by Dave Butler
“Qualify, Bob.”
“That’s what I said. An ’ouse with a name ought to ’ave, I dunno, servants.”
Bob was right. Syzigon had even said the Old Man had servants. Charlie thought a little more. “So we haven’t seen the whole mountain. For all we know, just at the top of that little canyon there’s a big mansion, and that’s Mountain House, and it’s big enough for my friend to call it a maze.”
“Or perhaps ’tis Mountain House we’re standing in. Aye, I’ll lead you.”
“Right,” Bob said. “Deeper in it is. Only remember, Gnat, you ain’t the tallest of us, an’ now you’re on foot. I’ll keep an ’and out in front of my ’ead just in case, but don’t go dragging us into knee-’igh tunnels. Not without warning.”
“I’ll go second,” Charlie said. “It won’t matter if I bump my head.”
“It’ll matter,” Ollie said. “Only you’re tougher than Bob.”
“ ’E’s tougher than you, too, china.”
“Yeah. But I won’t be bumping my head on anything. I’ll be hugging the ground and following you by smell.”
“By smell?” Charlie asked.
Ollie muttered. Bamf! Rotten eggs.
Of course. “Right, then. Let’s join hands and get going.”
They linked hands and Gnat led them.
Both Charlie’s hands were full, so he banged his head once or twice, but the pace was slow, and the bumps didn’t hurt much. Gnat was very good about leading him over smooth footing.
They walked a long time in the dark. Charlie smelled water and heard it dripping. He heard scurrying noises in the corners of the cave.
“Tell me that ain’t motleys,” Bob said, using her rhyming-slang word for ghouls.
“Nay, ’tis nothing so dangerous. All manner of things live in caves, most of them sightless, colorless, and harmless.”
“I reckon we all know this is the moment when Ollie would crack a joke about pixies,” Bob said. “In ’is honor, let us imagine what ’e might ’ave said if ’e wasn’t a snake at this moment.”
“ ‘And not just the ones in tricorn hats,’ ” Charlie suggested. He tried his best to say it in an Ollie voice, but it wasn’t quite right.
“ ‘I don’t know about ’armless,’ ” Bob tried. “ ‘I know from experiment they’ve got gaols.’ ”
“Experience, Bob.”
“ ’Ush. I’m being Ollie now.”
“ ‘If they’re so sightless,’ ” Gnat said in a pretty good Ollie imitation, “ ‘who’s leading this caravan?’ ”
Ollie hissed.
Then there was light. Green and blue, ahead.
Gnat picked up the pace. Charlie staggered, trying to keep up as he dodged stalactites and stalagmites. When he could see well enough, he dropped Gnat’s and Bob’s hands and broke into a run.
The light came from a hole in the floor. Charlie lowered himself to all fours, just ahead of Gnat, and looked down through the gap, which opened into the ceiling of another large cave.
The cavern below reminded him of Underthames. It was large, and gems sparkled on all the walls and in the ceiling. Nests lay scattered about the chamber, and on the far side stood structures Charlie couldn’t quite make out.
A stream ran down the middle of the chamber. On the near side of it, the nests were burned completely, or scattered. But on the far side of the water, they were intact.
“The ’eck,” Bob said over her shoulder.
Gnat said nothing. In the light shining from Giantseat’s crystals, Charlie saw tears on her face. Ollie coiled up beside Charlie’s hand and lowered his serpentine head into the opening, tongue flickering in and out.
Charlie decided to climb down. He rotated, still on hands and knees. In the shadows, he scrabbled about until he found a raised ridge, a seam in the floor he could grab with his fingers. Then he backed his legs and body over the lip of the hole until he was dangling.
“There would have been a ladder once,” Gnat said. “I suppose it burned up in the same fire that wrecked everything else.”
“Careful, Charlie,” Bob said.
He let himself go.
He bent his knees on impact and he rolled down a short slope. Then he stood, swept some of the dirt off his coat with his hands, and hiked up the slope to stand under the hole in the ceiling.
“Who’s next?” he called.
Bob promptly jumped down the hole. Charlie caught her in his arms, bowing slightly from the weight, and set her down.
“Thanks, mate.”
Then Ollie dropped down, still in the form of a snake, and finally Gnat. Charlie caught them both. Immediately upon touching the ground, Gnat marched briskly off toward the unburned part of the chamber.
“Let’s find your Caradog Pritchard,” she said.
Ollie took his boy shape again, and Charlie and the sweeps followed the pixie.
On the other side of the stream, Charlie expected the cavern to be less desolate. Instead, it was more. It felt haunted. As they walked past nest after nest, Charlie hoped a tricorn hat would peep out, or a piping, silvery voice would shout a greeting, or pixies in arms and armor would emerge to shout a challenge.
None of that happened.
They crossed a path, a road that led among the nests, and Gnat turned to follow it.
“These nests,” Bob said as they marched. “If we was to wait—say, camp ’ere a day or two—you could put up your cocoon in one of these an’ molder an’ get your wings back, right?”
“Molt,” Charlie said.
“That’s what I said, molt.”
“I could.” Gnat didn’t slow down.
“An’ why don’t we do that, then? You go all butterfly on us while we enjoy this light show, maybe eat a few sightless, ’armless things. I could stand to catch up on my sleep, even after last night.”
“Aye. And when we’ve warned Caradog Pritchard, I might come back here and, as you say, go all butterfly.”
“Right.” Bob pulled her bomber down tighter on her head. “Mission first.”
On a rise surrounded by empty nests stood a paved floor and a ring of carved stone columns. The structure reminded Charlie of a similar pavement and ring he’d seen in Underthames, Gnat’s home.
Gnat stood silently looking at it. Was she thinking of her barony?
Or of her cousin Seamus, who’d said she was his own true heart, but who was betrothed to her ruthless cousin Elisabel, the Baroness of Underthames?
Either way, Charlie didn’t interrupt her.
When her thoughts were finished, Gnat led them farther along the path and deeper into the chamber. Down the far side of the rise and around the corner, the cavern ended abruptly. Not in a natural stone ending, but in a solid steel wall.
Set in the center was a door-sized rectangle, also made of steel. It had no visible knob, latch, or keyhole.
“Well,” Ollie said. “I reckon we found Mountain House.”
Ollie knocked on the door.
When there was no answer, Charlie joined him. He banged as hard as he could. He even kicked to try to make the loudest noise possible, and it was very loud indeed.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Nobody answered.
Bob, meanwhile, had become interested in the edge of the steel sheet, where it joined the natural stone wall of the cavern.
“What do you see, Bob?” Charlie asked. “A way in? Is there a crack?”
“Not a way in,” she said. “Not unless you’re a lot stronger than I think you are. I reckon even a crew of ’ulders with crowbars would find themselves stuck if they was trying to peel back this sheet by strength of ’and.”
“What is it, then?” Charlie banged several more times on the door.
“Look at these bolts ’ere.” A thick band of steel skirted the wall, folded in an L shape that allowed bolts to be sunk into the steel wall and also into the stone. The aeronaut pointed at the large-headed bolts themselves.
Charlie looked. The bolt heads were
six-sided. Within each bolt head, there was a hexagonal depression.
He shrugged. “They’re bolts, Bob. I’m not sure what you’re seeing.”
“I ain’t sure what I’m seeing either.” Bob’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “I need to think on it a little more.”
BONG!
A ringing noise filled the cavern, so loud it hurt. Charlie covered his ears and turned around.
Ollie had a rock the size of his head, clutched in both hands. He raised it overhead, stepped back, and charged the steel door again.
BONG!
And again.
BONG!
Huffing and sweating, Ollie threw the rock aside. “If that don’t get us a little attention, nothing will.”
Charlie and the sweeps waited, and still no one came.
Charlie only realized Gnat had left them when she reappeared, a disappointed look on her face. “Giantseat has other passages and chambers,” she reported. “Every passage leading in this direction ends in a sheet of steel.”
“Well, the mountain didn’t grow this wall.” Ollie kicked it with his boot to show which wall he meant. “The pixies didn’t build it. It wasn’t the Hound. I guess that leaves your man Caradog Pritchard. He’s an inventor like your dad, yeah, Charlie? An engineer? So I reckon this is Mountain House, all right.”
“Caradog Pritchard.” Bob scratched under her bomber. “An engineer.”
“ ’Tis no use, lads.” Gnat surveyed the steel wall and sighed. “If they haven’t heard us by now, they won’t. And if they haven’t opened to us by now, I don’t expect they’ll do that, either.”
Ollie yawned. “Then I’ve got a plan to propose. Are you going to get all shirty with me if I flop down in a pixie bed to sleep for a few hours?”
Gnat shook her head. “I’m pleased my folk can offer you this much hospitality. We can catch a few hours’ rest and leave in the morning. More likely than not, the Hound will have disappeared by dawn.”
“Agreed.” Ollie was already crawling into the nearest nest. “And then I’ve got a question to ask Aunt Big Money. It’s nice in here, by the way. A bit dusty.”
“What question?” Charlie asked.
But Ollie was already snoring.
Bob started climbing in after him.
Gnat looked at Charlie. “What’s next?”
“I know there’s another way into Mountain House. It’s the way the dwarfs took, on the north side of the mountain. So we can hike over the ridge and drop down that side, try to find the door.”
“Something’s not right.”
Charlie looked around at the empty Giantseat. “You mean this?”
Gnat shook her head. “Nay, the destruction and abandonment of Giantseat happened ages ago. I mean that the dwarf told you someone would let us in if we climbed the valley. And that didn’t happen. Was the dwarf lying? Was he confused? Has something changed recently?”
Charlie nodded slowly.
“I’m only saying, we need to be careful.”
“I’ll think about it. You get some sleep.” Charlie patted the nest from which Ollie’s and Bob’s snores could now both be heard. “Are you sure you don’t want to…spin a cocoon?”
“I could do it,” Gnat said. “I can feel the power in these old nests, still.” She pointed at the gemstones on the ceiling, but she didn’t say anything about what might connect the stones, the lights, the nests, and her ability to spin a cocoon. “But it would take too long.”
“Maybe you could spin a cocoon around the lads.” Charlie grinned. “Grow them each a nice pair of wings.”
Gnat laughed. “Bob might like that. I’d be interested to see what became of Ollie the next time he changed shape.”
Charlie imagined Ollie as a yellow snake with iridescent green butterfly wings, and he laughed pretty hard, too.
The two of them climbed into a second nest, because the sweeps entirely filled the nest they’d chosen. Gnat crept near the edge of the nest and curled forward into a ball, resting on her forearms and knees.
Charlie realized he’d never seen Gnat sleep. She must not require sleep very often; on the first night of their journey from London, she’d stayed awake and spent her time scouting. He looked at Gnat and imagined how she would look with her wings still on. The wings would be upright, which made sense because it would protect them from being bruised or broken, but it would also be beautiful. Gnat in her sleep would look sort of like a magical butterfly-flower.
“You’re amazing,” he said. “I don’t know if you know that.”
“No, Charlie.” Gnat yawned, raising her head from her forearms for a moment. “You’re the amazing one. I’m just a pixie.”
And then she fell asleep.
Charlie stretched himself the length of the nest. Although from the outside it looked like it was made of sticks, the inside was lined with softer things: feathers, strips of cloth, dried grass, moss, fur, even old pixie wings, which were slightly fuzzy to the touch.
Charlie anchored himself firmly with his toes in the bottom of the nest and found that he could just reach the nest’s edge. There he folded his forearms and settled his chin onto them. He wasn’t curled into a ball, but with his head on his arms, he felt as if he were Charlie de Minimis, pixie adventurer, come to rest in his hereditary family home of Giantseat.
He gazed around at the nests, the light, the stone ruins.
In the ruins, he saw a flash of movement.
It was tiny. He’d only seen it for a second.
But it wasn’t a colorless cave-dwelling thing. Charlie was sure he’d seen a person in a black coat. A person he’d seen before.
He considered his options. He could call out, but he thought the pale boy would disappear. He could try to avoid alarming the boy by approaching him openly and alone. But the last time he’d done that, the boy had thrown him down a cliff.
Charlie decided to sneak.
Keeping a careful eye on the stone ruins, Charlie slipped over the back of the nest. Crouching in its shadow, he felt around on the ground and gathered up three pebbles.
It would help that the light in the cavern was irregular and of many colors.
Charlie needed to distract the boy so he could move closer. He sighted carefully, aiming at the stream running down the middle of the chamber, and threw.
Plunk!
As the stone hit, Charlie was already on the move. He carefully watched the pillars on the small rise, he moved in a low crouch, and he cut right, heading toward the ruins at an angle. His chosen route was not the most direct, but it would keep him generally out of sight.
No sign of the pale boy.
Charlie hunkered down again behind a nest.
His view of the pillars on the knoll was from a different angle now, but he still didn’t see the pale boy. He aimed at the stream again, but this time at a spot a little farther away from the hill and to the left.
His aim was slightly off. He heard the rattle of the pebble striking stone and bouncing and then the plunk of it falling into water.
He was rewarded with a view of the boy. The mysterious boy of the mountains and rooftops who had been following Charlie for several days stood with his back to Charlie now, peering in the direction from which the noise had come.
Charlie tiptoed forward, eyes on the boy, careful not to risk detection by attempting too big a gain. Eight quick steps forward cut the distance between the two of them in half, and then Charlie ducked behind a nest.
His mind was full of questions for the pale boy: Where is your father? What is his connection with dwarfs? Why won’t you let us see him? What’s the Hound, who made it, and what is it doing?
And also: What was it like, learning you were not made of flesh and blood? Does your father love you? Do you wish you were his natural son?
Do you feel lonely?
With his third and final pebble, Charlie aimed to his right. He chose a nest this time, because it would be an easy target to hit, and also because a noise in a stream might, after al
l, be a fish.
He dropped the pebble right into its center with a soft rustle.
Then he sprinted, quick and silent as he could manage, into the middle of the pillars.
But the boy was gone.
Charlie looked around, baffled. He saw no sign the boy had ever been there.
“Come back!” he called softly, not wanting to wake his friends. “I just want to talk to you!”
Nothing.
“Won’t you tell me your name?” Charlie pleaded.
Silence.
And then, a few paces from him, Charlie saw a flash of bright color at the edge of the stream. Not a gemstone, but cloth. He walked to the stream and picked up what turned out to be a pair of striped trousers.
“Like a dwarf’s,” he said out loud. The trousers were striped white and purple, they were wet from the stream, and they looked new.
Charlie looked around again. He saw no sign of the pale boy and no sign of any dwarfs, so he turned back and rejoined his sleeping friends to wait out the night.
After his friends woke up, they went back to the big-folk gate. They traveled a slightly different road this time, Gnat scouting the path. After a few minutes, the gloom-moss again disappeared and they walked in darkness.
Ollie went out the gate first, in snake form. When he came back, he reported that there was no sign of the Hound.
This turned out to be not quite true. When Charlie dropped from the rock seam to the valley floor, he saw multiple enormous paw prints and great scuff marks where the Hound and his battle with it had left very big, very definite signs.
But the Hound itself was gone.
In the sunlight, Charlie showed his friends Thassia’s compass. He felt silly using dwarf terms to explain it, but the words seemed appropriate. “The compass points to the wagon of a certain dwarf.”
“Which one?” Ollie asked.
“A certain dwarf who is my friend. Who can get things done.”
Bob scratched her scalp under the bomber. “If ’e can get things done, can ’e get us into Mountain ’Ouse?”
Charlie shrugged. “I hope he can. He’s the one who sent us up the mountain in the first place, but I think he knows another way in.”
