Clara turned to see the Fire Prince watching her again. He did that a lot. She wasn’t surprised, though, since he was the one with the flashlight and it’d been pointed at her for some time.
“Then don’t watch me,” she snapped at him.
“I’d still hear you, and that’s just as bad.”
“I don’t like to be inactive,” she threw back. “We’ve been over this before, haven’t we?”
“I guess so,” said the Fire Prince, shrugging slightly. “At least you’re not biting off heads at the moment.”
“I don’t bite,” she countered. “It’s disgusting. I have far more dignified methods of dealing with my foe.”
“Let me guess, you dispatch them with your sword?”
“Exactly,” she agreed, amused despite her foul humor. “But until one of us dreams us past this wall, I’m going to pace.”
“You happen to be in luck.”
She turned towards him, both eyebrows up, demanding an explanation.
“I had one last night. It was … interesting.”
She sat down cross-legged in front of him. “All right, what’s our new riddle?”
He was quiet for a few seconds, though she wasn’t sure why. Some weird Fire Prince reason. “Send the young ones on before//They must alone unlock the door.”
She raised both eyebrows. “Okay?”
“I thought it pretty obvious myself,” he admitted. “Jasmine and Karlos will need to go ahead of us and open the door for us.”
“You mean to tell me that we’re just going to send those two kids into who-knows-what without clear instructions?”
“I know, right?” the Fire Prince asked, not sounding too thrilled about it either. “But you didn’t ask me what I saw.”
“All right, shoot. What did you see?”
“There were two wheels of some sort, one on each side of the cave,” he said. “That’s why both kids need to go, I think they’ll have to turn them both at the same time.”
“I don’t like it,” said Clara, shaking her head.
“I don’t either,” said he. “But it’s what we’ve been told to do. We’ll just have to trust that Alphego knows what he’s doing and that Karlos and Jasmine will be able to do what we need them to do.” He pushed himself to his feet and gave the flashlight a small toss. “Well, let’s go wake everyone else up and tell those kids what we need them to do.”
Jasmine and Karlos were both delighted with the task and more than eager to go carry it out for them. Karlos declared that they should have let them go ahead and look sooner, but Abraham just rumpled his hair and said perhaps so.
The Water Princess cracked one of her glow sticks and gave it to the pair, with the explanation that if they lost it, it wouldn’t be as terrible a loss as one of Andrew’s flashlights. They nodded solemnly, and then first Karlos and then Jasmine slipped through the small hole.
It was Andrew’s turn to pace as he waited for something to happen. The Water Princess, for once, was just sitting calmly on the top of a broken stalagmite.
After a few seconds, however, she approached, and he felt her place a hand on his arm. “They’re going to be all right.”
He stopped and turned to face her, not quite sure what to do about her hand, but it quickly fell away. “I know they will,” he admitted. “But it’s just so hard to sit here and wait for them to get into trouble. It feels … wrong somehow.”
“I completely understand,” she said. “But they’re two very resourceful kids. I don’t think they’re going to get killed just because we let them go on ahead of us.”
At that moment, the wall split open. It moved slowly, painfully so, and Andrew couldn’t take his eyes off of it.
“See,” said the Water Princess. “They found the wheels and they’re going to get us out of here. You didn’t have to worry.”
Soon, the gap was wide enough for the rest of them to follow, which they did at once. As soon as Jasmine and Karlos let go of the wheels, the door slammed shut.
But that was okay. They were one step closer to getting to the Kastle, one step closer to freedom. They roped themselves up again and continued on their way.
Getting past that dead end was a good step, but they were running out of water fast, and Clara, frustratingly, had not figured out how to live up to her name and manufacture the stuff. They’d even used up several water bottles that the Fire Prince had brought from their own world, though Clara had to admit that the stuff was actually pretty bland when compared with Rizkan water.
“I hear water,” the Fire Prince announced suddenly. It’d been two days since they’d passed that last dead end.
Clara’s heart leaped at the announcement, high enough that she felt up to teasing again. “Really?” she asked. “It might just be dihydrogen monoxide.”
He snorted, catching the joke. “I guess it could be that.”
“I hope it’s water though,” Clara continued. “Dihydrogen monoxide is some pretty dangerous stuff, or so I’ve heard. Makes grown men fall. Even burns you.”
“Water Princess, what’s di-hy … mon-ox …?” Jasmine asked.
“Truth be told, it’s actually just fancy Fire Prince talk for water,” Clara admitted. “It’s a joke we have.”
“Oh,” said Jasmine. “Well, in that case, I think I hear some of that di-whatever it was.”
“Really?” asked Clara. “Wanna know a secret?”
“What?”
“Well, don’t tell the Fire Prince, but I hear it, too.”
From further up the line, the Fire Prince let out a snort of laughter, so she shouted up to him, “And don’t you tell him either!”
“Fine, I won’t!”
The water grew louder the closer they came to it, and Clara earnestly hoped that it would be blue drinking water. From what she had heard, RiWa, the river that flowed off of the Waterfall entered the mountain, so there was a pretty good chance of it being this that they had found.
Of course, there would also be the issue of whether or not this water would even cross their path, but Clara decided to banish that thought from her head. If they didn’t get that water, they were doomed, and so was Klarand.
At last, however, they rounded a corner, and there, flowing in front of them, glistening in the flashlight’s glow, was the most beautiful sight Clara had ever seen: the long-lost waters of RiWa spilling across the path.
Everyone rushed forward, water bottles and canteens were filled, faces were washed, and it was decided that they would camp there for the night. They’d worry about fording the Ri in the morning.
Chapter 8
Crossing RiWa proved not to be much of a challenge. Jasmine was nearly swept away by the current, it was true, but they all made it across safely, they were clean, and they now had enough water again to last them at least as long as they had food.
This was a good thing, since they now found themselves winding in and out of passageways day after day. There were no more dead ends to block their travels, but there also seemed to be no end to the tunnel they traveled through. Andrew wondered if the dead ends hadn’t been better. At least they were able to rest then.
One day, he woke up to find the Water Princess just sitting on a rock, staring into space, even her hands still. Certainly not normal behavior for her. Wondering what was wrong, he approached and sat down beside her.
“I dreamed last night,” she answered before he could ask.
Andrew swallowed as he processed the implications of that. “But we’re not stuck yet,” he pointed out.
“There’s a chasm ahead of us,” she informed him. “I think it was a warning.”
“A chasm?” Andrew repeated.
“It was pretty wide,” she agreed.
“All right, so how are we going to get across it? Is that the riddle?”
She nodded, hesitated, and then gave it. “There’s a wheel for you to crank//To find the bridge that long has sank.”
Andrew nodded
slowly. “Rather straightforward,” he admitted. “So it was mostly a warning so that we don’t fall into the chasm?”
“I guess so.”
With that information in mind, they proceeded with much more care, though they weren’t sure how long it would be before they reached the chasm, even if it would be that day. The Water Princess stayed strangely quiet.
At length, Andrew heard the roar of water again. “You didn’t tell me there was a Ri in this chasm,” he threw back to the Water Princess.
“To be honest, I didn’t notice,” she flung back up to him.
She was in a very testy mood. Soon they also saw a purplish glow ahead of them, and Jakob let out a gasp. “It’s the place where RiWa and RiFi meet and mix!” he declared.
“Fire and water mixed?” the Water Princess noted, not sounding terribly impressed. “How does that work? Where we come from, water extinguishes fire.”
“It does here too,” Andrew informed her. “I believe you’ve seen it do it. But here inside the Mountain, the flowing fire of RiFi will mix with the water of RiWa. Not even Prince Theodore was quite sure how it happened, though, since he never was able to get close enough to examine it.”
She didn’t answer that. The closer they got to the chasm, the brighter the purple light got, and soon Andrew flicked off the flashlight to conserve battery. Purple light might make everything look weird, but it was free and wouldn’t run out.
At last, they made it. Andrew glanced about on either side of the cave walls, but there was no wheel in sight.
“Where is it?” he asked the Water Princess. “We can’t turn it if we can’t find it.”
As answer, she just pointed across the chasm. “It’s on the other side,” she informed him.
“On the other – what good is that going to do us? How are we going to turn it from over here?”
She moved her point towards seven glowing bars that were suspended from the cave ceiling, trapeze bars, Andrew realized.
“They’re too dangerous,” Abraham declared.
“Only one of us must go,” said the Water Princess in a strangely quiet voice. She looked very pale in the purple light. “And I – I can.”
And before anyone else could say anything else, do anything to stop her, she took a running leap and grabbed ahold of the bar nearest the edge.
There was no flair, and there were no tricks as the Water Princess went from bar to bar, and that was what worried Andrew. He hadn’t known the girl for terribly long, but he did know that she never did anything athletic without a level of finesse that put other people to shame. She had purposefully avoided comment on her own skill on the trapeze when they talked about it several days before. She went from one bar to the next, as a child on monkey bars, except that the bars moved.
As she reached for the next to the last bar, her fingers fell just short. It flew away from her before she could grab again.
A low moan escaped from her lips and echoed around the cave, even over the roar of the Ri beneath her. Andrew suddenly realized why she’d been acting so oddly the whole day. She was scared.
Terrified.
Clara managed to haul her second hand up and onto the bar that she was currently suspended from. She squeezed her eyes shut in an effort to block out the sight of the purple liquid flowing beneath her, but that couldn’t block the steam that surrounded her. She knew for a certain fact that the stuff would be terribly hot, and she would not survive a fall into it.
But what could she do? She had been a fool to think that she could do this. She knew better. She knew that she froze up every time she attempted a trapeze routine, no matter how simple or close to the ground. Surely Klarand couldn’t have asked her to do this, risk her life so certainly in this manner.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered, shaking her head.
“No, child, you cannot, not on your own.”
It was Alphego. Her eyes flew open, and there she saw Him, white and beautiful, on the other side of the chasm, so tantalizingly close. The white light that emanated from Him was a welcome change from the purple, and she felt a cool breeze that almost made her forget the burning liquid below her.
“I will give you the courage, however,” He continued. “Reach forth your hand and take hold.”
She was headed for the next bar again. It was close. Reluctantly, she pried one hand from the bar she hung from and grabbed it, letting go with the other as soon as she felt secure. A moment later, she was landed on all fours on solid ground.
She didn’t want to move, but Alphego was still there, and she felt His feathers against her shoulder. “Up on your feet, Water Princess,” He whispered in her ear. “Your friends await your action on the other side.”
Swallowing, she pushed herself to her feet, and, noting how uncomfortably close she still was to the edge, she practically ran towards the wheel on the wall before her. She threw all the rest of her energy into the turning of it, soon losing herself in the rhythmic motion.
As the Water Princess landed on the other side, Andrew let go of the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. She’d made it.
But then, for a longer moment yet, she didn’t move, just lay there in the pathetic heap she’d landed in. At last, she regained her feet, found the wheel and began to turn it.
It was slow, painful business, but gradually the bridge rose out of the water. Andrew wanted to be on the other side, to make sure she was all right, but he had to wait, wait for the bridge to rise and his way across to appear.
“That’s not like the Water Princess at all,” spoke Jakob from beside Andrew.
Something in Andrew’s head clicked – the fact that she’d been in the circus, what he’d been told about why it closed. “She had a terrible fall when she was a kid, I think,” he remembered. “From one of those.” He pointed to the trapeze bars.
At that moment, the bridge was high enough for them to cross on it. They ran across, not trusting it to stay very long. As soon as they were all across, the Water Princess let go of the wheel. It slid back down with terrible speed, and she herself melted into a puddle below the wheel, burying her head in her hands.
Everyone else busied themselves in fixing camp for them to stay the night. This was as good a place as any, after all, and the Water Princess was clearly not in any shape to travel at the moment. Andrew approached the girl to make sure she was all right.
She was trembling, her eyes squeezed shut in an effort to block out the world around her. He knelt down and placed a hesitant hand on her shoulder, and then said in the soft tone he’d always used with Josh after the boy woke up from a nightmare about the crash, “Hey, it’s all right. You survived. You did it.”
She didn’t answer, but her hand shot up, grabbed his wrist and held it, vice-tight. She did stop trembling, however, so he sat down and let her hold him. If it made her feel better, it was worth it. After a few awkward seconds, he placed his other arm around her and pulled her closer to him. He felt her slowly relax, and soon he realized that she was asleep.
Glancing about at the others, who didn’t seem to notice them, he realized how awkward this was. She was so small, so close to him, that it was almost unbearable.
He managed to extract his arm from her hold, but as soon as he withdrew it, she began trembling again. That would never do, of course, so he wrapped his arm back around her and pulled her even closer, resting her head against his chest and stroking her hair. She was so beautiful and delicate in the purple light, a soft frown on her lips.
It felt so right to have her in his arms.
Clara wasn’t sure why she awoke in the Fire Prince’s arms. She certainly couldn’t remember agreeing to it, couldn’t remember anything, really, since everyone had gotten across the bridge safely. Alphego had been there, helping her, but then he’d left her to the mercy of her memories and nightmares.
Strangely, she didn’t feel herself rebelling against the pos
ition, especially not after the dream she had had the night before, the nightmare that had plagued her since she was four, especially on nights after she had attempted a routine on trapeze bars.
She closed her eyes again, allowing her mind to process that nightmare. It had begun the same as it always did, with her just four years old again, standing on the top of the stand, waving down at the crowd below her, just any old day when you’re part of the circus. She went flying through the air, the wind blowing through her hair, laughing in delight. Oh, it was always so much fun in her dreams, but that foreboding, the knowing what would come next was always there, darkening the memory.
She had always loved being tossed from her mother to her father as they flew through the air, watching the people below. But this day was different. A half-second’s mis-timing and her father failed to catch her, his fingers just inches away from her waist.
But that half-second was all it took, and she went falling through the air like the star she was, the silence deadly as the audience collected their breath. Normally, this wouldn’t have been a problem – she’d fallen from this height before – but she wasn’t headed for the net, but towards the audience that watched in such anticipation.
Here was where the dream changed. For the first time since the actual fall, she wasn’t caught by the frightened mother. Instead, arms folded around her waist, stopping her fall so peacefully and gently, carrying her off to more pleasant dreams where her feet stayed planted firmly on the ground the whole time.
“Are you all right, Clara?”
The Fire Prince was awake, watching her. Slowly she nodded, and reluctantly pushed herself out of his arms. “Yeah,” she whispered. “It’s just that I had a pretty bad fall from a trapeze bar when I was four, and I’ve never liked them since.”
Silence hung heavily in the air for several moments before he spoke. “Yeah, I’d guessed that.” She tensed, and he went on to explain. “Mr. and Mrs. Eaglechaser were in the circus until it folded. I know the story about your fall.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling so open and exposed. “I still have nightmares,” she admitted. “I should be able to move on, should be able to get back onto the trapeze and try again, but I can’t, even after twelve years, I just can’t.”
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