The Cave Explorer

The dwarf raised his lantern with one hand, while firmly holding his axe in the other. The cave was dark, and the light from the lantern was disorienting. He went like a man in a trance. He moved as if he were treading a strange path. His mind was in a whirl of ideas. He could not understand the language of his own race, and he had no knowledge of the ways of the world beyond the northern horizon. He was not aware of the darkness that veiled the shadows, of the shadows that darkened the moon, or of the shadows that cast their shadows. He was in the clutches of a strange world. His very soul was in that world. And the world was moving at a slant, with the lightness of a shadow. He could not see what lay before him, but he felt a strange, almost tangible sensation of motion and of movement.

He was in a strange world, yet he was not aware of it.