That was when Hap saw Ulf and Shadow. His heart froze. The brothers were lying on the ground, and blood was sinking into the dirt beside them.
“No!” he cried, kneeling. The fur on both was sticky. “Talk to me!”
Ulf winced up at him, then closed his eyes. “Go after him,” he said, his voice halting. “He’s got the stone.”
Shadow struggled to his hands and knees. “Ulf!”
In a soft gabble of Auki, Ulf tried to assure his brother that he was all right, although it was obvious he wasn’t. Listening to them, Hap understood what had happened. At the last instant, Ulf had thrown himself against his brother, knocking him to the wall just as Slag’s gun went off. It was Ulf, not Shadow, who’d been hit.
“Where are you hurt?” said Hap.
“Is nic important.”
Shadow turned sad eyes from Ulf to the human boy. “Go. I’ll take care of my brother.”
They were right, but knowing that didn’t make Hap feel less guilty. For the second time in as many days, he was abandoning ones he cared about.
“Come on, Hap,” said a voice behind him. “We better go.”
It was Sophia, pink-cheeked and out of breath.
He didn’t bother to argue.
Mount Xexnax was harder to get out of than into, especially if you were in a hurry. Slag and his guards jumped on the rattling, hand-operated elevator platform that would take them to the next level, where mules waited to carry them to the funicular railcars. When the system had been designed, decades earlier, speed had not been a consideration. Now, with newly freed Aukis and humans in furious pursuit, it was.
“Hurry!” Slag shouted as his men yanked on the chains that lifted the platform. He grabbed a section of chain himself and heaved into the work. They were just above the miners’ reach now and rising. Fists were raised and shovels flung, but no use.
“You want us?” Slag yelled down. “Too bad. Tell you what. I’ll give you one of your own.”
With that, he grabbed Pec by one leg and held him over the side of the lift.
“Oh no, sir, you wouldn’t hurt poor Pec,” cried the Auki, his yellow eyes bulging. “Not Pec, not good, honest Pec.”
“Goodbye, good, honest Pec.”
Slag dropped him into the angry mob below.
There was a cry and a scuffle of fur, and nothing was seen of Pec again.
Jumping out at the next level, Slag lashed the elevator in place so that it wouldn’t descend. “Come on!” he shouted, heading up the tunnel to where the mules were penned.
Below, several Aukis had begun climbing the elevator shaft, their clawed feet digging into the surrounding rock to steady them.
“Hap!” said Sophia. “Didn’t we dig a spy hole around here?”
“You’re right!” Hap called to the others: “There’s a tunnel next to this one. Follow us!”
Hap and Sophia squeezed through a narrow opening, then scrambled up the tunnel’s incline, followed by a dozen miners, both Auki and human. No torches were there to guide them, only the dull blue glow of the rock itself; but it was enough. No one spoke, Hap noticed. The friction between the races seemed to have been forgotten in their haste.
The little ragtag army emerged at last near the surface, where the tunnel joined the entryway to Portal Three. A blast of cold air greeted them as they stared out at Slag and his men climbing from the railcar and starting on foot up the snow-crusted path to the building marked “XCC.”
This was not good. There would be soldiers in Command Central, lots of them maybe, and an arsenal of weapons.
“Wait!” cried Sophia, raising her hands high over her head, then lowering them halfway, like wings, and rotating them in tight circles.
The miners stared at her.
“By the power of Xexnax!” she shouted, and proceeded to utter a garbled collection of Auki-like consonants and throat clearings.
“Not now, Sophia!” said Hap. “This is no—”
But then his voice died out.
Slag had slipped and fallen. His two soldiers were also having trouble keeping their footing. One of them actually began sliding face-first down the hill. Before he could get to his feet, the Aukis caught him and pinned him.
“What did you do?” said Hap.
Sophia looked confused. “I don’t know. I thought I was doing the ‘Bees-in-Underpants Spell.’”
“Well, I wish you’d—whoa!” Hap cried as he slipped and fell hard on the ice.
“Actually,” said Gert, who had just caught up with them, “it rained last night.”
“You mean…?” said Sophia.
“You know how slippery it gets when rain freezes.”
“Come on,” said Hap, seeing Sophia’s disappointment. “We don’t need spells to catch them.”
The footing may have been tricky for humans, but the claw-footed Aukis scrambled ahead and began closing the gap with Slag.
Suddenly, a gunshot echoed across the frozen crust. Slag was facing them with his shotgun. “Stand back, or I’ll blast your heads off!”
The miners stopped.
“Stay there and stay alive!” Slag yelled.
He hitched the leather pouch higher on his shoulder and began climbing again, the remaining soldier just behind him.
“We can’t let them get to headquarters,” said Gert, breathing hard.
“What do we do?”
She shook her head. Guns were guns.
“We keep going,” said Markie firmly. “Keep down. And keep trees between you when you can.”
That’s what they did. Slag’s soldier turned and fired off occasional shots, but he and his master were intent on making it to the building. And they were getting there. A minute later, Slag had his foot on the bottom step, his hand on the newel post. His grin seemed to say, “No one can catch me now!”
“Welcome,” came a calm voice from above.
Slag stared into the shadowed porch. “Who’s up there?”
A slightly built man stepped into a slant of sunlight.
“You!” said Slag.
“At your service.” It was Silas Barlo, as pleasant as you please. “Any tune you’d like to hear?”
“What are you so cheerful about?” Slag thundered up the stairs. “Don’t you know I can blow your head off?”
“Whatever you say.”
“How’d you get free, anyway?”
“Everybody left. They seemed in a hurry.”
“What do you mean, they left?” Slag brushed past Barlo and grabbed the door handle.
It didn’t turn.
“Did you lock it?” he demanded.
“Yes, sir. I thought it would be a good idea. Keep out undesirables.”
“Well, I’ll take the key.”
“I’m afraid I dropped it in the snow.”
“Barlo, you’re dead!”
Hap had now arrived, with the Aukis and others, at the foot of the stairs. They stared at the scene above them.
Slag yanked at the door. He pounded on it. “Why aren’t they answering?”
“I told you.” Silas smiled, and his crooked little nose wrinkled with amusement. “They heard there was trouble in the mine, so they went to help you.”
“Went to help me? I never saw them there.”
“That’s odd. I told them where you’d be. Portal Two, right?”
“Portal Two? You idiot! We were in Portal Three!”
Slag turned and looked down from the porch. Dozens of humans and Aukis returned his stare.
Hap stepped forward.
“Give up, Mr. Slag.” “Give up? Give up?”
“Really, sir. You might be able to shoot one or another of us, but these Aukis will tear you apart, I can assure you of that.”
Slag turned to his remaining soldier, who was, to speak frankly, beginning to look a little pale. He didn’t like the idea of being torn apart.
“Shoot him!” said Slag, pointing at Hap.
The soldier hesitated. “Who?”
“Shoot
the boy!”
Sophia stood beside Hap. “You do and I’ll tear you apart myself!”
“Did you hear me?” Slag roared. “Shoot him! Shoot them both!”
“I’d rather not, sir.”
The commander stared. No one disobeyed him. Ever. He raised his shotgun and pointed it at Hap’s head. “I’ll do it myself!”
Then he changed his mind. Slowly, he turned and pointed the gun at Silas Barlo.
“All right,” he announced. “Here is what’s going to happen. You are all going to go away now. Otherwise, you will never hear this traitorous fellow sing another traitorous song.”
Hap felt Sophia’s hand tighten in his.
For several long seconds, there was silence on the mountain. Silas Barlo was loved. He was loved for his songs and for his courage in the resistance.
People even loved him for his funny little nose.
“Go ahead,” said Silas calmly.
Slag frowned. “You’re awfully brave.”
“Not at all. It makes sense. You shoot me, the Aukis tear you apart, and the Great Blue is returned to the mountain where it belongs. It all works out rather well.”
“You’re an interesting fellow.”
“Thank you.”
“But I have a different idea.”
As the miners stared, Slag set down the shotgun, pulled on his lead-lined gloves, and reached into the leather sack for the diamond. He held it high over his head, as if to compare it in brilliance with the early-morning sun slanting over the snow.
“What do I need with guns and hostages? I have this!”
He laughed a terrible laugh.
“Look at you all!” he shouted. “You dare pursue me?”
Another laugh broke free from some deeply unfunny place inside him.
“Slaves and Blueskins! Behold!”
No one moved. It’s possible no one breathed. Slag himself appeared hypnotized as he stared upward into the shifting lights in the heart of the jewel.
“You can’t touch me; don’t you realize that?”
Soon his eyes widened in astonished pleasure, and a slow smile lit his face.
“Yes,” he hissed. “Yes, I understand!”
Suddenly, he whirled around, holding the gem at arm’s length as if it were a dancing partner. “Ha-ha!” he crowed. “I understand! I understand everything!”
The Aukis backed away. Even his soldier stepped back.
“Nothing can touch me!” Slag’s voice rang out. “Not ice or guns or fire. Not armies! Not those miserable Aukis who imagine they own this place.”
“Should we rush him?” whispered Sophia.
Hap’s mouth was open. “I don’t know.”
“And certainly,” continued the wild man, “not that ridiculous mayor and his twice-ridiculous wife! To think they wanted my diamond!”
His eyes grew manic. “Now I rule the mountain! All the mountains!”
He held the jewel high and laughed. It began to glow more brightly than before. The lights within it were dancing.
But his laugh seemed to catch in his throat. Something was wrong.
“Ah—” he gasped.
Slag’s head, blue with reflected light, grew oddly distorted. Bumps appeared on his bald skull, then on his forehead and cheeks.
“Arrrrr!” he cried, sinking to his knees.
The bumps grew larger, and then, as Hap watched, transfixed, one of them burst, and sticky green liquid oozed down the side of his head.
Another burst, and another.
Slag screamed.
In minutes, what remained of the fearsome man was a slippery mess slowly darkening into ice.
The diamond, hot as blue flame, burned its way back into the mountain and disappeared.
Twenty-eight
BACK HOME IN Aplanap, no one had a clue about any of this. In fact, with the newspaper shut down and tourists scarce, there wasn’t any news at all. The truth is, people were discouraged. You’d be discouraged, too, with the clouds hanging heavy as mattresses and nothing to buy in the shops. Indeed, the town had become so quiet you could hear the faint tick and scratch of leaves as they landed on the glassy streets and slid downhill. Sometimes a twirl of wind lifted them in a spinning dance, then set them down in rustling piles against the sides of buildings.
But the day came finally when another sound was heard: the sharp tock, tock, tock of a walking stick. The townspeople looked out their windows as a dark figure trudged through the glass-coated center of town.
It was clearly a stranger. No one in Aplanap went about wrapped in a black hooded cowl that covered him from head to foot. And no one was that tall.
Curiosity got the better of people. Doors opened and the townsfolk ventured out—carefully, to be sure, holding on to postboxes and lampposts to keep from slipping.
On he continued, past the jeweler’s shop, the cheese emporium, the baker’s and clockmaker’s, while behind him more people followed.
Near the top of the hill, beside the cliff overlooking Doubtful Bay, stood the cobbler’s shop. The stranger paused. Everyone behind him stopped as well.
Lifting his stick, he rapped sharply on the door. “Come out!”
There was no answer. There was, in fact, no one there.
A boy was sent to bring Grel the cobbler, who was staying above the watchmaker’s shop until he could find a place to live. Another messenger was sent sliding down to the Town Hall to alert the mayor.
Grel came quickly, tucking in his shirttails. His dog, Rauf, was with him, wiggling with excitement. It didn’t take much to make Rauf wiggle.
“Ye are the cobbler,” declared the stranger.
Grel nodded.
Beneath the shadow of the cowl, the man’s eyes glittered. “Where,” he said, “is my shoe?”
Grel was afraid. This was the day he’d hoped would never come. “It’s inside.”
“Get it!”
The cobbler retrieved the key from over the door and let himself in. Before long, he came out with the shoe on a tray.
The stranger gazed at it. Odd-shaped and nondescript, the shoe appeared to be covered with dull gray pebbles.
“A stone is missing!” he cried out. “Where is the thief?”
Grel swallowed. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. You see, there was this beggar girl—”
“The thief! Where is he?”
“He was condemned and sent to Mount Xexnax. We may never—”
“Here I am!” Hap Barlo stepped forth from the crowd.
“Hap!” Grel cried. He ran and grabbed the boy in his arms while Rauf barked and jumped as high as his old legs would lift him.
Grel stepped back to get a good look. “Dear boy! You escaped!”
That’s when he noticed Silas Barlo the beekeeper standing just to the side and grinning. And next to him, Sophia, who had disappeared so mysteriously a month ago. His eyes blurred with emotion, so that he barely recognized several other long-lost townsmen who’d been sent away long ago. There was even that mischievous lad Markie, who hadn’t been seen for years. Here they all were, home again.
“This is a miracle!” he cried. “How—?”
“The stone!” the stranger broke in. “Where is it?”
Hap stopped scratching Rauf’s ears and stood up. “I don’t have it,” he said.
“Ye steal it, and then ye lose it?” the man fairly roared.
“I am truly sorry,” said Hap simply.
“I am sorry, too.” There was a pause, like the pause between lightning and thunder. “Are ye sure ye stole it?”
“Oh, very sure.”
“Didn’t misplace it?”
“Afraid not.”
“Maybe put it in the wrong pocket? Have ye checked your pockets?”
“I don’t have pockets.”
“That is unfortunate. We know about your good qualities.”
“You do?”
“Ye almost make the human race bearable.”
“I do?”
“But ye lea
ve us no choice.”
“I don’t?”
The stranger raised his surprisingly short arms and cried, “Execute him, by order of Xexnax!”
The townspeople glanced about, puzzled.
“I see I’ll have to do it myself,” he said.
“If you have any trouble,” boomed another voice, “the Lord Mayor of Aplanap will take care of it!”
For the mayor had just arrived, with Ludmilla the Large at his side, puffing mightily. A contingent of guards began fanning out at the back of the crowd.
The stranger cast a contemptuous eye at the mayor. “Come,” he said to Hap, “I need to throw you off the cliff.” He seized the boy by the nape of the neck and began dragging him to the precipice.
“Stop!” cried Grel.
“Don’t!” begged Silas.
“Rauf!” said Rauf.
“Don’t you dare hurt him!” cried Sophia, who had stepped forward and was rotating her outstretched arms in tiny circles. She flung her most fatal curse at the dark stranger.
Nothing happened.
The man turned his baleful eyes upon her. “Ye throw a spell at me?”
“I’ll do worse than that!”
“Do not try. Ye are a good human but a very bad magician.”
“Then I’ll beat you with my fists!” she shouted, and she charged at him full force.
What happened then astonished everyone. When Sophia hurled her skinny shoulder against the stranger, he simply broke in half! The bottom half of him remained standing while the top half toppled backward and landed with a painful thud.
There was a tumult of cloth, and then a strangely hairy head emerged, with heavy brows, sharp blue eyes, and a remarkably long upturned nose.
The townspeople backed away.
“You!” said Hap, who had been thrown free.
“You know this creature?” said the mayor, frowning.
“This is Shadow Reader. He’s an Auki.”
“So I see.”
The bottom half of the stranger thrashed about in the cowl, and then the head of an Auki warrior poked out. Hap recognized him, too. They’d clambered through many tunnels together.
The crowd backed away even farther, although a couple of children had begun to giggle. After all, these Aukis might be fierce-looking, but they weren’t very big.
The Blue Shoe Page 14