Chapter Three: The Highest Room of the Tallest Tower
Before them loomed the most imposing staircase any of them had ever seen. Up, up, up, the stairs rose ever higher into the darkness. Alonzo stared upward, trying in vain to see through the pervasive dark. It was no use. By now the torches were too far apart to see much beyond them, and even his keen Jellicle eyes could not penetrate far into this darkness. He glanced back at his companions, worried that they might be pushing themselves too hard to keep up with him; he had trained himself to endurance and stamina as part of his role as defender of the tribe, Jemima and Mistoffelees had undergone no such training. They were not necessarily weak, but they were young and inexperienced, and he still felt that he was pushing them harder than he should have. If only they hadn't complicated things so much by following him into the abyss…
It felt as if they had been climbing forever. They had finally come upon another torch, after feeling their way upward in the now-silent darkness for what seemed like hours, and he had agreed to rest for a while. Jemima sat cross-legged on the floor, appearing almost in meditation, while Mistoffelees sprawled nearby. For some unfathomable reason, Alonzo could not keep still, so he paced back and forth along one of the upper stairs. In this place, the stairs were wide. The torch they sat by was mounted on a pole in the middle of the stairs. In other places, however, the stairs had narrowed to the point that they could barely squeeze between the walls. Nowhere was the ceiling visible. Alonzo did not know whether it rose a hundred feet above his head or just one, all that he could see when he looked up was a vast blackness.
"I wonder how much further up this goes," Mistoffelees mused aloud, his soft voice shattering the silence and echoing eerily up and down the staircase.
"I don't know," Alonzo sighed. He was under the impression that Mistoffelees was trying to get Jemima to talk, but the young queen did not even open her eyes, much less respond. These days it seemed she was only interested in one tom, and that was not Mistoffelees, much to Alonzo's chagrin. "But I think we should get going again soon."
"I do not like it here," Jemima murmured in agreement, her eyes still closed.
"Then that settles it. We keep going. Come on, Tux, off your lazy bum." Mistoffelees grumbled under his breath at the use of the much-disliked nickname, but he obeyed, rising reluctantly to his feet. Alonzo chuckled. "You too, Jemima."
The young queen rose gracefully from her meditation pose and strode to Alonzo's side. "I am ready," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. Alonzo did not understand why she was being so quiet, but supposed he should not complain. At the very least she was not insinuating her desire to replace Cassandra as his mate, if such a desire even truly existed outside his head. Shaking his head to clear it, he peered ahead into the darkness and wondered what they would find when, if, they ever reached the top.
Feeling carefully ahead of them for each step, they moved up into the darkness. There were no more torches. The path grew ever more narrow, until Alonzo thought he would go crazy from the closeness of the walls. With each step he could feel the fur on his shoulders brush the walls; he waited fearfully for his whiskers to graze against a wall in front of him, rendering them at a dead end in the middle of a mountain. At least Jemima and Mistoffelees were most likely having an easier time with this, as they were much smaller than he was. For some reason, they did not speak when they were in darkness, only when they came to the torches. All was silent, close, and dark for an interminable amount of time. Until Alonzo felt his whiskers brush against something in front of him. Oddly, it did not have the same feel under his paws as the stone to either side. It had to be a door. They had not come all this way to run into a wall after all.
He put his paws on it and felt for anything – a handle, a hole, an edge. Faintly he heard Jemima and Mistoffelees catch up to him and pause a few steps behind him, uncertain in the darkness. He paid them no mind, concentrating on his task of finding a way to get past the door. There - a small latch that turned easily when he found it with his paw. He pushed; the door swung inward with a groan.
Flickering light spilled out into the stairwell, temporarily blinding them.
When Alonzo could see again, he beheld a room like nothing he had ever thought to see. It was an enormous room, roughly hewn into the living stone, which extended back and up beyond where he could see. There were torches set in sconces at regular intervals along the walls, and faintly from above shone the light of simple chandeliers. The floor was covered in places by beautifully woven rugs in shades of red and white and gold, and where there were no rugs there was smooth, almost polished, stone.
Here and there a few pieces of finely wrought furniture could be seen. Alonzo thought he could hear the whispered sounds of people in the room, but he could see no one.
He took a few cautious steps into the room, passed the first of the torches. All around him were shadows, vague silhouettes in the shape of cats, dogs, the occasional humanoid. His eyes grew wide; was he seeing things? Apparently not. With each step he took, he could see more shadowy figures, and hear the whispers more clearly. He glanced behind him, barely able to see Jemima and Mistoffelees through the smoky shadows, and was reassured that his fellow Jellicles were indeed following him.
Unsure of whether the figures milling around him were solid, as they did not even appear to notice his presence, Alonzo wove his way carefully between them, making sure all the while that he did not touch any of them. Then he saw it. Or, rather, he saw her. There, a single solid form among thousands of transparent silhouettes, was Cassandra. She was perched delicately upon one of the fine lounges, heavily veiled in a mass light purple fabric, but still immediately recognizable. Her face was turned from him, she was apparently speaking to one of the figures, a slightly more solid form that had paused its wandering to stand at her side. She gave a nod and the shadowy form faded away.
Alonzo could do nothing but stare. He simply could not understand what Cassandra was doing in this place, much less wrapped up in a bunch of fancy purple fabric. The thought passed vaguely through his head that his legs felt as if they were made of lead, but he had no room in his heart for anything but Cassandra. Something in him was ecstatic that he had found her so easily, the rest of him wanted to approach her, take her back to the real world with him. There was a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach; it felt as if his feet had sunk into the floor and taken root there. He could not move.
Something, some small noise, perhaps, made her turn to look in his direction.
A single piece of the purple fabric covered her face above her nose; he could see now that the fabric itself was transparent, but when layered it formed the sort of shimmery garment Cassandra was wearing. Behind the fabric, her face was shadowed, but it was still her very familiar face. Unable to stop himself, he smiled widely. The sinking feeling suddenly gone, he sprinted up to her and stood in front of her, almost staring. Mistoffelees and Jemima were completely forgotten.
"Alonzo?"
Such a simple word, but he could hear so much confusion in her voice. "Yes, Cassandra, it's me," he told her, feeling almost rushed to tell her what had happened, as if time were of the essence. Maybe it was. "That black shadow thing, it came back. I saw the door! I knew you had to be inside, so I came after you. Now all we have to do is find the way back." It sounded so easy when he said it like that. He hoped it would be.
"Alonzo," she whispered his name again, disbelief still evident. This time, she reached out a paw and touched him gently. Her face showed no expression. "You are here," she continued slowly. "I cannot … how …" Finally, he could see something on her face. Anguish. "Why?"
"I," he paused. "I had to, Cassie. I couldn't just leave you here. Not without knowing why you left, and if it was your choice, and if you were ever going to come back." He honestly could not explain the words that were coming from his mouth, he sounded altogether too noble for his own good. Maybe it was true. He hoped it was true, but he had never really analyzed his own motives and he was not about to start now. Leave that to the philosophical types, like Tux. Where was Tux, and Jemima too, for that matter?
Her breathing grew irregular, even though she said nothing. It took him a moment to realize that she was trying not to cry. "Aw, Cassie, it's all right," he told her. "Just tell me what happened. You'll see. Everything's going to be fine."
"How can you say that?" She shuddered. "There is no way out. Once you are here, you are here forever."
She looked so sad and defeated sitting there like that. "Come here," Alonzo whispered, pulling her into his arms and holding her tight. That purple fabric rubbed his fur the wrong way. "We will find a way out, I know it. There was a way in, there has to be a way out."
"There is," she agreed, resting her head on his shoulder, "but it is so high up that we will never be able to reach it. Only the shadows can come and go."
"If there is one exit, then maybe there are more that we don't know about." Alonzo was trying to be plausible, but he could not help but wonder whether Cassandra's pessimism was well founded.
"I have not been able to find one." She choked.
"Don't cry, Cassie. Everything will be fine, I promise."
"You promise?"
"Yes." His heart was pounding. Something weird was going on here. She was gently moving her paws, touching him in all the right places to drive away all thought of anything but her. It felt … nice. And yet…
"I love you," she whispered.
Wrong.
"What?" It came out harsher than he intended, but suddenly there was a chill in his blood. Those three words were something he never expected to ever come out of Cassandra's mouth, no matter how well he knew it to be true. It was so unlike her to be that forthcoming… Either being a prisoner in this place had changed her in ways he could never understand or there was something wrong with her, with all of this.
"I," she faltered. "Did I say something wrong?"
He pulled away, held her by the shoulders at arm's length. "Let me see your face when you say that." It came out more as a snarl than anything else. He could still faintly feel the touch of her paws, but any of that was drowned by his sudden shock and concern.
"I, please, no," she murmured between gasps.
"That's odd." He let go of her with one arm, pinning her against him as best as he could with the other, and drew aside the purple fabric. She stared at him and he stared back, a stricken look upon his face.
She had no eyes. Where her beautiful blue eyes had once been there were only two terrifying black voids. Horrified, he tried to thrust her away from him, but somehow she had a firm grip on him. She grinned a terrible grin. "What's the matter? Did I say something wrong?" she asked in a voice that was not hers. "Or is it my appearance that bothers you, love?"
Alonzo stuttered incomprehensibly. "You, eyes, what, how –"
She laughed, and her voice grew deeper and more foreign. She shimmered before his eyes and turned to blackness. The fabric fell to the floor in a pile and the incorporeal form that had been Cassandra shifted into a shapeless mass as it moved away from him, its laughter still ringing in his ears. The blackness gathered itself into a new shape, one that was much more sinister. It took the form of a black tom, crouched on the edge of the lounge not unlike a gargoyle. He could make out long fangs and sharp claws and, oddly, black wings like those of a bat. The fur on its back was long and took the shape of a row of large spikes.
Alonzo backed away slowly.
The thing, whatever it was, laughed, its voice a hideous parody of Cassandra's. "How easily you are fooled, Alonzo."
"How do you know my name? And where is Cassandra?" Alonzo demanded, too frightened to do anything but be belligerent.
"I need explain nothing to you, mortal. But I will give you this advice: Give up on the one you call Cassandra, for she will be the death of you. Leave this place while you still can."
"Wait a minute. Just who are you?"
The voice grew colder and infinitely more intimidating. "That is none of your concern, mortal."
Alonzo looked straight into its horrible black eyes. "Where is Cassandra? I will not leave here without her."
"Then you will die." The thing reared up on its back legs and leapt, its black claws slicing through the air toward him.
It was warm and dark, almost like being inside some great womb; at least that is what it seemed like to Jemima. It was just like a dream, floating gently through darkness, without a care in the world. She sighed, or tried to. The air would not leave her lungs and she choked on it, on the realization that she was not sleeping but was awake and somehow trapped inside the earth. Panic set in; she struggled against it, tried to cry out, but to no avail.
Alonzo was right, she never should have followed him into that blackness, should never have convinced Mistoffelees to go with. Just when she was certain she would die there, there was light. It came from nowhere, indeed there was nowhere for it to have come from, but she knew from the feel of it that it was moonlight. It was such a welcome sight that she wanted to burst into tears.
And then there was air, open air. She gasped for breath, thankful just to be alive. Somehow she did not fall, though it appeared she had fallen through the ceiling and into an enormous room; she drifted slowly down until Mistoffelees reached up and grabbed her, pulling her down into his arms and hugging her tight. She did cry, then.
At length, she thought to ask, "What happened to us?"
"I think," Mistoffelees began, his voice cracking, "I think we went through the floor."
They looked around without letting go of one another; things had been scary enough with Alonzo there to protect them, now that they were alone, it was downright terrifying. The room was dimly lit, but it was clear enough that it was big. And filled with row after row of bookshelves, each filled with innumerable enormous leather bound volumes written in mysterious scripts and ciphers.
"What is this place?" She knew he would not know the answer any more than she did, but it helped keep her mind off the obvious question: what had happened to Alonzo?
His voice incredulous, Mistoffelees said, "It's a library!" Indeed, there was little else it could have been, filled as it was with books.
"But what is a library doing in the middle of a mountain?"
"I don't know, but maybe we can find something interesting. Help me look." Mistoffelees was a totally different tom when magic and lore were involved; suppressing a smile, Jemima followed the emboldened young tom as he made his way among the shelves. They meandered through the darkness for quite some time before Mistoffelees let out a victorious shout and took off up one of the bookshelves, straight to the top shelf. Jemima stared after him, bewildered, until he leaned over the edge and announced what he had found.
Mistoffelees was one of few Jellicles that knew how to read at least one form of human script, and he put that knowledge, combined with his mystical senses, to good use. "It's a book that I can read," he told her, pushing it over the edge and onto the floor. "I think there's something in it that we can use."
He leapt down smoothly, gracefully, and nudged the book open. Jemima peered over his shoulder, trying to make sense of the symbols, but it was all foreign to her and she could not understand any of it. "I've got it!"
"What?" Jemima asked, her excitement painfully obvious in her voice. She was starting to worry about being discovered in this place, or being found by another shadow monster like the dog-beast from before.
He pointed to a spot on the page, "Here. It keeps talking about the 'cursed prophet'. That has to be Cassandra."
"What does it say?"
"It's… weird. Let me see. It says that 'the cursed prophet is the light among shadows, and knows the way between worlds.' If it's really talking about Cassandra, and I think it is, then what could it mean?"
Jemima's eyes went wide. "Mistoffelees, what if it means that when we went through that doorway into wherever it is we are now… what if when we did that, we left the 'real' world? That would explain all of this, the weird shadow things, falling through the floor, Cassandra disappearing…"
"You're right! Bit if that's true, then we have to find Alonzo and Cassandra."
Something was moving toward them in the darkness, its thudding footfalls startling both kittens into silence. Jemima's fur bristled. Mistoffelees grabbed her paw, whispering urgently, "Come on, let's get out of here!" She felt like she couldn't move, could only stare where she knew that something would appear just as soon as it got close enough to kill them. Against her will, she let out a small, frightened whimper.
"Come on!" Mistoffelees yanked her forcibly to her feet and pulled her after him, leaving the book abandoned on the floor where it had fallen.
