“I think we should keep our suspicion to ourselves,” said Andrew, after a long silence. “The Klaranders would go crazy over it, yes, but I don’t want something to be recorded about us that wasn’t true.”
She nodded in agreement. “I only brought it up because it involved you. I wouldn’t dream of telling anyone else,” she said, standing up. “Now, that was a lovely chat, Fire Prince, but I must get back to my pacing. I’ll never get that floor worn through if I don’t.”
Clara was the only one up at the moment, not quite tired enough to go to sleep yet. She paced up and down the wall, hoping to find a way through it. It was dark since they’d extinguished all of the torches to save them, as they were already running out, but she knew this wall. She’d been pacing it for quite some time now.
“Oh, I’ve hit an inhabited cave!”
She spun around at the unfamiliar voice. She couldn’t see anyone, due to the darkness, of course.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“A friend, I hope, ah, here it is!” Light suddenly burst from the shadows, and Clara could see a young girl with brown hair that wisped about her face, dressed in a long blue dress, holding a small glowing sphere. “It’s a present from a friend of mine,” she explained. “I do so much traveling, and I never know when I’m going to get myself lost in a dark place, so she gave this to me. Oh, hello, Water Princess!”
Clara’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know who I am?”
“The sword gave it away,” the girl returned. “My name’s Laura, by the way, since judging by the fact that you only have your sword, I’m guessing you haven’t had your title for long.” Her eyes narrowed. “Are we inside the Mountain?”
“Yeah, we are, and quite stuck here,” Clara admitted. “Wait, are you the Doorkeeper?”
Laura made an elegant bow. “The one and only and lonely,” she announced. “I just came from Lucy’s wedding. Ah, good times, but that explains the dress.” And she twirled around. “Usually I go for a much simpler look, though I do love this dress. I may keep it.”
“Lucy?” Clara repeated.
“She hates it when I talk about her to other people, especially people in other worlds, so I’m terribly sorry, but I can’t explain,” Laura said with a shake of her head. “You said you were stuck?”
Clara nodded towards the wall. “It’s a dead end, and the door that got us into the Mountain closed as soon as we were through it. But … you’ve been through here once. Do you know?”
Laura shook her head. “So they keep telling me I will,” she said. “That’s one of the drawbacks to world traveling, though. Everything happens out of order, and then people expect you to remember things that haven’t happened yet. I’m terribly sorry, Water Princess, but I don’t know how you are going to get past this wall. Alphego knows, though.”
“Alphego,” Clara repeated.
Laura nodded. “If I remember your legend correctly, the one being written right now, He’ll tell you the way.”
“Like the dream Andrew had?”
“Yes, exactly,” said Laura. “Now, I really don’t think I’ll be of any further use here, I’m sorry to admit, so if you don’t have any further questions?”
“I do have one,” Clara admitted, tilting her head to the side. “The Ten who founded Klarand – the Fire Prince and I were talking about them earlier, and they sound an awfully lot like our own parents. Are they?”
Laura didn’t answer for several seconds. She shook her head. “That is a question I cannot answer either. I know it, but you’ll have to ask them, for I do know that you and the Fire Prince spend your entire reign ignorant and that it is not recorded by Rizkan history at this time. The Tela Du, now, that’s a different story, and well, Rizkaland itself and a thousand years from now.” She sighed. “I miss her. Maybe I’ll see her again shortly.”
And with that, she took a step forward and she and her light disappeared.
Clara decided that it was time for her to go to bed as well.
Andrew awoke to the Water Princess shaking him, which was by far much better than kicking
“Wake up! Wake up! We can get out of here!”
Andrew cracked open one eye and squinted at her. “Huh?”
“We can get past this dead end! There is a way forward!” She shook him again. “Come on, wake up! There’s no time to lose!”
Realizing he’d have no peace until he’d heard her out, Andrew sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, wondering how she’d found him in the blackness. “All right, let’s hear it. How are we going to get out of here?” Since it was dark, and she couldn’t see, he went ahead and closed his eyes again. Too much work to keep them open.
“I met the Doorkeeper last night,” she explained, speaking so fast that the words blurred themselves together. “After the rest of you were asleep, that is.”
“And she told you how to get past?” Andrew guessed.
“No, she said that she couldn’t remember, something about not having happened yet for her,” the Water Princess continued. “But she said that Alphego would tell us the way forward, and then I went to bed, and then, well, you remember that dream you had about the mountain? It was like that.”
“So, you saw Alphego?”
“Yeah, and He was just like you said,” she confirmed. “I was down here in this cave, but it was very well lit – I think the light came from Alphego, though. It was beautiful, and I was looking at a set of black jewels that were embedded into the wall. They formed an arrow, but I have no idea what they were pointing to.”
“I’ve never seen anything like those here,” Andrew pointed out.
“I haven’t told you the riddle yet,” she pointed out.
“Let’s hear it, then.”
“Dust and dirt to clear away//So that cold fire can lead the way.”
“It’s rather specific,” Andrew observed, unsure what else to say about it.
And she was gone, off to inform the others of the new turn of events. Pretty soon, everyone was awake and discussing the riddle and what it might mean.
“I have no idea for the second half,” Jill Anna pointed out, “beyond the fact that we’re almost out of wood for the torches, so we’ll need to find a new source for light, but the first half is obvious.” She ran her finger down a nearby wall, scooping up a fingerful of dust. “This place is filthy. There may be some of those jewels somewhere, but we can’t see them for all of the dirt.”
“Ah, brilliant deduction!” the Water Princess agreed. “Jill Anna, I’m going to put you in charge of that, then, since I don’t know of anyone more neat and orderly than you. Feel free to boss the rest of us about however you feel necessary. We need to get moving in a forward direction again since our food supply is not going to last forever.”
“Oh, but Water Princess…” Jill Anna protested.
“No buts. I need someone on the task that I know I can trust to get the job done,” the Water Princess countered. “It needs a woman’s touch, and I don’t think that mine quite fits the bill. So, let’s get moving. Just try to ration water usage.”
Jill Anna quickly stepped up to the task Clara laid on her and proved herself as a marvelous organizer in this sort of thing. They cleaned the whole rest of the day, and since the gems still weren’t uncovered, began again early the next day. Clara, for one, was glad for some constructive activity.
“I think you’ve let loose a monster,” the Fire Prince commented as they scrubbed the wall with some brushes that Jill Anna had “borrowed” from the ones Jasmine had packed for Clara’s hair. “I just thought that Jill Anna was shy and unassuming.”
“It’s getting the room clean,” Clara pointed out. “You have dirt all over your face.” No longer concealing her past as a Bug Child had made the girl much more confident, that was for certain.
“Your face, I’m sure, isn’t any cleaner,” he countered.
Clara raised an eyebro
w and wiped a sleeve across her face. “Is that any better?”
“Some,” he admitted.
She shrugged. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to take a nice, hot shower once we get out of here. The riddle didn’t say that we had to be clean.”
“Point made,” he agreed.
They worked in silence for several minutes. Truth be told, Clara was starting to despair of them ever finding those gems and thus the way forward, which was why she was throwing herself into it all the harder.
Just before she was about to announce that they might as well call it a night, she hit something that didn’t feel like solid rock. Scratching harder, she soon caught a glint of light that did not look like a regular rock.
“Andrew!” she breathed. “Andrew, I found them!”
“You think so?” He stepped closer.
She pointed towards the black gem she had exposed, then, conscious of how close he now was to her, spun off to tell the others.
With the gems exposed, the cleaning effort focused on them, though Jill Anna was reluctant to abandon the rest of the room. Soon they had the arrow completely uncovered, and the cleaning followed in the direction it pointed. They found a stone lever and naturally slid it down. The mountain began to tremble again, and the wall that blocked their way split down the center and pulled back, revealing more tunnel.
“I’d suggest that the Water Princess and I go through last,” the Fire Prince spoke up. “After what happened the last time, I’d rather not have any of the rest of you get stranded behind.”
They all agreed that this was a good idea, and once they were all packed up and ready to go again, that’s what they did. As soon as Clara and the Fire Prince stepped through, the mountain gave one last tremble and closed behind them.
“Well, that was simple,” Clara announced. “There’s still the second half of the prophecy, though.”
“I think that’s even simpler,” said the Fire Prince. He slid off his backpack and pulled out his larger flashlight, flicking it on. “We should save the rest of the wood for cooking, and use cold fire to take us the rest of the way through the mountain.”
“Oh!” said Clara, delighted with this turn, and then, not to be outdone, slid off her own pack and pulled out her package of army glowsticks and cracked one. “These’ll work, too, right?”
“Brilliant,” said the Fire Prince, arching an eyebrow. “But we do need to be careful of our resources here, too. Batteries only last so long, as do those glowsticks, and we have no idea how long we’ll be in this tunnel.”
“I have a twenty-four pack of these,” Clara informed him, “as well as some spare batteries: D and double A. They’re in the package, never been opened, so they should still be good.”
“Those are exactly the sizes I need for my flashlights,” said the Fire Prince, grinning. “Anyway,” he shone the flashlight forward, bringing to view a large collection of stalactites and stalagmites that now grew ahead of them. “I would suggest that we rope up so that we don’t lose anyone in the darkness.”
“Good idea,” said Lord Abraham. “And since you’re the one with the cold fire, I think you should lead the way.”
“I’ll bring up the rear,” Clara volunteered, holding up her glowstick. “I think this would be most effective there.”
Chapter 7
They were stuck again. This time, they’d only made it about half a day before encountering a dead end. As before, there had been no other branches, no other way they could have gone. This was clearly the way forward, but the way was barred.
And, as if to taunt them, there was a small hole in the middle of the wall, just big enough for one of the kids to go through. Of the adults, not even the Water Princess, as small and flexible as she was, could squeeze herself into it.
Regardless, they weren’t going to send the kids through alone, not knowing what might be on the other end of the tiny tunnel – even though, according to Karlos, it wasn’t tiny for very far, maybe a yard or so.
As far as spelunking went – and Andrew had gone several times with his dad – this cave had been pretty tame, just with very strange challenges every so often and the stalagmites such as he was currently leaning against.
Since they were stuck again, the Water Princess had resumed her pacing. Andrew had resumed trying to ignore the fact that she was doing it. The only time he ever saw her leave the wall was to eat, and that was done reluctantly. If she slept, it was while he wasn’t looking.
“She’s a woman of action, and women of action don’t like to be still.”
Andrew turned to find Jakob standing beside him.
“I think it’s getting to all of us,” Andrew admitted.
“It is,” Jakob agreed. “But it got to her first.”
“We’re running out of water,” Andrew observed. “There’s still enough food to last us a few weeks if we’re careful, but we’ll die of dehydration before that.” They were already working on the second set of batteries on the larger flashlight. They hadn’t needed the smaller flashlight yet.
“Alphego will send us some answer, just as He’s done before,” said Jakob. “In the meantime, we should see what we can be thankful for now. Let’s see, time alone away from people, which, I think, has been one of the best things for you and the Water Princess. You’re actually starting to grow on her.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” said Andrew, shrugging. “She almost bit my head off the last time I tried to talk to her.”
“That’s because you tried to talk to her, and she’s suffering from a severe case of boredom,” Jakob explained.
Andrew sighed. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Ah, but that’s girls for you,” Jakob pointed out. “I take you don’t have much experience with the feminine variety?”
Andrew shrugged and shook his head. “I lost my mom when I was little, and I only have brothers.”
“Exactly,” said Jakob. “I, on the other hand, have two sisters – one of them my twin and very much like the Water Princess herself.”
“Essua, the one that Amber froze.”
“Yes,” said Jakob, his voice a trifle subdued for a moment. “Girls like to be confusing, for a lot of confusing reasons. I never got Essua to confirm it, but it’s my honest belief that they have some sort of conspiracy to keep guys like us clueless. But also, the Water Princess herself is confused about you. Give her time and space, but not too much.”
“Who’s to say that I want her to like me?” Andrew pointed out. “I don’t know that I like her yet, so why should I try to force her emotions?”
“She’s a beautiful girl, a princess at that,” Jakob pointed out. “And from what I’ve seen, the two of you actually work well together, and when she isn’t snapping off your head, you seem to converse excellently.”
Andrew shrugged slightly. “I don’t want to like her just because of her beauty,” he said. “We’ve agreed that we’ll just be friends for now.”
“You’re the Fire Prince and Water Princess,” Jakob pointed out. “I don’t know how long that will last.”
“We know,” said Andrew. “But for now, we’re trying it.”
“I do understand,” said Jakob. “My parents have been pressuring me to choose a young girl back home. Nothing serious yet, since I’m not yet eighteen, but they still have been pairing me up with and praising this young lady and that. Terribly frustrating.”
“I’m just sixteen,” Andrew pointed out. “Almost seventeen, but it’s still too young.”
“You’ll need the both of you to bear the weight of Klarand,” Jakob pointed out. “That’s how Rizkaland works, and for good reason. If it were only one or the other of you, you couldn’t bear it, and you’re unsuited for every problem that you’ll encounter. But between the two of you, you can find a way.”
“I guess so,” Andrew admitted, not really wanting to talk about it. “So, what about you and your girl issue?”
“It wouldn’t be so bad,” Jakob admitted, with a sh
rug, “for the girls my parents introduce me to are fair indeed, with even fairer titles, but my heart was stolen long ago by a girl of a class far beneath me.”
Andrew turned towards Jakob with one eyebrow raised. “Really? Who?” Not that Andrew would likely recognize the name, but he was still curious.
“Her name was Jill,” said Jakob. “She was a Bug Child, the first I ever saw. I was in the library one day, and I heard her. She was so scared since she wasn’t supposed to let anyone see her at all. Until then, I was quite unaware of the threat that lay within our own castle. I believe it was that event that allowed her to leave the Bug Children and become a seamstress. She changed her name, too, choosing to add her middle name.”
Andrew glanced towards Jill Anna who sat talking to her younger sister while she sewed something for the Water Princess. “You mean…”
“Yes, her,” Jakob confirmed. “But I fear she blames me for her expulsion, for she’s shunned me ever since.” He sighed. “I suppose it’s just as well, I guess. As I said before, her rank is far beneath mine, and I fear that my parents would never approve the match.”
Andrew had no idea what to say.
“I keep an eye on her though, make sure that she and her sisters are well cared for,” Jakob continued. “Let her live her life. It’s not like I have the lordship of Upper Klarand pressing down on me and insisting I choose someone immediately.”
Clara had spent her whole life in movement, and this last week had been spent in anything but. There wasn’t room for her to practice her sword properly, especially now that they were surrounded by all of the rock formations, and her bow was out of the question. Pacing the wall was the only thing she could do, and hardly a good substitute. She went to bed long after everyone else did and was still the first one up, as she was right now. She joined the meals, but ate little. She wanted out of these tunnels and back into the bright sunshine, back to doing things.
“You’re making me tired just watching you.”
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