CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
Pete Wright was not unhappy in the company of Heron,
Irina, and the Foss called Fred. That is not to say he was happy either. At
least, he was less homesick than he had before joining them. He had long since
come to look upon Heron as someone akin to an older brother, and if he were
honest, much preferred Irina’s company to Beth’s. He was homesick, yes;
sometimes more so, sometimes less. He would have given anything to be enjoying
a family meal in leafy Tonbridge Wells, and enjoying his mum’s home cooking.
More than anything, he
was angry. What am I doing here? What’s
happened to Mick and Beth, and where did that Ricci character disappear
to? It was Ricci who got us into this
mess, after all, and for what? None of this
Mamelon stuff makes any sense. Oh, I suppose it’s an adventure, but where’s the
adventure in no one having a clue what it’s all about…? As for saving the
planet, well, it’s not as if anyone has a plan A let alone a plan B. Not as I
far as I can tell. Not that anyone ever
tells me anything, but I bet that’s because they don’t know anything
themselves. “A fat lot of good that is, I’ll say,” he muttered, imitating
Ricci without thinking.
Misinterpreting
his grave expression, Irina attempted to reassure the red-haired Motherworld
boy. “You have a saying in your world. Hope springs eternal, yes? We must never
lose hope or we might as well…”
“Be dead,” Pete said
with a long sigh, yet the word seemed less scary somehow, almost matter-of-fact
for its being spoken aloud.
“No one is going to
die,” Irina assured him.
“You don’t know that,
none of us do. Let’s face it, Irina, we’re lost.”
“We are not lost, we go
where the mountain takes us, and the mountain cannot be lost, can it?
Pete chuckled. The elf
girl’s logic was flawless. Irina laughed, too, relieved to see her charge raise
a smile. Heron and the boy had bonded well, it was true, but it was she who
felt the greater responsibility for his safety. She ruffled the striking red
hair in a spirit of genuine affection, and was rewarded with a cheeky grin. She
was reminded of the leaves of the Fire Tree, life force of elvendom, and
experienced a sharp, oh, so familiar pang of intense longing for her home.
Where was Pers, she
wondered for the umpteenth time? What did that she-devil, Arissa, have in mind
for him? Only, she corrected herself
with a start, it is not Arissa so who or what had stolen Arissa’s
form and reduced her to kikiri? According to the oldest archives, kikiri
were deprived of all human senses. Yes, this
kikiri was plainly on their side. It made no sense. Kikiri were created by the
darkest of dark magic. Ragund, of course…
It would, she reasoned,
take a very powerful white magic to allow a kikiri anything like human
responses. So what could be its source?
Not Astor. Astor could not do this alone. He
must have help. She had no idea why she should think that, but was certain
of it all the same. Not for the first time since leaving the Forest of Gar,
Irina experienced an intense, inarticulate awareness of something beyond even
the comprehension of elves. Fragments of elven mythology told to her as a child
came unbidden to mind. Impossible, she
told herself, and yet it would explain much. Why, for example, a dying planet
continued to draw breath against all odds.
“This is madness,” she
said aloud.
“You can say that
again,” Peter Wright retorted, I don’t suppose you have anything to eat? I’m
starving.”
Welcoming a distraction
from weird thoughts she would rather not have, Irina went to retrieve some mori-ga from their dwindling supplies.
She had to pass Heron, who was leaning against a tree.
“Don’t look so worried,
Irina, all will be well, you’ll see.”
“You cannot know that
any more than I,” she snapped without meaning to, but Heron gave no sign he had
taken offence.
Before she could offer
an apology, something struck her as strange. “Where is the Foss called Fred?”
Both looked around
expectantly, but the dwarfish fellow had vanished.
………………………………………..
Fred was enjoying the
company. In the absence of his own kind, he was glad of any company in these troubled times. He was none too pleased,
therefore, to find himself being lured away by the same kikiri that had led him
to the others in the first place; it had appeared in female form out of nowhere
just as before. The little Foss was about to call the others, but the kikiri
shook her head and put a skeletal finger to thin, barely visible lips. Oh, dear, oh, my, Fred wailed inwardly,
but felt compelled to follow, less with a heavy heart than one beating too fast
for comfort. He had to reason to distrust the kikiri, but this itself was cause
for grave concern. Foss and kikiri,
working together towards whatever ends Ri only knows. It was unheard of.
Nevertheless, Fred scurried after his unlikely guide with just one, wistful,
backward glance at his companions who were closeted in conversation. They probably won’t even notice I’ve gone.
He knew the accusation was unjustified, but it helped excuse what he saw as a
betrayal of their kindness towards him from the start.
Now upwards, now
downwards, along tunnels and around bends, negotiating shelves of caverns of
which he had no knowledge although, as Foss, the mountain was his natural
home…Poor Fred was almost giddy with trying to work out where the kikiri was
leading him. To other Foss perhaps…? Somehow,
he doubted it, but just the possibility was enough to propel him forward.
They had been
descending for a while along winding passageways when the kikiri suddenly
vanished. Fred was about to surrender to blind panic when the figure of a
cone-headed little fellow barely taller than himself, loomed into view, scaring
the poor Foss almost out of what wits he had left. “Oh!” he wailed, and froze.
“Oh!” cried Ricci,
momentarily nonplussed.
“Who are you?” in
unison. “What are you doing here? What do you want? Each fired the same questions that echoed all
the more hollowly for bouncing off rock walls and offering no answers.
“Stop!” yelled Ricci
thunderously, the resulting cacophony startling them both into silence. Ricci
was the first to recover, and promptly seized the advantage by proceeding to
intimidate the Foss. “Answer my questions, Foss, or it will be the worse for
you.”
Fred, though, was not
easily intimidated. “As you observe, I am Foss, and this is my mountain. I live
here. So it is you, an intruder, who needs to explain your presence here.”
Ricci was taken aback.
It was unheard of for a Foss to be so direct. Indeed, they were a tribe well
known for their timidity and preferring to stay close to home. “I am called
Ricci,” he stated emphatically nor a trifle grandiosely, the better to convey
his own sense of self-importance.
“I am called Fred.”
“Fred? Whoever heard of
a Foss called Fred?” Ricci’s eyes widened with incredulity.
Fred swallowed hard,
determined that this little fellow with the cone-shaped head would not get the
better of him. “The name was given to me. It is mine. I like it, and I shall
keep it. I am Foss, called Fred,” he repeated stubbornly.
“Given to you, by
whom?” Ricci demanded with growing interest.
“A Motherworlder if you
must know.”
“A Motherworlder…?”
Ricci could barely contain his excitement. His eyes lit up so fiercely that
Fred recoiled several steps and would have lost his footing on the narrow shelf
had Ricci not stepped forward and grabbed his hand. “Thank you,” murmured the Foss, more shaken
than he cared to let on. Before he could collect either his balance or
thoughts, however, a female, grey hair piled high, arrived to stand behind the
one called Ricci.
“What is going on? If
the mountain has ears, the pair of you will send it stone deaf,” Etta
protested. “Let us proceed to where we may find space enough to discuss and
make sense of things.”
“I’ll say,” Ricci
agreed.
“Lead on, Foss,” Etta
instructed the Foss imperiously, but not unkindly.
“What is it mother, why
have we stopped?” Galia emerged from the shadows.
Oh,
dear, three of them! Fred wailed inwardly. Oh, well, what have I to lose? He turned
to seek out the kikiri that was beckoning with some impatience. “We have to
follow,” he explained.
“Follow who, what…?”
Etta, Galia and Ricci demanded in one voice.
“The kikiri, of
course….and don’t worry, it means us no harm”
“What kikiri…? Again,
the trio of agitated voices converged upon each other, their agitation for much
the same reason. How could it be that this Foss could see a kikiri when they,
for all their magic powers, could not?
Etta was the most
offended and simultaneously disturbed. I
should be able to see it. Why can’t I see it? What or who, is keeping it from
me, and why? What IS going on? Again, the same thought pertaining to myth
and legend over many lifetimes sprung to mind; this time she was slower to
dismiss them, but dismiss them she did.
Ignorant of the
pandemonium he had caused, Fred quickened his pace, the others close behind as
the kikiri glided almost out of sight.
This
is most peculiar, I’ll say, Ricci lamented to himself more
than once while taking care to keep up with the motley group.
………………………………….
“Where’s Fred?” Peter
cried out in alarm. He had become very fond of the little fellow even in a
short space of time. “He must have wandered off. He’ll get lost. We must go and
look for him. He’s our guide, for heaven’s sake. How will we ever find my
brother without him? The mountain is too big, too…big,” he repeated, fighting
back tears.
“The mountain has a
mind of its own, I suspect,” said Irina, “and I do not think it is working
against us.”
“How can you say that?”
Peter Wright was skeptical, “We’re here, aren’t we? And it hasn’t been much
help so far. And now we’ve lost Fred, and the kikiri ‘thing’ nowhere to be seen
either.”
“Fear not for Fred,”
Heron told him with a wry smile, “Foss are mountain creatures, they do not get
lost easily. As for the kikiri…” He shrugged. “We can but press on and hope for
the best. At least we know we are heading in the right direction.”
“You would trust this
kikiri?” Irina sensed he did and was curious to know why. Did Heron, she
wondered, have an affinity with the spirit of his sister even though he could
not recognize her as kikiri?
Heron shrugged again.
“Do we have a choice? If we are heading towards disaster, well, we know that
anyway.”
“You do not think
Mamelon can be saved?”
“Mamelon, perhaps...
that is, if we can find the tomb and release the Spring of Life in time. As for
whether any of us will live to see it, Ri only knows…”
“We have to think
positively,” Peter Wright interjected. He surprised even himself with a sudden
burst of optimism. A faint humming in
one ear sounded uncannily familiar, and he had the weirdest sense that his
mother was trying to reach him with The Okay Song. Whatever, he felt
considerably less discouraged than he had only moments before. “Besides” he
added defensively as both regarded him with frank amazement, “if there is no
point to dragging Motherworlders here, why bother?”
Irina laughed. “Why,
indeed!”
Heron regarded the elf
girl in something akin to awe. He had never met anyone quite like her. He and
Arissa had mingled mostly with the dead on T-Gray.
Irina returned his
gaze, and the laughter dies on her lips, but not its warm smile.
Peter Wright gave a
grunt that spoke volumes and was the first to make a move. Huh, trust grownups to get slushy with each other when the going gets
tough! As if he didn’t have enough problems...
Heron quickly hastened
to overtake the boy and tried hard to look self-confident although the truth
was he felt not only daunted by the task ahead but was unable to shrug off a
nagging sense of impending doom. Yet, the boy was right to say the
Motherworlders must have been brought to Mamelon for a purpose. But by whom, and for what purpose exactly? He
stopped. They had reached yet another fork.
Which way? As if by way of a response, a light appeared on the wall of a
passage that veered to their right and appeared to descend the more steeply.
“Are you sure?” Irina
tugged his arm as if suggesting they should take the alternative route.
“Yes I am sure.” Heron
gritted his teeth and plunged into the ever darkening shadows, the light
dancing faintly ahead. It was the kikiri, he was sure of it. Somehow it had
found a way to guide them without being present. How do
I know this, and why am I so certain?
But the mountain, as
ever, was giving nothing away as slowly, but surely, the trio made their way
into its unwelcoming depths.
Eventually, they
reached a floor of red mud along which ran narrow shelves of rock on either
side.
“We need to cross,”
Heron announced in a tone the brooked no argument. Discord, however, was
forthcoming as both Peter and Irina protested. “We must cross,” Heron repeated.
He had no answer to their protests. He only knew that it was imperative they
cross the ribbon of mud confronting them. If he had any doubts at all, these
vanished with the appearance of a flicker of dancing light on the wall of the
opposite shelf. Even as he saw it, the flickering grew more earnest, the
dancing more frantic. “We must hurry.”
“But the mud,” Irina
pointed out with growing impatience, “It will suck us in and we will all die.”
“Look!” Pete shouted
excitedly.
Heron, having turned to
confront Irina, returned his gaze to the stretch of red mud ahead. Where
moments before there had been only mud, now there were footprints. “It is a
sign,” he gasped, and then “Astor!” he murmured under his breath, not intending
that the others should hear. As a child, on his mother’s knee, he had heard
wondrous tales about the White Mage. “We cross here,” he repeated decisively.
“If we tread the footprints, we will be safe.”
“You cannot know that!”
Irina stamped her foot. “It could be a trap? My mother always said never to
trust Astor.”
“What would an elf know
of Astor?”
“He is a druid. What
else is there to know?”
Sensing a battle of
wills and more than vaguely aware that time was short, Pete took the
initiative, neatly side-stepped Heron and proceeded to cross the muddy divide, taking
care to place one foot after the other in the mysterious prints. The mud held
firm. “Come on,” he beckoned the others without turning round, “before they
disappear...”
Heron did not hesitate.
Irina, though, did
hesitate. She did not trust the footprints. Her mind was only made up when she
spotted a flicker of dancing light on the opposite wall of the underground
ravine. Even as she followed the others across, though, she could not help but
wonder that she could trust a kikiri. Had not her dear mother always warned her
that kikiri were a law unto themselves, the creation of dark magic, and only
ever meant harm to any not of their own kind?
First to reach the
other side, Pete’s cry echoed through the mountain like an explosion. “Hurry,
Krills…”
But the red mud would
not be hurried. Heron heaved himself on to the shelf to stand next to Peter
while, to their horror, Irina, startled by the boy’s cry, turned her head. On
seeing the band of Krills, she stumbled and one foot stepped beyond the print’s
outline. To her horror, she found herself in the grip of the mud’s grim,
relentless pull.
“Grab my hand..!” Heron
reached over as far as he dared, but it was not far enough.
“I die!” Irina
screamed.
Heron felt the boy
wedge himself between him and the rock wall, the small hands tightening around
his waist. He did not need to be told what to do, and leaned forward even
further, hands outstretched.
“Be calm, stay still,
and take my hands!” Heron ordered the frantic elf girl who was already waist
deep in the shifting, pitiless mud. So harsh and bullish was the command that
Irina did as she was told without hesitation.
Their fingertips
touched.
Heron leaned even
further and almost lost his footing. He regained it in time to prevent him
falling, Peter too, and in that instant his hands found their mark. Behind him,
Peter Wright drew upon all his young strength. In no time, but what seemed a
lifetime to all three, Irina reached the safety of the shelf just as Radik and
his band spotted them.
Radik had also observed
the footprints; instantly grasping their significance, he wasted no time
shouting orders. “No”, Arissa yelled, and grabbed him by the arm.
“Go!” Radik ordered his
followers into the mud, instructing them to keep step into the footprints and
take care not to veer a fraction either side.
First one, then another
and another followed. A fourth was poised to join them when they began
screaming as the mud dragged them under… and the footprints vanished.
