by Holly Hook
How were things getting back in the Stone Kingdom? Weeds would grow over the rubble of my tower by now and Henry might have wandered far away if he’d survived. I imagined him traveling through darkness, trying to feel his way through the trees and the swamps, searching for the man who had destroyed his kingdom.
I wondered if those people in that village had starved yet or hurt each other. Or perhaps they had fled to Mary’s village. I hoped so, for their sakes.
And I wondered if Henry still thought about me. Mother had scared him. Henry didn’t have a choice but to flee for his life.
That was, if Alric hadn’t found him first. Alric could eliminate Henry and the Stone Kingdom would be his forever. I might do this for nothing.
At last, I rolled over and fall asleep.
* * * * *
“Good morning.”
An ancient man sat behind the table where the clay jar had been the night before when we gathered at the inn the next morning and stepped out into the main room together. At first, I could barely see him, he was so short. Then I realized he had pointed ears and his eyes were dark like Stilt’s had been before I had cured him. The old man set one hand with long fingernails on the table and let them scratch. There were several marks there already that I hadn’t noticed the night before.
He smiled.
His teeth were a yellow-green color, and I tried not to shudder.
“Morning,” Stilt said. “We didn’t see you last night, so we dropped money into your jar. You got it, right?”
The old elf smiled again. He spoke with a voice like rough, dead bark. “If I hadn’t, the three of you would be dead right now. I’ve killed many a bandit who thought they could stay here for free.” He reached under the table and pulled out the clay jar, shaking it. Our coins made a loud noise inside. “Coins are nice. Very nice. We elves love deals and bargains and you can always count on us to keep them. My brethren in the underworld will love to have this.”
Stilt shifted like he was uncomfortable. “We do,” he agreed. Stilt stepped forward as if trying to shield Brie and I from the old elf. This was what they all must look like in the dark region.
I didn’t like this elf. I swallowed. “How far away is the desert?” I thought again. “Wait. Where is the tower hidden in the valley?" Henry would wander there eventually.
The elf faced me and smiled, leaning in his creaky chair. “I can think of one,” he said. “It is almost another days’ walk from here, but very hard to find. Perhaps for a price, I will divulge that information.”
Stilt faced us and grimaced like he expected this. Brie frowned at me and shook her head.
“What’s the price?” I asked.
“That pretty hair of yours,” the elf said. “Let me keep it and I will tell you how to find the desert tower.”
I backed away, and a chill swept over me. Stilt shook his head. "We can't do that," he said. "There must be another deal."
"I want no other deal," the old elf told him.
I couldn't give up my hair. Not yet. Stilt needed it to function here in the dark region. But we also needed to find this tower of which the old elf spoke. I thought about those people back in the Stone Kingdom and Mother, trapped in her own dark cell. Freeing them all depended on it.
I cleared my throat. "Do you want to touch my hair first, to make sure it's what you want?" I asked.
The old elf's eyes lit up. It was a predatory look, and I hated the thought of him touching my braid. "I would very much so," he said. "Come here and let me see."
"No," Stilt said.
But I pushed past him. We would not get much farther without the information. I could only hope that the light magic within my strands would soften this old elf up.
I lifted my braid and set them down on his table. It landed with a soft thump.
The old elf seized my braid so hard that I leaned forward. "Not so hard!" I shouted. My scalp had already warmed. The old elf ran the strands between his fingers, admiring the gold, and I wanted it to stop. It was so creepy, so strange. "This hair is so unusual," he said. "I have seen nothing like it. I wonder what the elders would say about this." He smiled at me, showing his disgusting teeth. "Perhaps they would reward me. Girl, we must be on our way."
"On our way?" I asked. I forced myself to stand there and wait for the old elf's expression to soften, for his eyes to grow lighter. But with this elf, the process was slow. Much slower than it had been with Stilt.
"We never agreed to any deal," Stilt said.
"I consider the deal closed," the old elf said. "She comes with me, hair and all. The hidden tower is ten miles straight ahead on the road, behind a jutting cliff that's shaped like a wall and has a single tree on the top of it. It is the only structure in the desert for dozens of miles, and the only thing left of an unfortunate kingdom. There is a cave between two boulders you can use to get inside the valley."
I tried to wrench my hair away from the elf, but he smiled and held on tighter. "A deal's a deal," he said. "You're coming with me."
Chapter Thirteen
Brie and Stilt moved.
Stilt lunged over the counter and punched the old elf. I had never seen someone punch another person in my life, but the thunk sound it made turned my stomach. The old elf growled and let go of my hair. I gathered it up and Brie grabbed my arm.
"Come on," she said.
The two of us ran from the inn, ramming into the swinging doors. Stilt bolted right out behind us while the elf uttered what might be curse words in another language. We burst out into pale gray light and Stilt searched around for something. "We need to block the door."
I spotted an old wooden container next to it, one rounded around the middle. Before I could say anything, Brie got behind it and attempted to push. I joined her and the container slid across the dusty ground. We shoved it right in front of the door just as the old elf ran into it from the other side.
"What have you done?" he asked. "You must keep your end of the deal. Let me out, elf brother. You know the code."
Stilt backed away as if hurt. "We need to go. We know where to look now."
The three of us ran away from the inn, leaving the elf cursing and yelling behind us. He clawed at the door, making a horrible scraping sound. The noise didn't fade until we had gotten way out of the village and well down the road. Until we had gone well out into the dryness and the despair.
Stilt slowed and caught his breath. "He will be back."
Brie said nothing, but the look on her face said she agreed. "We need to get a lot farther away. But that elf will know where we're going."
"I agree," Stilt said.
"Can we go back and make sure he's very trapped?" I asked.
"Elves are crafty," Stilt said. "Ask me how I know. We're not nice when we're dark."
I shuddered. "The desert. We have to go there next and we have no food or water. Even I know that's not a good idea."
Brie looked back at the village. No one was out. Perhaps the old elf was the only resident and the entire thing was a trap to make sure he could steal supplies from bandits and survive. "Would there be supplies back there?" she asked.
Stilt nodded. "It will be a risk to go back there and get them. I'm sure that elf's stashed things from the bandits he's killed there." He swallowed. "We can't go into the desert without water. That will just be a slower death. Come on. That barrel looks like it's still holding, but our friend will be out, eventually. It sounds like he has access to the underworld from that inn."
I did the hardest thing I could have done.
I followed Brie and Stilt back into the village.
The scratching noise and the cursing had stopped. The wooden container—the barrel—still stood in front of the door like a short, squat guard. The windows to the inn were small, high, and made of the transparent material Brie and Stilt called glass. I tensed, waiting for the old elf's face to appear in the windows, but they remained empty.
"Why didn't he turn good when he touched my hair?" I asked.
"It looks like he's been dark all his life," Stilt said, "and for much longer than I ever was. It would have taken a lot more to heal him than me."
"Does this underworld have over one entrance?" I asked.
"Yes," Stilt said, opening the door to a small house. "I don't even know them all. I'm sure he will come out of another one and seek us out. Elves don't rest until they've taken what they want. Or until they die."
My stomach grew upset, chasing away any hunger.
Stilt entered the small house and came out a minute later with some small, hard containers with lids on them. He must have caught my confusion. "Canteens," he told me. "There are dozens of them in there and some boots. He's been using these houses as storage."
"What's a canteen?"
"It's for holding water," Brie said. "Any bandits out this way would have them with the desert so close. It looks like that old elf has been collecting stuff here for a long time. I hope we don't find where he puts the bodies."
Stilt opened the front door to the next house. He made a face of disgust and closed it. "Why did you ask that question?" he asked. "Our friend has been doing this for a long time."
A horrible taste rose in my mouth. This town was nothing more than a trap and a graveyard. The dark region was awful.
Brie and Stilt found jerky in another one house which served as a another storeroom for the evil elf. Brie filled a leather sack with as many of the pieces as she could and slung it over her shoulder. I asked if I could help carry it, but she pointed out I had my hair to deal with.
"We need that more than anything," she told me, nodding at Stilt.
The village remained quiet as we found a well and Stilt filled several canteens from the bucket he drew out of it. He tasted the water. "It feels okay," he said. "It must be, if that elf has been using it for some time. This might be the last water we'll find out here. From the looks of this place, we're close to the desert."
He was right. The air was drier here, dustier. Even the green weeds were farther apart than they had been at the first village with the other trapped inn. We were heading into a different area. The dark region was just as varied as the light region was.
Stilt turned in a circle. "You think we should burn this place down?"
Brie wrinkled her nose. "It might be a good idea. Only it might let our friend out."
"Maybe we shouldn't," I said.
"He will kill more people if we don't," Stilt said. Then he thought for a minute. "The smoke might alert Alric where we are if he's following us. We'd better not. We might have been in that other inn for two weeks, but that doesn't mean he's not in the area. A low profile might be better."
I agreed. I hadn't thought about smoke.
We left the village once again, the leather sack full of supplies and watching the skies.
* * * * *
Even though the sky remained as gray as ever, the temperature increased the farther we got down the dusty road. The dead grass thinned and the dead trees stopped appearing after a few hours as we trekked on. It was hard to avoid slurping down the water after a while and Brie had to mention we should conserve it.
"This looks like it's becoming a desert," she said.
"That's where we need to be," I told her. My heart raced. I might see Henry soon. And the thought of who else might be out here made a chill run down my back despite the growing heat. Alric could have cut ahead of us with ease and made his way to the hidden tower to wait for me. He knew the stories. He knew I would head out there and that he could find me or Henry if he waited long enough. "Do you think the dark wizard is waiting?"
Stilt paused. "He could be," he said.
"Then what do we do?" I asked.
"I'm not sure." There was something more in those words, something I couldn't pick apart. There was something Stilt wasn't saying.
The landscape only got worse the farther we walked. There were no more villages on the horizon anywhere. The one we had left behind had even faded into the dust. The thought of passing back through there to get home was almost as bad as the thought of reaching the desert tower.
Later in the day, the last of the dead grass vanished behind us, leaving only cracked earth and dust as far as we could see. The road became reduced to some faint tracks in the sand. The only plants remaining from here on out were dead shrubs and strange green stalks that had needles growing from them. They were creepy. When I asked Brie and Stilt what they were, Brie said that they were cacti and that they grew in deserts in the other world, too.
"We can open those up for water if we need to," Stilt said. "They store it inside of them."
"They look dangerous," I said as we walked past one. The spikes were almost as bad as the deadly, meat-eating brambles. "They won't attack us, will they?"
"No," Stilt said. He raised his hand to his forehead and looked straight ahead. "Get down!"
I panicked and dove to the dust, but not before I glimpsed what Stilt had seen.
A moving, black cloud on the horizon.
The flock of ravens.
I faced the cactus as Brie landed next to me. A small hill rose ahead, blocking the ravens from view. My heart raced. We had no cover out here. If they found us, we were dead.
I waited to hear cawing and the thunder of a thousand wings, but only silence stretched out. An insect buzzed somewhere, but no other sounds joined in. Brie kept her face down, not daring to lift it from the sand. Stilt crouched next to us, trying to crane his neck to look over the hill. He ducked his head back down again and again.
"How close are they?" Brie asked.
"They're miles away. But birds have good eyes," Stilt said. "If they don't go away, we won't be going any farther. Or we must find another way around and risk getting lost out here."
Minutes crawled by and the sun grew hot on the back of my dress. Stilt did a check every few minutes, and I feared we would lay here for a long time when he stood. "They're gone," he said. "The whole flock went back under the horizon."
I joined him and Brie and I dusted ourselves off. Sweat beaded on Brie's forehead and she took another drink from her canteen. "I don't know if we should continue."
I thought of Mother and Henry.
"The two of you should go back. I'll continue on my own. Henry and my mother are counting on me."
"You don't owe your mother anything," Stilt said. He stressed the word mother in a way I didn't like. "I know she's made you think otherwise, but that's how people like that work. Brie and I have dealt with plenty of them."
There was no point in arguing this with them. They didn't have parents who were prisoners of darkness. "I have to go on. I don't want to put you in danger, so go back." My heart ached. I didn't want Brie and Stilt to leave me out here. I liked them and I counted them as friends.
"Rae," Brie said. She stood right in front of me while Stilt continued to watch the horizon. "Maybe your mother isn't your mother. Did you ever think about where you might have come from?"
"The tower," I told her. "I'm from the tower and now there's nothing left of it."
"That's what she told you," Brie said. "Maybe she lied to you. I don't remember all of your story, but I'm sure that the woman who raised you isn't your true mother. Your real parents are out there somewhere. Maybe this woman you think is your mother took you away from them for her own need. She's made you believe her lies because you knew nothing else."
I trembled even in the heat. "She has to be my mother. I knew no one else until now."
"I used to live in the other world, the one where our stories come from," Brie said. "Before Stilt brought me here, I didn't know I came from here. My real parents are somewhere in this world, too. I haven't found them yet. And yours might still be out there and they might miss you very, very much. I know this is hard to hear, and I didn't want to tell you this. But give it some thought."
I nodded, shaken.
"You're saying she doesn't love me."
"I don't know," Brie said. "But even if it comes to the
worst, you have us. We're going to the tower with you. Alric won't be expecting you to have help."
Brie's face paled. She feared something. Something she hadn't mentioned yet.
And then she wrapped me in her arms.
I wasn't sure what to do, so I let her. Brie's arms felt as hot as me. I sensed friendship in the gesture, so I returned it. "What's this?" I asked. "What are we doing?"
"It's called a hug," Brie said. "People who care about each other do it." She let her words hang as we separated. I could hear what she wanted to ask. Your mother has never hugged you?
I had to walk. I checked the horizon, but only gray sky continued. "We should go," I said, kicking at the dust in the fading road.
* * * * *
The desert didn't improve as we continued, but the flock never reappeared over the horizon. At least we knew whether Alric was out in the desert, waiting for us. I couldn't relax when Alric could appear any second over every hill, waiting there in his red and black robe.
"We're lucky there's no water in this desert," Stilt said. He took off his hat and fanned himself with it. "Alric can't spy on us that way."
"But there are birds," I said.
"They might not stay here long," Stilt said. "Even they need to eat and drink. They must head to more fertile areas to survive and take breaks."
"Or maybe they're waiting to eat us," I said.
"Don't say that," Brie said. "The two of you need to stop filling my mind with so many horrible images."
"That's what the dark region does," Stilt said. He faced me. "Speaking of that, I will need your hair in a little while. I can feel the evil creeping back."
I healed Stilt another twenty minutes up the trail. It was when we finished that I noticed something on the horizon.
"Is that a cliff?" I asked, pointing.
Brie squinted. There was something that looked like a huge stone wall up ahead and it was as tan as the surrounding dust. If I looked close, there were colored bands running through it that almost looked pretty. I'd read about cliffs in some books Mother used to give me. This fit the description.
