“Your heart is incredibly dark, just like your master’s!”
“Artofessor is our only master!” Gup said, stomping Alfred's toe.
Alfred grimaced but bravely stood defiant. “Ohh noo! It appears the witch Gorbogal and the Silver Merchants have mastered you all, just as they tried to do with us. But my people are free and free from this dark prison you all sit in!”
Gup stomped again, forcing Alfred to fall and grab his foot in pain. Gup stood above him. “No, your people will soon be dead. And the Underworld will be free from the curse of you uppity folk! The Silver Merchants warned us about you!”
“It seems everyone who listens to the Silver Merchants, never to their own selves, becomes entrapped in dark foul pits – not knowing what is right and true!”
“Enough!” Gup raised his fist to strike.
“No Gup! Heh heh, let us save him for the sheer panic and terror of the bottomless chasm!” The Prison Warden pointed down the chasm, the depths from which a strange ominous groan echoed. Gup stepped away from the ledge. Alfred looked down but could see only darkness. A sudden hot foul steam rose, giving the air a burning acrid smell.
“Behold the Great Wyrm... the creator of the world and gateway to eternal punishment! He is hungry!” The Warden smelled the foul air and smiled with dirty rotten teeth.
Alfred puked out into the bottomless chasm. “Ooops!” he said, wiping his mouth. The liquid curled and splayed as it disappeared into the darkness. Suddenly, a sniffle and a cough from far away gurgled and spat and then roared and whimpered to a gag. “A foul cave dragon of some sort, so what...”
Gup and the Prison Warden stared daggers at Alfred's defiance. The Warden quivered with anger. “Blaspheme! To our god! His sacrifice will be pleasing to our Underworld god!”
“Sacrifice, Gup? That's what your kingdom has come to? Sacrificing life?” Alfred looked at all the empty cells. “How many have you sacrificed?”
Gup felt a pang from that. He stood silent.
“Throw him in his cell! We will deal with him soon enough!” the Warden yelled.
The stone troopers handled him harshly and threw him in an overly thick prison cell. It was one of many along the circumference of the prison and death chamber. Alfred landed hard on the stone. He sat silent as Gup locked several intricate locks.
The Prison Warden stepped closer, licking the bars, “Gnome steel, boy king. You will never ever break this lock or this steel!”
Alfred stood up and looked at Gup, who was silent. “I know, Gup, I know. This steel is as hard as your heart is to your brother and to freedom.”
Gup hit the steel bars with his pickaxe. A loud boom echoed in the chamber. Even his own stone troopers flinched. “You will be dealt with soon enough.”
Gup and his troopers exited. The Prison Warden stared at Alfred, who stared back fearlessly. The Warden shivered. After awhile, he pretended he had somewhere to be and left.
Alfred waited a bit. The room was lit by dim gem lights. “Water? I need some water? Please someone, water?”
Alfred peered out.
“I give up and will confess the curse and how we did it!” Alfred waited for any response.
“I know where a secret horde of silver is! And gold!” he shouted out, waiting for anyone to respond.
He clanked the lock and made an opening creaking sound. “Errrrrrreeewwwww. Hah! I'm free!” He waited. No one replied. “Hmph.”
Then Alfred turned into a mouse and hurried out of there.
Gib and Pep sat in their dusty small stone room. They sipped dark gruel from small steel cups.
“I like that uppity Alfred, something about him,” Pep said, gurgling his gruel.
Gib just sat and gritted his teeth.
“Maybe we can rescue him? Take him back to his people? I don't want him to be cast out into the bottomless chasm.”
Gib gripped his steel mug tighter. Both heard gnomes passing by their open doorway. Both pretended to look as dour as the group passing. The returning gnomes came from mining, and were tired, exhausted and in ill health.
After they passed, and their noises of scuffling and moaning with them, Gib spoke. “We are in a prison here. We are slaves and we are defenseless.”
“But where can we go? The goblins and ratkins will surely return to the upper tunnels. Your very brother would hunt us down if we tried to leave!”
“Shhhhh....“ Gib leaned in closer, slamming his mug of splattering gruel. “To the surface!”
“Whaht? We'll burn...” Pep tried to yell in a whisper.
“I'll live in the shade if I have to. That King Alfred is right. We live in slavery down here, being protected by the Artofessor and my cursed brother! I think not. We are being guarded and kept down here. Ever our people suffer and die. Our numbers grow smaller with each generation, and our strength weakens too. Fewer of us even have families now.” They looked at each other with forlorn eyes, remembering great losses in their past. “We must change.”
“Treason, Gib... treason and traitors, our fate may be the bottomless chasm and the wail of that titanic wyrm far below, swallowing us up, slowly digesting for thousands of years in its cavernous intestines!”
“Yeah, I get the picture! Seems we are already in that cavern, here in this deep dark dungeon. We are already wasting away.”
Pep thought about that. It seemed a fair assessment.
“I want to see this sun, this light,” said Gib.
“It will blind you!”
“We are already blind.”
Chapter Forty-Five: The Escape
“But Gib, how will we rescue him?”
“You won't need to!” Alfred suddenly grew and leaned against the wall of their room, by the entrance – perhaps a little too posey.
“Holy rocking stones!” Gib leapt up and ran to the door to check if anyone followed.
“I kept to the mushrooms and filth!” Alfred smiled and winked and did an odd nose sniff.
Gib looked up odd at him. “How did you? No one can escape our locks and prisons!”
“No one but the boy King Alfred!” said Pep and Alfred simultaneously. They high-fived! Gib blinked.
“Shhhh....” Gib waved his furious little hands in front of Alfred.
Alfred ducked and gritted teeth in apology. He tip-toed over to and pointed at the pile of his very own gear. Gib motioned and Pep helped Alfred get on his gear: his skins of water and oil, his foodpack, his oil lamp, the dagger and it's scabbard.
Suddenly, they heard gnomes rushing up to the open door. Alfred leaned back against the wall to hide. Gib stepped to the entrance to meet them.
“Gib, you see a dirty little mouse run by here?! Haven't seen one in ages! We plan on eating it! If you see it, don't claim it. We saw it first!”
Gib blinked. Then he looked back inside at Alfred and back at the group. “I ain't seen no mouse in years. We ate them all ages ago.”
“Are you sure? We could swear we saw it come this way.”
“In your dreams! Be off with you fools!” Gib pushed them all away. “Get going!” He returned to the room and looked up at Alfred, then huffed.
“This is what you are fighting for down here? Foul air, foul food, foul things... desperately eating... mice?” Alfred whispered this with gritting teeth, then saw their down-turned faces.
Gib was brought to tears. Pep came up to console him. “Our people are hunting mice.”
“Sunlight Gib?” Alfred bent down, smiling warmly.
“Wha?”
“You want to see the sun? Do you want to see it for yourself?”
“Will it burn me, Alfred?”
“Yes, it will,” smiled Alfred.
Gib looked at him quizzically.
“If you stand in it too long. Hours and hours of it! It will burn any of us. Well, just our skin gets all red and hot. A sunburn! But we also get used to it and can spend all day long in it. It's the sun! A big ball of fiery light. But it also warms us and grows green plants and food. It light
s the day and gives us joy. It gives energy to plants that make food we eat. And much more than mouses are up there, deer and rabbits, cows and horses! Just come and I will show you. It's not like you have anything to lose down here.”
“Pep?” Gib looked softly at his longtime friend.
“I'll go with you to the highest mountain peak or the bottomless chasm, always.”
The gnomes gave each other a brotherly hug.
“I will turn into a mouse, and then you can carry me. We can go back to that shaft that leads up and up – to the surface.”
Gib and Pep nodded, curious about his magical power.
Alfred furrowed his eyebrows and spoke softly.
A little mouse,
Small in size,
Powers of might, deduce,
Minimize,
Powers of light, reduce!
The gnomes looked curiously at him. “Is something supposed to happen?” asked Gib.
Alfred looked down at himself. He was still Alfred.
“Well, it was a nice poem, well... sort of... ” Pep shrugged.
Alfred nodded, rubbed his hands, furrowed his eyebrows again, scratched his nose and struck an odd pose. Still, nothing happened.
“Are you a mouse? And we just see you as Alfred?” asked Gib.
“No, no... darn it! Perhaps I can't do it again for a while. I don't know... maybe I need some rest? I am pretty tired.”
Just then, a shrill horn sounded, echoing throughout the halls. “That's the guardian's alarm! We will be searched for an escaped prisoner!” Gib said.
“Who escaped?” Pep asked, biting his nails.
“Him! You idiot!” Gib pointed at Alfred. But he was not there. Gib and Pep looked around. Pep suddenly leapt on the stone table and danced a frantic dance, squealing like a little girl – not like an archer trained in Alfred's squadron, not a little girl like that, but you know, a prim and proper little girl in a nice place who never bothered with scary little furry sniffy pests!
“Oh oh... a mouse!” squealed Pep.
Gib swiped Pep's legs. Pep fell flat and hard on the stone table. Pep looked at Gib, paralyzed as Gib motioned a shush. Gib turned to see Alfred the mouse rush up to Gib, climb up and crawl under his beard in the nick of time.
“Hey there, what's the fuss in here?” Gup stood at the door as his stone troopers passed by. “I've come for you, brother. You've taken to this uppity folk, I can tell. Where is he?”
Gup entered and looked around. There was no place to hide big Alfred in the room. Gup held a small spring-loaded weapon, which looked like a single-shot gun. He had many metal arrows packed on his steel bracers. He looked like the consummate gunner type warrior.
“It wasn't us, Gup. You were in charge of him, remember? You guarded him, just like you guard all of us.” Gib's eyes admonished his brother for the loyalties he chose.
Gup stared back with dagger eyes. Gib's beard suddenly flicked out and something wriggled through his coarse facial hair. “What is that?!” Gup said with a stare.
Gib scratched his beard as Alfred's wiggly tail poked through it.
Pep sat up on the table as Gup approached his brother. Pep hissed. “He's got worms. Parasites. Been meaning to tell you but with that weird uppity, we've been distracted.”
The wiggling continued. Gib scratched the area like crazy.
Gup backed off.
“It's contagious,” said Pep, scratching his own beard.
“You better get that taken care of with the alchemists! Immediately!”
“Yes, Master Gup, right away.”
Gup backed out of the room and hurried along. The sound of troopers barging in and turning over other gnomes’ possessions echoed throughout the chambers. They were definitely an oppressed lot.
Gib and Pep rushed down the corridors toward the main market. The gnomes here huddled in groups waiting for the stone troopers to search them out. Some looked oddly at Gib and Pep.
“His brother's orders! Official business!” Pep would say repeatedly as they hurried along. They passed the gnome quarters and workspaces. They passed the smiths and apothecaries. Finally, they got to the main shaft leading up to many caves and the surface.
Gib immediately began to ascend the spiraling stone steps. Pep followed. “We better hurry. Your brother will know soon enough that we did not return to our quarters!”
“I know, Pep. Hurry, up and up we go. To the sun, to our end, I care not, as long as I know!”
“Know what, Gib?” Pep asked, worried.
“The truth!” Gib answered with confidence.
“What truth?”
“If I turn to stone, then the Artofessor's truth. If I do not turn to stone, then the Truth of it all.”
Pep gulped.
They had gone quite awhile ascending the stone steps, tiring themselves out, when suddenly Alfred, still a mouse, grew out of Gib's beard. He knocked both of them off the steps. Alfred, now in full boy form, barely grabbed a stone step, hanging on for dear life. Gib fell back, rolling down the steps and knocking into Pep, who caught him. Both saw the desperate situation Alfred was in and hurried to his aid. Their small hands grabbed his and with great gnome strength they lifted him enough so he could crawl up onto the narrow steps. Alfred had to hug the edge.
“Why are these so narrow!” Alfred cried.
“We gnomes can easily traverse, you uppity folk, nnnnn.... not so much,” Gib said.
Each stone step was a single rock jutting out of the wall. There was plenty of space between each step and the next one, so a misstep could easily be a fall. The steps felt like barely anything was there to keep Alfred from falling.
“I ran out... the spell, I could tell... it is exhausted, done,” said Alfred, breathing hard. He couldn't help but look down and feel a dizzying sense of vertigo.
“Okay, now hold on. He has not the stone fortitude of us gnomes,” Gib said.
“How are we going to get him up the stones? Two of us can't do it?” asked Pep, frazzled.
“We have to go. I have to try. I'll try crawling, if you can keep me from falling over?” Alfred said, shaking.
“Yeah, yeah, let's try.” Gib easily traversed the stone steps, crawling over Alfred to the front. Pep took the rear. Both nodded and motioned for Alfred to get going.
Alfred cringed but got on his hands and knees. He easily bumped the wall and began to tilt off the side. “Ohhh, ohhh…” They caught him and pushed him back. He bounced again so they pushed him back, more gently this time. He nodded and realized he needed to strike a balance between leaning against the wall and clambering upward on all fours.
After quite a few steps, Alfred realized that going up this way was too tiring. “I'm going to try to stand up. Help me.” He carefully lifted himself as the gnomes leaned him against the wall. He finally got to a standing position, breathing quite rapidly. “Okay, just keep me against the wall, okay?”
“You're doing fine, Alfred, a bit slow, but fine,” Gib said.
“Just don't look down, and don't look up. Just look to the steps in front of you, that are curved around the wall of course, ascending,” Pep said in an encouraging tone.
“Pep! Too much information!” said Gib.
Pep nodded.
They went up in this way for some time, Alfred trying to relax his breathing and feel the security of their bracing.
Gib and Pep looked down and saw Gup and a squad of stone troopers.
“Oh-oh, it's your brother and his troops!” Pep said.
Alfred closed his eyes and gulped.
Suddenly a metal arrow crashed into the wall next to them. “Surrender, Gib! Or suffer the consequences!”
Gib and Pep looked at each other. “To the end, Pep, to the end!” Gib and Pep pulled out their pickaxes and suddenly swung away from Alfred. He quivered, nearly losing his balance. Gib and Pep crawled along the walls, in and out of small cave openings, as metal arrows screeched and thudded into the walls near them.
Alfred shuddered, strugg
ling to keep his balance. “Tirnalth!” he cried. “Help me! Tirnalth, I call on you!” He barely kept his balance on the narrow stone steps.
A metal arrow thudded into the wall next to him. He looked in awe at it and then, losing concentration, lost his balance. He frantically waved his arms about as he tipped over the side. At the last second he focused on the arrow stuck in the wall and grabbed it, pulling himself up. He sighed in relief. He looked down but couldn't see very far in the darkness. He could hear those below cranking their spring-fired weapons. He gulped. Feeling doomed, he stood there exposed, unable to move up the steps.
“Alfred?! What are you doing down there?”
It was Loranna, whispering from somewhere far above. Then a flame came fluttering down. It was a lit piece of rags and wood. It illuminated the huge chasm as it fell. Alfred followed it down and saw it light up the steps the stone troopers were ascending.
They looked up at the flickering flame. Alfred could hear the distinct sound of bows twanging and arrows zipping by him. He couldn't help but smile. The stone troopers yelped and squawked as mysterious arrows flew out of the bright light. Their steel armour protected them well, but they were not used to being fired upon. They retreated down the steps.
Suddenly, a rope unfurled next to Alfred as he hung from the lone metal arrow. He reached out for it.
“Come on, Alfred! Grab the darn thing!” Hedor yelled from high above.
Alfred nearly fell to his death, reaching out with one hand and almost letting go of the arrow. Finally, the rope swung in enough, and he grabbed it and quickly wrapped it around his gear. He had learned a one-handed knot from Hedor long ago and quickly tied it. He tugged twice at the rope. “Tug twice...” and they returned signal three times “...and feel it thrice.” Alfred then let go of the arrow, which was still snugly stuck in the rock, kicking himself out from the wall. As he did so, he was pulled up and able to walk the rope up the wall.
Just then, out of the darkness another arrow screamed by and clanged loudly, ricocheting off the curved wall. Alfred ducked, swinging into the wall as the arrow bounced around the curved wall, for the second time almost hitting him before it fell away.
Alfred 2: And The Underworld (Alfred the Boy King) Page 25