by Rick Johnson
Picking up the small pack, Angelana waited while the others placed their earplugs. Seeing that everyone was ready, she nodded toward S’Might and the Rabbit stepped forward into the opening under the stairs. Emil, PorNart, and Angelana followed. When all were in the opening under the stairs, Angelana flipped a hidden switch.
The panel silently closed, leaving the friends in darkness. The darkness, however, was not complete. The bundle of leaves Angelana was carrying had begun to glow with a luminous, blue light. Emil and PorNart watched as the light gradually grew stronger. Although dim, the luminescent leaves provided enough light to illumine their surroundings.
Ahead of them, a passage led downward at a slight angle. As the friends moved forward, following the light held by Angelana, they found that the passage soon opened into an empty space of considerable size. The light was not bright enough to reveal the entirety of the space, but it was apparent they had entered a cave. It looked as if the refuse of some monstrous fiery forge had provided the material to build up the cave. Ashes, clinkers, and cinders were piled everywhere. Yet water seeping and flowing over the eons had also covered the scorched and blasted rock with multicolored mineral deposits.
“The house is built to connect to a cave system,” Emil thought to himself in amazement. “Someone has built a very peculiar house for some very peculiar reason.”
From that point on, a weird journey unfolded with each step, for there were new colors and odors around every corner. Hot steam escaping from fissures and cracks produced a wild mixture of sound—whistles, screaming, roaring, hissing. Even with good boots on, Emil felt heat radiating from the rocks underfoot as he walked.
At one point, a stream of hot water ran swiftly over and among the rocks. Fortunately, the friends did not have to cross that stream, but later did have to skip and jump among pools of hot water boiling and steaming by the dozens. Hissing jets of steam sometimes came out unexpectedly, as if someone had thrown a switch to turn them on. S’Might knew the locations of these jets, however, and directed PorNart and Emil around the gaping, black openings that harbored these dangerous jets.
Rounding a point of rock, Emil noticed a curious glow lightening the gloom some distance further down the trail. When the party drew nearer, Emil saw a gigantic pool of mud boiling and bubbling like a monstrous pot. Bubbles containing explosive vapors rose to the surface and burst into a brief flash of flame. S’Might signaled for the group to stop. As the group watched, the mud rose, filling the mud pot basin. When filled completely, the center bubbled furiously, giving off a dramatic show of exploding bubbles. Then, without warning, an immense mass of super-heated mud, mixed with steam and exploding bubbles, blew high in the air with a tremendous WHOOOSH. Even with the earplugs, Emil could feel the sound vibration throughout his body. The eruption lasted only a few seconds. When the mud pot had again settled down, S’Might signaled for the party to move forward. Although the mud pot had again receded, it continued to throw waves of hot mud at the sides of the basin. The THUD-THUD-THUD of the scalding mud hitting the rocky barrier holding it back brought a sick queasiness to Emil’s stomach.
This portion of the trail, now covered with steaming mud, was tricky. Everyone knew that one slip would land a poor beast in the scalding, roiling mud just a few feet away. When PorNart once took a minor misstep, he reached out to catch hold of a projecting rocky outcrop to regain his balance. “YEOW!” he hollered involuntarily, trying to stifle the sound. The rock was too hot to handle and he let go of it as if it was fire itself. The temperature in the cave was not blistering, but at the limits of tolerable. Another small degree or two further would be hazardous. All of the travelers constantly wiped sweat from their eyes. All the while, beyond the small circle of what was visible in the dim light, there was a veritable army of invisible bubbling, hissing, and fizzing vents and cauldrons. It seemed as if the very cave itself was throbbing and quivering.
For more than two hours, S’Might conducted the group through the scorching heat, nauseous fumes, and tortured rock smoothed by hideously colored minerals. Although fairly spacious and easy to walk for the most part, at times the path crossed suspension bridges freely swinging above treacherous pits. Some bridges ran for long distances and Emil marveled at the sturdy work the bridge-builders had done. A few pits ran with rushing streams of hot water, and the party had to cross with clouds of sulfurous steam billowing around them.
Gradually, the floor of the cave began to slope upwards. S’Might led the little party up the slope for perhaps another two-hundred feet. He stopped beneath a wide horizontal fissure in the cavern wall about ten feet above his head. Clouds of steam poured out of the fissure.
Angelana reached into her pack, pulling out a length of rope with a specially-tied noose at one end. She draped the coil of rope around S’Might’s neck so that it rested on his shoulders with the noose dangling just below his chin. Crouching, the Rabbit launched another mighty leap. There was no fancy flip this time, but S’Might landed easily on the edge of the steam vent.
PorNart and Emil exchanged looks of amazement. Chuckling merrily at his ability to astound the two newcomers, S’Might happily took a bow. Everyone laughed heartily.
Bending over, the Rabbit caught the noose securely over a rocky outcrop. He let the rest of the rope uncoil off the ledge and it unrolled down to where Angelana stood.
Grabbing the rope, the young Wolf readied herself to rappel up the cave wall. In a few moments, Angelana climbed up on the ledge to where S’Might waited. She dropped the rope back to those waiting below.
Emil indicated that PorNart should go first. Grabbing the rope firmly, PorNart slowly began to follow Angelana’s example. However, his strength was still not completely restored from his recent ordeals. Puffing and wheezing, he struggled to move inch by inch up the wall. Angelana, seeing his difficulty, grabbed the rope and pulled. The boost from the young Wolf helped PorNart make faster progress. Soon he was also on the ledge. In a few more minutes, Emil joined the group.
When all were on the ledge, S’Might turned toward the steam vent and jumped straight into it, dropping out of sight. Angelana signaled to PorNart and Emil that they should wait a moment before jumping. After perhaps a minute, she pointed to Emil, indicating he should jump. Grimly eying his friends, he also jumped into the dark, billowing cloud of steam.
Swoosh! Schloosh! Emil landed in a thick, deep growth of soft moss and ferns. Light filtered through the ferns, bathing the entire scene in soft light. For the first time since entering the Grand Deep, Emil could see his surroundings clearly. Above his head, Emil could see the dark opening through which he had dropped. S’Might was standing nearby, smiling, but motioning urgently for him to move out of the way. Realizing that the next beast would be dropping any second, Emil rolled out of the way. Swoosh! Schloosh! Just as Emil stood up next to S’Might, PorNart landed in the moss and ferns. He, too, rolled out of the way and, in another few moments, Angelana also dropped into the greenry.
When all had landed safely, Emil explored this new place with his eyes. They seemed now to be in another cavern, but very different from the one they had just left. It seemed more like an open pocket in the rock, underneath a massive overhanging outcrop. About the size of a small cottage, it was open to the outside at the far end. Instead of the blasted rock and noxious stench of the Grand Deep, a luxurious growth of fresh-smelling moss and ferns covered an entire side of this new cavern. The luxuriant growth surrounded a small pool of fresh, clear water. At the front of cavern, sunlight streamed in through a tangle of massive tree roots that covered much of the opening to the outside. At the back of the space, spring water seeped through the rock and trickled down into the pool, causing the thick growth. A tiny stream ran away from the pool, meandering out of the cavern to the outside.
“Welcome to SnowFire—my home,” Angelana said proudly, sweeping her arm around the area. The cavern was inhabited! Arranged at one side, were a few homemade chairs, a couple of tables, and a mattress over-stuffed
with moss. Clothes, books, and eating utensils were stored neatly on rock ledges. Ingenious layers of small sticks, joined in crosshatch style, formed the frame of most of the furniture. One particularly unique table, however, caught Emil’s eye.
He walked over to the table, his curiosity growing. In addition to its unique construction, the table held numerous unusual objects. A large specimen of fungus was laid out, the entirety of its surface glistening with a purple resin. The skull of what Emil took to be a very large Wolf, was also upon the table, along with numerous books and a candle. Looking more closely, Emil could see that an inscription ornamented the Wolf’s skull: “Act wisely, learn quickly, and think bravely, that others may live.” As if this were not amazing enough, now that he was standing beside the table, he could see that it was cleverly made from—the shafts of arrows! This astonishing array of items left Emil speechless. He stood mutely wondering what it all meant.
“Take a good look,” Angelana said, “and you will not be so surprised by what I am going to tell you. Come over and rest up while I tell you about this place.” Weary from their tense trek through the cave, all the beasts, except Angelana, quickly collapsed into comfortable chairs.
“I call my home SnowFire,” Angelana began, “because it’s a place where snow and fire mix and mingle. The cold water you see from the spring over there has flowed down from the mountains that begin just outside this place. When that cold water meets the super-heated rock that underlies much of this area—like in the cave we just came through—you get a lot of steam.” She paused and, with a faraway look in her eyes, continued, “And, more than that, snow and fire meet in this place in another sense, too.” The young Wolf was quiet for several seconds, then said, “Here, the frozen, snow-cold hearts of slavers meet the fiery heart of Angelana!”
“What do you mean?” Emil asked.
“I mean that Angelana helps beasts who have escaped from slavers. I lead them to freedom.” She walked over to the table that had caught Emil’s interest. “Do you see what this table is made from?” she asked.
“It’s made from arrows—bundles of arrows glued together to make lumber,” Emil answered, with surprise.
“Very good,” the Wolf replied. She moved her paw over the table’s legs, letting her nail click-click-click as she pulled it methodically across each of the rounded arrows. “Each of the arrows represents one of the first slaves that my Grandmother Angelana took to freedom,” she continued proudly. “Grandmother was the first of our clan to help slaves escape. She is my namesake.”
The Wolf picked up the skull from the table. Holding the skull gently, almost tenderly, Angelana went on, “This is Grandmother’s skull…would you read the inscription, please, Emil?”
“Act wisely, learn quickly, and think bravely, that others may live.” Emil said, not looking at the inscription. So powerfully had the statement affected him when he first read it, that it now was seared into his mind.
“Yes,” Angelana replied. “Once she became Mar of SLOPS—I’ll explain that in a moment—Grandmother Angelana said that everyone who worked with her must live by those words.”
Angelana paused for a few moments with her eyes closed, as if remembering those past days. “When Grandmother Angelana died, she asked only that the work be continued and her words remembered. And, as you see she left some instructions about how we might not easily forget her words.”
“Mar-Marie and Ord are in this with you, aren’t they?” PorNart asked.
“Of course,” Angelana chuckled, “how could it be any other way? My father is Angelana’s son—and when Grandmother Angelana began to “run SLOPS” as we say, he was right there with her.” Seeing the puzzled look in the eyes of her friends, the young Wolf added, “SLOPS is our shorthand for Slave-Losing Operations. That’s the system that gets escapees out of the Granite Hulks slave-works at Tilk Duraow and sends them by sea to the Sharkict lands, where they can make a new start.”
“How do you do that?” Emil questioned excitedly.
“We have Grandmother Angelana to thank for that,” the young Wolf replied, placing the skull carefully back in its place on the table. “When she brought Father to the Everlost—that’s the name for the thick reed forests and wetlands where your balloon landed—she came with a plan. She was determined to work with all her might against the slaving system that builds Maev Astuté.”
Angelana paused and pointed to the cavern opening. “Just beyond that opening is the deepest canyon in the world—so far as anyone knows—the Lost Ways Crack,” she said. “Grandmother Angelana was the first to run the river at the bottom of it. When I take you out there, you’ll see why other beasts never come through here. It’s lovely right outside but, once you’re on the river, you go into the very guts of hell. The earth is torn open and gigantic splinters of rock are everywhere, jumbled in every possible direction. The river splits into a thousand channels as it moves around the rocks and most of them go nowhere. Some plunge into open lava flows, bursting into ferocious, river-sized plumes of super-heated steam. Others run into rocks piled like a sieve that smashes anything that approaches to bits. Or, perhaps, you’re lucky and get washed into an underground channel, with no way to get back out. That’s why this place is called Lost Ways Crack—innumerable lost ways, with only one way through. Following the route that Grandmother found, a beast can go through the Lost Ways Crack and exit through a sea cave at the edge of the ocean.”
“What?” Emil exclaimed, so astonished he could barely breathe the word.
“Grandmother Angelana learned that it’s possible to travel down from the Granite Hulks of Tilk Duraow, emerge into the Everlost, travel through the Grand Deep, then ride the river through the Lost Ways Crack out to sea. The river comes out through a sea cave along a rocky coast littered with shipwrecks. The land around there is so rugged and littered with shipwrecks that locals call it “the Spook’nings.” After a storm, sometimes lots of bones wash ashore—it’s a really creepy place. No one goes there. Even if it weren’t creepy, the bare, rocky shore has nothing on it of interest to most beasts.”
“But it’s actually of great interest, isn’t it?” Emil observed.
“Yes, indeed,” the young Wolf smiled. “That’s where you will meet our Sharkict friends in the darkest part of the night. They will take you aboard one of their fishing boats and away to safety.”
“Take us away!” Emil exploded. “I don’t want to be taken away! I want to return to my family!”
“I’m sorry,” Angelana replied, “but that isn’t possible.”
“What do you mean it isn’t possible?” Emil said angrily.
“Once beasts know about SLOPS,” Angelana said, “we can’t afford to have them return to normal society. If one of those beasts makes even an innocent mistake and reveals our operations, the High One will have armies of Skull Buzzards and other such thugs down on our heads. That would be the end of this route to freedom for hundreds of beasts.”
“Now just hold it right there,” Emil thundered. “Are you saying that you can’t trust a Wood Cow? Why, there’s no more honest and trustworthy clan to be found! If you think a Wood Cow can’t keep a secret—why, you’ve never known a Wood Cow!”
Angelana was not listening. She waited patiently while Emil finished his rant, but her eyes clearly communicated that she was merely being polite. Emil could see that his protest was having no affect, and he fell into silence.
“Of course, I respect the Wood Cows,” Angelana continued when Emil had finished. “Everyone knows the Wood Cows are renowned for their trustworthiness. That’s not the issue. The issue is that every beast makes mistakes in their lives—things they never intend to do, but that just happen. Such things have nothing to do with honesty and trustworthiness. They just happen at times. It is the likelihood that some beast will make a mistake that we cannot afford.”
“So what will happen to us?” PorNart asked.
“In a few minutes, after we’ve rested, “S’Might will lead you the
rest of the way to the sea-cave where you will meet your transport. A Sharkict fishing boat stops every second Tuesday in the middle of the night. If we are there, they take aboard what escaped beasts we have. If we are not there, they know we have no one to load. It’s a very simple system.”
“What if I want to stay and work with you?” PorNart asked. “I have no reason to leave if there is something I can do to help SLOPS.”
Angelana looked intently at the Coyote. “Anyone caught working with SLOPS would be hanged. But as an escapee, you would probably be fed to the dragons instead. We have never lost anyone, but that is because we only have a small handful of workers who know what we do and how we do it. We don’t bring new beasts into the operation.”
“You did not answer my question,” PorNart replied. “You said what happens if I’m caught and why you have only a few workers, but that was not the question I asked. Please answer my question.”
“What would you contribute to SLOPS that we don’t already have?” Angelana asked. “SLOPS runs fine with just the right number of beasts now—why would we increase the danger to the entire operation by adding another beast? That’s the answer to your question,” Angelana said firmly.
“What if I’m a blacksmith by livelihood and could repair the balloon? What if I could not only fix it but also make it fly better and carry more than it does now? What if you could fly the escaped slaves out by air?” PorNart replied. “You see, I can answer a question with a question also.”
