Chapter 26
The ever loyal Trix became the first to break the stunned silence.
"Zen and I are with you," she affirmed. "What do you want us to do?"
I fondly tousled her hair. "Thank you, munchkin," I told her in gratitude. "I can always count on you for support."
"I suppose I'd better come along as well," Nix grumbled. "Who knows what messes you’d get into if I wasn't there?"
"Count me in as well," Quina murmured. "If Mirrella sent the future Rosewing to warn you, then I'd be crazy not to listen. I'm with you."
"And what about you, Thorn? And Tracey?" I asked, softly. "Do you think I imagined the whole thing? Are you content to stay in this castle for the rest of your lives? I realise how beguiling it could become, being treated as the family of a goddess and all, but ultimately we all know it isn't true and, when our friends wake up to that fact, I think there's going to be trouble. Big trouble. Nothing moves a fanatic to anger more than having his cherished dreams dashed. How do you think they're going to react when they find out that our daughter is simply a mischievous little girl?" I gave Tracey a sympathetic and loving look. "I'm sorry, beloved, but our baby’s future is at stake here. She came to me specifically for help and I can't turn away and ignore her. What do you say?"
Thorn looked troubled and stared at me intently. "And you really believe it was Rosewing?" she stated, frowning. "I mean, absolutely, positively sure?"
"As far as I can possibly be," I answered.
"All right then," she announced, glancing sideways at her Stephen and grasping his hand. "I trust you. What other choice do I have?"
"Thank you, dear one," I told her, putting my hand over hers.
My gaze shifted to Tracey. "And what about you, dearest?" I asked. "Do you trust me enough to believe what I'm saying?"
"I'm not sure," she stammered. "It all sounds so incredible! I want to believe you, but ……"
"….. but you don't want to stop being pampered, is that it?" Thorn interjected.
"Don't be so horrid!" Tracey flared.
"Let's face it, Traculimna," Thorn persisted. "You love being the centre of attention and all the frills that go with it. You crave being pandered to and fussed over. You always did, so I'm not surprised at your reluctance right now. I know it’s hard for you to accept but this isn't about you this time. It's about your daughter. Why don't you think of her for once?"
"How dare you!" Tracey squalled. "My baby has always been everything to me! I don't have to listen to this! Especially coming from you!"
"And why not me?" Thorn asked, in a dangerously soft voice.
"Because you're a jealous little snit, that's why!" Tracey hissed venomously. "I have a baby and you don't. I know you've always resented me because of my boyfriends, well, that's just too bad for you! You were such a sourpuss that no boy wanted to come near you!"
"What did you say?" Thorn squealed in outrage.
"You heard me," Tracey snarled.
"By all the gods," Thorn howled, "I've a good mind to slap you silly!"
"As if!" Tracey sneered.
"Well, this is a fine example you're setting for Rosewing," Quina observed, cuttingly. "She must be very proud of the both of you right now."
Her words induced an immediate cessation of hostilities. Thorn and Tracey flushed shamefacedly and looked at each other in remorse.
"Sorry," whispered Tracey. "I didn't mean what I said."
"Neither did I," Thorn told Tracey.
"It's all settled then?" Quina enquired. "Well then, Traculimna, what's your answer? Are you with us or against us?"
"With you, of course," she replied. "In the end, it couldn’t be anything else. Perhaps I have let this situation go to my head a little." She cuddled Rosewing protectively. "But when all those strangers began to idolise my baby, I just couldn't resist going along with it."
"We understand," Quina said sympathetically, putting a gentle hand on Tracey's arm. "It's a natural reaction. Every mother sees their child as something special."
"My baby is someone special," Tracey insisted with conviction.
"I can vouch for that," I said, entering the conversation. "The grown-up Rosewing was remarkable in every way."
"What did she look like, Stephen?" Tracey asked eagerly. "What did she say?"
"Well, first of all, she was totally beautiful," I remarked, smiling in reminiscence. "I mean, absolutely gorgeous! Just like her mother," I added, smiling lovingly at Tracey.
"Oh, you!" Tracey fluttered coyly.
"I'm not exaggerating," I told her, "on either count. No, she looked stunning. She sends you her love, by the way."
"But what did she say?" Thorn wanted to know.
"She didn't tell me much," I explained, "because she said something about disrupting the timeline if I knew too many things. She said that we’d find the answer in a hidden passage behind the altar."
"A hidden passage?" Nix questioned. "Did she say what was in there?"
"No," I answered. "Apparently, we have to form our own opinions about what we find. She also said that Mirrella was being deliberately blocked from contacting Quina."
"I knew it!" Quina exclaimed.
"So, what do we do now?" Trix asked, shrugging her shoulders.
"Since what we want to know is apparently behind the altar," I replied, "we'll have to wait until the coast is clear and then go and have a look."
"What do you suppose we’ll find?" Thorn wanted to know.
"I haven't the foggiest," I commented, "but whatever it is, Rosewing claimed her very existence depends on it."
Chapter 27
We agreed that the best time for our exploration would be late at night when everyone would be hopefully sleeping. We spent the rest of the day in idle speculation about the following night but, without any solid facts to go on, we couldn't reach any conclusions. Tracey asked me again and again to describe how the future Rosewing looked and I constantly repeated everything I could recall about her visitation.
"You have the patience of a saint," Quina chuckled as she listened to my endless recitations to my eager audience of one.
"Hey, I want to know how my baby turns out," Tracey defended. "I want to make sure I'm doing the right thing by her."
"You're doing everything perfectly," I reassured her, patting her hand. "She said herself that she felt eternally grateful for how you raised her. She’s a credit to you."
"To us both," Tracey demurred, flushing a little.
The hours dragged on until the time arrived for our night-time excursion. We carefully peered up and down the corridor outside of our room, but could see no one. One by one, we tiptoed around the halls, thankfully without meeting anybody, until we came to the large vestibule with the altar. The place was deserted and we quickly made our way over to the object of our search and began looking for the promised secret passage.
"Where do we look?" Nix whispered.
"I don't know," I answered. "Rosewing didn't specify, unfortunately."
"Typical of your family," Nix sniffed. "Completely unreliable, especially old Fatty Wings over there," he continued, glancing pointedly at Thorn.
"Fatty Wings?" Thorn squeaked. "That's rich, coming from you, Bulbous Bottom."
"Stop that!" I hissed. "We haven't the time for your nonsense. We have to find the trigger for the secret passage before anyone catches us. Keep searching."
Quina eventually discovered a small, movable tile on the right side of the altar. Without a sound, a panel in the floor behind the altar opened up, revealing a set of stairs. Carefully, I started down, followed by the others. There were wooden torches set in racks at the bottom of the stairs and we each took one to light our way. We found ourselves in a twisting tunnel which emptied into a large circular room. Around the walls were shelves, and the shelves contained something which made us all gasp in horror.
"Are they …… bodies?" Tracey whispered, fearfully.
"They appear to be," I confirmed, staring at the tiny, d
ried husks.
"They’re all children," Nix stated flatly. "The preserved bodies of children. And babies," he added, with a grimace.
"But why?" Thorn demanded. "Is this a graveyard? What are they all doing here?"
"And what are we supposed to see?" Quina asked. "What did Rosewing want us to find?"
"I think I can answer that for you," a sudden voice remarked. We spun around to face Malfour and three others who had somehow appeared behind us.
"How did you know we were here?" Trix questioned.
"It wasn’t difficult," Malfour explained. "You’ve been under constant surveillance every second of the day, so we knew your every movement. What puzzles me is how you knew about this place."
"You were spying on us?" Thorn exclaimed.
"Not spying," Malfour glibly denied. "Just protecting our interests, really. After all, we don't want anything to happen to the Child of Light, now do we?"
"What's all this, then?" I asked, sweeping my hand around the pitiful child remains. "What's it all about?"
"I suppose there’s no reason why I shouldn't tell you," Malfour shrugged. "This is the holiest place we have. It's the repository for every Child of Light we find. We put them here as eternal guardians for us. For protection. They watch over us and keep us from harm."
"But they’re all babies!" Tracey protested.
"Of course," she was told. "After all, who is more innocent and pure than a child? We wanted to, shall we say …… preserve their purity intact."
A horrendous thought wormed its way into my brain at Malfour’s words. Surely they wouldn't …… They just couldn't ……! I heard Quina gasp in horror and I guessed that a similar thought had berthed in her mind as well.
"I'm almost afraid to ask this," I said softly, clamping down on my rising revulsion, "but why are all these bodies no more than children? Where are the adults?"
"I'm sorry," Malfour replied. "I thought I had already explained that. Adults are prone to weakness and sin. They never retain their childish virtue. What sort of the Guardian would they make? No, we have to ensure the child stays innocent before they become corrupted by the world around them. We simply takes the appropriate steps to make sure this happens."
"You kill them," I stated bluntly.
Malfour shrugged. "Of course," he answered. "What other choice do we have? Our prophecy states that a Child of Light will save the One, so we search for likely candidates and bring them here." His face twisted in disappointment. "But I have to say that, up until now, none of our choices have been the correct ones, but we have great hopes for your child. We believe that at last we may have the true Child of Light."
"You want to murder my baby?" Tracey shrieked, catching Rosewing in a ferocious embrace. "Are you insane?"
"It's for the good of us all," Malfour soothed. "Your child will stay here forever and bring about a resurgence of the One."
"You are mad," Nix proclaimed. "Do you seriously think we’re going to let you do this?"
"We don't need any of you," stated Malfour. "The child is all we really need. Give her to me."
"Over my dead body," Tracey said, fiercely.
"That can be arranged," Malfour replied, smiling serenely. "As I've already stated, we don't need you at all."
Chapter 28
The tableau seemed fixed in time. Malfour and his cronies stood there expectantly, hands out, as if they actually expected us to hand over Rosewing without argument. They really were loony. Meanwhile, we stared at this bunch of baby killers, none of us quite believing what we had just heard. As usual, Zen acted first. He wasn't bound by extraneous mental conflicts and debates about morality. He remained a wolf of action to his toenails and not given to philosophical conundrums. Sensing that those opposite us were the enemy, he crept up behind them and bit Malfour on the leg. That disrupted the frozen montage in a big way. His victim yelped in shock and his flailing arms caught his compatriots and sent them staggering backwards. Nix and Thorn then added to their confusion by leaping forward and attacking. It became a confused melee for a short time but the outcome was never in any doubt. Fuelled by the loathing of what we had recently learnt, Nix and Thorn showed no mercy. Zen, too, was equally voracious, savaging any enemy limb he could find, and snapping at everything within reach. The end scenario resulted in our company beating a hasty retreat from that grotto of death and then grouping outside to decide what to do next.
"We have to get out of here!" an almost hysterical Tracey insisted.
"We can't stay, that's for sure," Quina agreed. "Not after what we've just done."
"Let's try the front door," Nix offered. "It's still the middle of the night so it'll probably be unguarded."
"The front door it is, then," I announced.
We stealthily scurried along the corridors until we arrived at the castle exit. Two guards were in place and we debated how to remove them without raising an outcry. Trix volunteered her services, explaining that she would appear as the most harmless looking of our group and therefore had the element of surprise. Reluctantly, I agreed to her proposal and we watched as she and Zen sauntered up to the guards. I heard her whisper something to them and they bent down, heads together, as they endeavored to catch her soft words. She put her small arms around their necks in a friendly fashion and then, in a most unfriendly way, she banged their heads together and they collapsed without a sound. We hurried over to her, full of congratulations, which she modestly accepted while removing the keys from the belt of one of the guards. We unlocked the door and lowered the drawbridge with as least noise as possible and then cautiously examined the surrounding countryside but could see nothing threatening, so we made our way as quickly as we could away from the castle. After about ten minutes of running, we stopped for a breather. It was then we heard the faint sounds of battle emanating from behind us. By straining our eyes, we could see small figures running into the castle and flying over the walls.
"What's going on?" Tracey wanted to know.
"It appears that our erstwhile refuge is under attack," Thorn casually noted. "At a guess, I'd say it was the rival cult members."
"I guess we shouldn’t have left the front door open, then," Nix grinned sardonically. "Dear me, how careless of us."
"Wasn't it just?" Thorn agreed, grinning in turn. "Anyway, at least they'll be too busy with each other to worry about us. With a bit of luck they'll destroy themselves and both of their absurd prophecies into the bargain."
"I think our friends will find that their castle isn’t as unassailable as they once believed," I commented. "Their rivals must have been watching and waiting for someone to do what we just did. When we left the place wide open, they must have been delighted at the opportunity."
"Such a shame," Trix chuckled. "Should we go back and apologise?"
"I don't think so," Quina murmured. "They deserve everything that's coming to them."
"Let's just go home," Tracey suggested wearily. "I've had enough of this madness. And I never want to hear the words ‘Child of Light’ ever again."
"Amen to that," I murmured sincerely.
Chapter 29
We eventually found our way back to where we belonged. Nix joyfully reunited with his mother and sisters and we left him to explain our adventures to them, because we were all anxious to return to our own home.
"Goodbye, Ugly," Nix told Thorn as he stood at the door waving us goodbye. "Wear a paper bag over your head next time to stop scaring the children."
"And you need an entire body bag," Thorn retaliated. "I mean your face is bad enough, heaven knows, but the other bits of you only add to the horror."
"Quite passable, I suppose" Nix sniffed, condescendingly. "You're coming along nicely for a mere apprentice. With a little more practice you might even be funny."
"You're not so bad yourself," Thorn replied. "With a bit more intelligence you might even be considered to be sentient."
"You are getting the hang of this," Nix commented. "Now go home before the garbage co
llectors come around. It's not safe for you to be on the streets when that happens."
Thorn laughed and gave Nix a final wave, adding an obscene gesture at the end.
Our homecoming had the air of nostalgia. We'd been away so long, it was like ….. well ….. coming home, I suppose. There's something to be said for familiar surroundings. It makes you feel safe, although that feeling had spectacularly failed recently. Nevertheless, it felt good to be back where you belonged. Rosewing squealed in joy as she recognised her surroundings. Zen, too, appeared happy. He ran around barking like a mad thing, much to our amusement. Rosewing chased after him and it quickly slid into their favorite game of chase.
"Look at the pair of them!" Tracey declared, slipping a companionable arm around my waist. "It's like we've never left."
"Great, isn't it?" I smiled. "Home is where the heart is."
Tracey rested her head on my shoulder and whispered, "That's one human saying that makes a lot of sense. And my heart is here."
"Mine too, dearest," I told her. "I can't imagine it being anywhere else."
That night, as we were sleeping, we had a visitation. All of us, Zen included, were treated to a visit from Mirrella. We found ourselves grouped together, with Quina’s sister smiling benignly at us all.
"Welcome," she said. "There's someone I want you to meet." She stepped aside to reveal a radiant Rosewing – the future one I'd met earlier.
"Greetings, my darling family," she announced.
Tracey glanced at me. "Is this ……?"
"Yes, it is," I answered. "Dear one, meet your daughter. Isn't she something?"
With a little cry, Tracey handed baby Rosewing to me and rushed into her grown-up daughter’s arms. They hugged each other in an emotional reunion – a union that I would have previously thought impossible by the all the laws of time and space, but there you go. Nothing is impossible, I guess. Existence is surely stranger than we can ever believe. After Tracey had indulged herself sufficiently, we crowded around the elder Rosewing in wonder. Baby Rosewing seemed particularly intrigued by her older self and stared at her in fascination. She obviously knew there must be some connection, although I can't believe she understood exactly what it was.
Rosewing (9) (The Underground Kingdom) Page 8