Kerka's Book (12 page)

“I don't know,” Ardee said. “Some answers just seem to be in my head. But I don't have the answers to what I really want.”

“I think a lot of people feel that way,” I said. I stood up and rocked back on my heels, shaking.

I took a deep breath. So far, Queen Patchouli's
faith in my abilities wasn't misplaced. The last leg of my ascent to the peak was within sight, at the far end of the ice bridge. I had come a long way and had endured much.

With Ardee's help
, I reminded myself. I let her take the lead across the rest of the bridge.

8
The Kalistonia Fairies

My legs buckled when we stepped off the ice bridge. I fell against a large boulder and sank to my knees, too cold and exhausted to go on.

Ardee nosed me in the side and gently pawed me with her hoof. Her voice shook with urgency. “Don't lie down, Kerka.”

“I'm too tired to walk another step.” My words were slurred and hard to hear. I was even too tired to talk. I leaned my head against the rock and closed my eyes.

“Get up.” Ardee nudged me harder. “You have a mission. Important things to do, you said.”

“I have to rest,” I insisted.
“Then
I'll go do important things.”

“Reindeer that fall down to rest never get up,”
Ardee said firmly. “They freeze or get eaten by wolves.”

Wolf?
Fear-induced adrenaline brought me out of my stupor. I shook my head to clear my brain, but I couldn't shake the weariness in my bones and muscles. Still, I couldn't ignore Ardee's warning.

Grabbing the reindeer's long hair, I pulled myself up. My legs wobbled like spaghetti, and I couldn't feel my feet. Leaning across Ardee's back, I rubbed my hands and stamped my boots to quicken the flow of blood through my body, but I struggled to keep my eyes open.

“If I don't rest soon, I won't have the strength to finish my quest,” I explained. “We have to stop when we find shelter.”

“A shelter where the wolf can't go,” Ardee said.

“Is it nearby?” I gasped, feeling foolish for trying to hide the predator's pursuit. The reindeer would catch the wolf's scent long before I saw or heard it.

“No, but it's coming,” Ardee said.

The fairy lights cast a flickering glow over the path as it wound through crevices in the rocky terrain. We were no longer in danger of falling off a cliff, but sleep was a constant temptation. Using Ardee as a crutch, I dragged one foot after the other and scanned dark recesses in the mountainside, looking
for a haven from the brutal cold. We found a few caves, but they were too narrow to enter or were shallow dead ends. I finally nodded off for a few seconds and heard a soft voice.

“This way …
”

Startled, I awoke and quickly glanced around, as though the dreamed words were real and not a whisper of the wind. Notches and cave openings looked like slices of night behind the dancing fairy lights. My eyes focused on a sliver of black set deeper into the rock. The opening wasn't wide enough for me or a reindeer with antlers to slip through, but I was drawn to it anyway.

“There.” I let go of the reindeer to investigate. Aided by the glimmering lights, I reached the fissure in the rock without mishap. A massive boulder camouflaged a large cave entrance, and Ardee hung back when I stepped inside. The darkness was so black I couldn't see my hand. “We'll be safe here,” I told the reindeer.

“It's too dark,” Ardee protested. She was still standing outside. “I'm afraid of the dark.”

“That's why it's safe,” I explained, trying not to lose patience. “It doesn't look like a cave from the path, and the darkness will keep other creatures out.”

“Maybe, I guess.” Ardee set one hoof inside, her
resolve faltering. “I wouldn't come in if you weren't making me.” After thinking about it a few more seconds, Ardee gave in. “Hold on to me and don't let go. I don't want to get lost.”

Twining my fingers in Ardee's neck hair, I used the lessons I had learned in the dark woods and stretched out my other arm. Taking tiny steps and feeling my way, I avoided running into the rock walls. The cramped passageway didn't lead directly into a larger cavern. We had to turn at every wall, first left, then right, then left again. There wasn't yet room to lie down comfortably so we kept going. As we walked deeper into the mountain, a dim yellow-green glow began to filter through the darkness.

Ardee stopped suddenly, sitting back on her haunches and stubbornly refusing to move. “A troll must live down here … or maybe something worse.”

“Do you smell something, Ardee?” If a dangerous being was lurking in the rocks, I wanted to know. If not, I had to calm the reindeer's jittery nerves so she didn't bolt out of the cave. I could never catch her, but the wolf would.

Raising her muzzle, Ardee sniffed. Her tense muscles
relaxed under my hand. “Nothing stinky-bad.”

Relieved, I continued walking. “I bet the glow comes from lichen.”

“There's no such thing as light-up lichen,” Ardee scoffed. Distracted by my theory, she walked with me.

“We have lots of glowing life forms in the waking world,” I argued. “Fireflies, glow worms, mushrooms, and deep sea jellyfish, for instance. Even wolf eyes glow in the dark. I'm sure Aventurine has such things, too. Probably more, because of the amount of magic here.”

Around the next curve, the passageway opened into a small circular cave with a domed ceiling. Everything in the cave glowed, from clusters of small yellow bell-shaped flowers on large rocks to giant moths with green wings. Transparent crystal stalactites hung down from the ceiling over matching stalagmites that reached up from the floor. Large, glowing white worms ducked in and out of holes in the rock walls, causing an oddly soothing strobe effect.

Ignoring the glorious sight, Ardee sniffed a wide
patch of thick brown moss and tried a small nibble. She spit it out. “It tastes awful, but it's soft. You can sleep on it.”

“Good.” Yawning, I sat down. I shifted the pouches so I wouldn't squash them and took my Kalis stick out of my backpack. I knew I would feel more secure sleeping with it in my hand.

“The cave creatures probably don't like that disgusting sour moss, either,” Ardee added as she settled on the hard floor beside the spongy lichen mat. “But I can't be one hundred percent positive. Some porcupines eat pine needles, and I can't stand them.”

I didn't like the idea of hungry creepy crawlies squirming around me munching moss, but that wasn't my biggest concern. Despite my exhaustion, I was afraid to fall asleep. What if I didn't wake up in time?

“Lie close to me,” Ardee said. “I'll keep you warm.”

“Thanks, but I'm worried I'll oversleep.” On camping trips in Finland, I always woke up at the first light of dawn, but there was no sunlight inside the cave and I was far more tired than I had ever been in my life.

“Reindeer are light sleepers,” Ardee said.
“Waking up at every little thing is one of our best defenses. When do you want to get up?”

I couldn't answer. The sun rose in Aventurine on a whim, not on a schedule. I told Ardee the first thing that popped into my mind and hoped my intuitive answer was correct. “In three hours.”

“I'll stay alert for the wolf,” Ardee said, “and I'll wake you in …”

Snuggling against Ardee's warm hide, I was sound asleep before she finished her sentence.

I woke up suddenly, startled by a metallic whine.

“What's that?” Ardee whispered.

“I don't know.” Tightening my grip on my Kalis stick, I waited for my eyes to adjust to the glowing creature-lights. Behind a bank of tall stalagmites, another passageway led off the small room. I rose and quietly crept toward it.

“Where are you going?” Ardee hissed as she stood up.

I looked back and held my fingers to my lips. Then I motioned for the reindeer to stay put and wait. Ardee didn't pay any attention; she followed me into an arched tunnel and I didn't have the heart to stop her.

The yellow flowers grew in clumps among colonies of worms on the walls, shining light for us to see by. As we walked deeper into the mountain, the metallic sounds grew louder, the tunnel widened, the glowing creatures were bigger, and the light glowed brighter. A blue substance that looked like mercury filled hollows and cracks in the big flat rocks that lined the walls. Splotches of the blue liquid moved from one pool to another at a languid pace, as if it were alive. Other rocks were covered with puffs of glowing pink lichen.

At the end of the tunnel was what looked like a huge cavern; a faint sound came from it, like vibrating chimes or metal drums. I ducked behind a tall boulder at the edge of the opening, wary of any unforeseen danger beyond. Ardee stood behind me, peeking out.

“I'm hungry,” she said.

“Shh,” I responded. “Not now.”

I looked over just in time to see her sniff a glowing pink puff on the boulder and recoil. “It bit me!” she yelped, wiggling her stung nose as though she had to sneeze.

“Shhhh!” I whispered loudly and glared. “Don't eat anything. You could make yourself sick. Or maybe even eat something that's a
someone
. Just
wait here. Please. And I mean it this time.”

The reindeer sighed and nodded. “Okay, but if you find any food —”

“I'll bring it back,” I promised.

Once Ardee was settled, I gave the cave my complete attention. I couldn't see much from my hiding place, but I realized that the metallic sound had many parts, like musical instruments in an orchestra. A blast of hot air hit the back of my neck. I jumped slightly, swallowing a squeal. I began to sweat under my heavy coat and quickly discovered the heat source in the wall behind me: orange fungus that looked like the tops of pumpkins without stems. Every few seconds, the orange segments burst open and blew out heated air. A quick scan confirmed that thousands of the furnace plants—or maybe they were furnace animals—lived in the rocky walls.

The cavern was as bright and as warm as a summer day. Dropping my coat, I scurried toward the next boulder with my Kalis stick in hand. The astonishing beauty of the underground wonderland didn't make an impact until I completely cleared the corridor. Awestruck, I stopped to gawk.

Light from many species of luminescent creatures reflected off a network of crystal stalactites and stalagmites. The cavern walls were honeycombed
with alcoves, all of them alight in brilliant colors. Fairies dressed in earth tones and watery hues danced Kalis on one side, their sticks every shade of the rainbow. Ordinary flowering plants, vines, and grasses grew everywhere: on the ground, between the rocks, and around crystal structures. A gentle stream of water flowed off a high ledge into a pool. Roly-poly animals covered in artichoke-like scales bounced on a bed of silver leaves.

I remembered Queen Patchouli's second piece of advice: Look for the Kalistonia Fairies. Maybe my goal was closer than I realized. At the very least, the Kalistonia Fairies were a marker on the path to find Biba's voice. I looked more closely at the fairies in the cavern.

Fairy ages are impossible to pinpoint, but most of the girls looked like teenagers. They all had simple swirling designs on their foreheads and arms. I couldn't tell if they were painted on or marks they were born with. Some of the fairies' clothes sparkled with mica or gemstones. Instead of the long, flowing dresses of the Willowood Fairies, these fairies wore clothes that were easy to perform the Kalis moves in. They all wore their hair in braids, either hanging down or pinned up, some in intricate patterns.

Their Kalis sticks were different lengths and
colors, and the sticks made different sounds as they whistled through the air. The cathedral cavern reverberated with whirs, whistles, and chimes. The longest sticks made a sound like tumbling crystal beads.

Although the fairies were moving with flawless grace and fluidity, jumping higher and spinning faster than I'd seen before, I recognized several of the movements. They were variations of the basic Kalis steps my mother had taught me. A fairy dressed in deep brown stood on the tip of a stalagmite. Balanced on one foot, she bent her knee and sprang straight up. Reaching for the high ceiling with her Kalis stick, she brought her legs together and twisted like a corkscrew as she settled to the ground.