The 10th Kingdom

by Kathryn Wesley

  “Where did they go?” Tony asked.

  “They must have gone down there,” Virginia said.

  She pointed into the hole. Tony peered down it. There was a slide that disappeared into the darkness. It was highly polished and wooden and would have been a lot of fun when he was, oh, say, twelve.

  “I am not going down there,” Tony said. “You can’t see the bottom. Not with my bad luck.”

  Prince peered over the edge too. He wagged his tail uncertainly.

  “Well, there’s nothing up here, is there?” Virginia asked. “It’s the only way down.”

  The broken glass sound came toward him. “I don’t think so,” Tony said.

  Virginia climbed on the slide. “Dad, get on behind me. If the Dwarves went down, it must be safe.”

  “Why does that follow? It might have a very low ceiling.” Prince looked at Tony, then padded over to the slide and sat down behind Virginia.

  “Dad?”

  “I could die,” he said. “Let’s stay up here.”

  She gave him that doleful look again. He didn’t like it. Then she pushed off—

  “Don’t!” he shouted.

  —and disappeared into the darkness.

  Virginia hurtled down the wooden miner’s slide for what seemed like forever. Prince Wendell was pressed against her back, making sounds that she took to be doggy joy. Her torch went out halfway, but long before she reached the bottom she knew where she was going was lit. She saw the lights as she approached.

  The slide leveled off and slowed them down. She got off at the bottom and moved out of the way, hoping her father would be right along. He wasn’t. Prince Wendell stood beside the slide too, looking up hopefully.

  “Come on, Dad,” she said to herself. “You can do it.”

  The slide ended in a large tunnel, but there were still no Dwarves. Up ahead, she heard a lot of banging and noise. They had to be there.

  She took her torch to one of the lit torches. She had to stand on her toes to relight it, but it worked.

  Then she heard a cry from behind her. She turned. Her father overshot the slide and rammed into a post on the end. He doubled up in agony.

  “You made it then,” she said.

  She helped him up. They walked to the end of the tunnel and around a comer. Then Virginia stopped. Up ahead was an amazing sight.

  A vast chamber, illuminated with lamps, was filled with Dwarves. There were wooden frames that enabled the Dwarves to reach the rock surface. The area had already been mined extensively with wooden ramps and balconies linking most of the chamber.

  On the ground, dozens of miners were smashing up large pieces of rock. They all wore red uniforms and little black fez-type hats.

  ‘ ‘What do you think they’re mining?’ ’ her father whispered.

  Virginia had no idea. Another group of Dwarves was refining the rocks, crushing them to separate the rock from a silver substance. Farther along, a group of Dwarves examined and graded the silver, removing impurities—she assumed that’s what they were doing—with ladles.

  In the middle of the cavern was a huge vat of bubbling silver liquid. The air smelled faintly of sulfur and of sweat.

  As Virginia watched, the Dwarves lowered something into the vat. Then someone shouted an order, and three Dwarves hauled that something out with a winch.

  Slowly and magically, a glistening mirror emerged from the bubbles. All of the Dwarves stopped what they were doing to watch. Virginia felt her breath catch in her throat.

  The mirror hung in midair for a few moments, and then it wobbled. Virginia took a step forward so that she could see better.

  The mirror coughed, and then it started crying like a baby.

  “Behold,” a Dwarf said, “Prince Wendell’s coronation

  gift.”

  The entire cavemful of Dwarves shouted and applauded. The noise was deafening.

  “You hear that, Prince?” Virginia said over the noise. “That’s for you.”

  Then there was a crack above her. She moved out of the way, but her father wasn’t so lucky. A stalactite fell on his head.

  He shouted in pain and clutched his skull.

  Every single Dwarf in the chamber heard him and turned around.

  Virginia moaned. Having her father around was becoming a serious liability.

  Several Dwarves came toward them. Virginia didn’t even try to run. She had no idea where they would go. Her father was in too much pain to notice that they were in trouble until the Dwarves were upon them.

  They grabbed her, Prince Wendell, and her father and dragged them toward an office. As they went, Virginia saw the other Dwarves put the new mirror in a drying rack outside the office.

  Inside, they found themselves in a small room. A Dwarf who seemed to be the leader sat behind a big desk covered in papers. Behind him was a union-style woven banner, depicting Dwarves heroically constructing mirrors in all their stages.

  “You realize the penalty for entering our secret mirror mines, comrade?” the Dwarf asked.

  “Is it a heavy fine?” Tony asked.

  “It is death. This is our mountain.”

  “You can have it,” Tony said. “We just want to get back to the Fourth Kingdom.”

  “We didn’t know we were trespassing,” Virginia said.

  “Ignorance is no excuse,” he said. “You have illegally entered the underground Ninth Kingdom, and anyone who tries to steal our secrets will die.”

  “We don’t want your secrets,” Virginia said. “We just want to ask for your help. You see, there was this magic mirror recently which had a little accident.”

  The Dwarves who had carried them in gasped. The Dwarf behind the desk stood up in outrage.

  “You!” the Dwarf shouted. “It was you. We heard a magic mirror had got smashed. Were you responsible for this outrage?”

  “No, not at all,” Tony said. “It was nothing to do with us.”

  The other Dwarves shook their heads in horror. Virginia moved closer to her father. One wrong move, and they were both dead.

  “Do you realize what you have done?” the Dwarf asked. “You have destroyed one of the great traveling mirrors. It is irreplaceable. It is part of Dwarf legend.”

  “I told you,” Tony said, “I wasn’t even there when it happened.”

  “Wait a minute,” Virginia said. She hoped she had heard the Dwarf correctly. “Did you say one of the traveling mirrors?”

  “One, as in there are others?” Tony asked.

  Virginia couldn’t repress her smile. But that offended the Dwarf leader.

  “Why, are you not happy with your handiwork?” the Dwarf asked. “Do you wish to smash the other two as well?”

  “Where are they?” Tony asked. “We must find them.”

  “You will find only death here,” the Dwarf said. “Take them to the old shaft and throw them in.”

  “No!” Tony shouted.

  The Dwarves grabbed Virginia and her father. She tried to struggle, but there were too many of them. Prince Wendell followed beside them, looking confused. Virginia didn’t even know how to ask him for help—as if there was anything he could do. The Dwarves were dragging them into the cavern when one of the Dwarves yelled, “Wait! Look!”

  All of the Dwarves gasped and fell to their knees. Virginia had no idea why.

  “Look in the Truth mirror,” the Dwarf yelled. “Look!” Virginia looked in the same direction as the Dwarves. They were all staring at the new mirror. Prince was standing in front of it. He was reflected in the mirror, not as a dog, but as a man, a handsome blond man kneeling on all fours.

  It was an exact mirror image.

  She had known that the dog was Prince Wendell, and had even come to accept that he could talk. But until that moment, she had not really understood, deep down, that the dog who followed her was a true Prince.

  “It is Prince Wendell,” the Dwarf said. “Grandson of the greatest woman who ever lived.”

  “That’s right,” Tony said
. “That’s the guy. I’m his indispensable translator.”

  The crowd gathered around the mirror. Prince Wendell barked at his own reflection.

  “What magic is this?” one of the Dwarves asked. Virginia was still staring at his image. “You didn’t tell me you looked like that.”

  Prince Wendell looked at himself and barked, very excited. He raised a paw and the human in the mirror raised an arm. “Who are you, strange travelers?” the first Dwarf asked. “We are involved in a secret mission to restore Prince Wendell to his rightful form,” Virginia’s father said. “I am a very important person.”

  “Long have the stories told of the day when the proud Prince would stand before us on four legs,” said the second Dwarf.

  “And this is the day,” Tony said. “And we have questions that must be answered.”

  There was much commotion as the Dwarves realized that the group in their midst was very important. Finally, they decided to let Virginia, Tony, and Prince Wendell get the tour, given by the Librarian. He was the best, the Dwarves decided, to answer all of their questions.

  Virginia had only one. Whether or not they could find a mirror that would take them home.

  The Dwarves gave Tony and Virginia torches as they started them on the tour, then introduced them to the Librarian.

  The Librarian took them into an underground library filled with thousands of ledgers. It was really a hall of mirrors. Every single type of mirror Virginia had ever imagined, and some she hadn’t, were here.

  “Mirrors, mirrors, mirrors,” the Librarian said. “Here is every kind of magic mirror you could ever want.”

  Virginia followed her father, watching their images change in the various mirrors. It was like a funhouse. Some of the mirrors made them fat, some thin.

  The Librarian gave them the history of the mirrors. Some were Vanity mirrors to make a person more beautiful—and, Virginia noted, it worked. There were many talking mirrors and even more spying mirrors. But Virginia was fascinated by the trick mirrors, her father by the erotic mirrors, and Prince Wendell by the water mirror.

  The Librarian explained how the Dwarves had mined this area for thousands of years, searching for the quicksilver, fighting off male dragons who, the Librarian said, were addicted to quicksilver.

  He was holding up a vial of quicksilver, letting Virginia look at it, as he explained it. “This is extremely quicksilver,” he was saying. “Ordinary quicksilver is much too slow for magic mirrors. Most attempts to make a magic mirror fail completely. But—”

  “Ow!”

  Virginia turned. Her father had been running his finger along the frame of a mirror and he had gotten a sliver.

  “You’re clumsy,” the Librarian said.

  “Yes, sorry about that,” Tony said,

  “You’re not suffering from bad luck, are you?”

  “We’re looking for a Traveling mirror,” Virginia said, as much to cover for her father as to get them out of there fast. “To match the one that was broken.”

  “Which was nothing to do with us,” Tony added.

  The Librarian studied Tony suspiciously. Then he scanned a shelf of ancient red-leather ledgers. ‘ ‘Traveling mirrors ... Traveling mirrors haven’t been made for hundreds of years. I doubt our records go that far back.”

  He opened one of the volumes, ran his finger down the entries, closed it, and shook his head.

  “As I thought,” the Librarian said. “There is one other slender hope. Let’s see if we can raise Gustav.”

  Virginia looked at her father, who shrugged. Wendell wagged his tail as if he understood.

  The Librarian led them across the cavern. He stopped in front of an ancient mirror. Its frame was rotting, and it smelled like decaying teeth. Most of its silver was gone. Someone had wrapped a shawl around it as if it were a very old man.

  The Librarian coughed. Then he gave the frame a gentle shake, “Gustav. You have a visitor.”

  Slowly the mirror shimmered to life. Virginia watched in fascination.

  “You have to speak up,” the Librarian said to her. “He’s going a bit deaf.”

  She nodded once and stepped before the mirror. “Great Record Keeper,” Virginia said, “we need to ask you a ques-

  lion.”

  “Eh?” the mirror said.

  “Question?” Tony shouted. “We need to ask you a question. About Traveling mirrors.”

  ‘ ‘An answer only will I chime, when questions put are asked in rhyme,” the mirror said.

  “All early mirrors talk in verse,” the Dwarf said.

  Virginia leaned back. She wasn’t good at rhyme. But her father shouted, “Were there any other Traveling mirrors made, that might help us on our escapade?”

  “Escapade?” Virginia said to herself.

  “Three fine mirrors there were made, to make them such a price was paid.”

  “We’re on the case,” Tony said. “Where were the other two?”

  “Eh?” the old mirror said.

  Her father looked impatient. “Our mirror’s smashed. What can we do? Where the hell are the other two?’ ’

  “Mirror one is smashed forever, by an idiot dressed in leather.”

  Virginia looked at her father. He wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Mirror two is on a bed, with barnacles upon its head.” “A bed?” Tony asked, glancing at Virginia. “With barnacles on it?”

  “The sea bed,” Virginia said.

  ‘ ‘Yes,’ ’ the Librarian said. ‘ ‘One fell into the Great Northern Sea. I think you can safely discount that one.”

  “Mirror three, stolen be,” the old mirror said.

  “Stolen?”

  “Who’s stolen it?” Tony asked. He was looking nervous. Virginia felt her stomach twist. She was beginning to recognize that expression. It was the bad-luck expression.

  Apparently the mirror hadn’t heard him, so Tony yelled, “Could you please get off your ass, and tell us who has got the glass?”

  “What you seek has not been seen, since it was stolen by the Queen.”

  “The Queen,” Tony said. “That’s all we need.”

  He glanced over his shoulder, as he had done all the times before. Virginia felt her palms grow clammy.

  “Very helpful you have been,” her father said, “but for Chrissake tell us where we’ll find the Queen.”

  He strained for the rhyme. Virginia never thought “been”

  and “Queen” matched, even though they were spelled similarly. But apparently that was good enough for the mirror.

  “Near she is and not alone, in a place that’s not her home, in a castle out of sight, where once the Queen was called Snow

  White.”

  “Wendell’s castle,” Tony said. He clapped his hands together and stepped backwards. “I knew it!”

  His hand clipped a nearby mirror. Virginia reached forward to stop it, but she couldn’t. The mirror toppled backwards. It was one of a long stack of magic mirrors. They tipped over like a stack of dominoes. All Virginia could do was watch. “Oh, no!” her father said. “Oh, no. No. No.”

  The noise was astounding as mirror after mirror banged against another. Then they all crashed, breaking into thousands of pieces.

  “Murderers!” the Librarian shouted. “You have murdered my mirrors.”

  “No,” Tony said. “It was an accident.” “Mirror-murderers. Kill them. Kill them.”

  All around the mine, Dwarves looked up. Someone pulled a cord and a large horn rang, echoing through the tunnels. “Come on,” Tony said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Virginia pushed at Prince and they all ran, even though she had no idea where they would go.

  “The next person to look up will be executed,” the Queen

  said.

  She was facing Wendell’s entire staff. They shook in fear as she walked up and down the line. They had discovered her, and because of that, they now would pay—some of them with their lives.

  “Messengers will be sent today to every King, Queen
, Emperor, and dignitary throughout the Nine Kingdoms, inviting them to Prince Wendell’s coronation ball.”

  The Dog Prince stood behind her. He clapped his hands in

  pleasure.

  “That’s me,” he said.

  “No one will leave the castle between now and then unless you are instructed to do so by me and me alone,” the Queen said. “If asked, you will simply say that your master has returned and is well. If I hear one rumor, one whisper that anything is amiss, I will kill your children in front of you. Return to your duties.”

  The staff turned and walked away in silence. They wouldn’t be much more trouble. Most of them had been around her before. They knew that she meant what she said.

  She went to the desk and heated Prince Wendell’s seal over a candle. In front of her were a large pile of embossed invitation cards.

  “Are we going to have a party?” the Dog Prince asked. “Great. What do we do when everyone gets here?”

  She slammed the sizzling seal on the first invitation before her. “Kill them all,” she said.

  “Look, there they are!” a Dwarf shouted behind them.

  “Mirror-murderers!” another shouted.

  Virginia was running as fast as she could. Her father had stopped ahead. The tunnel dead-ended. Their only chance was to go down another set of slides.

  She grabbed Prince and jumped onto the slide, flattening out as she went into the darkness. Her father followed. She slowed as she reached the bottom and got off.

  Her father plummeted past her and flew onto the floor.

  “My wrist,” Tony said. “I’ve broken my wrist. I can’t take much more of this. I’ve broken my wrist.”

  “You’ve got to be more careful,” Virginia said.

  “It’s not my fault. It’s my bad luck.” Then his face fell. He had had seven years of bad luck. Now he had thirty times that. “Oh, my God. What’s it going to be like noowwww?”

  As he spoke that last sentence, he disappeared down a hole.

  Virginia ran to its lip. “Dad? Dad?”

  She peered down the hole and saw the tiny flickering light of her father’s torch at the bottom, and the shape of his motionless body thirty feet below.

  He looked dead, but she couldn’t tell. She looked at Prince. He was staring down as well.

  Then she sighed. She grabbed Prince and slowly, carefully, climbed down the hole. She slipped and fell the last six feet, landing in a cloud of dust.