DragonSpell (34 page)

The sphere burst, spilling Shimeran and Seezle onto the hard floor. A sparkling light filled the room for an instant. The kimens curled into balls, rolled over a couple of times, then sprang to their feet. They shook their heads, sending their already wild hair flying in all directions.

Shimeran placed his hands on his hips and surveyed his surroundings. Seezle squealed with delight and sprang across the expanse to hug Kale’s neck.

“I thought you were dead.” Kale laughed with relief. Seezle’s warm body tickled a little.

“Whyever did you think that?” asked Shimeran.

“You were so still.”

“We were waiting.”

“Your lights weren’t shining.”

Seezle giggled. “You saw our underwear.”

Shimeran gave his sister an impatient look.

Kale wrinkled her brow, trying to remember what the stonelike figures of the two kimens looked like. “Uh, I don’t remember seeing anything but a lot of hair.”

That sent Seezle into another round of giggles accompanied by acrobatics.

Shimeran sighed. “Kimen skin is very much like a covering, like a finely knitted stocking without seams.” He scowled at Seezle. She quit prancing and stood in one place but continued to quiver with glee. Shimeran focused on Kale.

“Where are the others?”

Kale pointed across the room behind her. “Gymn and Metta are waiting over there. Fenworth and the others are in a prison cell.”

“Can you find them from here?”

Kale took a moment to get her bearings and locate Leetu. She tilted her head toward the tunnel behind them. “They should be down that way. But half these tunnels end abruptly, and you have to backtrack.”

The kimen leader nodded. “Do you need help fetching the minor dragons?”

“No.”

“Then do so quickly.”

He could have said thanks.

The thought startled her. Had Risto said that? No, it was her own thought. Where was Risto all this time? Why was he so quiet and not pestering her?

Kale dove into the room and swam across as easily as if she were swimming to the opposite shore of Baltzentor’s Pond. The dragons would not fly in the room, but rode back across on Kale’s head. Their clawed feet dug into her scalp. They jumped off into the opening just as they reached it and stood huddled together looking fearfully at the now-deserted chamber.

“Why do they find that place so dreadful?” Kale asked.

“The heavy air would have clogged their tiny lungs,” said Shimeran.

“I didn’t feel anything.”

“No, you probably could have lasted an hour or more before you realized you were drowning.”

Kale looked back into the clear air and wondered what other hidden dangers they would encounter on this quest.

She shifted the sling on her back and turned to follow the others down the passageway.

The meech egg thrummed. A loud thrum. It vibrated her shoulder blades. It could be heard distinctly in the stone tunnel. It echoed and grew louder with each beat. Surely every bisonbeck in the region could hear the meech egg’s contented thrum.

         
47
         

W
HICH
W
AY
O
UT?

As Shimeran, Seezle, Kale, and the dragons approached the dungeon cell from one end of the long tunnel, four bisonbeck guards approached it from the other.

“We heard you coming,” said Dar when they reached the cell.

“So did they,” Kale answered, nodding to the burly men out of the prisoners’ sight.

Shimeran dropped to one knee beside the locked door and placed his hands in a cup to receive his sister’s tiny feet. Seezle stood on this makeshift boost and reached a hand inside the keyhole. In a moment the door swung open. Lee Ark, Brunstetter, Dar, and Leetu jumped into the corridor with their weapons ready. The bisonbecks charged.

Leetu slew the lead soldier with an arrow. Dar let fly two small daggers and downed another. Though Lee Ark and Brunstetter were massive, they moved with quick precision. The marione and urohm dispatched the remaining two warriors in a brief flurry of hand-to-hand combat.

“Is there any way to quiet that egg?” Lee Ark asked as he cleaned his blade before sheathing it.

The egg’s monotone thrum, drowned out in the din of battle, now sounded loud in the rock corridor. It hung against Kale’s back, gently vibrating.

The marione commander looked straight at Kale, and she suddenly felt guilty. “No, I mean, I don’t know.” She looked at Leetu and Dar. Both shrugged and looked to Fenworth. He shook his head and turned to his librarian.

“Well?” The wizard cocked an eyebrow.

“I believe,” said Librettowit, “Kale is carrying the book containing a reference to meech eggs in her cape.”

Kale slipped the sling off her back and quickly located the books. She pulled out a heavy brown volume.

Librettowit frowned and shook his head. “No, smaller.”

He rejected each book Kale found until she reached her arm into the hollow up to her shoulder and recovered a small blue leather book with ancient yellowed pages.

The librarian frowned as he opened it. “Someone has been restoring these volumes.” He leveled a glare at the o’rant girl. “Risky business. You could do a lot of damage.”

Kale shook her head and spread her hands in an innocent gesture. “Not me, it was the cape.”

Librettowit carefully turned the fragile pages until he came to a passage of interest. He harrumphed a few times as he read.

“I could send it to my castle,” suggested Fenworth.

“No,” said the tumanhofer and scratched his brow.

“Use it to bake a cake and then do the backward spell once we’re out of this hideous mountain.”

“No,” said Librettowit and squinted fiercely behind his spectacles.

Lee Ark, Brunstetter, and Leetu stood at attention. Dar shifted from foot to foot. With big yawns, the minor dragons disappeared into their pocket-dens. Fenworth stroked his beard, dislodging a whole family of mice and a sparrow.

“Just as I feared,” Librettowit said.

“What can we do?” asked the wizard.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? You went to university so that in a time of crisis you come up with nothing? Preposterous. We should have brought a plumber instead of a librarian.”

He turned to address Lee Ark. “I knew it at the time, but he mopes if you leave him at home.”

The tumanhofer’s face went red beneath his whiskers. With his book tucked under one arm, he stepped in front of the old wizard and with a pointed finger jabbed him in the beard at waist level. “I didn’t want to come on this quest. I told you I’m a librarian, not an individual given to questing.”

Fenworth bent forward and growled. “You should have told me you were a plumber! I would have left a plumber at home. In fact, I did. I
did
leave the plumber at home and brought a librarian.”

Librettowit shook his fist in the wizard’s face. “You don’t even know a plumber.”

Lee Ark stepped forward, separating them. He stood between the angry men and patted each on a shoulder. “If the bisonbecks don’t hear the egg, they will hear you. I suggest we leave.”

Fenworth straightened and looked at the floor strewn with bisonbeck warriors slain minutes before. “Quite a good idea, actually. It’s getting crowded down here.” He looked down the dungeon corridor in both directions. “Which way would you suggest we go, Wit? You’ve always had a good head for directions. Especially underground.”

Librettowit signaled for the others to follow and led them back the way Kale had come with Seezle and Shimeran. As they passed the room where the orb had floated, Kale touched Leetu’s arm and whispered.

“I haven’t heard Risto’s voice in my head for a long time. What do you suppose he is up to?”

“He’s up to capturing us again. You haven’t heard him because the rest of us put a shield around you.”

“How?”

“The same way you blocked him with the words Granny Noon gave you. We knew you were in peril so we kept up the block for you.”

“You can do that?”

She nodded.

Kale looked at her companions trudging through the tunnel, following the tumanhofer. “All of you?”

“All of us in the cell.”

“What did you say?”

“We stand together under Wulder’s authority and offer a shield of protection from Risto’s poisonous words around Kale’s mind.”

“And the words worked?”

“The words didn’t work, Kale. Wulder worked.”

Another four bisonbeck guards barreled down the corridor at them. Lee Ark and Brunstetter sprang in front of Librettowit.

Leetu pushed Kale behind Dar and the wizard. “Keep that egg safe,” she ordered and ran forward to enter the fray.

The wizard changed into a tree. Dar stood ready with a dagger and his short sword drawn. The bisonbecks did not break through the comrades’ line of defense.

Kale gingerly stepped over the legs of one of the fallen warriors when Lee Ark gave the all clear and Fenworth was persuaded to change back into himself. The sight of blood still made her queasy. The still forms of the dead soldiers looked capable of jumping up and resuming their fierce battle.

Kale and the wizard fell into step together. Dar and the kimens guarded the rear, Lee Ark, Brunstetter, and Leetu followed directly behind Librettowit who seemed confident about his directions.

“Why can’t you just whirl us out of here, Wizard Fenworth?”

“Whirl? Whirl! What type of scientific activity is whirl?”

She decided not to let him distract her. “Whirl, as in move people without regard to time or distance from one place to another, as when you whirled our party from The Midways to your castle. Whirl, the useful action of a wizard in times of necessity.”

The wizard scowled at her with narrowed eyes but kept walking.

“You didn’t happen to pick up my walking stick, now did you?”

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t see it.”

“You didn’t place it in your cape hollow?”

“No sir.”

Fenworth turned his attention to those in front of them. Kale peeked at the wizard’s frowning face. He didn’t look open to any more questions.

They moved on. The egg thrummed. Kale shifted the light weight to the center of her back. “About the whirling out of the mountain.”

“The walking stick would have been useful.”

“You could put your hand on my shoulder, sir.”

He promptly clapped his wrinkled hand over Kale’s blue scarf strap and gave her a gentle squeeze. They walked on, turning occasionally and once climbing two flights of stone steps. Soldiers in groups of four tried to stop them twice.

She could sense the whereabouts of the underground populace. She knew Librettowit was leading them to an uninhabited region.

“Wizard Fenworth, can you do something to get us out of here safely?”

“You know, dear girl, you have a mind like your mother’s.”

She held her breath, hoping the old man would say more.

He took a deep breath, coughed a little, and squeezed her shoulder.

“The cape did not mend the items you put in the hollow.”

“It didn’t?”

“Not by itself.”

She puzzled over the statement. “I didn’t do anything, sir. At least, I don’t think I did.”

“No?”

She tried to remember what she was thinking at the time. Something about doing something useful instead of sitting around in a daze. “I don’t think I did anything.”

“You didn’t happen to be wearing my hat?”

Oh no! I was! I wonder if it’s a great crime to put a wizard’s hat on your head. I mean, if you aren’t a wizard. If you’re just a slave girl. I mean, a servant.

There’s no use trying to keep it a secret.

“Yes sir. I believe I did. Just to have my hands free to sort through the debris and pick things up. I didn’t mean any disrespect, Wizard Fenworth.”

“The combination of the hat and the cape and your talents as an Allerion mended the broken items you put in the hollow.” He patted her shoulder. “I shall enjoy having you as an apprentice, I think. That is, if we get out of this mountain alive.”

“About whirling, sir?”

“No, Kale.”

         
48
         

M
OVING
H
EAVEN AND
E
ARTH

With each tunnel they turned into, the questing party moved farther away from the underground populace. No bisonbeck guards challenged them after they entered a natural cavern deep in the mountain. The ceiling here vaulted high above their heads. The scattered tiny lightrocks looked like stars in the night sky. A trickle of water ran in a meandering stream across the footpath. The travelers had to cross and recross as they followed Librettowit.

“Clever, very clever,” muttered Fenworth under his breath at regular intervals.

“What’s he done?” asked Kale, looking ahead at the tumanhofer librarian as he trod purposefully forward.

“Not, he. Me.” Fenworth leaned heavily on Kale’s shoulder as they walked. “Bringing a plumber would have been a total waste of time. Librarians are handy. Tumanhofer librarians, when you are under a tumanhofer mountain, are especially useful.”

“Where is he taking us?”

“Who?”

“Librettowit.”

“Out of the mountain.”

“He knows the way? He’s been here before?”

“Librettowit is a history buff. Knows about old mines. This one probably hasn’t seen a tumanhofer pick in over a thousand years. Thing is, Wit knew it was here, and he knows where the gate is.”

Kale’s shoulders straightened. “A gate out of the mountain?”

“Tumanhofers like gates. And onions. And cheese. Books, of course. And mechanical things. Handy in an agricultural way, as well.”

Kale spoke quickly, trying to stop the wizard’s flow of conversation before he got completely off track. “Will there be tumanhofers at the gate?”

“Wouldn’t think so.”

They moved on, watching their footing on a particularly rough patch.

Fenworth coughed, having some trouble clearing his throat. “Do hope the gate’s open. Likely to be shut, though. Tumanhofers like things closed up and tidy. Old gate. Might not open if it’s shut. Might not close if it’s open.” Fenworth had another fit of coughing.

“We’ll stop here to rest.” Lee Ark gestured to a grouping of flat rocks that looked as if they might have been placed for people to relax and converse. It had the feel of the common room in Fenworth’s castle.

Kale sat next to the wizard and removed the sling from her back. The meech egg thrummed steadily. She rested her arm over the bulky package of her cape and contents. The minor dragons climbed out of their pocket-dens and blinked at the surroundings. Once they saw the others in the party resting, they darted off to look for food.

“A cup of tea would be nice,” Dar said as he eased himself onto a rock and stretched out on his back, his hands cupped behind his neck. Black grime dimmed the bright yellow of the doneel’s clothing. His brocade jacket had a rip in the arm seam. Stains spattered his ragged pants, and scuff marks obliterated the high shine of his boots.

Lee Ark and Brunstetter took out their weapons and began sharpening the blades. Kale shivered at the sight and looked over her shoulder. She could not sense anything lurking in the shadows. It had been quite awhile since she had noticed the presence of any bisonbecks either near or far.

Leetu sat down and pulled out an arrow. She fiddled with its feathers and then changed it for another. Kale wondered what she was doing.

The emerlindian looked up at her. “Kale, look in the things Granny Noon gave you. See if you can find moerston bark. We can chew on that.”

Kale remembered the bumpy bark and Granny Noon’s advice to use it when hungry. “It has some nutritional qualities,” the old emerlindian had told her. “But for the heart, it is much more helpful. The little bit of food you get from it will seem like much more, because it tastes good and refreshes your mouth.”

Kale dug in her cape and pulled out the packet. She got to her feet to pass the contents around. She put the last piece in her mouth and bit down. It tasted like a tea Mistress Meiger brewed and then chilled to serve in the tavern on summer days.

The cramp in Kale’s stomach eased. She longed for the peaceful days of a slave when she was often tired, often lonely, but never hungry. For a moment Kale wondered if she would see the old emerlindian Granny Noon or Mistress Meiger ever again.

That’s not very profitable thinking.
She chastised herself and went to sit with the librarian.

“Can you tell me if the gate was left open or shut?” she asked him.

He had taken off his shoes and rubbed his feet with his broad-fingered hands. “It was left closed, but reports through the years indicate that the mechanism that triggers the opening and shutting has become unreliable. Tumanhofer gates are elaborate. The gate at the entrance of Dael is an example. Looks simple, but it requires a trained man like my cousin Bumby Bumbocore to open and close it after it has been set for the night.”

“I remember the door in the gate made a lot of noise before it opened.”

“Yes, well.” Librettowit looked down, embarrassed. “Could have used some adjustments. All that racket wasn’t strictly necessary, but I think it makes the gatekeepers feel important, shows what a lot is going on while they’re working to open the door. People standing outside are impressed rather than impatient if they think the gatekeeper is struggling with quite a few gears to allow their admittance.”

Kale nodded. “How is this gate made? Will we be able to open it if it’s shut?”

Librettowit stared off in the distance for a moment before he answered. “Yes, I’m hoping so. Tumanhofers study the great gates in school as youngsters. The lever for this gate to the old mine is in the center of a tunnel-like structure. When the gate closes, the middle of this corridor squeezes shut so that the gate looks like an hourglass on its side. The lever itself is not complicated, but the walls that move and twist in on the tunnel are intricate.”

A soft note from Dar’s flute echoed through the large chamber, bouncing off rock walls ninety to a hundred feet high.

He played a restful tune first. Metta flew to perch on his knee and joined him. They chose a rousing marching song next. When they were finished, Lee Ark smiled at them and ordered everyone to get ready to move on. Librettowit couldn’t get his shoes back on his swollen feet. Gymn came and, with Kale, healed the ache and the swelling.

“Sorry for the delay,” the tumanhofer said. “Librarians aren’t used to being on the march, you know.”

“Don’t worry about it, friend,” said their marione commander. “I’m not used to traveling with a healing dragon. It seems prudent for us to take a few more minutes here and allow Kale and her small friend to minister to us all.”

In a half an hour, while Metta and Dar provided music, Kale and Gymn refreshed all the members of the party, except Shimeran and Seezle, with a brief healing.

The party fell in behind the tumanhofer again, and they headed out. The minor dragons ran back and forth across Kale’s shoulders in a game of tag, until she caught each one and put them inside the cape at her waist. She felt them burrow through the cloth folds to their pocket-dens.

“How much farther?” Leetu asked Librettowit.

“Two more vaulted chambers, a twisty tunnel, and the main cavern.”

In the twisty tunnel, Kale’s nerves began to zing. She caught up to Leetu. “I feel something.”

The emerlindian nodded. “Something is following us.”

They walked on a few more minutes, Kale looking twice at all the shadows and over her shoulder repeatedly.

“Leetu, I think there are hundreds of them, whatever they are.”

“Yes, they follow Risto’s command to stop us before we leave the mountain.”

“Shouldn’t we tell Lee Ark?”

“I already have.”

“Oh.” Kale looked at Lee Ark. He walked with every nerve on alert. Towering next to him, the urohm moved his head from side to side in constant vigil. “Brunstetter?”

Leetu nodded. “And the kimens, and Dar.”

“What is it out there?”

“Schoergs.”

Kale closed her eyes for a moment.
I’m not going to be surprised. After all this, I should have known that schoergs weren’t made up to scare little children into being good. I wonder if they look anything like how the old fairy tales describe them.
She shuddered and opened her eyes.

Now she watched the shadows for something as tall as she was, wiry, covered with black fur, having a thick body, skinny arms and legs, huge yellow teeth, and small beady eyes. They could crawl up and down walls like huge spiders. They could flatten themselves and slip through small holes.

The questing party came out of the twisty tunnel and into a huge cavern. Across the expansive floor a smaller tunnel led straight out of the mountain. Kale could see the round arch of daylight from where she stood. She could also feel the anticipation of a thousand fierce schoergs waiting to attack.

“Run!” Lee Ark’s command came a second before a screech cut through the cavern. In one moment, every surface of the wall behind them and to the left swarmed with rapidly moving dark, shaggy bodies. Brunstetter scooped Wizard Fenworth over his shoulder and took off across the open space. The meech egg bounced against Kale’s back as she ran, almost as if it wanted to push her forward with its own panic.

Lee Ark, Dar, and Leetu reached the entry to the gate tunnel a moment after the kimens. They all turned to face the enemy with their weapons ready. Brunstetter set Fenworth down and joined the line. Librettowit and Kale arrived last.

Lee Ark’s stern face turned to the o’rant girl. “Go through the tunnel, Kale. We’ll hold them here. You will see the o’rant town of Kringlen. Go there if we don’t follow.”

Librettowit and the wizard had their heads together, arguing about the fireball spell.

“Necessary,” shouted Fenworth.

“Unreliable,” the librarian countered in a voice twice as loud.

Kale ducked into the tunnel and ran. Five yards ahead, the sun gleamed on new-fallen snow. She looked back over her shoulder and saw Brunstetter’s legs with the back of Leetu on one side and Dar on the other. The howls of the frenzied schoergs followed Kale, sounding like a steady roar in the tunnel.

Her toe caught on an almost covered rod in the flooring, and she pitched sideways, slamming against the wall and a vertical metal bar. She fell flat on her face. Scrambling to her knees, she looked behind her at the floor.

The lever! I knocked the lever down.
She looked at the walls around her.
Nothing’s happening. It doesn’t work anymore.

Then the floor shuddered. The walls shivered. A shrill scraping noise filled the air around her.

She sprang to her feet and bumped her head on the ceiling as it lowered and twisted. Her legs buckled under her as the ground also moved, rising and twisting.

Running, crouching, falling, crawling, Kale made it out and fell into a snowbank. She flipped around and stared down the tunnel to a six-inch opening in the middle. The lever lay across the small hole on this side of the gate.

They’re trapped!

Kale started back into the tunnel to lift the lever. The meech egg on her back hit the top of the shrunken tunnel. She backed up, ducked out of the cape sling, and left the egg and dragons in a bundle beside the entrance. She crawled into the tunnel. In a matter of a few feet, she had to lie on her stomach and wiggle closer to the lever. Through the small opening, she heard the clamor of battle.

She came to a place too narrow for her shoulders, and she still couldn’t reach the lever. She stretched one arm out ahead of her and wiggled just one inch closer. Her fingertips were two inches away from her goal.

She pushed with her feet, her knees. She squirmed and gained an inch.

“I’ve got to reach it. They can’t get out.”

She strained, scraping her shoulders against the rock.

“I have to move it. I have to—”

The lever jumped toward her. She clamped her fingers around it and pulled. It didn’t give. She pushed. Nothing. She shook it back and forth, and the bar slid an inch to her right. She tried again and it slid further into the wall. The ground rumbled under her. The floor shifted to the side. Kale rolled. The gate began to open.