As Tristan and Rusty sneaked past Drakewell’s office at one point, Tristan heard Drakewell muttering in a low monotone; he shivered, wondering if Drakewell was working some awful spell. When Rusty acted as though he wanted to stop and listen to Drakewell, Tristan grabbed him by the sleeve and hurried him away.
Once Tristan was able to find Leila consistently, she chose more and more difficult hiding places, squeezing herself into supply cabinets or lurking in the tunnels just beyond the reach of the hallway lights. She even hid in the girls’ bathroom one time; unwilling to follow her in there, Tristan snatched his marble from the air and called to her from the hall.
“That’s not fair,” Tristan said, punching Leila gently in the shoulder when she emerged.
Leila grinned. “Scaredy-cat! No one else was even in there.” She smoothed down her rumpled hair, which had grown nearly long enough to pull into a ponytail.
By midnight, the three of them were giddy from exhaustion, and Tristan had mastered the spell.
“Do you realize we still have two papers to write for tomorrow?” Leila said, giggling.
Tristan cursed good-naturedly.
“They’re not due until after lunch,” Rusty said. “We’ve got plenty of time.”
Trey and Hayley were still awake in the Subroom, hunched over their papers and scribbling furiously, and they gave Tristan, Leila, and Rusty odd looks when the three of them filed in, though thankfully neither asked questions.
“’Night,” Tristan said, yawning. He collapsed into his bed with most of his clothes still on, and was asleep long before Leila returned from her shower.
After that night Tristan began stuffing his pockets with marbles before he left the Subroom each morning, so he was ready just in case Evvie disappeared into the tunnels again. He got his first chance to follow her just a week later.
The students were heading downstairs after class, Tristan, Leila, and Rusty at the rear of the group, when Tristan saw Evvie slip away and take the stairs down to Delair’s hallway.
“Did you see that?” Leila whispered.
Tristan nodded. “See you guys later.” He reached in his pocket for a marble. Leila took his book bag from him and slung it over her shoulder.
“Good luck!” Rusty said.
Tristan sprinted down the stairs, pausing at the bottom to look for Evvie; she was hurrying down the corridor ahead of him. Glancing back, she turned left and disappeared into Delair’s mine shaft.
He started running again, this time careful to tread quietly. The rubble in Delair’s once-destroyed mine shaft had been swept away, and the tunnel looked as empty and dark as ever. At the entrance to the tunnel, Tristan stopped and set the marble to hover at arm’s length from his face. He could already smell the dank, musty air from the mine, though Evvie’s footsteps had faded in the distance.
One eye on the marble’s faint golden glow, Tristan started forward into the darkness. He put a hand on the wall, trailing his fingers over the rock to be sure he was going in a straight line. For a short distance the glow from the hall outlined the jagged walls and uneven floor, and before the light had faded entirely, the marble turned sharply right, hovering at the entrance of an unfamiliar short-ceilinged passage.
Tristan hesitated. What if he got lost down here? Or what if the ceiling caved in?
It’s just a new tunnel, he told himself sternly. Besides, if he got lost, the teachers would probably come after him within hours.
Taking a deep breath, Tristan started forward again. Now he could see nothing but the golden shimmer just ahead; he was afraid to blink, though his eyes began to ache from staring too intensely at the single point of light. He quickened his pace.
The marble led Tristan deeper and deeper into the earth, turning and winding through side corridors and rooms with rotting wood doors. He hadn’t seen or heard Evvie for ages; his heart pounded faster as he wondered if he had messed up the spell. His heels began to ache and his eyes stung from trying to see things that weren’t there.
Shivering, Tristan folded his arms to conserve the last of his warmth. It was just the nature of darkness to stretch and warp time until nothing existed beyond that single dizzying point of light.
At long last, the gold marble stopped moving. When Tristan took another step forward, the glowing orb remained motionless; he went cross-eyed trying to watch it. He trailed his fingers along the wall until he felt the wood surface of a door, smooth and sturdy like the one leading to the Subroom. He found the cold metal handle and pulled open the door, holding his breath as it creaked softly back.
As soon as the door was open, Tristan’s marble bobbed forward once again. Then it vanished, its light extinguished.
“Damn,” Tristan muttered. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a second marble and concentrated on Evvie until it hung suspended before his face. Again he cursed—almost as soon as he had released the marble, it too had vanished. He fumbled for a third.
Then he thought of something. Carefully now, he reached out a hand and tried to feel his way through the empty doorway. His fingers slammed into something solid, and he ran his hand across the odd, smooth surface, satisfied. The doorway was guarded by a Prasidimum. This had to be where Evvie kept returning.
Tristan took a few hurried steps backward until his two marbles reappeared on the outside of the barrier. He snatched them from the air and dropped them into his coat pocket, hoping he hadn’t alerted Evvie to his presence. Then he crouched down across from the door, staring at the curtain of impenetrable darkness as he waited.
Tristan had no way of telling the time, so he measured spans by how long he could stand to remain in one position. After what seemed like a long time, his knees and heels began to ache from crouching; getting to his feet, he stretched out his arms and shook his stiff legs to loosen them. He considered enchanting another marble just for something to look at, though eventually he picked out a faint streak of light on the wall.
Surprised, Tristan stepped forward and pressed his fingers to the delicate line, hoping he wasn’t hallucinating. Soon he realized that it was a vein of Delairium, thin and meandering as a thread. While the delicately glowing ore wasn’t bright enough to shed light on the surrounding walls, it gave his straining eyes something to focus on. Unlike the phantom shapes that had terrified him at the beginning of the year, this Delairium was comforting and oddly familiar. Yawning, Tristan touched the scars that crisscrossed the left side of his face. He could get used to the darkness.
Too soon his legs grew stiff once again; stamping his feet a few times, Tristan slouched back to the floor, this time sitting with his back against the icy stone. He was getting hungry now, and he wondered how much time had passed since he’d left Leila and Rusty. Maybe dinner had already started.
Eventually he gave up his vigil. With another yawn, he got to his feet and enchanted a new marble to lead him back towards Delair’s mine. Next time he would have to move faster.
Tristan was nearly running by the time a soft glow came into view. At the familiar sight of Delair’s mine tunnel, he stopped and sagged against the wall, gasping for air. Raking his hair back into place, he returned the marble to his pocket. He’d never seen anything as beautiful as the cheerfully glowing lamps that lined the hallway.
Dinner had started, just as Tristan had guessed, so he stopped in the bathroom to splash water on his face before making his way upstairs to rejoin Leila and Rusty.
“Well?” Leila said eagerly when Tristan sat down. “How was it?”
Tristan was starving, and his hands were still half numb, so he grabbed a hot baked potato and bit into it whole before answering. “I found where Evvie’s been going,” he said quietly once he managed to swallow. “I followed her for ages, until I got to a room with a Prasidimum in the doorway. I couldn’t get past the barrier, but that’s where she’s hiding her secret, whatever it is. I waited forever, but she never showed up again.”
Leila nodded, frowning. “But why does she need to hide something?
And what does that have to do with the school’s secret?”
“Oh, shoot, I can’t believe I didn’t tell you this,” Tristan said. He took another huge bite of his potato before setting it aside. “Remember the diversion?” he asked softly.
“You mean that ridiculous fire?” Leila said, leaning forward.
Tristan nodded. “Well, like I said, Evvie asked me to distract everyone while we were setting up the Prasidimums. I didn’t tell you this, but she said there’s someone hiding down in the tunnels. She needed the diversion so she could get that person’s blood for the barriers, because otherwise they’d be trapped down there.”
Rusty’s eyes widened. “How come you didn’t say something before now?”
“Sorry,” Tristan said. He slit open the remaining half of his potato and spooned sour cream into the center. “Like I said, I forgot.” The teachers’ argument that day and his subsequent fifty hours of punishment had driven the matter completely from his mind.
Leila stirred her soup absently. “That’s really interesting,” she said. “I don’t suppose...no. I guess we don’t know any more than we did before.” She was staring at the teachers’ table with great concentration, though she didn’t appear to be looking at anything in particular.
“You’re the one who always figures things out,” Tristan said, nudging Leila. “Are you sure you don’t have any ideas?”
Still twirling her spoon distractedly, Leila turned her gaze to Tristan. “I don’t know,” she said. “Isn’t this exactly what the teachers were afraid of, though? Someone hiding out in the tunnels, I mean. That’s why they made the big fuss about planting Prasidimums everywhere.”
Tristan nodded.
“Well,” she said, “what if the person that Evvie’s hiding is the vandal?”
Tristan bit his lip and nodded slowly. “I’d thought of that,” he said unhappily. “But that would still make Evvie responsible for the attacks.” If he turned himself in as the vandal, would Drakewell leave Evvie and Amber alone? It was an idea.
Leila said, “Tomorrow we should go exploring a bit, down the tunnel you followed.” She glanced up at the teachers’ table. “I doubt you’ll be able to find the same room again, but at least we can’t get lost.”
Though he was terribly behind on homework again, Tristan agreed. The following day, as soon as classes were over, he fetched a lantern from the Subroom and joined Leila and Rusty in Delair’s hallway. “Ready?”
They nodded.
The tunnels looked much smaller and rougher with their walls illuminated by the lantern; Tristan hardly recognized the first dark opening he’d turned down yesterday. Lifting the lantern above his head, he beckoned Leila and Rusty to follow him.
“We should look in all the rooms we find,” Leila whispered. “Maybe we’ll find something interesting.”
“Or they might just be full of old junk, like the Subroom was,” Tristan said. “Besides, I didn’t find any doors yesterday, except a couple that I had to go through to follow Evvie.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t have any light,” Leila said. “Look, I see one right ahead.” She put a hand on Tristan’s shoulder and pointed down the dim tunnel.
Tristan sighed—she was right.
“What if it’s locked?” Rusty asked. He nudged Leila aside and grabbed for the doorknob. Tristan and Leila didn’t need to say anything, because Rusty had already shoved the door open, answering his own question.
The three of them crowded forward and peered into the dark room. Tristan could make out the outline of a lopsided pyramid, and as he edged forward, the pyramid began to sparkle in the lamp’s soft magical glow.
“Bloody hell, is that gold?” Rusty gaped at the pile.
Tristan nodded. “Sure looks like it.” The pyramid looked as though it was comprised of thousands upon thousands of gold coins; when Tristan knelt beside it, he realized that the gold had simply been melted into slightly irregular discs, blank-faced and gleaming. Tristan picked up a coin, cold and smooth between his fingers, and polished one side on his shirt. He could see a tiny glowing dot on the disk where the lamplight was reflected in the metal.
“No wonder the teachers are so rich,” Leila said. “I bet they’ve been mining this for years, along with the Delairium.” She dropped to her knees besides Tristan, running one hand down the side of the gold pyramid. Clattering and chinking, a handful of gold disks slid down and landed beside Tristan’s knee. “I wonder why no one bothered to lock it up.” Leila scooped up a handful of gold discs and stared at them. Then she slipped the entire handful into her pocket.
“Hey!” Rusty said. “How come you’re stealing those?”
Leila raised her eyebrows. “Why shouldn’t I? What do you call what we’ve been doing with those marbles for the past three months?” She shook her head at him and added a few more gold discs to her other pocket. “It’ll give us more power over the teachers,” she said in annoyance, when Rusty continued to look offended. “It’s not like I have anything to spend these on.”
“Good idea,” Tristan said. He set down the lantern and shoved a few gold discs into the pockets of his jeans and coat. Then he laughed. “Hey, you and Eli can use these as poker chips.”
Rusty snorted. “Okay, okay, I guess it’s all right.”
Eventually they left the room with the gold and continued on down the tunnel, stopping at each door they came across (there were quite a few, just as Leila had predicted); most were empty, or cluttered with ancient junk. Soon Rusty started complaining that he was hungry, and Tristan’s stomach began to growl as well.
“Just a bit farther,” Leila said. “It probably isn’t even dinnertime yet.” Impatient, she took the lantern from Tristan and led the way forward. Tristan dragged his feet, imagining a heaping bowl of mashed potatoes drowned in rich gravy.
Leila stopped in front of the next door and rattled the handle. “I think this one is locked,” she said with interest. Tristan frowned as the taste of gravy faded from his mouth.
“Are you sure it’s not just stuck closed?” he said irritably.
Rusty pushed Leila aside so he could get a closer look. “Naw, there’s a big iron bolt.”
“Let me see that,” Tristan said, grabbing the lantern. He’d forgotten that this was one of the lanterns that turned on and off at a single tap; when he fumbled with it, he accidentally tapped the metal plate and extinguished the magic light. The tunnel was plunged into darkness.
“Argh!” Rusty cried, flailing his arms around. Leila yelped—he had smacked her in the stomach.
“Sorry, I didn’t—” Tristan stopped. The tunnel wasn’t completely black, because there was a strange glowing circle of light on the bolted door in front of him. It was Delairium, of course, but what startled him was the picture it made.
“Triss, what’s wrong?” Leila hissed. “Turn the light back on!”
“Wait.” Tristan leaned closer to the door, and from close up the spidery lines within the circle were unmistakable. It was the image of a globe. This was the room Drakewell had warned him about, the room that Tristan was supposed to keep absolutely secret and stay far away from.
“Oh, come on,” Leila finally snapped. Reaching out, she found Tristan’s arm and snatched back the lantern. She tapped the metal plate and flooded the tunnel once more with light. “Why the hell are we standing in the dark?”
Tristan was still staring at the door. The Delairium was so faint that it had vanished when the light came on, but he could picture exactly where the outline of the globe was traced into the smooth wood.
They should never have come here. If Drakewell realized that Tristan had disobeyed his direct orders, he would be livid.
“What’re you looking at?” Rusty asked, bending forward and squinting at the door.
Tristan straightened. “Nothing. Let’s get out of here.”
“You know something about this door,” Leila accused. She frowned and raised the lantern. “This has to be something important, don’t you think? I m
ean, the teachers didn’t even bother to lock up that massive pile of gold, but this...”
“You reckon this is it?” Rusty said, eyes wide. “The secret of this school, I mean.”
“Guys,” Tristan said nervously, “we really should get out of here.” His eyes were playing tricks on him; he could have sworn he’d just seen the flicker of approaching lamplight in the tunnel behind him, but it vanished as soon as he’d looked closer. Leila had to be right about this room.
After a long, disgruntled silence, Rusty said, “Okay, so can we eat now?”
Leila snorted. “Yes, Rusty. Let’s go.”
When they reached Delair’s mine tunnel, Tristan was about to slump against the wall in relief when he saw a wavering light.
“Delair’s here,” he whispered, throwing out a hand to stop Rusty. “We’ve got to be careful—we’re in huge trouble if he finds us snooping.”
“Aw, Delair’s not gonna report us.” Rusty tried to push Tristan’s arm out of his way.
Leila shook her head sharply and grabbed Rusty’s shoulder. “Tristan’s in enough trouble with the teachers already.” With her other hand, she tapped the lantern against Tristan’s shoulder to extinguish the light.
“You guys are no fun,” Rusty said. “All right, I’ll be quiet.” When Leila released him, he rubbed at his shoulder where she’d held it.
Tristan craned his neck to see where the light was coming from, and after a moment he saw that it was spilling from an open doorway almost directly across from where the three of them stood. There were voices coming from the room, quiet and urgent.
“Now,” Leila whispered, touching Tristan’s shoulder, “let’s get out of—”
CRASH!
Rusty had tripped over a metal bucket filled with rocks; it toppled onto its side with a thunderous clatter, making their efforts at creeping around pointless.
“Rusty!” Tristan and Leila said together.
“Run!” Rusty shouted, his voice cracking.
“No, we haven’t got time,” Leila said desperately. “Hurry, let’s hide in here, so he doesn’t know we’ve been down the other tunnel...”
Metal and Magic: A Fantasy Journey Page 56
