“You’re going with us this time. Get moving,” Garbhan ordered as he directed them into the darkness of the cave. Crush and Pound proceeded into the cavern and discovered there were torches lighting the deep hallway leading down, down, down into a mine. When they made a turn into a bend, they marched to the end of another long tunnel where a cavern as large as a football stadium opened up. Inside the arena, many tiny holes lined the walls, and there was continuous movement in and out of every one. Above their heads, veins of glittering gold seemed to run all through the rock, making a brilliant and hypnotic design. Crush found that he could not take his eyes off of the sparkling display until one of the guards prodded him forward with the sharp end of a spear.
When he looked back down, Crush noticed the people that he had missed upon first inspection. In this magnificent chamber, there were hundreds of half-starved, weary, and ragged individuals bound in chains and toting shovels and wheelbarrows. They were mercilessly digging at the sparkling veins of ore. They piled up the gleaming metal, hauled it away, and dumped it into empty pits. The scene of the terrific gold deposit coupled with the helpless overworked people was both awe inspiring and horrible to take in.
“Slavery,” whispered Pound.
“The pot of gold at the end of the clover road,” replied Crush.
With spear tips at their backs, Crush and Pound were guided around the cavern onto a ledge where they entered another tunnel that led deeper down into the mountain. Winding down through the rock, they reached another smaller room decorated with gold inlays and radiating the unpleasant smell of moldy fabric. A golden throne was centered at the back of the room, and Crush and Pound were forced to kneel off to one side of a carpet in front of the empty seat of power. Down on one knee, they waited as a procession of royalty of a different race than the guards, covered with smooth green skin and clothed in golden robes and headdresses, poured into the room. The procession lined up along the other side of the carpet to usher in what appeared to be a prince, and the monarch took his seat at the throne. All who were present were quiet as the prince silently observed the two strangers that had entered his homeland.
“Who are you?” the prince asked the agents directly. With his fingers steepled together confidently in front of his face, he waited for an answer.
Pound stood to his feet and announced, “My name is Isaac Pound, and this is Shakespeare Crush.” Then Pound quickly knelt back down in reverence as he felt a spear stick gently into his back.
“And do you know the penalty for invasion?” the prince continued with his questioning. Puzzled, Pound and Crush looked at each other first before answering.
“We are here only to find someone who is lost, an older gentleman by the name of Calvin Smith. You see he disappeared . . . ,” explained Pound only to be stopped in mid-sentence with a strike to the head.
“I think not. You are here to take the gold from the mines,” said the prince with a frown.
“Do you have Calvin Smith?” probed Crush as he ignored the last accusation. He had no fear of retaliation. As the spear came toward his head, Crush shifted his head to the left and caught the shaft with both hands, poking it back into the mid-section of the highlander and sending him to the floor breathless. In the blink of an eye, he held the spear miraculously in his grasp and pointed at the throat of the prince. For a few short seconds, Crush had the green prince’s full attention. “Let me explain a little more clearly, your majesty. We’re here for Calvin Smith. He’s too old to do your digging so let him go back with us.”
As if an alarm had gone off, the room was flooded with tartan warriors, and Crush and Pound were surrounded on every side by spears. Overpowered, Pound was thrown to the floor, and a spear was held to his neck. The prince beamed a rueful smile as he removed his headdress to reveal a set of antennae that protruded from his head.
“You have not the authority to order freedom in my court, yet your insolence commands the death of that one,” the prince replied as he pointed to Pound. “You may however choose to trade the life of this one for Calvin Smith. But I do no bargaining at the end of a spear.”
Crush thought for a moment of how best to handle the situation, and he tightened his grip on the spear as he replied.
“Your majesty, let Pound and Calvin go free,” said Crush. “And I will work for your kingdom in the mines.”
“No! Don’t be ridiculous, Crush. They’ll work you to the bone and bury you on the hillside,” Pound swore in anger. The prince in turn regarded this request thoughtfully before giving an answer.
“You seem fit enough. Very well, the other may go,” said the prince as he motioned for the guards to take Pound away. “See to it that the old man with the metal tank goes with him. You, my new servant, will stay,” explained the prince as he brushed away Crush’s spear from his throat. “Drop the weapon now, or there will be no deal.” Crush complied and dropped the spear to the ground. “Guards! Retrieve the elderly man and send him away with the tattooed one. Take this one in shackles to the mines.” Three guards then escorted Pound from the chamber, and three more guards held Crush at spear point and shackled his ankles and wrists in heavy irons.
“What, no gold?” asked Crush as he held up his iron chains to the prince. The prince arose from the throne and stepped down closer to Crush. With only a few inches separating the two men, the prince nodded his head forward to allow his antennae to flesh out Crush’s facial features. Crush turned his head in disgust at the insect-like behavior, and he waited for the prince’s reply to his smart remark.
When the prince finished, he held his head high and returned Crush’s facetious question with one of his own. “You fear nothing, do you?” the ruler inquired. Crush did not answer; he simply returned a stern gaze. “After a few months here, you may not fear me . . . but you will respect me.” Crush never turned his gaze from the prince.
“How long will my sentence be, your majesty?” he asked the prince.
“You may call me Argentine, maggot,” the prince replied.
“Okay, maggot, but how long is my punishment,” Crush countered with his best sarcasm. Argentine did not find his wit pleasing, and he placed his headdress back on his head as he answered.
“Oh, do not consider working with such precious metal a punishment. Consider it a luxury,” Argentine said. “In reference to the length of time, you will be here until all of the gold is mined from this mountain. And when you are spent, I believe you would make an excellent gift for the Queenmother. Take this maggot away,” the prince ordered, and then sat back on his throne to be fanned by two green lady servants. The guards shoved Crush out of the chamber and escorted him down a narrow winding passageway to the base of the enormous cavern where he would begin working. Hesitant to give him any tools while still within striking distance, the guards latched Crush to a leash of chain which was bolted to the cave wall, and then threw down a pick to him from an upper ledge.
“The faster you dig, the quicker your freedom,” chided one of the guards.
“And if you get any bright ideas about escaping, one of your fellow miners will be executed for your trouble,” advised another guard. It seemed that Crush would either have to free everyone or no one.
“This is a bleak outlook,” thought Crush as he glanced around at the many fatigued and malnourished people in the dim light of the lanterns. “They’re digging their own graves. Now I understand just where the bodies in the graveyard are coming from. What cold-blooded beings these green people are. Working these innocent people to death for their own personal gain is incomprehensible,” he thought to himself as he began digging for ore. As he raised the pick over his head to make another strike, he noticed that the nearest man was digging into the ground with great exertion, as if maybe he had struck a vein of the precious metal.
“PSST! Hey you!” he called out to the middle-aged fellow, but the man seemed to ignore Crush’s call.
“He can’t hea
r you. He’s deaf,” said a voice from behind him. Crush turned to find an elderly lady pushing a wheelbarrow up the hill. “They brought him in a couple of months ago, and at first he had no idea what he was supposed to do. I know sign language, so I told him what they wanted from him. He still digs as if he expects his freedom to come with the next wheelbarrow load,” she said with a sigh. “He hasn’t given up hope yet like the rest of us have.”
“Yeah, it is a gloomy existence,” he said as he looked at the chains. “My name is Crush,” he said with a nod of his head. “What’s your name, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“No, I don’t mind. My name is Foster,” she replied.
“Foster, it’s nice to meet you. I wish that it was under better circumstances,” Crush responded. “How long have you been down here?”
“I haven’t seen the sun since I got here, so I’ve really lost track of what a day actually is. If you count the number of times that I’ve slept, it adds up to a little over three years, give or take a few weeks,” Foster explained. “I expect that there’s really no use in counting ‘cause I’ll probably die in here anyway.”
“Don’t be so optimistic,” said Crush as he leaned on the handle of the pick. “Maybe we’ll find a way out.”
“Sweetie, there ain’t no way out of here,” she said. “There are guards at every major exit and entrance, and there’s nowhere to go even if you did make it out of the mountain. This is some parallel universe with earth, and nobody here knows how to get back to our own world.”
“Maybe I can help with that,” Crush said with a smile. Foster looked at his ears and agreed.
“Maybe you can. I expect you should worry about food and water though, ‘cause if you don’t dig, you don’t get fed,” she said.
“Then when I leave for earth, you’re going, too,” he replied with a purr.
“All right, but get to work so you don’t starve in the meantime. You hear?”
“I got you, Foster,” said Crush as he began swinging the pick into the ruts of gold to break loose the ore.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she answered. Then she pushed the wheelbarrow away into one of the caves and disappeared.
**********
The hallway was damp on all sides, and Pound was led to a room at the end where Calvin was being housed. The room was deep inside the cave, and it was more of a prison cell than a home. With no light save the lantern that the guards carried, Calvin laid in the corner and squinted at the approach of the flame. Covering his eyes, Calvin wheezed in and out as he stared at the guards, and Pound knew that the elderly man’s time among the living would be cut short if he did not get back to earth.
“Calvin Smith?” Pound called to him. The empty oxygen tank sat beside him, and Pound felt the sense of urgency at the man’s condition.
“Yes?” answered the feeble prisoner, followed by a coughing fit. Nearly fainting from the loss of breath, Calvin reached out to Pound, who in turn steadied the old man as he began to gain his vision by the lamp light.
“We’re going home, young man,” Pound replied as he stabilized him, and Calvin smiled. “Take my hand.” Pound held Calvin by his hand and then reached his other arm around his shoulder to comfort him. The guards were less kind, and with a certain air of unconcern, they prodded them out of the room and down the hallway at such a speed that Calvin had to lean heavily on Pound for support to keep from stumbling. By the time they had reached the far side of the mine, Calvin was struggling to catch his breath, and the guards poked at him to keep him moving in their cruel way.
“Get up, old man!” screamed one guard.
“We’ll stick you with more air holes if you don’t get moving!” cried another.
“It seems you won’t be happy until we’re gone, so back off, and I’ll carry him,” asserted Pound, and he snatched Calvin up in his arms and proceeded forward up the long tunnel to the light at the mine entrance. Calvin wheezed and wheezed, and then his eyes rolled into his head as he passed out. There was nothing that Pound could do for Calvin but carry him home to a full oxygen tank and then to an emergency room. They were a long way from home however, and there was no guarantee that he would survive in his present condition.
When they reached the top of the shaft to the open cave entrance, the guards shoved Pound out the front entryway with a kick to the back that sent him tumbling forward. Trying to maintain his balance, he dropped Calvin in the process.
“Good luck to you, pasty,” one guard remarked to Pound. “And don’t come back!”
“If you’re smart, you’ll leave the old man at the graveyard with all of the other wheezers and whiners,” said another, and they laughed at all of the misery and suffering that they were responsible for. This taunting brought about a change in attitude for Pound. Feelings and emotions surged through him as he stood helpless in front of a pack of heartless bullies, and he could contain his anger no longer. He laid Calvin on the soft clover of the road and then turned to face the rabble.
“Get back in your hole, worms!” Pound commanded.
“Worms, now is it?” answered a guard who then chucked a spear at him in reply. Pound miraculously caught the spear with one hand, and with the other, he called forth the clover and dandelions and ivy to wind into fibers. Snatching the guards in the next instant, fibers of all manner of living plant life swirled around their legs, crept up their abdomen, and covered over their ribs. With a flick of his fingers, the plants squeezed the air from their lungs leaving them empty inside.
“Now, who is wheezing?!” said Pound as his anger subsided. The men were turning blue and with a mercy that only arrived just in time, he waved his hand in command so that the botanical bindings loosened, and allowing the guards to breathe. Then with a movement of his hands that only he could understand, Pound created a skeleton of limbs that covered over with leaves and grass to form a vegetal soldier that stood on two feet. Then with another wave of his hands, he created two more of the botanical sentinels.
“Pick up the spears,” Pound commanded as the three new guards formed of plants and brush each bent down to grasp a spear from the incapacitated tartan guards. Once the human guards awoke, they discovered that they were being held at spear point by the new plant guards and that they were now at the obedience of Pound.
Pound then bent down to examine Calvin, and he found that the old man was still alive, but he could not get enough oxygen with every breath. Thinking the problem over quickly, Pound used his powers to construct an oxygen tank from living clover which he then attached over Calvin’s nostrils and mouth. After all, plants have the natural ability to breathe in carbon dioxide and to exhale oxygen-rich air. They waited patiently for an hour as Calvin slowly came to consciousness. Content with his makeshift oxygen supply, Pound helped Calvin to his feet. After explaining the circumstances of their release to Calvin, Pound decided that it was time to move on away from the road.
“Come. Follow us,” Pound instructed his three new servants, and the troop of humans and plants followed Pound and Calvin several miles along the clover road and then downhill to the edge of the forest by the graveyard. There the tartan guards were imprisoned in cells of hardwood and thorns.
“Are you going to leave us here to die?” asked one of the human guards.
“No. To live,” answered Pound as he marched off up the hill with Calvin. The prisoners had called out to him for mercy, even after Pound had assigned the three vegetal sentinels to provide berries, greens, and water three times daily. His only answer to further calls for mercy and freedom was, “Prisoners, stay here and guard the mounds. At night, they grow restless.”
Then Pound turned to the old man, and he made a request of him. “Calvin, I need for you to stay down here for a while. The plant soldiers will provide food and water, and the oxygen tank that was made will last as long as you stay here with the soldiers. I need to go back and free my friend,” he explained.
“What abo
ut the other prisoners in the mines? They’re from earth, and they don’t deserve to be held here in this place,” Calvin pleaded. Pound thought about his answer for a moment before he spoke.
“Of course, you’re right about the others,” he replied. “I’ll try to set them free, too. But my powers require plant life to be effective, and there is no plant life deep in the mountain,” Pound explained.
“Another thing, too, before you go. There’s a magic in the mountain that keeps everyone there from aging,” said Calvin. “I wasn’t there long enough to experience it myself, but several of the people that I met down there told me how long they had been there. Years upon years.”
“Really?” asked Pound. “Then why is the graveyard so full.” Calvin looked despondent, as if he did not want to utter the answer.
“Let me tell you what I have learned about this world. The guards are human like us, only they serve the green people. And there is more to the green people down there than you can see with your eyes,” said Calvin. “I was told that the Queenmother is the source of great power in the mines. But sometimes the Queenmother gets hungry,” he replied.
Chapter 3
*
The Cave of the Injured
*
The pick work was an easy task for a man with Crush’s strength, and the raw ore pile was glimmering in the pale light as it grew over his head. The guards all took notice of his great strength and endurance, and though they feared him, he was rewarded that evening with a double helping of gruel. Sniffing at it, he grudgingly ate the malodorous food with his nose pinched shut. Apparently his captors were satisfied with his work in the mine that day, and they were willing to keep Crush well fed.
“That is, as long as I stay productive,” thought Crush. He had other plans though. Playing the prisoner was only a temporary stop in this world until he could plan out his next move. As he choked down another spoonful of the extraordinarily bad plate of mush, he reached into his pocket and brought out the four-leaf clover into the dim lantern light. The leaves were dried up on the fragile plant, and he wondered what significance it held. The spirit that he had encountered in the forest had etched the clover into the bark of a tree, and he felt that there must be a meaning. But what could it be? For now it would have to remain a mystery, he thought as he slipped it back into his pocket and shoved the empty plate back through the small feeding door for the guard to retrieve. Then he laid back down on the hard, cold floor, and staring at the ceiling, he realized what a sad and helpless life the slaves of the mines led. His original plan had been just to find and rescue Calvin, but he soon recognized that he would not be able to live with himself if he did not try to free all of the slaves from this prince.
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 6 Page 3