As Bran had said, it was most definitely a race. Simon dealt with it quite nicely, and every ten paces or so he thanked each of his lucky stars by name for keeping him in shape via football. It was even easier to deal with picking on Jane some of the time. Once, Simon had grabbed Barney's hand as she'd come up and said, "Ah, true love." She had blushed and, red from head to toe, gone to speak to Gumerry. He supposed, however, that it was about time to have a serious talk with her.
Clara was walking ahead with Bran, talking to him about something or other. Barney was beside him. "We're almost there," Barney said.
"Where?" Simon said.
"The entrance. The prophecies are hidden there. Not even Clara and I can find them."
"Who wants to make a bet on that?" Catherine said, grinning as she came up behind them. Michael was tugging on her hair in her arms.
Simon studied the small boy and asked, "Don't your arms ever get tired?"
"Not tired enough," Catherine said. "But seriously. I think you and Clara can find it. I mean, if the rest of us can..."
Barney shook his head. "No. The Seer who hid them, Alexis, made a deal with the High Magic so that no one could find the books with any sort of special power. So neither the Light nor the Dark has the upper hand."
"I thought she was on the Light's side."
"She was, I think. But fair's fair. And fair is the best way to do things when you know the future."
Catherine nodded, hardly understanding anything more than she had. She tickled Michael's nose with a strand of her hair and listened as Simon said, "What do you think will happen once we're out of this?"
"I don't know," Barney said slowly. "The Dark wasn't supposed to come back in the first place. All the rules have changed, I think."
"Wonderful," Simon said dryly.
The topic of conversation suddenly changed when they heard someone shout out that they had found the entrance.
They trooped forward until the stood with Merriman, Will, Bran, Clara, and Arthur. Catherine shifted Michael on her hip a bit nervously. Michael didn't bother making a sound of protest. He stared at the black mouth of the cave, along with everyone else. Catherine swallowed. "Let me guess. Last one in is a rotten egg?"
Bran looked at her. "You know, it's often a good idea not to rush things."
"I come from corporate America and you tell me that it's not often a good idea to rush things?"
"Do you even know what 'corporate' means?"
"So what if I don't?" Catherine demanded, getting slightly flustered.
Bran looked at her for a few seconds and shook his head. Catherine muttered the definition under her breath, too softly for anyone to hear. She was smart, but that didn't mean she had to show it. Bran looked at her again for a few seconds, probably thinking she was trying to cuss him out, before turning away. He finally shrugged. "We aren't going to accomplish anything just standing here." He set his shoulders and walked into the darkness. Will and the others followed him. They all stopped as soon as they entered.
The cave branched out into five different tunnels. "Twelve to a group?" Bran asked his father.
Arthur nodded. "One with me, one with Merriman, one with you, one with Will, one with Simon, and one with..." He looked around, but Clara seemed to have disappeared, along with Catherine. "Dawson."
The groups formed, a few with more than twelve members, and they separated.
Behind, in the main cavern, Catherine looked at Clara as she rocked Michael. "What is it?" she asked. Clara had pulled her aside right before everyone had been divided into groups and had urged her to be quiet until it was over.
"There's a passageway no one knows about," Clara said, leading her to a crevice near the entrance.
"No crud," Catherine said, studying the narrow, jagged entrance. "You call that a passageway? No wonder no one knows about it."
"Come on," Clara said happily. She squeezed through easily.
"Oh. That is not funny." Catherine crept a bit closer to the entrance. "Listen, Valley Girl. We should really go tell the guys. I mean, hello. Weapons and stuff. And if we get attacked, I refuse to throw a kid at- OOMPH!" A hand reached through the crevice, grabbed her arm, and pulled her through into the darkness.
" 'Up and down, up and down. I will lead them up and down,' " Will said, slightly perturbed.
"Puck, right?" Jane asked, walking beside him. "From 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' by William Shakespeare?"
He grinned at her. "Yeah." Suddenly he heard something above them and looked up the cliff wall.
"What is it?" Jane asked, also looking upwards.
"Nothing," Will said, deliberately turning and leading her away. "Probably just the earth shifting, is all." He shivered slightly. The Dark was here.
"You're lucky I like you," Catherine said, not for the first time.
Clara grinned good-naturedly. "Oh, come on. It's good to have an adventure once in a while. It helps your mind."
"Yeah. It helps your mind gain freedom from your skull and your insides freedom from your body."
"Oh, come on. It's this way."
Ahead of her, Catherine heard pebbles shift and the sound of something sliding downwards, like nails scratching a bumpy chalkboard. "Clara?" she asked, her voice shaky. She felt in front of her with a foot. And edge. It definitely had an edge. She sat down and set Michael in her lap. "God, this is going to hurt," she said. She closed her eyes and held Michael tightly in her arms, pulling herself forward with her feet. And when there was nothing left to pull with, she leaned forward and fell.
"Oh, God," she said softly. "No, Clara. No. Do not do this." She tried for a pulse. Nothing. No noise of breath besides her own and Michael's. She put her ear to Clara's chest. No heartbeat. Clara's hand was getting colder. Catherine rubbed it as if thinking the warmth were life itself. "No," she repeated. She kept repeating it, and she didn't start to cry until a steady hand was placed on her shoulder. And she stopped crying when the hand's owner spoke.
"She's dead, Cat."
"I know that, moron. What, you couldn't tell just by looking at her?" Catherine lifted her head and looked around. Daniel had brought a lit torch with him. She could see that it was only ten to twenty feet to the cliff above. Clara must have landed on her head. And in the darkness behind Daniel, half hidden in shadows, mostly hidden in dirt, she saw the top of a trunk. Michael was only a few feet away.
She stood, Daniel trying to help her. She knocked his hands away. "No," she said firmly. She rubbed her hands together. "Now, it's just you and me. Agreed?"
Daniel looked slightly surprised at first, but quickly looked amused. "Agreed," he said.
"Good. Then, I feel inclined to say just one thing. It's on, now!" She put her fists up and prayed someone would come soon.
"I don't suppose you had any luck," Bran said. His group and Will's had met in the same tunnel.
Will shook his head. The Dark is here, he told Bran. Bran looked at Jane and understood why Will hadn't spoken out loud. Instead, Will said, "You know, you and I ought to go into business. We can find out if there's any profit in finding ready-made mazes."
"Get off me, you pompous piece of slime!" someone shouted. The voice echoed eerily down the tunnel. "OW!" came another shout.
"If I were a betting man," Bran said, "I'd bet that were Catherine. Sadly, no one would take me up on the bet." He and Will ran to follow the echoes.
"That's the best you've got?" Catherine demanded, ducking again. She tricked Daniel into punching the wall twice, but she was losing confidence quickly, along with energy. It hadn't helped when the stone he'd punched had cracked slightly.
On the bright side, his knuckles were getting bloody, and she was barely keeping him away from Michael and the chest.
On the down side, that meant that when she lost, she'd get blood all over her, and he'd get Michael and the chest anyway.
"I taught you," Daniel reminded her. He finally managed to pin her to the wall and grated between clenched teeth. "What do you hope to accomplish, anyway?"
"This," she retorted. She kicked him between the legs and rolled away once he dropped her, picking up rocks as she went.
"You little-" She grinned as he cleared his throat to lower his voice to its normal timbre. That done, he lunged at her, and she threw one of the rocks at him. He kept coming, and she threw another. At the last second, she dropped, rolled to the right, ran into a wall, and rolled past him.
She stood, and was surprised to hear someone else calling her name. She looked up and saw Bran above her. "Want up?" he asked.
"Oh, you know what?" she said angrily. "You're really funny, you know that? You should be hosting your own show!"
"No thanks. Showbiz can be brutal, I hear."
"You haven't seen brutal until you see what I'll do if I don't get out of here!" she snapped.
Daniel dusted himself off. "Well, Pendragon. I've got the girl, the boy, and the scrolls." He reached to pick up Michael as Catherine yelled threats.
"Stand up, please," said a deep, firm voice.
Perhaps out of nothing else but curiosity, Daniel looked and was apparently horrified by what he saw. Catherine, pressed against the wall, couldn't see much, but she did see the arrow come streaking down and hit Daniel. She looked away quickly, not truly knowing why, and when she looked back, Daniel was gone.
"I guess I should have been a bit faster," Herne mused.
"Don't even try," Bran said with a slight smile. "You know you just wanted to go after him in the Hunt."
"It was a tempting prospect, yes." He stuck his bow behind his back. "Catherine? You all right?"
"Grouchy, but all right," she said. She came out of the shadows and picked Michael up, hugging him tightly. He laughed, snuggled his head in the crook of her neck, and fell asleep. "Too much excitement for him," she said. She looked at Clara's body. It was out of Bran's line of sight. "The chest is down here," she said clearly. "Toss down a rope and I'll tie it up so you can hoist it or something."
"Or even better, I'll come down," Herne said, "and toss it up."
"No thanks," Catherine said testily. "I can manage." Remembering Herne had been the one to shoot the arrow, she closed her eyes, swallowed, and said, "Though I thank you for your kind offer."
He nodded, and a rope was lowered. First, she tied the chest to it, and after they'd lifted that up, they lowered the rope once again to pull herself and Michael up.
"Hey," Bran said. "You know where Clara is?"
"Leave her to the earth, Bran," Catherine said oddly. And with that, she led the way back to the entrance, stepping automatically and in deep thought, not making a sound.
© 2001. 3:28 and still (kind of) going strong. Oy, vey. I think this is why they have that coffee stuff. Oy, vey again.
