Thorn was perched on a small platform of rocks jutting out from the stone face that held the ladder.
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"You don't want to fall, so hold the ladder tightly as you go."
With frightening quickness, Thorn jumped across the ladder, landing on another formation of rocks and skidding to a stop. The formations were scattered all the way down the side of the wall, crisscrossing the ladder as they went.
I turned toward Thomas and put my legs out into the opening of the door, stepping down onto the first few rungs.
"Don't look down, don't look down, don't look down," I repeated to myself. I looked up and saw Thomas's head poking out over the edge. "Try not to kick dirt in my face."
"I wish Mister Clawson was a chicken," he repeated, looking back once more in the direction of our captor.
Before long we were in something of a pattern, Thomas and I making wishes as we went, while Thorn bounded back and forth beneath us on our way to the very bottom. The air was warm and humid, like a hot summer day after a morning of rain, and soon I was thinking about how much work it would be to go back up the ladder. I don't know how much time passed, but there came a moment when I no longer heard Thorn bounding from one perch to another and I glanced down for the first time since our journey began. She was
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standing at the bottom, at the edge of the water, looking up at us.
"We're almost there, Thomas!" 1 said. "Only a few more steps to go and we've done it."
When there were three rungs left to go I jumped down and landed on flat, cracked rock that looked old and wrinkly. A moment later Thomas found his way to the bottom as well, and we stood next to Thorn looking out over the watery world.
"What is this place?" asked Thomas, his voice trailing off as he gazed out into the open.
"It's the Lake of Fire," purred Thorn. There was dread in the sound of her voice.
"I was hoping for the pile of candy," I muttered, "not the warm bath."
Thorn began walking along the edge of the soft glowing water. It looked as though the edge dropped off very deep, and I was careful to keep a few feet away from it as we followed Thorn.
"Is it hot?" Thomas asked. "Will it burn my hand if I touch it?"
"Don't touch it!" I said to Thomas. "Vvho knows what it will do to you. For all we know it might shrivel your hand into a prune."
"The water won't hurt you," said Thorn. "What's in the water is what we need to be careful of."
We walked on -- scared half to death at the thought of something slithering out of the water at
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our feet and dragging us in. We went along the edge about twenty steps, and then I couldn't go any farther.
"We can't just keep blindly following you," I said. Thorn glanced back at us and saw that we'd stopped. I was afraid of Thorn, but more afraid of where she might be leading us. "For all we know we could be walking to our deaths. Maybe we're a sacrifice or something horrible like that. And why can we understand what you're saying? You're an animal ! We shouldn't be able to understand what you're saying."
Thorn had that look a cat has when they're sizing up their prey. A deep, eye-piercing look that made me wonder if she was about to pounce on us both and drop us over the edge into the Lake of Fire.
"We only need to walk a little more," she purred. "There's a boat that will take us where we need to go. I'll answer your questions while we glide across the Lake of Fire."
Thorn walked on without us while Thomas and I whispered to each other. The idea of getting any closer than we already were to the water -- let alone getting on the water -- was not appealing.
"We could go back up the ladder," I whispered. "Maybe Mister Clawson has gone, and we could sneak away."
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"The water doesn't look that hot," Thomas replied. To my horror he scampered over to the edge and put his hand in, touching his finger to his lips to see what it tasted like. While his hand hadn't been boiled a bright red, he did make a sour face at the taste in his mouth. I joined him at the waters edge and knelt down.
"What's it taste like?" I asked.
"Like a bowl of salt," said Thomas. "I don't think it's drinkable."
There came a strange sound from somewhere far off on the water, like something moving and growing in velocity as it moved. Far off, where we couldn't see, it sounded as though air had boiled over into quaking bubbles onto the surface of the lake.
"Let's go back," I said, pulling Thomas by the shirtsleeve and backing away from the water. "Let's just get out of here and do whatever Mister Clawson makes us do."
Thomas stared at me, and I knew what he was thinking before he said it.
"I'm following Thorn," he told me. "She hasn't hurt us yet, and I think she wants to help us. She's not going out on the water unless it's safe, right? So as long as we stick together, we're all right."
"What if she pushes us off?" I asked.
The idea of floundering in the Lake of Fire
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seemed to fall on deaf ears. Once Thomas had made up his mind to go adventuring, there was no turning him around. Even at the risk of both our lives, there was no way to stop him. I had no choice but to follow behind as he started off in the direction Thorn had gone.
It was a short walk along flat, cracked stones. The light was faint but pleasant, and it went slowly dimmer and then bright again, like a very slow heartbeat. The face of the water was as still as glass. It looked like I could walk out as far as I wanted, watching my reflection as I went. It was mesmerizing, the way it was so still, like a mirror.
"This will take some work," Thorn said as we came up beside her. There was a perfectly square object on the water, and Thorn jumped onto it. The whole thing was about the size of two wooden horse carts laid side by side, and there was nothing on it. It looked as though it was black, but I couldn't tell for sure. When Thorn jumped on, it bobbed erratically, rippling the glassy surface of the water. Thomas wasted no time leaping onto the strange floating object next, and I followed. Feeling its unsteady wobble beneath me made my empty stomach roll.
"Welcome to the Lake of Fire," said Thorn. "Best to speak in whispers, for there are some we don't want to meet along the way."
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As if on cue, the strange sound of great bubbles breaking on the surface of the water returned from far off in the distance. We were on the Lake of Fire, and the vessel we were on was pointed in the precise direction of the monstrous noise.
"What's that sound?" I whispered, but I got no reply as the makeshift boat we were on sat peacefully along the edge of a vast body of glowing yellow water.
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***
CHAPTER 11
A Clanging Chain on the Lake of Fire
The way in which the square black vessel -- I'll call it our raft -- was to make its way across the Lake of Fire was not how one might expect. There were no oars or sails, nothing that we could use to propel the raft from one side of the lake to the other.
"How do we make it move?" I asked. The raft bobbed up and down gently, but it wasn't going anywhere.
"There," purred Thorn, raising her paw toward the sky before us. The light that was all around us came from beneath the lake, and it quickly faded until there was only darkness a few feet over our heads. It was the strangest thing to see such soft light in so vast a space, a light that turned to darkness more quickly than it should have. I hadn't seen what Thorn was showing us until she pointed it out. There were chains dangling down from overhead, and at the very end of the chains were hooks. The first of these chains hung down ten feet away from us over the Lake of Fire, far enough out that we couldn't reach it. The one after that was another ten
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feet, and on it went like that, a line of perfectly still chains hanging from a stone ceiling somewhere far above where we could not see. The chains seemed to hang from a black sky as if by magic, and they had an awful, silent stillness about them that made a person want to push and clang them together.
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"We must push away from the edge to reach the first chain," said Thorn. "But we must be careful not to miss. If we drift off the line of chains -- anywhere along the line of chains -- we will be lost on the Lake of Fire."
"This gets better all the time, don't you think?" I groused to Thomas, but he seemed entranced by the idea of pulling himself along the line of chains and didn't respond.
"The two of you sit in the middle. I've done this before," Thorn continued. "Don't touch the chain when we come beneath it. There are dangers on the Lake of Fire that can be awakened. Let me show you before you touch them."
I took a last look at the ledge and the way back to the ladder, thinking for a moment I might bolt for the way out and take my chances with Mister Clawson. But Thomas was already seated in the middle of the raft, perfectly content to ride out into the unknown. I crawled over to the center of the raft and sat down beside him.
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Thorn jumped off the raft, back onto land, and I was suddenly aware that we might have been tricked, that she might push us out into the Lake of Fire and leave us as dinner for some unseen monster beneath the surface. My worry increased as I watched Thorn push us out with her two front legs, springing hard back to land as she did so. She stood on the flat stones we'd left behind and watched as we drifted out toward the first still chain.
I stood up in a panic, afraid of what would happen to us -- but I needn't have worried so much. As I was trying to stand, Thorn leaped from the bank and flew toward the raft. The force of her landing sent the raft bobbing on the water toward the first of the chains.
"We'll need that extra little bit to catch hold of the first one," Thorn growled. There was a resolve in her voice I hadn't heard before as she centered her attention on the chain.
"Move to the side now," she said. "Leave me the middle of the raft."
Thomas and I began to move to the same side, causing the raft to lean hard toward the glowing yellow water. Thorn scowled but didn't take her eyes from the chain. Thomas wasted no time scurrying back across the middle to the other side, where he bent down on his knees and waited.
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The raft slowed on our approach to the first chain. It felt as though the yellow water was thick like honey and would not let us go.
"Come on," purred Thorn quietly. "Don't stop now."
The raft wasn't moving any longer. We had come to a' halt with the chain too far away to reach. Thorn growled in a way that I could not understand, backed up two or three paces, and ran for the edge of the raft. When she reached the very edge she jumped and soared into the air, catching the chain with her sharp claws. She swung violently away from us, disappearing into the dark, then started back, her full weight and size coming furiously toward us.
"Grab hold!" she growled. As she came over the raft she dropped out of the air - and, quick as a whip, Thomas was up off his knees. Thorn crashed into the raft and spun uncontrolled, digging her claws into wood as her back legs dangled precariously over the edge. The chain flew high into the air. When it came slashing down out of the darkness, Thomas reached both hands up and caught it by the hook, holding steady at the center of the raft.
"Now pull on it as hard as you can," said Thorn. "And don't let it go until I tell you to."
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Thomas heaved on the chain and the raft began moving slowly forward,
"Pull as hard as you can!" commanded Thorn.
Thomas kept pulling and we gained speed, though only a little, and it looked to me like we were heading in just the right direction. When we came to a place where the chain was hanging straight down again and it would do no good to keep pulling on it, Thorn told Thomas to gently let it go, which he did.
"It will be easier now," said Thorn, a sense of relief in her feline voice. And so it was. For the chains were closer together as we went, and we needed only to be sure and go in the right direction, gently pulling on each of the chains as they came near, making our way across the Lake of Fire.
Thomas and I settled into a routine of taking turns at the chains, and we began to ask questions that Thorn was surprisingly willing to answer. The farther we ventured away from Mister Clawson, the more comfortable she became and the less frightened of her I felt. It was a journey across soft, glowing water in which we learned a great deal about her circumstances, what had brought her to Mister Clawson, and the extraordinary journey we found ourselves on.
You, Alexa, know what it's like to be close to
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animals and have them trust you with their stories. But you must understand how different it was back then. When Thomas and I were in our youth, it wasn't just us that seemed young. Everything in The Land of Elyon was younger. If you can imagine, people and wild animals did not come into contact. We stayed in our place and they stayed in theirs. Of course we had domesticated animals -- horses, dogs, cats, livestock -- but we stayed entirely away from places that held mysterious creatures of the untamed variety. Wolves, great bears, mountain lions -- even squirrels.
Some animals were more inclined to mix with humans, while others were set against the idea from the start and fought to maintain separation. Certain places began to feel almost haunted. There were places you simply didn't go, places where a human felt entirely unwelcome, where it felt as though you were being watched by menacing forces. The Great Ravine, the Dark Hills, the Sly Field, Fenwick Forest, the mountains -- these places were for wild animals, not for people. There was something magical, both dark and light, that kept the two worlds apart.
As we traveled, Thorn took great care to explain to us the reasons why man and beast stayed away from one another in vast areas of The Land of Elyon. Both understood that bringing the two together
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was a dangerous path in which the oldest magic could be put at risk. Animals such as wolves and bears called humans "magic killers," while humans felt a great fear of places they didn't know or understand. It was this fear that drove humans to hate wild animals and places, and begin to wonder how to bring these things under their control.
This had created something of a silent war between the two. If men came into the wild, animals didn't so much try to kill them as scare them, to warn them to stay away.
Humans are the killers of magic, you see. We must accept this unfortunate fact of life. Think about it, though I know you don't want to. People can be cruel, unkind, mean, selfish. We can be a great many dreadful things, and at one time or another we are all guilty of bad behavior. What we fail to realize is that we are the only ones who can do such things. All the animals - all of them -- are innocent. The trees, the flowers, the streams and mountains -- all are innocent. But we do not enjoy such innocence. We are the killers of magic, whether we like it or not.
And so we have a choice. We can fight against our dark nature or we can give in to it. Back then, if you happened upon the right place, you could understand a wild animal. It was as if a bridge appeared -- a kind of intercession, if you will - in
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which their way of speaking and ours were connected. And so you must imagine a man such as Mister Clawson finding one of these places and bringing a wild animal into his midst -- understanding that animal, if only for a brief time -- and then finding a way of keeping the animal under his control. If you can imagine these things, then you are very near to understanding Thorn.
"Children are different," Thorn told us as Thomas pulled on a chain and let it go so that it hung perfectly still behind us as we drifted past. "They don't bring harm in the same way adults do. I don't know why, but a child wandering in the forest kills no magic and does no damage. But that doesn't mean a pack of wolves wouldn't want to tear you to bits. The untamed regions are just that -- untamed -- and dinner is dinner."
I didn't want to think about being devoured by wild animals, so I tried to think of something different to ask Thorn. The next chain was coming near and it was mine to take hold of. Grabbing it, I asked: "How did you come to be with Mister Clawson?"
r /> Thorn appeared to gaze back into a past she had trouble remembering.
"My family used to come from the mountain to the Great Ravine and hunt during a certain time of the year. There was a cave near our hunting
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ground that my mother told me to stay away from. She caught me near there once and punished me severely. It made me angry -- the way she got so upset and wouldn't trust me -- so I went back the next day when she was hunting and I ventured inside the cave."
There was a moment of silence when I thought she wouldn't go on, but it passed. "Mister Clawson was in the cave, hiding in the dark. It was my first time in the hunting grounds at the Great Ravine and I wasn't very big then. I clawed and clawed at him, trying to get away, but I failed."
"And now he keeps you in that room with the candles?" asked Thomas sadly.
"Sometimes he sends me back through the mouth of the cave to get something for him, but yes, mostly I stay in the room with the candles."
"Why don't you escape? Why not just leave and never come back?"
Evidently these were hard questions for Thorn to answer, for she turned her head to the side and wouldn't look at us.
"The two of you won't survive in the wild without me to protect you. He only sends me out with children such as you, because he knows I won't let you perish. Without me you might already be dead. And when we reach the wild, there is no hope for you but to stay with me."
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It was suddenly clear to me that Thorn was the closest thing to a friend Thomas and I could have dreamed of. A two-hundred-pound beast with claws as long as my toes was our guide and our shield! And she'd been lost as a cub herself. She knew the sorrow of being young and alone. She would never let that happen to me or Thomas.