An Unwelcome Quest (Magic 2.0 Book 3)
Page 12
Tyler made the next jump. One more and he’d be on the riverbank. Also, he was now within yelling distance of the others.
“Come on,” Gary yelled. “Before the rock gives way!”
Tyler yelled back, “It’s not going to. I could stand here for a year and the rock wouldn’t budge.”
Tyler made the final jump to the riverbank, then shouted, “Todd, that ignoramus, wanted us to hurry and risk our necks, but again, he was too lazy, or too stupid, or maybe he was lazy and stupid, but anyway, he didn’t want to go to the trouble of timing things out and seeing how long we’d take to get across on our own, so instead of making the rocks wash away at a set interval, he just made them go whenever the last of us left them. That way, we panic and hurry without him having to bother to actually put in any effort! Isn’t that right, Todd?!”
There was no visual sign of Todd’s presence, but they heard a microphone click on, and Todd’s voice said, “Yeah, well it worked for three out of four of you, didn’t it?” They heard the microphone click off again.
They looked at the river. The boulders were gone, leaving nothing but a fast-moving torrent of liquid death.
Jimmy said, “The entire path across the river is gone.”
Phillip said, “I guess it’s a good thing we don’t need to get back in there.”
They clambered up the steep slope to the path that would lead them back away from the castle. They worked their way around the far canyon wall, the way they’d come in.
By the time morning broke, they were making their way out of the canyon, carrying Oban in his cage, stopping only to fight off pairs of wolves wherever they had killed a single wolf on the way in.
They were dead tired. None of them had slept much since they’d left the mine, but they kept moving. There were wolves to contend with and the paranoid suspicion that the small army they’d left at the castle might be following them.
Just before nightfall, they finally dragged themselves into the cursed Mines of Mortlach. The miners parted reverently as they approached, holding Oban’s cage. The little mechanical canary was fluttering and singing with glee to see its home again.
They walked back into the dark interior of the mine, past the miners to Blandoch, the head of the mining guild. Blandoch’s face was a picture of delight. Tears of joy filled his eyes as he took Oban’s cage from Phillip’s hands and placed it back on the stone plinth where it clearly belonged. Oban seemed to fly a loop-the-loop in his cage. A mighty cheer rose up from the miners. It all would have been quite moving if they hadn’t known that it was part of an elaborate death trap designed by a murderous idiot.
Blandoch looked as if his heart might burst watching Oban tweet and flutter on his perch. After a long, blissful moment, he turned back to the wizards. “You’ve lived up to your part of the bargain. You’ve returned our beloved friend Oban to his rightful home, and now that he is back”—Blandoch turned to the miners and spread his arms wide, raising his voice—“we miners can mine again!”
A raucous cheer went up from the miners and echoed deafeningly off the stone walls.
When the cheer had died, Blandoch turned back to the wizards and said, “Now it is time for us to fulfill our half of the bargain. You came looking for dailuaine, did you not?”
Phillip said, “We did.”
Blandoch said, “And you will have it.” He leaned down to pick up his golden pickaxe in one hand and removed a lantern from its spike, holding it aloft with his other hand.
“Now that Oban is back,” he said, “I can go mine it for you.”
Blandoch walked toward the mine entrance at the rear of the chamber.
Gary asked, “Aren’t you going to take the bird?”
Jimmy said, “Don’t sweat it.”
“No, wait,” Gary said. “The whole point of having a canary in a mine is to take it with you to tell you if the air is bad.”
“I’m sure he knows what he’s doing,” Jimmy said.
“No,” Gary replied, “I don’t think he does. Or maybe Todd doesn’t.”
Blandoch reached the mine entrance. He paused for a moment before stepping into the darkened shaft. He held his lantern forward, then took a single step into the mine. He looked at the ceiling and walls of the mine, clearly looking for something. His eyes came to rest on a round rock, about the size of a bowling ball. It was a dull gray color that did not match the cave walls and was one of several such rocks that littered the wall of the mine.
Gary said, “No.”
Blandoch said, “Ah, let’s see here.” He sat down his lantern and swung his pickaxe once, lightly tapping the rock, making a little sound and no discernable difference whatsoever. Blandoch leaned his pickaxe against the wall and lifted the dailuaine with both hands.
“What?! But,” Gary sputtered. “I told you all that that was the stuff, and you didn’t listen!”
Tyler, Phillip, and Jimmy watched Blandoch go about his work in silence.
“And none of you are listening now either,” Gary said.
“I’m sorry, Gary,” Phillip said. “Were you saying something?”
Gary said, “Yes! I was saying—”
Phillip held up one finger. “Hold on a sec, Gary. I think Blandoch’s about to say something.”
Blandoch approached, carrying the lumpy sphere of dailuaine with great effort, despite his beefy miner’s arms. He held it up for the wizards to see. “Gentlemen, you have done us a great service this day, and it is our honor to present you with this dailuaine.”
“Which we could have just taken!” Gary cried.
“What do you mean?” Tyler asked.
Gary said, “Last time we were here, getting fed all that mumbo jumbo about castles and canaries—”
“Ooh,” Tyler said. “That sounds like a tabletop role-playing game. Castles and Canaries.”
“Marketed toward little girls,” Jimmy said.
Phillip added, “Or parents who are trying to keep violent games away from their kids. Do parents still do that in your time, Tyler?”
“A few,” Tyler said, “but most of them gave up when NERF started making guns.”
“Shut up!” Gary shouted. “I told you all that was the rock we wanted.”
Tyler said, “Jeez, sorry, Gary. We just tend to tune you out sometimes, because so much of what you say is nonsense.”
Gary said, “Was that meant to be an apology? You should listen to me. Sometimes I’m right, like when I pointed right at that rock and told you all that it was the rock we needed. I even picked it up.”
“Oh, good,” Phillip said. “Then you should be able to carry it.”
12.
Phillip, Tyler, Gary, and Jimmy got as much sleep as they could with the miners celebrating all through the night. The next morning the miners gave them a breakfast that consisted of drinkable water and dry meat. They experimented with carrying the dailuaine and quickly realized that none of them was strong enough to carry it very far alone, nor were any of them patient enough to carry it with another person for long. They tried rolling it, but it was so heavy and its surface so uneven that it was unsteerable, and still killed your lower back in the process.
The miners offered to let them use their mule sledge to transport the heavy chunk of dailuaine that was their prize. The sledge was a heavy wooden flatbed with runners instead of wheels, but it was better than nothing. The wizards thanked the miners profusely.
Eventually, it dawned on the wizards that the miners did not have a mule to pull the sledge and that the wizards themselves would have to take turns. They still thanked the miners but noticeably less profusely.
While they lashed the rock to the sledge, Jimmy noticed that Phillip had been unusually quiet that morning. Jimmy said, “You seem down.”
Phillip said, “What? Uh, yeah, I guess so. I was just thinking. I wish Martin were here.”
“Oh, I am. I wish Martin were here instead of me. He enjoys this kind of thing more than I do. And then I’d be somewhere else, with Brit.”
The mine entrance, with its immense carved façade, sat in a large dusty clearing at the base of a cliff. The woods surrounded the clearing, and there were only three paths that led away. One was the way they had come. One was the path that terminated at the castle. The wizards were not surprised to hear that the third would lead them to the next stop in their quest, a town called Bowmore, where the dailuaine would be crafted into a weapon of some sort.
Blandoch told them, “The path will take you through Edradour Forest. So you will no longer have to fear the mountain wolves, or the river wolves.”
Phillip leaned to his companions and muttered, “Wait for it.”
Blandoch said, “Only the tree wolves will trouble you on your journey.”
Once the dailuaine was secured, Jimmy volunteered to take the first shift of manning the rope and pulling the sledge. The entire journey, Jimmy had been first to volunteer for any unpleasant duty. The others knew that it was a transparent attempt to make them think better of him. They also knew it was working, if only a little bit.
With renewed energy and grunts of exertion, the four men left the mines and disappeared down the forested path to Bowmore.
Five minutes later, Brit strode wearily into the clearing, followed by Martin, Gwen, and Roy bringing up the rear. Brit stopped, stretching her back and looking up at the wall carving of the miner with the cartoonishly large gem.
“This must be the mine we were told about.”
“Finally,” said Martin. The others muttered in agreement. It had been days of difficult travel. They had faced harsh weather, treacherous terrain, constant danger, and wolf jerky. Until the day before, the only relatively flat and hospitable ground they saw was swarming with over thirty wolves, which was odd, since the wolves usually attacked in pairs.
As Martin removed the cap from a bottle of water and lifted it to his face, he said, “I wish we had some way of knowing how far behind the others we are.”
They took a moment to have a drink of water and catch their breath. Then, without needing to discuss it, they approached the cave entrance. From a distance, it seemed pitch dark inside. As they drew nearer, they saw faint points of light inside. When they reached the opening, they saw that the lights were lanterns held by bedraggled-looking miners.
Roy asked, “Are you miners? Is this your mine?”
The miners all moved to the sides of the chamber, allowing an unobstructed view of the back wall and the dark, ominous entrance to the mine itself.
Roy turned to the others and said, “These are the miners. This is their mine.”
Brit said, “Thanks for that, Roy.” She turned to the miners and said, “Who’s in charge here?”
All of the miners turned to look at a miserable-looking figure at the back of the room. He was slumped down on the floor, hanging his head and cradling a solid-gold pickaxe in his lap. Next to him, on a stone pedestal, there was a large birdcage. The miner on the floor briefly looked up at the visitors and said, “I am Blandoch, but I have no business with you, nor anybody.”
Brit and Roy walked over to him. Gwen and Martin followed.
Roy said, “Blandoch, I’m Roy. We were told to come to you for some rare mineral.”
Blandoch glanced up at her and said, “State your business.”
Brit said, “He did. We’re here for a mineral. Dalvaline, or something like that.”
Blandoch said, “Aye, we have dailuaine. More than enough for your needs, but alas, we cannot get to it.”
Roy chuckled. “Really, Brit? Dalvaline? It sounds like an off-brand motor oil.”
Brit scowled. “Oh, but dailuaine is much better.”
“Speaking of which,” Roy said, “I’m pretty sure this guy’s just an automaton, like that first guy we met.”
“Or this bird,” Martin said. He had walked over to the stone pedestal and was peering into the birdcage. Inside the cage, a metal canary was peering back at Martin with his head cocked to the side, and chirping.
“It’s made out of clock parts! It’s really cool. Kinda steampunk.”
Blandoch rose to his feet, exhaling from the exertion. He said, “We cannot get you your dailuaine, for we are cursed. We are miners, but we cannot go into the mine without our beloved canary, Oban.” Blandoch pointed to the pedestal, where Oban sat, chirping in his cage.
Martin said, “Well, this must be Oban.”
Gwen said, “But it can’t be Oban.”
Martin said, “He pointed right at the bird and he said ‘Oban.’ That seems like pretty good evidence that the bird is Oban.”
Gwen said, “But the fact that this bird is here seems like even better evidence that he isn’t Oban.”
Brit said, “Yeah, but there is a sign carved into the wall over the cage that says ‘Oban,’ so I think that clinches it.”
Gwen’s eyes got wide. “Maybe,” she said, “the others have already been through here and retrieved the bird. Then, when we arrived, the program reset, but the bird stayed.”
“That’s some pretty shoddy programming,” Roy said.
Brit shrugged. “It was made by the same guy who made all the wolves look the same, wait in line to attack, and leap after three seconds.”
Roy said, “I suppose he never expected a second raiding party to come through.”
Brit smiled. “And the fact that he’s not fixing the error suggests that he doesn’t know we’re here.”
Blandoch said, “Without him, it is too dangerous to enter the mine.”
Martin looked at Blandoch, looked at Oban, then picked up the birdcage and thrust it toward the miner.
“Here,” Martin said. “Here he is.”
Blandoch did not seem to hear. “He was taken from us,” he explained, “by an evil king, King Milburn the Mad. He and his vile viceroy, Flagler. They stole our beloved canary and took him to Castle Cragganmore.”
“And I’m giving him back to you,” Martin said, pressing the cage to Blandoch’s chest.
Blandoch made no move to take the cage, but a smile brightened his face. He looked at Martin through the cage and said, “Yes! Indeed! If you were to go to the castle and retrieve Oban, we would gladly give you all the dailuaine you could ever need!”
Roy said, “No dice, kid. Looks like we have to go out to this castle, wherever that is, to trigger the next event.”
Brit said, “Yeah. I agree.”
Roy said, “That’s good, since I’m right.”
The miners started singing, dancing, and enjoying a celebratory feast, all of which they did poorly because they tried to do it all at the same time.
Roy said, “And the miners agree with me too.”
13.
After a day of dragging the rock along the forest path, the four men all agreed that the sledge and rope made the task much easier. Unfortunately, the task of dragging a heavy rock was arduous enough that “much easier” still meant “really hard.”
They each took turns dragging the sledge, leaning forward into the loop of rope that rode under their arms or over a shoulder, depending on which option seemed less unbearable at the moment.
The sledge was made of heavy oak and was sturdily constructed. Being a sledge, it had no wheels, just a smooth underside that helped reduce its friction. On level, even ground, it made pulling the dense ball of ore much easier, but on uneven terrain, or when walking up an incline, it was just more weight to drag.
When the path through the woods grew narrow, they had to take great care not to catch the sides of the sledge on a root or tree limb. If the sledge did get caught, it would come to an instant halt, cau
sing whoever was pulling it to also stop as if he’d walked straight into a brick wall. It was more embarrassing than it was painful, and it was pretty damned painful.
The men also agreed that the woods were quite nice and that hiking through them might be rather pleasant if they had a choice, but they did not. Unfortunately, human nature dictated that anything, no matter how pleasant it is, can become hateful if you feel you must do it. Just ask anyone who’s ever entered a pie-eating contest.
Any illusion that they were on a pleasant nature walk was also shattered by the periodic attacks of the tree wolves. Even though they’d been warned of the tree wolves’ existence, the first attack had come as a surprise. After they dispatched the wolf, Gary said, “I knew they were called tree wolves, but I thought that just meant that they lived, you know, out here among the trees. Not up in the trees. Do wolves climb trees?”
“Not usually,” Tyler said, “and I don’t think these wolves are doing any climbing. I think they’re just appearing in the trees when we approach. And, before you ask, no, they don’t usually do that either.”
They went on like that for the rest of the day, one of them pulling, the other three scanning the trees and listening for growling noises from above. That night, as was their new routine, Jimmy scavenged for edible plants. His years living as a vagabond in Central and South America had proved to be a treasure trove of useful information.
“Thanks for the berries,” Tyler said grudgingly.