Into The Mist (Land of Elyon) (12 page)

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fear. But they're near, and we must be careful not to arouse their attention."

I was curious what she meant, but there was a point I'd wanted to make all along and I couldn't wait any longer to express it.

"Thorn, you don't understand -- we don't want to go back," I started, but she didn't let me finish. The wind had died down to almost nothing as we spoke. Her ears were again perked up and listening.

"Follow me!" she whispered. "And no more talking. This is our chance!"

Thomas and I looked at each other, wishing we could speak. But Thorn was already ahead of us, moving swiftly down the last of the narrow path. We shrugged at each other and began to move again. There was a sound in the air -- a sound that had a familiar ring to it, but I couldn't place what it was or from where it was coming.

Reaching the bottom of the path, Thorn broke into a run. There were huge rocks jutting up all around us, and we tried to keep up with her through the twisting maze of towering stone and desert earth. The sound was getting louder and suddenly I could place it. It was buzzing, a steady, distant buzzing.

"Open up the bag!" growled Thorn. We had come around the side of a gigantic red stone the size of Madame Vickers's house. The stone extended out at

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the middle over open air, and Thorn stood beneath it looking at us impatiently.

"There's no time," she said. "Open the bag and come quickly!"

I took the bag off my shoulder and undid the straps as fast as I could. We were under the overhanging stone, and the sound of buzzing was growing louder.

"Most of them are away, but there are still some that remain," said Thorn. Directly above her there was a hole the size of my head, and out of the hole came a bee that was bigger than any bee I'd seen before. It was as long as my smallest finger, as fat as my thumb, and as it flew away I saw a stinger that took my breath away. Thomas was standing next to Thorn, watching the bees emerge from the hole like a dripping faucet. First there was one, then ten, then fifty. But they seemed not to notice us as they dribbled out of the hole in ones and twos and flew off around the giant rock.

"We've got only a moment before our chance is lost," said Thorn. "Bring me the bag. Thomas, you must put your hand inside and break off whatever you can get your hands on."

"Will they sting me?" he asked.

Thorn answered hesitantly, "They might."

"We don't need it!" I screamed, suddenly aghast at the idea of Thomas putting his hand inside the

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hole. Thorn shot me a glance that was dreadfully clear in its meaning. Now you've done it. Why couldn't you just keep quiet like I asked?

Without warning Thomas thrust his hand into the hole. He whimpered, and I could see that he'd been stung once, maybe twice. But he gritted his teeth, cursed a word he'd heard at the Ainsworth orphanage, and pulled his hand out. Within the grasp of his fingers was a large chunk of honeycomb that glowed yellow with dripping honey.

"Put it in the bag!" Thorn roared. "And run! Run as fast as you can!"

Thorn darted past me, followed by Thomas, who dropped the honeycomb in the bag as he went by. The sound of buzzing, which had been far off, now seemed to be growing steadily nearer.

"Roland!" screamed Thorn. "Come on!"

I was terrified and didn't realize I hadn't even moved. I'd been stung by bees at the House on the Hill and hated the hot pain when it happened. The idea of a thousand impossibly long stingers piercing my skin had frozen my mind and my legs. It took Thorn's voice to bring me back to life. I dashed off in the direction of her voice faster than I'd ever run before.

Not far off I could see that we were coming to the end of the Great Ravine. It ended like a V, getting narrower and narrower until there was nothing

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left but a thin line of stone extending into the sky above. I looked back over my shoulder and to my horror saw that the buzzing sound came from a vast swarm of bees. It was a menacing red cloud descending on us -- fdled with thousands upon thousands of gigantic, swarming, angry insects. It was the most horrible kind of nightmare for a boy of ten.

"This way!" cried Thomas. "Keep running!"

Thorn circled and darted back toward me. I'd fallen farther behind than I could have imagined as I looked ahead and saw Thomas waving me on from the distance. I expected Thorn to come alongside me and prod me along with her powerful voice, so it came as a surprise when she kept running toward me at full speed. It seemed as though she might keep going and flash past me toward the oncoming swarm, but that was not to be, for I'd fallen too far behind.

"Down on the ground!" she cried. "Get down on the ground! You're too close!"

Purely by instinct I did what I was told, running into a dive and bouncing off the earth in a heap. I looked back from where I lay and realized the mighty swarm of giant bees was about to overtake me. There was only time for a fleeting glimpse at Thorn as the maddening sound of bees descended

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from the sky, but in that brief moment I witnessed the great mountain lion - all six feet and two hundred pounds of gray cat -- leaping into the air. She came down directly on top of me and settled onto the ground -- encircling me in her powerful legs, neck, and head -- until I was utterly smothered in a thick blanket of fur. Her head was near mine. I heard her whispering as the swarm attacked: Don't worry. It will be over soon. Stay very still.

I heard something else that made me feel terrible, a sound I will never forget. Even with her thick coat, the angry swarm of bees were able to get through and sting, sting, sting. I heard Thorn try to hold back any sound, but it was impossible to hide the fact that a thousand stingers were leaving their mark on this brave new friend of mine. One of the bees found its way through and crawled down into my old black boot, and when I felt the sting I knew a tiny part of what Thorn was enduring on my behalf. A voice in my head began ringing. If only I hadn't stopped; if only I could have kept up. If only. If only. I felt true regret and wished with all my heart that I could turn back the clock a few small minutes and run faster.

I don't know how long the swarm stayed -- my mind racing as it did. I only remember finding it suddenly quiet, the sound of buzzing bees drifting

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off. They had made us pay for the honeycomb, and I imagined them all laughing as they returned to their work.

I didn't move -- I didn't want to face what would come next -- until Thomas was over us yelling my name and rolling Thorn off to the side.

"Roland! Roland! Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," I murmured, looking off into the sky and seeing the swarm was far, far away, moving up the wall of the canyon. I turned my attention to Thorn. She was lying on her side, completely still, her eyes half open and dreamy.

"Thorn," I whispered. "I'm so sorry I didn't keep up. I've made a terrible mistake."

She didn't move, but she seemed to smile, licking her nose and coming to life little by little. She raised her head and my heart leaped. Could it really be so? Could she be all right?

A moment later she was up, wobbling uneasily.

"That didn't feel very good," she joked, shaking her head from side to side. "Let's try not to let it happen again, understood?"

Both Thomas and I threw our arms around Thorn, digging our faces into her neck and smiling from ear to ear. We didn't think at all about her sharp claws or long teeth. We were past being afraid of her now, and only wanted Thorn to know how

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much we needed her. She purred thankfully, which tickled my ear and made me pull back.

"Everything is a little sore to the touch," she said, gently suggesting we hold off on any further acts of affection until all the stings had time to heal. She walked around on shaking legs and seemed agitated and uncertain.

"The sooner we get out of the Great Ravine and back to Mister Clawson, the better," she said. "We don't want to find ourselves lost in the wild after dark. Best to start back now."

"Could we rest a while longer?" asked Thomas. "I saw something back there, something we need to talk about." He gestured toward the very bottom of the Great Ravine, where the two sides of the long cavernous V met and the black line of rock shot up into the air.

Thorn looked inquisitively at Thomas, then back toward the wide open of the rest of the ravine. She smelled the air, licked at her nose, then squinted her eyes as if trying to see what danger might be heading our way.

"A very short rest will be all right," she conceded. "But only a few minutes, and let's move back as far as we can, where we can't be seen."

The three of us wandered back between the scattered rocks of deep brown and red, until we

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came to the end. It was there that I saw what Thomas had already seen. At the end of the Great Ravine was a hidden passage, narrow and black as night, rising fast and crooked like the long tail of a lightning bolt. And on a large flat stone that lay before the opening was carved the circle and square symbol - the very symbol that could be found on my knees, hidden beneath my dusty pants.

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***

CHAPTER 15

A Fateful Decision Is Made

"Someone must want you to go that way," said Thorn. Thomas and I had sat down, rolled up our pant legs, and revealed the marks above our knees. Thorn looked back and forth between the symbol on the stone before the passage and the matching symbol permanently marked into our skin.

"How can that be?" she wondered.

"We've wanted to tell you," said Thomas. "But we weren't sure we could trust you. We thought you might want to put an end to us - that Mister Clawson had sent us out here to die. Before we knew you, we feared you would slash us to bits and leave us out here in the Great Ravine once we got what Mister Clawson wanted."

There was a pause, a lingering moment of indecision for my brother. He pointed to the image on my knee. "We've been called out onto a journey we don't understand. These markings mean something."

It's hard to tell what a big cat is thinking by

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looking her in the face, but I saw something in Thorn then, in her eyes mostly. She was afraid, like a child is afraid. She didn't know what to do.

"Do you know where you came from?" Thomas softly whispered. "Long ago you came from the forest and the mountains, from somewhere up there." Thomas pointed up the passage hidden in shadows. "That's where we want to go. You could join us -- protect us if you would -- and you'll never have to see Mister Clawson again."

Thorn's eyes brightened -- but only for a moment. Then her mood turned dim and lonely.

"We must go back," she told us. "We must bring Mister Clawson what he requires. You're wrong to think we can escape his grasp. He has his ways, and he'll put them to use if we try to escape him."

"What ways?" I said. "You don't need to worry over leaving us in the Great Ravine to die. We're not staying here. We're going that way, to the Western Kingdom."

I glanced off toward the passageway, rolling my pant legs down and standing up. Thorn seemed completely flustered by the idea that we'd want to travel so far -- and through such dangerous places -- but she said nothing.

"He's had you under his control since you were a cub," I continued. "What could he possibly have said to make you think you couldn't escape him?"

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She paced back and forth with uncertainty, her mind racing with what to do.

"It's dangerous out there for two children," she said. "There are bears and wolves, and they know easy prey when they see it. Where you seek to go is beyond the wild of Fenwick Forest, beyond even Mount Norwood ..."

Her voice trailed off, and it was clear she'd come to the name of her old home, distant memories clouding her mind.

"We have to go, Thorn," I said. "But we need you to come with us. We can't do it alone."

This seemed to crack Thorn's resolve, though something still troubled her. She listened carefully on the wind, trying to sense any oncoming danger, but there was nothing. After a long pause she began to speak in a quiet, cheerless voice.

"When I was small, my mother told me a story about a little bear cub that was captured by a man and taken away. The man tied the cub with a rope to a stake in the ground and the cub tried and tried to break free. After a while the cub gave up and the man trained it to do tricks. He lived at the edge of a large town where people threw coins at the man and the bear, and always the cub was tied to the rope attached to the stake in the ground."

Thorn stopped and listened, sniffing the air for coming intruders.

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"When the cub grew into a bear, it was much bigger than the man, much stronger," she went on. "But still the man kept the bear tied to the same flimsy rope tied to the same wooden stake pounded into the ground. The grown bear could have easily broken free if he had tried, but he had come to believe over the course of time that it could not be broken. The man had trained the bear's mind to think it couldn't break free, and so the bear lived until it was very old, tied to the rope, doing tricks for anyone who passed by."

"What happened to the bear?" I asked, saddened by the story but wanting to get to the point so that we could escape the Great Ravine.

"There was a young girl who saw the bear and felt sorry for it. This girl came in the night and cut the rope while the bear lay sleeping. The bear awoke with a start, seeing the rope had been cut."

"So the bear escaped then," said Thomas. "It ran off in the night and found its way home."

"No," said Thorn. "The bear looked all around and, not knowing what to do, woke his master and showed him the rope. Now the master knew he had trained the bear well. From that day forward, there was no rope, no stake, nothing to keep the bear at his master's side. And yet the bear never tried to leave. He died of loneliness, clutching the old cut