~~~

There were even more paintings on the upper floor, only none of them were purple. Instead, they were faces, faces of dogs who looked like they were long dead. To the sides of the stairs were two short corridors leading to doors at the end. Wu Dog Yan ran to one, Luco to the other, but both were locked. They came back and pointed down the long corridor ahead, saying that was the only place left to go.

‘The only place?’ asked Zade, looking back down the stairs.

‘Ka,’ replied Luco.

‘Whatever’s down there, if anything, we should find out quick,’ said Wu Dog Yan, tapping her wrist.

‘Very quick,’ added Zade.

‘We’ll go ahead, you two guard the rear.’

‘You don’t want me in front?’

‘We’re not cowards, Zade,’ said Luco, making a tutting noise.

‘Ka, we should be okay,’ said Wu Dog Yan, looking at the tip of her sword. ‘But if you hear anything, like a scream, you come and help. No hesitation. Got it?’

Zade nodded and, two seconds later, so did Cha Cha, who added an ‘okay, no hesitation’ so she wouldn’t be asked again.

‘Good.’

As Wu Dog Yan and Luco jogged ahead, checking each door they passed, Zade and Cha Cha followed at turtle’s pace down the same corridor, looking at the dog portraits and reading the descriptions written beneath.

‘Dashvuk Je Nanto, born 1272, died 1297,’ said Zade, looking up at the face of a very dark, brooding dog.

‘That’s a young age to die,’ said Cha Cha.

‘Lyvia Je Nanto, born 1450, died 1428,’ said Zade, already onto the next one.

‘1428?’

‘Sorry, I misread it. 1478. The 7 looks like a 2.’

‘She died at 28?’

‘It says she was responsible for the expansion of the cave network, whatever that means.’

‘That’s a really young age to die.’

Zade looked at Cha Cha and saw her eyes fixed on the painting of Lyvia Je Nanto. ‘I guess dogs died earlier back in the old days. Tigers too.’

‘Dogs die early today…’ mumbled Cha Cha.

Zade paused, not knowing what to do or what to look at. Eventually, he patted Cha Cha gently on the head. ‘Like I said, we really don’t know what’s at the bottom of that hole. Could be a swimming pool, or a big sponge, or…’

‘What happened to the slide?’

‘…a giant net…ka, or a slide…’

Cha Cha shrugged, finally moving on from the portrait. ‘I don’t think there’s a slide. Or a giant net.’

‘There might be.’

‘I think there are rocks. He…dived into a hole and fell and hit some rocks.’

Zade pointed at the next painting, reading the description. ‘Ah, Vintig Je Nanto, born 1512, died 1582…that’s not a young age to die, is it?’

‘I wonder what it’s like to hit rocks…’

‘Nuut kaata. No feeling probably.’

‘...to actually impact against them with your head.’

‘Ka…’ Zade looked back at the painting. ‘Vintig Je Nanto…ka, he lived a very long time.

Cha Cha looked at the ancient dog's waxy face, at the dates underneath. ‘Not that long.’

‘Quite long…’

‘And he’s clearly the exception. Everyone else here died in their 20’s.’

‘Well…we’ve only looked at three dogs, one out of three died old, it’s not a bad ratio.’

Cha Cha stopped, held out her paws and stared at the nails on the end of them. Zade looked at the painting of Vintig de Nanto again, giving her time to either resume walking or think of something new to say.

‘Cha Cha?’ he prompted, when she hadn’t moved for more than forty seconds.

‘I had a friend who died young. Drug overdose. In his bedroom. Wasn’t really my friend though. We were in Geography together. Same table. I lent him a VCD once. He seemed fun, always playing jokes on the teachers. Then he was dead.’

‘Err…’

‘I’m a lump, Zade.’

‘Sorry?’

‘A do-nothing-with-my-life lump.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Worked at Bone Dia. Worked at a hair salon. Working at a knife factory.’

'What are you talking about?' Zade didn't want to gesture at the paintings of young, dead dogs on the walls, so he gestured at Cha Cha's feet instead. ‘You do loads of things.’

‘Nuut, I don’t.’

‘You organise worker events, you protest for them…’

‘I talk about organising worker events, I talk about protesting for them.’

‘Well…maybe. But you have to talk about something before the organising part, right?’

‘The last event I fixed was two years ago. Nine people turned up. Since then…nothing. I’ve done nothing.’

The tiger blew out air of desperation, blocking out the little voice in his head telling him he might as well jump down that hole, such was his therapist skills. ‘You’re planning on becoming an actress, though...that's what you said, right?'

‘A cloud castle.’

‘Cloud what?’

‘A crazy dream. It’ll never happen.’

'Ah, a cloud castle. Okay.' Zade looked at the dog portraits for assistance, but all they did was stare selfishly at the opposite wall. ‘Maybe we should go and find the others, see if they need help checking the rooms?’

‘Good idea.'

'It is?'

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

'To desperately change the topic like that. Smart move.'

'Err...'

'I’m pointless, Zade. I sit on my ass watching dog TV dramas, talk about being an actress but never do anything about it, learn a hundred words in other languages then give up.’

‘You’re waiting for the right time…the actress thing, I mean. The languages-...’

‘Wu Dog Yan did something about it. My mum did something about it too. She was a smart dog. Even if she never actually did any movies I’ve heard of, at least she tried…is trying…she’s probably still trying right now…that’s dedication.’

‘Err…didn’t your mum leave you when you were five?’

‘Smartly left me, ka. She knew I was useless. Probably had a vision of me in the knife factory, wearing that pea-green uniform…’

‘I don’t think that’s smart…to leave your kid.’

Cha Cha blinked and looked at Zade. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Nuut.’

‘Nuut kaata.’

‘I do.’

From the other end of the corridor came a shout, Wu Dog Yan telling them to get over there, they’d found something.

‘They’re past the outside part…’ said Zade, squinting enough to pick out the distant figure of Wu Dog Yan [Luco was too small to confirm], who was beyond two open doors, waving at them.

She shouted again, telling them not to hang back in the outside part even though it was surprisingly pretty.

Zade made a move forward, but his sleeve was pulled back by Cha Cha, who, for some reason, stood on his foot too. ‘Zade…’

‘They’re calling us…’

‘If I crawled down a hole...do you think anyone would notice?’

‘What?’

‘Would anyone notice?’

Zade took her paw and was about to say ‘I would’, but Cha Cha beat him to it, saying, ‘don’t say ‘I would’.’ Keeping his mouth open, he ran through the less dangerous options in his head before finally coming up with, ‘Luco would.’

‘Only if I happened to be wearing a Dog Lee costume.’

‘He’s not that bad.’

Another shout came down the corridor, Luco demanding to know what was taking them so long.

‘If he shouts much louder, the polar bears will hear him.’

Zade gently moved his foot out from under Cha Cha’s heel. ‘We can talk about this later, at home. In detail.’

Cha Cha stared forward hypnotically, either scanning the portrait of Vintig Je Nanto for fleas or just looking into the black abyss of his aristocratic jacket. Finally, she blinked. ‘It’s okay, I’m okay now. I feel better.’

‘Really?’

‘We should catch up to them, see what they’re yelling about.’

‘You were staring at the portrait for over a minute.’

‘Rebalancing.’

‘Re-…’

‘It’s an old dog meditation technique. You take your bad thoughts and transfer them to something big and empty. I put mine in that dead dog’s creepy black jacket.’

‘That’s big and empty?’

‘If you stare long enough, ka.’

Luco shouted down the corridor again, so loud that his voice bounced off the wall at the far end and came back even louder.

‘We should go,’ said Cha Cha, doing a zen[1] face.

Zade nodded, kept hold of her paw and walked towards an open door ahead. As the map had promised, beyond the first open door was the outside part. The walls were replaced by small battlements, and a courtyard lay below on both sides. A gentle breeze came up from the sea and made their fur shiver a little. Cha Cha peered over the edge of the battlement and scrunched her face.

‘It looks a bit messy down there…’

‘Ka.’

‘And the walls are weird too…like they wanted to build a maze but forgot to finish it.’

Zade said ‘ka’ again and then noticed a small signboard nearby. He walked over and read it, which was tough as some of the words seemed to be written in old dog language. ‘To the…something. No mercy if they, something…the massacre berch.’

Cha Cha appeared next to him and translated the hard bits. ‘To the defenders of this castle, no mercy to those enemies who breach the walls, guide them to the massacre berch.’

‘That means?’

‘Basically, all the enemies trapped in that maze down there, don’t feel sorry for them, just kill them.’

‘Like the death zone that Luco was talking about earlier. This must be it, the courtyard.’

‘The old days were pretty disgusting.’

‘Not very heroic…’

‘I guess it was the same everywhere, each land.’

‘Ka. Except in Raaaa,’ said Zade, firmly.

Cha Cha pulled a face like she’d just been told water was acid.

‘Raaaa was full of heroes.’

‘I thought you cut out the hearts of your enemies.’

‘Ka, heroically.’

‘Is that possible?’

‘If your enemy is evil, ka, it’s compulsory.’

‘Err…’

‘It’s different now, obviously, but, back then, tigers believed the heart to be the centre of all feeling and thought. Cut it out, cut out the evil. In a way, you would’ve been helping your enemy, doing them a moral favour.’

Another shout came from the corridor up ahead, this time Wu Dog Yan telling them that if they didn’t get there in the next five seconds, she would march back down and throw them down the hole in the dungeons.

Cha Cha shuddered a bit but didn’t say anything. Zade nudged her and they resumed walking, through another open door that led them back inside to the North/West/South/Whatever Wing and eventually to their two friends, who were both standing by a doorway with their arms folded.

‘You took your time,’ said Luco, glaring like an off-duty cop.

‘Sorry.’

‘No excuse?’

‘Err…’

‘Forget it, you’re here now,’ said Wu Dog Yan, unfolding her arms and leading them into the open-door room. ‘We’ve checked every other chamber up here and there’s nothing, no sign of Dog Lee or Dog Hood or anyone. But this one…’

They all walked in, Wu Dog Yan and Luco staying back as Zade and Cha Cha nearly walked into a huge hole in the ground.

‘Waaaa…’ said Cha Cha, grabbing onto the Zade’s fur.

‘Oww…’

‘Pull me back, pull me back…’

‘My fur…’

Cha Cha steadied herself then let go of Zade’s fur, mumbling a shaky thank you as she did so.

‘Grab my sleeve next time, okay?’

‘What is this?’ Cha Cha asked, turning to Wu Dog Yan.

‘Best we can think of is a bath. Though I don’t know why it’s dug into the floor, or why it covers nearly the whole room.’

‘Looks like one of those saunas in Polo…’ said Zade, stroking the part of his fur that Cha Cha had pulled on.

‘Similar, ka. But no place for the coal…’

Zade nodded, looking around and noticing another door within the room. This one was also open. ‘What’s in there?’

‘That’s the other interesting thing.’

Wu Dog Yan walked to the door and into the next room, waiting for the others to catch up before speaking. ‘This room seems to have no purpose. There’s no bed or furniture. And as you can see,’ she pointed at another door on the other side of the room, ‘there’s another room just like it, and another after that, and…in total, there’s six of them, all connected, and the last one…’

‘The room I saw the figure in, the one with the books,’ shouted Luco, cutting off Wu Dog Yan mid-sentence.

‘Wow, you guys did a lot of searching,’ said Zade, squinting to try and make out the sixth and final chamber.

‘We split up,’ replied Luco, kicking a loose bit of grit across the floor.

‘What?’

‘It was faster, more efficient. Besides, we’re not scared like you, we’re ready to fight anything.’

‘Obviously, we’re all a little bit scared…’ said Wu Dog Yan, standing in front of Luco and obscuring his smug face from view. ‘But it’s getting late so whatever’s going on here, we need to figure it out before it turns dark outside. I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer not to spend the night in a creepy castle.’

‘Maybe we should just leave now?’ said Zade, eyeing the hole. ‘We could come back tomorrow, early in the morning.’

‘No way,’ blurted Luco, accidentally launching spit into Zade’s eyes. ‘Dog Lee might be dead by then.’

‘Agreed,’ said Wu Dog Yan. ‘It’s better to sort this out now. We still have about an hour, it should be enough…’

‘And what if Dog Lee’s not here?’

‘Then we leave.’

Zade bit his bottom lip, unsure, then looked at Cha Cha. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think Wu Dog Yan is right.’

‘A stunning surprise…’ muttered Luco, kicking another piece of grit, this time down the hole.

‘If Dog Lee is here, and something happens to him, something we could’ve prevented…’

‘We’re not soldiers,’ cut in Zade, moving his teeth onto his upper lip.

‘Nuut, but we have weapons,’ said Wu Dog Yan, holding up her sword. ‘And a large, unburnable tiger.’

'You mean me?'

'No, your cousin, Kade. Of course, she means you, you big lump.'

Zade grumbled at his supposed hamster friend, and then grumbled generally at the whole room, but no one else was on his side so finally he just pointed a tired claw at the door and said, ‘are we going to the book room then?’

‘No need.’

‘Huh?’

‘The book that dog was reading isn’t there. They must’ve taken it. Apart from that, the room’s empty.’

‘Then why did you shout for us to come here?’

‘To fill you in.’

‘You needed to shout to do that?’

‘Ka.’

Cha Cha looked at the other door, the one leading back to the mysterious bath in the floor room. ‘So…what do we do now?’

‘Well, as far as I can tell…’

Luco coughed, forcing Wu Dog Yan to start again. ‘As far as Luco can tell, the only place the figure could’ve gone is through a secret passage near the fireplace downstairs. That means we’re gonna have to…’

‘You mean the one in the main hall?’

‘…go back down there and…ka, the one in the main hall.’

‘The one we just spent twenty minutes searching without any success?’

Luco banged his fists together [a hamster sign of frustration]. ‘Don’t be petantic[2], Zade. Just cos we didn’t find it before, doesn’t mean there’s nothing there. We just need to look harder.’

Zade rolled his eyes, while Wu Dog Yan nodded. ‘We’ll give it half an hour then, if we still can’t find anything, we’ll leave. Okay?’

‘Okay with me,’ said Cha Cha, doing a firm nod.

‘Half an hour,’ tried Zade, arms folded.

‘Plus a bonus fifteen minutes,’ added Luco.

‘Bonus?’

‘In case we have a strong feeling that we’re almost close…’

‘Nuut, no more time wasting,’ interrupted Wu Dog Yan, tapping her wrist with the handle of her sword. ‘Thirty minutes, no bonuses.’

‘Still okay with me,’ said Cha Cha again.

‘Fine,’ muttered Zade.

‘Tyrant,’ grumbled Luco, kicking a final piece of grit against the wall and then spitting out a Hamster curse under his breath when it rebounded and hit him on the knee.

~~~

----------------------------------------

[1] A peaceful, happy expression that people in Finland have

[2] pedantic