made his new camp,
setting out the food, water, tinderbox, and candles where they would come under
his hand easily in the dark, and laying the cloak as a mattress on the floor,
which was of a rubbly, hard clay. Then he put out the candle, already burned
down by a quarter of its length, and lay down in the dark.
    After
his third return to that first side-tunnel, finding no sign that Bord had come
there, he went back to his camp and studied his provisions. There were still
two loaves of bread, half a bottle of water, and the salt meat, which he had
not yet touched; and four candles. He guessed that it might have been six days
since Bord had come, but it might have been three, or eight. He was thirsty,
but dared not drink, so long as he had no other supply.
    He
set off to find water.
    At
first he counted his paces. After a hundred and twenty he saw that the
timbering of the tunnel was askew, and there were places where the rubble fill
had broken through, half filling the passage. He came to a winze, a vertical
shaft, easy to scramble down by what remained of the wooden ladder, but after
it, in the lower level, he forgot to count his steps. Once he passed a broken
pick handle; farther on he saw a miner's discarded headband, a stump of candle
still stuck in the forehead socket. He dropped this into the pocket of his coat
and went on.
    The
monotony of the walls of hewn stone and planking dulled his mind. He walked on
like one who will walk forever. Darkness followed him and went ahead of him.
    His
candle burning short spilled a stream of hot tallow on his fingers, hurting
him. He dropped the candle, and it went out.
    He
groped for it in the sudden dark, sickened by the reek of its smoke, lifting
his head to avoid that stink of burning. Before him, straight before him, far
away, he saw the stars.
    Tiny,
bright, remote, caught in a narrow opening like the slot in the observatory
dome: an oblong full of stars in blackness.
    He
got up, forgetting about the candle, and began to run towards the stars.
    They
moved, dancing, like the stars in the telescope field when the clockwork
mechanism shuddered or when his eyes were very tired. They danced, and
brightened.
    He
came among them, and they spoke to him.
    The
flames cast queer shadows on the blackened faces and brought queer lights out
of the bright, living eyes.
    'Here
then, who's that? Hanno?'
    'What
were you doing up that old drift, mate?'
    'Hey,
who is that?'
    'Who
the devil, stop him—'
    'Hey,
mate! Hold on!'
    He
ran blind into the dark, back the way he had come. The lights followed him and
he chased his own faint, huge shadow down the tunnel. When the shadow was
swallowed by the old dark and the old silence came again he still stumbled on,
stooping and groping so that he was oftenest on all fours or on his feet and
one hand. At last he dropped down and lay huddled against the wall, his chest
full of fire.
    Silence,
dark.
    He
found the candle end in the tin holder in his pocket, lighted it with the flint
and steel, and by its glow found the vertical shaft not fifty feet from where
he had stopped. He made his way back up to his camp. There he slept; woke and
ate, and drank the last of his water; meant to get up and go seeking water
again; fell asleep, or into a doze or daze, in which he dreamed of a voice
speaking to him.
    'There
you are. All right. Don't startle. I'll do you no harm. I said it wasn't no
knocker. Who ever heard of a knocker as tall as a man? Or who ever seen one,
for that matter. They're what you don't see, mates,
I said. And what we did see was a man, count on it. So what's he doing in the
mine, said they, and what if he's a ghost, one of the lads that was caught when
the house of water broke in the old south adit, maybe, come walking? Well then,
I said, I'll go see that. I never seen a ghost yet, for all I heard of them. I
don't care to see what's