"Thank you, Thorn," I said, releasing the chain and stepping out of the way for Thomas to take his turn. "We've needed a friend for a long time." I knelt down before the great cat and all my fear of her was gone. There was a sonlike feeling in its place, as though she were our mother and we were her cubs, and nothing in the world would let her fail in defending us against the wild world outside.
"How did Mister Clawson come to be in the cave?" asked Thomas.
"He found the iron door -- a door no animal can open on its own -- and he followed the same path we now travel. He's someone who lives in the realms of dark magic, and when you live there, certain forces are apt to find you and drag you away."
"What do you mean?" asked Thomas, pulling on the chain and releasing it softly.
"I mean Mister Clawson dabbled in dark magic in dark places, and eventually that choice led here, to the Lake of Fire. It's here that Abaddon lives, deep beneath the world."
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The sound of that name -- Abaddon -- had a curious feel to it. I whispered it to myself -- Abaddon -- and it felt as though I were calling some dark spirit of power closer to us. The name tingled on my lips and I wished I hadn't spoken it.
"There is good magic -- the kind of Elyon -- and evil magic -- the kind of Abaddon," continued Thorn. "There can't be one without the other. The room you were pulled into, the iron door, the Lake of Fire -- these are all within the realm of dark magic, and together they are a secret passage to the untamed places of the world."
"Pulled into?" I asked.
Thorn explained that it was Mister Clawson who had pulled us into the room with only one door. His arm came through the stones and took hold of us, and we went right through to the other side.
Mister Clawson had very limited powers, but this one he had mastered -- to bring those he chose into his realm and put them to work on tasks of his choosing.
Thorn, I was finding, had not learned certain motherly traits in the charge of Mister Clawson. She did not wonder if something might scare us or bother us. She simply answered the questions put to her.
"The iron door is a passageway down into the
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world of darkness and out into the wild. If a man can get hold of a wild beast -- control one -- within this world of darkness, he can gain for himself a way to cross between the two worlds unharmed. If..." She paused. "If he can find those that would do his traveling for him."
"That's where we come in," Thomas suggested. Then, thinking a little more, he added, "What exactly are we getting for Mister Clawson?"
Thorn didn't answer. Changing her tone she stared past us into the glowing water.
"We come to the end of the chains."
It was dimmer on this side -- it had been getting dimmer as we went without us really noticing -- so that both Thomas and I were surprised to find the raft bumping softly against rock, wobbling back and forth on impact. I had a hold on the last chain, and when we hit the rocks, I jerked forward just enough to flip the chain up out of my hands into the air. It folded over itself, the links running back down like dripping water, clanging softly as they came.
All was still as I steadied the chain in my hand and let it go, thinking nothing of the tiny ringing noise I'd let slip over the Lake of Fire. Thorn's ears were perked and listening. She looked at us as if to say, Don't make a sound. But it was too late, for somewhere in the distance, high over our heads
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and down the length of the Lake of Fire, the noise of a thousand screaming voices came bellowing over the water.
"Run for the wall!" Thorn roared. "The bats have awakened!"
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***
CHAPTER 12
The Great Ravine
Thorn jumped from the raft first and beckoned us to follow. She was much faster than we were, and we quickly fell behind. The leathery sound of beating wings filled the air behind us, and the shrieking of the bats made me cover my ears as we ran. It was an awful, piercing sound that grew more frightening by the second.
Thorn was already to the wall, running back and forth in the faint light, searching for something.
"Here! Here it is!" she cried. "Hurry!"
Breathless and confused, we came alongside Thorn and saw she was standing before a second iron door. It was just the same as the one above that led to Mister Clawson's chamber with the candles, and it had the same square and circle symbol beneath the handle. Were we somehow tied to this dark passage? Who had put the markings on our skin and where were we being led?
"Turn the handle and open the door," Thorn instructed. She was calm in the face of great danger, but her eyes told me we'd better hurry if we
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were going to escape the Lake of Fire. Thomas was down on his knees in a flash, trying with all his might to turn the handle. I joined him, putting my hands tightly next to his, and we both tried to force the handle down. It budged slightly, then all at once gave way, the sound of iron on iron clashing through the air. This seemed to send the bats into an even greater fury, and, looking back, I could see a black cloud moving fast and low over the glowing water. Beneath the moving black cloud the Lake of Fire boiled up orange and bright.
"Open the door!" cried Thorn, her claws biting into the stone wall where iron met rock.
Thomas and I heaved on the handle of the iron door, and it creaked open with a maddening slowness. The moment a small crack appeared, Thorn attacked it with her claws, pulling the door toward us. It was scary to be so close to such a big animal doing such powerful work. She snarled violently, pitting all of her will against the iron door.
"Through the door, both of you! As fast as you can!"
Thomas fought his way through the thin opening first. The opening was barely big enough for us to shimmy through, and when it was my turn and I popped through on the other side, my pack was caught, pinning me to the door. Thomas pulled on my hands and Thorn pushed once with her claws
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from behind - knocking the bag free -- and I tumbled forward onto cold earth.
The opening wasn't big enough for Thorn, and looking back I saw that Thomas was pushing against the door, trying to get it open far enough for her to fit inside. The bats were very close, but the more frightening sound was that of whatever was making its way to the surface of the Lake of Fire. It was a horrible, deep sound that made me want to run in the opposite direction. It took all my courage to join Thomas at the iron door and push, opening our hidden space to bats and monsters I could not see.
Thorn clawed mercilessly at the opening as we forced the door open far enough for her to slip through. With a final thrust of her powerful legs she broke free and tumbled in at our feet.
"They're coming! We have to close the door!" screamed Thomas. It was hard to make out his words over the roar of bats. The front assault of the black wave of flapping leather wings had reached the door, and no amount of effort would get the door closed before some of them got through. There was a straight bar of metal on this side of the iron door, long enough for two people to grab hold and pull. I held the bar on top and Thomas held it on the bottom, both of us pulling hard and fast.
Bats began to flow through the crack in the door like thick black leaves blown free in a violent
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thunderstorm. As they came through, Thorn batted them to the ground with vicious slashes. One after the other she broke their bodies until we had the door closed far enough that no more could fit through. The few bats that were missed by Thorn alighted on the ceiling, unexpectedly lost from the black cloud of the swarm and unsure what to do.
"Get it all the way closed!" growled Thorn, batting the air with her claws in search of renegade bats flying low in the cave. "It will come out of the water for a dreadful moment if it sees the door is open to the wild."
The bats were so loud crashing and slashing outside the door, all other sounds from the Lake of Fire had been drowned out. But suddenly there was a new noise, and the bats moved off as fast as they'd c
ome. Something else - something entirely more savage and evil -- was coming for the door. It sounded slippery and heavy, a dread beast coming from the Lake of Fire, sniffing the air and smelling two boys from Madame Vickers's House on the Hill.
Seeing the terror in Thomas's face and hearing the sound of the approaching beast sent my mind reeling, and all at once I knew what to do.
"Get away from the door!" I ordered Thomas. I forced him back, took the handle firmly in both hands, and braced my feet on the wall to the right
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of the iron door. It was difficult holding such an awkward position, but I was able to force the door toward me that last few inches before feeling my hands slip free and falling back hard onto the ground of the cave. Looking up I saw Thorn slash at the handle I'd held, turning it bit by bit until she'd locked the iron door once more.
There were two or three bats circling drunkenly in the air above us, bouncing against the door as if they'd lost their way. The dirt floor of the cave was littered with dead bats, their murky blood oozing at our feet.
"We're safe for now," said Thorn. Winded, she flopped down on the floor with Thomas and me, licking the blood on her paws. It was difficult to tell if she was licking at her own wounded claws or the spilled blood of the bats she'd destroyed.
"What was that thing?" asked Thomas. "It sounded like nothing I've ever heard before."
Thorn stood, staring toward the unseen ceiling of rocks somewhere above. Her head lolled slowly from side to side, like one of the cats at the House on the Hill waiting to strike a fly out of the air. Then she leaped straight up, slashing hard, and one of the few remaining bats crashed against the wall. Thorn turned and looked at Thomas.
"I've never seen what's in the Lake of Fire, so I can only guess at how big it is, how many teeth it
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has, how black and slick its monstrous head must be. I'm just happy that door is closed and we're all on this side of it." Thorn gazed back and forth between the two of us. "You could have left me behind, but you stayed. I won't forget that."
Until then, my attention had been on Thorn, the awful sounds coming from behind the iron door, and the immense struggle to free ourselves from the Lake of Fire. But now my mind caught up to my senses, and it came as a surprise that there was still light in the cave, though the iron door was shut. From where did the light come?
"Follow me," whispered Thorn. "Stay close and silent as we make our way. You must watch my steps and do the same. Don't veer off the path or fall behind."
Thorn moved away from the iron door and quickly disappeared down a narrow path. Thomas and I quickly stood and followed. The path turned steep and treacherous, but we were delighted to find that the faint light of the cave grew stronger as we went. It was a strange sensation of going down deeper into the earth at a very steep grade and yet finding the light around us growing in intensity as we kept on. The path was cut with sharp stones that made good footings, and there were sudden twists and turns where we could take hold of the narrow walls surrounding us.
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This went on for some time without a word between us, until the floor leveled off and Thorn glanced back at us.
"We come now to the last turn," she said. "The world of men is behind you now. Only the wild remains."
She went on, around the last tight turn where we couldn't see her, and I said to Thomas, "Who'd have thought it would come to this so swiftly?"
I expected to find Thomas in a state of fear, unwilling to go around the last turn -- but I should have known better. Thomas could not have hoped for a better outcome than the one we'd stumbled into. We'd only been free a day, and already we'd found our way into more adventure than I thought could be found in a lifetime of searching.
"Let's round the corner together," said Thomas. His sharp green eyes flashed with excitement, and the two of us took the last few steps out of the cave.
We'd spent a night running from Finch and the dogs, only to be captured by Mister Clawson and pulled into his world of dark magic. It had been a long and shadowy journey with very little light along the way. When we stepped out into the path of the blinding sun, it made us cover our eyes. If you've ever woken from a nap in the middle of the day with the sun over your head, then you know
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the feeling -- the feeling when darkness turns to light all at once.
"Stay right where you are," said Thorn. "And don't make a sound."
I struggled to open my eyes, looking first at the jagged rocks and dust beneath my feet, then slowly lifting my gaze upward. There were rocks of deep red and brown shooting up across a vast and dangerous-looking valley below. We were perched well above the ground, and yet we were much closer to the bottom of the walls of jagged rocks than we were to the tops. It felt like we'd come out of a pinhole in an enormous wall of stone that rose above and beneath us. To the left, a lifeless valley widened and grew shallower, until somewhere off in the distance it leveled off with cliffs before the sea. To the right it grew narrower and deeper, until I could only wonder at what might live in such a place.
"I gather we're not going that way," said Thomas, pointing toward the wide, rising end of the valley. "That would be the way back to Ainsworth, if I have my bearings right."
Thorn nodded her great head and whispered back, "We must go deeper into the wild to find what Mister Clawson seeks. I know the way. But first we'll rest a while, so you can eat and drink what's in your pack."
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She walked back into the cave, and when she did, I saw that she'd been hiding something from us. She'd been standing before a stunningly narrow and steep path with a wall on one side and open air on the other.
We were in the Great Ravine, the sun casting spiked shadows on the stone walls that surrounded us, a treacherous path along which to make our way.
We had come into a place where no man or woman was welcome - a place of deep magic both light and dark -- at a time when there were no walls or towns to speak of between us and the Western Kingdom.
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PART 2
INTO THE WILD
In the forest wanders the bear, fierce and menacing, and yet innocent.
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
The Brothers Karamazov, 1880
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***
CHAPTER 13
A MAGICAL NIGHT
It had been a breathless day of listening to Roland tell his tale. The sun was hanging heavy on the water as he came to the place in his story in which he, Thomas, and Thorn returned to the cave and ate what little food they had. I stood and stretched my back, wondering whether or not we'd come to the end of what Roland would tell us that day. There was a glimmer in his eye that told me we might have a night of legend yet to come, a night in which Yipes and I would hear about the Great Ravine, Fenwick Forest, Mount Norwood -- all of them before the time of the walls. What a strange thought it was to imagine all these places without Bridewell tucked in between them, without my home of Lathbury, without the other towns of Lunenburg and Turlock. I was dying to hear what it was like before Thomas Warvold ventured into the wild and built the walls and the towns of Bridewell Common.
"I'll make up a pot of soup!" cried Yipes. "That's just what we need to keep things adrift. It will be the finest soup the crew of this vessel has ever enjoyed, and I'll bring bread and hot tea. We can stay all night at the wheel if we like, can't we? Tomorrow is just another day with the wide and Lonely Sea before us. We can sleep late if we want to!"
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It was possible Yipes wanted to hear the rest of the story even more than I did. To imagine Mount Norwood before he'd been there and built his little house on the stream was something I was sure he could hardly wait to hear more about.
"And youl" He pointed at me with his tiny index finger. "You will help me. I'm not taking any chances that there might be talk of something important while I'm busy over there." He pointed off toward the cabin, then back at me. "You must come with me, g
ive him a bit of rest. He needs a chance to catch his breath before he gets on with the tale."
"Bring the soup," said Roland. "We'll have to see how well you cook tonight before I decide what to do with my evening." He yawned loudly, raising his hands up off the wheel and over his head. "I am feeling a tad sleepy, to tell the truth."
Yipes was shaking all over, his eyes darting back and forth and his fingers fumbling in search of something to do. He was in a high state of alarm.
"The tea will be just the thing!" he cried. "We have some of the black tea -- not that awful sleepy kind -- and I'm sure it will perk you right up!" Yipes grabbed me by the hand and began to haul me across the deck. "Not to worry!" he carried on as we made our way to the cabin.
An hour later, the sun and wind were both gone and an unnatural calm enveloped the deck of the Warwick Beacon. It was rare for the ship to sit so very still and quiet with the
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sails still up. Yipes was bringing the kettle of soup and would be a moment. I had already brought the bowls, cups, and bread and had set them on an old brown blanket that I'd thrown over the deck at the base of the wheel. I had the pot of tea with me, and I put it on the blanket. I was about to go back for the blankets from our hammocks to warm us as the night grew colder.
"We have stopped," whispered Roland. He let go of the wheel. "I wonder what force has brought us to this place to wait?"
"What do you mean?" I questioned.