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but he knew what it was. His instinct—his inborn dog memory—recognized it. He thought about it. The river must be going somewhere, but where? If it went back into the mountain, the mountain would fill up with water, which was impossible, so the river must be going
out
of the mountain, which was where Furgul wanted to go too.
    Furgul had never been in deep water. Did he know how to swim? He knew he didn’t look like a fish. His instinct told him to take the risk. His only other choice was to go all the way back to the cavern and follow another tunnel. He didn’t like that idea. The crystal cavern was Nessa’s tomb. A beautiful tomb, but a tomb just the same. A tomb felt like death; the river felt like life.
    Furgul retreated back up the tunnel a few steps and turned. He took a deep breath. He sprinted forward, and when he felt the edge of the tunnel beneath his pads, he whipped his hind legs under him and pushed and jumped as far as he could. He sailed out into the nothingness. Then he plunged down into the dark.
    The wind rushed in his ears. He became a part of the roar. He expected to fall forever. Then suddenly he splashed into a deluge of icy-cold water. He wanted to gasp as he went under, but he held his breath. He found himself paddling with hispaws. He pushed upward, and his head broke the surface and he panted. Water went in his mouth, and he swallowed. For a second he felt panic flap inside him like a pair of monstrous wings. He made himself think about Argal. He paddled harder to keep his head higher. It worked. If he paddled hard enough and stretched his long neck far enough, he could breathe.
    His instinct had been right. He could swim.
    The force of the river was incredible. It swept him along at fantastic speed. It was terrifying. But it was exciting. Almost before he knew it, he found that he could see the wavy black surface of the water. White foam splashed against the walls of rock on either side. Total darkness had retreated. He looked up and craned his head above the waves and saw a bright yellow light way up ahead. The river swept him onward, and the light became brighter and brighter till it almost dazzled him.
    He blinked until the light didn’t hurt anymore. He was rushing toward a hole in the side of the mountain where the river escaped. Just beyond the hole he saw something he could hardly believe. It was the curve of a rainbow. What was a rainbow doing in a river? Then the river swept him out of the hole in the mountain’s side—right into the rainbow itself—and Furgul found out why.
    When the river left the mountain, it became a waterfall.
    He fell through the air—through the colors of the rainbow—with the wild cataract roaring under his paws. He looked down. Far below was a bubbling white vortex. He plummeted straight toward it. He took the biggest breath hecould take and—WHOOSH—he splashed through the foam and went down and down.
    He struggled underwater in a turbulence of bubbles and swirling green whorls. Just as he thought his lungs would burst, the current thrust him back to the surface and carried him onward. By the time he caught his breath, Furgul had left the waterfall and its rainbow far behind.
    He looked back at the mountain. The sun was going down behind it, and the sky was all red and gold. The mountain had a double peak, and to Furgul it looked like a greyhound’s snout, with its jaws wide open and howling up at the sky. Furgul decided he would call it Dogsnout Mountain.
    As Dogsnout Mountain got farther and farther away, Furgul felt sad. He had almost died in the mountain, but it wasn’t the mountain’s fault. He felt as if the mountain had helped him escape. He believed that Nessa’s spirit would find peace there, inside the crystal cavern, which she had loved. He hoped that Nessa would find Eena and show her the rocky witch’s fingers and the beautiful turquoise lagoon. He hoped that Nessa would guide the spirits of all the murdered dogs to rest in the