Enchanted Realms

Chapter 5

“Looks like a dead end,” Alyson said.

Josh looked up at the canyon sides and wondered how they would climb out.

Smooth, nearly vertical walls covered with a climbing vine soared on two sides, a fast moving stream cutting in between, the ledge on which they stood just a few feet above the swift waters.

For as swift and narrow as the stream was, it made little sound. Josh could not see a bottom, the water a deep, dark green.

Ahead, the box canyon ended, the water emerging seamlessly from some unknown underground source, already deep and swift, the wall above it identical to those on each side. A narrow slice of sky beckoned above them. If only I had wings, Josh thought.

They"d been following the twisting canyon for hours, and Josh doubted they"d get back to the place they"d entered before nightfall.

Last night, they"d traveled another few hours into the forest, wanting to be well beyond the Alsace border by daylight. Then they"d found a copse well-screened from the road and had collapsed, exhausted, onto a makeshift bed of leaves. The cold had quickly forced them into each other"s arms, but she had made him face away. He"d found comfort in having her arms around him, and he"d instantly fallen asleep, only to be awakened by her shivering, so cold her teeth had started chattering in his ear.

Fingering his turquoise, he"d sheathed them in a protective blanket, and soon, their warmth contained, they"d slept.

At first light, they"d set out again, gathering berries as they went, Josh"s meager rations now having to be shared between two people.

The weather moderate, travel hadn"t been difficult except for the constant climb, and around noon, they"d found the canyon and the swift stream issuing out of it, and had elected to take the more moderate incline, the sides quickly soaring hundreds of feet above their heads.

Now, they were stuck.

Josh grabbed a handful of vine and tugged. It held.

“I don"t know …” Alyson looked doubtful, her head leaned back, her gaze measuring the distance to the top.

Josh grabbed a second handful, higher than the first, and then tried to find a foothold, digging deep with his shoe-shod toe. He lifted, focusing on his amethyst, lightening his weight by nudging himself upward. Then his foot lost its grip in the soft soil, and his hands each tore off a hank of vine, and he slid back to the path.

“Give me a nudge with your amethyst,” he said, placing his hands higher and digging in a foot again.

“If you fall and get hurt, Josh, I"ll beat you to a pulp.”

He grinned at her, believing she would, and heaved himself up, planting his other foot. Hand up, hand up, foot planted—

“Watch out!”

His foot lost its grip and his hands tore out larger hanks of vine, and he slid back to the path.

Where he had ripped away vine, reddish sandy dirt lay exposed.

“Odd,” he said.

“Doesn"t look like it would hold its shape, does it?” Alyson said.

“Not at all.” He stepped to the end of the canyon, where the ledge ended, where the rapid water emerged. The vine looked no different. Josh pulled down a hank, which came away easily, the soft, sandy, reddish earth underneath also no different.

“Uh, Josh—”

He stopped. “Yeah, we might not want to cause an avalanche, huh?”

“I wouldn"t, but what does my opinion matter?”

He snorted, shaking his head at her, looking at the cleft he"d gouged. “There"s something unusual about it all. What are we missing?”

“The canyon sides are obviously held in place by magic.”

“That"s it!”

Her gaze narrowed. “What"s it?”

“Intentioned. This place is built by intention. The intention in building it is—”

“To trap us, or any fool inattentive enough to enter a narrow canyon like it.”

He shook his head. “I don"t think so. To discourage us, certainly. Here, let me see your amethyst.”

The stone for moving objects from a distance, the amethyst might also be used to exert pressure on objects. Such as the walls of the canyon.

“Remember the watchtower arch above the road at the Alsace border? How did they get the arch to stay up like that, without apparent support?”

Alyson shrugged. “I"ve always wondered how they did that.”

“Alignment.”

Her brows narrowed.

“The grains of sand in these walls are aligned like the bricks in that arch. A uniformly-sized collection of objects can be stacked to hold up its own weight and a great deal more if they"re aligned correctly. All except for round objects, of course. The canyon walls hold their shape because the grains of sand are uniform and aligned. The reason my feet won"t stay stuck is that my thrusting them into the earth destabilizes their alignment. All we have to do is align the grains of sand in the shape of an arch, and we can tunnel any direction we want.” He saw she wasn"t really looking at him anymore.

“Uh, Josh?”

Annoyed, he frowned. “What?” He realized she was looking over his shoulder. What was that hissing sound? he wondered. He looked where she was looking.

Where he"d dug his feet in trying to scale the canyon wall, a small slide was developing. A two-foot wide cascade of sand slipped across the ledge and into the water.

He turned around. The wall above the stream where he"d dug his hands deep had developed its own little slide.

“Quick!” He thrust his amethyst toward it, as did Alyson, and the slide stopped.

But the one behind them grew even larger.

“Help me,” he said, focusing his attention on creating a path into the canyon end, alongside the fast-moving stream. The person-sized shape molded easily, the displaced sand slipping away into the stream.

The slide behind them widened, the sound growing louder. “C"mon,” he said. “Faster.”

Together they dug into the canyon side, stabilizing as they went, digging a tunnel, the path below them thankfully continuing parallel and a foot or so above the stream.

When they"d dug twenty feet in, the light behind them collapsed, their tunnel now consumed by the slide.

Josh realized that the stream would soon be clogged. “Upward!” And they began to tunnel upward, pulling the sandy soil behind them as they hollowed out the sand ahead, working in tandem.

It seemed to take forever, and Josh kept thinking, we"re likely to be sucked into the stream at any time.

“Faster,” she said, breathing roughly, her amethyst glowing at her wrist.

His around his neck was growing hot, and despite the chill, he began to sweat. The tunnel now at forty-five degrees, Josh began to wonder how so much sand had gathered in one place, especially at such a high elevation.

Then it occurred to him—it couldn"t.

“Stop,” he said.

“What?!” Her face aglow from below, she looked ghostly.

“You have a diamond, right?” He knew he looked just as ghostly, his own amethyst glowing on his chest.

“Uh, yeah?” She looked doubtful.

“How do you block an illusion?”

“You think this—?” She spread her hands. “That"s a powerful illusion.”

He nodded. “Together, maybe we can block it.”

She pulled the chain from under her tunic. The tiny stone sparkled with the ambient light. She leaned toward him and pulled his hand up to place the stone in his palm, then put her hand over his.

Her face was wonderfully close and her eyes were deep liquid pools, and he felt her mind wrap around his, and their thoughts together, they focused on the diamond.

His palm grew warm. He saw the bones of his hand outlined under the skin, and the sand swirled around them as though sucked away by a hurricane.

Reality snapped into place and the only sound was the drip, drip, drip of water in a cave, the only smell that of—

“Eeuuww!”

—the foul odor of necrosis declaring that the prior wanderer had not navigated the trap successfully.

Josh could just make out a bit of daylight up and to the left. He grabbed her hand and began the climb, trying his best to watch where he stepped.

They emerged on a ledge three quarters of the way to the top of a canyon wall, a deep, fast-moving stream below them, an occasional tree clinging to the steep canyon sides.

Not a thimbleful of sand to be seen.

Alyson began to giggle.

Josh sat down and laughed. Then caught a whiff of the miasma in the tunnel behind them. “Come on,” he said and found the trail up the canyon rim.

There he stopped and sat against a tree, and Alyson sat beside him, her shoulder against his. She was still giggling.

After a moment he realized it was weeping, and he pulled her to him.

A few minutes later she pulled away. “Sorry, it was … we could have …” And she burst into tears again.

He held her while she cried, realizing somewhere deep inside that it might behoove him to be afraid.

But he wasn"t, not really. Not the kind of terror she was feeling. Underneath her bravado, Josh suspected she wasn"t quite as tough as she seemed outwardly. He wondered how fragile she was, suspecting she"d never had to face real danger.

“Guess I"ve never come across a dead body before,” she said awhile later, sniffing. “I"ve never thought I was going to die.”

“That was pretty frightening,” he said, noticing that she hadn"t pulled away and liking the contact.

“Well, I don"t like you,” she said, sitting up and throwing her chin up as though in disdain.

He chuckled. “Impudent wench.”

“Hey!” She looked hurt.

“I"m joking,” and he pulled her back into his embrace.

“So am I,” and she relaxed in his arms.

* * *

Thaddeus Corntassel peered over his spectacles at the two children before him and shook his head. “That"s quite a tale,” he said, twirling his finger and stirring his pot in deep contemplation, his amethyst ring glowing softly.

The thick, rich stew bubbled merrily, filling the large cave with its many aromas. The ladle swirled with Corntassel"s twirl.

“We"re not children,” the girl said to him, the small diamond at her throat sparkling.

Intercepting my thoughts, the little rapscallion. He imagined a monstrous brown bear biting off her head.

She giggled.

In his head, a gnome no taller than his knee kicked him in the shin. “Ow!” he said, wincing, the pain real. “Where"d you learn that, ornery little fart!”

“She"s not a fart,” Josh said.

She socked him on the arm.

Thaddeus chuckled, having missed the company of other people and delighted to have two such succulent young ones—

“Succulent?!” Alyson said.

“Oh, uh, I misspoke, or misthought, or whatever, my apologies! I must be hungry, like you!”

Indeed, having awakened from a twenty-year nap at their having escaped his illusion, Thaddeus was very hungry. He"d found them at the canyon lip in each other"s arms, looking quite enamored of each other, but also quit wan, disheveled, and unkempt, as though they"d traveled across rough and unforgiving country.

veryMy trap is quite unforgiving, he mused.

quiteThaddeus had introduced himself, welcomed them, and had brought them back to his cave, a deep hole nearly hidden under a thousand-foot waterfall. Its water supplied the same stream where he"d built his trap, the dull roar constant, the mist giving his cave an extra chill.

The pair had been delighted to see the well-appointed cave. While he had set the fire alight and had begun to prepare the stew, they"d explored all its cupboards, drawers, nooks, and crannies. As the aroma had filled the cave, they"d returned to the fire, their hunger evident in their eyes, and he"d asked them how they"d come to be snared in the trap.

“That"s quite a tale,” he said again, shaking his head. “It"s not right the way the Guardian of Alsace forced you both into exile. Seems it"s long overdue for Alsace to crown a king.”

“Or a queen,” Alyson said.

“Or a queen,” Thaddeus acknowledged. Then he smiled. “Or both.”

The two of them looked at each other.

He chuckled. “Not the first one to get the idea, I see.” The ladle swirled lazily, the finger swirling with it. “Not many get through, you know,” he said.

“We almost didn"t,” the girl said. “The sand nearly caught us. Why do you have a trap?”

He stirred the pot a few more times, stirring his thoughts a few more times. “Well, I guess for protection.” He pursed his lips, staring into the bubbles, his own thoughts bubbling, having slept a long time, his dreams having been active. He"d dreamt about these two, dreams synchronous with events. As they"d told their story, he"d seen the images in his mind. He knew what they hadn"t told him: The wyrm-herder who was also a wyvern-talker, the outspoken girl who even now kept her real skills obscured, the quiet but solid admiration that was developing between them, their intertwined fates leading them into a future—

“You"re not here because you want to be here, either,” the boy said.

Thaddeus was glad for the boy"s intrusion but dismayed by the depth of his observation. “No, I"m not,” he acknowledged. “We all are slave to master destiny, but some of us have other masters, as the wyvern well knows.” He sighed and wondered how much to tell them.

“And the wyvern well knows because the wyvern is your master.”

is“Alas, it is so,” Thaddeus said, wishing the Josh boy weren"t so perceptive. But then he would"ve never puzzled through the trap, nor picked up the wyrm talk, nor escaped the Guardian.

“So, how about a bit of stew?” Keeping his mind carefully blank, he crooked his finger at a cupboard, which opened and issued a pair of bowls. He crooked it at a drawer, and two spoons leaped out. The spoons joined the bowls at the pot, and the ladle scooped the stew. The bowls circled around him and settled themselves in front of the youngsters.

Thaddeus saw the boy"s hand fall from the girl"s arm. Josh dumped his in the fire, gestured Alyson to do the same.

“Well, now, why are you deciding you don"t like it without even trying it?”

“You first.”

Thaddeus supposed his lack of shock was what gave him away. “Well, if you insist.” With the same gesticulations, he got a bowl and spoon and ladled himself some stew.

They watched him closely as he lifted the spoon to his mouth. He held it poised, grinning at them, and finally slid the spoonful into his mouth.