by Holly Hook
Relief filled my chest. I didn't have to talk about this now. "Sure," I said. "Let's get some marshmallows and roast them, too."
"What are marshmallows?" Mica asked.
"Something from the other world," I told him. "They're great. You put them on a stick and hold them over a fire. I got to do that at a party one time."
"You're making me hungry," Brie said.
Candice eyed me like I said I'd gone to the moon. "You got to go to a party?"
I nodded. "I hung out with the art kids for a bit while I was at your school. Not everyone hated me."
But Mica was right. I was tired. We had been walking down there for a very long time without much rest. Candice and I got on the other side of the fire as Macon and his new girlfriend and leaned against the stone of the mountain.
I must have fallen asleep, because when I woke Mica was standing in front of the fire and the sun was low in the sky--in the opposite direction. The shadows coming off the mountains were long and tired and the orange of the sky was even deeper than the one we had seen earlier.
"Awake and ready for more adventure?" he asked.
"That's something I would say." Candice was leaning on my shoulder and breathing heavily. She was warm and I didn’t want to move. "You think it's a good idea to walk at night? Obviously the way ahead is down this mountain and not back into the mines."
"Alric and Annie can both command ravens," Mica said. "We're better off walking at night. And we have you."
"There might be wolves," Ignacia said. She was awake, too, leaning against the mountain like Candice and I were. I listened and didn't even hear Macon.
Mica cleared his throat quietly. "If we leave now, we can leave Macon and his new love behind, at least for a while. I've heard them talking. They don't want to go with us anyway. Henrietta wants to look for her father."
"That's fine with me," I said. "We'll leave them some food so they don't die and hopefully we won't see them again." I did feel a little bad about leaving the two of them on this mountain in the middle of the night but we had to do what was right for all of us. If Henrietta wanted to go find Henrik and Macon wanted to meet his future father in law that was fine by me. Henrik would probably like having his daughter back. I remembered he'd been pretty shaken up about her disappearing. The guy was evil, but not completely evil, and if we could get rid of all his gold before he got out of the underworld, he wouldn't be nearly as powerful if he ever returned to the surface. In fact, he'd just be another king in the dark region, no more powerful than any of the others. If I had to, I could live with that.
I eyed the spot where the two of them were lying together, asleep, hand in hand. Macon had a faint smile on his face and Henrietta the same. She was probably the first woman to ever tolerate him for more than five minutes.
"I agree with you," I said. "I'll get them some food and leave it. We'll need to do something about Henrik's former stockpile of gold, though, if they go looking for him."
"Gold?" Mica whispered.
I got up, leaving Candice to lean on the mountain. The fire flickered a little brighter as a tiny breeze kicked up. The wind had calmed down. "The more you own, the more magic you have on your side. I won't tell you how much Alric has possession of. It's almost enough to make him un-killable. Henrik used to be the same way. He'll be pretty hard pressed to get it all back, though. We'll have to keep it that way."
"That's nice," Mica said. "So we steal Alric's gold and maybe we'll be able to kill him?"
"Exactly," I said. "Maybe we should all split up. Cut the magic yarn in half." Then an idea hit me. "Dwarves like treasure. Dragons like treasure. Maybe someone can gather all the dwarves and show them were the ultimate stockpile is. It's kept underground so the dwarves might be able to mine their way in and get away with Alric’s treasure. Hardly anyone goes down into that room under the castle. For one thing, Henrik used to keep severed heads of thieves down there."
"Most kings display them outside. Not that I've ever done that. But I like that idea. It'll only work if we can cut the yarn in half. I'll have to ask Ignacia how that works."
"I'm sure it will work," I said. "You can pick rampion and it'll stay alive. The yarn's made out of it. It must have the same properties."
Mica went to wake up Ignacia and he asked her the question in a low voice. She got out the yarn and unrolled it. Mica searched his pockets for a dagger. It wasn't easy, holding the yarn in the dark and spreading it out, but at least it glowed a little bit so we could see what we were doing. Its full length was only across the stone outcrop that we occupied. It had been much longer when given a command. It was just as weird as the underworld.
Ignacia and I held it out and Mica hesitated above it with the dagger.
"I don't know if this will ruin the magic," he said.
"If we don't do this, Henrik will rise back to power even if we get rid of Alric. And we need to eliminate his gold to get rid of him in the first place," I said.
I held my breath and Mica sawed with the dagger.
The yarn didn't want to be cut, but at last, he got the dagger through and the two pieces fell to the ground and blew in the breeze.
And they both remained purple and glowing.
I breathed a sigh of relief and so did Ignacia. We were free to go. I went to work rolling up the yarn into a ball that was half the size of the original. I hoped we hadn't messed with the magic or anything and that these halves were truly separate. Alric's castle and wherever he kept his prisoners weren’t in the same place.
"Okay," Mica said. "How are we going to split up our group? I think Ignacia and I should go gather the dwarves. Stilt, too. He'll know how to talk to them."
"I agree," I said. "You don't want to go to the final fight."
"But we won't have a way of communicating to each other," Mica said. "It's not like we have a magic mirror. Do you know any spells that would let that happen?"
I'd seen my other grandmother using the spell at ponds to talk to Alric through the water. "Yes, but there has to be a magic mirror on one end. Alric had the only one in Fable that I know of and now it's broken."
"Broken," Mica said, looking to the side. "Broken. The pieces might still exist."
My jaw fell. "You're saying that you're going to go get a piece? You'll have to go into the castle itself."
"You need to know when you can attack. Killing Alric when he still has all that gold will be almost impossible, even if you do manage to bring a stag into the equation. He's done everything to make sure no one can kill him but he doesn't expect us to have this magic yarn." Mica faced the dark opening of the mine. "Or the right magical word."
A chill swept through me. I would be facing Alric with less people than I thought but maybe that would be a good thing. Mica went around and woke up everyone except Macon and Henrietta, who still slept hand in hand, and told them the plan.
Brie interlocked her hand with Stilt's and Candice faced me with a look that told me what she was thinking. She was going with me to the end. I might not ever see half these people again. Mica waved everyone into two groups and I joined Candice. Henry and Rae joined us. I could see how we were split now. Brie and Stilt were going to the castle's stash of gold with Mica and Ignacia since they had seen the chamber before. Candice and I would be going ahead with Rae and Henry. It made sense. We were the people who had someone we cared about down there in Alric's prison. We were the ones meant to free them.
The mood was somber as we all stood there, staring at each other. The fire cast faint orange light on the side of the mountain. "We should split now," Mica said. "The dwarves, I'm sure, will be on board for this."
"They will," Stilt agreed. "I'm under the impression that all of them down there hate him. If they don't, they’ll go for that treasure that he denied them.”
I shook hands with everyone in the other group and took the wand out of my pocket. "Well, good luck."
"Good luck," Candice repeated.
"You know," I told her. "Going to kill
a dark wizard isn't something a princess should do."
She slapped me on the arm. "That's why I'm going."
"He could be at the castle, too," Mica said. "We might face him as well. But I think he values his prisoners more than his treasure. Alric likes to have control."
"I know," I said, thinking of my years stifled in the castle.
Mica looked at me funny. I swallowed my words.
"We'd better split now," Brie said, "before we lose our guts."
I agreed. I slipped my hand into Candice's, nodded at Henry and Rae, and headed towards the trail that spiraled down the mountain. Candice held the other ball of yarn and cradled it as we stepped forward into the dark.
Chapter Twelve
The yarn, thankfully, led us right down the mountain when Candice asked it to take us to Alric's prisoners.
"Seems like the underworld isn't just one continuous place," Henry said as we walked. "There must be parts that aren't connected at all. Makes me wonder how the dwarves are going to find the gold stash."
"Stilt's going into the dark region," Rae said. "I should have gone with him. I can heal him if he starts to go evil."
"Stilt will be in the underworld through most of the journey," I told her. "He might not need it as long as he doesn't hang out in the treasure chamber for too long. I'm sure the dwarves will prefer to go underworld rather than risk a surface assault. Alric still has those ravens hanging out around his castle."
"You've seen his castle?" Henry asked.
I was slipping up way too much lately. The fatigue was getting to me. "If I were him, I’d have them guard my place.”
Candice faced Rae. "You can heal?"
"I've always been able to. My birth mother ate rampion before she had me. It happens a lot. My adoptive mother took me so she could hold her evil back. It worked for years and I didn't know why she really had me there up until Henry climbed into my tower. Then my adoptive mother found out and made thorns gouge out his eyes."
I cringed and so did Henry. "That's nice."
I stumbled on the stone path. The air was getting a little warmer as we descended but the only things popping out around the mountain were still the scrub plants. We were moving in a bubble of light that announced to everything out here that we were here. Bandits might be scared off by the magic, though, unless they had bows. It was a risk we needed to take.
"You're telling me?" Henry asked. "I still remember it. I wandered around after that until Alric found me and stuck me in his prison. It's weird, being in a state like that. You're lying there and you can't say anything or move. It's like being dead and still being conscious in your body. I don't envy anyone down there."
"Neither do I," I said.
My mother had been lying down there almost as long as I'd been alive.
Years.
Unable to move, speak, or do anything but think about her life and about whatever might have happened to me.
And her brother was just plain dead. Alric might have told her that, just to torment her. My mother might have heard as Rae and Brie and Stilt stood over her glass prison, unable to get her out.
She might even be insane by now.
I wanted to kick at every pebble and plant that we passed on the way down the mountain. I wanted to grab the magic yarn that still floated beside us and strangle it. I'd thought that the people he enclosed in glass were unconscious, that they wouldn't notice the passage of time. Alric had devised the perfect torture for his victims.
But all I could do was walk while Candice slid her hand down my back. I had someone here who understood what I was thinking. It was the only thing keeping me sane.
I couldn't divulge my secret to anyone else. Candice had seen me prove myself. She got me. She knew what it was like to come from something you didn't want to be. Henry and Rae hadn't had that experience.
The walk down the mountain got less steep and the air even warmer, even though the night was deepening. Rae handed the bag of supplies and food to Henry. We had split everything up and there wasn't as much to carry. At last, the land flattened out and the mountains were dark cones that tried to poke into the stars above. We passed huge pine trees and the air smelled like their needles. The light cast its glow on all the trunks as we followed the yarn through them, taking a zigzag course.
"At least we know where to go," Candice said. "I wonder how many times the yarn can be cut before it stops working. That would be a stalker's dream come true."
"We could sell pieces of it to people who are creepy," I said, doing a fake evil voice.
"Shorty," Candice said.
"I'm kidding. I wouldn't sell this. We're keeping the yarn. Who knows? We might need it in the future."
"Doesn't seem fair. Like we're cheating at life."
"Alric's cheating at life."
"Good point," Henry told me. "We have to make sure he can't shrink my kingdom down ever again. My father was turned into a jar of vapor. From what he told me, that was almost as bad as being shut in a glass box, unable to move."
"At least he's free," I said.
"But he wants to marry Brie," Rae told me. "I met him. He seems like a nice king and all, but Stilt promised him Brie a very long time ago even though he regrets it now. Brie can't go anywhere near that kingdom."
"And how old is he?" I asked, looking at Henry. Henry was about my age.
"Forty-two. I think," Henry said. "I've been trying to convince him to marry someone else, but promises are binding here. You know that. All I can do is tell Brie to stay far from his kingdom and there shouldn't be any problems."
"We definitely do not need to sell this yarn," Candice told me.
"I agree," I said. "Henry, don't tell your father this yarn exists."
"I wasn't planning on it. There are plenty of women who want to marry my father. I hope one of them catches his eye."
The yarn continued through the trees, which got thicker. My light fell on some dying trunks up ahead and some branches that were skeletal. I stopped. The ground was dark and cracked and all the pine needles covered in black mold.
"Dark spot," I said.
"Great," Candice said. "I love dark spots."
I scanned the ground for any water. Alric had come through swamp water at us using his magic mirror when Candice and I were headed to the Fox Kingdom. The yarn went right through this, but at least the ground seemed mostly dry.
"Any owls?" I asked, looking up.
"Why owls?" Henry asked. "Oh. I remember Brie and Stilt telling me about Alric's owl. Its name is Peggy and it's a vicious beast."
"I heard about it, too," I said, lying. Of course I'd met Peggy. Alric had showed her to me once, probably to keep me in line. Owls, like some other animals, turned bad in dark spots and in the dark region. Peggy had stared at me with eyes like black marbles.
She attacks the face, Alric had told me. If you ever try to leave, she attacks the face.
But there weren't any owls up here, so I took the first bold step into the dark spot.
The feeling of dread filled my gut but I pressed on. Candice groaned next to me and we walked slowly past rotten tree trunks. The air was way too quiet and eerie, even for a dark spot. I had never walked through one at night.
"Shorty," Candice said.
I didn't like the tone of her voice.
She took my arm and squeezed. "I hear ravens."
We all stopped and total silence fell.
Well, almost.
I couldn't believe it. This was the middle of the night and there was distant cawing. Annie's ravens were still out and about, flying around. We might not have traveled that far after all.
Or she had found a way to follow us. I couldn’t imagine how.
"Extinguish the light!" Henry hissed.
I wove the wand around and the light died. Total darkness came down and we were still standing in the middle of the dark spot. The purple yarn was the only light and it didn't illuminate anything around it. We were standing in a dark void with towering, black tr
ees. Stars didn't show in the dark spot, just like the sun didn't. All of us stood in a pit of dread.
Candice pushed close to me. "I don't like this."
The cawing got a bit louder. The ravens were headed this way.
And then, voices followed.
"What is this?" Prince Wesley asked. His faint voice floated through the dark. "I don't like the way it makes me feel."
"You'll live," Annie told him. Their voices floated towards us. It sounded like they were still some distance behind but we'd already given away our position by using the light. “It’s just a dark spot.”
"Go," I whispered, holding the wand close.
Annie and the prince brigade were behind us.
They had joined forces.
All of us resumed following the purple yarn, picking up our pace. It still stretched out into the night, visible enough for all of us to see.
"Ignacia!" Annie shouted. "I know you're out here."
She didn't know Ignacia and Mica had gone back into the mine but Annie wouldn't mind finding us, either. I had the wand. She still had a reason to kill us all.
"Roll up behind us," Candice ordered the yarn.
The ground was rotten and squishy now. Our footsteps made horrible squelching noises as we moved. No one spoke and I couldn't think of a spell to mask the sound. My grandmother had never used a spell for silence while I was with her. I wished she had. I wished I had agreed to learn magic from her instead of just having to watch while she did her horrible deeds. It would have come in handy.
"Is my magic wand up there?" Annie asked.
"And is my delightful princess?" Wesley added.
"Wesley, if you shout, she might run," another prince said. "You don't want to startle her."
Candice grabbed my arm and we pushed through some low hanging, dead branches that felt like skeleton fingers grasping at us. The footsteps behind us got heavier and the cawing did, too. I wouldn't let those creeps put their hands on Candice. I might even have to kill them to make that happen. They had no right.
At least only Henry and Rae would see what I really was.