by Kevin Lawler
“Ah, here we go. More unauthorized spellcasting,” said Anson. “Now we’ve grown by two demon dogs, come of the netherworld no less, to wreak what evil I can’t possibly imagine.”
The dogs panted playfully, turned in the direction of the talking hunter. Nothing about them indicated malice of any kind. They tromped about, playing with each other, darting to and from the group.
“Is it true,” asked Darren, “that casting spells is what drives you mad?”
“Something this simple will hardly make a difference, but yes,” Louisa said, “More likely a humdinger of a spell is going to result in a hangover the next morning. Madness doesn’t start to set in unless you really overdo it, so the thinking goes, or to older witches who’ve used their magic a little to liberally in their career. This witch would’ve had to be behaving unusually.”
The smell in the mine had changed. Ipsy sniffed at the dogs. Then she sniffed at the mongoose crisscrossing her shoulders. “What is that?” Ipsy said, “Sulfur? And B.O.?”
“Close,” said Phil, “the explosive gems contain traces of naturally occurring mercaptans. The smell isn’t great but the upside is we don’t have to cart in a bunch of blasting equipment. The downside is you have to be careful swinging a pickaxe around here. All the work has to be done by hand and it takes much longer.”
They went deeper into the mine. In places the passageways descended so steeply that it was hard to walk normal. Occasionally a bee would fly past, and the dogs would watch as it went.
They passed a brown quartz-like stone that was embedded in the wall like broken beer bottles, and Phil hunched over it to inspect it. Topple observed his interest amusedly. “So, you like to play with rocks?”
“No,” Phil said, standing to meet her, “It’s my passion. It’s the reason I get up in the morning and the reason I go to sleep at night. Rocks are what I do. What’s your passion? Do you know what it is?”
Phil waited.
“Or are you traipsing through without a purpose?” Phil asked. “That wouldn’t describe you would it?”
A disturbance caused Otto the mongoose to spring from Ipsy’s shoulder. Louisa’s dogs were barking scared. They were down on their forepaws, barking at the ground, keeping their distance. In front of them, standing its ground, was a little, skittering creature, a scorpion, whose body was composed of red, yellow, and purple gems moving in conjunction. The dogs barked, then backed up, then made to nip at the creature from a safe distance, unsure of what to do.
The dogs were bigger and heavier but the scorpion stood his ground. He snipped his sharp-looking pincers and bobbed the comma of a stinger atop his tail. Jewel-yellow venom glistened on the point. On its eight gem-encrusted legs the scorpion swept from side to side, armored in crystal, jockeying with the dogs for the floor of the mine.
Otto crept behind Okoboji the female greyhound, using her for cover to study the scorpion. His head moved in time with the bobbing of the scorpion’s tail. Then, too fast for Winter to see clearly, the mongoose lunged at the scorpion and took him up in his mouth. Otto whipped the creature around violently. After seconds of thrashing half of the scorpion broke off and flung against the wall. The color drained from the gems, and the pincer-half of the scorpion’s body collapsed into individual gems.
The stinger rested harmlessly on the tail-end of the piece still in Otto’s mouth. Otto let the tail fall to the ground. Then he opened his mouth and a small, clear stone covered in drool dropped from between his tiny fangs. “Ew”, said Meadow. Otto chattered at the group for approval. Meadow managed a part-smile, part-frown. Otto tested the stone again to be certain he couldn’t eat it. Then he climbed up the back up Ipsy’s leg and trunk and came to rest on her shoulder.
Winter thought twice about facing the mad witch. She had volunteered in front of everybody, though, so now she was committed. The last time Winter had squared off against a witch, Agnes, it had been a blowout. In Winter’s defense, that was a 3 on 1. Not that it mattered, but still. Now Winter was going to be expected to fight. Against a real, active witch. Not just to escape alive, but to put the other witch down. Winter wondered how much harder it was going to be. How strong was the mad witch? What spells did she know? The thought horrified Winter.
“You know, Winter,” Meadow said, “This is your show. Shouldn’t you be in the front? You know, up with Will?”
Chapter 17
Being sent to the front made Winter very nervous, because now she was marching by Will. He had been a distraction before, and now, despite being in a dangerous mine, walking next to him was taking up all of her brainpower. What was he going to say? What should she say? She worried she was going to trip over something.
It occurred to her that she should call her pig. Was marching behind a pig unattractive? She wasn’t sure. The pig would make her look MORE attractive, right, because of the contrast? She didn’t care. The pig was backup. She could use him right now. Wrangling him would give her something to do, make her look busy. Yes, calling the pig was the right thing to do. It would take her mind off things.
Winter stepped to the side and began calling her pig. She messed it up the first time, and the second, with everyone watching, and it ended up taking her three tries before the pig came. When he landed in the mine he immediately set to snuffling about, and it took Winter a second to rein him in and impress upon him the gravity of the situation, that they were in a mine, and that it wouldn’t do to go nosing around, when he might collapse into a sinkhole full of caustic water.
Wrangling the pig did occupy Winter’s mind for a minute, but it also only increased her embarrassment, and pretty soon once she had gotten into the routine of corralling the pig, her thoughts turned again to her place in line, and she began dwelling on what she should do about it. Every footstep seemed like an indication that she was incorrectly missing her turn to speak. Finally, the anxiety of the silence was too much for her. “So, are we going to talk about what happened?” she blurted to Will.
Will, who had been doing his best to avoid her pig, carried forward as if he didn’t hear.
“I know you remember me,” Winter said. She thought she sounded crazy. Why? These were perfectly reasonable questions to ask. Even as she heard herself sounding crazy, she couldn’t control it.
“You captured me, we went camping.” The words came through her nervousness, all equally bad, because that was the best she could do.
“Here, hold this,” Will said to her. He handed her a heavy pack he had been carrying and she held it, waiting for him to speak. When it seemed that he wouldn’t she tried to hand it back, but he had started walking faster than her, inspecting the passages ahead, and the distance was too great. She could feel the eyes of her mentors observing her. She didn’t want to make more of a scene. She shouldered the heavy backpack and kept walking. She felt the straps digging into her shoulders from the weight. What was in this thing?
Winter realized at that moment that facing the mad witch didn’t just mean not losing, it meant winning, which meant killing the witch. Were they really expecting her to kill someone? Oh God, she thought. Are there police down here? What if someone found out? The hunters were sort of like police, but it was their job to kill witches. This lady probably had a family, or she had come from one anyway. She would fight back. To kill her you’d need to be strong. What if I’m not strong enough to kill her? she thought. What if she kills me?
Ahead of them around a bend a long orange prong appeared and planted itself on the floor. As the rest of its legs came into view the creature revealed itself to be a giant neon-orange crab. It must have towered in height above Winter. The creature shuffled into view as the flippery part of its mouth twitched. There was a gasp from the witches behind her.
This thing might try to kill her. It might try to kill the rest of her friends, too. Should she attack it? What if it ran at her? She was the one in front. It was up to her to act. Winter didn’t delay. She overrode any nervousness she felt. She would levitate him into the air
to buy time.
Winter flipped up both of her hands at the same time. The heavy backpack she was carrying had restricted the range of motion of her arms, but she got them where she needed them to be. The spell launched the crab high up into the air, thirty feet plus towards the cavern ceiling. There were stalactites hanging down from the top and they were knocked loose from colliding with the speeding crab. The spell kept pushing the crab as the stalactites fell. The crab’s eyestalks bent as he was forced against the ceiling.
Winter stood back out of the way as the first stalactites connected with the ground and exploded in flame.
“Incendiary deposits,” Phil shouted.
Finally the spell waned and the crab entered free fall. He landed in the center of the fire caused by the stalactites, kicking up dust and embers. It sounded like the landing split the bottom of his carapace. The wounded crab tried to stand and walk, but he could hardly move and the flames were roasting him too quickly. He made a really sad face for a crab. The flames kicked up higher from a deposit and the crab’s legs gave out. The flames tickled all around him.
“What are you doing?” Anson exclaimed at Winter, “What did you do?”
“These are our pack animals,” Darren said, “What’s wrong with you? You animal. He was peaceful. They eat plants.”
The crab wheezed and was still, roasting in the fire-illuminated cavern. Winter’s face reddened. The crab simmered in the fire. It was then that Winter noticed large, padlocked bands restraining his claws.
They sat there for a minute watching the crab roast. Anson and Darren came from the back of the group to approach the crab.
“Why would you do that?” Will said to Winter.
The flames died down enough that the miners could get close. Darren hefted a backpack-sized rock and straddled the crab’s arm. He slammed the rock down upon the dominant claw splitting it in two. He reached his hand into the split shell and pulled out a handful of crab meat which he pressed into his mouth with the flat of his palm. “Oh my God,” he said around mouthfuls of crab meat, “You have to try this.”
“Wow,” Topple said, amazed, “I guess you are good at some spells.”
Anson scaled the crab to get leverage. When he had reached the top of the head, he grabbed the side of the face and pushed against the bottom of the crab with his boot. The shell of the crab ripped from the base with a gruesome cracking. It took all of Anson’s might to flip it over. He started scooping handfuls of mush from behind the crab’s eyes. “You’ve got to try some of the crab butter,” he said.
Will looked at him but walked up to Darren to join him in eating the crab claw.
“After,” suggested Anson.
Winter noticed the mine, which to this point had been a series of successive monocolor rooms, with the occasional gradient, was now taking on a rainbow hue. Every room was filled with rich yellows and reds and greens. The walls drew on the spectrum in every possible way, and the color patternings on the wall, evoking rectangles and tubes, seemed crystalline in nature, yet artistic, too structured to be the product of random chance, yet organic all the same.
They entered an enormous cavernous space that stretched on almost farther than was visible. The center path was a narrow slab of rock, and on the sides were the first gel-filled pools.
“Don’t fall in,” Anson said, “If you do, there won’t be any point in dragging you out.”
In a pool the size of a dunk tank was the corpse of a man reaching for the surface, immobile and immaculately preserved. He wore an unrusted conquistador’s helmet with a lengthy feather, and judging by the rest of his dated dress must have been there for centuries. His eyes looked at them from out of the pool, revealing his thoughts that if he could only reach a little further, then he might make it. Where the man’s fingers and the top of the feather would’ve broken the surface of the pool they were instead missing as if sheered by the waterline. Everything above the surface was gone, everything below it, preserved.
Winter hurried away from the corpse. She inspected another one of the pools. This one seemed less jelly-like. The surface was coated in a reflective film: a thin layer of deposits floating on top of the liquid. The pig came up to the side to look as well, and the pebbles he knocked in, sploosh plop, shattered the film on the surface. Where the pebbles passed shattered the surface film like a mirror. Reflective shards spun around inside the exit wounds. The pebbles at the bottom of the pool sizzled, emitting a tiny stream of carbonation.
From one point on the ceiling to another a long beam of rock stretched from one point on the ceiling to another, and miniature white spiders crisscrossed it like snowfall. Winter drew away from the beam as she walked past. The road, as it was, continued to lead down.
In the other pools were more bodies from other ages, the result of a great fight it looked like. Winter would’ve placed them from the early 1800s.
Topple pulled a silver flask from her jacket took a long drink.
“What is that?” Ipsy asked.
“Saké,” said Topple, and she offered the flask to Ipsy. Ipsy took a good draw. She let her green hair fall back as she drank. Then she returned the flask.
“Odd choice but good,” Ipsy said.
“What’s up with your hair,” Darren asked Ipsy, “You go swimming too long?”
Ipsy frowned at him.
“You know, Will here is descended from the legendary Witch-Killer Randall. Isn’t that right, Will?” Darren asked.
“So they tell me,” said Will.
“You should be careful. Don’t accidentally kill one of them, hotshot,” said Darren, and he winked.
“Yeah, I’d hate for an accident to happen,” said Ipsy, and she bumped Darren towards one of the pools. Darren, despite being nowhere near the pool, shouted “Hey! Watch it!” loudly and overreacted in returning to his place in the marching order.
They were bypassing an underground lake, whose true extent Winter suspected was hidden below the overhanging of rock. Several gemstones collected at the bottom of the lake illuminated it from below. Translucent shrimp played in the shallow end, purple against the sandy bottom. A school of baby silver fish darted in before poking back out into the wider lake.
Louisa knelt by the lakeside where the fish had been. “Underground fry,” said Louisa, “How did you get down here?”
Winter hear the faint echo of a screeching in the distance. They all heard it. Everyone stopped and looked at each other for a read.
“That’s not a normal sound from the mine,” Anson said.
“She must be close,” said Cal, “It won’t be long. Ready your things. And stick together. Winter, being up front is a good way to get experience. It’s also a good way to get killed. Fall back if it gets too much for you. Don’t die your first run out.”
One wall of the next room was covered in a floor-to-ceiling moulding of honeycomb. Despite the large deposits of honeycomb, Winter didn’t see any bees. On one half of the wall the cubbyholes were empty, and on the other the tilings were covered in a dark wax. Winter thought the wax might make an interesting candle and so she grabbed a handful of it and put it in her pocket.
Meadow walked along the other wall, dragging her hand against it and across to the far wall with the honeycomb. “This is weird, to be in here so deep,” she said. She kept walking absentmindedly and dragging her hand, when it caught on a loose rock surface. She stopped for a moment and pulled. The others were already ahead of them, and Winter had nearly caught up to Meadow. Meadow pulled again on the rock and it came off and fell to the floor where it snapped in half. Behind the missing covering was an inset in the wall filled with gemstones. Meadow gaped for a second before reaching out to grab them. It was a multicolored collection of many large and purposeful-looking glistening gems, like a sparkling bowl of Halloween and Easter candycorn mixed together. Meadow turned and saw Winter. “C’mon, stuff your pockets!” she said. Winter joined in. She had to take beeswax out of her pockets to make room. Then they ran to catch up with th
e rest of the group in the next room.
In the center of the floor a cluster of large tubes faced the ceiling. The cap of one of the tubes had been broken off and the inside was filled with a crystallized honey. It looked like sludge. The tube next to it was still had its cap. The cap was transparent and Winter could just see through it. Inside the polygonal tube was the round, bean-eyed pupa of a bee, staring up. It looked about a foot and a half long. Winter looked harder at the cloudy tubes surrounding it. Three of the other tubes were filled with the still pupae. It skeeved Winter out.
The smell in the room was off. Like something rotting.
Behind a bend at the far end Winter found something else. There were tubes, like in the center, but these were larger, and the honey that was in them sparkled blue, like the shaft of a glitter gel pen. This honey didn’t appear solid. It looked melty for some reason.
Topple rapped on the side of a tube as she waited for Winter and Meadow. “That doesn’t look very good,” she said.
In the next cavern they discovered the source of the smell. Two of the dead miners slumped over on the ground. Their corpses were bloated. Winter pulled her collar up over her nose. Scattered bees flew through the room, but no actual flies. Now and then one of the bees would land on a corpse, look around, seemingly with no purpose, then take off again.
Anson grunted gruffly. The other hunters looked at him. But he didn’t say anything. Winter couldn’t tell if he knew them well or not.
“Can we get out of here?” Winter asked through fabric, “I don’t mean to be impolite.”
The hunters waved her on. Winter walked past them. She tried to walk through the loose cloud of bees, and as she did, she noticed them headbutting her. It was as if the bees were trying to stop her from moving forward. She wondered if they were trying to sting her. But she pushed through the cloud without being stung.
