by F M Andrews
Head lowered, making what he hoped were convincing sobbing sounds he saw her slippered feet appear in front of him and a gentle hand was placed on his shoulder. She spoke quietly, her voice sounding sweet and her tone soothing but when her proffered hand came into view and he knew he had no option but to take it and his heart skipped a beat. He was going to have to erect an impenetrable mind barrier. The last thing he wanted was an exchange of thoughts such as he had experienced the first time he had touched Brack. Tentatively he reached for her hand, concentrating hard on maintaining his barrier, studiously ignoring any creeping doubts about his ability to do so. It took more effort than he would have thought possible and by the time she finally pushed open the door to a beautifully furnished bedroom he was exhausted. The last thing he needed was for the maid to be waylaid by a guard at the door. His heart sank as he realized, by the cadence of their conversation, that there was a fair bit of flirting going on and that this might take some time.
Cautiously he let go of her hand and began to wander into the room, leaving her to her tryst. The lure of the big, soft bed was impossible to resist. It was amazingly comfortable and he told himself he would only lie down for a moment to try it out but his whole body ached to relax into it, to give into sleep, to surrender to this bliss. He yawned, his eyelids drooping and before he knew it, he had succumbed.
#
A rough tongue licking his face and a loud purr woke him from a deep, deep sleep. The room was dark except for a thin sliver of moonlight finding its way through the gap in the curtain. He was still mercifully in his clothes, lying on top of the bed covers, his boots on the floor nearby.
“Lady more interested in man. She left when she saw you asleep. No one here now. We go.” Tubble sounded happy, as if this were all some fun game that Lutex had thought up for him to play and he supposed that, realistically, there was very little danger involved in all this for the cat. Lutex yawned and stretched, absently patting the tabby fur as he slowly became fully awake.
“I am coming, I just need to have a drink and a pee before we go,” Lutex replied. He had spied a small room adjacent with a jug and a pan in it.
“Hurry. Not sure when she will be back,” Tubble answered as he hopped off the bed and wandered to the closed door, ears pricked forward. Feeling refreshed Lutex cracked the door and two sets of eyes peered into the corridor beyond. It was empty but Lutex was lost.
“Which way back to the room where we met the king?” he asked his friend.
“Follow Tubble,” came the confidant reply.
Together, they edged down the hall. Luckily the floor was carpeted with a thick runner and their footfalls were silent yet it was still unnerving creeping past closed doors and portraits with eyes that seemed to follow their every move. Reaching the end of the hall, they peeped around the corner before quickly retreating. This was a main thoroughfare. Guards were stationed at regular intervals and a group of people, deep in conversation, was rapidly heading towards them.
“Is there another way?” Lutex thought to Tubble.
“No. King’s door over there,” the cat replied pointing with his nose.
As they watched the door, it was thrust open, revealing the princess, now dressed in trousers and a jerkin, Jeveran in woodsman clothes and Brack sporting a set of throwing axes strapped to his back. The king stood behind them giving his last instructions, his jovial voice sounding a little forced to Lutex’s ear. Final farewells were said before the trio began to make their way down the corridor towards Lutex and Tubble.
“Tubble, you are going to have to follow them until you know where they are going and then come back for me when all is quiet,” Lutex muttered, unable to think of another solution. “I will just have to return to my room and wait for you.”
“Do you want Tubble to make you unseen too?” the cat asked curiously.
Lutex was stunned. “You can do this? You can make others invisible also,” he gasped.
“Not sure. Never tried. No one ever asked before. Could probably make one other the same as Tubble but not more than that,” Tubble finished offhandedly. Every moment the princess and the shard were coming closer. It was time to make a decision; however, neither staying nor going appealed, and in the end Lutex just had to make a choice and hope for the best. Taking a deep breath, Lutex decided to trust his friend.
“Okay, let's see if we can do this,” he said, smiling at the patiently waiting cat.
“You have to touch me. Easier if we are joined,” Tubble instructed, stretching as he stood.
Placing his hand gently on Tubble’s neck, Lutex squared his shoulders and, together, they took the first few, terrifying steps into the busy corridor. No one noticed. In fact, they were nearly mowed down by a busy footman carrying a tray and only just managed to jump out of the way at the last moment. Relief was like warm liquid running through his veins but the sight of Brack disappearing round the corner galvanised him into action once more. It wasn’t hard to follow the three. Even if they lost sight of them, they could hear the princess in full voice complaining bitterly. Lutex was surprised. His experience with royalty back in Feld had been quite different. Maybe this was a troll thing, he thought to himself.
Gradually the plush halls and staircases gave way to more functional corridors. Gone were the soft rugs, the tapestries and the paintings. Lighted torches replaced candles and even these were becoming more and more widely spaced apart. Eventually they reached a set of rough, narrow steps leading down into darkness. Jeveran produced three torches, lit them from the last wall light, and handed one each to the others.
Together they began to descend the steps, Brack bringing up the rear.
“Can you let Brack know we are here?” Lutex asked Tubble.
“He knows,” Tubble replied. “I told him way back there.”
“Oh! Um. Great, thanks,” Lutex answered, lost for words. This special cat was still full of surprises.
As they reached the bottom of the steps their torch light revealed a store room, crammed full of old furniture. They all stopped and Jeveran pulled out a crumpled piece of parchment, muttering and scanning the walls as if looking for something. The princess sighed dramatically and said something in a scathing tone before snatching the document from his hands. Lutex wanted to know what was being said and sidled up to Brack and tentatively touched his hand. To his credit, Brack didn’t jump too much in surprise.
“How is it that I cannot see you?” Brack thought quickly to Lutex.
“Tubble made me invisible too. Apparently he could do that. Who knew?” Lutex laughed.
“A cat of many talents!” Brack chuckled back.
“I think that if you hold the map the right way up you will be able to find the tunnel much more easily,” the princess’s plainly dismissive tone grated, making Lutex feel sorry for the polite courtier.
“Ah! There it is,” she cried pointing to a half concealed archway at the back of the room. It took a bit of manoeuvring to squeeze past the stacked furniture, but eventually they found themselves standing before the darkened archway, which appeared to be blocked with a large old wooden wardrobe. The princess immediately went to try and push it out of the way.
“Here, let me your highness. You should not be doing that,” Jeveran interceded, sounding shocked. Lutex cringed, knowing by the look on the princess’s face that this would not end well.
“Are you implying that I am incapable of moving a piece of furniture?” Lifen demanded, her hands once more on her hips, daring the man to agree.
“No, no, of course not your highness … I would never dare to suggest that you were incapable of anything,” the poor man stuttered, totally out of his depth.
“Good. See that you never do again,” the princess replied in her most officious voice as she once more applied herself to the offending wardrobe. It did not budge. She turned her back to it and pushed with her legs and still it did not move. There was a lot of muttering and sighing before she finally stood and glared at Jeveran as if
it were all his fault.
“Well. Don’t just stand there gawping. Come and give me a hand.” Then, noticing Brack, she added, “You, whatever your name is, you can help as well.” Brack also cringed and Lutex sighed. So far, he did not think he liked this princess very much at all.
Together they managed to manoeuvre the solid piece of furniture far enough away from the wall for them to be able to squeeze behind. At first glance, the tunnel was well preserved, the floor bricked and the walls smooth. The air was slightly musty but on the whole not unpleasant. Jeveran led the way, torch held high. Lifen followed at his shoulder and Brack brought up the rear. Lutex and Tubble followed silently in their wake. At first the tunnel was reasonably level, although shortly it began to slope steeply downwards and the further in they went the more unkempt it became. The brick flooring disappeared to be replaced with packed dirt and here and there whole chunks of the ceiling had fallen, creating mounds of soft earth they had to negotiate around or, in some cases, clamber over. Lutex was surprised that the princess did not complain about this; instead she concentrated her criticism on Jeveran and occasionally Brack any time either of them offered to help. She was strongly independent and seemed to take it as a personal insult whenever anyone tried to lend her assistance.
There was no keeping track of time down here and it felt as if they had been descending for about half the night before the ground suddenly levelled out at the bottom of the hill.
“We must have reached the wall,” Brack observed silently to Lutex and his thoughts were proven correct when soon after they encountered a set of steep, narrow unkempt steps leading straight down.
“I think we are about to go beneath the moat now,” Jeveran observed as he began to descend the stair, bracing himself with one hand on the wall for balance. Slowly, step by cautious step they plunged deeper and deeper. A damp smell prevailed and the walls felt wet to the touch. The sound of dripping water echoed up the stair growing steadily louder. Each slippery step was becoming a challenge and Lutex’s thighs were burning and he found himself having to concentrate, so much so that he accidentally stumbled into Brack when the procession came to an abrupt halt.
Brack’s quick thinking once again saved the day as he pretended to trip. Cautiously Lutex peered through the adult’s legs to see why they had stopped, why there was no conversation. It only took one glimpse of torch light reflected off water, for him to fully understand. In front of them the steps ended but the tunnel continued to slope away, dropping down until it disappeared beneath the still, dark surface of the pooling water. Jeveran moved tentatively forward until his toes were touching the edge and held his torch high. There was a collective groan as the light revealed the tunnel roof continuing down until it too, eventually, dived beneath the surface.
All five stood staring at the scene before them, unable to quite believe that this was the end of any hope to get word out, stunned into inaction through indecision. The princess gave a satisfied sniff.
“Well, we can’t argue with this can we?” she said, pointing at the flooded tunnel with her hand. “We have to go back now. If we hurry there might still be time for me to actually be useful instead of slinking off leaving everyone else to face the hardships of war.” Lutex was amazed at how many digs at Jeveran she managed to get into this one statement. She was a true master of the putdown and poor Jeveran seemed to be always on the receiving end and for the life of him, Lutex could not understand why. Jeveran appeared to be nothing more than courteous, thoughtful and kind and Lutex could only assume that there was some sort of history between the two of them.
Shrugging his shoulders, he dismissed this conundrum and concentrated instead on the real problems at hand. Firstly, how was he going to persuade Lifen not to turn back, and secondly, how were they going to get past the flooded tunnel?
“Maybe the tunnel is only underwater for a short while. I could go and have a look to see if we could swim it,” Jeveran offered, not taking his eyes off the murky water blocking their way.
“Typical! Always wanting to be the hero, jumping in but never thinking things through first,” Lifen berated the poor man. “Let's say that miraculously you made it through to the other side, despite the dark and the cold, how would we know? Unless you risk coming all the way back to tell us, we would be forever wondering if you survived or died trying, which I might add is the more likely scenario of the two.” Not even pausing for breath she continued. “Even if by some miracle you do survive and manage to make it back, you realize that we will not be able to swim with our heavy weapons, we will also have to leave the torches behind and we will probably all die, freezing in our wet clothes,” she added before turning dramatically and beginning to retrace her steps. Jeveran had not moved but he did not argue with her logic either. As the princess drew further and further away, Lutex knew that his chance of succeeding to return to Feld was also disappearing. He had to intervene. With the princess leaving, his options had just run out.
It was time to reveal himself and appeal to the princess’s sense of duty. Racing silently up the steps, he and Tubble managed to slip past her and stop several steps above and at Lutex’s request they became visible. Lutex had to hand it to the princess, he had never heard anyone scream quite so loudly before in his life. The sound echoed up the tunnel, reverberating off the walls, as she took an involuntary step backwards, dropped her torch and fell, fortuitously, into the waiting arms of Brack who had been following close behind.
Jeveran had understood the whole situation in a split moment. The sudden appearance of a dreaded baby eater and a strange cat-like creature blocking their escape, the fact that Lifen was being restrained by Brack, someone he knew very little about, and an obviously distraught princess. Spurred into action, he yelled something that sounded like an order and then, throwing down his torch, he drew his sword and raced up the steps. Brack had the presence of mind to turn his back to the wall and use Lifen as his shield, holding the struggling princess with one hand and holding his torch in the other. Jeveran was still screaming something at Brack, waving the tip of his blade dangerously close to the princess’s face, trying desperately to reach Brack. The situation had dissolved into chaos and Lutex was at a loss how to save it. Somehow he had to calm the loyal courtier down so that he could talk to Lifen. He longed for a weapon to knock the angry troll out, although he doubted that he would be strong enough or tall enough to use it. It was then that a liberating thought struck him. He did have a weapon: he had his talent. He was so used to hiding it that it had taken him almost too long to think of it. There was no other way now, he had no choice.
Once more invisible, he silently slipped in behind Jeveran and summoned the energy from the world around him, the weight of the water in the moat above them and the energy from the earth below. He was totally unprepared for the strength of power that responded. It was too much, too strong to use on Jeveran, he would kill the troll. Slowing his breathing down, Lutex tried again, this time summoning a smaller portion. Standing on tiptoes, he lifted his trembling hand and lightly touched Jeveran’s wrist, projecting calm, peaceful, sleepy thoughts, persuading Jeveran’s raging mind to relax. The courtier fought every step of the way and Lutex was sweating and by the time the huge troll finally sighed, collapsed onto the step and closed his eyes breathing deeply. That was the easy part, Lutex thought ruefully to himself.
The princess was screaming abuse at Brack and Lutex could see that his friend was having extreme difficulty holding her with his one arm. The two dropped torches were sputtering on the ground and the one that Brack was holding aloft was creating crazy shadows as he fought to hold on to his squirming, hissing, biting captive. The princess had spirit. Lutex swallowed; it was up to him now. His first words were going to be so important, but what on earth but what was he going to say?
Tubble sensed his dilemma and offered a solution, using typical Tubble logic. “You don’t say. You show.”
Lutex knew immediately the cat was right. Still invisible, he gentl
y touched the princess’s hand, opening himself up and guiding her into his mind. She fought, resisting frantically; however, he was patient, honest and totally open, allowing her to see all of him, to experience his whole being, to know his triumphs, his fears and his doubts, to understand the weight that had been place on his young shoulders and the struggle he was having baring it. He let her roam amongst his favourite, treasured memories of home, of Hexrick, of Tubble and his bond with Brack. At first she was shocked, unsure of what was happening to her, although it did not take long before she sensed that she was safe and that this was somehow important. Lutex left nothing hidden, no secret guarded, even his dislike of her treatment of Jeveran was left in plain sight.
She stopped struggling and slowly sank down to sit on the step, her eyes wide and her mouth shut in a firm, hard line of concentration as she navigated through this unknown territory. She was surprisingly respectful, not dwelling on upsetting or intensely private memories longer than needed yet she was thorough, even replaying Errin’s words several times before silently touching the gem that hung around her neck in wonder. Eventually, she withdrew and stared down at the boy and his cat, now visible, sitting next to her in the flickering torch light. There were tears in her eyes and her bottom lip was trembling slightly.
“We have to stop this Zail,” she whispered. “He has almost destroyed two worlds. So many useless deaths, so many more to come, if the Krax win.” She lifted her eyes and stared at Lutex. “I thought that staying and helping the people of Haktara was the right and noble thing to do but I can see now that my destiny is to come with you. We have to do all we can to stop this horror,” she finished, her focus straying to Jeveran’s still form on the step below her. “I didn’t mean to be so horrible to him, it was just my stupid, stupid way of getting back at my father.” She was sobbing now. “My father wanted me to marry Jeveran and I did not want to be told who I could or could not marry.” Lutex nodded, rubbing his thumb soothingly across her hand.