Chapter 23
Finkel and Fongel
My feet land on soft ground, it shifts beneath my weight, and I stumble forwards, catch my toe on something hard and sprawl to the floor. Dust kicks up, coating my tongue. It hits the back of my throat, making me gag.
My head snaps up and I dig my nails into soft, dry earth, forcing myself up. Wobbly legs threaten to give way, but I stamp down, planting my feet firmly.
I’m stood on a large circle of arid earth, about the size of a football pitch. Huge red-rock cliffs completely surround me, smooth faces stretching upwards into the endless black.
No one’s here but me. I think.
Finally, my knees give way, exhaustion washing over me like water, dribbling down into every part of my body. As my knees hit the dirt, I squeeze my eyes shut, fireworks of red and green exploding in the darkness behind my eyelids.
Breathe.
I open my eyes and a gasp escapes me. An arm’s length away is one single solitary plant: weed like, with yellow flowers that look like ceiling fans. “Nipplewort,” I whisper.
Adrenaline pumps through me.
“Alice?” I call out, but the only reply is the echo of my voice against the cliffs.
A vision of her just before she went under spikes in my brain. Her last words shudder through me.
Get out of here. Do it for me.
“How?” I whisper, forcing myself to stand again.
Dust crawls across the floor, pushed by a light wind. The flower bends to it and, following its movement, my eyes settle on a dark patch at the base of the cliff to my right.
I squint. Could be a cave.
Drawing my foil I remove the safety cap, place it in my pocket, bend down and lay my weapon in the soil. I sling the Angelmere bag from my shoulder and take out the water skin.
“There you go.”
I give a little water to the plant before taking a couple of swigs myself. It washes away the dust, slides down into my stomach and radiates strength outwards. I take another gulp before putting the water skin bag into the Angelmere bag, sling the bag on my shoulder, pick up my foil and head slowly towards the dark patch at the base of the cliff.
As I get nearer my heart wavers between fear and excitement. It’s definitely a cave. But what’s inside? I’ve played enough computer games to know I’m not heading straight in there, so instead skitter sideways and run low, like a soldier in combat to the rocky edge just outside the opening. Flattening my back against the wall I edge along and peer into the darkness.
It seems empty but I’m taking no chances. Grabbing a rock from the floor I hurl it into the cave, hear the bassy knock of stone on stone then flatten myself against the wall again.
The only sounds are my ragged breathing and the pulse of my heart, loud in my ears.
I spin quickly, foil out and stare into the cave. Slowly, slowly I walk forwards waving my foil to the left and the right.
The cave is low, the ceiling arching up just out of reach. It’s made of the same red stone as the cliffs outside. As my eyes get used to the darkness, I can make out a passageway at the back, it seems to dip downwards, head under the cliffs. The light streaming in from the entrance only shows its beginning, the rest shrouded in darkness.
But there’s a path, a way forward.
My heart flips with excitement.
“I’ll get out of here, for both of us,” I whisper.
Surely in a place so full of magic there’s a way to get her back.
Then Barangoffo’s words hit me like a hammer blow.
No one comes back from the darkness.
“This time they will,” I whisper again, not knowing whether I believe the words, but wanting to all the same.
I start down the passageway holding my foil out in front of me, my other hand on the wall. The path heads gradually downwards, snaking its way through the bedrock of the cliffs. By the time I round the second bend there’s no light at all. A shiver creeps up my spine. Is this what Alice saw when she dropped below, or something else?
My heart thumps so loudly against my ribs I almost expect to hear it echo away down the corridor. Moving back slightly into the lit area of the tunnel I crouch down, pressing my back to the wall.
On the edge of my hearing a metallic ping rings out again and again, like the sound of Garvey’s hammer against the anvil. I tilt my head and shut my eyes.
Ding…ding. Ding, ding, ding.
Fear threatens to twist through me, but I slide my hand into the pocket holding the card Garvey gave me, my fingers passing over a small crease.
Spin it, B.
Hardly daring to breath, I push myself up, and take my phone out. It’s only got five percent power left. If I use the torch, it’ll drain it completely. I switch it off and sling the Angelmere bag from my shoulder. Best if I put my phone in here for safety. But when I open the bag the dream catcher is sat there waiting for me.
“What now?” I whisper into the semi-darkness, my only answer the constant rhythmic ping of metal on metal.
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Ding. Ding…ding
I dip my hand into the bag, and something curls around my finger, tickling at first then tightening. I rip my hand from the bag and gasp. My index finger has some kind of glowing, worm-like creature curled around it. It gives off a soft green light. I fall backwards into the dirt, landing hard, arm as far away from my face as possible, never taking my eyes from the thing.
Fear shivers through me.
Where the cack-knuckles did it come from?
But it’s not moving, not tightening anymore. There’s no pain.
The metallic pings continue to echo up the tunnel from somewhere below.
Ding…ding, ding.
I take a deep breath then little by little bring my finger closer, until I laugh out loud. It’s just a thread. A green thread. But it glows like one of those neon bracelets you buy at the fair. The light isn’t much, but it smooths the ripples in my stomach, warms my chest.
“Thank you, Witch Hazel,” I whisper.
Scrambling forward I grab the dream catcher and hold it to the light. There’s two threads left.
Blue and gold.
I go very still.
Hazel told me three things, two of which have come true. I needed the dream catcher when we were lost, I need it now to light my path. My breath catches in my throat.
The third was when you can’t breathe anymore.
My mind whirls, my throat tightens.
If you can’t breathe anymore, then you’re dead.
The metallic pings surround me like church bells at a funeral.
Ding, ding…ding, ding.
I suck air into my lungs, purse my lips and breath out again, breathe in and out, again and again and again until my muscles uncoil.
There’s no point worrying about the future if you’re never going to have the guts to go and meet it.
I place the dream catcher back into the Angelmere bag, close the bag then open it again and do the same with my phone before slinging the bag onto my shoulder. My fingers tighten around my foil’s handle as I stand. Holding my left index finger across my palm I wrap my other fingers and thumb of the same hand around it. The light is barely visible. Good. I don’t know what’s making that pinging sound, but I want to see it before it sees me.
Releasing the grip on my index finger, letting the light shine out once more, I creep further into the tunnel that writhes its way through the rock, always downwards, until I can feel the weight of rock above pressing down on me.
Sweat rolls down my back, sticking my t-shirt to my chest and shoulders. I run my finger under the collar. When did it get so hot in here?
The pinging sound gets louder with each bend I round.
A fearful excitement rushes over me as I turn the next and see shadows on the tunnel wall opposite. There’s an opening just up ahead by the looks of it. The shadows are diffuse, but they move like people, or something very like people.
A shadow rises and falls.
Ping!
Again, and again.
Ping…ping.
I wrap my fingers around the light – trying to shield it – but the thread slips off and falls to the floor, its light gone now.
Guess I’ve no need of a guiding light anymore.
I get down on all fours and work my way forwards. There’s definitely some kind of opening, the breeze running through this part of the tunnel cools the sweat on my forehead.
Ping. Ping. Ping…ping, ping.
“You done yet Fongel?” A squeaky, snarly, snuffly voice asks, as I peek around the final bend.
Two ogres, comically different in size have got a metal fence laid down, the floor around them covered with tools. The smaller ogre sits on a rock, he’s tiny, would only come up to my chest, whereas the bigger one, Fongel, is about twice the size of me. The big one is on all fours with a huge hammer in his hand. He brings it down.
Ping!
The smaller one crosses his arms, looks peeved. “I said have you done yet Fongel. I’m starving.”
Fongel brings the hammer down again. “Must be all that hard work yous doing there.”
“I’m supervising, aren’t I?”
“No, you ain’t, Finkel. Yous just sitting watching.”
“That’s what supervisors do! They don’t do anything, they supervise.”
“I’m on pit duty after this.” Fongel doesn’t sound pleased about it. “What you up to?”
“Supervising.”
“Again?”
Finkel nods happily. “Yep. I’ll be supervising a huge plate of Spag Bol into my mouth.”
Fongel throws the hammer to one side, and it lands with a thud. “No fair! I won’t get to eats for ages. Pit duty is sooooo boring.” He squeezes his eyes shut and sighs. He opens them again and points to the fence on the floor. “It’s fixed.”
Finkel rubs his hands together and grins. “Good. You know Barty’s back, don’t you? His Spag Bol is the best.” Finkel licks his lips. “He’s making it out of that Sir Denby who got mangled in the traps.”
I slink back a bit into the darkness. Traps? Great. Just what I wanted to hear: the words traps, mangled and Spag Bol in the same sentence.
Fongel scratches his nose. “You seen Barty then?”
“Aye,” says Finkel. “Looked like he was right as rain. Like that Knight Sir Denby didn’t chop off both his arms and then his head.”
I creep forwards a little more, my pulse racing.
“They say Sabotini just reached into Limbo,” Finkel mimes plucking something out of the air with his dirty-nailed hand, “and pulled old Barty out again. Said she couldn’t afford to lose the best chef she’s got. A well-fed army is a happy army, so she reckons.”
Fongel rubs his stomach and grins showing teeth the colour of straw. “She’s right about that. How she drag him out in her lair when Old Barty fell in guarding one of the bridges in The Labyrinth?”
Finkel raises an eyebrow. “Apparently Sabotini can control the stream of Limbo. She can reach into it at any place and pull out something from any other place. Everything’s connected apparently.”
A grin spreads across my face.
There is a way to save Alice.
Fongel taps a finger on the metal fence. “Well, that’s good, cause I lost me fave spanner in there last week. Can you go ask her for me?” He laughs nervously. “She scares me.”
Finkel pushes himself up off the rock. “She scares me too numskull. And anyway, you’ve only got twenty-four hours to get the thing back from Limbo before it becomes part of it forever.”
“But I loved that spanner!”
Finkel looks round. “I got to go, Fongel.”
“Wait,” Fongel says. “Barty’s definitely himself?”
“Yeah. He remembers it all but it don’t seem to bother him. Said he remembers swimming, a gentle current behind him. Nice and pleasant it was. Said he met his Auntie Grunnywold and she told him to stop scratching his bum in public.”
“What was he doing when you seen him?”
“Scratching his bum in the staff canteen. He were stirring a pot with the other hand.”
“Spag Bol?”
“Looked like it.”
Fongel holds up the massive bit of metal fence he’s been working on like it weighs nothing at all. “Ain’t you even gonna help put this back? I’m gonna be late for me shift.”
Finkel wrinkles his nose. “Got an important errand. I’ll see you at the dinner table tonight. Barty’s gonna cook up a storm. He was all smiles once he found Denby got mangled in the Labyrinth of Doom.”
I swallow heavily.
Labyrinth of Doom?
It’s kind of ridiculous too. Like some computer game. Still scares the cack out of me though.
“Bully for Barty,” Fongel says turning away, the fence held high above his head.
Finkel raises an eyebrow then walks off in the other direction. “Don’t forget to shut the gate…again.”
Fongel mutters something I can’t quite hear, but it doesn’t sound happy.
I creep forwards to see where he’s gone. The entrance to the tunnel opens out onto a gigantic cave. The ceiling arches up high above me. Straight ahead is a wall with a huge door set into it, the handles shaped like axes. Somebody’s stuck a homemade sign in the dirt with a big red arrow on it pointing to the door. Underneath it says:
Labyrinth of Doom Administration
Knights sign in here
Then wait to be called
I’m not going in there to get mangled, that’s for sure. I scoot over to behind a large boulder and watch Fongel as he puts the fence back up, screws the gate to it then wanders through leaving it wide open.
“Forgot to shut it again,” I whisper, a smile creeping across my lips.
I look around to make sure Finkel’s gone before creeping up to the gate. There’s another sign:
Labyrinth of Doom Staff Entrance
No unauthorised admittance
Trespassers will be EATEN
Who knew that ogres like order and rules so much?
Fongel is about halfway down the corridor. I look from him to the Labyrinth’s official entrance. I’ll take my chances down the staff entrance.