The Three Furies (Erec Rex) (26 page)

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when the Hermit gave him the shells. Lots of grains of sand would make perfect little cats. His fingers slid along his backpack, scooping as much sand into his palm as he could.

"Look! He's out again, having another fit."

He was half in one place and half in another, split between universes. Ignore the voices, he told himself. Listen to the snores. Feel the sand. Pull it into your dream . . .

His hand came out big, but not as huge as before. Big enough to release about a hundred sandy-brown cats onto the grass. The sensation was amazing. His fingers felt like an opening between worlds. Erec grabbed one little cat by the tail as they scattered in search of food. "Come back and tell me when every last rat in this realm has been eaten. Then you all can go."

The cat mewed fiercely and ran off. People were staring at him in wonder. The cook's face was red and clenched into a knot. She tried to speak but was too choked-up, so she bowed low to Erec.

"Don't bow! Please. I'm just doing what anyone would do."

Wandabelle sent him a sideways glance. "Yeah, right. Anyone could figure out a way out of here, then? I told you, this is your specialty."

"I had some help, okay?" The Hermit had shown him how to change his dreams. All he had to do was remember how, and make it happen.

She laughed in delight.

"You're next, Griffin." Erec smiled at the pirate. "Your job is to clean toilets?"

"Not me, cap'n. I've only been here six hundred years, since me ship blew in. Let the older crew out first."

Erec addressed the crowd. "Were most of you brought here by King Augeas, then?"

"Most of us." A woman nodded. "But a few came later on expeditions,

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voyages, or got lost at sea and ended up here." She hooked a thumb at a woman in a long dress. "Mavis was sailing on a boat to something called a 'new world' and ended up here. She was the only one who survived. Everyone else with her was lost at sea, poor thing."

A haunted look distorted Mavis's gaunt and frayed face. She looked as though she'd lived for seven hundred years in torture. Bruises and scratches covered her arms and cheeks.

"What's your job here, Mavis?"

Her voice squeaked. "To climb the tallest tree here." She pointed at a gigantic fir tree that towered over everything else in the realm. "It's three hundred and seventy feet tall, a Douglas fir, King Augeas told me. All I have to do is climb to the top. It should be simple, right? But every time I get high enough, the wind whips me loose." She frowned. "And the sharp leaves hurt." She frowned.

"I can help you with this one!" Wandabelle grabbed the woman under her arms and flew her to the top of the tree. The top branches were thin and the tip of the tree bent when Mavis clung onto it, but her face lit with glee.

Soon King Augeas's face appeared in the sky. "What?" he cried, enraged. "How could you have gotten up there? This is preposterous. Have you cheated?"

Erec could not hear Mavis's reply, but King Augeas said, "Fine. I guess I can't hold you here anymore. But if there's trickery going on down there, I'll find out, you all hear me?"

When Mavis disappeared, the remaining townspeople hugged one another and danced in the filthy streets.

"In a way, you've already set them free," Wandabelle whispered. "From this day on they'll never go back to being mean and living so horribly."

Griffin appeared with a sheepish look on his face. "I know you could have let yourself out and left us here. So maybe you better

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escape before King Augeas puts a stop to what you're doing. It wouldn't be fair if you ended up stuck in this place."

"Thanks, Griffin. But I can't leave you all here. I just wish I knew how to get Wandabelle out."

"What's her job, then?"

"The king never gave her one. He didn't want to risk her escaping at all."

Griffin fell to his knees before Wandabelle. "I'm so sorry, ma'am. When I think how awful we were to you . . . well, it makes me ashamed. We was just jealous, you know. You were too smart to do some dumb job, and we were too afraid to stop. But I didn't know that the king never made any deal with you at all. Now you're the one who could be jealous, and instead you're helping people."

Wandabelle's smile lit up her face. "Thank you, Griffin. I think this place was bringing out the worst of us all before Prince Erec showed up." She touched Griffin on the nose, and he scratched it right after.

"Prince?" Eyes darted toward Erec with new respect, and a few people bowed.

"No! Stop. I mean, I don't want to be called that, okay? Just . . . get up. Let's figure out how to get out of here."

One after the next, everyone's bargains with the king became settled. The woman Erec met on the road found a potion to stop aging in a pot shaped like a seashell. She smeared it all over her face and drank a few sips. A moment later she looked young and radiant. She threw her arms around Erec, crying.

After she was gone, the streets were completely cleaned by three snail shells that became enormous giants with strong water hoses. The last rat was eaten by the cats. People were vanishing and the king was getting angrier.

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Soon only seven people were left, including Erec and Wandabelle. By this time King Augeas's face hung continuously in the sky, watching. "I don't know who is responsible for this--how that net appeared in the ocean to catch all the fish in the reef, or how that huge sponge scoured all the buildings. But I have an idea . . . Erec Rex. If you or that Clown Fairy found a way to trick me, don't think it's going to last. I'm watching you."

It was getting dark. Wild howls echoed through the air. They sounded more ferocious than regular wolf cries. Could werewolves lurk around here too? Erec didn't doubt it.

A huge full moon rose over the horizon, shedding ghostly light onto the village. Movement on the ground caught his eye. The white dirt road he stood on wiggled like it was alive.

"Get over here, man!" Griffin called to him. "Now is when the worms come out."

Erec bolted from the road, shaking some glowing white worms from his shoes and pants cuffs.

Griffin checked the sky. "At least there's a full moon tonight. You don't want to know how bad things are here when it's pitch-black."

"Don't any of the houses have lights in them?"

"You mean candles? Oil lamps? Never had anything here to make them with."

"I meant lightbulbs."

"Light balls? What are them things?" Griffin laughed. "Some newfangled torches, I guess?"

"When you get out of here, Griffin, you won't believe all the new inventions waiting for you."

"I'll stand guard if ye want to try and rest, cap'n. But ye won't be able to sleep. Nobody can here."

"That's okay. Let's keep working on freeing people."

"Seamus has to find a four-leaf clover, Ted has to capture all the

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werewolves (that answered Erec's question), Selene is supposed to weave a silk cloth out of dust, and Castor must build a ship that can travel into the skies. And of course, me with the toilets, and you with the stables." He scratched his head. "I hate to leave that little girl here alone, cap'n."

"I do too. I'll figure out a way to rescue her, even if I have to come back."

"Yer a good man."

"I'll be better once you're all free."

Erec closed his eyes. In the other world he felt his body on the cold floor, wiggled his fingers in his backpack. A bumpy shell, that could be a four-leaf clover. He pulled it into the nightmare world and handed it to Griffin. "Give this to Seamus. I'll see what else I can do."

"Aha!" King Augeas's face glowed on the huge full moon. "I see what you're doing! How are you bringing things into your dream like that?"

Erec could hear the king's voice both in the Nightmare Realm and where his body was lying, amid the snores. Ignoring Augeas, he focused on his sleeping body, reaching farther into his backpack.

"Are you moving? You can't be awake--"

What could clean toilets? A clam shell could be two parts of a spaceship, ready to be snapped together. A sand dollar was a magic spinning wheel. The round platter was a werewolf trap with a call that was irresistible to them.

"Arg! You're taking things from your backpack."

Erec's hand clenched on one more thing as the backpack was whipped away. Pull hard! In a flash the objects were yanked into the Nightmare Realm by his huge hands. "Castor, over here! Two parts of a working spaceship. If you have to build one, just snap these two halves together and send it into the air."

Castor rubbed his hands together, face filled with joy.

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A giant oval of silver lay on the ground, making a hideous screeching noise. "Ted, do you hear that? This is a werewolf trap. Just stand near it, and soon they'll all be caught on top of it." Ted nodded, scared but determined.

"Selene, this is a magical spinning wheel. It will spin silk from dust. Get to work, quickly, before the king stops you."

"Thank you, Prince Erec!"

Griffin looked at him expectantly. Erec ran his fingers over what was in his hand. He had to make it clean toilets for Griffin.

"What have you got in your hand?" the king's voice screeched. "Give me that!"

It was his MagicLight.

A hose. A huge snake hose that would slither from one house to the next on its own, blasting water into each toilet until it sparkled.

Erec let go and the snake hose slid away just as he felt his hand yanked open. The other objects fell away.

His eyes opened into the moonlight. "I did it, Griffin! I got a huge water hose snake to clean every toilet perfectly!" He sighed, relieved. King Augeas cursed and screamed in the sky above. "I was just in time. He took everything else away from me."

Griffin looked pained. "What about you, cap'n? What about the stables?"

Erec stopped short. He had forgotten about himself. Maybe he could make the water hose snake clean the stables when they finished the toilets. They didn't seem built right for it, though. Plus, all of the other things he had brought into this place had vanished once they did their job.

He concentrated, reaching for his backpack, but it was gone. Something rough had grabbed his arms instead, and then they were stuck behind him. His arms were tied. Nothing else was in reach, nothing he could feel with his fingers.

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Feeling helpless, he collapsed on the ground.

"Aye, cap'n. I won't be leaving you here."

"Go, Griffin. Your deal with King Augeas is done. You're the last, and I want to see you get out of here."

Griffin protested, but finally thanked Erec, promising to wait faithfully for him out in the real world.

Wandabelle sat down by Erec's side. At least the werewolves were gone, but howls of other creatures approached. Were they ghosts? Phantoms? Erec didn't want to know.

He had a feeling, though, that he was going to find out.

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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The Best Present

REC AND WANDABELLE sat back-to-back behind a bush and shut their eyes so they wouldn't see what horrible beasts were creeping around them. Erec remembered that Griffin's sabers had not hurt him when he first arrived. Nobody could die in the Nightmare Realm. So he really didn't have to worry. He preferred covering his ears, burying his head in his knees, and trying to block everything out to spending the night running away from his
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unknown fears. Every now and then he felt something furry or sharp running over him, and batted it away.

The night was passing so slowly. Erec missed sleeping . . . and then realized that he was, in fact, sleeping. Was he really stuck here permanently? Every time he tried feeling around for things to bring into his dream, his hands came up empty.

Poor Bethany. He gripped his arms tighter, wondering if she was okay. No matter how bad his situation looked, he knew it must be worse for her, chained to a desk, her mind rifled through like a book. What did she have to face? Death for certain. And if she wasn't lucky, she might give Baskania what he needed in order to destroy the world.

If only he could get away from this place. Tomorrow he would take another look at the stable. Maybe if he worked extra hard he could shovel it out with his hands faster than the animals could mess it up again.

At least he had a friend here. That was his only consolation. But he knew that he wasn't doing the Clown Fairy any good by staying here. If he got out, he could tell everyone where she was trapped. He would figure out some way to overcome King Augeas.

The night passed as slowly as the day had. It seemed an eternity before the sun rose. But even with the moonlight, cleaning the stable was too horrendous to do in the dark, so they waited.

When the morning finally came, King Augeas's face arrived with it, hanging in the sky. "You've ruined my realm, boy," he growled. "Now the only toys left to play with are you and that fairy girl. And don't think you did anyone any favors, either. I let them out, like I said I would. But how long do you think they'll last on Henrietta Island in the Arctic Ocean? They're all nicely frozen out there, I'm sure. Well, at least you two are stuck with me forever. Unless you finish cleaning