CHAPTER 16
CRAG
“We can’t evacuate to Crag,” Hob exclaimed. “Remember why we left? It’s a place where DRAGONS live! The poor dwarf was really yanking on his beard now and began to hop impatiently from foot to foot.
“Hob is right,” said Gabriel. “Why return Crag and the bondage of dragons?”
“Bondage?” Spud repeated incredulously. “Bondage? Bondage is what we all will know if we remain here. What would be so different from living in Camelot if we dwarves returned to Crag? We live underground here and there are many of us that rarely venture above ground. At least on Crag we know our enemy and, unpleasant and dangerous as it may be, we know that we can co-exist and survive with dragons. That will not be true with Jupiter or Bellator or whatever he is calling himself.”
“Forget about the dragons. You read the prophecy and know the outcome. The chosen one is here, the time is at hand. Bellator will be vanquished, the dragons will not.”
“Yes, yes, but at what cost?”
“What do you mean?”
“At what cost?! The prophecy says the chosen one will win, but at what cost? You really don’t think he is just going to walk right up to Bellator and slay him without consequence, do you? That’s why we must evacuate. The prophecy tells us the outcome, but it does not tell us the price that must be paid for that outcome. It is only common sense; the greater the victory, the greater the price to be paid for that victory.”
“So, you would abandon Camelot in its hour of need?” asked Hob. There was anger in the dwarf’s voice now. Real anger. “I’ve seen Ben stand toe-to-toe with the biggest and meanest dragon that ever came out of Crag and he did it to save Camelot; a world that is not his own. He could have very easily turned tail and ran, but he stayed and fought. I will not be leaving Camelot and neither will you or any other dwarf. It will not be said that we were cowards. If there is blood to be spilt, then we shall water the soil of Camelot and Faerie along with our elfin brothers. We will bow to no one. We will run from no one. Our days of living in fear and darkness ended when we abandoned Crag. I will not return to those days here, there, or anywhere.”
Spud hung his head in shame, but Ben came to his rescue.
“It’s okay, Spud. I’m afraid too and I’ve thought about running away many times. I still do. There’s no shame in being scared. Being brave isn’t acting without fear, but acting in spite of fear. My grandpa told me that.”
“Your grandpa sounds like a very wise man.”
“He is. I wish he was here now, but he’s not, so we’ll have to just follow his advice, be brave and act now. May we see the picture?”
Spud laid the wooden box he had retrieved from the archives on top of the table and gently removed the lid to reveal a stunning painting inside. The painting was of a vast chamber with giant crystals suspended from the ceiling. Shafts of sunlight streamed through the crystals, illuminating the cavern in great detail. The painting was so realistic that Ben swore he could see dust motes in the beams of light that fell from the ceiling. He studied the picture for several minutes and then snapped a quick picture of it with Casey’s cell phone.
“I think I’ve got it,” he said at last. “Let’s go.”
“Open the pathway to the Merlin Tree on Faerie,” Gabriel instructed. “We’ll meet up with the others, get a few supplies, and make plans for the trip.”
“Let’s go to Crag now,” said Ben.
“Oh, no. Louise would have our head on a stick if we pulled that stunt. Besides, we need the supplies and Amos will probably want to go too.”
“If we go back, Grandma is going to want to go with us to Crag and I don’t want her to go. It’s too dangerous and it sounds like we have a long and difficult hike once we get there. As far as Amos goes, it would be nice to have him with us, but he could do nothing to save us from a dragon.”
Hob glanced at Gabriel. “He’s right, you know. If we go back, Louise is going to want to go with us so that she can look after him. And then Amos will want to go so that he can look after Louise. Casey will not want to be left behind and Gob and Nob will want to go along just to see Crag. We need speed and stealth, neither of which we’ll have if we return to Faerie before leaving for Crag.”
Gabriel mulled it over. If they went through with this, he’d almost rather face Bellator than Louise upon returning, but Hob was right.
“What about the supplies we need?”
“Food and water?” asked Hob, hoisting his pack over his shoulder. “I never go anywhere without a few snacks. It’s a short journey and I have food and water enough for the three of us, if we use it sparingly.”
“I have a feeling I shall regret this later on, but it does seem to be the logical choice. Open the pathway to Crag, Ben. The Great Cathedral will be our next stop.”
Ben picked up the staff and walked to an open area where there were no tables or chairs. He closed his eyes and pictured the map of Fire Mountain and the surrounding area. Once he had that firmly fixed in his mind, he pictured the painting of the Great Cathedral and the map of the top level of Haven. When he could see it clearly in his mind’s eye, he took a deep breath and cried, “yabba-dabba-doo!”
The black hole popped up in front of him and hovered there.
“I’ll go first,” said Hob. The dwarf was clearly excited and anxious to be off. Before anyone could respond, he disappeared into the hole.
“Ah!” Gabriel cried. “We should have all gone together. Quickly, Ben, follow me!”
The elf darted into the black hole after the dwarf. Before leaving, Ben turned to thank Spud for his help, but the Librarian was nowhere to be found. Maybe he decided that returning to Crag would not be such a good choice after all. Maybe he hadn’t found the courage to act. Ben shrugged his shoulders and stepped into the opening.
The silence following their departure settled back onto the lobby area like an old familiar blanket. The maps and picture were gone from the table and from somewhere deep inside the archives, the faint sounds of a railcar faded away into the distance.
Once inside the pathway, Ben was alarmed by the darkness. At first, he could not see the exit, but as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he noticed a very faint green light illuminating the opening across the void. Hurriedly, he made his way toward the light and stepped through the portal. The light was coming from Hob and Gabriel’s hands.
“It’s nighttime here,” said Hob, handing Ben a rock. “Otherwise, sunlight would be streaming through the crystal shafts and lighting the whole cavern.”
“A rockbuster,” Ben exclaimed, fondly remembering the little gnome he had befriended during his Christmas break. “I never thought I’d see one of these again. Where did you get it?”
“Ahem, I ummm, I found them,” Hob stuttered.
“Where?”
“On top of the tower,” said Gabriel, “right after…”
“Oh. I see,” said Ben. During Ringwald Stonebreaker’s reign of terror, rockbusters were used in the slave mines to blast open new tunnels. Whenever one of the rocks was heated with a flame, it would explode with tremendous force. However, whenever the rock was wet, it would glow with a strange green light. The wetter the rock, the brighter the light. Mueller, the lonely gnome that he had befriended, was an escaped slave and used the rockbusters to light his way in the dark tunnels of Kahzidar. He was carrying a bag of rockbusters when he was eaten by Zoltan, a black dragon from Crag. The fire in the Zoltan’s belly had ignited the rockbusters, and the explosion from deep within the dragon’s bowels ended its violent rampage on the Twilight. It also saved Ben from becoming the dragon’s next meal. Mueller sacrificed his life to save Ben. It was the ultimate act of courage.
“We need to save our water, so spit on it to get it glowing,” Hob instructed.
Once Ben had his rockbuster glowing, he held it up to add to the light coming from Hob and Gabriel’s hands. The rockbusters lit the area around them, bu
t the walls of the cavern were lost in a darkness their light could not penetrate. If not for the faint glimmers of green that were being reflected back from the crystal shafts above them, the ceiling would have been hidden from them too.
“Where to?” Ben asked.
“Let’s walk until we come to a wall,” Hob answered. “Then we will follow the wall until we find a hall.”
“Lead the way,” said Gabriel. “This is your kingdom.”
Hob picked a direction and struck out across the room. They had no way of knowing exactly where the portal opened, only that Ben had focused on opening it somewhere near the center of the chamber. Eventually, they came to a wall. Hob turned right and Gabriel and Ben followed along behind him. When they came to the first hall, Gabriel held the rock up high to illuminate the rune over the doorway.
“I don’t think this is it,” said Hob, staring up at the rune.
Ben dug Casey’s cell phone out of his pocket and powered it on. He went into the photo album and flipped to the picture of the rune he had taken back at the archives. “That’s not it,” he confirmed. “Look, here’s what we’re looking for.”
Gabriel and Hob looked at the picture of the rune on the phone and compared it to the one over the door.
“You’re right,” said Gabriel. “That’s not the rune for the west hall.”
“Blast it,” Hob cried. “We didn’t look at any of the other runes. There were only four too! If that is the rune for the north hall we will need to go back in the direction we just came from or we could end up having to walk all the way around this place. But if it’s the rune for the south hall we will need to continue in the direction we are going now.”
“And if it’s the rune for the east hall then it doesn’t matter which way we go,” said Ben.
“Well, there’s nothing to be done for it now,” said Gabriel. “Let’s continue in the direction we are going.”
Ben checked his watch before they started following the wall again. It took them fifteen minutes to reach the next hall and, fortunately, the rune above the doorway matched the one on Casey’s phone.
“This is it!” Hob cried. “To the grand stairway.”
The grand stairway was truly grand, spiraling downward and forming a circle with a radius of at least forty feet. The steps appeared brightly polished and strangely free of dust and debris. Beneath the green glow of the rockbusters, Ben could see thin ribbons of silver that coursed through the marble treads. On the far edge of the steps, fluted balusters were carved into the stone walls and heavily gilded with what appeared to be gold.
“It’s beautiful here,” Ben remarked.
“Yes, it is,” Hob agreed, “and when this is all over, I want you to bring me, Gob, and Nob back so that we may properly explore this place. We’ll even bring old Spud along.”
Ben smiled at Hob’s jovial mood. “I imagine there are many dwarves that would love to see the home of their ancestors.”
“Hey!” Hob cried. “We could charge an admission fee! We’d make a fortune!”
“That would not be an honorable thing to do,” said Gabriel. “Besides, you have already made a fortune selling chess sets.”
“Well, maybe we’d give all dwarves a discounted rate,” Hob grumbled, “but we charge elves full price!”
Ben and Gabriel laughed and Hob could not hold on to a disgruntled mood with their merriment. Soon, the dwarf was teaching Gabriel the verses to Yankee Doodle and the trio passed the remainder of the journey in song.
The trip to the gate took all of three hours and Ben was weary when they finally reached it. Gabriel pushed on the stone door and after a millennium being shut, it still swung open quietly and effortlessly. All three of them crowded into the doorway to peer out into the night. The stars glittered brightly overhead, but it was too dark to make out anything about the landscape.
“You know,” said Hob, “we didn’t even consider what season it may have been here. None of us are dressed for cold weather and if it had been winter time, we would have had to return for coats and such.”
“Are the winters cold on Crag?” asked Gabriel.
“I have heard they are bitterly cold.”
“Then we are fortunate indeed.”
“I wonder how far off morning is,” said Ben.
“I don’t know,” Gabriel answered, “But why don’t we eat a bite and then you and Hob bed down for some sleep. I’ll stand guard and wake you at sunup.”
After a quick bite of hard biscuits and cold cheese, Hob produced two blankets from his pack and tossed one to Ben. In a few short minutes the dwarf was snoring so loudly that Gabriel, fearing a dragon might hear them, pulled the door almost shut. Ben did not think he would ever be able to sleep with the buzz-saw sounds coming from beneath Hob’s blanket, but before he could rehash the day’s events he fell into a deep and peaceful slumber.
“Hob, Ben, wake up. It is morning.”
Ben sat up and rubbed his eyes. He was stiff from sleeping on the hard floor, but at least he was rested. Hob rummaged around in his pack and produced the same fare that they had eaten for supper; cold biscuits and hard cheese. He also pulled out an apple, which they divided into three parts. After breakfast, they washed the meal down, using as little water as possible from their flasks, and Hob stowed the blankets away in his pack.
“Are we ready to go?” Gabriel asked.
“Let’s get moving,” Hob answered. “Remember, to keep it down and move about as quietly as possible. We don’t want to wake another sleeping dragon.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“What’s wrong,” Ben asked.
“I never thought I’d live to see the day when a dwarf would ask me to move about quietly.”
*****