door creaked, and I watched as it slowly turned and snapped open. I carefully turned the handle and pushed the door open a few inches.
"Close call," said Murphy. He had already jumped down from the doork.n.o.b, and he was standing at my feet. "Where are they?" I asked.
Murphy motioned me in and I followed him into the library. In the dim light it looked as though nine or ten shelves had tumbled over. Hanging out from under one of them were two lifeless cat tails.
"Oh my," I said. Murphy climbed over a bookshelf and started in the direction of the chair and the secret tunnel. I followed him into the dark recesses of the library.
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CHAPTER 26.
SEBASTIAN.
The shutters had not been closed and water was everywhere. Books, shelves, and the old chair -- all were soaking wet. Rain continued to pour into the s.p.a.ce as I pulled the chair back and revealed the secret entry. I removed the silver key from my pocket, unlocked the small door, and swung it open. A gust of wind blew it shut again with a bang, and I worried over who might have heard from down below in the darkness.
I reopened the door and held it tighter this time. The lamp that had hung on the ladder was gone, and I hung mine where it had been.
"Ready?" I asked Murphy. He nodded, and I picked him up and put him in my pack along with the fire poker. I descended the ladder as I had done before. When we arrived at the bottom, I released Murphy and set him on the dirt floor.
To my surprise, five of the boards that once lined the wall behind the ladder were strewn about the floor at my feet. Where the boards had been, the opening to a threatening dark corridor remained, staring at us like a giant black eye. I stepped through the opening and Murphy followed.
The brown walls reflected weak light from my lamp, 230.
and I had the creepy sense that Sebastian could jump out from a hiding spot at any moment and attack me. I turned the lamp down, just enough to see in front of me, and began running the length of the tunnel. After a while it turned and widened, and then I saw light flickering in the distance. I stopped and turned my lamp as low as I could and set it aside; then I sent Murphy ahead to scout the situation. He returned breathless and agitated.
"We"ve reached the main tunnel," he said. "It shoots off in two directions, one back toward Bridewell by another route, and one out toward The Dark Hills. There"s a torch lit at the corner. What do You want to do?"
Without answering I began running toward the flickering light as fast as I could. When I arrived at the torch I removed it from its holder and rammed it into the dirt floor until it was out. "What are you doing, Alexa?" yelled Murphy.
"Quiet down you"ll give us away," I whispered. I pulled a piece of paper from my sack and held it down to the light. It was a crude copy of the map of the tunnels, something I"d thought I might find a use for after relinquishing the original.
"He would have tried to find his men, which means he would have taken this tunnel here." I pointed out a long, twisting black line that started from the hub we were standing at. My finger followed along the map as I spoke. "After that, he would intersect with this tunnel and drop down under Bridewell here. If our plan works, 231.
he will encounter a dirt wall near the end. The only way back out is through the hub we"re standing at." I paused a moment and looked at Murphy.
"He"s separated from his men and looking for a way out. He knows he won"t make it before the pa.s.sage is blocked," he concluded.
We sat motionless in the dark, the dim light from my lamp covered between my back and the wall of the cave. We waited quietly, which was difficult for Murphy. He kept flipping and flopping as he continued whispering. "What if we"re too late?"
Before I could respond, we both saw a flicker of light coming from out of the darkness. It was moving fast. I hunched down at the edge of the adjoining tunnel and pulled the fire poker from my pack. The light bounced brighter and brighter off the walls, and then the shadow of a man came into view. I could hear his labored breathing and his steps as he moved across the dirt floor. Thunder clapped from outside in a m.u.f.fled tone, and I peeked around the corner to see how close he was. Only about ten yards off, Sebastian had slowed to a brisk walk. I slipped back into the darkness, and as he pa.s.sed in front of me I swung the fire poker with all my might, hitting him square on the bone of his lower leg. He screamed in pain and threw his lamp to the ground, hopping on one leg over to the side of the tunnel with his back to me, holding himself up with one hand. I"d broken the skin at the bone, and blood began to stream down his leg.
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I picked up my lamp and turned it up, holding the fire poker in one hand. Sebastian, still turned away from me, winced in pain, his hand over the wound feeling for broken bones.
"You stupid girl!" he shouted, throwing a handful of loose dirt into my face. I was blinded but kept a firm grip on my weapon as I went down and tried to rub the dust out of my eyes. I felt a forceful blow to my ribs and the wind was knocked out of me. Then I was thrown over on my back, and the fire poker was wrenched out of my hands. I waited for something awful to happen, something painful. Instead I heard a voice.
"If you follow me one step farther, I"ll drive this fire poker into your heart," he whispered, grotesquely close to my ear, dripping sweat in my hair. Then he moved away from me and I heard the sound of smashing gla.s.s as he destroyed my lamp.
"He"s got the light and our weapon and he"s heading for The Dark Hills," yelled Murphy. I could hear Sebastian dragging his bad leg as he went. I sat up and tried desperately to clean the dirt out of my eyes. They stung badly, and I could see only a blurry view of the light dancing off into the distance.
"I have no protection and no light, and I can hardly see. This is going well, wouldn"t you say?"
"We can catch him if we hurry," countered Murphy. He raced down the tunnel before I could stop him, so I followed as fast as I could. My ribs were on fire where 233.
Sebastian had kicked me, and I was having trouble catching my breath. Another fifty yards and I"d be finished. The light was getting closer again as I rounded a corner and slowed down. I crept a little farther and saw that Sebastian was in a familiar underground room. The map of the tunnels hung on the wall and he was studying it, looking for the way out.
I knew this room.
I crept in behind him against the wall and looked all around for some sort of weapon I could use. A lighted torch was all I could find, and I quietly moved toward it. Murphy hid in the shadows and waited.
"I told you not to follow me," said Sebastian. His voice shocked me, and I stumbled over my feet, landing beneath the torch. He remained with his back to me, unmoving.
"I wouldn"t have believed it was you if not for the clues that were left behind," I said, my voice shaking with fear. "Renny had you figured out first, but Warvold had to be convinced. The clues he left me led to a page in his favorite book describing a mythical elephant G.o.d from a fanciful story set on the other side of Mount Laythen at the edge of the sea." I stood up and groped along the wall for the torch. "An imaginary G.o.d called Ganesh."
There was a long moment of silence in the room. I pulled my hand away from the torch and waited, not sure what he would do. He remained facing away from me, and began to speak in a tired old voice.
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"I was lazy, brash, and I didn"t want to work. In Ainsworth a young man with those characteristics had better either shape up or leave town," he said. Then he turned and looked at me for the first time with his hollow eyes, old before their time. "I did neither, and by the time I was nineteen, I had this." He pulled his shirt aside and revealed a V branded to his chest. V for vagabond.
"On the inside, we joked that the V was for victory, but the guards in Ainsworth were ruthless. A few vagabonds were killed; many others were beaten within an inch of their lives." He paused and his eyes went gla.s.sy for a moment before he continued. "It"s not as though I really cared most of the criminals I met were very bad men who"d done awful things. Still, if Warvold had not come along, I am quite sure we would all be long since dead." He shuffled closer with his injured leg and stood before me.
"But he did emerge, and the officials in Ainsworth were thrilled to rid themselves of us. Warvold was no softy, but as long as we worked hard and obeyed, he took care of us. We ate well, worked hard, and enjoyed a bed to sleep in at night. For many of us, this was as good a life as we"d ever known." Ganesh turned my fire poker in his hand and examined it absently. There was a strange, leisurely madness about him.
"When the wall was finished, Warvold and his guards escorted us back to Ainsworth as promised. We were all thirty or thirty-five years old by then, beaten 235.
down from years of hard labor. We were no longer strong-willed, able young men, and this terrified us.
"Ainsworth never expected Warvold to return us, and they surely didn"t plan for it. After a week of life back in the prison I thought I might go insane. The place was full when we got there, and we nearly doubled the number overnight.
"I talked with one of the guards, and I told him if they released all of the convicts that had worked in Bridewell into the wilderness, I could guarantee that no one would ever see or hear from us again. We would remain in the wild where no one would find us, and if any of us were found, we would expect nothing short of death. Seeing this as a way to rid themselves of us once and for all without having to kill us, the officials agreed to the plan, and shortly after that, under cover of night, they released us into The Dark Hills." He was growing weary from the pain in his leg, which appeared to have been shattered at the bone from my swing the pain must have been unbearable. He rocked back and forth and caught himself like a drunk, but he was determined to finish the story.
"Once released, we began planning a takeover of the walled city. Bridewell is a marvelous fortress, and with it under our control, we could bargain with Ainsworth as equals, and turn Bridewell into a trade route between Ainsworth and the sea towns of Turlock and Lathbury.
"Those of us with brands on our cheeks hoped to 236.
cover them up with beards. My C brand was conveniently low, and my beard grew very thick, so I was an obvious choice to send out.
"Shortly after our arrival in The Dark Hills, I moved to Turlock. It had just been settled, and only a few hundred people lived there. I immediately went to work on constructing houses and other buildings, and I involved myself in all forms of planning for the town. Within a year, it grew to several thousand people, and I was elected mayor. With no family to speak of, working sometimes twenty hours a day to build the community, I was a natural selection.
"The rest is fairly obvious. You know all about talking to animals, so there"s no sense in my hiding it now. Some of the other convicts discovered the pool and its strange powers. They befriended the hawk, and the hawk befriended the cats.
"I began making trips to Bridewell and started planning the invasion. We needed information that would take time to attain, and there was years of work to expand the already extensive tunnel system. But here we are, many years later, and the invasion is upon us."
"What will you do now?" I questioned, trying to keep him talking. "You"re cut off from your men, wounded, and found out."
Ganesh looked at me with a cold stare, the fire poker glistening in his hand, blood oozing down his damaged leg. "It"s refreshing to cleanse the soul in telling my story, 237.
but the situation remains obvious: n.o.body else knows I"m down here, and there are many ways out. I"ll have to kill you, just like I killed Warvold. With him it was poison, not too messy. Funny how he had no idea -- maybe he wasn"t as smart as you all thought he was." He lost his balance for a moment, then regained it and spoke once more. "With you I"m afraid I"ll have to draw some blood." I leaped for the torch and grabbed ahold with both hands, waving it in front of me.
"You really think that dried-out piece of wood is going to save you? I think not." His mood had turned dark and threatening. This was not Ganesh; this was Sebastian. He advanced on me and I began to move to one side, swishing the flame back and forth between us.
He was just close enough to bat the torch out of my hands and drive the fire poker into me when Murphy darted out of the shadows, jumped onto Sebastian"s leg, and chomped down with all his force, driving his teeth deep into flesh. Sebastian screamed fiercely, looked down, and with one brute swing batted Murphy across the room. I was up against the wall opposite the map, nowhere to hide, and Sebastian, fuming with rage, focused all of his years of anger squarely on me. He advanced quickly, ripped the flaming torch from my hands, and pinned me to the wall with his forearm.
"Aaaaarrrrgggggh!" He screamed and pulled back to drive the fire poker into me. I closed my eyes and waited for the impact.
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But the impact never came. I heard the sound of wood splintering and I was thrown to the ground. Dirt flew everywhere and I lost sight of Sebastian altogether.
"Murphy, what have you done?" I slid down against the wall and held my knees to my chest.
As the dust settled to the ground I saw Sebastian lying flat on the ground. Standing over him, covered in dirt from top to bottom, was a little man. Next to him was Darius, dripping saliva, his ma.s.sive gaping mouth hovering over Sebastian"s neck, ready to drive razor-sharp teeth into flesh upon the slightest movement from Sebastian"s body. But the precaution was unnecessary. Sebastian was dead, his neck turned hideously, broken in the fall by the fierce charge of a huge wolf.
"Yipes!" I screamed. I jumped up and grabbed him around the waist, hugging him mercilessly. Then I turned to Darius, touched his ominous head, and pulled him close.
"It"s all right now. It"s all right," said Yipes. I looked back over my head and saw that Yipes and Darius had crashed through the hiding spot, a big gaping hole where once there was dirt wall. Splintered boards dangled aimlessly into the air of the chamber.
"How did you know?" I said.
"Just a hunch, a hunch is all," he said. "But Darius is the real hero. He worked tirelessly for hours and hours to crawl down the tunnel and make sure you were safe. The big brute wouldn"t fit, so he had to dig as he went and 239.
widen the tunnel. Without him we could not have broken through the wall. He"s as strong as an ox."
Murphy came hobbling up beside us. He seemed dazed but unharmed.
"Good to see you all back together again," he said. And then, in a comic whisper to Yipes, "Keep an eye on her, old boy she"s got a reputation for throwing us small ones around."
Yipes reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a small, sharp-looking knife. He approached Sebastian with caution, turned his lifeless head to the side, and placed the edge of the knife against his face. He looked back at me and motioned me closer, then he pulled down on the knife and revealed the dark crest of the letter C branded beneath Sebastian"s thick beard.
"I guess that settles it for good."
I could hardly hear him say it, and then I was adrift somewhere far away where no one could find me, deeper into the tunnels, all the way out under The Dark Hills and into darker tunnels still, until I was so far and deep I could never be found again. And it was very dark indeed.
"Wake up, Alexa. Wake up."
I felt as though pulled by a cord out into the light, and I awoke to see Father"s familiar, comforting eyes staring down at me. I reached up and grabbed him around the neck. Even with the pain in my side, I held him longer and tighter than I ever had before.
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"You pa.s.sed out," he said. "Yipes tried to revive you, but couldn"t. He came looking for help in Bridewell."
I looked over and saw that Pervis was inspecting Sebastian"s dead body. Then he looked at the mess of splintered boards and the opening into the tunnel, and finally with a look of astonishment his eyes fell upon the smiling little man standing before him.
In the silence of that moment it occurred to me for the first time what had happened. Yipes had been in Bridewell, with people civilized people which meant it was only a matter of time before he would lose his gift .,.
to speak with animals.
"It can"t be," I said. "Please say you didn"t do it." I reached for his hand and he took mine, but he wouldn"t look at me.
"It"s been worth it, Alexa. Really it has," he said. "It"s all been worth it. Besides, I have a good feeling things were about to change out there anyway. This just speeds things up a bit."
I held on to his tiny hand a long time, my eyes filling with tears, and I whispered quietly, "Thank you."
Murphy came over and jumped up into the new opening that led out into the wild, and he balanced on one of the boards that had been broken free. Darius was nowhere to be seen. I could only a.s.sume that he"d traveled back through the tunnel when Yipes ran off to get help, in fear of being seen by men.
"Come on, Yipes, it"s time for us to go," said Murphy.
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I nodded my approval and let go of Yipes"s hand.
"We"ll see each other again," he said, and then he hopped up into the hole and I watched him vanish into the darkness. Murphy reappeared, leaped from the edge of the hole, and landed confidently in my outstretched arms.
"You"re a hero," he said. "Not quite the hero I am, but a hero nonetheless."
I held him close, rose to my feet, and set him in the hole, and then he too was gone.
"We"ve got to get aboveground, Alexa. This isn"t over yet," said Pervis.
We left the small, dingy room with its gaping wound, my father on one side and Pervis on the other. It was comforting to have them with me.
"Who"s the rodent?" said Pervis, putting his arm around my shoulder.
"He"s a squirrel, actually -- a good one. Talks a little too much, but a nice fellow."
Pervis laughed and I managed a smile. He had no idea that I was being perfectly truthful.
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CHAPTER 27.
BEYOND BRIDEWELL.
As I emerged from Renny Lodge the rain was pouring down in sheets and the wind was whipping through the town square. Through the clatter of the storm I heard another, more ominous noise. It was the m.u.f.fled sound of metal and men. The invasion was upon us.