“Shhh, Vul,” Caer whispered. “There’s only supposed to be one person in here.”
Eref looked at the pool next to them. The boat rocked back and forth, its protective coating hissing. He found it almost hard to believe that this tempting, crystal-clear water could melt the skin right off their bones.
“All right,” he finally said. “Fire dogs are from my world. They’ll eat basically anything except the color blue, which I guess means the tinghept is safe. Normally fire dogs wait for the prey to die on its own unless they are attacked, but if this one is starving, it’s definitely going to want to eat.”
Vul raised her eyebrows. “Will it try to eat us?”
Eref considered the fire dog. Its ribs were showing, and its legs wobbled. “I don’t think this one has the strength anymore.”
This puzzle seemed unnecessarily cruel.
“So the fire dog will eat the oekmyn, and the oekmyn will eat the tinghept,” Caer said.
“Is that what they do? I’ve never heard of a eokmyn before,” Eref said.
Caer nodded. “A tinghept’s main predator is the eokmyn.”
For a moment, they all fell silent, and Eref thought of Atc. He knew Caer was probably doing the same thing.
Vul bent down to peer into the cages. “But how do we get them across without their cages if they’ll just eat each other?”
Caer looked forlorn. The tinghept nuzzled its cage sweetly, brushing its human-like head against the bars and purring.
Nearby, the eokmyn fiddled with the lock on its own door and tried to get free. The fire dog looked mad with hunger.
“Wait,” Vul said. “I think I have it.”
“You do?” Caer pulled her gaze from the tinghept and focused on Vul.
“Yeah,” Vul said. “It will take four trips there, and three trips back.”
Eref looked at the acidic pool nearby. “That’s how long?”
“That’s 210 seconds,” Caer said.
“This has to be it,” Vul said. “I’m certain. It’s the only way it will work.”
Caer seemed worried. “What if you’re wrong? What if we ask for the time, and the boat won’t last that long?”
Vul stared at the cages. “I’m not wrong,” she said. “I can’t be.”
“Are you sure?” Caer glanced back at the metal sheet of instructions and then over at the lake of crystal death.
Vul nodded and then said in a loud voice, “BEGIN.”
Caer gasped. From somewhere above in the darkness, a deep voice boomed back, “Two-hundred and twenty seconds. Go.”
Vul raced to the eokmyn and released it. “Get in the boat,” she said. “Anyone. Take this eokmyn across.”
Eref hurried to do what she said, and Vul continued letting the other animals out of their cages. Once they were all free, Eref jumped in, and the boat set off automatically.
A voice boomed again from above, “Two hundred and fifteen seconds.”
The boat moved through the acid with great speed, but it swayed dangerously a few times. Eref found himself holding the eokmyn above his head and shifting to different sides to avoid the splash. The eokmyn seemed to comprehend the danger, and it gripped Eref’s head with its large, shaking hands, sometimes accidentally covering Eref’s eyes.
He reached the other side, tossed the eokmyn out and set off back toward Caer and Vul.
The voice in the ceiling called out, “One hundred and eighty-five seconds.”
Listening to a constant countdown was useful, but nerve-wracking. Every breath that Eref took felt as if it had lasted an hour. Would they really complete the task in time? Below him, the acid already hissed against the boat’s foundation.
“One hundred and fifty-five seconds.”
Eref jumped out of the boat, and this time, Vul leapt in with the tinghept. She took off immediately.
Now Caer and Eref were left alone with the whimpering fire dog for another agonizing minute.
“I hope she knows what she’s doing,” Caer said, her hands wringing her purple dress.
“I think she does,” Eref said. “This plan is starting to make sense to me. If I’m right, she’ll come back with the eokmyn this time.”
“One hundred and twenty-five seconds.”
He squinted to see across the dark lake. Vul was on her way back, and Eref had been correct. She carried the nervous eokmyn, who had climbed to the top of her shoulders for safety.
Closer and closer the boat came. Vul waved at them from under the eokmyn’s terrified gestures.
“We need to get the next step ready,” Caer said. “The fire dog’s going this time, right?”
“Yes,” Eref said. “Help me pick him up. I’ll go this trip.”
“No,” Caer said. “Let me take him.”
Eref looked at the angry beast at their feet. It couldn’t overpower Caer, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t bite her on the way.
“Please,” Caer said. “I feel sorry for it. I’ll be careful.”
“Ninety-five seconds.”
Vul jumped onto the landing, shouting, “Go! Go! Come back alone, and we’ll finish together! Hurry!”
Caer scooped the starving fire dog up in her arms and dashed to the boat.
Eref and Vul watched her from the bank, the eokmyn still clutching Vul’s shoulders and trembling.
To Eref’s surprise, the fire dog wasn’t the least bit hostile toward Caer. She stroked its head and scratched its ears, and it gazed up at her with loving trust.
He’d never seen a fire dog tamed before. This was amazing.
The biggest problem was keeping the dog from leaning over the side of the boat and lapping the acid. Caer tugged its neck and pulled it back several times, the boat rocking with each minor struggle.
“Come on, come on,” Vul muttered, willing the boat to go faster.
Finally, Caer reached the other side. She coaxed the fire dog away from the acid and onto the ground. Then she patted the tinghept’s head, and jumped back in to return.
“Sixty seconds.”
They’d lost time. Caer appeared horrified at the sound of the booming voice. There wasn’t a second to spare.
“We can do this,” Vul said. “When she gets here, just jump right in and bring the cages.”
Eref nodded. He grabbed the cages in his arms and waited.
“Thirty seconds.”
Caer arrived just after the voice spoke, and she quaked with fear. “I was slow! Will we make it?”
They were already piled in together, the cages on top of their laps, the eokmyn on top of Vul’s head, speeding toward the other side.
“We’ll make it,” Eref said.
It would be close, though. Every second that passed, the hissing of the acid grew louder, and the boat sank a little deeper. He felt the base of the boat growing thin.
“Fifteen seconds.”
They’d made it about halfway across. A panic surged in his chest that filled him with an irrational need to leap out of the boat and swim to the other side. But he knew that would mean death, so he resisted.
He just had to wait. It was out of their control now.
“Ten seconds.”
“I don’t think we’re close enough,” Caer moaned.
“Get your clammy eokmyn hands off my eyes! I can’t see,” Vul said.
“Five seconds.”
They weren’t close enough. They had no other choice; when the time ran out, they would have to jump.
“Three.”
“Get ready, everyone,” Eref said, and they all clearly knew what they had to do. Caer and Vul stood up and faced the bank.
“Two.”
“Be careful,” Caer said.
The acid hissed loudly below them.
“One.”
“Jump!”
As the boat dissolved beneath their feet, Eref, Caer, and Vul leapt across the pool of acid with the cages in their arms. The eokmyn jumped on its own and landed several feet from the fire dog, who growled and salivated.
“Quick,” Caer said. “The cages.”
They had no time to catch their breath. The fire dog already crouched, ready to devour the eokmyn. The eokmyn had noticed the tinghept as well and crept toward it, hands outstretched.
Caer grabbed the tinghept, Vul stopped the eokmyn, and Eref picked up the fire dog. They each put an animal in its cage and locked the doors.
Instantly, the cages and the animals vanished, and the voice above boomed, “Task complete.”
A door creaked open before them.
They had made it.
But the trials hadn’t ended yet. With a sinking heart, Eref spied yet another puzzle through the open door.
They had nowhere to go from here. Behind them lay the pool of acid with no way around or across, now that the boat had disintegrated. Ahead of them on the wall of the next room hung five large vines. The floor opened up at this wall, and the vines led downward into a huge, dark tunnel.
Each vine was different. The first one was medium-width and bright green, with several round leaves sprouting from it.
The second was as thick as Eref’s torso and bright red. No leaves had grown there.
Next to that was another green one, but it looked sickly. Leaves losing their color dropped off into the tunnel.
Then there was another bright red vine with red and blue leaves. It spiraled all the way downward.
The last vine was the thinnest of the five, its color an electric blue that stood out from all the rest.
“What now?” Vul leaned over to catch her breath. “I can’t handle another one of those puzzles.”
“We almost didn’t make it this far,” Eref said.
Caer stayed silent. She seemed to focus intensely on the vines.
Eref turned to her. “Do you see anything?”
“They’re like huge Bind Vines,” Vul said.
Caer shook her head. “They’re Throat Vines.”
“No,” Vul said, turning back to the wall. “Come on. That’s not fair.”
Eref didn’t like the sound of this. “What are Throat Vines?”
“Vines that look like regular plants, but they’re lethal,” Vul said. “They wrap around you and force themselves down your throat. Then you choke to death, and the vines plant new seeds to grow from your body. Is that right, Caer?”
Caer nodded, eyes still fixed on the wall.
Eref rubbed his neck. “There has to be a trick,” he said. “We’re supposed to get through to the Governors. Can we jump down?”
“Not without touching them,” Vul said. “The tunnel’s too narrow. If we touch one, we’re dead.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Eref disliked these dangerous plants and creatures of Dark World. At least back home he knew what to avoid. If Caer hadn’t been here, he might have grabbed the first vine he had seen and tried to climb down.
“Maybe they’ve discovered us,” Vul said. “Maybe we’re trapped in here and we have to choose between the vines and the acid.”
“No,” Caer said. “This is another puzzle.”
“How do you know?” Vul had started wringing her hands.
“Look behind them,” Caer said. “There are carvings in the wall. It’s another message.”
Eref and Vul leaned closer, careful to avoid the vines. At first Eref couldn’t see anything there, but then, like on the metal sheet, words began to appear. But this time, they didn’t spell out anything that made sense.
Autmae mes 7304293401-512457821-2. Puzz 3 fr Exie’s fe-trafe dtis, mh 11868. Thse are ot ind ines.
“That doesn’t spell anything,” Vul said. “How are we supposed to read it?”
“It’s just like the last set of instructions,” Caer said. “But there are some letters missing.”
Eref blinked. He tried to clear his mind, as the Exile had taught him to do. He could do this. “We need to write down what it’s supposed to say.”
“Write down? Where?” Vul opened her arms as if to show she wasn’t hiding a pad of paper in her dress.
“The ground’s too hard,” Caer said. “We’ll just have to remember the letters.”
“That will make it harder,” he said. “But I guess we have no other choice. Fine. Let’s look at it. What is the first part?”
“I think it’s supposed to say ‘Automated message,’ like the last set of instructions did,” Caer said.
Eref nodded. “Right. The next part probably means ‘Puzzle 3,’ don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Caer said. “Then I think it’s supposed to say ‘for Exile’s life-transfer duties, month….’ It’s all the same as the last set.”
“Fine,” Vul said, “but then there’s the last sentence. It wasn’t on the metal sheet.”
They examined the wall for several minutes. No one said a word.
Then Caer said, “I think it’s about the vines. The last word, ‘ines,’ is probably missing a v.”
“Bind vines!” Vul said. “It says they aren’t Bind Vines!”
Eref looked closer. She was right. Thse are ot ind ines had to be either Those are not Bind Vines or These are not Bind Vines.
“Then we just have one word to figure out,” Eref said.
“Those or These,” Caer said.
Vul let out a long breath. “Which do you think it is?”
“I don’t know,” Eref said. “Let’s see what it all adds up to.”
“What are we supposed to be doing, anyway?” Vul rubbed her head. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
“The answer should be spelled out in the missing letters, if I’m right,” Eref said.
Caer and Vul turned back to the wall and fell silent again.
Eref concentrated.
“I make the word ‘blue,’” Caer said.
“And there’s ‘green,’” Vul added. “Maybe it’s saying not to choose the blue or green ones.”
“Maybe,” said Eref. “But I can also make the word ‘red.’”
They stared at the clue longer.
“I can see the word ‘not’ twice,” Caer said finally.
“So,” Vul said. “‘Not blue, not green, red….’?”
“That’s good,” he said. “We’re getting somewhere.”
Caer tipped her head to one side in a look of confusion. “But how can we be sure it doesn’t say, ‘not red’?”
“Wait. It can’t say ‘Not blue, not green, red,” he said. “There aren’t enough r’s.”
“I’m not touching any of those vines if we’re not sure,” Vul said.
Eref examined the puzzle, never taking his eyes away. If he made it say NOT BLUE NOT GREEN, he was left with D SA L LIS O O/E V.
“Losing leaves!” Caer shouted suddenly.
Vul turned to her. “What?”
“I can make it say ‘losing leaves!’”
“How?” Vul leaned in closer and stared at the wall.
“Great!” Eref said. “That means we can’t use the word ‘green.’ Not enough e’s.”
“So, then,” Caer said, “this puzzle says, ‘Not red, not blue. Losing leaves’?”
Eref looked back at the words one more time. She had to be right.
“That’s it,” he said.
Vul fidgeted and twisted her hands.
“Then that means we choose this one,” Caer said, pointing at the middle vine. “Right?”
“Yes,” Eref said. “That’s what it says.”
Vul gulped loudly and took a few huge breaths.
“Let’s go.” Caer stepped toward the vines.
Eref followed.
“Wait,” Vul said, her voice shaking. “What if we’re wrong? What if it says, ‘Not losing leaves’?”
Caer glanced at Eref.
“I don’t think we are wrong,” he said.
“You don’t think we are?” Vul looked positively frantic. “We’re about to grab o
ne of those vines and hope it doesn’t choke us to death?”
She had a good point. This was a risk. But they couldn’t stand here forever.
“Vul,” Caer said. “I’m sure we’re right. Come on.”
Her eyes wide, she stared at Caer. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely sure?”
“Here,” Caer said, reaching out to the vines. “I’ll touch it first.”
“No!” Vul shrieked.
Everyone stopped moving and waited for Vul.
“I mean,” Vul said. “Not you first, Caer.” She took a step forward, her eyes desperate. “Please.”
“Don’t be silly,” Caer said and turned back to the vine.
Something in Vul’s eyes resonated with Eref. What if their interpretation of the riddle was wrong? How could he let Caer be the one to find out?
“Stop,” he said, jumping in front of Caer.
She stumbled backward, and he stuck his hand out and grabbed the middle vine. “Eref, what—”
But she didn’t finish. His hand firmly grasped the stalk of the green vine with falling leaves.
His heart racing, he waited for something to happen. After a second or two, he turned back to Caer and Vul with a smile. “I think we got—”
The stalk moved in his hand.
Vul gasped. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” Caer said. “Eref. Let go.”
But he couldn’t let go. His hand gripped the vine as if it were glued there.
He watched in horror as something started to creep up from the blackness below.
“Grab him!” Vul yelled. “Come on! We have to get him off!”
“I don’t understand,” Caer said. “We have to have the right vine.”
“Maybe we were wrong,” Vul cried, now tugging at Eref’s clothes.
“Something’s coming,” Eref said. He jerked his arm again, but there was no letting go. “I can see it moving down there.”
“No,” Caer said. “That can’t be. This is the vine. I’m certain.”
“Well, look at it! It’s taken him prisoner, and now it’s coming up to choke him!” Vul pulled harder at his tunic, but his hand couldn’t release.
“Maybe we’ve overlooked something,” Caer murmured.
“Caer! Help me!” Vul yanked so hard his tunic ripped and fell off his body.
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