by J.A. Sprouls
Chapter 25
"What is it?" Jethro asked as he got to his feet and went over to stand by Pigtail. Then he too gave out a long whistle. "Now who would have thought you would run into something like that in a tunnel?"
Their curiosity piqued; the others joined them at the tunnel entrance. They all stood amazed at what they were seeing. There, in a gigantic cave-like room was the labyrinth. Even though they couldn't see too much over the top of the tall walls it was obvious just what it was.
Wicket sighed and asked, "So what do we do now?"
Pigtail who was holding the lantern as high as he could was looking around to see just what could be done. Finally he saw what he was looking for off to the left. There was a bit of a ledge that one of the girls could climb up to. From there they could see the whole labyrinth and be able to figure out how they should go through it. It was worth a try, anyway.
"So who wants to volunteer to climb up to that ledge and see if you can see the entire labyrinth? If you can, figure out how we need to go." Pigtail said with enough enthusiasm that it made sound like a treat, though Wicket and Tally knew otherwise. They just wondered to themselves if the girls would fall for it.
"I've never been very good at figuring things out so maybe it should be Lark," Pill offered.
"Shoot, I'm probably even worse than you so maybe you should go," Lark countered.
Wicket and Tally realized the girls were a heck of lot smarter than they had thought.
"Say, what about the Knarls? They are even smaller that we are. They could do it just fine I bet," Pill offered.
Pigtail didn't particularly want the Knarls to do it because he still had trust issues with them. Granted they had been right about things before now but who knew if they were going to always remain on their side. He didn't want to say this but he was saved the trouble by BJ who said, "Knarls don't do well at great heights. We get really dizzy and if that happened way up there then we could fall and hurt ourselves." Well, 'duh' thought Pill, that was exactly why she didn't want to do it and she knew it was also why Lark didn’t want to either.
"Okay, I'm thinking of a number between one and ten…" Pigtail started.
"Three," shouted Tally and then nudged Wicket in the side with his elbow, "I love this game."
"It's for the girls to play to see who gets to go up there," Pigtail said through gritted teeth. He then turned back to the girls and said, "Okay, Lark pick a number and then Pill will pick a number."
Lark kicked the dirt with her shoe and finally said, "Nine."
Pill was trying to figure things out. If Lark said nine then that was the closet number to ten there was. So if she chose a number in the middle then she would automatically be the one closest to the number Pigtail was thinking, as long as it wasn't the number nine. So she should say a number as far from the number nine as possible to keep herself from being nearest to any other number. "I say, number one." She smiled to herself and figured that should do it.
"The number I was thinking of was four, so you win Pill."
"See, if I had been allowed to play I would have won because the number three is closer than the number one is to four." Tally was smiling as he was telling Wicket this. He liked to win and in this case he would have won but this time he doesn’t have to do anything like climb up the side of a rock wall.
Pill wasn't too happy about winning. But since she did win she headed over to the rock wall. Pigtail shined the lantern up so that she could see where she was going as she climbed. It wasn't easy to do. There weren't too many places to grab onto. Once she got to the ledge she realized that it was much smaller than it had looked from the ground. She had to turn around very carefully so as not to lose her footing. As soon as she got turned around she looked out over the labyrinth. It was pitch black. She could only see the first few walls but then nothing, though this did give her an idea.
"I can't see anything from here, it's too dark. But the walls are wide enough at the top that we can walk on them. So why don't we all climb up to the top of the walls and get through to the exit that way?" She called down to them.
"Hey, that's a good idea! Great thinking, Pill," Jethro called up to her.
So Pill slowly climbed back down. When she had almost reached the bottom Wicket reached up and grabbed her just to make sure she didn't fall.
Pigtail got down on all fours and Jethro stood up on Pigtail's back. He held out his hands cupped so that Tally could put his foot in the cupped hands and then be lifted up to the top of the wall. As soon as Tally was up they handed him his bag and then Wicket was lifted up next. The Knarls went up Wicket's back while he was stretched out to grab the top of the wall. They jumped up onto the wall and waited for the others. Pill and Lark went after them and then Jethro and finally Pigtail was hoisted up by Tally and Wicket.
Tally held his lantern over the labyrinth, "So how the heck are we gonna figure out the labyrinth if we can't see any further than four walls?"
"Actually," Pill explained, "We don't need to figure it out. All we have to do is use the planks we have left and just put them over any empty spaces and cross over to the next wall-top that way. There's no reason to have to figure out the labyrinth."
Tally still wasn't sure what she was talking about and Wicket realized this so he grabbed some planks and walked along a wall top until he came to a gap. He then took the plank and put it over the area of the gap to where it touched the wall top across from it. He then walked across it and turned around to Tally and said, "See, this is what she is talking about. Let's get going."
With comprehension finally dawning on Tally he smiled and walked over to Wicket. "I hope that's the only plank I ever have to walk," he said with a smile. "But aren't we gonna run out of planks pretty soon? Then what do we do?"
Jethro was the last to cross the plank and to answer Tally's question he reached down and took the plank up and followed the others who had gone further down the wall top. It took about an hour for them to finally make it across the labyrinth top before they could see an opening. When they finally got to the opening Pigtail tied a string to the lantern handle and carefully let it down to make sure there wasn't anything on the floor. It was a good thing he had done this because there was some more of the ooze there.
"Toss a plank down but try and angle it so that you have to use just one plank. We don't want to lose too many of them. They've come in real handy." Pigtail ordered.
So Wicket got down on his stomach on the wall top and carefully dropped the plank so that it would take just one plank to get across the ooze. As soon as he did that, Tally jumped down on to the plank and carefully walked to the end and checked to see if there any more ooze around. He called up to the others, "That's it as far as the ooze is concerned."
So the girls were carefully lowered down by Jethro and went over to Tally and waited for the others to follow. Once they all got down they looked around and didn't see anything of danger in the tunnel and that worried both Jethro and Pigtail even more. It was as they were walking down the tunnel, kicking up dust with their feet that Arbordale realized it and shouted, "It's the hematite dust. Stop kicking up the dirt," he ordered.
"How can we do that? It just automatically kicks up when we take a step." Pill asked in exasperation.
"Everyone just stop. Let's get the water ready so that we can wash our eyes and let's put a bandana over our mouth and nose to stop it from entering." Jethro suggested to everyone.
Once they did this they continued on down the tunnel and finally reached an area where the dirt was a rich dark brown color. They had gotten past the hematite dust and so they stopped to wash their eyes and face with the water. They shook out their bandanas and stowed them as they moved on down the tunnel. As they came around a sharp turn in the tunnel they all heard this weird squelching sound and so they all stopped suddenly and looked down. Pigtail was afraid they hadn't seen some of the ooze but the floor was still a dark brown color and not purple.
It was then that Tally, peeking aroun
d another sharp turn saw them. The terra slugs. They were huge and taking up the whole tunnel.
"Aw, now that's just disgusting," he said as some slime slowly slid down the slug's bodies.
"Man, I don't know what is worse, the way they look or the way they smell." Wicket said coming up behind Tally waving his hand under his nose as if to sweep the horrible aroma away.
"Jeesh, it smells like a dung heap, only more potent," Jethro said as he also waved his hand under his nose.
"It smells like the time our ox got into the homemade chili. You remember that pa? He could only walk a few steps before he let loose and then went another few steps and let loose again. It got all over the wagon wheels and we smelled that aroma for a good two weeks." Lark laughed.
"Now what is it we're supposed to do to these terra slugs, I forgot?" Pigtail asked Orida.
"You salt 'em. That should take the fluid out of 'em," she told Pigtail. So Lark reached into her sack and pulled the salt out.
"Now don't use too much. You don't want to use all the salt now. There might be more down another tunnel." Arbordale warned as she opened the salt container and tossed some at the slug.
"So how long do we wait?" Tally asked because he realized he really needed to go, as he danced from one foot to the other. Wicket realizing just why Tally was asking this, realized also that he to needed to go.
"If you gals don't mind, me and Tally here need to visit the little boys room," he pointed over his shoulder to the back of the tunnel that turned sharply.
"Who you calling a little boy? I'm a man, last I checked," Tally said defensively.
Lark and Pill giggled said they would stay where they were. Jethro and Pigtail also went with them and made the Knarls stay behind to watch the girls. As soon as they finished, the girls took their turn with Orida as lookout to make sure nothing came up behind the girls as they took care of their business.
With all that done and nothing to do until the slugs shrunk enough to get by, they all sat down and ate lunch. Wicket was really hot and was getting tired of wearing the Flug suit and asked if he could take it off, but Pigtail still thought that it might come in handy in case they met up with some other Flugs, so he made him keep the costume on. So Wicket sulked the rest of the time they waited.
It wasn't until 30 minutes later that the terra slugs dried up enough to get past them. They inched around them very carefully just in case the slugs still had a little bit of life left in them and would try to attack. After passing them they headed down the tunnel until Tally, who had taken the front position for a spell tripped and fell, sending the lantern rolling down the tunnel. As the lantern came to rest on a small tile shaped like a diamond there was a slight whooshing sound. That stopped everyone in their tracks. Pigtail held his lantern up high to illuminate as much ground as possible and looked down the tunnel. He noticed that there were more of the tiles on the floor.
"So what was the whooshing sound?" Tally's voice shook as he asked this.
"Beats me, I don't see anything that could have or would have made that noise," Pigtail replied.
It wasn't until Pigtail started to circle the lantern to cast light on the entire tunnel that Lark shouted, "Look, on the ground, it's a dart."
Everyone's eyes found the dart and they all took deep breaths and looked around at each other.
"What do we do now?" Wicket inquired.
"Give me something to roll down the tunnel. I want to see what happens when a tile is rolled over." Pigtail called over his shoulder to the others.
Lark quickly grabbed her backpack and pulled the round salt container out and emptied the contents onto her bandana. She handed the container to Pigtail and then tied the bandana up so as not to spill any of the salt. Pigtail took the container and squatted down onto one knee. He lined up the container with the tiles and then rolled it across the tiles.
Darts began flying from both sides of the tunnel and bounced off the adjacent walls. They all ducked just in case any of the darts came towards them but luckily nothing like that happened. Pigtail then grabbed one of the planks and reached out to drag the container back towards him. Once he got the container back he rolled it again. Nothing happened that time.
"You went over the very same tiles. Maybe that means that they have only one good dart in them that is triggered," Jethro suggested.
"If that's the case then I guess we can roll the container over the tiles, let the darts release then advance and roll the container over the next set of tiles until we get past this particular trap," Pigtail offered.
Pill and Orida spoke up from the back of the group, "I don't think we can afford to do that. There are some fire lizards advancing," they said in unison as they backed into Wicket to get away from the lizards.
Wicket, who was just as scared as the others of being burned decided he would rather take his chances with the darts. He turned to Tally and said, "I've an idea. Tally, you grab one of the shields and I grab one and you face that wall," Wicket indicated the left wall with his thumb. "I'll take this wall and we'll run through and let the darts hit the shields. That will clear the way a whole lot faster than rolling the container a few feet at a time and get us away from the lizards."
Tally wasn't too hep on playing the hero but he didn't want to get burned any more than Wicket did and he certainly didn't want the girls or the Knarls burned either. So he agreed to Wickets idea.
"Okay, we go on 'three' and we need to keep pace with each other. If one of us gets ahead of or behind the other then we might get hit by the darts, got it?" Wicket nodded his head at Tally, who jerked his head in acceptance.
As soon as Wicket said three the two of them with their backs to each other started down the tunnel. Their heads were ducked down below the shield and they held the shields as low as they could in order to protect their feet and legs. It was slow going but it was certainly faster than rolling the container down the tunnel. Pigtail and Jethro grabbed two other shields and followed Tally and Wicket just to make sure all the darts had been triggered. Pill, Lark and the Knarls were backed as close to the first tile as they could get without stepping on them waiting for the okay. As soon as Jethro got to the end of the tiles he hollered at the others to come on through. They didn't need to be told twice and the girls, with the Knarls in their arms, took off running down the tunnel.
There were one or two other darts that were triggered but since the girls were running through, the darts missed their mark. At the end of the tunnel there was some rubble that Wicket and Tally were in the process of putting into the path to keep the lizards from following them.
"I wonder why there is rubble here. There hasn't been rubble anywhere else in the tunnels we've been down," Pill pointed out to the others.
"Hey, you're right, there hasn't been. Why would there be some here and not anywhere else?" Lark echoed Pill's curiosity.
"Who knows and cares, just so long as we have something to keep the lizards from making us flambé." Pigtail said, exasperated and tired from all that running and moving rubble.
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