by Jon Etter
“’Tis some sort of soft and springy surface down below. Perfectly safe and, I must say, utterly delightful!” Sir Justinian declared as he bounded up out of the pit onto the far side next to Shade.
“Gah!” Shade cried as she slapped at snakes that bounced out of the pit with Sir Justinian and onto her. She stomped on the heads of the snakes on the ground until she finally realized that none of them were moving. She leaned down to examine one. After a couple of gentle pokes, Shade picked it up and looked at it carefully. “It’s a fake. All of these snakes are fake.”
“Come, my fairy friends, bounce across and join us here!” Sir Justinian shouted across the pit. “There is naught to fear unless you fear great amusement!”
Ginch looked down with dismay. “I no know . . . Are you sure that—aah!” he cried as the Professor shoved him over the edge.
As Sir Justinian chuckled at Ginch’s awkward bouncing and exceptionally rude comments about the Professor, Shade frowned at the remains of the rope bridge hanging down. This makes no sense, she thought. If the bubbles were meant to lull us into a false sense of security so that we’d get killed by the arrows, then what’s going on here? That blade could have killed Sir Justinian, so why make the pit harmless? And why make it possible to just bounce across?
Ginch finally managed to bounce himself out of the pit and up next to her. “Fatcha-coota-matchca, pixie!” he shouted at the Professor, who jumped in and happily bounced up and down doing flips in the air. Ginch kicked a couple of fake snakes into the pit and reached up to grab one that was draped over his shoulder, then stopped. “’Ey, little Sprootshade. Do these snake-fakes gotta the fake tongues?”
“I didn’t see any that did,” Shade responded, still pondering the severed bridge.
“Uh-huh. And do these snake-fakes make-a the hiss?”
“No, how could they?” Shade asked, looking up.
“Then I no think they’re all the snake-fakes,” he said, panic in his eyes as he looked at the very real snake on his shoulders.
When their eyes met, the snake hissed and reared back, baring its fangs, ready to strike. Ginch gave a little whimper and closed his eyes just in time to not see Sir Justinian’s hand whip out and snatch the snake off Ginch. “Why, I do believe this to be a Crom Cruach viper, one of the deadliest snakes in all Elfame! So that’s Grigor’s game here—get us to harmlessly play about until we’re killed by these foul fiends. Cunning!”
“Maybe . . . ” Shade said, not convinced but having no better explanation.
“Hey, partner! Up and out!” Ginch shouted at the Professor, who was tumbling merrily through the air. “The snake-fakes are no all fake!”
The Professor bounded back up, spun three somersaults in the air, and landed gracefully on the edge of the pit. He gave a little bow, then grabbed the three snakes that were hanging from his shoulders and sticking partially out of one pocket, at least one of which was real and wriggling, and shoved them into his pants.
“Should you really have a live, poisonous snake in your pocket?” Shade asked. The Professor shrugged. “I really don’t think you should have poisonous creatures in your pockets.” The Professor made a face and waved his hand dismissively.
Shade thought about trying to dissuade him more but decided to drop the matter—they had more pressing concerns and, she decided, what a pixie keeps in his pockets is his business and his alone, which I do believe is as close to words to live by as you, good Reader, are likely to find in this dreadful tome. And so they marched on into the darkness, unaware of what further perils might lurk there.
In which the peril becomes even
more perilous . . .
Just past the pit, the cavern ended in a sheer rock wall. At its base was an archway through which a long straight passageway glowed with an eerie blue light. Unlike the rough-hewn mining shafts that they had passed through, this new tunnel was lined with bricks and mortar. The blue light that filled the tunnel, Shade quickly surmised, came from some sort of phosphorescent lichen growing there.
At the end of the tunnel was a large square chamber whose ceiling glowed even more brightly with lichen, making their torches unnecessary. The chamber’s granite walls were bare except the one on the far side, which was covered in elaborate bas-reliefs depicting great scenes from ancient fairy literature: King Quillwyrm pulling the butter knife from the enchanted stale loaf of rye bread, thus proving his right to rule; the mighty warrior Wolfbear beating the water troll with its own severed arm; St. Bartleby politely refusing to chase a questing beast; and many, many more. The room was empty save for a large, rectangular stone box in its center.
Shade and the others stepped cautiously into the room, scanning the ground for any trap triggers, and made their way to the sarcophagus. On its sides were carved scenes that told the history of the library of Alexandria: the building of the library, books being organized and shelved, people studying and reading, the library in flames, and finally a group of fairies running with books in their hands. The slab on top featured a crossed pickax and quill.
“I’ll bet you anything that Grigor Byrrower’s body and his book are in here,” Shade said. She tried lifting the lid, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Allow me, my good sprite,” Sir Justinian said. He grasped the sides of the granite slab and with a mighty heave lifted the lid. Inside lay a figure dressed in ragged miner’s pants, work shirt, and vest with a scarf tied over its head, its skin green and rough like tarnished copper. On its chest, clutched in the coblynau corpse’s hands, lay a brown leather book.
“Okay, anybody else get-a the heebly-jeeblies from this?” Ginch asked. The Professor nodded in agreement. “I mean, we steal from everybody alla the time but we no steal from the dead body before.”
“It’s not stealing,” Shade insisted, mostly convinced that she was right. “The plan was always for the members of G.L.U.G. to someday bring their books together, right? We’re just doing what Grigor would want us to do.”
“Yeah, because the arrows and the snakes and the blades that cut you in half, they all say ‘Please come take-a the book’!”
“Grigor probably figured that anyone in G.L.U.G. would be smart enough to survive—and, guess what, he was right,” Shade said. “I’m sure everything will be just fine.”
She grabbed the book and pulled it free from the corpse’s hands. Instantly, a stone slab crashed from the ceiling, blocking the chamber’s only exit.
Ginch, the Professor, and Sir Justinian all looked at Shade. “Just-a fine, eh?”
“Okay, that way’s blocked,” Shade conceded. “But there’s probably a secret way out, just like in more stories than I can think to name. We’ll slowly and methodically search the room and—”
With a horrid scraping noise, the sarcophagus sank down until it stopped a couple of inches below the floor. The scraping sound, however, continued. It took Shade a moment to realize it was the walls on either side of the chamber, which were moving closer and closer.
The Professor whistled, pointed at the walls, pulled four pickled eggs out of his pocket, pointed to himself, Shade, Ginch, and Sir Justinian, then smushed the eggs between his hands. “The Professor says the walls, they’re a-gonna squoosh us,” Ginch explained.
“Stout hearts, chums!” Sir Justinian drew his sword. “I’ve fought my way out of tougher spots than this.”
“And who you gonna fight?” Ginch asked. “I no think you can get-a the walls to make the surrender, paisan.”
“Shut up a second and let me think!” Shade looked nervously from wall to wall. “I’ve read stories where walls close in like this. There’s ‘The Bronze Burial Blanket’ by Mirecrossing . . . ”
“How did the hero escape?” Sir Justinian asked hopefully as the walls inched closer and closer.
“He . . . uh . . . he got crushed to death.” Shade frowned. “There’s Edgar the Macabre’s ‘The Shaft and the Swinging Sword.’”
“And how did-a that one end?�
�
“Somebody came and pulled the guy out at the last minute.”
“Excellent!” Sir Justinian cried. “I shall go out and then break in and save you all just in the nick of time.”
“And how you gonna get outta the room to get back inna the room to get us out?”
Sir Justinian’s smile faded. “Well . . . ”
“Let me think. In one book, they—that’s it! The wall carvings! One of them has to trigger a secret door!”
“That’s-a great! So which one do we push?”
Shade considered her options. “I’m not sure. Let me think—”
“We no gotta the time to think. We gotta the time to either get squooshed or no get squooshed. Personally, I prefer to no get squooshed.”
“There’s always time to think things through.”
“Not now there isn’t, fatcha-coota-matchca, sproot!”
As the two fairies bickered, Sir Justinian reached out and strained to hold back the walls, but even his great might was no match for the inevitable crush of the death trap. The Professor looked back and forth and back and forth from one wall to the other, faster and faster, until he staggered and nearly fell from dizziness. As he looked down, he whistled and pointed at the sarcophagus lid.
“Good idea, my pixie compatriot!” Sir Justinian grabbed the slab and, muscles bulging and tendons straining from the effort, mightily hoisted high the slab. The walls ground closer, ever closer, until they rested on either side of the lid. The scraping of stone against stone stopped. All was quiet in the tomb.
“Great work, Sir Justinian!” Shade smirked at Ginch. “See. No reason to panic—there is time to think things through.”
Suddenly a loud crack sounded and fissures formed all over the slab’s surface.
“Okay, that’s-a the reason to panic!” Ginch and the Professor shoved Shade back and began slapping and yanking at the wall carvings with wild abandon as the slab continued to crack, their efforts becoming more and more frenzied as more and more of the coffin lid crumbled. Then the slab finally gave, breaking in the middle and falling with a crash to the floor. The fairies’ efforts reached a fever pitch, their arms blurs of motion. Then, just as all seemed lost, the Professor, springing high, grabbed hold of the carving of King Quillwyrm’s butter knife, which flipped down. There was a click and the wall swung back to reveal a pitch-black tunnel. The three fairies and Sir Justinian dove into the darkness in time to watch the walls grind the remains of the sarcophagus lid into powder and extinguish the torches they had left behind in the chamber, plunging them into darkness.
“See?” Ginch panted. “If you no think there’s-a the reason to panic, then you’ve never done-a the panic right. Now we need some light.”
Just then, as if written by some ham-fisted hack writer, a tiny, faraway light appeared, and they began to hear a low growl and panting. As they watched, the light got closer and closer, and the growling and panting got louder and louder. They couldn’t make out what it was, but it didn’t sound the least bit friendly.
“You know, now that I think on it, maybe we no need some light,” Ginch whispered.
In which exciting investment
opportunities arise . . .
The light got brighter and brighter, almost blinding, and behind it Shade saw what looked like arms waving—some pointed, some pincered, some rounded—and two thick, wide-set legs underneath that, oddly enough, didn’t seem to move even though the beast was getting closer. Its growl grew and its breathing came out in a regular, rhythmic “chuff-chuff-chuff.”
“Behind me, friends!” Sir Justinian shouted over the creature’s cacophony as he drew his sword. “I shall vanquish this dread beast—”
“’Ey, look!” Ginch shouted. “There’s-a the little guy riding piggledyback.”
“I shall vanquish this dread beast and its dastardly master or die trying! Yaaaah!” Sir Justinian raised high his blade and charged into the light.
“Wait!” Shade cried. “I’m not sure that that’s—”
Over the growls and pants Shade heard the clang and crash of metal striking metal, then a smash and the light went out. There were more clangs and shouts from Sir Justinian in the darkness. The growls abruptly ceased and the pants slowly died. “Ha-ha! I have killed the beast!”
“You dented my Automole and smashed its headlamp!” someone shouted. A match flared in the darkness and then a lantern sprang to light. There in front of Shade was something like a small tank with an array of metal arms fitted with tongs, drills, circular saw blades, pickaxes, and shovels mounted on the top. Sitting in the middle surrounded by levers and buttons was a coblynau, a scarf tied around the top of his head on top of which was perched a pair of goggles. A lean, muscular arm, its skin having the color and sheen of polished copper, lifted the lantern up higher, and Shade could see shock and outrage on the mining fairy’s shiny face. “Why would you do that?”
Sir Justinian looked confused. “Because it appeared to be a foul, bloodthirsty beast that—”
“Oh, you do NOT call my baby a foul anything!” The coblynau pointed an accusatory finger at the knight as he stroked the dashboard of his vehicle with his other hand as if to comfort it. “What are you doing in my tunnels?”
“Your tunnels?” Shade put her hands on her hips. “Really? Because we happen to know that these are the tunnels of Grigor Byrrower.”
“No, they were Great-Uncle Grigor’s tunnels. Then they were my dad’s. Now they’re mine. Oh, ha! Pun! Didn’t even mean to make one. Because, you know, like, ‘mine’ and ‘mine.’”
“Oh. Then . . . I guess we’re looking for you?”
“Really?” The coblynau looked puzzled, and then his face lit up with excitement. “Are you investors?”
“Investors?” Shade echoed.
“You should have said something! But maybe you wanted to, like, do a sneak inspection of the place before getting a more official tour to make sure everything is on the up-and-up. Very shrewd on your part! Very shrewd,” the cobynau gushed, his voice rising and falling in a singsongy manner.
“We’re-a no—”
“Not gonna lie to you, but you couldn’t have picked a worse place to start!” the coblynau continued, completely oblivious to Ginch’s attempt to speak. “I’m, like, barely a quarter of the way through this attraction. I’m thinking of calling it ‘The Curse of the Coblynau’s Crypt,’ but I haven’t decided yet. What I can tell you is that Great-Uncle Grigor designed this place to be an actual deathtrap-filled tomb. Can you believe that? I mean, like, who does that? So I’m replacing all the real traps with fake ones. You know, like, bubble jets instead of arrows, a bounce pit with fake snakes instead of a real pit filled with spikes and vipers, and such. You’re lucky you weren’t, like, killed in there.”
“We almost were!” Shade replied.
“To be honest, I’m not done with this one. That’s why I put up the ‘Danger! Keep Out!’ sign . . . but now that I think of it, that does kind of fit the theming I’m going with on this attraction, so, like, that’s kind of my fault, I guess. Anyway, if you’re looking to invest, what you really need to look at—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Shade held up her hands to quiet the enthusiastic coblynau. “Can we talk about all of this someplace a little less . . . deathtrap-y?”
“Of course! Tell you what, climb up on the Automole—”
“The Otto-what?” Ginch asked.
“Mole, mole,” the coblynau said.
The Professor lifted up his shirt and pointed to a small brown bump on his belly.
“Ha! Wrong kind of mole, but tidy pun that is!” the coblynau laughed, which earned a thumbs-up from the Professor. “It’s an all-purpose mining vehicle I invented. It’s got, like, a chamber of salamanders that, when excited, flame up and boil a tankful of water, which then produces steam that moves pistons that—but I’m probably boring all of you with all this technical mumbo jumbo, aren’t I?”
“Y
eah,” Ginch stated bluntly. The Professor nodded.
“’Tis a bit hard to follow, I must say, my good mining fairy.”
“It’s Elidyr. Elidyr Byrrower.”
“No doubt, good mining fairy. No doubt.”
Shade cleared her throat to get Elidyr’s attention back. “So, are we going . . . or . . . ”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah! Like I was saying, hop on and I’ll give you a ride out of these tunnels. The Automole’s kind of loud, so how about we go back to my cabin and talk there? It’s not far.”
Not waiting for an answer, the coblynau pulled a couple of levers and flipped a switch and the Automole roared and chugged once more. Shade and her friends scrambled on and rode up and up until finally they emerged from the mines and into the early afternoon. Elidyr parked the Automole next to a pony cart. Between the two was a metal pole from the top of which extended a long bar. Elidyr reached up, grasped the bar, then swung himself out of the Automole cockpit and over to the driver’s seat of the cart. When he did so, Shade saw that his legs were strapped together.
“Did you have an accident or something?” Shade asked.
Elidyr looked puzzled for a moment. “Oh, my legs? No. They haven’t worked since I was born.”
Shade, having been a relatively sheltered fairy, had never seen a fairy like this. Sure, she had known sprites who had gotten too old to fly and fairies who walked with a limp and had to use a cane to get around, but never one that couldn’t walk at all. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Elidyr shrugged. “For what? I get along just fine. To be honest, I feel sorry for you. Because I have to work harder and be smarter to do all the stuff that comes easy to you, I’m inventing things like my Automole and coming up with ideas like my amusement center.”