Briar Blackwood's Grimmest of Fairytales Page 22

  “They loved you very much,” he finally said. “They put themselves in harm’s way trying to protect the child they believed would save these Realms.” He turned to face Briar.

  Briar nodded, but didn’t really know what he was talking about. It was clear that Poplar was cursed to eat rats and Ash’s garments would change unexpectedly. “What happened to Myrtle?” Briar wanted to know, but felt a lump in the pit of her stomach.

  “She was cursed far worse than the others with the Unspeakable,” Sherman said. “Can you even know the suffering, or the disgrace of a dillywig who can no longer fly?” He shook his head and covered his eyes.

  Briar looked out the window at the wasteland, imagining what might have happened as the Black Woods burned on those dark days. She knew that Poplar, Ash and Myrtle’s curses were likely a painful humiliation for them. But she couldn’t understand how Sherman could compare their seeming inconveniences to the ruin she witnessed outside the carriage.

  “There is more,” Sherman said. “The malignancy of these curses has spread.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Each of these curses is lethal. Yes, Poplar has done well staving off the worst of it with her teas and potions. But to be honest, I don’t know how much longer any of them has—” He sounded as though his throat suddenly constricted, and words could come no more.

  Briar placed a hand on Sherman’s head to pet him, and he looked up with surprise. But he didn’t resist Briar’s smoothing hand. She decided not to ask anything more. She knew enough.

  She knew that she was loved. Never feeling cared for as palpably as she did in that moment, she found herself confused. Perhaps that was the fourth curse. Sherman curled up on the bench and buried his face beneath his tail, and he allowed Briar to stroke his soft pelt.

  It was late afternoon when they finally reached the green-vined base of Towery Flowery Hill, pungent with the perfume of roses and a sickly stench that reminded Briar of decaying bodies. She tried to breathe through her mouth, but it didn’t help much.

  “Okay, that wasn’t me,” Dax said. Then he tried to cover his nose in the crook of his elbow.

  “What is that?” Briar asked. She tried not to gag from the smell.

  Sherman pushed the carriage window open and stuck his head out. “I don’t know, but I suggest that we proceed with caution.”

  Once upon the hill road, the soil was no longer hard and compact. Hooves did not make their usual noises, but sounded more like rocks thrown onto a haystack. The carriage continued to sway, but the ride was soft, as though the wheels turned on cushions.

  She gazed upon the bases of thick green tree trunks that stood tall and proud, pushing upward to the sky. So high did they reach that Briar could not see their tops. The foliage seemed somehow familiar, yet unlike any Briar had ever seen before. She looked up at the branches and leaves noting how they had knitted together to form a thorny canvas for the road. It was a soothing contrast from the endless glare that they had endured in the Black Waste.

  Finally Sherman opened the cab door a crack while the horses still trotted along, and he signaled the driver to stop. The sudden and shocking silence that filled the small space seemed to awaken the others, who stretched and looked and marveled at the scenery. The cab driver opened a door and they all stepped down onto the soft red mulch that was made of leaf mold, damp soil, and leathery, withered rose petals the color of dried blood and the size of a full grown man. The rancid smell made sense now. The area was like a compost heap.

  Briar stood back a pace to see from where the petals were coming. She shielded her eyes and tipped her head back, but could only see vague puffy shapes silhouetted against tiny patches of bright blue sky.

  Sherman stood behind Briar. “They say they reach as high as the clouds, and some even beyond that,” he mused.

  Dax looked up and gawked at the barbed spectacle and majesty of the forest. “What kind of trees are these?”

  “Trees!” Sherman laughed. “These are roses.”

  “Roses?! Come on,” Dax said. Then a giant petal, red as a ripe apple, drifted down and softly draped over his head.

  “Come along this way, big boy,” Tarfeather said, mimicking an old movie. He darted among the leaves and petals, his tiny feet stomping them down. Briar signaled to the others and they all followed Tarfeather, who clearly knew his way. Under fallen thorny stems and over boulders that appeared suddenly in their path, Tarfeather led them tirelessly up the hillside.

  They finally reached a cave entrance, smooth and square, hewn from the rock and fitted with dark bronze doors the color of troubled storm clouds. The place seemed well tended, though it smelled like soil and animal droppings to Briar. As they got closer, Briar could see that the bronze entryway ornamented with hideous faces, dark, fanged and scowling. Two hoops served as the door-pulls. Valrune stepped up and assuredly pulled one, but it wouldn’t budge. Leon hopped up and said, “A bit too heavy for you, huh?”

  “Little frog, this door is locked,” Valrune said.

  The dwaref climbed up to Briar’s shoulder. “Tarfeather noticery Briar Blackwood trinket.”

  “How did you know this was a trinket?” she asked.

  Instead of saying, he tugged at her necklace chain until the key came out from beneath her neckline.

  “Now let’s be careful.” Sherman put his paws up in a halting gesture. “We don’t know if her key works at all. I’ve heard, ever since I was a cub, that this was a very dangerous place. It’s riddled with traps.”

  Not listening, Tarfeather had already unclasped the necklace and held the key up on her shoulder like a prize. “Put the key in the lock and turn it, honey. We’re all waitin’,” he said like a 1920s gun-moll.

  “See?” Leon asked. He was hoping Briar was paying attention to how stupid Valrune was for not thinking of the obvious.

  “You’ve got to use a key.” He hopped up past Tarfeather and nabbed it. “Now if you had used your head, you would know that,” he said. Then he bounced up high enough to insert the key in the lock. But having no ability to turn it, he just dangled helplessly.

  The prince flicked Leon aside with a finger. “Oh that’s just cold,” Dax noted. Leon landed roughly to the ground. Briar was too focused on their situation to pay attention to their ridiculous male domination behaviors.

  Valrune smiled, satisfied that he had sufficiently humiliated Leon, then he turned the key. It clanked loudly and the sound echoed down what seemed like long passages. He took the key out and shrugged, since the door didn’t open. Then several more metallic clanking noises occurred mechanically from either side of the cave entrance, above, and then below.

  The ground under their feet opened up and they slid down through pebbles and clumps of soil. As she slipped through the opening, it felt to Briar that small roots sprung from the earth and grabbed at her while she slid past. Then they fell through a cave ceiling and landed on a tangled bed of something that felt soft and clammy. One after another they landed, each rolling away from the next one falling. The smell of moisture and minerals hung heavily in the air.

  Briar landed feet-first into a bundle of sticky fibers and discovered that there was no place to stand; she was suspended up to her chin within the stringy mass. And try as she could to lift her arms or move her feet, her actions only served to sink her deeper into the knot. The only bit of light trickling into the deep darkness came from the trap door embedded high in the cave ceiling, and the small shaft of indirect light was not enough to help Briar understand on what they had landed.

  “Rose roots!” Tarfeather shouted. He yelled the words with such alarm that he might as well have said, “hand grenades!” He had landed atop the heap. But because he was too light for the tendrils to grab him, he rolled himself far away and landed on solid stone.

  “What the—?” Dax yelled. He landed flat next to Sherman on top of the root heap, so neither of them had sunk down into the sticky tangle.

  “Rollery off,” Tarfeather shouted. Dax
took Sherman’s paw and pulled him as he rolled to one side. It felt as though they were stuck to flypaper and his already tattered clothing from the ball finally ripped to pieces as he rolled away. Sherman gritted his teeth and groaned. His fur pulled out in several small clumps as he rolled off onto the stone floor.

  He stood and made a gesture with his paws that left an intricate hologram design of silvery light hanging in the air before his face. The hologram merged into a single glowing ball that floated toward Briar. Sherman stood on the edge of the mound with his eyes closed, and he seemed to direct the light with his upraised hands.

  Briar felt something like pinpricks, tiny and sharp, begin to invade her skin. She realized it was the roots, seeking nutrients. One of them crept and wound itself up over her face. Then it began to burrow into her ear.

  “Sherman, help!” she shouted.

  The glowing light began to drift above Briar and they could all see the rose roots, just as Tarfeather had warned. It was a tangle of hairy looking filaments, thick as fingers. They covered all but the crown of Briar’s head, which stuck out of the top of the mound. Bones and skulls of various creatures, brown with age, were scattered across the floor and mixed into the root knot.

  “The prince,” Tarfeather shouted. “Where is he?”

  “And Leon?” Dax asked.

  “I’m here,” Leon shouted back to the group. He was standing lightly atop Briar’s head. He strained with his small flippers to pull the roots from her ear.

  “Leon, jump off,” Briar yelled at him. But as soon as she opened her mouth, a root entered and began to explore the inside of her cheek, pricking with its sharp ends. She screamed and began to struggle. She sank lower until her face slipped out of view.

  “Briar! No!” Leon shouted.

  “Sherman, do something!” Dax pleaded.

  Sherman shouted to Leon. “Remove yourself at once!” His slimy skin slid past the sticky roots and he could easily hop from limb to limb until he reached the solid floor.

  Quickly, Sherman made another gesture, as though sculpting something in midair. Then he slammed the invisible sculpture onto the floor. In response to his movements, the ball of light changed into a pair of ghostly gardening shears that suddenly dove into the root mass and started snipping pieces away.

  The roots receded quickly, as though Sherman’s enchantment were poison to it. The glowing scissors cut through roots, causing them to ooze a blood-red sap. Sherman kept his eyes closed and he continued to pantomime as though he were holding the shears in his paws. The roots continued to fall away and recede until a gap was opened.

  There, on the bare rock below, Briar lay crumpled. Next to her was Valrune, who was on his knees, gasping for air and making gagging sounds. With both hands, he extracted a long root out from his mouth that had crawled down his throat. Dax rushed forward and helped both Briar and Valrune up and limped with them far away from the tangle. Together they collapsed against a cave wall.

  Sherman made another gesture and the phantom shears vanished in a puff of glowing silver smoke. Sherman slumped forward, grabbing his side. Dax noticed that blood once again formed stains in his bandages.

  The prince sat next to Briar and Leon hopped onto her lap. “Are you all right? Say something,” he said.

  Briar coughed up bits of dirt and she rested her head between her knees for a moment. Then she said, “I always thought roses were kind of creepy.”

  “Where is Sherman?” Dax asked.

  Briar looked down one of the many cavern-tunnels and there, hobbling away with a slow unsteady gait was the fox. The others stood up and followed, looking one to the other once they noticed the sopping red blood stain in his bandages.

  “Sherman, stop,” Briar said.

  “We must…keep moving,” the fox said. His voice was becoming labored, but he kept trudging forward.

  Tarfeather spoke up. “Temple dwellers makery Dire Liquid. We findery.”

  “No,” Sherman replied. “No time left…just the book. Then back home. Poplar has herbs—”

  Tarfeather’s face looked more withered than before when Sherman refused the obvious help he needed. The others exchanged glances and knew what this could mean for the fox. But no one said anything. Sherman was right. They had only a few hours to find the book. It was a choice that sickened them all: to risk Sherman’s life for the sake of the book.

  “Sherman, you can’t go on like this. You don’t even know where to go.” Briar said.

  But Sherman kept taking one limp step after another. Briar could not stop him in his duty. There was only one way out. It was to get the book and go home.

  “Tarfeather,” Briar said, “lead us to it.”

  Chapter 26

  Briar and the others walked deep into the winding caverns, hands along the rough fissure walls in order to guide them through the darkness. So as not to get lost or trampled, Leon sat in one of Briar’s hands. Sharp, cold, moist stones scraped their fingers as they descended the path. Finally Sherman drew another complex magical pattern in the darkness that erupted into sparks, which fused together and became the giant spider from the birdhouse.

  “Mittens—” Briar exclaimed. She was grateful to see something familiar, but then after watching him click around, she thought otherwise. The spider took on its magical glow, which allowed them all to see where they were now, which was inside a cavern full of sharp crystals. Mittens’ glow shimmered on the millions of glassy, reflective surfaces, and the whole cavern seemed illuminated. Mittens made an awful ticking noise, loud and abrasive, like it was crunching through the shell of another insect.

  “Yes Mittens…happy to see…you too—” Sherman said. Above them, below their feet, in any direction they looked, the shimmer of amethyst, rubies, emeralds, and diamonds played in the glow of the spider’s body, and whenever he moved, the jewels seemed to sparkle that much more.

  Dax was enamored by the gleaming jewel display. “Cha-ching! What is all of this?”

  “It’s where my father sends prisoners and poachers,” Valrune said. He examined the gems distractedly. “The Priests of the Tales live here in the darkness of the temple caves. They train their initiates here and maintain order among the prisoners.”

  “Then where is everyone?” Dax asked.

  “Walk—” Sherman said. Then he spoke in the Old Language, guttural and incomprehensible to the others. But Mittens seemed to understand. It was the same language that Gelid used before she became the black slithering monster. It had a harsh, throaty sound, Briar thought. It also held some strange familiarity that left Briar uneasy. The ghostly spider, listening to Sherman, began to click again, then crawled ahead of them down the path. The group had to hurry to keep up.

  Briar kept pace with Sherman, and even tried to help him walk, but he refused.

  The further along they paced, the warmer and smokier the cave became. It smelled of sulfur and burning coal—perhaps the smell, Briar wondered, of some ancient land during the Industrial Age. The heat and the odor became so thick and acrid that everyone had to cover their mouths in order to catch a breath. The ground vibrated and the group stopped, wondering if it may have been a tremor before a full volcanic eruption, or a cave collapse.

  “Mining,” Valrune said. He stepped ahead of the group. He had never been to this place. As a boy, Valrune asked again and again if he could see it. But Cole would always brush aside his son’s queries. “It’s no place for a son of mine,” his father would often tell him. But he’d say no more than that.

  As a child Valrune always imagined the mines were a place for adventure, and he could never understand why his father would want to keep him from the fun of it. But as time passed, he heard rumors, whispered words from the mouths of servants.

  Words like “slavery,” and “coercion,” they’d say in hushed tones. But the palace servants knew better than to openly admit anything. Cole must have had his reasons for his secrecy, Valrune believed. And now his eyes were wide and hungry to know what lay ahead in
these hellish depths.

  Mittens crept further ahead of them into the catacombs. Just beyond the bend in the path they saw light moving, burning red, undulating upon the cavern walls. They could hear the tick-tick-tick of countless pick axes chipping away at stone in a deeper chamber. Once Mittens reached the glowing red light, he popped like a soap bubble into a shower of tiny sparks that evaporated before they could reach the ground.

  The Briar and the others followed behind Valrune to the red glow, until they reached an opening that led to an immense vaulted structure. The rough cave walls were replaced by smooth, polished marble slabs that were carefully engineered, lining the towering cavern.

  The domed ceiling was supported by pale beveled columns as tall as city buildings. The cavern interior was like a layered cake that had seven or eight tiers with countless rows of arches leading to what Briar assumed were jewel-filled caverns. Standing before the caverns were Priests of the Tales that had tattooed blue markings on their faces, like Gelid and Damarius.

  Heaped on the floor of the central cavern were piles of jewels, as tall and as deep as desert sand dunes. They shimmered in the light of a thousand torches that flanked the smaller cave entrances. Dwarefs—hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, dressed in tatters—emerged from the lower arched tunnels with wheelbarrows filled with precious stones that they dumped into the jewel piles. Then back up ramps they would trudge in lines until they reentered the smaller caves.

  The Priests, dressed in long, wooly, earth-colored robes, stood at the edges, near the smaller cave entrances. Each grasped a staff and pointed it from time to time to discharge a silvery electric current at a stray or stumbling slave worker. Anyone hit by the flashing current fell to the ground and screamed as though being seared by a hot poker. Fellow slaves would assist the fallen workers and prop them back up into the line.

  In the middle of the chamber was another set of columns that supported a central platform high above the cave floor. A curve of earthen stairs hugged the columns and led to the platform. Whatever was upon it seemed to be the energy source for the priests’ staves.