by E. D. Baker
The spriggans shuffled their feet, waiting uneasily while Aislin drew more and more power into herself. She could see the glow around her through her closed eyelids as she absorbed more power than she ever had before. Her skin tingled and her heart pounded in her chest, but she didn’t stop until her body began to shake with the effort to hold the power in. Then, squeezing her hands into fists, she willed the rock to move, shutting off some openings and revealing others. The mountain groaned and shrieked as rock scraped rock, rearranging passageways that had been there for eons. Moving the rock around Gringle, Aislin herded him through the maze to the cave entrance that she herself had used. Frightened, the troll wailed as it ran.
Perspiration beaded Aislin’s forehead when the troll finally stumbled out of the mountain and staggered down the slope. With the last remains of the power she’d pulled into herself, she sealed off the entrance as if it had never existed. Although she was exhausted, she couldn’t help but smile. She had surprised herself by doing something that she hadn’t even known for sure that she could do. Apparently, taking the time to gather power first made a big difference.
“Wow!” Kimble said as Aislin opened her eyes and sat down, exhausted. “I don’t know what you just did, but it sure sounded like something big. Are you all right?”
Aislin nodded. “I will be. I just need to rest for a while.”
“Is the troll gone?” asked Smax.
“He is,” said Aislin. “I’m afraid you’ll have to relearn your maze. It’s not at all like it used to be.”
“What is going on here?” a new spriggan asked, stepping out of a large crack in the wall. Aislin hadn’t seen him before, though she’d assumed there were more living in the mountain. Suddenly the space around her was filled with spriggans, young and old, some gray with stone dust and others clean and tidy.
“You should have been here, Poppa,” said Kimble. “Aislin just rearranged parts of the mountain and got a troll to leave.”
“How did she do that?” asked a spriggan with a long beard as straggly as his hair. Although he was the oldest one there, with wrinkled skin and a cane to help him walk, his eyes were bright and he was as covered with stone dust as most of them.
“Aislin is a pedrasi princess!” Jinxie replied. “She can do anything.”
Aislin shook her head. “I wouldn’t say that. There are a lot of things I can’t do.” She couldn’t help but think of all the fairy abilities she wished she had. “But I did get rid of the troll.”
The bearded spriggan frowned. “My name is Winholt and I’m the Elder of Mount Gora. Whatever you did to the mountain, it’s probably unstable now and we’ll all have to leave.”
Aislin shook her head. “It’s not unstable. I was very careful. I even shored up some of the weaker parts near a waterfall.”
“I’ll go look,” another spriggan said, and ran off, holding a lantern in front of him.
Winholt wasn’t entirely convinced. “You’re a pedrasi princess? You don’t look like a pedrasi.”
Aislin sighed. “I get that a lot. Like I told the others, my grandfather is King Talus. I’m half pedrasi and half fairy.”
“If your grandfather is the king, you should be able to read pedrasi,” Winholt told her. “What does that say?” He pointed to something carved into the wall above the entrance to another tunnel.
Aislin studied it for a moment. The words were hard to read because so many of them were spelled oddly, but she finally read out loud, “This way to the baths. Be considerate of others. They want clean water, too.”
A spriggan snorted and clapped another on the back. “That means you, Spillip! You always leave a mess behind.”
Aislin chuckled, but knew she had to get on her way. “I’m sorry, but I have a lot of work to do and I’d like to get started,” she told them. “I want to remove the smoke stains from the trolls’ torches and clean up the rubble they left behind.”
“If you’re here, are the pedrasi coming back to live in the mountain?” asked a spriggan from the back of the group.
“Not as far as I know,” Aislin replied. “But I’m going to suggest that my grandfather start sending patrols to make sure that everything is all right. If anything comes up and you want to contact him, you can send him messages through the patrols.”
The spriggan holding the lantern came running back. “She was right! The weak places near the waterfall are a lot stronger now.” Aislin could tell the group was impressed.
“We can help you clean up,” Kimble told Aislin. “What do you need us to do?”
“You could pick up the rubble,” Aislin replied.
“What about the smoke stains?” asked Smax.
Aislin glanced at the stains on the ceiling. “Leave those to me. I have an idea that might work.”
She had been thinking about it ever since she saw the first stain. Although she was bone-achingly tired, she didn’t want to take the time to rest, so she drew power into herself once more and sent it back into the smoke-damaged rocks. Her first effort sheared off a chunk of rock, but with each attempt she took less and less, fine-tuning her skill until she was able to remove only the smoke-stained layers, leaving clean, healthy rock behind. Kimble put herself in charge of the dust-cleanup crew and made sure that the spriggans were thorough.
Aislin followed the route that the trolls had taken, removing the damaged rock while the spriggans swept up behind her. She worked as far as the tunnel leading to the lake, but didn’t go near the cavern. It didn’t take her long to finish.
Returning to the level where she’d entered the mountain, she closed her eyes once more and finished creating a map of Mount Gora in her mind. She also located three other exits that she could use. When she was finished, she turned to the spriggans who had been following her and said, “Thank you for your help, and please give my thanks to the others who helped as well.”
“Do you think you’ll ever come back?” asked Kimble.
Aislin smiled at her. “I will, as soon as I can. And maybe someday you can come visit me in Deephold.”
“I’d love that!” Kimble cried, grinning from ear to ear. “I want to see every part of Deephold. Do you think the pedrasi will like me?”
“I think they’ll like you a lot,” Aislin told her. “Especially after I tell them how much you helped me.”
Chapter 5
That morning it had taken Aislin nearly an hour to go from the spot where she’d left Twinket and the pedrasi guards to the opening into the mountain. Leaving the mountain was a different story, however. The new exit was more than two hours from their campsite and forced her to skirt tall boulders and pick her way over rough terrain to reach them.
It was early evening by the time Aislin finally saw the campsite. She was surprised to find that the only ones there were Twinket and two of the six guards. The collars of their stone-gray tunics bore the war hammer emblem of the pedrasi royals. One of the guards was a pedrasi girl named Tourmaline who everyone called Lin. She was shorter than Aislin and was muscular from all her intensive training. Like all pedrasi warriors, she wore her black hair cut short so it would fit in her helmet. Although Lin was only four years older than the princess, she was a full-fledged warrior.
The other guard was an orc girl, Deela. Taller and broader of shoulder than either a pedrasi or a fairy, she had tusks that curled up alongside her jaw and a pronounced ridge of bone above her eyebrows. Her hair was coarser, too, and was brown mixed with black. Like all orcs, Deela had been trained to fight as soon as she could walk. She was only three years older than Aislin and was already considered one of the fiercest warriors of Deephold. Lin had been born at Deephold, but Deela had been ten when she’d arrived at the mountain stronghold. Aislin had known both of them for much of her life.
Twinket looked up hearing Aislin’s approach, while the two guards raised their weapons. When they saw that it was the princess, Twinket jumped to her feet and the guards hurried to greet her.
Aislin nodded to Lin and Deela.
Glancing at the campsite, she frowned and asked, “Where are the others?”
Twinket was still clutching the necklace that Aislin had left with her that morning. “We heard all that racket in the mountain, and then the opening you’d used closed up and they got all worried. I looked at your necklace and told them you were fine,” the doll explained, “and Lin and Deela believed me, but the others wouldn’t listen and went running off all worked up and worried.” The stone pendant, a gift from Aislin’s fairy grandmother, was in tune with the princess’s moods, changing color as her mood changed. Anyone who saw the necklace could tell exactly what Aislin was feeling.
“The others left right away, but we waited when Twinket showed us the stone. We were concerned when it went red for a moment. When the color changed, we knew you could handle whatever you were facing,” added Deela.
“Those pedrasi men are new to Deephold and don’t know you like we do,” said Lin. “You are all right, aren’t you?”
“I’m fine,” Aislin said, taking a seat by the fire. “Just hungry and tired.” She covered her mouth, yawning. “I did what I needed to do. I’ll give my grandfather a full report when I see him.”
Aislin closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, Lin was offering her a plate piled with hot food and a cup of warm cider. Twinket stood by her feet, looking worried. “You went to sleep awfully fast. Are you all right? You didn’t get hit on the head or anything and get a concession?”
“You mean concussion, and no, I didn’t,” Aislin replied, and yawned again. “Like I said, I’m just really tired.” Her hands shook with fatigue as she took a sip of cider. She had only swallowed a bite of panfried fish and one of bread when her eyes drifted shut again.
Aislin woke the next morning to Twinket prying her eyelid open and staring into her eye from only inches away. “What are you doing?” Aislin asked, jerking her head to the edge of the pallet.
“I was checking to see if you were alive,” said Twinket. “The stone on your necklace was an odd color and you were making funny sounds. You stopped all of a sudden and I was worried.”
“Don’t ever do that again!” Aislin said, rubbing her eyelids with her knuckles.
“Ok,” the little doll said, hopping off the bed. “I’ll think of something else next time.”
“Ahem,” Deela said outside her tent flap. “If you’re awake, Your Highness, we have breakfast ready. The other guards are back and ready to go. We can travel farther if we get an early start.”
“I’ll be right there,” Aislin replied. “I’d like to reach Deephold as soon as we can. I have a lot to tell the king.”
“So do I,” said Twinket. “Like how he needs to send better pillows the next time we have to sleep in a tent. The one you were using was lumpy. I hardly got any sleep on it.”
After a quick breakfast, the small group headed down the mountain. It was early enough that dew glistened on the wildflowers and the songbirds were still greeting the new day. At first the plants were scrubby and low to the ground, but after a while the party entered a copse of slender trees. It wasn’t long before they were in a pine forest and had to wend their way between the trees single file, with Aislin in the middle of the group and Twinket riding on her shoulder. Aislin was thinking about the map of Mount Gora and how she would draw it for her grandfather, when suddenly something big and brown picked her up and squeezed the breath out of her.
“Ugh!” she yelped.
“Hey, watch it!” Twinket cried as the creature knocked her to the ground.
“Unhand the princess!” shouted Lin.
The brown creature gave Aislin one last squeeze before setting her down. Aislin took a deep, shuddering breath and looked up at her assailant. She knew right away that it was a Big Foot, because they often visited her parents’ castle. “Fluffy?” she said. It was hard to distinguish one from another because they were all covered in brown fur. Fluffy had fluffier fur than most, however, so it was quite possible that this was Aislin’s friend.
“’Tis I.” The Big Foot nodded and patted Aislin’s head. Although Aislin knew that Fluffy was very sweet, the Big Foot was over seven feet tall and had hands and feet as big as frying pans, making her look intimidating.
“Put your hands in the air and back away from the princess,” said Deela.
Fluffy grunted and put up her hands. She winked at Aislin as she backed away.
“It’s all right,” Aislin said when she noticed that the guards had their weapons out. “I know Fluffy. She didn’t mean any harm.”
“What about me?” Twinket asked, brushing off her gown. “I’m not all right! I landed on some pokey pine needles and now my gown is sticky with pine sap.”
“Sorry about that,” said Fluffy.
“No one is supposed to touch a member of the royal family without express permission,” said Lin.
“Fluffy has my permission,” Aislin told her, then lowered her voice to say to the Big Foot, “though please try not to hug me so hard next time. What are you doing here?”
“I was about to ask you that very thing,” said Fluffy. “I was on my morning stroll when who should I see but my old friend, Princess Aislin, who I hear is now the hero of the kingdom. A little bird told me that you let humans kidnap you to protect your family and everyone in the castle. Is that true, or was that finch making up stories again?”
“It’s true,” Aislin confessed. “But I’m back now and everything is fine.”
“I can see that,” Fluffy said with a grin. “Are the fairies returning to the human kingdoms or is that just a nasty rumor?”
“They’re going back,” Aislin told her. “And it’s going to happen soon.”
“But your parents are staying in their castle, right? I really like your home and visiting it is such fun! I don’t like humans, though. Most of them don’t think Big Foots are real. My great grandfather says that he moved to the land between the mountains because the humans that saw him tried to shoot him with arrows. You couldn’t pay me enough to move back there.”
“My parents are staying right where they are,” Aislin reassured her.
“Good!” Fluffy declared. “Then you can count on me to visit again soon. I’ve been thinking about taking a nice long walk.”
Fluffy waved goodbye as they continued on. Twinket watched her from atop Aislin’s shoulder and seemed relieved when the Big Foot was out of sight. “I don’t like Fluffy,” Twinket told Aislin. “Her fur tickles my nose and makes me sneeze. Plus, she smells funny.”
“She smells like pine trees,” said Aislin.
“That’s what I mean,” Twinket told her. “Only fairies should smell like plants. Uh oh, look straight ahead. There’s a bunch of gnomes waiting by the edge of the path. What do you suppose they want?”
The pine forest was merging with a stand of oak trees, which meant that they were entering the valley that led to Sweet River. A stream meandered along one side of the path while the other side was thick with knee-high ferns. The ferns looked as if they were blossoming with dots of red and yellow, purple and blue. Both Aislin and Poppy knew that the bright colors weren’t really flowers; they were gnomes’ pointed caps.
“Greetings!” called a gnome, stepping onto the path. His bright red cap stood out like a beacon and would have been hard to miss.
The guards stopped walking to gather around the princess as if to protect her. “You don’t need to guard me from gnomes!” Aislin cried. “Let him approach.”
“Maybe I should do the talking,” Twinket whispered into her ear. “I don’t think we know him.”
“Then it’s time I met him,” said Aislin. “I don’t need your help, Twinket.”
“We’ll see about that,” the little doll muttered.
“Welcome to Joyful Valley, Your Highness,” the gnome said as he drew close. Like all older male gnomes, he had white hair, a long, white beard, and a flowing white mustache. He also had twinkling blue eyes and a grin that made Aislin want to smile, too. Even his voice seemed
to have a smile in it. “We heard you were coming this way, so my family and friends have come to witness this historic moment.”
“Thank you,” said Aislin. “I’m delighted to meet all of you.”
“Word has spread about how valiantly you strove to defend your castle by letting the humans take you away. We have relatives who live in the castle, so we owe you our personal thanks. My name is Bobble. You may know my brother, Gambol.”
“Of course, I know Gambol,” Aislin replied. She knew everyone in her parents’ castle. Gambol was in charge of the stables and had a real way with animals. “I’m delighted to meet you, Bobble.”
The gnome bowed and backed away while gesturing toward the ferns. “And these are my family and friends,” he said, prompting a flood of gnomes to step onto the path.
Though most of the adults bowed and waved at Aislin, the gnome children jumped up and down to get her attention. Aislin was surprised when a gnome mother held up her baby and said, “Please kiss her for luck!”
Aislin smiled and bent down to kiss the baby. When the tiny infant cooed and gurgled, all the gnomes laughed and applauded. After that, the rest of the mothers held up their babies, expecting them to be kissed as well. It wasn’t until Aislin had kissed all the infants and patted all the children on their heads and shaken the hand of every adult that the gnomes finally moved out of her way so she could continue on.
“I counted one hundred thirty-two gnomes,” Twinket told Aislin as they walked through the valley. “Although I may have missed a few. Just how big is a gnome’s family?”
“It varies,” said Aislin. “They weren’t all his family. Some of them were his friends.”
Twinket laughed. “That’s still a lot of gnomes in one place!”
Soon the pine trees gave way to maples and oaks. Decaying leaves cushioned the party’s steps and the sun’s rays filtered down to light their way. Aislin was enjoying the scent of loam and growing things when a cloud of tiny fairies descended on the group. The guards stopped once again to cluster around Aislin, eyeing the fairies closet to them.
