“Yeap,” said Lukus with a nod. “Pretty, pretty. What do you think of their big, scary stories, last night, Rose? You think they're just superstitious, letting their imaginations run away with them?”
“The thought occurred to me, last night actually, but we haven't gone the whole way, yet.”
“Well Rose,” he said after long spell, “I really do hope we'll see the little fellow again.”
“If there were such a thing as mail between here and Niarg, you could probably write to him. Nay, I know. You could have Grandfather scry him with his crystal ball. Then you would even be able to see him and see what he's doing.”
“The problem with that, Rose, is that it would be a one-way deal, because Ownlee’s parents are obviously not gifted magically and couldn't scry back, so Ownlee wouldn’t even know I was in contact with him. What good would that be?”
“None, I suppose. You’re right. But what about carrier pigeon? You could write Ownlee a letter, then he could send back the bird with his reply.”
“Yea, but just how would I get the bird and the letter there in the first place...? And what in the name of the Great Fiery Pit is that?” he cried, stopping Starfire sideways in the path. “What is that? That thing in the road!”
A black sinewy creature larger than an elephant, rippling with muscles under its iridescent oily hide, gave an eerie screeching bellow as it reared up before them not five rods away.
“Lukus!” cried Ownlee, dashing out of the brush in front of the beast to come running.
“Ownlee!” cried Lukus and Rose together. “Hurry!”
The oil beast regarded Rose and Lukus with its ear to ear row of twelve eyes. Suddenly it fell toward them, yanking open its face of fangs to grab up Ownlee with a champ across his thighs.
Rose and Lukus wheeled and pounded back the way they had come with everything their terror could kick and slap out of Mystique and Starfire. Suddenly another oil beast reared up just ahead of them. Lukus reined to a halt. Rose charged on. Lukus tried to shout, but only squeaked. He bounced in his saddle and croaked: “No!” in time for her to spin about and come thundering back.
“Lukus!” she hollered. “Get back on the path! Now! Now! Follow me! Come on!”
Lukus could only jab Starfire's flanks and follow. He could not think of a thing but to stay on her heels, knowing they that were going to die.
At the sight of them coming back, the first oil beast reared up. Rose and Mystique charged headlong toward it. Lukus's his heart was in his throat. He knew they were about to be thrown, grabbed up and eaten.
Starfire showed no hesitation at all, and in a handful of heartbeats, they were well beyond the beast. Lukus felt like jelly. He halted Starfire, slid to the ground and sat there hanging onto the reins. He was out of breath, and now he could see that he had been sobbing all the while. He squeezed shut his eyes. “Poor Ownlee!” he choked.
“Ownlee's fine!” came Rose's voice from above. “That's how I knew it! He couldn't have gotten ahead of us. There's no way he could have been there.”
“Damn, Rose! Your ride on the hydra sure gave you nerve. That was awful! I just knew that the unicorns were going to go crazy and run off, too. Didn't they seem awfully calm to you? Look. It's gone.”
“Yea, just an apparition, and the unicorns knew it all along, or didn't see it at all,” she said, catching her breath. “That's why they didn't.”
“Here we were, a-kickin' the daylights out of 'em while they do their dead-level best to do what we want,” he said, as Starfire gave a nicker and a toss of his head and took a champ of of grass at his foot. “At least it looks as if these illusions vanish, once a person gets past them. Reckon they'll stay gone?”
“I'd lay odds that they do, Lukus. After all, if you see through an illusion once, what would be the point of it continuing to harass you, only to be ignored?”
“Yea maybe, but that assumes that something conscious wants us frightened. Milowe really didn't say for sure, but I thought he made it sound as though this stuff just happened by itself. Either way though, I'm going to be watching the unicorns more closely.”
“Who can say?” she said, as she straightened her gloves and fumbled with her reins. “Whatever the case may be, there's almost certain to be more to come between here and the Singing Waters and the Crystal Caves, whatever they are. And since anything dangerous could be real, we'd better be on our toes.”
“What are you talking about? What are Singing Waters and Crystal Caves?”
“Maybe if you actually pay attention once in a while, you'd know, little brother. I get these details by paying attention.”
“And what was there to pay close attention to anyway, when everything being discussed wasn't real in the first place and only happened once?”
“Real or not, we face them. The Singing Waters and Crystal Caves are supposed to be at the far end of the Valley of Illusions. So when we find them, we'll know that we've gotten all the way through. Milowe said that the Singing Waters are called that because when they flow over the rocks in the Crystal Caves, it actually sounds like young maidens singing in the distance. And the Crystal Caves are made up entirely of perfectly clear crystals, worth more than a king's ransom.”
“Wow! What sort of crystals?”
“None that you want, piggy boy,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Milowe warned that the sound of the waters puts a spell on the beholder, so that he must do everything he can not to hear it. He said that travelers are drawn into the Caves by it, never to be seen again.”
“I guess I do remember him saying something about it. The sooner we leave this place behind, the happier I'll be.”
“Looking forward to the Chokewoods now, are we?”
“After this, I am,” he said as he found his stirrup.
They fell silent in the late morning sunshine as Lukus took the lead, listening to the creak of leather as the unicorns walked, the call of quail and the tinkling of larks. The road rose over a gentle swell in the land as it passed between a dozen or so huge cottonwoods whose leaves rattled like the sound of rain drops in the breeze. Beyond the rise a broad sandy meadow spread out before them. As he studied the expansive flatness of the meadow, he had the odd sensation that Starfire was loping down a steep slope. When he looked down, the earth had already swallowed up his very feet and Starfire's brisket. As he drew a horrified breath in reaction to this, Starfire calmly jogged on down past his ears. He heard Rose scream as he frantically flailed his arms, clawing at the earth which had now risen up to his chin, only to feel nothing around him, or had he lost his sense of touch? Stones, sand, clumps of grass and dirt ploughed by both sides of his chin, yet he felt none of it, and he still sat astride his unicorn. He gasped, trying to call out, but made no sound at all. He ceased to sink, and slowly rose until his shoulders scuttled along, overturning rocks and grass. Starfire, trotting along beneath him, began to climb and soon his head was emerging from the dirt of the road. As the top of the ground fell to his waist, he quickly turned to look for Rose and saw her behind him, hesitating with Mystique on the far bank of a dry stream, directly in front of the cottonwoods. At once he faced forward and looked down to see Starfire calmly clambering out of the dry channel, irritated at having one rein dangling. “Rose!” he shouted, waving his arms. She shook her reins, coming forward.
Lukus slid off Starfire at her approach. She helped him onto a nearby boulder and produced one of the jugs of cider given to them by Tillie. He took a grateful drink. He looked back at the dip in the road with a shudder. “Did you see it, Rose? It was dirt and clay where there is just air right now. It suddenly opened up beneath Starfire’s feet. It was insane. I thought it would cover me up and smother me.”
“Yes Lukus,” she said, “I did see. One minute the two of you were in front of Mystique and me and the next minute, you sank into the very road. Then, when you climbed back out of the earth, all of the dirt which had covered you vanished from this dry stream bed. It would be a mercy if we were out of h
ere soon.”
“Oh it would indeed,” he said as he took another swig. “Say, where are those cinnamon loaves Tillie gave us?”
“That's right,” said Rose, looking up from her cider. “In this horrid place I clean forgot about food, but something to eat sounds wonderful. I’ll fetch one.” She unwrapped a linen bundle and tore in half a loaf and handed the bigger piece to him.
“Thanks. But why did you give me half of yours?”
“You've got yours. This one's really good, don’t you think?”
“Heavenly.”
Once they had brushed away the crumbs, they decided to press on, hoping to get beyond the Singing Waters and the Crystal Caves before nightfall.
“You know Lukus,” she said as she mounted Mystique, “I had thought at first that we might be able to tell what was real and what was illusion until you and Starfire had your adventure back there. I don’t understand why the unicorns didn’t react to the monsters, though.”
“You mean Mystique reacted to the dirt?”
“Well, she halted right when you started sinking.”
“Maybe she thought I looked kind of strange, grabbing at the air, trying to get out of the dirt that she didn't see, but Starfire was just calm as can be, trotting across the low place as though nothing strange was happening. I don’t know Rose, this place is so eerie. It's almost as if it knows what you’re thinking.”
“There very well may be some magical intelligence here that protects this place by reading the thoughts of people who come through here.”
“I want out. Let’s ride Rose, and get as far from here as we can, as fast as we can possibly manage.”
Rose answered by urging Mystique into the lead at a brisk trot. Lukus, for once, was grateful to follow. They rode well into the afternoon, experiencing nothing but the passage of gorgeous countryside which they would have enjoyed immensely if it were not for being anxiously on the alert every single moment. Their constant wariness was growing unbearable. It also had gotten quite warm. They were very hot and thirsty.
“Listen!” said Rose as she halted Mystique. She waited for Lukus and Starfire to get quiet. “Do you hear that? Way off. Doesn’t it sound like singing to you?”
“Maybe, but it's awfully faint,” he said, cupping his hand to his ear. “All I can hear is us. Nay. I don't hear a thing way off except for some quail.” He shrugged and started riding.
“Maybe I didn't either,” she said, following close behind in the lush green grass. A bee shot by overhead with a whine. They were nearing trees.
“Rose!” hollered Lukus. “I just heard girls singing.”
“Hey!” she cried. “I just saw the glint of something off through those trees, yonder.”
“I see it! It's big, Rose. Most likely our Crystal Caves. We’re goin' 'o get out of this nightmare land before we have to go crazy.”
“We’ll want to get well past them before we try to set up camp... Whoa!” she cried, suddenly grabbing for the pommel of her saddle to keep from being thrown off Mystique's rump, as the unicorns bolted away at full gallop toward the singing and flashes of light through the trees, positively refusing to respond or be brought to a halt. “They never do this, Lukus!” All she could do was hang on for dear life.
“That's what we get...” he cried as he grabbed for his hat, “that's what we get for the mad spurring we gave them, back where they didn't see the oil beast eat Ownlee!”
“Yea? Well what if they're the ones crazy about siren music, Lukus? What if they take us right into the caves? Look 'ee! The Crystal Caves!”
“That just means we'll have to jump, even if we do get bunged up!”
“Great!”
“Well get ready to jump, Rose! That creek has to be the Singing Waters. See? It runs right into the caves!” And with that he carefully swung his leg back across Starfire's rump to stand in his left stirrup.
“Fates! I never did know how to do this,” wailed Rose, “and I swear he doesn't either. We're really going...”
Suddenly Mystique and Starfire clopped to a saggy halt at the edge of the creek and dropped their rubbery muzzles to the water for a long and stubborn drink.
“Well,” said Lukus, hopping down. “I'd allow that we've never denied them water for this long before.”
At last Mystique yanked up her head to fling a string of water across her flank, chasing a biting fly before she and Starfire backed away from the water with a creak of hooves to stand on the bank in the shade of the new leaves of the sighing willows, placidly swishing their tails, utterly indifferent to any sort of beguiling sounds.
Lukus traded looks with Rose and shrugged as he glanced at the caves. He undid his leather water bottle. “I'm powerful thirsty, Rose,” he said as he squatted at the water's edge to push it under while Rose blinked dumbfoundedly and looked about at their surroundings. When he stood up and raised the bottle to his mouth, she gave a wide-eyed gasp. He drank and drank, running out of air. He ran his mouth along his sleeve. “You look worried,” he said.
“Well yes. I...”
“Here! Have some. They sound like really pretty girls, but I'm 'way too tired to even want to go see, so I'd say that this water's not enchanted in the least. You're not drawn by them, are you? Want me to fill your water bag?”
“Yes, if you don’t mind. And no, I'm not drawn by their singing at all. I guess this is simply one of those things that got exaggerated over time. Someone who has gotten this far will be so jumpy that he'll believe anything. Well at least this is the end of it, and we can look for a camping spot before we go another league.”
“Why don’t we just make camp here, Rose? It would be nice to have the stream close at hand. We might even be able to catch some fish for supper and bathe a bit, too.”
“Now that sounds like real enchantment to me...”
“Absolutely. Some fresh fried fish...”
“Lukus! I mean bad enchantment. Fish might be how you get lured in there. Anything able to read you well enough to feed Ownlee to the oil beast can find out what it takes to lure you, given enough hours. We need to get away from here.”
“All right,” he said. “But if we get far enough down the road and find another creek, could we please?”
“By all means. But please, let's go shall we?”
On they rode for a good long way. The road grew thickly wooded with beech and oaks and eventually pines and firs as it steadily rose. “You reckon this is the Chokewoods, Rose?”
“Has to be. We're out of the Valley of Illusions since we're past the Crystal Caves, and if this isn't forest, I don't know what is. We could go a good way yet before it's too late to camp. Why don't we hold out for a place to fish?”
“I'm for that, good old sister,” he said, with a bounce in his saddle.
“Lukus. Have you been watching the sky?”
“Yea? So?”
“Have you been watching the storm?”
“What storm? Wow! I see. It wasn't there, last I looked. That's awfully fast. And you'd think there'd be wind.”
“We need to get under something. Have we gone by a cave that you've seen?”
“Not a thing.”
“Well let's go, Lukus!” she cried. “Maybe we'll come up on something before we get soaked.”
“Fat chance.”
“I know.”
“Rose! Look at the sky. What the ding-dong blazes happened to the storm?”
“Fates Lukus!” she cried, digging her heels into Mystique. “It's come around behind us!”
“And it's not even a storm Rose, it's locusts!” he hollered, swatting Starfire on the rump. “Go!”
“How could you tell that they're locusts?” she cried, turning back for another look. “Holy Niarg! They're big as cows!”
Away they flew, hooves hammering the path like furious drum rolls, as the drone of giant beating wings bore down on them.
Suddenly they found themselves hurtling toward the mouth of the Crystal Caves in exactly the same direction which
they had come the first time. “Lukus!” she screamed as he and Starfire galloped right inside. “No!” In she went, right on his heels, nearly falling as Mystique skidded across the crystal floor to bump into Starfire. She lunged and grabbed away his reins.
“Soraya!” he said, starting to dismount.
“No Lukus!” she shrieked, grabbing him by the ankle. Stay mounted!”
“But she's bathing, Rose. And she's beautiful. And she's waving to me...”
“Yes, yes! Damn you! And she's not there, either! Hold your ears and turn around, or you'll never see Niarg again!”
“Oh yes she is. She wants us in the water with her. Rose, isn't she beautiful?”
“The real Soraya is, Lukus,” she cried as she struggled to turn Starfire toward the mouth of the cave. “But that has to be the Pitmaster himself! He'll take you down into the Pit and you'll never live to see Soraya!” She could not possibly control two unicorns, keep Lukus from dismounting and hold her ears all at once. Suddenly joining Soraya in the soothing warm water seemed like a good idea. What was so special about the mouth of the cave anyway? She glanced outside and gasped. “Lukus! Each locust has Spitemorta's face!” For a heartbeat, she saw how it all was. “Get up!” she screamed, furiously spurring Mystique outside, nearly yanking herself out of her saddle with Starfire's reins wrapped 'round her fist.
Lukus tried to grab away the reins.
“No!” she bellowed Rose, slapping him boss-eyed and swatting Starfire across the rump with a furious crack. She dug in her heels and they lurched outside, pounding the path every bit as hard as when they arrived.
“Rose!” shouted Lukus, after a half mile's hard gallop. “Rose! I'm awfully sorry!”
She slowed to a canter at once. “Oh, Lukus,” she sighed. “I'd only get mad at you over a pillow fight. You had me scared out of my wits.”
Heart of the Staff - Complete Series Page 32
