"Does this Voodoo Lady live in Puerto Pollo?" asked Chariset as they propped the Guybrush-ice-cube upright in a back corner of the pirate's barber shop.
The Barbery Coast, as they called it, boasted a front room wherein they conducted their business, but also a small living area in the back. Haggis had offered her the use of a small bedroom for as long as she might need to stay on Plunder Island--it was musty, but not too bad, considering that three bachelors owned the place. Maneuvering her frozen brother into it was more difficult than she had thought it would be--Haggis could have simply wrapped his giant arms around the block, except that it was incredibly cold, too cold to touch with bare skin. They eventually just tied ropes around it and dragged it down from the docks where the Sea Cucumber was moored, along the plank walkway next to the ocean, to the barber shop. Halfway there, Chariset realized that the block would float in the salt water, so they dropped it in and pulled it through the water, canal-boat style (attracting some very strange looks from passers-by). Getting it inside was another chore, but they managed with a minimum of fuss. As far as she was concerned, the fewer people knew Guybrush was there, the better. LeChuck might no longer be interested, but he had other enemies.
"No, lass...she lives in a swamp west of town. Years ago, the great Spanish ship called the Magic Queen was blown into shore by a hurrican'--the Voodoo Lady moved into the wreck last year and's been callin' it home ever since." Haggis was trying to sound reassuring, but it was obviously not a role he was used to. "She's almost always home, lass, and she likes visitors. If anyone can help yer brother, she can."
Chariset looked again at the strange block of magic ice. "Do--" she started, but faltered, afraid to ask. "Do you think he's--?"
"Ah don' know, lass. But at least after ye see the Voodoo Lady ye'll know fer sure, one way or th'other."
There was that, though it was cold comfort. Haggis' look became entirely kind. "But I suspect that, before too long, ye'll be able ta give yer brother his shoe back."
She wanted to hug him. Instead she said, "Thank you for all your help. I'll be back as soon as I can."
He assured her that it was nothing at all, but she was determined to try to repay them--somehow. Then she departed for her errands in town.
Puerto Pollo was quaint but uninteresting--your typical tile-roofed Caribbean villa. It had a lovely clock tower on top of a theater that looked deserted, a small fountain in front of that, a stone bridge crossing an inlet that divided the town into halves, and one of those ever-present kid-selling-something booths. The kid in question was a rather stumpy carrot-top of a boy who apparently had been in unsuccessful business for some time--his house was festooned with banners, most of which had been crossed off and rewritten. Only one was legible--Kenny's Fruit Stand.
Chariset happened to remember many unsuccessful business ventures of her own as a child, so she almost bought something out of sympathy, but she had more important things on her mind at the moment. Perhaps she could come back some other time. She also noted that the Seahorse had docked nearby--she'd need to talk to her crew, too. One more item on a long mental list of Things to Do.
Eventually she left the town behind and followed the shoreline to a small beach in the shadow of Elaine's fort. A small path wound west-northwest into a gloomy tropical forest, around a small rise, and into the swamp.
Although she'd been warned, Chariset'd had a hard time picturing a ship tossed this far inland, but there was the wreck of the Magic Queen, dead-center in the swamp. She was lying on her side on a clump of trees, which had twisted and contorted over the years to support her weight. A staircase led up from the ground into the interior.
Even if the wrecked ship wasn't a good tip-off, someone had constructed a crooked path to the staircase and had lined it with lanterns shaped like skulls on pikes--candles burned on their heads. A large arch formed a sort of gateway onto the path, decorated with a large cow skull and a smaller human skull--it looked to her like another human skull had been on the other end but had fallen off somehow. She passed under the thing and entered the ship.
To her great suprise, the interior was well-lit and rather tastefully decorated (if your tastes happen to run to voodoo decor). Remembering her brother's description of the place, she found the large mounted alligator propped up against one wall and pulled the creature's dangling tongue. Something like a chime sounded, and a large chair rose up in front of her--empty.
"I'm over here, dear," called a voice from the far side of the room--Chariset ducked under a large piece of hanging cloth that served as a room divider and found the great priestess in some sort of kitchen area, peeling potatoes. Her hands were covered in peelings, and her sleeves were rolled up, but there was still an authority about her that commanded respect without saying a word. She indicated the vacant chair opposite her at the table with her eyes, and waited for Chariset to get settled before saying "Well, well, another of the Threepwoods has come to visit me." She had a deep and mellow voice, gentle as a rising tide. "I know your brother Guybrush too well not to know a relative when I see one" she added, answering Chariset's surprised gaze.
"Well..yes...you see, that's what I've come to talk to you about" she fumbled, finally picking up a potato and going to work on it with her knife just to occupy her hands. She had never felt emotionally less at ease than she did in front of this self-assured woman. "You see, LeChuck, he...and Guybrush...and.." she floundered verbally before lapsing into a desperate silence, staring at the potato. Any farther and she was going to burst into hysterics--wouldn't that just win the priestess' respect. She shook her head, hoping that somehow the Voodoo Lady would understand.
The commanding priestess regarded her in compassionate silence for a time, waiting. Chariset finally gathered herself together and tried again. "Something terrible has happened. There was a strange storm at sea, and I'm sure LeChuck must have been behind it. Elaine and my brother were caught in a whirlpool--when we found him later, he was trapped in a block of ice. We never found Elaine."
"And what do you want me to do about it?" asked the priestess, not demanding, merely asking.
"Help!" Chariset burst out. "Give me something to break the spell, some way to defeat LeChuck, anything!"
"I do not know how to defeat LeChuck" explained the woman sadly. "And to break a spell, you need something that will undo that spell. Other than that, I cannot help you."
"Then LeChuck's won, then" said Chariset bitterly, "He's got Elaine and he's killed my brother--and you can't do a thing about it."
The priestess winced, and she regretted her angry words. "There is nothing in voodoo that can revoke a spell" she said, sounding regretful. "But perhaps...in some other field of magic.."
"Yes?"
The older woman shook her head. "No. That magic is all of the dark, Chariset. Guybrush would not wish you to resort to black magic to save him."
"But I'd still do it," Chariset persisted. The priestess looked doubtful--she pressed on. "This isn't just about me. This is for Guybrush and Elaine and some chance for them to have normal lives again. This is for everyone that LeChuck has ever hurt. Isn't it worth it to be rid of that kind of evil once and for all?"
She didn't realize that she was standing until the Voodoo Lady motioned her to sit back down. "Very well. You must seek out the Necromancer."
The unfamiliar name sent a chill down Chariset's back. "But that's someone who--"
"--gets most of his power from the dead, yes. But he is said to have an amulet of incredible power, an amulet that can reverse any magic ever cast. If you had that--"
"--I could free my brother and undo the magics that keep bringing LeChuck back to life" she finished, catching on.
"But because it is a object of such incredible power, the Necromancer will be very reluctant to part with it." An understatement, surely. "Here." She proffered a small coin with a hole in the center, engraved with a ship and a cauldron. "This is my special token. Give this to him and he will know that I sent you. Perhaps it will make him more..reasonable."
Chariset tucked it carefully away, feeling a bit more hopeful. "Where can I find this Necromancer?"
"The last I heard of him, he was living on Sable Island."
"Where is that?"
"It's a mystery island" explained the priestess. "It's uncharted and unmapped. All anyone knows is that, if you sail due north from Plunder Island for three days, you will find Sable Island. It is surrounded in a perpetual fog and is very dangerous--I'm not at all surprised that the Necromancer has chosen to settle there."
"And once there, I sail due south to find Plunder Island again?"
"Perhaps."
"'Perhaps?'"
"I have never talked with anyone who had to sail back from Sable Island. Quite often, people just reappear, with no knowledge of how they got here."
That was hardly reassuring, but she couldn't back down now. "I never thought I'd be the one to destroy LeChuck" she admitted finally. "I never wanted to be a pirate--that was always Guybrush's dream."
The priestess nodded. "Dreams can change--or be changed for you--in the blink of an eye.
But you are a Threepwood, and Threepwoods seem to be destined for adventure. I have the feeling that you'll pull through."
Chariset stayed for a few more minutes and peeled potatoes, but it was time for her to be gone. She left but promised that when she returned from Sable Island, she'd be back for a visit.
Now to talk with her crew. She boarded the Seahorse and gathered them all into the Captain's cabin (there were only ten of them, so this was possible), and explained the situation with Guybrush and Elaine, and Sable Island.
"Now this is the question" she finished. "I need at least five of you to stick with me and help me sail the Sea Cucumber--she's a smaller ship than the Seahorse but these will be dangerous waters. But there's a problem: We've only been dismissed for the month, and I can almost guarantee that we won't be back in time. Those who go with me run the risk of being accused of tardiness at the very least--you may even be accused of revolt. I don't have time to send word to Booty Island what the situation is. I promise you that your names will all be cleared when we return, but you need to know what a chance you're taking." Most of her crew simply nodded, but Thomas One-ear looked doubtful and Horace Deadeyes was frowning thoughtfully. No great loss if neither of those two came along. "Those who chose to stay, stay under the command of the ranking officer--they will take the ship back to defend Booty Island until the rest of us meet you there."
Chariset called for a show of hands. There was a pause, and finally Nicholas, one of her navigators, stood up. "Cap'n, none of us have ever even heard of Sable Island. We don't know if it even exists," he began. She tensed, but he didn't ask the question she thought he would. "What makes ye willin' ta venture out there when you're not even sure if you'll find anything yerself?"
That gave her pause for thought--and she sensed her entire crew leaning forward to hear the answer. "I've got my information from a source who does not lie" she started, "and from a source who even tried to turn me away from doing this. But that's only half of your answer...and I think you all deserve to know the truth." Nods all around, save for the perpetually scowling Horace. "The honest truth is that I'm out of my league and desperate. I've never dealt with magic. But my brother and his sister-in-law need me to help them; and in an odd way, I need to help them. If I don't do this, I'll wonder if maybe I could have saved them if I'd just tried a little harder." Nic and a few others looked like they understood, the rest looked puzzled. "But none of you are under this kind of obligation," she added, "so I'm giving the choice to you. I need your help, but there is a risk, and not everyone here has to take it."
"I'll go with ye, Cap'n" said Nic.
A chorus of "aye's" followed. But Thomas, Horace, One-eyed Bob, and a slight little guy named Peter elected to remain behind.
Chariset,
a little touched, dismissed them for a few hours of shore leave, asking
them to meet her at the Sea Cucumber at dawn the next morning. But first
she gathered the four dissenters on deck and ordered the rest to gather
their belongings. "I'm trusting you four to deliver a fair report of what's
happened here to Gov. Elaine's army," she said firmly, looking directly
at Deadeyes, the ranking officer. "If this isn't done, be sure that I will
find out about it. I've never been the kind of Captain to rule by threatening
my crew, but rest assured that I will not spare any of you if you betray
my trust in this. Do you understand?" Grudgingly, all four gave their assent.
"Then I suggest you get going. You've got a lot of sea to cover, and it's
still early, hmm?"
Horace
Deadeyes' pleasure in commanding a vessel was slightly dimmed by being
ordered out of the harbour on such short notice--and Cap'n Threepwood's
lecture was still ringing in his ears. We'll just see how far your threats
go when yer clapped in irons for treason, Cap'n, he thought, setting
a course for Booty Island.
The Sea Cucumber left the docks just after sunrise the following morning. Chariset watched from the railing as long as Plunder Island--and the barber shop--was still in sight. Then she and Nic pointed the ship's nose for the invisible north star and they were on their way.
They covered absolutely calm and boring seas for two days and two nights, but, not long before sunset on the third day, they entered a fogbank too dense to fathom. She could barely see the Sea Cucumber's bow from her stern. Her crew cut their speed to a crawl--a good thing, as it turned out. They must have been closer than she thought, because they hit a bump that upset everyone's balance, then came a low, grinding sound, and then the silence that comes from absolute stillness. The Sea Cucumber had run aground on a sandbar.
Breathless in the silence, the crewmen were looking around themselves, wide-eyed--seeing ghosts in the fog, no doubt. Chariset was a little unnerved herself by how close they had come to running the ship onto the island itself. To dispel some of the tension, she sent the six of them, in pairs, to climb the masts and bind up the sails--no sense in letting the wind drive them even farther aground. But other than that, they were stuck--she couldn't even see a darker patch in the fog where an island might be, so there was no sense in going out in rowboats to look for it--but they couldn't stay out in the fog all night, either.
But before things could begin to look utterly hopeless, something ran into the side of the ship with a hollow wooden thunk--not a hard impact, just enough to vibrate the deck under Chariset's feet. And then she heard a low muttering and cursing--presumably made by the cause of the thunk--coming from the side of the ship. She took two torches, gave one to Nic so he could start lighting the lanterns, and went over to investigate.
"Hello?" she called into the fog. "Is anyone there?"
Silence for a moment, then, "Oh, how I hate this blasted mist!"
"Who's there?"
"It is I." The mysteriously hollow voice seemed to come from the midst of the fog itself. "It is I, the Lost Welshman."
"Where are you?"
"Down here, next to your blasted ship. Do you have a compass?"
That seemed like an odd question for a disembodied voice to ask. "I..suppose we have a spare you could borrow."
"It doesn't involve magnetized needles, does it?"
"Not that I'm aware of." This was truly a bizarre conversation. "Why don't you just come aboard?"
"Why?" The voice sounded gravelly yet irritated. "Aren't you just as lost as I am?"
"Not..precisely" Chariset lied. "We're somewhere off the coast of Sable Island. If we knew where the shore was, we wouldn't be lost any more."
"Oh..why didn't you say so?" It irritated her a little that this unseen being claimed the right to be annoyed in this situation--after all, he had run into her ship. "I can take you there--with a compass."
"Can you take a crew of seven, stay one or two days, and then return us to our ship?"
"All that for one compass?"
"You don't seem to have a lot of options. You can't steal a compass from us, and if we're stuck, so are you" Chariset pointed out. Her crew was silently assembling itself along the rail, listening in.
There was a rattling sigh from below. "All right. But I can only do it four at a time. And you go with the last group."
She gave a compass to Nicholas, who took three of the crew with him down a rope ladder fastened to the side of the ship. He called up to her that they had reached the Welshman's dinghy safely, then there was no sound except for the fading oar-strokes in the water. She went down into the arms room and found a small sword that still had some semblance of an edge, while her group of three lowered the anchor and locked the Sea Cucumber up as tightly as they could, since the ship would have to sit vacant for the few days they'd be gone. She wished she could leave one or two behind to guard it, but that would be asking a lot of a crewman, to leave him behind in the fog.
The Welshman returned, after a lengthy interval for Chariset to indulge in second, third, and fourth thoughts about the idea. But she was the first down the ladder, followed by the other two. The last one, Jim, tossed the ladder up and onto the deck--they would bring it back down when they returned. She handed the ghostly figure--almost a skeleton, in dark but much-patched robes--her compass, and he rowed them through the fog and darkness, bearing north and slightly west. Eventually the bottom of the dinghy ground against sand, and they moved into the foggy jungle to join the fog-shapes already there, waiting for them. The Welshman volunteered to wait where he was, but Chariset took his compass with her, just in case. Unconcerned, he started in on a sandwich.
Two steps into the trees, the fog vanished as though it had never been, though it was just as thick behind them--it was a sharp boundary between the ocean and the island. The beach was black sand, contrasting sharply with the almost-perfect ring of white fog that surrounded the place. It gave the erie impression that the island was actually floating in a sea of mist instead of water.
The island was as close to a perfect circle as she had ever seen, as she considered it from the top of a small hill. It was a volcanic cone whose center had been blown clear away in some massive explosion--the crater that remained had been filled with lush green growth. Wisps of mist clung to all the greenery, surrounding what might have been a large house or a small castle. A dull gray stone fence surrounded the entire crater, dotted here and there with stone watchtowers. No lights were visible.
The entire place was black soil--volcanic rock, really--hardened into treacherous and jagged slopes around the cone. What greenery there was lay in the hollows of the mountainside, mostly sparse trees and some grass. Lichens grew in abundance, tinting the slopes faintly green. On the beach, where there was some flat land, a respectable ring of jungle had sprouted up, but it was a thin belt that trickled away as the cone rose. Still, an entire troop of squirrel monkeys had arrived to greet the seven visitors, scampering in the trees like ambulant furballs.
Her crew was a short distance away, probably deciding where to camp. Chariset would rather find a village and spend the night there rather than lie down on the sand, even though the nights were still warm and they wouldn't need much shelter. For one, those adorable little bits of fur chittering on the branch nearby were also notorious thieves--when her crew got up the next morning, everything shiny within reach would be gone. It was also far too exposed for her taste. This Necromancer, if that was his domain in the volcano crater, would still need certain essentials which only a relatively good-sized town could provide--it seemed reasonable to think she would find one on the other side of the crater, which she couldn't see.
The men were less happy about the idea, but they eventually agreed to go with her and they packed their belongings off down the beach. Chittering and rustling in the jungle next to them told her that her monkey friends were coming along. They rounded the corner of the cone, and Chariset had the satisfaction of seeing her idea confirmed--a large town stretched from a point midway up the slope down to the beach, which curved inward here in a shallow "c." In its center was a flattened patch of land which had been gardened and cultivated into a small park. This was hardly a common feature of Caribbean towns, so it caught her attention. The houses were made of a darker stone but plastered over and whitewashed, with colorful painted shutters and coppery-red tile roofs. The roads were angled steeply and paved with dark paving stones. But most of the buildings, at least so far as she could tell in the uncertain half-light, were deserted.
The roads twisted and curved up the side of the mountain, through a sort of canyon of houses, full of blind corners. Finally, as Chariset and her six crewmen rounded yet another corner, they found some form of life. An old man, with a respectably long gray beard, was sitting on the front porch of his house, reading by the light of a dented old lantern. It was the only patch of light in an otherwise dark town.
She left the men across the road and approached him alone. "Hello, I-"
"Yer wastin' yer time" the man growled. "I don't want yer merchandise."
Chariset blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Ye heard me." The man hadn't even looked up from his book. "I know yer type. Ye just want ta sell me some magazines or cookies or some such nonsense..well, I don't want any of it. People's been pesterin' ol' Tim ever since that Wizard came to town with his little flunky and I think ye people oughta be ashamed of yerselves." His tone became even more cranky as he went on, apparently unburdening himself with her as a convenient target. "Ye can just go and tell yer little friends that I'm not buyin'."
"I'm not here to sell you anything" she finally managed. "I just need to know where I can find an inn to lodge my crew--"
"--yer troop of marketing boys--"
"--the crew to my ship" Chariset insisted. "We're honest sailors, we just have business here on Sable Island, and we need a place to stay tonight."
Old Tim finally looked up, took in her short coat, sash--and more importantly, her sword--and decided to be friendly. "Who ye be needin' ta see?"
"The Necromancer."
Tim's eyes bulged over his wealth of moustache. "Ye be here ta see the Wizard?? No one comes lookin' fer the Wizard, girl. The Wizard comes lookin' fer you."
"That'll make things easier, then" she replied cryptically. He looked blank but she saw no need to enlighten him. "Now, where can we stay the night?"
"There be no inn here--no need fer one, ye see. No one comes to Sable Island, and the folks as live here keep to their own houses at night. It's all because of that flunky, ye see."
She glanced at her crew, who were making themselves comfortable against the walls of the neighboring houses. A deck of cards had emerged. "Who is this..flunky?" she asked the old man.
"Oh, he be a terrible one, he be. Seven feet tall and demon eyes." Oh lovely, she'd found another storyteller. "He guards the gate to the Wizard's domain and no one who goes to see him ever comes back. Sometimes people disappear out of their homes at night, without any reason--they say that that's when the flunky comes and takes them away."
"If no one's ever seen him, how do you know what he looks like?"
Old Tim explained very seriously that he could be seen on moonless nights, walking down the path to the town. He said that only young people, generally teenage boys, fell victim to the abductions of the flunky, "since the Wizard needs 'em to be young, ye see." Chariset was beginning to suspect that the "flunky" was taking the blame for simple runaways. Other boys vanished but were returned a few days earlier with horrible tales of the Necromancer's fortress--she felt a little more inclined to put that down to youthful imagination, but overconfidence didn't seem to be such a good idea considering she was planning to visit a wizard of unknown power alone.
Eventually he told her that her men could borrow the houses across the way, since they had been vacated, but that he didn't feel he should offer shelter to someone who was there to visit the Wizard. The flunky might not like it, ye see. She finally just nodded and ended the conversation. It wouldn't be the first night she'd gone without sleep.
Back across the street she signalled the men to move into their new quarters, leaving Nic in charge until she should return, then set out up the winding road armed with her sword and a torch, to challenge the Necromancer and his flunky. Nothing was said between them about the possibility that she might not return--they didn't need that dark omen hanging between them. He knew how long to wait before he gave up hope and left her, and she knew he knew, so it all worked out.
The houses thinned as she climbed the rough road, then finally the road trickled out to nothing, leaving just a black-soil-on-black-rock path to follow. Fortunately the moon rose, conveniently full, so she was able to see where she was going. It was absolutely silent except for the crunching sound of her boots on the path, and absolutely still. She was getting a little nervous--and very tired of black.
A dull gray wall appeared ahead of her, seeming bright and cheerful compared to the mountainside. There was no gate, but the path curved to the left and ran alongside it for a distance. Then two tall watchtowers, part of the structure of the wall, jutted up ahead of her--the path curved away from the wall and arced in, so that she came in directly facing the gate that lay between them. It was twice as wide as a cart and almost as tall as the formidable Wall itself, though dwarfed by the two towers. The entire thing, if it was designed to intimidate, was succeeding admirably.
Within the arching stones of the gate was absolute blackness. It made every black she had ever seen look dull and pale by comparison--absolutely unfathomable. She couldn't see any sign of a door or portcullis, or even the other side, just..blackness. For the first time, Chariset began to feel afraid.
She took one slow step forward, then another, holding her torch out ahead of her, hoping to somehow dispel the darkness. It was a futile effort--the blackness within that gate was so heavy it seemed to bear down on the flame, about to snuff it out. She hesitated then for a long second, unable to go forward or turn back, torn between her gut feeling not to enter that doorway and her determination to save Guybrush and destroy LeChuck. Finally she lowered her torch and tried to nerve herself to just shut her eyes and run through as quickly as she could--and then she looked up at the darkness and saw eyes there.
Chariset yelped and leaped back a step, landing in a defensive posture. The red eyes continued to look at her in what she thought was contempt, not moving. Their owner said not a word, so finally she realized she would have to either say something or hold her posture indefinitely. She resorted to a compromise--she drew her sword and then addressed the creature.
"Huh-hello" she said, wishing her voice didn't shake so much. "H-how long have you been sta-anding there?"
"Long enough" replied the voice in a tone of utter, lofty disgust. The voice--and the eyes--were positioned somewhere near the top of the gate. But the tones of the gatekeeper, while evil enough, were definitely male and not quite demonic.
"I've come to see the Necromancer" she declared.
"Pah...do you think just anyone can walk in here and see the Necromancer?" The evil tone implied that only idiots felt this way.
Fine, she would be idiotic. "I'm here to see him, whether you're in the way or not. This is a matter of life and death."
"Ha! What do you think one of the undead cares about life and death?"
"You, or your Master?"
"I serve no Master. I stay here as long as it suits me. And when I abduct and torture the people of Sable Village, I do it because I am an untamable force of evil. And when I torture you, I will do it because I enjoy doing things like that. And you can't stop me! I am invincible! Bwahahahaha!!"
That last laugh was what gave Murray away. Chariset might have run from a seven-foot-tall gatekeeper, but she was not fleeing from a disembodied skull, no matter how fearsome that skull might be. She came forward with two quick steps and slashed in the darkness with a two-handed grip on her sword. "Stop this, Murray!"
The cutlass struck wood and broke it with a dry snap. She heard a "hey!" and then something struck the ground inside the gate with a dull, hollow thump. A small, bone-colored object rolled out and came to a halt next to half of what had been its lofty perch. Simulateously, the erie blackness faded out, leaving only a dim view of a green hedge-wall.
Chariset pointed her sword at the discomfitted skull. "Any more brave words, Murray?"
"How--how did you know?"
She saw no reason to lie. "My brother Guybrush told me all about you."
She'd never seen a speechless skull before. "Your...then..."
"Yes, Murray." She drew herself up. "I'm Chariset Threepwood, mighty...um...err..well, I seem to be between jobs at the moment. But soon you can call me the woman who destroyed LeChuck for good."
"And just where might your brother be?" queried the skull in menacing tones.
To her surprise, Chariset couldn't answer him immediately. She made one or two sounds of an earnest nature, but nothing more came out.
"I see.." Murray actually sounded disappointed. "This is just great. How am I going to get my revenge now?" he whined.
She got a glimmer of an idea. "I honestly don't know whether he's dead" she said as she finished telling Murray about the situation. "He might still be alive, but I can't know until I see the Necromancer." The skull didn't answer. "But if he is alive..."
"..then I can still have my revenge," Murray concluded, as she'd hoped he would.
"So if you think about it, it would really be in your best interests to help me find the Necromancer, so I can bring Guybrush back to life so you can avenge yourself" suggested Chariset ingenuously.
"I suppose so.." the skull obviously hadn't thought about it in this light. "Okay, pick me up and let's get going."
"Not so fast." She didn't trust Murray at all. "First you have to promise me that you'll give me your full cooperation--and that you won't decide to attack me in the process. Remember, I can't guarantee your revenge, but I'll do my best to save my brother, if for different reasons." Murray grudgingly agreed, and they passed under the gate and into the Necromancer's hedge maze.
The dense, leafy plants were just high enough that she couldn't see over them, just flexible enough that the sword couldn't really cut them, and just stiff enough that she couldn't force her way through them. Truly a frustrating hedge. "It's magic," Murray told her. "He designed it so the only way to get to him was to go through his maze."
"Do you know how to get through?"
"Yes!" That was said a little too vehemently. "Well, not really..." Murray admitted as Chariset glanced at him. "I never had to actually get through it myself, so I'm not sure."
The hedge channelled them directly forward for a distance before branching into three different paths, two leading ahead like the arms of a Y, while a third continued directly ahead. It looked like the maze was carved into some kind of pattern. The path ahead of them dead-ended in a curving wall, leaving the left or right hand branch as the only possible option.
"Which way?" she asked.
"Left, I think," responded the skull. She scanned both directions, but they made mirror-image turns and it was impossible to see where they led. Juggling her torch and Murray in one hand, she drew her sword with the other and scratched an arrow in the soil, indicating the way they'd come (in case they needed to backtrack) and took the left branch.
This made its turn and promptly dead-ended. They retraced their steps and took the other fork. Yet another dead-end. She sighed.
Murray suggested that they explore the third branch, though it was hard to make out exactly what he was saying (he was helpfully holding the torch for her between his teeth). On closer inspection, the path leading forward divided into two thinner trails which seemed to pass around a small circle. Another arrow on the ground marked that place--she walked around the circle and found it again without any trouble. There was only one other path, leading directly away from the place, so off they went. Perhaps this maze wasn't so difficult, after all.
Then the path forked again, forcing them to choose between three options. Murray suggested right, but she chose to ignore him and go left. Her chosen trail cut a zig-zag course on what appeared to be the outskirts of the place, then intersected with another path at a 'T' angle. This new path stretched away as far as she could see--and all along its right side, at regular intervals, were rectangular openings indicating new trails. Chariset felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach.
"Where now, Murray?" she said, instinctively keeping her voice down to a whisper.
"Wait..I remember this part," the skull seemed excited. "You just take every second path from here to get to the Necromancer's palace."
"Are you sure?"
"No, but I'm almost sure."
She debated, then finally sheathed her sword and took the second path. It zig-zagged like the first, then ended in a long path with multiple options, like the first. Murray's idea seemed to be working.
Again they took the second path, then again, then again. It was still dark, but slowly the darker bulk of the Necromancer's fortress could be seen against the lighter fog. Chariset picked up her pace.
Then, almost within reach of the actual place, they rounded a corner and hit a dead end.
Simultaneously, a low, booming voice said "You lose."
Chariset
spun around and saw a heavy iron gate drop shut across their path to freedom--and
then the ground dropped out from under their feet. Tumbling helplessly,
they fell down into the darkness, accompanied by a high-pitched shriek
(hers) and an even-higher pitched one (Murray's).