The three of them examined the back wall of the earth lodge. The timbers that held the outer walls in place were sturdy but the branches woven between the big supports were brittle and old. They gave way freely when Tasker pushed against them. He went about clearing a path for them to escape through the ever-widening hole in the back of the lodge.
“She’ll meet us out near the mine pit,” Jane whispered as she helped Tasker push away the last of the branches. The dwarf slipped through the opening and nodded to her as he reached back in and helped Eriunia out. Jane followed them both through the opening, and together they ran to where the irrigation gully started. Moments later they were running as fast as they could away from the village and towards the distant cavern wall.
Chapter 6
Spirit Wolf
“You need to help them, Grandpa!” Flying Cloud said in frustration. She spoke loudly, hoping that Jane would hear her and find a way out of the earth lodge.
“No! They’re from the world above,” Walks with Clouds muttered. His face was set against all argument, and the fact that his granddaughter was blocking his path and begging with him made him all the angrier. “The world above is filled with traitors, liars, and thieves.”
“I don’t want to stay here. I want to see the world above and feel the wind on my face,” Flying Cloud shouted back. “I’ve never even seen the very thing I’m named after.” Tears were running freely down her face now as she broke into a very real argument she had used with her grandfather many times. She loved the old shaman, but he refused to attempt to return to the surface, and she could not stay underground any longer.
“Never!”
“What will you do with them?” Flying Cloud asked through her sobs.
“They’ll be given to the river,” Walks with Clouds replied without any emotion in his voice. “The river can judge them.”
“You would kill people we don’t even know?” Flying Cloud asked quietly.
“If it means keeping our people safe,” Walks with Clouds said firmly. “Yes, I would.” He turned to Running Wolf. “Guard the lodge until tonight. We’ll send them down the river at crystal fade.”
Flying Cloud looked at the great sun crystal and gauged the time, less than two hours for them to gain enough of a head start that her grandpa could not catch her. It wasn’t much time. She hadn’t expected him to return so quickly, but it seemed that Red Bull had fallen ill, and the meeting between the two shaman had been postponed for several crystal days.
When she was sure that her grandfather was not going to enter the earth lodge, she turned away from him and fled across the village with her face hidden. She couldn’t afford for anyone to see the triumph on her face. She had slipped her grandfather’s bandolier bag from his wigwam while her grandmother slept and hidden it near the edge of the village. Now she dodged behind a dwelling and grabbed the leather bag from under a stack of old hides and slipped her head and arm through the wide leather strap. The beaded bag was heavy, but she still managed to run well enough with it around her neck. Soon she neared the edge of the cavern.
“Flying Cloud, over here!” Jane called from the edge of the tunnel. Jane looked out over the edge of the cavern. The village remained silent, but she was willing to bet that it wouldn’t stay that way for long.
“I have it,” Flying Cloud said breathlessly as she nodded to Eriunia and Tasker.
“Jane, I’m not so sure about this,” Tasker muttered. “How do we know ‘ she can cure Jacob?”
“We don’t have any other choice,” Jane replied. “Flying Cloud says she’s worked with her grandfather for years and knows much of what he does. Besides, you heard him, he won’t help us. In fact, he was going to kill the two of you.”
Tasker frowned, “I hope for Jacob’s sake you’re right.” With no other options open to them, the four turned and hurried down the tunnel away from the Lost Ojibwa and towards the mine pit leading back towards the surface.
“They know,” Flying Cloud said suddenly. She had taken her medicine bag back from Jane and tucked it inside her own dress as they approached the cursed dream catcher. “Wait for a moment while I counter the curse long enough for us to pass safely. She reached into her bandolier bag and pulled out a small wooden pipe. After taking a deep breath from the pipe she leaned as close to the dream catcher as she could and exhaled a great cloud of smoke that turned a silvery blue as it floated up through the air and gathered around the dream catcher. “Go!” she urged them.
Jane dashed under the dream catcher and felt a momentary urge to sleep. Then it was gone as the smoke took on a life of its own and formed a barrier around the dreamcatcher. She grabbed onto the handholds and began climbing as fast as she was able, wanting nothing more than to break out of the underground mine and see the sky once more.
They were nearing the top when a shout echoed up the pit from under them. Jane paused to look down.
“Don’t stop,” Tasker urged as he tapped her leg with his hand to draw her attention back to the climb. “Walks with Clouds is not happy.”
Jane scrambled up the last twenty feet and rolled over the edge of the pit, she jumped to her feet and turned around to help the others into the chamber. There was a blast of hot air from the pit as Eriunia and Flying Cloud rolled over the top. Then they all looked back down. An eerie red glow filled the bottom of the shaft, and Tasker stumbled back with his face ashen in color.
“He has summoned a nightmare,” Tasker muttered. “The old fool truly has lost his mind.”
“What is it?” Jane asked curiously. The smell of brimstone coming from the pit was horrible, and she wrinkled her nose as she stepped back.
“An evil creature,” Tasker explained. “The offspring of an evil creature that spent its days marking when people in these lands would die.”
Flying Cloud gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. Her dark eyes were wide and filled with fear.
“Can you slow it down?” Tasker asked her. “We need to get out of here and into the sun light above. It’ll be weakest there.”
“I think so,” Flying Cloud replied. She opened the bandolier bag and rummaged for a moment. Seconds later she pulled a thick ball of what looked like silvery threads from it and motioned for them to spread out around the pit. “Just wrap it around something and then throw it back.”
Under her direction, they wove a silvery net over the top of the pit, and then tied the string off around a stone that stuck up from ground.
“What is it?” Jane asked as they stepped back.
“Webbing from a silver spider,” Tasker replied. “Although I have never seen so much in one place, it must have taken months to collect.”
“Will it stop whatever is coming?” Jane asked.
“Maybe,” Tasker replied. “It was well worth trying.”
“Let’s go,” Flying Cloud said as she closed her bag and turned away from the shimmering net. “I don’t know how long this will last.”
They ran along the mine tunnels with Tasker in the lead, fleeing as quickly as they could. Behind them the evil creature must have reached the magical webbing. Jane heard a scream of rage that nearly made her lose her footing. The cavern shook as the creature fought against the silver strands. The sounds added wings to their feet.
The passage angled upwards until finally they were standing in a strange chamber Jane couldn’t remember passing through on the way down. “Where are we?” she asked as she gasped for breath.
“I told you the way out would be different,” Tasker said. He looked around, seeking some sign of an exit but was unable to spot any way out of the chamber. “The Portsmouth Mine is just above us but how to find the exit is beyond me. Flying Cloud do you know how to leave the mine?”
“I’ve only heard rumors,” she admitted. “I was never allowed to leave the village. My parents and grandparents said the surface was no longer for our people. They refused to let me even see the sky or the clouds that I was named after.”
“But there must b
e a way to leave the cavern,” Tasker insisted. The room around them was about twenty feet wide and almost circular, the walls painted with many symbols and pictures he assumed told a story.
“Let me read for a moment,” Flying Cloud murmured as she walked to the edge of one of the picture graphs and ran her finger along the row of paintings. Her lips moved slowly at first and then more quickly as she passed around the room. “It is designed so that no one person can open it. It was built this way so that no one could run away and give away our last sanctuary to the enemy.”
“What do we do?” Tasker asked.
There was a sudden explosion of noise from deep in the mine. Flying Cloud lurched, her face paling considerably. “It is coming,” she said weakly. “Look here on the wall.” She pointed to a small depiction of the Ojibwa eagle and pushed on a spot in the wall just underneath the painting. There was a clicking sound. She motioned for the rest of them to spread out. “Go find the same paintings on the other walls, we need to depress all switches at once.”
Jane raced across the chamber and searched through the red pictographs until she found the one she wanted. Just below the eagle was a small indentation in the wall. She pushed in on the stone and was rewarded with a loud clicking sound. Around the area two more clicks sounded, and they were rewarded with a horrible shuddering and grinding sound from above their heads. Then light from the outside flooded down on them and a series of stone steps emerged from the floor and led up to a single spot on the stone wall above them. They all released the switches and raced to the steps.
“We don’t have much time,” Flying Cloud said. “According to what I read on the walls, the steps only stay in place for a short time before the switches need to be pressed again.” Flying Cloud vaulted up the steps. At the top a blank stone wall confronted them. She halted before it.
“How do you open it?” Tasker asked as he felt the shift in whatever gears were controlling the steps.
“Jane, pull the eagle feather from your hair,” Flying Cloud ordered. “Push the quill into that hole at the bottom.”
Following her instructions, Jane ripped the eagle feather free, wincing as several of her blond hairs clung to the feather when she pulled it from her head. She searched around the bottom of the door for a moment before finding the tiny hole and pushed the feather into it. As the steps began to slowly retreat, the outer door they had seen under the eagle on their way in swung open. Flying Cloud leapt out into the bottom of the Portsmouth Mine.
“Come on!” she shouted back at them.
Eriunia followed her with a graceful leap that moved her out of the way. She turned and caught Tasker’s hand as he leapt and almost fell short. His arms flailed wildly until she pulled him over the edge, and they both turned and stretched out the hands to Jane.
“Jump!” Tasker shouted. The steps had sunk almost half way back into the ground, and he leaned over the edge reaching back to her.
Jane took a step back, lined up her body, and hurdled forward using all of her strength to reach up and catch Tasker’s outstretched hand. The sturdy dwarf caught her fingers and immediately reached out with his other hand and wrapped it around her wrist. They both began to slide back into the chamber until Eriunia and Flying Cloud grabbed his legs and pulled with all their might. Suddenly a second weight was added to Jane’s body, and she looked down. The face that looked up at her nearly made her lose her grip. She screamed loudly. Running Wolf looked back up at her but his face was distorted and filled with rage. It was as though Walks with Clouds had taken a nightmare of a wolf and forced it into the body of the young warrior. His eyes flashed yellow and his mouth was bared in a snarling rage.
“Help me!” Jane screamed as she slipped back slowly into the cavern. Suddenly she was flying up and out of the hole, and all of them tumbled free of the door and collapsed to the ground, before them the stone door swung slowly shut and finally closed with a dull thud.
Tasker was the first to his feet as his body felt full of energy. With hope of getting Jane out fading he’d given in to his heritage and spoken a Dwarven rune of power. He could feel the earthen strength of his people fill him for a moment, giving him the strength to jerk the entire group out of the mine, but now the surge faded quickly. Once more he felt the façade that he had spent years building up slip ever so slightly. His beard, kept trimmed short, doubled in length, and wrinkles appeared around his eyes. Oddly, his time on Jane’s side of the Divide had shown him that her side understood te basic principle that he had just used. Power could not really be created or destroyed, simply changed. It was a law of the universe.
“We made it!” Jane whooped with a smile and wrapped Flying Cloud in a great hug. Before she could continue a snarling came from near the stone steps leading out of the mine. She turned to see Running Wolf crouched near the stairs.
“My grandfather has lost control of it!” Flying Cloud shouted as she scrambled frantically to where the bandolier bag had fallen from her. Running Wolf’s body was convulsing as the wolf nightmare took control of his mind and body. A looming dark aura around Running Wolf resembled a wolf and its eyes glowed yellow and red.
The warrior lunged toward Tasker, slapping the dwarf away as if sensing the dwarf was a greater threat to him than the others. As the dwarf rolled away, he turned towards Eriunia and leapt at her. But the elf was more agile. She turned her body to avoid the projected claws and slipped around the spirit creature, delivering a sharp blow to its side.
“I’m not completely defenseless in this world,” Eriunia said with a grim smile. “This is what all elvish people are trained to do—battle evil spirits that try to enter our safe haven.”
“Keep him away from me,” Flying Cloud cried, continuing to rummage through the bandolier bag, frantically pulling items from its depths.
Jane grabbed up a rock from near her feet and heaved it at Running Wolf. She was rewarded with a snarl as the stone thudded against his shoulder. Then the nightmare charged her, and she suddenly wondered at the wisdom of her action.
“Careful girl,” Tasker shouted. He leapt to his feet and launched himself at the warrior as it passed. The dwarf wrapped his arms around Running Wolf’s legs and held on tightly. The warrior stumbled, fell and howled loudly. A flurry of blows rained down on Tasker’s back and head, but he ignored the pain and held on while Jane scuttled back to where Flying Cloud was still arranging things on the ground around her.
Eriunia ran over to Running Wolf and used her palms to land heavy strikes on the physical body that the evil spirit was possessing. “Weaken the body and the spirit will follow,” was the elven adage. She put all her skill to work. Two strikes on Running Wolf’s neck caused his legs to go limp for a moment and gave Tasker a chance to regain his strength. Then her strong arm encircled the warrior’s neck and squeezed tightly as his hands beat against her, trying to break the iron grip locked around his neck. The strength of the warrior was immense. Try as she might, Eriunia’s grip began to falter.
“Help me,” Running Wolf groaned suddenly in a weak voice. “I can’t stop it. Please help me.” He sounded so weak and scared that Eriunia nearly loosened her grip, but then the snarling struggle returned. With a sudden burst of strength he lunged to his feet pulling her off the ground with him.
“Hold him still!” Flying Cloud shouted. Suddenly, Flying Cloud leapt over to him and jammed a small object into his mouth. Running worlf made a low groan as the mixture of oils, minerals, and other mysterious components were absorbed into his blood. Then he went limp. “He’s still awake but he cannot move for now.”
“Release me.”
Jane gasped as the unearthly voice hissed out from Running Wolf’s mouth.
“You have to banish it back to the underworld!” Tasker insisted.
“I know!” Flying Cloud exclamed. She grabbed a small bowl and added three compounds into it and mixed them together. Once the mixture began to react she sprinkled it over Running Wolf’s entire body. The effect was immediate, and the spirit
bound into Running Wolf howled in rage and then fell silent.
“You can’t stay here!” Flying Cloud said aloud to the nightmare spirit. She watched as it stopped trying to escape the bound set upon it by Walks with Clouds.
The creature looked at her and nodded, then spoke. “We will meet again someday, you and I. Next time, you may not be so fortunate.”
“Go back to the abyss that you came from,” Tasker growled. He struggled to his knees and crawled to where Flying Cloud was looking down at her friend.
“It may kill him,” Flying Cloud said through her tears.
“That thing is evil, pure evil,” Tasker replied. His strength was returning and he reached over and helped hold Running Wolf’s arms down. Already the substance that Flying Cloud had used to immobilize the warrior was beginning to wear off.
“I’ll do it,” Flying Cloud replied. She pulled another small item from her bag and forced Running Wolf to open his mouth. Carefully she dropped the powder into his mouth and looked at Tasker. “This is going to stop his heart from beating for a few moments. Once that is done the nightmare’s connection to this world will be broken and it will be forced to return to the abyss.”
Jane gasped, “What of Running Wolf?”
“If we’re lucky, I can bring him back,” Flying Cloud replied. She placed her hands gently on Running Wolf’s forehead and watched through the tears as he stopped struggling and his breathing slowed. After about a minute he lay quiet and seemingly at peace with the world. The moment he stopped breathing the nightmare screamed loudly and vanished in a puff of smoke.
“There! It’s gone,” Jane cried out. Even though they had been fighting the warrior she prayed desperately that he would survive. “Bring him back.”
Flying Cloud leaned over and opened Running Wolf’s mouth. Carefully, she removed the small stone and through it into a corner. She dug in her bandoleer bag and pulled a small vial of liquid. She forced several drops into his mouth and the leaned over and started what looked to Jane like modern CPR.
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