by Jamie Davis
It was extremely dark in the tunnel, even with the two lanterns. One of the men in front of her handed Cari the second lantern and she passed it along to Rodrigo since he was bringing up the rear. Stefan had already started moving forward down the narrow passageway.
They could only proceed single file down the tunnel. The floor was smooth, which was lucky because the lamplight didn’t provide very much illumination for those in the middle of the group. They continued along for about five minutes before the passageway opened into a larger junction running to the left and right. Cari heard running water and knew they had entered part of the city’s sewer system. Somewhere down here, there were also some old catacombs. She knew of them from a previous escape she’d made here in the Crystal City. She wondered if her parents and the three Dragoons were now moving in a similar passage nearby. She wanted to see them. She wanted to ask them how they got here.
Stefan waited at the T-junction until everyone filed out of the smaller passageway and spread out on a ledge above the sewer waters flowing below. He pointed to the right and Cari joined him at the front of the group while they moved down the ledge of the larger sewer passageway. They were able to walk two abreast on the raised walkway that bordered the open sewer drain beside them to the left. As they walked, there were periodic branches off to the left and right, leading, she presumed, to similar tunnels to the one they’d used throughout other portions of the city.
They continued walking for about fifteen minutes, passing by several intersections, turning down others. Stefan led the way, following a set of directions he must have memorized.
After a few twisting turns, Cari realized she could try and orient where they might be using her Earth Sense skill and she called up the skill menu and activated the map overlay. With a little practice, she was able to look at the tunnels through which they passed with the city above for reference.
She couldn’t see tunnels she hadn’t yet walked through, but she was able to put the city map over top of the tunnel system to see which direction they traveled underground. They were heading west away from the Palace Square in the direction of the Caravan Gate and the Last Retreat Inn. That was good. They had to retrieve Jaycee and Percy from the tavern. If Novachik somehow figured out where they’d been staying. She might be in danger and already captured.
“Stefan, is there any way we can hurry up? I’m worried about Jaycee. She might not be safe anymore since Major Novachik and the others clearly knew we were in town and to watch for us.”
“I can try, Cari. It’s a little disorienting to be down here and I’m trying to remember the directions Merrick gave me. He wouldn’t let me write them down.”
“Do the best you can. I want to get back and check on her.”
“I believe she’s safe. Your mother and father sent some of the soldiers I came with from Tandon to watch over the tavern.
“How many did you bring with you?”
“The Duke decided a smaller force was better than a large one, at least right now. I came with a platoon of twenty men.”
“It was enough to do the job, I guess. The plan was masterful.”
“It was your father’s idea. I never would’ve tried anything so complicated, but he seemed to be sure it would all work out for the best. He kept saying to trust his luck. He said it never failed him before.”
“My father said that? That doesn’t sound like him at all.”
“You’ve talked about your parents some in our travels, Cari. I have to say they aren’t anything like what I expected based on how you described them.”
“They aren’t, are they? I still can’t believe they pulled that off back there. It’s like I don’t know them at all.”
“To be honest, Cari, they’re exactly like I expected Prince Hal and Princess Mona to be. If you’ll forgive me for saying it, they are total badasses.”
Cari heard a chuckle from behind her as the five men at the rear overheard that part of the conversation. Clearly, the five of them had a similar impression.
They continued to twist and turn through the tunnels stopping on several occasions while Stefan got his bearings and tried to remember the directions he’d been given. Cari was able to help a little using her Earth Sense.
Eventually, they arrived at another of the side passages and Stefan pointed up it. “If the directions are correct, this passageway leads to the basement of The Last Retreat. There’s a secret entrance that opens behind the wine racks in the cellar.”
“This is your show, Stefan. Lead on.”
Stefan turned and led them up the passageway.
They soon arrived at a stone wall. There was an iron latch and plate set into the stone in front of them. It took him a few seconds to figure out the mechanism. After a few tries, they heard a click and the wall pushed open before them letting them exit into the wine cellar of The Last Retreat Tavern.
A multitude of questions and worries filled her mind. Cari pushed past Stefan and ran up the stairs into the tavern kitchen. She startled the cook and the tavern keeper’s wife.
Muttering an apology, Cari turned and darted out into the common room. She ran into the three Dragoons. They were already seated around a table, mugs of ale in both Liam and Thad’s hands and a wine goblet in Chance’s.
“Ah, there she is,” Liam said. “It’s good to see you were able to get away and back here in one piece.”
“You sound as if you doubted I’d make it?”
“You’re as much a mystery to me at this point as your remarkable parents are.”
Cari cast her eyes around the nearly empty common room. “Where are they?”
Thad pointed up the stairs. “They went to check on Her Majesty. Percy kept her upstairs and out of sight.”
Cari ran up the stairs, skipping every other step. Her room was open, and she checked there first.
Percy sat on the floor with Jaycee. The two were playing with dolls together.
“Oh, hi, Cari. I just met your parents. They’re every bit as amazing as the legends say they are.”
“Where are they?” Cari asked.
“They are in the innkeeper’s private dining room at the end of the hallway.”
Cari muttered a thank you and headed to the end of the hall, stopping outside the closed door. She heard a pair of familiar voices on the other side and she paused. What should she say to them? Part of her wanted to apologize for getting into trouble and the other side of her was knotted up with renewed anger about how she got here and how they’d hidden this place from her.
She was still pondering the best approach when the door was pulled open and she found herself face to face with her mom. Her dad was just behind, as startled at seeing Cari as his wife.
Suddenly, all worry about what to say to them disappeared as she lurched forward into her parents’ arms.
Chapter 36
Cari held both her parents in a group hug while standing there in complete silence. She couldn’t say anything, unsure if she was going to be able to hold it together. She heard soft sobbing coming from her mother and that triggered her own tears.
After a few more long seconds together, her dad loosened his hold on both of them and they all took a step back from each other. Cari was surprised to see her father wipe a few tears away from his cheeks. He was always so stern.
Her dad gestured for Cari to come in. She stepped into the room and stood by the table, turning around to face her parents still standing by the entrance. Her dad shut the door and smiled at her.
Her mom stepped forward and grasped her daughter by the shoulders. She studied Cari’s face and her hand reached up and traced one of the scars with a fingertip. Mona’s finger drew a line just above her right eyebrow.
Cari reached her hand up and brushed her mom’s hand away self-consciously.
“Cari, honey, all these scars… are you hurt?”
“I’m fine, mom. Those are old, and they happened so long ago.”
“You should have been more careful, honey. Who
did this to you?”
“Nobody who’s still alive,” Cari said, offering her mother a lopsided grin. She tried to put on a brave face. It was hard because each of the people she killed remained with her, haunting her dreams sometimes. Her mind held vivid memories of their faces.
Cari’s mom nodded. “I hope they are because otherwise, I’d have a thing or two to say to them before your father finished them off.”
“Mom, I can take care of my own battles. You don’t have to fight them for me anymore. I swear, we are back together for all of sixty seconds and you’re treating me like a child all over again.”
“You are a child, Cari,” Mona said. “You may think you’re a grown woman, but you’re just a teenager.”
“Yeah, about that. I figured out why I’ve always been big for my age. I’m not really 16, am I? I’m more like eighteen, maybe even nineteen now that I’ve been here for an extra year.”
Her dad chuckled. “She’s got you there, Mona. We knew she’d figure it out eventually once we let her come back.”
“Sixteen or nineteen, it doesn’t matter. She still not yet an adult.”
“I’ve been here in Fantasma for a year and a half, mom. In that time, I’ve been able to take care of myself just fine. I’ve captained a ship and led my people in battle. I know what it means to be an adult.”
Mona studied her daughter for a few seconds then shook her head and walked to the door. “You talk to her, Hal. You always had a better way of getting through to her than I did. I have some final adjustments to make on the transporter if we’re going to figure out how to use it for a long distance jump all the way home.”
Her mother opened the door and left the room, shutting it behind her.
“Why don’t we both sit down,” her dad said. Cari pulled out one of the chairs and sat down. Her dad took a seat directly across from her on the other side of the table. For a long time, the two of them just sat and stared at each other. Her dad gave her half a smile and said, “I can see the sadness in your eyes, Cari. You try to hide it behind your self-confidence, but I know it’s there. You may fool your mother with your bravado, but you don’t fool me.”
He paused a few seconds holding her gaze with his before he said anything else. As he was usually able to do when Cari tried to hide something from him, he jumped right to the root of the problem. “How many people have you killed.”
Cari didn’t answer at first. She shifted her gaze to stare past her father at the wall behind him, trying to gather herself. Despite her attempts to hold it in a few tears slipped past her defenses and trickled down her cheeks. She scrubbed them away with the palm of her hand.
She shifted her gaze back to her father. “How do you do it? How do you deal with all the killing? Some people here say they called you Bloody Hal. You must’ve killed a lot of people to get a name like that.”
Hal nodded and reached across the table to grasp her hand. “Too many to count, if I’m to be honest. A few of them, especially from the more desperate situations tend to stick with you, though, don’t they?”
“How do you deal with seeing their faces when you close your eyes? You see them, too, right?”
Her dad nodded again. “Sometimes I go for a run. Working out helps, too. Other times I just sit and think about it, realizing that it was a choice between my dying or their dying. Given that option, there was only one thing I could do. Is it the same for you?”
Cari brushed away another tear from her cheek with the heel of her hand and smiled. “I guess so.”
“I’d like to tell you it gets better, honey, but some of it never goes away. When we get you back home, we’ll get you in to see somebody new; someone we can trust with our secret life here. There were a couple of times while you were growing up when I was under a lot of stress at work that I found I was having trouble and had to talk to a counselor. We can find that same type of professional help for you, too.”
Cari shook her head. “What makes you think I want to go back?”
Her father let go of her hand and sat back in his chair. His eyes told her he hadn’t considered she might want to stay.
“Dad, I like it here. I’ve always liked it here, even when I didn’t know Fantasma really existed. I never really belonged at home on Earth. I feel like this is the place for me.”
Hal gave her a grim smile and shook his head. “Cari, it’s all right to visit here from time to time. Your mother and I were going to tell you about Fantasma when you graduated from high school next year. We just wanted you to get through school at home before we told you about what existed on the other side of the portal.”
“You didn’t have to hide it from me, dad. I should have been told a long time ago. You made me think I was crazy growing up.”
“I’m sorry for that. Someday you’ll discover that there isn’t a rulebook for parenting. A lot of mistakes get made along the way raising a child to adulthood. All we can do though, is make the best judgments we can at the time.”
“So not even an ‘I’m sorry?’ No apology for messing my whole life up?”
“Now you’re just being dramatic. Look, Cari, I’ll apologize to you if that’s what you want, but at the end of the day, your mother and I would probably make the same decisions all over again. You don’t know how hard it was explaining to people how you grew up so fast when you were little. We’d go away for what everyone thought was a long weekend and when we came back you’d be talking in full sentences. You told people fantastical stories of things you’d seen, and we had to explain to them we’d seen it on a video in a cartoon or something. We were worried people might get so alarmed at the way you were acting if we kept taking you to Fantasma that someone might think we weren’t being safe with you and take you away from us.”
“All right, so you had to take me away when I was little, but what about when I got older? Did you have to wait so long before you were going to tell me?”
“Maybe not, but it’s too late to worry about that now, isn’t it?”
Cari paused for a few seconds. He was right. They were arguing about things that neither of them could change. “Look, Dad, I was angry when I got here. Like REALLY angry. I guess I’ll always be a little ticked at both of you for taking this part of my childhood away from me, but I realize you did the best you could. That still doesn’t mean I want to go home now that you’re here. Fantasma is home to me now. I have new friends and a whole life here.”
Hal shook his head and pointed to the door. “Things are different here now than they were when we used to come. The Empire is in a shambles since Kareena died. There’s likely going to be a Civil War and I don’t think you want to get caught in the middle of that.”
“There doesn’t have to be a Civil War, dad. We’ve got Jaycee. There must be a way to get her on the throne before her uncle is crowned Emperor. That’s what I’m here for. I’m convinced that’s why I ended up in Fantasma again after all these years. Everything I’ve done has led me to this moment. Based on a strange series of events I wouldn’t have believed if it hadn’t been there to see it, I think I was destined to be here, just like you were once upon a time.”
Hal laughed. “Now you sound like me.” He shrugged. “Sometimes things have a way of just happening around you and there’s nothing you can do but fight your way out of it.”
“Exactly! That’s why I have to see this through. We have to get Jaycee on the throne. If we can do that, everything else will straighten itself out.”
“I suppose you have a clever plan?” Her dad asked with a twinkle in his eye.
Cari shook her head. “Not so much a plan as a hint of an idea.”
“That’s how the best plans in the world get started, don’t you know?”
Now it was Cari’s turn to be surprised. “You mean you’ll let me stay?”
“I don’t think I have a choice, do I?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Besides, you were brought here because my friend Kareena called for help. She called for me, and I wasn’t ther
e when she needed me most. That kind of pisses me off.”
“So, what are we gonna do about it?”
Her dad looked up at her. She saw in them a feral gleam she’d never seen from her father before. “I guess the Dix family is going to war, let’s go talk to your mother.”
Chapter 37
Before they could go to war, Cari, her parents and all the others had to find a safe place to plan their next steps. The Last Retreat was no longer secure. The Duke of Charon’s men would come here eventually in their search for the escaped Dragoons and their rescuers.
Chance came up with a solution, leading all of them back down through the basement entrance to the sewers and then into the ancient catacombs beneath the city. When Cari asked where he was taking them, Chance answered, “Long ago, the Elves and others helped build this city for our human friends. When we left, we took along secrets unknown to the men who later formed the Empire.”
The elf stopped at a blank wall blocking the passage ahead. He raised his right hand, holding the strange glowing, magical light he’d used once before in the catacombs. With his left hand, he ran his fingertips over the stone wall while he muttered something in elvish. Glowing turquoise runes appeared on the wall, then, with the grinding of stone on stone, it slid back into the side of the passage, revealing a large chamber on the other side.
Chance stepped inside and beckoned for them to follow. The room they’d entered had a vaulted ceiling with a double row of six columns running down either side of the room, each supporting a portion of the worked stone ceiling above. At the far end of the room sat a broad, rectangular stone table flanked on the two long sides by low stone benches. Between each of the columns were four stone slabs arranged on the floor in a square pattern with about a foot of space between each edge.
As Cari moved through the room, she realized there was something familiar about this place. “Chance, this place was built by dwarves, wasn’t it?”