The Winter Letter (15 page)

”Get ready! He’s heading your way!“ Gatnom screamed.

”What?! What should I do?!“

”Find cover! We’re on the way!“

”Is he close?“

”NOW, Will! He’s almost on you!“

Will turned to go hide in the high grass. He stopped. There was a rustling ahead. 

“Gat, is that you? Wohi—” 

Will doubled over as a black blur hit him in mid-belly. The next thing he knew he had been spun around and was facing away from his attacker with the wind pressing against his cheeks. Will fought to loose the grip around his waist, but he couldn’t budge. The man in black held him so tight he felt his bones might shatter, like he was tied to the front of a locomotive.  

When he looked down he realized he was a hundred feet above the waters of the Bottomless Lake and climbing. He was flying.

“Help! Gatn—” The spy silenced Will with a black glove over the mouth.

Slowly the direction changed from up to down, then everything spun and Will was right side up again. Now, they were flying at a painful speed back towards the gaping mouth of the underground caves. The darkness approached quickly, then in an instant everything went black. All he heard were the echoes of his heavy breathing and the crunch of the sand as his captor landed and slid to a stop.

“Phos,” the spy whispered. Instantly, a blue glow wrapped itself around the cavern. The spy lifted his free hand up next to Will’s face. The blue light was emitting from the man’s ring. 

***

Gatnom and Wohie burst through the tall grass and stopped abruptly at the edge of the cliffs. Will was nowhere to be found. 

”Where is he Gat?!“ Wohie asked. She wasn’t panicking yet, but it was definitely on her mind.

“Maybe he’s down in the lake-bed,” Gatnom answered. Frantically, Gatnom and Wohie ran down the rocky stairs to the shore of the lake. Will was nowhere to be seen.

“Will! Will!” Wohie called. She started to sob, but quickly pushed it inside of herself.

“Will, where are you?” Gatnom asked into the connection spell. There was a loud pop, but no response. 

“Something’s wrong Gat!” Wohie could no longer control her sobs. 

“Don’t worry. We’ll find him.” Gatnom turned and peered into the darkness of the caverns. Surely Will didn’t hide inside, but he didn’t know about the evils dwelling in the caves of Baru yet. Gatnom shook his head. What had he been thinking leaving Will near this place? He had to go in and look, but wasn’t sure if he wanted to bring Wohie. Inside lived all sorts of terror, but with the spy somewhere nearby leaving her here could be just an dangerous.

At that moment an echo whipped past, blown from deep within one of the the darkest caves. The words were unintelligible, but Gatnom knew the voice. 

“Will!”

***

“Be still boy. Stop fighting, It’s no use,” said the spy from behind his black mask. He looked like a ninja, with only a small slit exposing his eyes. He was right to, there was no use. The spy’s grip was a vice.

“Let me Go! Who are you?!”

”I am Andrias, high protector of the city of Neba. I have come for you.”

“Why me?! I’m not from this world! I came here by mistake! My name is—”

”Your name is William Wesley, from Earth. I know this already.” 

“Well then you know I came here by mistake!”

“That is something I do not know. No one from Earth comes to our world by mistake.”

”What do you mean?!“ Will was almost screaming. “I have nothing to do with this world or your war!”

“War. What do you know about war? What have they told you?“ asked Andrias. His eyes looked angry. Will realized he had better stop talking.

“There are a lot of things you do not know young William, and I can see in your eyes that you are deceived. You have everything to do with this world and this war. You…” The spy stopped talking and turned towards the light at the cave entrance.

“Will, where are you?!” rang Gatnom’s voice inside of Will’s head. Will looked at the man, wondering if he had heard. He had.  

“Siopao!” the man said firmly. There was a pop, then the magically emitted voices ceased. The spell was broken. “You
must
come with me. I must take you to the king.” The spy turned to leave, holding Will still with one arm, but stopped when he saw Gatnom and Wohie peering into the distant entrance of the cave. The man looked back into the darkness then back at Will, whose face was becoming more distorted as terrible imaginations of this evil king exploded in his mind. It would be better to die than to surrender to whatever torture he would be forced to endure at the hand of this King. There was no reason to return home, nor any reason to stay. Will suddenly did not care if he lived or died. The color inside of his heart flashed to the brightest volcano red and a matching hew glowed in his eyes. The depression he had lived for the past month had found an outlet: rage. 

“I will not go!” Will shouted from the deepest part of himself. The scream rode roughly up the throat, the type saved for moments of heroism or insanity. Will wasn’t sure which he was about to attempt, nor did he care. “I hate King Mel! He killed my parents! I hate him! If I meet him I will kill him!“ With every new sentence a new drop of sweat beaded up on his forehead, falling with a sizzle to the cavern floor.

Down the tunnel Gatnom and Wohie were now approaching fast, running full throttle towards Will and the Spy. The spy glanced back and forth from the silhouettes running his way to Will, whose eyes were glowing so bright they were adding red to the blue glow from Andrias’s ring.

”What are you talking about William? I was there the day your parents died. I know—“

”DON’T TALK ABOUT THEM!“ Will screamed like a beast. “NEVER SPEAK ABOUT THEM!” Then, a new word that he did not understand began popping from his lips, over and over and over. “P
UR! PUR! PUR! PUR!
”

The dark spy snapped his head back to Will. He seemed confused. “How do you know—”

“
PUR! PUR! PUR! PUR!
” Will screamed as he twisted his face in the shape of a fire. With every repeat of the word a flame pulsed from Will’s eyes, like a flashing heartbeat, growing hotter with every thump, until with a crackle a bubble of fire appeared all around, enclosing the two inside.

“
Hudor Thureos!
” the spy yelled. With his free hand he motioned like he was holding a shield. Instantly, a thick bubble of water expanded, colliding with the fire and extinguishing the flame completely. Once the spy could see the fire was out he looked back towards the entrance of the cave. Gatnom and Wohie were still coming, now fighting their way through the knee deep sand on the floor of the cavern. 

“
Heudo
,” the spy said calmly, and at those words everything faded to black. Will, without choice, in the middle of a battle, fainted into a deep sleep, while farther down the tunnel Gatnom and Wohie stopped running at the same time. They dropped slowly to their knees then fell face first, sound asleep in the sand.

Sixteen
The Tower

Every sight was blurry and every noise muffled. The voices seemed distant and the sky a hundred miles higher than it should be. Will could tell, through his grogginess, he was being dragged through fields of rocks and creeks, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t wake up enough to see who was dragging him. He was half there, half in a dream a world away. He dreamt of school, of home, of books he had read, of stories his dad had told him, of scary men in black mask, of doing magic to impress friends, of burning houses and crashed cars, of flying talking bugs, and of creatures with funny mouths and long noses that spoke in a language that sounded like backwards Chinese. The last one was the result of too much Minum Manis, surely.

During one of his short moments of awake he discovered he was indeed being drug on a makeshift cot. The next time he woke to a swirl of neon colors that made Will feel like he was going to throw up. In the middle of his constant coming to and passing out he thought he counted five moons and seven nights, but actually it was only two moons (Nos and Hyp) and four nights.

He finally came fully to on a couch beneath a very high ceiling. The room was perfectly round and warm, but the grey stone blocks that made the walls made it feel cold. Fifteen foot windows dressed in thick purple curtains were set a few feet apart all the way around the room, accept for in one spot where there was a wooden door. Near the ceiling the window’s two vertical sides curved together, making sharp points. Will grabbed his bag and walked to one of the open windows. Below, a gold forest started just beyond a metal fence surrounding the building. The trees went on seemingly forever until they faded into the outline of mountains a great distance away. 

To the right and left were two more stone towers identical to the one he was now in. Will gasped. He was in a castle. But how did he get here? Did the King kidnap him from Gatnom’s tent in the middle of the night? He couldn’t remember a thing. He leaned onto the wall with one hand and shook his head, but then he snatched his hand back. The stone wall was as cold as ice.

Turning, he ran to a window on the opposite side of the room. Straight down lay an ocean at war with a field of scattered rocks. The tower was hovering over the water, as if it was built leaning from the edge of the cliff. He slid on the goggles from his bag and looked down. Fish were floating on top of the water. At first Will thought they were dead,  but later he found out they were only taking their mid-day siesta. He eased over to the wooden door and looked closely at a painting of a short haired man hung over it. He wore a high collared shirt and held a large staff the color of a gun barrel. A scar fell over one eye, then turned and crossed his face just over his lip, before curving again and disappearing beneath the collar. There was a name plate attached to the frame.

Lord Markus, The Under-King

The door creaked and Will jumped completely over the couch. A man as short as a child but with ears as big as a grandpa stepped inside the room. His lips were fat and his eyes were only half open. He wore a black tuxedo and a hat that reminded Will of a dunce cap wore by bad kids back in the day. The hat looked taller than the man, which made him resemble an oversized crayon. 

“Come,” the short man said, without an inkling of kindness. Will didn’t move. “Come,” the man said again with a perfectly straight mouth, like the first pictures ever taken of people before smiling became popular.

“Where am I?” Will asked.

No Answer. 

“Who are you?”

No answer again. 

“Answer me!” Will screamed. He lifted his left hand towards the man in order to make his threat more evident. “You will answer me!”

The short man rolled his eyes. “Come,” he said again. Then, he turned and left the room.

Will stood for a minute with his hand still lifted. The man had totally ignored him. After a minute he followed through the door to a staircase that wrapped around the tower like a snake. More cold grey stone (barely lit by the one window) welcomed Will with a shiver. Just below, a single flight down, was another door, slightly cracked open. Will got down on his knees and peeked through the keyhole. Inside, Gatnom and Wohie sat on a couch, staring blankly out of an open window. 

Suddenly, the door opened, putting Will face to face with the short man’s big ears. 

“Come.”

“Will!” Wohie screamed as she ran over and hugged him. Her voice was trembling and her eyes were red.

“What’s wrong? Where are we?” Will asked. At that, Wohie turned away and started sobbing.

Gatnom walked over from the window. “Will, I have to talk to you. It is very important.”

“Okay.”

“Do you know who the spy was?”

“Spy? I don’t know... wait… yeah, that guy in black, and a… a cave!”

“What was his name?” Gatnom asked again.

"Oh man, I don’t remember. I think his name was... Oh I can’t think straight, I think it was...”

“Try Will, it’s important.”

“Man, I can’t remember.”

“Think.”

“I kinda lost it in there. He was—”

Gatnom grabbed Will by the shoulders, clearly frustrated by Will’s bad memory. “You have to remember! What was his name?!” he shouted.

Will looked at Gatnom and stopped speaking. He suddenly reminded Will of the man from the middle of the smoldering logs.

“Tell me who you are! Tell me who dropped you into our forest! Do you work for the King?!”

“Gatnom!” Wohie yelled from behind. “Stop it!” She pushed in between the two boys, separating them. Gatnom spun around and walked back to the open window. Now, he was sobbing.

“What’s going on?” Will asked. “Where are we?”

“We are at Master Jared’s keep on the coast of the Eastern Sea,” Wohie answered. “It’s a long story, sit down.” She walked over to Gatnom and placed her hand on his shoulder. He wiped his eyes with his cloak, then turned back to Will.

“Will, I am sorry. Please, forgive me. It’s been a terrible few days.”

“Few days? How long have I been out?”

Gatnom sat down on the couch. “Sit, please,” he said. Will sat. “When we heard you scream in the cave—do you remember the cave yet?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Okay. Well, we came running as fast as we could. Right as we got close some very strong fire magic exploded. I thought you were dead, but then there was a shield of water. The next thing I know Wohie and Jabber were waking me up. From what I can tell, the spy must have thrown an extremely strong sleep spell. Wohie was the farthest away, so she woke up first, but still she slept for almost twelve hours. It took six more to get me awake. We couldn’t wake you at all, and we couldn’t even remember what had happened for another three hours or so. The spell was so strong; only a very strong magi could have thrown it. That’s why we were asking you who he was.”

“Wait! I remember, the guy in black. He said he was sent from the King to come get me.”

“Really? Why you?”

“I asked him the same thing.”

“Well, he would have had it not been for Jabber and the other butterbugs. Jabber told us they arrived just as the spell was thrown. They swarmed the cave just as we fell to the floor.”