Chapter 6
Opening its large, mysterious eyes, the cat stood up from its sleepy position and turned its gaze to Chloe next to it. Her many locks of strawberry hair were scattered around the ground near her, her chest gently rising and falling with steady breathing.
"Good time to rise and shine," the cat said gently, pawing at Chloe's shoulder. "That is, if not much sun around here counts as shine," it muttered to itself.
With a groggy hum, Chloe stirred, rolling over onto her stomach to bring herself to her feet. She rolled onto her cloak, catching it on the dirty ground as she finally rose from her slumber.
"What? What is it?" she wanted to know, rubbing her eyes.
"You may be like royalty to the Pagemaster," the cat stated, "but that doesn't mean you can't get early wake-up calls like every other normal person."
"I know how that feels," Chloe muttered, remembering the day they left on their journey through the rotunda.
The cat shook its head, chuckling briefly. "If you want to get to your friends fast enough, you'll have to make sacrifices to do so," it said, puffing out its chest.
"Oh, I will," Chloe said, starting to follow the cat. "What I won't make sacrifices for, is when you're being sarcastic with me. You're a good cat, but you can have a big mouth." She paused to imagine some breakfast into her open hand, which she gradually started to munch on.
"That's what they all say," the cat said. "I am a cat after all, and have far superior senses than most other creatures- humans in particular. And believe me it has done people good to listen to me."
Chloe sneered playfully at the cat. "Oh. All right. If you just happen to sense everything so well, then why don't you tell me the way out so that I can be on my way?"
"There, I cannot help you," said the cat. "I have senses, but I'm not a map. I'll only know where to tell you to go once I recognize what has come. Shall you be able to live with that for some time?"
Chloe sighed heavily. She didn't see where she would get by arguing endlessly with the cat. It did have a point- they wouldn't know what they would come across until such things actually came. She shivered at the thought of what horrific things were hiding in this section, but what alternative did she have other than the cat's help?
"Yes, I suppose so," Chloe answered.
"Very good." The cat grinned at her, purring just a little.
Chloe grinned, if somewhat sheepishly, back at the cat. Turning her gaze to the little scraps of her breakfast still lying in her hand, she decided that perhaps some breakfast would also do some good for her new guide.
In less than a second, she conjured up some catnip for the cat, which she handed down to it as they slowed their walk. The cat was quick to be gracious, and as delicately as its purr, the cat dipped its head into the floating bowl and ate.
"Good kitty," Chloe whispered. She looked away from the cat then, and into the woods in front of her.
"That's strange."
"What is it now?" asked the cat.
"That." Chloe pointed ahead into the woods. The trees and surrounding fog had been dark grey before. But now they were starting to merge together in a deep, ominous blackness.
"What's…in there?" Chloe had been hesitant to ask, and now she was regretting asking.
"I cannot say what sort of trap we're walking into," the cat answered, a little snidely. "But the chances of there being monsters or rats in there are…high, to say the least."
"Well, I don't see any other direction worth going besides forward, so…" Chloe looked at her hand, and with a blink of her eyes, a tall candlestick materialized in her clenched fingers. A little flame glowed gently, but grew bigger under Chloe's mental influence. "I'm going to take a look."
The cat shrugged and said, "Of course, if you will, then I suppose I'll go with you."
"You will?" Chloe said, stepping into the darkness.
"Stepping in there doesn't call for naivety," the cat told her, "but I am your companion, aren't I? It wouldn't be prudent to leave you when you could be eaten alive by who knows what in there."
"No. No it wouldn't," Chloe muttered as she stuck her candle further into the unknown. It created a hazy glow in the blackness, but it wasn't the most pleasant thing for her to look at. For some inexplicable reason, it brought about memories of the fire she had seen in Dracula's eyes, and she nearly shut her eyes and tripped on her feet at the mere suggestion of it.
Trying to breathe evenly, Chloe looked behind her shoulder, to ensure that they hadn't walked too far; the darkness actually seemed to be swallowing everything, moving about like ink does when spilled. The grey world behind them was nothing but a tiny circle, becoming smaller, and smaller still.
"Do you think…maybe, we walked too far?"
Chloe had barely gotten the words out when she lurched forward and her body felt for a split second like it was freefalling through space. Her heartbeat nearly sliced through her as she finally grappled for something in the pitch darkness.
A loud meow cut through the stillness, and Chloe followed the sound to right at her nose. Something dry and soft nuzzled her face, and although Chloe's heart raced manically, she felt some peace in recognizing what was near her.
"I don't like rats at the best of times," the cat said, pawing at Chloe's cheek gently, "but I smell them leaving quickly. Something's happening."
Chloe's fingers held the ground so hard that her muscles stung, but through all the manic thoughts whirling through her frightened mind, she heard the gentle dripping of water in the pit below her.
And then, with a shocking swiftness, the space around Chloe and the cat lit up like a flip of a switch, and the air instantly turned boiling hot. Her stomach churning, Chloe noticed that the walls that now surrounded her and the cat were blazing gently, radiating dangerous heat. Steam rose everywhere, and the cat spread apart its paws in fear.
And, why did it look like the walls were coming closer and closer to them?
The minute Chloe recognized what was happening, she pulled together her strength to hoist herself from the pit. With a lunge downward, she grabbed the cat and, using one hand, pointed down into the pit. Using all her imaginative might, Chloe's hand grew icy cold as a strong current of water poured out of thin air from her palm. Gradually, Chloe made the rushing water become stronger until she could feel the power of the water racing all throughout her. It plunged down into the pit, splashing into oblivion, but Chloe was determined to fill it before the fiery walls could touch her.
The cat shivered in her arm, burying its head into her side. "No. No indeed, you aren't saying we are going in there!" it protested.
"How else are we going to get out of here?" Chloe asked, pushing more power into the coursing water. "We're not in the rotunda, so I can't imagine us out!"
"Don't look at me! The water!" the cat shouted, looking desperately at the water pouring into the pit.
Chloe shook her head, making a swift decision in the meantime as she stole a glance at the walls closing in. She gently put the cat back on the ground, and, using both hands now, doubled the power of the water. At this point, it was gushing in like a real waterfall, and was finally starting to appear out of the darkness.
But that wasn't enough.
The walls were almost five feet from them.
"Come on, hurry!" Chloe was screaming inside, with the heat and the tension of their situation.
Three feet…
"Let's go!"
Chloe swept her arms downward and once more took the cat in her arms, feeling the heat touch her arm as she leapt down into the water, still sitting in the darkness of the pit.
Bubbles fizzed madly around Chloe, as her arms released the tension and started to grapple once again for something to bring her to the surface. She kicked desperately, squeezing her lips together to keep her precious breath from escaping, but the top of her head finally managed to break the surface.
Chloe yanked herself above the water, breathing fast as she came to complete darkness again. Suddenly the water seemed to take up the space of an ocean, and Chloe's heart could have burned her chest open it was beating that fast. The space was cold and empty, and the cat was nowhere to be found.
The cat!
Pushing through the water, Chloe opened her mouth to scream, which echoed all around her, only increasing her fear. She was terribly frightened, and so flustered, that she couldn't think straight. They were a jumble of desires to escape what she had created and to find the cat, but she couldn't think well enough to do them both at once.
Through excessive willpower, she finally managed to conjure some candles around the rim of the pit, and to think of a way in which she would move forward, instead of backward. She wasn't going back to the forest- back where she started.
Looking at her surroundings, an idea of escape soon came to Chloe. She gave one last grim look at the space around her before she dove back under the water.
Groping around, she made her way to the side of the pit, where she placed her hands against the earthy walls. Palms flat against it, she willed for the earth to give way to a tunnel, and gradually, the earth withered away beneath her palms, crumbling into the water to form a huge, long passage before her. Chloe swam to the tunnel, pulling herself inside quickly.
She was barely inside however, when something heavy and dangerous fell into the water behind her. Scrambling inside the tunnel, she made the entrance start to close up with her mind, barely catching a glimpse of the huge metal object that sliced through the water. She saw it glow, glinting in the candlelight as it fell down. It looked rather sharp, like some kind of axe.
"Hm. Good thing I wasn't a prisoner of that pendulum," Chloe said to herself as she mentally drained the rest of the water from the tunnel.
And now to just keep going forward, she thought. I just hope the cat made it out all right, and will go somewhere safe- if there even is a safe place in this section.
With that thought in mind, Chloe kept going down the tunnel, an imagined candle floating right next to her with her mind's help. It lit her way through all her flustered thoughts, and her eagerness to soon come to the end of the tunnel.
Chloe had become so completely lost in her mind that she was caught off guard when her forehead banged against the end of the earthly wall. With a deep breath she pushed against the wall, gradually moving to shove with her whole body. It was enough for large clumps of earth to fall into her already messy hair, but the wall finally gave way.
Grinning widely, she moved to crawl out, but her hand slipped and she tumbled from the opening and into something cold and wet- much like the dark water in the pit.
Except this time, it was accompanied by a sound- a voice- so rich in a thick accent that there was no mistaking who he was.
"Lady Chloe. It's a joy seeing you in my domain once more…"