by Steven Novak
Chris heeded the words of this deep, dark part of his soul and shut off the water, giving up the search. This was not the first time in his life that Chris Jarvis had chosen to simply forget something, rather than to deal with the shame that came with remembering, and more than likely, it would not be the last.
After dressing, Chris made his way downstairs to the kitchen. There was no sign of Tommy or Nicky. The house was quiet, almost too quiet. Chris had grown to hate this house in the past few years. It was the first home he and Megan had purchased. It was the place where their children had been born. It was the place where they had spent Christmases, and New Years, and Thanksgivings. It was also the place where Megan had gotten sick. It was the place where he had watched the cancer eat away at her like a hungry, soul-starved reaper, slowly taking her away from him. With every creak of its floorboards or chip of paint peeling from its walls, he was reminded of her, and with every reminder came the hurt. If he ever came into money or found the strength, he would pack up the boys and move away in a heartbeat.
With strength he could do a lot of things.
He made a couple pieces of toast, grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and plopped himself into the recliner in the living room. This was not exactly the Breakfast of Champions, but, then again, Chris Jarvis was hardly a champion. Clicking on the television he noticed that a Sunday morning newscaster was giving the weather forecast for the upcoming week. Was it Sunday already? How could it be Sunday already? He vaguely remembered getting home Friday night and now it was Sunday? Had he really somehow lost an entire day? How could that be possible?
A knock at the front door jolted Chris back to reality. Wearily, he pulled himself off the recliner, walked across the room and opened it. Standing on his front porch with a hurried, angry-lost look on her face was his neighbor, Janet Alexander. The bags under her eyes were deep and blue, giving the impression that she had been crying non-stop for hours.
“Chris, I’m sorry…but I was wondering if I could speak to your boys?”
Janet had not come to his house in years. When Megan had been alive, she and her husband Dale were over all the time for drinks or barbeques, or simply to just shoot the breeze. They were friends, the four of them, and had enjoyed each other’s company. The first couple months after Megan’s death the couple had sporadically stopped by to see how he was doing, or had made an occasional phone call just to say hello. Chris had been unreceptive to their attempts at communication. One evening, after a long day of drowning his problems in a bottle, Chris had marched over to their house, knocked on the front door, proceeded to call Janet a few choice names and then tried to punch Dale in the mouth. He pretty much put a period on the sentence that had been their friendship.
At least he thought that was what he had done. He found it difficult to remember the details.
“Chris? Are you listening to me? I need to speak to your boys about Staci. Are they here?”
Chris was still woozy, his mind was cloudy and his legs felt wobbly. He put one hand on the inside of the door to keep from falling. “No, I don’t think…no, they’re not here…I…don’t think…”
“Where are they Chris? I need to ask them if they’ve seen Staci.”
“Why…what…what’s wrong with Staci?”
“She didn’t come home last night. We called the police, but they haven’t found anything. I know the kids don’t really see each other anymore, but I…I…I don’t know…I just want to know if they know anything.”
Chris tried to straighten up, breathing in deeply while puffing out his chest, praying that Janet would not notice the state that he was in. “I’m not exactly sure where they are…when they get home I’ll…umm…I’ll send them over to your house.”
Janet Alexander felt sorry for Chris Jarvis but she also hated him just as much. Now, with her little girl missing, she found herself more disgusted with the man than usual. To be blessed with two healthy children and treat them the way he did was beyond wrong. She could barely wrap her mind around it. What if Staci were gone? What if she were gone forever? What would she do without her little girl? Chris had been given two boys and did nothing but let it go to waste. As she stared at him in his doorway – half-dressed with a beer in his hand – she felt ashamed that she had ever called him a friend.
Choking back her tears Janet turned and walked away without saying another word.
“I’ll call you if I hear anything, Janet!” Chris called out, waving awkwardly in her direction.
Without turning around, she lifted her hand into the air to acknowledge his comment, then buried her head into her other hand and began to cry for the sixth time in half as many hours.
Chris closed the door and stumbled to his recliner. For the first few minutes he could not get Staci Alexander off his mind. She was such a sweet girl. Megan used to often joke about the fact that she thought Tommy had a crush on her, which made the boy’s face turn bright red.
They were so cute together, the two of them when they had been kids - so cute, and so innocent.
The idea of sweet little Staci Alexander gone forever was a concept Chris did not want to think about. He could not deal with it. He finished the beer in his hand, then went to the refrigerator and grabbed another, then another. Before long the cool bubbly liquid all but washed away thoughts of the Alexander’s daughter. Chris drifted off into the peaceful, problem-free slumber that he knew so well. Things were safer here, safer, easier and quieter. Chris loved the quiet.
*
*
CHAPTER 23
THE LONG TREK BEGINS
*
The group had been walking in a single file line through the dimly lit, incredibly stuffy tunnels hidden underneath the red forest for a good part of the day. Stuck in the back of the line, Donald had spent the last two hours complaining. His legs were sore, he was finding it more and more difficult to catch his breath and he was in desperate need of a break that the group could not afford to take. Time was not on their side. Every minute counted, every second precious, if they hoped to rescue Nicky and Staci. King Walcott’s enormous rocky shell bobbed back and forth in front of Donald. It blocked out the light of Pleebo’s torch and forced him to carefully walk in the near dark. This only added to the young boy’s frustration.
A few hours into their journey, the group of travelers came across an exceptionally narrow section of tunnel. King Walcott’s sizeable girth was wedged in-between the walls. The Tycarian King waved his stubby limbs wildly in a vain attempt to shake himself loose. When his shaking had proved to be ineffective, Donald was forced to push him from behind while everyone else tugged from the front. After some grunts, groans, strained muscles and good old-fashioned hard work, King Walcott was pulled loose. The situation could have gone a lot smoother if Donald had been able to replicate the immense strength he had shown on the previous day in Tipoloo, but neither he nor Tommy had managed to repeat their miraculous feats, despite several attempts.
At the front of the line, with a torch gripped tightly between his fingers, Pleebo came to an abrupt stop, reaching a dead end.
He turned to the group and sighed. “This is far as we can take the tunnels. The rest of the trip will have to be made above ground.”
Roustaf whizzed past Owen and Tommy, hovering next to Pleebo’s head, “Are you nuts, Pleebs? We won’t last an hour out there before a patrol snatches us up!”
From somewhere behind King Walcott’s massive body came Donald’s voice, “ Ya…especially not with King SLOW-amennes over here.”
Annoyed and surprised at the rather snarky comment from the pudgy, pimple-faced boy, King Walcott glanced angrily over his shoulder . “Now there, that was quite uncalled for, child! Have your parents ever instructed you that you should respect your elders? If all children from your world are as frustrating as you, I believe it might be a blessing that the doorway leading to it has never been found!”
“Aww, come on, leave the kid alone you big oaf, he didn’t mean nothing,” Roustaf chimed in from
the other end of the tunnel.
“Stay your mouth, my little red friend. This does not involve you!” King Walcott quickly shot back.
“LITTLE!? Why I oughta…! Who are you calling LITTLE!?” Rolling up the tiny sleeves on his even tinier arms, Roustaf gritted his teeth and zoomed in the direction of the giant turtle-man. His progress came to a halt when Pleebo grabbed him.
Roustaf still attempted to fly forward, his arms swinging wildly. He screamed through his teeth, “You better hold me back, Pleebs! You better hold me back before I teach this guy a thing or two about just who’s little! You’re lucky he’s holding me back, you giant slow jerk, because if he wasn’t you’d be in a world of hurt right about now!”
“Everybody calm down! Save your energy for the Prince and the Dark Guard…we’re going to need it.” Pleebo yelled, in an attempt to get the two to settle down.
The heat in the tunnels was stifling and the air thick and heavy, weighing on the flesh of everyone in the group. This no doubt caused each one of them to be a little on edge. Pleebo found himself annoyed and frustrated with the entire situation. Every single ounce of his good judgment told him that Roustaf was right. Continuing the journey above ground was a bad idea.
Despite this fact, there did not seem to be any other option, “Look Roustaf, as far as moving above ground goes, we really don’t have any other choice. The tunnels don’t go all the way to the castle, and even if they did, we’re going to need food and provisions. We can’t get to the Prince’s fortress using the tunnels alone. We’re going to have to go up eventually. If Tommy could blast us some new openings it might be a different story, but it doesn’t look that that’s going to happen. What we need to do now is be productive and figure out the safest way of getting to the fortress once we’re above ground.”
Everyone in the tunnel momentarily grew silent. The only audible sounds came from the soft crackle of the flame on Pleebo’s torch and the rumble from Donald’s hungry stomach. It had been days since he had eaten anything substantial and the image of a cheese and pepperoni pizza kept popping up in his head, taunting him with its deliciously greasy goodness. If there was food above ground like Pleebo said, then he had no problems whatsoever with going topside – Dark Guard be damned.
King Walcott at last broke the deafening silence, “By George , I’ve got it!”
Everyone turned to look at him, including Roustaf who sighed deeply, with a sarcastic “oh this ought to be good” look on his minuscule face.
“As is the way with most things, the answer to our problems lies in the land of Tycaria.”
Unsure of where King Walcott was going with this, Pleebo asked, “What do you mean, King Walcott?”
“The second doorway, my dear boy…the second doorway.”
Both Pleebo and Roustaf realized at exactly the same time what the Tycarian King was talking about. A few years prior, the Prince had discovered what he believed to be the hundredth doorway, only to find that it was nothing more than a second doorway to the already conquered land of Tycaria. This enraged Prince Valkea who had been quite excited about the possibility of unearthing a new land to conquer and make his father proud. He had immediately ordered his men to close and seal the doorway the best way possible. Frustrated and wishing to move on, he had soon forgotten about its very existence. The people of Tycaria managed to open up the doorway after the guards had been sent away and for a short time used it to sneak refugees out of their war-torn world into the relative safety of Tipoloo.
“If we were to enter through the second doorway into Tycaria, we could then make our way across the Villadhor Mountains to the original doorway, which if memory serves, exits not too far from the Prince’s fortress.”
Pleebo thought it sounded like a decent plan. Besides, they did not seem to have another one. He had been to Tycaria once years ago when he helped to sneak slaves into the tunnels. The mountains were treacherous and barely habitable, yet it was this very treacherousness that had kept the King’s Dark Guard from patrolling them as often as they did the larger cities. They posed a very different kind of danger than the group would likely face if they attempted to make their way to the Prince’s fortress going through the red forest; it seemed like the lesser of two evils and might be their only chance.
Roustaf pried himself loose from Pleebo’s fingers and glided over to King Walcott, landing softly on his shell-covered shoulder, “You know what? That’s not really all that bad a plan, old timer. Are you sure that you can get us through those mountains though?”
A slight smile crept its way across King Walcott’s wrinkled old face. He confidently replied, “My days on the front line may be little more than an old man’s memory at this point. I remain however as formidable a tactician as you are likely to ever encounter, my dear Mr. Roustaf. Besides, who better to lead you through the Tycarian Mountains than the current King of the Tycarian people, the holder of the sacred cup of Peladrov, and the keeper of the great Mud Chalice?”
Pleebo looked in the direction of the children, amused at the idea of something called a “Mud Chalice ” heralded as an achievement.
He smiled coyly at Tommy and Owen. “Well kiddos…what do you think?”
The boys had no idea what to say. They did not know anything about Tycaria or the layout of the red forest or the scheduled patrols of the Dark Guard. It was because of this lack of knowledge that they found it impossible to have an opinion.
Donald’s voice came from behind King Walcott’s massive body. “Do you think we could find some food in the mountains?”
“Indeed, Sir Donald,” King Walcott answered sharply, “There are a few pockets of Tycarian survivors hidden throughout, former soldiers from the glorious Fifth regiment who would likely jump at the chance to join us in our most noble cause.”
“Sounds good to me. I’m so hungry I would even settle for one of those crappy dirt roots again.”
From the front of the line Tommy tapped Pleebo on the shoulder, looking directly into his enormous red pupils, “Which one is quicker?”
“If we can keep a good pace through the mountains, it would definitely shave some time off our journey.”
“Then we should take the mountains. The sooner we get to my brother, the better.”
Tommy had not been able to stop thinking about his brother ever since they started their journey. He was so small, so innocent, and without Tommy there to protect him, anything could happen. He had made a promise to himself years ago that he would not let anything happen to his little brother and he intended to keep it.
Then there was Staci – if anything happened to Staci – he was not sure if he could forgive himself.
As far as he was concerned, whatever route could get him to the castle quicker was the route that they needed to take.
Pleebo took a long, hard look at the sad group of misfits crammed into the tunnel behind him. In all honesty, they were a pathetic looking bunch. As a child, his grandfather had told him the story of the prophecy every night before he went to bed. This motley crew was a far cry from what he had imagined the saviors of his world would look like. Not a single one of them seemed like they could stand up physically to even one of the King’s Dark Guard, let alone invade a fortress full of them. Yet, for some reason he could not fully explain, Pleebo felt confident about their chances.
Maybe it was his firm faith in the prophecy, maybe it was the amazing feat of magic Tommy had performed the day before or maybe it was simply because he wanted very badly to believe in something – anything – once again. Whatever the reason, despite his common sense and better judgment, he foolishly thought their chances were good.
Well, maybe not good exactly, but at the very least fifty-fifty and fifty-fifty was good enough for him.
“Then I guess it’s decided, we’re taking the mountains.”
*
*
CHAPTER 24
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
*
Staci had not slept in a very long time. Every
inch of her body felt tired – so tired that even the slightest movement seemed a chore; her eyes were constantly begging her brain to shut down and recharge. The noises in the dungeon never seemed to relent. Everything from soft, pain-filled moans, to outright screams of agony relentlessly moved throughout the darkened hallways and blackened cells. Every sound assaulted her senses like fingernails against a blackboard. It was impossible to relax for even the briefest of moments. If the sounds were not enough, the dirty stone floor and the mucky air stinking of sweat and death succeeded in compounding the issue. Little Nicky Jarvis, lying not three feet from her, did not seem to have the same problem. The young boy had been curled up against the wall, sleeping soundly for the past three hours. A part of her was jealous that he had found a way to sleep despite everything that was going on, while a part was happy that at least one of them had been able to rest peacefully. Inspired by the relaxed look on Nicky’s face, Staci shifted her position against the hard stone and attempted once more to get some rest. Her eyes had been shut for less than ten seconds when a familiar voice jolted her back to the waking world..
“Wake up, little girl.”
Forcing open her tired eyes, she spotted Prince Valkea standing outside her cell. The dark shadows cascading eerily across his face somehow made him appear even more heinous than she had remembered – if such a thing were possible.
“How are you enjoying your stay in my fortress, little one? While we may not offer the best amenities, you have to admit that there is a certain…undeniable atmosphere, no?” Staci’s sat straight as a board against the wall, her heartbeat slowly picking up in pace.
“You are no doubt asking yourself why one as regal as myself would ever consider stepping foot in a place such as this dungeon? Don’t be mistaken, my dear. I love each and every corridor in my fortress as if I, myself, had designed it. In all honesty though, the dungeon is hardly befitting of one with royal blood coursing through his veins such as I. Maybe it’s the dirt, maybe it’s the lighting, or maybe it’s simply the fact that it houses the absolute most disgusting, foul creatures ninety-nine worlds have managed to produce. Whatever the reason…I try to avoid this dreadful place whenever I can.”
