-41-
Zale was not in the mood to play my games. "ALiCE."
The rumbling grew louder, and was followed by the crashing of stones. Something was definitely waking up.
"Why are you doing this?"
"I gotta get rid of that thing!"
"ALiCE, it's a Jabberwocky!"
"I know! I gotta get rid of it!"
"And how exactly do you plan to do that?"
I began to hum to myself as I awaited the Jabberwocky's arrival. "And the mome raths outgrabe," I lightly sang.
"ALiCE," Zale said again.
"It seems very pretty," I shouted over the growing noise, "but it's rather hard to understand!"
I wasn't exactly sure what I was saying, but the words continued to come, so I continued to say them.
"Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas--only I don't exactly know what they are! However, somebody has to kill that thing: that's clear, at any rate---"
And then it came. The Jabberwock. That huge, scary monster of a beast. He didn't seem too happy to discover I was cat-less. But his anger didn't matter to me in the least. It was just another test on our way to see the Queen.
"Again, I ask you," Zale yelled as the beast rose up. "How exactly do you plan to get rid of that thing?"
Out of my bag I pulled my vorpal blade, and showed it to Zale, who had begun to retreat into the shadows.
"That? How are you going to kill that, with that?"
"Magic!" I shouted back as the Jabberwocky flew toward us. Extending my arm straight out to the right, I pointed the blade straight out as well, and concentrated hard on making it grow. I could feel the breath of the monster before me, and I could hear Zale behind me, torn between giving me the chance to take the monster out on my own or attempting to fight it off with his fifty-six deadly arts.
The blade had grown. The monster was diving toward me. With a small prayer and a bit of aiming, I threw the sword into the air above me and watched as the blade flew directly into the heart of the beast. It let out a scream, went up a bit, and began its descent to the cave floor.
"Look out!" Zale cried, rushing out to grab my arm and pull me to safety as the Jabberwocky fell right where I had just been standing. Tearing myself away from him I went toward the monster, stepping over it to retrieve my blade from its chest. On my way back, I pondered taking its head with me as a present for the Queen.
"ALiCE."
I looked back at Zale.
"How did you do that?"
I smiled. "I guess the Queen's magical ban isn't in effect here." I shrunk my blade back to a reasonable size and placed it back into my bag. "Why didn't you use your guns?"
Zale made a face. "I don't think they'd work on a creature like that."
I shrugged. "You didn't even try."
"Well, I was little scared."
"A little?" I laughed. "What would you do without me?"
Zale gave the Jabberwock a final look before heading further into the cave. "What happened to the others?" he asked.
"I was about to ask you."
"Weird. We usually don't split up."
"So why did you split then?"
Zale shrugged.
"I had a feeling."
"Quite the cryptic remark."
"I didn't leave, I just... kind of stayed behind for a bit."
"And Aurick?" I asked.
"I didn't see him, or any of the others. I don't know how I lost sight of you guys. I only stopped for a minute."
I sighed. "I guess I don't really need all of you, do I?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"If anything happened to them..."
Zale shook his head. "I think they're okay. I think we're all just... weirded out by this place. I'm sure they didn't leave you."
"No, they all just got lost at the same time," I replied sarcastically.
"Maybe."
"Hmm."
We continued slipping and sliding, hopping and jumping down the rocky inclines that led to the heart of the cave. No one else joined us. We had barely begun our trip down when a sound from the top stopped me in my tracks.
"What?" Zale asked.
"Did you hear that?"
"Hear what? The Jabberwocky is dead. And since you easily took it out, I don't think there's anything else in the cave that can give you trouble."
I listened. The sound came again. This time Zale had to have heard it.
He did. He slowly turned back and looked to the cliff where the dead Jabberwocky lay.
The sound was coming from somewhere beyond that, even higher up.
Zale seemed to recognize the sound.
"Zione."