by Holly Hook
"Nothing," I said. "This isn't Annie's magic. It's this underworld magic that I don't know anything about. I don't know how to break through it. Maybe the dwarves had some trap for whoever wanted to mess with their precious pet down there."
"Or they didn't want their precious pet to get out," Stilt said. "If I were them, I would have put this in place."
"But what about us?" Henry asked. "Do we get to spend the rest of our days down here?"
Candice appeared next to me. She kept her face calm, but underneath it was panic. She was just as scared about this as everyone else. I took a breath, keeping my own fear down. We had food and water here, but most of it was past the dragon and the only way to get to it would be to comb its hair and deal with it all over again. Hello, fire.
"I hope not," Candice said. "There has to be a way to break this spell. I've never been down here before. Stilt, do you have any idea how underworld magic works?"
"Elves don't always have it," he said. "I have regular light magic. Well, as long as I'm not in the dark region. Brie can look at that story again with the five-headed dragon and see if there's a way out."
"Good idea." She was already paging through the book, holding it up to the light. She read and my heart pounded. "Yes," she said. "The huntsman who got caught down here thinks he's doomed, until he finds a flute that summons some elves or dwarves. They take him back to the surface."
I blinked. "We don't want the surface. At least, not yet."
"They'll take Macon back to the surface," Brie told me.
Oh. I got it now.
"Let's find this flute," I said.
Ignacia asked her yarn to locate it, and the yarn obeyed, pointing to a crack in the wall that was up near the ceiling of the tunnel. It took Macon himself, who was the tallest, to reach it, and even then he was barely able to get the wand out. I knew a spell for making it fly to me but decided to make him struggle for it a little.
But at last, Macon pulled an old, dusty flute out of the opening. He eyed it with disgust and blew the dust off. "What is this?" he asked. "Am I supposed to play it?"
"Yes," Mica said. "You are. You might have to impress those elves or dwarves with your magical singing voice, too."
Macon scowled at him while Henrietta watched. But Henry just nodded at him with a huge grin on his face.
"Here's the thing," Macon said. "There might be a specific way to play this and it might take me a while in order to get the right tune. Flute playing is not as simple as it looks. Flutes--"
"You've never played a musical instrument in your life," Stilt said. "Besides, the story says that you need to play it. We don't want it to end the wrong way, do we?"
Macon faced me and started to say something.
"Music isn't my forte," I told him. "Now play."
The huntsman sighed and brought the flute up, blowing through it without putting his fingers over any of the holes. The result was a faint hissing sound.
I held back a laugh, mainly because we needed him to play that flute to get out of here. Macon put his fingers over two of the holes and tried again. A tune came out and he switched, making another note. Eventually a disjointed sound that might be a song emerged.
A rumbling sound filled the tunnel. I turned and another crack was opening up in the new wall. It got bigger and bigger and tiny pieces of stone rained down on us. I grabbed Candice and we staggered back into Brie as the crack opened like a jagged, sideways mouth. Macon continued to play horribly and the sounds cut over the rumbling. It was awful, like the end of the world.
And then the crack stopped growing.
"Well," Macon said, all full of himself. "It looks like we're free to go."
But then a short, stubbly figure emerged through the opening.
It was a dwarf, only about four feet tall, with a long black beard complete with crumbs and who knew what else. He scowled at us and showed two rows of really yellow teeth. My nasty grandmother had better teeth than that.
And following him was another dwarf, and another. One of them was even wearing a red T-shirt that said Adventure Time on it. It was the name of a cartoon back in the other world that a lot of the kids were into. These dwarves had either been to the other world or they were trading with someone who had.
The one in the lead scowled again as if he was too dumb to form words. But then he did speak.
"You trespassed."
Macon withered. He'd been expecting a party of elves to take him up to the surface, but he'd gotten this instead. The flute had been Fable's version of an alarm system to catch thieves. Rae moved in front of the sack full of food and Henrietta rolled her eyes and hid behind Macon.
"You freed Molly," the dwarf continued as the dragon thumped down below. "Molly is hard to keep. And you freed the princess."
"Why do you keep a dragon as a pet?" I asked. "Dragons don't want to live in tiny rooms, you know."
The dwarf scowled at me and walked closer. His breath was as bad as I feared. "Alric is worse. Much worse. He likes to steal our treasure. The dragon may protect us."
"I agree," I said, trying not to gag. I counted the dwarves behind this one. Six more. There were seven in total and five of them held clubs. Dwarves preferred to attack with heavy, blunt objects rather than swords and they were good at it. "But your dragon can't protect you locked in a little room like that. You need to train her to protect you and you'll be a lot better off." I was scrambling. I could knock back these dwarves but I didn't want to burn off all my renewed energy this early. "I think she's mad because she's been forced to stay in that room. You might want to go down there and calm her."
The dwarf thought. He looked at the ceiling a bit and brought his thick hand up to his chin. "Maybe you are right," he said. "We should let her out. We are not cruel to animals."
"But not yet," I said. "You need to train her first so she doesn't kill you. Maybe you need to give her a slab of meat. Tell her to sit and don't give the meat to her until she does. That kind of thing."
"Shorty," Candice said. "What are you doing? That dragon needs to stay down there."
The dragon roared again. Another loud thump sounded and all of the dwarves jumped. I wondered how they'd gotten the dragon down there in the first place but they seemed to have forgotten that we had trespassed.
"The dragon is angry," the head dwarf said.
They weren't very intelligent. We had that on our side.
"How do you know about Alric?" Mica asked. "I know a lot of people have fled to the other world to get away from him and it looks like you did the same at one point. You're wearing clothes from there."
The head dwarf thought, trying to comprehend Mica's words. "We guarded a princess there," he said. "Princess Sara. Beautiful princess. A queen wanted to kill her with a poison apple. And she did."
Brie gasped and held up the book. This might be another story, one that I hadn't read. "She killed the princess? But that would make the story fall if--"
"Not forever," the dwarf said. "Alric took Sara to his castle and put her in glass. Then he took us, too, and put us in glass. The Queen changed her mind and broke her and us out. We jumped through Alric's magic mirror. After that, the Queen broke it. Alric must have put the Queen in glass after that."
"His magic mirror is broken," I said, looking at Candice. It must be why we hadn't seen Alric in any reflective surfaces in the past few months.
That ability was gone to him now. I wanted to sigh in relief. The Queen who had faced him had done us a huge favor and probably landed herself in a glass box for it. Alric might even have her sitting in that chamber along with my mother and the rest of the kingdom she had dared hide in. His display room must be getting very full. He had touched so many stories and not in a good way.
"That's great news," Brie said. "Well, about the mirror." She stepped in front of me. "We were looking for Alric's prisoners, but got lost. The group of us are fighting against him and we're looking to free all the people he's put in glass. We're sorry we came down into y
our area."
The dwarf's face softened, if that was possible. Dwarves' faces were all bulges and hard edges. "You are fighting Alric too?"
"Yes," I said. "We are fighting Alric."
"And everything that has to do with him?" the dwarf asked.
I tensed. "Yes."
"Then you are my brother!" the dwarf said, lunging forward and wrapping me in a very tight and strong dwarf hug.
I just waited for it to be over. I sucked in tiny breath after tiny breath while Candice stood there and grinned at me. I scowled at her and frowned. At last, the dwarf hug ended and I could breathe again. My diaphragm was going to be cramped for weeks.
"We will show you the way out of the mines," he said, "and we will try to train our dragon to fight Alric. We will let our dragon out and our dragon will guard us!"
I was glad I was going to be gone by time that happened. I wished these dwarves luck with that endeavor.
"Thanks," Brie said, backing away as if she, too, were fearing a hug.
The dwarf turned away and the others vanished through the crack. We all followed and I got in the lead, even though Mica tried to. The guy was used to being in charge, but I felt a huge sense of responsibility for this. I'd come from the man who was making everyone miserable. I'd even done what he wanted by killing Prince Lawrence, even though I had done it to save Candice.
But if these dwarves found out who I was...
I ducked through the crack and Candice followed. The rock that had blocked our tunnel was feet thick, so thick that no magic would have penetrated it anyway. Magic did have its limits. It couldn't move mountains as far as I knew, even though I had heard of a magical mountain out there full of treasure.
"This way," the head dwarf said, turning the way we had been headed.
We followed in silence for a long time. The dwarves broke out into a song about how bad Alric was, but they sang in such drawn-out voices that I couldn't tell exactly what they were saying most of the time. I did catch a part of the song about drawing and quartering him. I walked faster when they got to that. They had forgotten all about us trespassing, at least, or they didn't care. Alric was much worse.
And they had left the dragon. Even though I never wanted to see it again, I didn't like the thought of it staying in there and starving.
Once they had all stopped singing, I asked if all the dwarves were against Alric.
"Most are," the head dwarf told me. "There are some that have gone to the dark region. He told them he would give them treasure. Alric lies."
"He does," I said, thinking of my mother. He'd promised me her freedom. She was still in stasis as far as I knew, even though I had killed the person he wanted gone.
Alric had even tried to kill me.
"I thought dwarves stayed underground?" I asked.
These were the first dwarves I'd seen, even though I knew they existed. Candice stayed close to me as they broke out into song again. They sounded drunken or maybe this was what dwarf singing sounded like. Maybe they were all tone deaf and they liked Macon's horrible flute playing.
Even he stayed quiet through the singing. I wasn't sure what was worse.
Eventually, after many minutes of walking, the tunnel sloped uphill. We passed lots of strip mines and more dwarves that were hammering away inside of them. It looked like they were taking us to the surface. I was ready for a break from the underground.
The tunnel leveled off after a long time and by then my knees were protesting from the climb. I let out a breath and the dwarves all laughed. "You are weak," the head dwarf said. "Walk the mines every day and you become strong."
"Thanks," I told them. "The exit is that way, right?"
"Yes. Walk forward to the exit."
I reached out and shook hands with the dwarf. Some crumbs fell out of his beard. Candice grimaced but my light wasn't bright enough to betray that to everyone.
And with some hurried goodbyes, the dwarves turned away and vanished into the darkness. We listened to their footsteps get fainter and fainter.
"I couldn't imagine being down here all the time," Candice said.
"Well, dwarves like treasure about as much as dragons do. Maybe that's why they get along so well," I said.
We walked along the even tunnel and at last, some light that wasn't mine appeared up ahead. We were all sick of the darkness and eager to get out. Candice and I got in the lead, letting our eyes adjust to the brightness, and at last we emerged out into the daytime.
The world expanded forever.
I blinked. We must have been walking all night, because the sun was low in the sky and the air had that clammy nighttime feel. Early morning. The horizon was orange with dark clouds around the mountain peaks. I took a breath of the cold, fresh air and let it out slowly. We had come out on a mountain. All of us stood on a large, stone lip that jutted way above a pristine river that flowed far below. One fall off this would be the end. A narrow stone trail led off to the side and down the mountain. The entrance to the mines stood there, a dark square rimmed with ancient lumber.
This looked nothing like the Star Kingdom. The Star Kingdom was flat and full of warm forests and beaches. Some of these mountains had snow on them. I had never seen mountains on the horizon from anywhere in the Star Kingdom.
We had traveled very, very far.
"This is so bizarre," Candice said. "I can't believe this. It's like we just entered another world."
"Like I said," Stilt said. "The underworld is weird. Distance is different down there. For every step we take down there, we might be taking ten steps on the surface. Or we could be taking ten steps down there for every step on the surface."
"That doesn't physically make sense," Candice said.
"Does Fable physically make sense?" I asked. During my stay in the other world, I learned that no one really believed magic was possible. People had science there which told you that there were strict laws that governed the universe--laws that could never be broken. Maybe it was why people there had to have such good imaginations.
But at least we were on the surface for now.
We could take a break before making that final journey to Alric's lair.
It could be our final one.
* * * * *
It was cold up on the mountain. We weren't at the peak and only scrub plants grew around us but it was still enough to make me and Candice shiver. She was still in the white dress she'd been wearing back at Nori's castle. We all went to work gathering the scrub plants and making a pile for a fire. The wind kept blowing and it wasn't easy to get it started, even with magic, but at least I didn't have to hide all of my magic anymore. Brie thanked me for getting the fire started.
"You seem to have made a lot of fires," I said.
She nodded. "Stilt and I have done a lot of traveling through Fable during the last year. We worked for Mary and went around, trying to find stories before Alric could get to them."
"You're pretty dedicated," I said. I could sense there was more she wasn't telling me. "Does it have to do with Stilt being a prisoner there?"
Brie gulped and checked to make sure Henrietta wasn't in earshot. She and Macon sat against the mountain, deep in each other's worlds about forty feet away. "I was a prisoner of Henrik, too. It was us who cast him into the underworld with one of his own cursed apples. I used to be able to spin gold but I was able to put most of that power into the apple he ate. Henrik can spin gold now, but he's a hundred leagues under us as we speak. Even the dwarf mines didn't go down that far."
"Shh," I said. "Henrietta can't know that."
Brie shook her head. "Whoever I was in my past life didn't do a good job raising her. She's more like Henrik than what I would have been."
"True," Stilt said.
"Talk about awkward," I said. I wasn't the only one here who was wading through so much crap. Brie and Stilt had accidentally helped Alric rise to power. "I don't blame you for wanting to take down Alric. What about Rae and Henry? And Ignacia and Mica?"
"Rae
's adoptive mother was working with Alric," Brie explained. "She was dark, but used Rae's healing hair to hold that part of her back. A dark spot overtook Rae's tower and forced her to go searching for Henry, who had found her a few days before. Alric and Rae's fake mother pursued her and it turned out Alric had put Henry in a glass coffin. We had to rescue him. And Henry's old kingdom--it was down there, too. Henry still wants revenge for that, even though that kingdom was freed right along with him. Rae's mother might still be down there. Since she turned against Alric at the end, she could still be lying down there right along with the woman in pink that we found."
"Makes sense," I said. "What about Ignacia and Mica? I know Annie was chasing them."
"Mica's mother was working with Annie. Maybe he feels like he has to make up for not seeing that fast enough. Ignacia almost got killed because of that. If they strike Alric, they'll strike her a blow, too."
"Also makes sense," I said. The world tilted around me. I hadn't slept since that poisoned wine and that hadn't been real sleep. It might have been days ago with the underworld being the way it was. Behind Brie, the fire pointed to the side and almost went out in the wind, but managed to stay lit.
"So," Stilt said. "What's in this for you?"
My heart raced and I searched around for Candice, but she was over talking to Rae and Ignacia. Henry and Mica were also having a conversation.
Should I?
If Brie and Stilt were sort of responsible for letting Alric rise to power, would they understand where I was coming from? Candice wasn't here. But doing something by mistake was different than being this connected to someone so vile.
"I..." I stammered. "I..."
"Everyone," Mica said, lifting his arms into the air. "I think we should all rest here in this safe place while the sun is still up. I'm glad for the fresh air up here and I'm sure you are, too. Why don't we settle around the fire and try to take a nap? I will stay up and keep guard and I'll wake someone to take my place every two hours."
