The Blue Shoe

by Roderick Townley

  Don’t panic! he commanded, feeling a growing hysteria.

  Can’t breathe!

  Strangely, he discovered that one of his legs was free. It made no sense, unless …unless there was an open space below him!

  Squirming both feet around, he dislodged some of the debris. Then, in a rush, it all fell away, and he fell with it, landing with a painful thump ten feet below, in darkness.

  He gasped, taking in dusty air, coughing, choking, but breathing!

  For several seconds, he was able to comprehend only one fact: He was alive—and that made him laugh despite the pain.

  Then came a second realization: Wherever he was, he was too far down to climb out.

  And a third: There was someone beside him! He heard a moan and, feeling around in the dark, brushed against a foot.

  “Baen?”

  No sound but the trickle of dirt sifting into the hole.

  “Ist du, Baen?” Hap repeated. “Andsware.”

  “Ay, sone,” came the tremulous response, followed by coughing.

  Hap dug with his hands, clearing rocks and dirt, till he was able to pull his friend free. But the old Auki didn’t move.

  “Hwaet ist?” said Hap anxiously.

  “Eom dead mon,” came the faint reply.

  “No! Nalas treow!”

  Hap could say as much as he wanted that it was “not at all true,” but it could very well be true. He’d almost died himself.

  “Com, freond,” he urged, but there was no reply.

  “We’re getting out of here,” said Hap, reverting to his own language.

  “They’ll come for us soon.” It was a reasonable hope. Others were working in nearby tunnels, and they would certainly have heard the explosion.

  No one came. Fifteen minutes went by, then twenty. Had the blast blocked the entrance?

  Hap looked around. Apparently, they were in an abandoned tunnel of some sort, below the area currently being mined. The mountain was riddled with such excavations, and the danger of an accidental collapse was always great.

  Hap decided to see where the tunnel led. Up and out, he hoped.

  The first direction it took was down.

  “Let’s go, friend,” he said. Baen was heavier than he’d expected, but Hap managed, gasping and straining, to hoist him onto his shoulder. He staggered forward.

  The darkness, deep at first, became almost total. He struggled on, telling himself the tunnel had to lead somewhere. Not seeing where he was going, he stumbled face-first into a sticky net, several feet across.

  “Ach!” he cried, pulling the web aside. He hoped its owner wasn’t around.

  Then he heard a vague whispery sound, like hundreds of little feet scampering, and he shuddered. The tunnel might have been abandoned by the Aukis, but it had not been abandoned by the rats!

  He felt them pattering over his shoes, flittering on all sides. He even felt small, sharp pulls on his laces. There can’t be much to eat down here, Hap thought. My shoes might make a meal for them.

  My feet might make a meal for them!

  He pushed on, kicking and scuffing his way along. Sometimes he’d hear a squeal as his shoe connected with a rodent. Several times he stepped on something soft that gave way with a sickening squish.

  “We’re going to make it, Baen!” he shouted, hoping to scare the rats. They did pause briefly, as if to listen to the echo of his voice ricocheting from one end of the tunnel to the other; but then they were jumping about again, more excited than ever.

  To give himself courage, Hap broke into a song, one his father used to sing in happier days, when they’d tramped together through Xexnax Park.

  Happy we are a-wandering …

  His voice was cracking.

  It’s what we care for most.

  For just because we’re wandering,

  it does not mean we’re lost.

  No sound of scampering. The rats had probably never heard singing before. Hap hiked the old Auki higher on his shoulder and sang the next verse and the next, then started over, till his voice was hoarse.

  He could see nothing. The only sound was the slow shuffle of his feet along loose stones. His side still hurt from his fall, and his back was aching. How much longer could he keep stooping over in this low tunnel? And with Baen on his back!

  But he couldn’t set him down. The rats would be on him in seconds!

  “Are you all right?”

  No answer.

  Hap was at the last stage of exhaustion. It wouldn’t be long now before his strength gave out completely. He paused, sweating. It was warm in here. Hot, even. Perhaps if he rested just a few minutes …

  If you stop, you will die, said a voice in his head quite calmly. It didn’t sound like his own voice, but he trusted it. He stumbled on.

  Soon a strange dizziness took hold of him. In the tunnel’s blackness, he imagined a blue object floating up ahead somewhere. He knew it wasn’t real, but he made his way toward it. The closer he got, the more it receded.

  Hap shook his head, clamped his eyes shut, then opened them.

  The blue object hung in the darkness, steady as a lantern. In its vague light, he saw another tunnel forking to the right.

  Which way?

  Somehow he couldn’t turn into the pitch blackness of the second tunnel.

  He kept on. The blue light led him past other side tunnels. Maybe one of them would lead him to safety, but he was committed now. He even tried to sing again.

  Happy we are …

  His voice was a faint creak of sound.

  a-wandering…

  His singing broke off. A sense of guilt swept over him. The blue glow leading him on reminded him of the blue of the marvelous shoe that his master Grel had made!

  “I’m sorry!” he cried aloud.

  “I’m sorry I took that stone!”

  The light floated farther along the tunnel, and he staggered after it. Tears blurred his eyes.

  “Forgive me!” he croaked.

  The light floated on.

  Just then, he thought he heard a distant chunk, chunk, chunk, like the sound of a pick biting into earth. Chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk … A muffle of voices.

  Hap cried, “Here! In here!” He pounded on the wall of the tunnel.

  Chunk, chunk, chunk …

  A tiny opening appeared, sending a spear of light into the dark.

  “Hurry!” Hap thought he was shouting, but his voice was like a vague wind in an empty house. Still, it was enough to spark excited arguing on the other side.

  The hole widened. An eye appeared. An Auki eye. Sharp blue.

  “Heolp ure freond,” Hap croaked, sinking to his knees.

  The digging resumed, faster than before. The words “Help our friend” had been heard. Finally, the hole was wide enough, and Hap struggled through, with Baen still over his shoulder.

  He looked around, taking in a firelit cavern and a half dozen Aukis staring up at him. He was aware of hands lifting Baen and laying him gently on the ground. A female Auki knelt down, wiping the dirt from Baen’s face. Her hand felt for his pulse.

  She looked up.

  “Hae ben dead.”

  “No!” Hap cried.

  He swayed uncertainly. His knees buckled.

  Twenty

  HAP WOKE TO find himself gazing into the eyes of an Auki maiden with a delicate blue complexion, nicely pointed ears, and a thick growth of fluffy brown hair along her arms.

  She turned, smiling, to the others. “Hae weccan!” (“He awakens!”)

  An elder came over and stared at Hap. His complexion was a darker, dirtier blue than the others’. But what struck Hap most was the length of the creature’s nose. It was abnormal, even for Aukis, who were known for their impressive noses, and it curved up instead of down.

  He pointed it now at Hap. “Ye speak ure wort-hord?”

  Hap nodded. He did speak their “word hoard,” as Aukis called their language—well enough, at least, to be understood.

  These creatu
res, he learned, living in the deepest caverns, were the free Aukis. Some of them had never been enslaved by humans, while others, like the elder, had escaped from slavery and taken refuge here. He had even, Hap later learned, been away from the mountain once— just once—and had seen enough free-ranging humanity to last a lifetime.

  Still, the boy was a surprise. He was mostly hairless, like the rest of mankind, and gigantically tall, but he didn’t fit the Auki idea of human beings. To these creatures, he seemed almost “Auk-ward,” meaning well brought up. And he had tried to save one of their kind! This was not human behavior. Still, they kept their children back, in case he should turn dangerous.

  “Trinknst,” the maiden urged, holding out a steaming bowl of soup.

  Hap tried to sit up, but a sharp pain in his side took his breath away. He looked down and saw a bandage of sorts, made of dried mud. Evidently, he’d been unconscious for some time.

  Carefully, he took the heavy earthen bowl, blew on the steam, and took a sip. He could tell the broth was strengthening, but it was also horribly sour and had some suspicious-looking stringy things in it, almost like the tails of rats. With a start, he realized that that was exactly what they were.

  Politely, he set the bowl aside. “Do you have some plain water?”

  The girl brought it, and Hap drank gratefully.

  Slowly, the male Aukis approached. They crouched around him while the tribe’s elder, whom they called Sheadu Raedr, asked questions. He seemed the only one among them who spoke human. He spoke it quite well, considering that he’d learned it in prison.

  How many humans were there on the mountain? he wanted to know. What kind of weapons did they have? Where did they store them?

  Hap answered honestly, although he knew very little about weapons caches. But he grew wary. Why, he asked, did they want to know these things?

  “To kill humans” was the response.

  Hap recoiled. Did he mean kill all humans?

  Sheadu Raedr—his name meant “Shadow Reader”— seemed surprised at the question. Humans, he said, had enslaved the race of Aukis. They had imprisoned him— tortured him, in fact—and were busy ripping sacred gems from the holy mountain. Even now, they were in hot pursuit of the Great Blue, the holiest and brightest gem of all, hidden in the center of the earth. It was the duty of every Auki, he explained, to guard this treasure with his life and mislead the humans whenever possible. Why shouldn’t they be killed?

  “Then you should kill me,” Hap said reasonably.

  “Ye are a ‘dyrne beorn,’ as we say, a ‘mysterious warrior.’ We don’t understand how ye came to be so in-human.”

  “But I’m very human. Many of my kind are prisoners on this mountain, slaves like your own tribe. Most are not evil at all.”

  “I was in Slag’s prison. I know what humans are.”

  “I cannot help you,” said Hap firmly, “if you are going to kill my friends.”

  The old Auki stood and went to the fire. From a small ratskin purse, he extracted a handful of herbs and cast them into the flames. Immediately, the fire flared up, casting wild shadows on the cavern wall. Narrowing his eyes, the elder contemplated the twisting shapes. Much of his wisdom and authority, Hap would learn, came from his ability to read the meanings of shadows.

  He stood a long while. It wasn’t easy, apparently, to decipher the messages. Finally, he returned.

  “The shadows tell what we know already,” he said, “that the mountain is hurting.” He gave Hap a stern look.

  “It is because of what the humans are doing.”

  “Yes,” said Hap, “I feel it, too.” He did. It was strange, but being inside the mountain, he could feel its life, almost its heartbeat. He felt it as an obscure sorrow, as if each blast of dynamite or stab with a pick opened another wound.

  “The shadows also tell me to help ye. I do not understand this.”

  “Why? Because I am human?”

  “Yes.”

  Hap decided to take a chance.

  “You have wisdom,” he said.

  “You are able to read the shadows. But you are wrong about us.”

  “So ye have said.”

  “There are good people and bad. From what I’ve seen, it is true of Aukis as well.”

  The elder lowered his ruglike brows.

  “It is not for ye to judge us,” he said.

  “Ye have not been oppressed. Nor spat upon.”

  “Actually,” said Hap, “I have. And by Aukis.”

  “I am sorry for that.”

  “But I know there are good Aukis. You, for instance. And Baen Hus. Also the ferryboat captain who took me here.”

  “Who did ye say?”

  “His name is Ulf, and he’s—”

  Abruptly, Shadow Reader stood up. The fur on his shoulders was stiff.

  “What is it?” said Hap.

  The creature looked into the darkness.

  “I cannot help you more.”

  “What did I do?”

  “Ye spoke a forbidden name.”

  “All I said was that the ferry captain—”

  “Speak it not twice!” Shadow Reader turned to face the boy.

  “Go. Our warriors will show the way.”

  Hap couldn’t believe this. He’d been doing so well.

  “But the shadows told you to help me.”

  “I did not read them well.”

  “You read them perfectly,” said Hap daringly.

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “No fear,” replied the Auki.

  “But the one ye speak of is dead to us.”

  “Dead?”

  “He married a human!”

  “If you ever met Mag, you wouldn’t—”

  Shadow’s brows again lowered.

  “Ye know this woman?”

  “She saved the life of my friend.”

  The elder looked into the fire as if for answers.

  “Many friends ye have.”

  “Not so many I can afford to lose one.”

  Shadow nodded.

  “True.”

  “Anyway,” said Hap, “regardless of what—” He stopped himself before he spoke Ulf’s name.

  “Regardless. We need to remember what is important.”

  “Is his offense not important? To choose a human?” He spat.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” said Hap, trying to calm him.

  “But the person we should talk about is Slag.”

  The elder flinched at the name.

  “Yes,” said Hap.

  “He is the enemy. But we’ve been fighting separately. We cannot win this way.”

  Shadow Reader was trying to read the boy as he would the shapes on the wall.

  “This is true,” he said at last.

  “I will show you some humans who want to help in this fight.”

  “I do not speak to humans.”

  “Then speak through me,” he said.

  “I know your language. Some of it.”

  Shadow pulled thoughtfully on the end of his nose.

  “I have hated the humans long and long time. I cannot think differently.”

  “Then we lose.”

  The old Auki was struggling between what he knew and what he was learning.

  “I need to consult the shadows.”

  Shadow Reader’s confusion was painful to watch.

  “I know it is hard to stop hating,” said Hap.

  “But you don’t hate me, I think.”

  “No,” he said.

  “Unfortunately.”

  “We have to trust each other.”

  “Trust?” The old one glanced around at his little group of followers, the males crouching expectantly, the women behind, and by the far wall the Auki children gazing with big eyes.

  “I will obey the shadows,” he said.

  “We will see if trust comes later.”

  In the hour that followed, Hap learned a great deal. The free Aukis, it turned out, wandered through the mining areas
at times when no one was about. They had a collection of human artifacts that they’d picked up there, including a boot without laces, an old woolen shirt, and several sticks of dynamite.

  Hap also learned about the tunnels. Many were unknown to humans, although they ran everywhere through the mountain. Those close to the surface were seldom used, the danger of capture being too great.

  There was even a tunnel running beneath the building Slag used as a jail.

  Hap looked up sharply.

  “This interests ye?” said the elder.

  “Very much.” Hap explained Sophia’s plight.

  “This is your luf-wif?”

  “My wife? I’m only a kid!”

  “At your age, I was a grandfather.”

  Hap looked at him to see if he was joking. He wasn’t.

  “I can see our lives are different.”

  “That is so.”

  “But still, you’ve got to help save her.”

  “Ye’d take such chances for one who is not your wife?”

  “She’s my friend.”

  “Ah.” The old one nodded.

  “An freond. I have seen how ye treat friends: carry them for miles on your back through dark tunnels.”

  “If I have to.”

  “I am starting to trust you already.”

  Twenty-one

  A LANTERN STOOD flickering on the bench, casting ghosts into the rafters and giving the prisoner’s cheeks a glow they hadn’t earned. The girl was, in fact, quite pale. Lack of food, lack of sunlight, and lack of happiness will do that.

  Fear does it, too, and Sophia Hartpence was afraid, although she wouldn’t want to admit it. Her nose was still red and sore from the vicious twisting they’d given it to make her talk, and her stomach was in knots from their efforts to starve her.

  She decided to try one more time the magic spell for making feasts appear. It hadn’t worked yet, but maybe she had it wrong. The problem was she was doing it from memory; she’d left the spell book somewhere and felt lost without it.

  She raised her arms.

  “Murgudy, burgurry …,” she began. She was too hungry to think but stumbled on.