by Holly Hook
"Shorty, you have to duck," Candice said.
I caught another glimpse of the yarn and it rolled up next to my face and fell. I ducked and the pair of boots landed next to me. We were in some kind of space only high enough to let us crawl on our stomachs. The air smelled of rot and mud and dirt. Like a grave. I wasn't sure what we'd landed in but it couldn't be good.
"Where are you?" Annie asked from far above. We must have fallen a very long way. I scooted around on my stomach and realized I still had the wand. The yarn rolled along with me. We couldn't light this area yet. Annie was still up there and if she knew we were down here, trapped, that was the end.
"There's a hole!" Percival shouted. "I almost fell!"
Annie said something else and then raised her voice so we could hear. "You're right. There is! Why don't you go down there and retrieve your princesses? I have the feeling that's where they went."
I gulped. Dirt hugged me from above and below. I imagined we were in some low chamber in the ground, a well that had gone mostly dry. A well that was two feet tall and very wide. I shivered and I was sure we'd all get hypothermia if we stayed down here too long.
"You don't want to go?" Annie asked. "We need to retrieve that wand. With that, you can have your princesses back. I don't know what's down there and I'm not going to take that trip, but a little rain might get them to float back up if we do this right."
I swore.
Rain would fill this chamber and I couldn't even tell where the entrance was now. The place seemed a lot more claustrophobic all of a sudden. Rae and Henry were taking panicked breaths behind me.
"This is supposed to be an underground lake or something," Candice said. "It's going to fill. Annie's going to kill us." She held the purple yarn now, yarn that Annie would take out of her cold, dead fingers. I could barely see her face in the purple light.
"But won't that hurt the princesses?" Wesley asked. "They might drown."
"They'll be fine," Annie lied. "They'll both float up and you can whisk them away to your castle. Everything will be happily ever after."
Annie hesitated for a long time, but at last, a crack of thunder roared and the sound of raindrops hitting the mud followed.
Panic rose in me and I shouted the spell for light. The space lit, revealing what I'd feared. We were in a very low, wide dirt chamber, one with tree roots hanging down everywhere like ancient gnarled fingers. It expanded in every direction as far as I could see. The raindrops landed a few feet away from me, darkening the soil. Rae and Henry were on the other side of the weather. The rain intensified and a puddle formed and expanded towards us.
"Candice, the yarn," I said. "It led us down here. There must be a way out."
The rain poured down harder and harder. Annie was making the storm stronger. It turned into a roar and the flow became a waterfall. Water seeped up around my elbows. We didn't have long before this filled.
Candice held the yarn up. It had rolled all the way up. She was covered in mud, with only her face clean. "Show us how to survive!"
The water was rising fast down here. The yarn expanded and went further into the tree roots. The purple line hugged the ceiling like it, too, was scared of the rising water.
"Go," Henry said. "Crawl after it."
I felt like a worm trying to crawl through the muck, but the water kept getting higher and higher, even tickling my chin as I crawled over a dip in the floor. The mud tried to slow us down and Candice struggled next to me. All four of us were on our stomachs, going after the yarn. I hoped it wouldn't beat against a dead end. The only other way out was back up the hole we'd fallen down.
The chamber sloped up a little and we crawled out of the water and onto drier dirt, but then it sloped back down after that and got even narrower. The ground pressed into me from above and I held back total panic. I would never be able to deal with tight spaces again. This must be what being buried alive felt like.
Once the water rose high enough behind us, it would surge down this part of the chamber and we'd be helpless. We were crawling right into a trap. The yarn showed no signs of stopping. It continued into the dark, where no one should go. We hadn't even seen any rats down here.
Down, and then up again. Water rushed. Candice panted next to me and Rae was having the worst time. Her hair was dragging in the muck behind her, slowing her down, and Henry was trying to loosen it from the mud the best be could.
A tiny river of water flowed past me.
And another.
"It's getting ready to flow over," I shouted.
"Henry!" Rae yelled.
"I've got your hair," he said, holding it all in one arm with great effort. "Go."
And then all hell broke loose.
Freezing water flowed down around us and I couldn't see the floor. It was all brown water, flowing down and getting higher. Candice screamed. I struggled to stay calm and keep a hold of the wand. Someone had to. "Come on," I said. "It can't be too much longer." The yarn sloped upwards just a couple of feet ahead. The water pooled at the bottom of the slope and Candice and I plowed through it, our heads hitting the ceiling and our noses barely out of it. I kept my mouth shut, but I could taste the muddy water. I might need some of Rae's healing abilities if I got sick from this.
The ground came up again and Rae was crying with panic now. Henry hyperventilated. "Come on," I shouted. "It's better up here." The water was still rising. Rae and Henry's faces appeared from below. They were soaked. The yarn pointed forward. We were on a time limit. There was nothing I could do about that.
And then the chamber opened.
I could stand. There was darkness ahead, but I could stand.
"We're out!" Candice yelled.
Rae and Henry stood next to us and the sound of rushing water got more muffled. The light fell on a large stone tunnel that sloped right back down into the underworld. Our break above the surface had been short-lived. Behind us, the water got more and more muffled as it rose back in the chamber, cutting off all the air.
I heaved a huge sigh of relief and held the wand up, illuminating the tunnel better.
It was a smooth tunnel with two channels on either side. It was like they were carved there to make sure the water had somewhere to go. This was Fable's version of a sewer pipe.
All four of us were caked in mud and residue. Rae's golden hair had gone brown and Henry didn't look any better. But I managed a smile as the yarn rolled up beside Candice and stopped at her feet.
"Well," I said. "This is the last leg of the journey. I'm glad we're having fun."
"I think it is, too," Henry said. "I'm not sure if I'm ready for this."
I shook my head. "I know I'm not."
Candice gave me an understanding look.
If the dwarves got to his gold stash in time, I would be killing my father.
I would become even more like him and everyone would find out. I'd end up more alone than I had ever been.
But without a word, the four of us walked down the tunnel.
Chapter Thirteen
I was right that this tunnel served to give the water someplace to go. My light stayed on and I kept a hold of the wand. The tunnel turned to stone brick and muddy water flowed down the channels on either side of us. The sound was a lot less horrifying now. It was more like a happy gurgling and it showed no signs of overflowing.
"I think I left our food on the surface," Rae said. "I'm sorry."
"None of us knew we were going to fall down that hole," Candice told her. "We're alive and that's what matters. We can always find more food. Besides, dark spots tend to rot food. Maybe the princes up there will eat it and get a major case of the runs."
"I like that thought," I said. "We can always find more food. We did it once."
"But there was a dragon down there," Henry said. "I wonder who carved this tunnel."
"Probably dwarves," I said. "Or elves. Or maybe even trolls, even though I think they like to hang out in worse areas than this." I sucked in a breath of air. I was stil
l shaking and heat was coming back to my body. If we got out of here, I would have to study the Old Language some more so I could learn a spell to warm people up. Maybe I would even use it to help the poor. Who knew? If I did go into a magic career, it would be for good and never for evil.
This would be the last evil thing I did. Once Alric was gone, my connection to him would disappear forever.
"I wonder if Annie will follow us down this way," Henry said. "She might have to turn herself into a worm in order to do it. Then maybe we can step on her."
"Or better yet, she'll turn the princes into worms," Candice said. "It sounds like something she'd do."
"Turning people into animals isn't easy," I said. "Most magic users never master that. It takes a lot of magic to even do it to yourself and even more to do it to someone else. Didn't Annie have to weave some shirts to do that to Ignacia's brothers?"
"She did," Candice said. "I talked to Ignacia a lot. She said that's what happened. But the wand might help Annie do worse magic than she can already do."
"She just controlled the weather," Henry said. "And she can change her shape. I guess that pit is why she didn't change her shape and come after us."
"That is weird," Candice said. She rummaged through her pocket and pulled out a very bright red flower. She twirled it in her hand. I couldn't remember where she'd gotten it at first, but then I remembered her finding it in the boat when we were fleeing from the princes. It looked dry, like the water had never touched it.
"Candice, let me see that," I said.
She handed the flower to me. "I think Annie dropped this. She must like red."
I turned the flower over in my fingers. It felt strange, a lot more alive than it should, and full of a strange energy. It reminded me of the rampion, only it was the color of blood. There was some kind of magic in this and I wasn't sure what it was. It felt both warm and tingly and cold and sharp.
Like me.
"Maybe this is important," I said. "I think I remember seeing something about a red flower in a story, but it was a long time ago. Let's keep this."
Henry eyed it. "Annie dropped that by mistake when you hit her with that spell over the lake. Maybe it's useful."
"Man, I wished Brie had given us the book, but I think she kept it," I said.
"Which is good," Rae said. "The book would have been destroyed in what we had to crawl though. I hate being dirty. We need to find a clean waterfall down here or something."
The air got warmer the farther down we got. I had no idea what part of Fable we were under now. So far, this tunnel hadn't branched or left us any other way to go, so we didn't have a choice but to keep going this way. Candice hadn't bothered to ask the yarn where to go. It was pointless right now.
But at last, after we had accompanied the flowing water down into what felt like the center of the world, the tunnel split. Twin rivers of rainwater, now much cleaner than they'd been at the surface, went in two separate directions.
"Okay," Candice said, holding up the yarn. "Which way to Alric's prisoners?"
The yarn rose and pointed down the left tunnel. It unraveled for what felt like a minute and then stopped, hovering there in the air.
"It looks like it's not much farther," Henry said, holding his chin. I could see the fear in his eyes.
"I agree," I said. "The yarn went a lot farther the other times, except for when we were looking for that food."
I might be facing Alric soon if he was hanging out around his prisoners. When I was growing up, he wasn't in the castle very often and that was still true with Henrik gone.
I took a breath and walked after the yarn.
* * * * *
The tunnel stayed mostly level and the water rushing past us got quieter and less intense. The rain was stopping on the surface. Annie had called quits on the storm. We all breathed big sighs of relief and the tunnel stayed quiet behind us. We hadn't seen any elves or dwarves in this section. I wanted to ask Stilt if there would be any but he wasn't here. If things had gone all right, he was helping to get the dwarves together and they were going after Alric's treasure right now.
I hoped they didn't have a huge distance to cover or going against Alric would probably be a losing proposition.
The water channel dropped off into a stone hole next to us and we left that behind, too. The air down here had a slight warm draft like there might be a fire up ahead.
"The visions," Candice whispered to me. "Did you see where your mother was when Alric showed her to you?"
I glanced back to see Rae and Henry walking some distance behind us. "I didn't," I said. "It was just her and darkness. I think he's keeping her in some dimly lit place. Ask those two back there. They've seen the chamber."
She did. Henry told us that the prisoners were in a big, torch-lit chamber which was attached to many hallways and corridors of the underground.
"Alric might have moved them after we found the place," Henry said. "He doesn't want anyone to know where it is. Our yarn might be leading us to a new location so I can't tell you what to expect."
"That makes sense," I said, heart falling. I had wished to have someone who knew the area we were going into, at least a little. We were going in blind on this. Alric might have even upped the security around the place. He knew he needed more than obscurity to keep everything safe.
And we still had the matter of the stag.
I might be the guy to fill in. I was the only one related to my mother and the only prince in this group. Nori's son had been a prince. So was I.
The longer we walked, the worse I felt. Candice didn't even say anything as the tunnel gradually turned from gray stone brick to reddish stone brick. It was brick that you might see in a desert.
A desert that we might be under right now.
"We're close," I said. "Even the air here is more dry."
"I agree," Candice said. We passed an old, burnt-out torch on the wall.
Alric would be happy to tell everyone here who I was.
He knew how to tear people apart and that would be the perfect thing.
I had to force myself to walk now. My knees quivered and I glanced down at the wand that I still held. It was our lifeline.
The tunnel opened up into a tan brick chamber. We stepped inside but there was nothing here. The yarn turned right now, taking us down another tunnel. We passed through chamber after chamber and even an area where ancient bones were piled into a pit.
"We're in a necropolis," I said.
"That's great," Candice said.
"Well, kingdoms had to put their dead somewhere. If we're under the desert, they didn't have a lot of options."
"The kingdom that was once above Alric's prisoners is gone," Henry explained. "I saw it when Alric was bringing me here. It's all sand. There's just one tower remaining inside this huge desert valley and even that was ancient. The bricks were this color." He tapped the side of the tunnel with his boot. "I hate to think of what might have happened to the people who once lived there."
We passed another pit full of skeletons. "There are places like this in the other world," Candice explained. "Under cities. This is the same."
I shuddered and we walked past the pit. The light cast weird shadows on the bones. So many people had lived here once. This place might not have been dark before whatever cataclysm happened. Well, on the surface. We were still in the underworld down here. The nervous, biological feeling was still present.
The tunnels and chambers seemed to go on forever and the yarn took us in what felt like circles. Without it, we would be lost down here for days. I was getting thirsty and there wasn't any sign of water. We should have drank before coming in here, but if we met Alric, thirst would be the least of our problems.
And at last, the yarn pointed us down some stairs.
"I don't remember this," Henry said as we descended.
"Neither do I," Rae said.
"Then Alric moved his prisoners," I said. "I'm not surprised."
The stairs spiraled dow
n forever and it was like we were headed down to another dragon lair. However, I heard no sign of growling. Even Alric wouldn't want to mess with a creature like that.
"He didn't seem to move them very far," Henry said. "He wasn't expecting us to have this yarn."
But at last, the stairs ended and we stepped out into a chamber much bigger than any of the others we had gone through.
One lit with torches.
And one filled with glass jars and boxes.
Chapter Fourteen
I froze.
I had imagined seeing this place many, many times. I had always known that there were lots of prisoners down here, turned into vapor and imprisoned in jars, but I hadn't imagined there were probably hundreds.
Hundreds.
Glass jars stood everywhere, reflecting the pale yellow light. Some were on pedestals as if Alric revered them, but many others were sitting on the floor, scattered like Alric had just finished with a move and not yet put everything where it belonged. Vapor swirled inside all of them, vapor ranging from white to gray to every color of the rainbow. Rae and Henry were right.
"This isn't the same room," Henry said. "This one is a lot lower."
His words sounded like they were in the other world. I checked the whole room as I stood there in the threshold, but shadows took up the corners and made it impossible to see everything. There were no glass coffins right in front of me. It was all jars and even some small glass boxes. Nearby, a glass case covered what looked like a tiny, tiny kingdom that was so small its houses could be picked up with tweezers. Even the castle in the center was small enough to hold between my thumb and my forefinger.
"This must be the kingdom she hid in," I said.
"She?" Henry asked.
"The princess that Lawrence betrayed," I said. "I heard that she hid in another kingdom and Alric found her there and shrunk the entire place."
"He's good at that," Henry said. "I'd know. My kingdom was in one of those boxes. If we free this princess, we'll free the entire kingdom. That's how it worked with mine."