The Mystic Travelogues

by J. C. Nusbaum

  Jodie whispered to Tug, “Ask him if we can have a look.”

  “Why don’t you ask him yourself?” Tug said, with a smile. “You’ve always talked to him before. Did you think he wasn’t listening then?”

  “I guess I didn’t know how he was listening.”

  Tug tapped Leopold on top of his head. The bear turned and leaned so far back to look up at Tug he had to stumble backwards to keep from falling over.

  “Ah… do you think I could give it a try?” Tug asked.

  Leopold handed him the magnifying glass. As Tug raised it in front of his eyes, a million points of light lit up every surface of the cavern. They pierced the darkness like stars scattered across the night sky. When Tug examined a few of them closely he saw that they were actually tiny gemstones embedded in the rock all around them.

  Tug gave Jodie the magnifying glass, and she let out a gasp when she looked through it. She was surrounded by stones that seemed to give off their own light.

  “They must be diamonds! Just think of what we could do with all this treasure; Dad would never have to worry about finding work again.”

  Tug nodded, “But why are they here?”

  “Maybe there’s a message written in the lights, or some sort of pattern we need to find.”

  “Uncle Oscar said we needed to know our gem tables to navigate,” Tug said, remembering aloud. “Maybe certain gemstones tell you which way to go.”

  “We know we need to follow the parallel to a staircase,” Jodie said.

  Tug added, “And parallels on a globe run east and west. Maybe certain gemstones correspond to those directions.”

  “Well, Uncle Oscar mentioned only emeralds. Maybe we should look for those first.”

  Both Jodie and Tug took a turn looking for any sparkling green gemstones, but among the countless sparks of diamond white embedded all around, there was nothing that shone emerald green. While Tug was searching, Leopold interrupted by grabbing Tug’s pant leg and jumping up and down.

  “What?” Tug asked, a little agitated. But realizing that Leopold couldn’t actually speak, he added a little more softly, “Show me.”

  Leopold pointed down at the ground, and when Tug moved the magnifying glass in that direction, he saw a brilliant emerald right between his feet.

  “Here!” Tug exclaimed, and Jodie leaned over the lens to see the glowing green light.

  “So where do we go, then?” Jodie asked.

  “Well, we could just go in a straight line,” Tug said stepping away from the emerald, “and if we don’t find another emerald, we’ll walk right back to this…” Tug’s voice trailed off in confusion. He turned the glass back towards where he was standing, but he could no longer see the green light.

  “It’s gone.”

  Jodie rushed over to look through the glass for herself, but couldn’t spot the emerald anywhere.

  Leopold did not move but began to whimper and wave the children back to the place they were standing on before. Tug traced his steps back. Looking through the magnifying glass as he returned, a green gem lit up under his feet. He watched it intently as he took another step backwards. As he moved away from the stone, its light changed from green to red.

  “Look,” Tug handed the magnifying glass to Jodie. “It turns into a ruby as you move away from it.

  Jodie stepped sideways onto the emerald and off again several times. “But rubies are red. It’s turning blue, like a sapphire.”

  Tug walked towards Jodie and looked over her shoulder and saw that the gem did turn from green to blue from where she was standing. He guided her hand over to where he was before, and the gem blazed ruby red again. With both of them holding the handle of the magnifying glass, they stepped up to the gemstone and watched it turn green, and then continued on past it to the other side, and turning back saw that it deepened to a purple amethyst.

  They tried once more from the direction of blue light of the sapphire, and when they crossed over in a straight line, the blue jewel turned to green, and then changed again to become a shining yellow topaz once they crossed to the other side of it.

  “It must be like a compass, where the stone tells you which direction you’re facing,” Tug said. “When we’re over the gemstone, it glows green like an emerald, but when we move forwards or backwards, it turns red or purple.”

  “Or blue and yellow if we move sideways in the other direction,” Jodie concluded.

  “But how do we know which color is what direction?” Tug wondered.

  Jodie thought for a moment before offering an idea, “The sun sets in the west. Maybe yellow means west.”

  “But the sun also rises in the east.”

  “But it’s never as warm when it rises,” Jodie said. Tug wasn’t very sure of her logic. “And it’s hotter down south, so that’s red,” Jodie continued. “And that dark purple color must be north.”

  Tug considered explaining that her reasoning only made sense if you are north of the equator. But he realized he had no better suggestion to offer and shrugged his shoulders instead.

  “Leopold,” Jodie said, giving up on Tug, “is that right?”

  The bear’s eyes narrowed. He looked down at his feet, then up at each of the children and let out a small howl of confusion.

  “Okay,” Tug said, “I think the most important thing is to pick a direction and stick to it. Your guess sounds better than any I’ve got; let’s look for the blue gemstones and follow them. Hopefully they’ll take us east along the parallel.”

  Tug held the candle up high so they could all see where they were stepping, and Jodie held out the magnifying glass to look at the glowing gemstones. They passed slowly through the caverns and Jodie marveled at all the precious stones she could see through the lens of the magnifying glass. But none were like the blue sapphire they saw earlier.

  All three were quiet in concentration, and Tug could hear faint noises echoing in the darkness around them. Tug did not want to ask Jodie if she heard the noises. He knew she would give a fanciful explanation, and he desperately wanted a simple one. Bats, he thought, or mice. Or maybe dripping water. When they heard the unmistakable sound of stones scattering somewhere in front of them, Tug began to wonder if it was time to try and backtrack to where they started.

  But before he could suggest it, Jodie let out a shout. Together they looked through the glass at a glowing blue jewel up ahead, and as they approached they were delighted to see the blue stone turn green as they stood over it.

  “We must be doing something right,” Jodie said.

  Leopold let out a happy growl and the children continued on in the same direction. They passed two more compass stones before they came to a wall filled with several small cave openings. When viewed through the magnifying glass, each opening glowed with a different color. They followed the blue tunnel, even though it didn’t seem to follow in the same direction they were originally going.

  Bit by bit, the tunnel narrowed, and in parts the children had to climb through on their hands and knees, Leopold walking in front and holding the candle to guide them. After several twists and turns, they came out into a great open space with ceiling and walls somewhere far out of reach from the light cast by the candle.

  There was a compass stone past the exit of the tunnel, and Tug suggested they rest there and have some food.

  Jodie asked, “I wonder what time it is?”

  Tug laid out the canned vegetables on top of a broken stalagmite, unsure of what they had grabbed in the rush to leave the farmhouse.

  “This candle is nearly burned all the way down,” he said, looking at the stub standing next to the cans. “We must have been down here several hours by now. Maybe we should blow it out while we eat. We only have four more candles and we may need to make them last.”

  “Please don’t,” Jodie protested, “I don’t think I could bear the darkness for that long.” Leopold let out a growl of agreement and grabbed onto Jodie’s leg, clearly hoping to avoid the isolation of total darkness.


  “Wouldn’t you rather be in the dark by choice? What if we run out of candles before we find our way out?”

  But for all his bravado, Tug could no more bring himself to put out the candle than the others. He did not dare bring up the prospect of Nomes, but his uncle’s warnings were never far from his mind. He wondered if the compass stones could be a Nome trick to lure the children deeper and deeper into the caverns until they were hopelessly lost. Many times, he heard other noises between their echoing footsteps as they walked through the caverns. Tug imagined that if the candle were to go out, they might be besieged by Nomes. And so Tug and Jodie sat with the lit candle between them while they passed a can of corn back and forth. When it was empty, Jodie considered asking to open another one, but decided it was better to make the food last if they could.

  When they were ready to set out again, Tug lit a new candle. Jodie began singing some campfire songs she knew, and Leopold tried to growl along with her. He was so out-of-tune that both children couldn’t help laughing, and soon they were all singing together and giggling through each song so that their spirits outshone the surrounding darkness.

  They continued to pass over the compass stones, so many that they lost count. Nothing else seemed to mark their progress and Tug began to fear the worst despite all his efforts to keep his worrying nature in check.

  “Even if this is leading us along the parallel, what if we’re moving away from the staircase Uncle Oscar told us about? We could look for Uncle Oscar instead, but we don’t know what took him, or where it took him.”

  “I bet he’s okay,” said Jodie. “He wouldn’t have given us the magnifying glass or told us to follow the key if there wasn’t reason to hope.”

  Tug nodded and tried to have faith, but for good measure he picked up Leopold and held the bear tight to him as they continued to navigate along the gemstones. When Tug relaxed his hold on the bear, Leopold climbed up Tug’s body and rode comfortably sitting atop the knapsack with his paws around the boy’s forehead. From his vantage point, Leopold could see out as far as the candle threw its light. While the children stopped to examine a remarkably bright compass stone, Leopold began growling in excitement at something both children had missed; along the cavern wall was a fissure in the rock. Upon closer inspection, they could see the fissure was actually an arch carved into the rock, and inside the opening was a stone staircase, spiraling upwards.

  “Do you think we’re really there?” Jodie asked. “The parallel crossing? Maybe it just leads to the Nomes.”

  “Well, following the blue gemstones led us here, so we should probably see where it goes.”

  Tug set Leopold down so that he would not get knocked about climbing through the narrow fissure and up the staircase. Tug began the ascent first, but stopped after a few steps when something curious caught his eye. A small cage, not much bigger than a matchbox, seemed fixed into the cavern wall.

  “Look at this,” Tug called back to the others. “There’s a little cage stuck in the stone here. And it looks like there’s something in it.”

  Leopold let out his most ferocious growl and pushed past Jodie, waving his paws at Tug to get him to stop. But it was too late. The cricket inside the cage had awakened and had already begun to chirp.

  THE SOUNDS of the cricket’s chirrups pierced through the darkness and echoed off the cavern walls all around. Leopold covered his ears, and Tug tried to put his hands over the cage to muffle the noise.

  “It’s no use,” Tug cried. “Run!”

  Jodie picked up Leopold, and passed in front of Tug. He followed them up the stone staircase, bounding two steps at a time. They climbed so high and for so long that both children were out of breath and struggling to continue the ascent. When they paused to rest for a moment, Tug heard a grinding noise coming from beneath them. He then felt the steps begin to tremble. When Tug looked at his feet, he saw the steps tilting into a downward slope, threatening to drop them back to the bottom of the cavern.

  “Grab onto something!” he yelled.

  “It’s too slippery,” Jodie said, running her hands along the smooth stone surface all around her.

  Making one last dash, the children struggled up the sloping staircase until they were no longer able to stand upright. When they began to slide backwards, Tug sat down and turned to face the bottom. Jodie did the same, holding Leopold in her lap so that the bear held tightly onto her as well.

  They slid towards the bottom, picking up speed as they went. Tug watched his candle flicker and blow out, and all three spiraled down into complete darkness. As they continued their descent, the ground beneath them began to level off. Tug was grateful when he slowly slid to a stop, rather than crashing abruptly at the bottom.

  “Is everyone okay?” he called out.

  Leopold growled meekly, and Jodie called back, “I think so.”

  Tug reached into the knapsack and felt around for the box of matches. Before he could find them, he heard a scurrying noise out somewhere in the surrounding blackness.

  “Leopold?” Tug asked.

  The bear whimpered and Jodie responded, “It isn’t him, he’s here on my lap.”

  The pattering came closer, and Tug could hear something breathing next to him with quick, shallow breaths.

  A squeaky voice came out of the darkness. “Please,” it said, “Please, please don’t tell.”

  Tug didn’t respond, but kept groping around for the matches.

  “Throw me in feathers, they’ll find out,” the voice whined. “Wouldn’t do that, would you?”

  Tug pulled out the matchbox and didn’t hesitate to strike a match. He was not prepared for what he saw. A stout little man, barely bigger than Leopold, stood next to the children, squinting and holding his palms up against the light of the match.

  Leopold crawled down from Jodie’s lap to retrieve the candle Tug had dropped and brought it to Tug to relight. Holding the candle, Tug looked into the face of a very real Nome. The little fellow was wearing overalls held up by large silver buttons. He had a round body, but spindly arms and legs. Atop his head was a torrent of streaming hair that stood up in a point and resembled the stalagmites in the cavern.

  Leopold walked over to the Nome and folded his paws in front of his chest. The bear stared him right in the eye as if to warn against going any nearer to the children.

  The Nome looked back at Leopold with curiosity, and then held out a long, pointy finger. With a quick jab, the Nome poked Leopold in the nose, making him tumble backwards. The little goblin cackled with laughter.

  The stuffed bear couldn’t pose much of a real threat, but Leopold tried to exhibit his ferocious heritage; while the Nome was still giggling, Leopold jumped up off his tail and butted his head into the creature’s round belly, causing him to fall backwards in much the same way Leopold had. The Nome began to cry in fits and sobs. The crying was so mournful that Jodie went over to him and rubbed his boney shoulders.

  “There, there,” she cooed, “you’re okay.”

  “Don’t think I am,” he sniveled.

  “Of course you are,” Tug argued back, but Jodie gave him a stern look that seemed to say that he should have more sympathy.

  The Nome continued to blubber and complain, “Why’d that beast pick on such a little youngling?”

  “You’re bigger than he is, and he’s just a toy,” Tug said. Leopold growled at the remark.

  “How old are you?” Jodie asked.

  “Don’t even turn eighty for three more moons.”

  “Well,” Jodie continued, “we’re much younger than that, and we would never carry on this way.”

  The Nome sniffed at the remark, but didn’t respond.

  Jodie continued to try and talk with the young Nome, “What’s your name?”

  “Feldspar.”

  “I’m Jodie, and this is Tug. And that’s Leopold.”

  The Nome flashed a look of recognition when the bear’s name was mentioned, but he quickly recovered and turned to Jodie, “You’
re not telling I wasn’t at my post, will you?”

  “What post?” Tug asked, “Tell who?”

  But before the Nome Feldspar could answer, the sound of marching footsteps echoed through the cavern. Jodie clutched Tug’s shirtsleeve and Leopold stood at attention, all of his senses focused on whatever was approaching.

  They saw the pointy hair first. Dozens of wispy cones moved amongst the stalactites and stalagmites. They were distinguishable from the stone features only when they were moving. Leopold and the children huddled close together as the dwarfed forms began to move out of the dark recesses of the cave and surround them. The Nomes had little black eyes, like Feldspar, but these were all squinting at the children beneath angry eyebrows. Within moments, this legion of Nomes enveloped the children and shuffled around them with the wild pugnacity of a wolf pack, slowly circling with fixed stares. Many of them were dressed in fine velvet suits adorned with gems and precious metals, but they were all soiled with soot. Most of the Nomes carried mining tools that were pointed with menace at the children. Soon, those closest to the children began prodding them with various pick axes, shovels, and sledgehammers. Tug was too scared to protest, but when one of the Nomes poked Jodie a little too roughly, she cried out in anger and began to scold them.

  “Stop that!” she said. “We haven’t done anything to you!”

  They stopped immediately, and one especially haggard-looking Nome moved close to Jodie and began to sniff all around her. After a moment, his eyes widened and he exclaimed, “Mamelon!”

  The other Nomes muttered a series of “ooh’s” and “ah’s” and crowded in closer to Jodie. Tug picked up Leopold and stepped between the Nomes and Jodie, “Keep away from her!” he shouted.

  “You keep away from her,” one of the Nomes called back. “She belongs to us now.”

  “She doesn’t belong to anyone,” Tug countered. “And we don’t belong down here. We’re just trying to find our way out.”

  “Well, you found your way in, uninvited,” another Nome said. “And now it is up to King Renatus to decide your fate.”