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be hewn out of the ridge itself.
    At the base of the stairs was a broad, open chamber with tunnels running away into the earth on three sides – one toward each of the Professor’s various caverns, likely. Jonathan clumped down onto the stone floor below the final stair, and the floor, oddly, emitted a hollow thud. Behind them sounded a metallic click and the confused ratchet clatter of a banging cog and a chain rattling through an iron ring. The heavy trap door banged down, the hollow
whump
blowing a gust of air down the dark spiralling stair and into Jonathan’s upturned face.

4
The Cavern of Malthius
     
    Jonathan handed the lamp to the Professor and followed him back up to where the trap lay nestled in a niche of stone, entirely blocking the stairwell. Jonathan bent in under it, put his back to it, and pushed, but nothing happened. It was like pushing against the side of a mountain. There were no levers or pulleys or any such thing to manipulate either.
    ‘That was a trap door, all right.’ Jonathan once again descended the stairs. ‘The latch was sprung when I stepped off the last stair. People like you and me aren’t meant to get out of here, I suppose.’
    ‘Nor anyone else,’ the Professor said.
    ‘Anyone else would have stepped off to the side, maybe, and not sprung the trap.’
    The Professor scratched his head. ‘Still, no one would take the chance of being trapped here. Either there’s another exit or a device to work the pulley from below. If there’s such a device, we’ll find it. There are only two physical laws that apply in this case – the law of gravity and Pinwinnie’s Push-Pull Theorem.’
    ‘Pinwinnie?’ Jonathan asked.
    ‘Of course. Why? Do you think that Pinwinnie’s Theorem wouldn’t answer?’
    ‘Not at all.’ Jonathan smiled. ‘I have complete faith in Pinwinnie. Complete faith.’
    ‘AH right then,’ the Professor continued, ‘in the light of scientific knowledge, the workings of this door will be made manifest.’
    ‘That’s good,’ Jonathan said. ‘Because in a few hours the light of this whale oil lamp isn’t going to be making anything manifest.’
    ‘You’ve got a point there.’ The Professor waved the lamp in question out toward the chamber. ‘Now that you mention it, we’d best be on our way. One of these tunnels leads to an exit, or I’m a codfish. There’s too much good air in here to suppose this cellar is enclosed.’
    ‘Let’s go then,’ Jonathan urged. Ahab trotted across the floor of the chamber and, wisely, into the mouth of a tunnel that seemed to slope slightly uphill and gave Jonathan the hope that it led out into daylight. They wandered along the passage for twenty yards or so before it leveled off for a hundred yards. The tunnel itself was narrow and high, the roof being out of sight overhead. By stretching out his arms, Jonathan could easily touch both sides. After a bit he began to suspect that the tunnel was sloping very gradually downhill, but it was hard to be sure. The lamp didn’t throw enough light for them to get a good look either up or down. Jonathan called a halt, reached into a little pouch that hung on his belt, and hauled out the little ivory ball with the elf runes on it that he kept for good luck. He laid the ball on the floor of the tunnel, and they watched as it tottered forward and began to roll with increasing speed down the dark corridor. Ahab went nosing slowly after it and Jonathan followed, picking the thing up and putting it back into his pouch.
    The two of them pondered for a moment. Jonathan was for going back, but the Professor was for going on, pointing out that just because the tunnel was running downhill that didn’t mean it would continue to do so. After all, it had started out uphill. Jonathan was pretty sure that the Professor favored going on as much for the sake of scientific pursuit as for finding a way out, but he agreed in the end to follow his lead.
    Soon there was no doubt they were descending,