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Chapter 19
Willow woke the next day to the sound of his growling stomach and Lor's soft laughter. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.
"You must be pretty hungry," she giggled. Willow looked away from her, still unused to the sound, but Lor did not seem to notice. "You've been doing that for over an hour. Lapis left a ton of food on the desk, so eat your fill."
Willow had slept through most of the day already, so he walked around on the island after he ate and went swimming for three hours. By that time, the afternoon was almost over, so he climbed out and began to follow the path the long way back to the house. He noticed Lor on the far end of the island, lying on her back and gazing up at the sky, so he walked down to see her.
Willow sat down on a large root nearby and looked up. The sky was cloudless and just beginning to show the colors of sunset. He wondered what Lor was thinking about.
"It's so weird," she said a few minutes later. "All the Sorcerers we've met seem to know who we are, where we're going, even what I have with me, but no one will tell us anything."
Willow thought for a minute. "Well Lapis did tell us yesterday that we'd know soon – or maybe it was Lazuli, I can't remember – and as long as we know that we will know, that's enough for me. Does that make sense?"
Lor smiled. "Yes it does. You're a good friend Willow. Come on, lie down and watch the stars come out with me."
An hour later, when Lapis came looking for Willow and Lor, she found them at the end of the island, sound asleep a few feet apart. She smiled as she stepped down the path to Lor's side. It was almost as if they already knew…
Lor woke Willow at sunrise the next morning.
"Lapis came to me last night said that we have to meet her down by the boats."
"Wherever that is."
"She gave me instructions, don't worry."
Willow ached from sleeping on the roots in the hard ground, but he worked his way to his feet and followed her without complaint. Lor led him across the island, over the bridge, and along another trail that led from the point down to the water.
Lapis, Amber, and Spodumene (who would row for them as part of his punishment) were waiting with a boat ready to go. Willow and Lor climbed in behind the sorcerer and Spodumene pushed off. While they crossed, Lapis handed out breakfast to everyone on the boat.
"I'll go as far as the falls with you but Amber will have to lead you on from there."
Once on the other side of the lake, they turned up a creek and arrived at the base of a waterfall that was at least three times as high as it was wide…and the water flowed from an opening in the cliff. Willow fought off the feeling that he was about to be sucked into this hole too, and turned to help Amber step out of the boat. The old woman seemed jumpy and nervous.
"Do I have to do this Lapis?" she asked, throwing a frightened glance at the dark hole looming overhead.
Lapis sighed with annoyance. "If you back out now then they'll have to wait until tomorrow to leave and I'd never let you hear the end of it. Besides, I've ordered a group of soldiers to come and stand guard over the entrance. They should be along in a few minutes." Amber shuddered in response. "May I remind you, then, that Lor is the first human to set foot in Gummaka since we settled here? I doubt that a record like that will break just for you. Please don't worry. Just remember that I was up all day yesterday trying to get my work done so I could lead them. I want to go! I wouldn't if it wasn't safe."
Amber began to tremble. Lapis sighed in exasperation and pushed a basket into her hands. "That's your lunch and candles, so don't loose it."
She turned to Lor and Willow and reached up to lay a hand on each of their shoulders. "May Earth protect you and guide you my dears. You'll know what all the fuss is about before the day is done." With that, she hopped in the boat and Spodumene picked up the oars. Lapis waved until the boat reached the lake and the curtain of trees blocked her from view.
Amber led Willow and Lor to the edge of the cliff and behind the arch of the falling water. There was a small cavern hidden behind the waterfall, and at the back, a rotting wooden door stood in the wall of stone. Amber walked over and ripped some moss away from a keyhole, jammed a key into the lock, and twisted it, but a hundred years of decay had taken its toll. The door collapsed inwards with a muffled, damp crash, and after drawing several deep breaths, Amber stepped over the wood into the tunnel beyond.
They walked single file up a curving staircase carved into the stone and came out inside the river tunnel that fed the falls. At the top, a three-foot wide ledge covered with slippery moss stretched from the rock into the river. With their backs to the rough tunnel wall, the three inched sideways along the edge of the rushing water. Willow lost his footing on the moss and almost fell in, but Lor caught the edge of this sleeve and pulled him back upright.
This tunnel in the cliff did not appear to keep going on forever as the one at Korrika had. Instead, water splashed from another tunnel over a series of shorter falls on the left before feeding the river. Next to these falls was the smaller tunnel that led into Angalee.
Amber took many more than several deep breaths and clamped her eyes shut before she entered the passage. Once she was ready, she charged forward at an amazing pace, determined to get in and out of the tunnels of Angalee as fast as possible, but she was so nervous that she forgot about the candles. Lor had to persuade Amber to stop for a moment so she could get them out and light them. Amber whimpered at how long it took to separate the candles from the sausages. Willow felt sorry for her but at the same time, her fuss just made traveling through a dark, dank tunnel a thousand times worse.
"Amber," he said hoping that he would not offend her. "I can understand that you're afraid of the dark, but the Great War was a hundred years ago! No one is going to jump out and kill you-"
"You stupid boy!" she cried. "I was there! I was a little girl not six years old when the humans came and smoked us out! I was with the group who managed to break through their barricade and escape!" She trembled with fear.
Willow stared at her in amazement. "You're that old?"
"Dwarves average a hundred year life span," Lor explained.
"Yes! But now I'm the oldest because everyone I escaped with was so much older than me! They died or were killed by Sun's disease and I'm all that's left, but I'm the one Lapis and Lazuli chose to lead you in to Angalee! ME!" she wailed.
"Amber listen to me," said Willow as she quieted a little. "The Sorcerers live forever, don't they?"
"Yes, Lapis was the one who carried me through the barricade!"
"So she remembers the war even better than you do, and yet she said she wanted to come with us!"
"No she didn't! She was afraid so she made me do it!"
Willow doubted this, but he said, "Then just think how much braver than the sorcerer you are just for coming this far!"
Amber smiled and quieted down a little. "Really?"
"Of course."
The corner of her mouth twitched into a small smile at the thought. "You're lying…but thank you," she said. Suppressing a shudder, she dried her eyes, picked up her basket and marched forward with only the occasional hiccup. Lor smiled at her receding back then turned to Willow.
"Well done," she whispered before following Amber.
The rest of the trip was uninterrupted. The tunnel walls were rough and a little less than round, but the dwarves had carved them just large enough for Willow and Lor to walk upright. Every time they came to a fork in the path, Amber would pull out a list of directions and then head off in the correct tunnel. They walked for minutes or hours; none of them could tell the passing of time by anything but the melting of one candle after another. They began to get hungry and agreed to stop after the next candle had melted halfway.
But it had not melted a quarter of the way when the passage began to open up, and then they saw what remained of the fledgling dwarf city of Angalee.
The Dwarves had chosen a great natural cavern deep below the ground as their starting point, carving rough rooms into the walls, as well as many of the pillars and stalagmites. Even some of the stalactites had rooms in them, the windows veiled by stone screens carved in lacy patterns. Decaying ladders lay on the ground, showing how the Dwarves had reached the upper levels. In the excitement of returning to her old underground home, Amber forgot her fear and ran to the little room she had carved for herself out of a boulder.
"I thought I was so clever," she murmured as she ran her hand over the rough walls. "No one had ever tried to live in a boulder before, but they let me have a go so that I wouldn't ruin a stalagmite."
A large pond with clear, cold water took up most of the back end of the cavern. Amber insisted that they eat their lunch on the fallen rocks and formations next to it.
"This is where we made the decision to stay out of Angalee," she told them. "No one had been sleeping well for weeks because we were afraid that if we closed our eyes the humans would come and kill us. Perhaps they were just children's fears but they took control of us. I almost wish we had stayed now." She surveyed the cavern with an expert eye. "The rock here is still good and strong. Perhaps I'll talk to Lapis about coming back, though I can only imagine how much she'll tease me for it." She sighed and began to straighten up the remains of her lunch. "I'm afraid my orders were to leave you here. There is enough food in the basket for three light meals as well as two days' worth of candles and directions out of the city."
"You mean you're just going to leave us?" Lor asked.
Amber nodded. "I'm sorry." She scooped up an extra bundle of candles. "Farewell my friends. I shall never forget you." She hugged each of them in turn and then turned to face the long walk back alone.
As soon as the tunnel swallowed up the glow of Lapis' light, Lor reached toward their candle to snuff it out.
"What are you doing?" cried Willow.
"Look." She grabbed his hand and pinched the wick between her fingers. The darkness was so intense that Willow could not see any of his body when he looked down. Lor directed his hand so that it was pointing somewhere over where the lake should have been. At first, all he saw was blackness, but as his eyes adjusted, he became aware of a faint glowing light at the edge of the cavern.
"Keep looking at that spot," Lor told him as she let go of his hand to grope for the flint to light the candle. After several attempts, a light flared up, and Willow had his eyes fixed on the spot where he had seen the light.
"Where is it?" asked Lor.
"Right under that boulder with all the stalagmites on it."
"Hmm." She began to yank off her boots. "I'm going to swim over and – hey, what're you doing?" Willow had his boots off and was up to his knees in water already. "STOP!" she called.
Willow turned around. "I'll be right back."
"Like the Core you will. You'll drown!"
But he wasn't listening anymore. He had done this once before in Yarthel, walked away from her and come back grinning. He knew he would do it again.
He had not been swimming long when he heard a splash, and turned around to see Lor wading in with her boots and belt one hand and his pair of boots in the other.
"Are you crazy? You're the one who's going to sink!"
She paid no attention to him, just waded in deeper and began to tread water. He swam back to her and she threw his boots at him.
"You bring it, you carry it."
He fished his shoes out of the water and kept swimming. It was slow and tiring work with his clothes pulling him back and his boots filled with water. Lor began to lag behind because of the weight of her sword dragging in one hand. Once she dropped it. Her shriek filled the cavern as she dove down, and was still echoing when she came up gasping seconds later, clutching her sword.
"Keep going," she called.
They reached the boulder on the other side exhausted but alive and clung to the stalagmites as they rested. Lor reluctantly agreed that Willow should be the one to see where the light was coming from, so he took a breath and dove.
He was surprised to find that the lake was no more than eight feet deep. He cracked his eyes open and saw that the light was even brighter on the other side of the boulder, so he swam over to get a closer look. There was a large crack there, dark, but with a faint light glowing at the other end. He felt drawn to it, as though he had to go in, and he panicked, remembering the hole in Korrika, yet somehow he knew that this crack was not dangerous and he swam in.
A short tunnel led to another, wider tunnel that slanted upwards. Unable to turn around he swam forward, hoping to find air at the other end, and surfaced a few seconds later in a small cavern.
A flame burned an eerie shade of blue in a metal basket at the base of huge stone double doors. He heard Lor come up and gulp down air behind him as he headed for land. He had known that she would follow him, not because she thought he could not manage by himself, but because she felt drawn toward the tunnel and the light too.
He crawled ashore and examined the door. There was a single knob for both doors, also made out of stone, with a strange carving. It was a small, delicate engraving of a many-pointed star with a five-pointed star in the middle, the triangles protruding from the stone. Willow counted the points on the outer star--one, two, three…
Lor's sword clattered as she threw it on the floor and pulled herself out of the water. As she leaned over to dump the water out of her boots and pull them onto her feet, her silver necklace slipped out from her shirt collar. Willow stared at it.
"Lor, give me your necklace for a minute."
"Why?" She stood up and sheathed her sword.
"Just for a minute."
She hesitated, then undid the clasp and handed it over. Willow held up the nine-pointed star to the carving and set it against the stone. With a gentle nudge, it slid right onto the triangles until it was level with the wall, a perfect fit.
Willow seized the doorknob and threw his weight against the door. It opened a crack, so Lor started pushing as well. When the space was wide enough for them to fit through, Lor pulled her necklace out of the carving and they slipped through one at a time. The huge door groaned shut behind them.

Description

Chapter 19
Willow woke the next day to the sound of his growling stomach and Lor's soft laughter. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.
"You must be pretty hungry," she giggled. Willow looked away from her, still unused to the sound, but Lor did not seem to notice. "You've been doing that for over an hour. Lapis left a ton of food on the desk, so eat your fill."
Willow had slept through most of the day already, so he walked around on the island after he ate and went swimming for three hours. By that time, the afternoon was almost over, so he climbed out and began to follow the path the long way back to the house. He noticed Lor on the far end of the island, lying on her back and gazing up at the sky, so he walked down to see her.
Willow sat down on a large root nearby and looked up. The sky was cloudless and just beginning to show the colors of sunset. He wondered what Lor was thinking about.
"It's so weird," she said a few minutes later. "All the Sorcerers we've met seem to know who we are, where we're going, even what I have with me, but no one will tell us anything."
Willow thought for a minute. "Well Lapis did tell us yesterday that we'd know soon – or maybe it was Lazuli, I can't remember – and as long as we know that we will know, that's enough for me. Does that make sense?"
Lor smiled. "Yes it does. You're a good friend Willow. Come on, lie down and watch the stars come out with me."
An hour later, when Lapis came looking for Willow and Lor, she found them at the end of the island, sound asleep a few feet apart. She smiled as she stepped down the path to Lor's side. It was almost as if they already knew…
Lor woke Willow at sunrise the next morning.
"Lapis came to me last night said that we have to meet her down by the boats."
"Wherever that is."
"She gave me instructions, don't worry."
Willow ached from sleeping on the roots in the hard ground, but he worked his way to his feet and followed her without complaint. Lor led him across the island, over the bridge, and along another trail that led from the point down to the water.
Lapis, Amber, and Spodumene (who would row for them as part of his punishment) were waiting with a boat ready to go. Willow and Lor climbed in behind the sorcerer and Spodumene pushed off. While they crossed, Lapis handed out breakfast to everyone on the boat.
"I'll go as far as the falls with you but Amber will have to lead you on from there."
Once on the other side of the lake, they turned up a creek and arrived at the base of a waterfall that was at least three times as high as it was wide…and the water flowed from an opening in the cliff. Willow fought off the feeling that he was about to be sucked into this hole too, and turned to help Amber step out of the boat. The old woman seemed jumpy and nervous.
"Do I have to do this Lapis?" she asked, throwing a frightened glance at the dark hole looming overhead.
Lapis sighed with annoyance. "If you back out now then they'll have to wait until tomorrow to leave and I'd never let you hear the end of it. Besides, I've ordered a group of soldiers to come and stand guard over the entrance. They should be along in a few minutes." Amber shuddered in response. "May I remind you, then, that Lor is the first human to set foot in Gummaka since we settled here? I doubt that a record like that will break just for you. Please don't worry. Just remember that I was up all day yesterday trying to get my work done so I could lead them. I want to go! I wouldn't if it wasn't safe."
Amber began to tremble. Lapis sighed in exasperation and pushed a basket into her hands. "That's your lunch and candles, so don't loose it."
She turned to Lor and Willow and reached up to lay a hand on each of their shoulders. "May Earth protect you and guide you my dears. You'll know what all the fuss is about before the day is done." With that, she hopped in the boat and Spodumene picked up the oars. Lapis waved until the boat reached the lake and the curtain of trees blocked her from view.
Amber led Willow and Lor to the edge of the cliff and behind the arch of the falling water. There was a small cavern hidden behind the waterfall, and at the back, a rotting wooden door stood in the wall of stone. Amber walked over and ripped some moss away from a keyhole, jammed a key into the lock, and twisted it, but a hundred years of decay had taken its toll. The door collapsed inwards with a muffled, damp crash, and after drawing several deep breaths, Amber stepped over the wood into the tunnel beyond.
They walked single file up a curving staircase carved into the stone and came out inside the river tunnel that fed the falls. At the top, a three-foot wide ledge covered with slippery moss stretched from the rock into the river. With their backs to the rough tunnel wall, the three inched sideways along the edge of the rushing water. Willow lost his footing on the moss and almost fell in, but Lor caught the edge of this sleeve and pulled him back upright.
This tunnel in the cliff did not appear to keep going on forever as the one at Korrika had. Instead, water splashed from another tunnel over a series of shorter falls on the left before feeding the river. Next to these falls was the smaller tunnel that led into Angalee.
Amber took many more than several deep breaths and clamped her eyes shut before she entered the passage. Once she was ready, she charged forward at an amazing pace, determined to get in and out of the tunnels of Angalee as fast as possible, but she was so nervous that she forgot about the candles. Lor had to persuade Amber to stop for a moment so she could get them out and light them. Amber whimpered at how long it took to separate the candles from the sausages. Willow felt sorry for her but at the same time, her fuss just made traveling through a dark, dank tunnel a thousand times worse.
"Amber," he said hoping that he would not offend her. "I can understand that you're afraid of the dark, but the Great War was a hundred years ago! No one is going to jump out and kill you-"
"You stupid boy!" she cried. "I was there! I was a little girl not six years old when the humans came and smoked us out! I was with the group who managed to break through their barricade and escape!" She trembled with fear.
Willow stared at her in amazement. "You're that old?"
"Dwarves average a hundred year life span," Lor explained.
"Yes! But now I'm the oldest because everyone I escaped with was so much older than me! They died or were killed by Sun's disease and I'm all that's left, but I'm the one Lapis and Lazuli chose to lead you in to Angalee! ME!" she wailed.
"Amber listen to me," said Willow as she quieted a little. "The Sorcerers live forever, don't they?"
"Yes, Lapis was the one who carried me through the barricade!"
"So she remembers the war even better than you do, and yet she said she wanted to come with us!"
"No she didn't! She was afraid so she made me do it!"
Willow doubted this, but he said, "Then just think how much braver than the sorcerer you are just for coming this far!"
Amber smiled and quieted down a little. "Really?"
"Of course."
The corner of her mouth twitched into a small smile at the thought. "You're lying…but thank you," she said. Suppressing a shudder, she dried her eyes, picked up her basket and marched forward with only the occasional hiccup. Lor smiled at her receding back then turned to Willow.
"Well done," she whispered before following Amber.
The rest of the trip was uninterrupted. The tunnel walls were rough and a little less than round, but the dwarves had carved them just large enough for Willow and Lor to walk upright. Every time they came to a fork in the path, Amber would pull out a list of directions and then head off in the correct tunnel. They walked for minutes or hours; none of them could tell the passing of time by anything but the melting of one candle after another. They began to get hungry and agreed to stop after the next candle had melted halfway.
But it had not melted a quarter of the way when the passage began to open up, and then they saw what remained of the fledgling dwarf city of Angalee.
The Dwarves had chosen a great natural cavern deep below the ground as their starting point, carving rough rooms into the walls, as well as many of the pillars and stalagmites. Even some of the stalactites had rooms in them, the windows veiled by stone screens carved in lacy patterns. Decaying ladders lay on the ground, showing how the Dwarves had reached the upper levels. In the excitement of returning to her old underground home, Amber forgot her fear and ran to the little room she had carved for herself out of a boulder.
"I thought I was so clever," she murmured as she ran her hand over the rough walls. "No one had ever tried to live in a boulder before, but they let me have a go so that I wouldn't ruin a stalagmite."
A large pond with clear, cold water took up most of the back end of the cavern. Amber insisted that they eat their lunch on the fallen rocks and formations next to it.
"This is where we made the decision to stay out of Angalee," she told them. "No one had been sleeping well for weeks because we were afraid that if we closed our eyes the humans would come and kill us. Perhaps they were just children's fears but they took control of us. I almost wish we had stayed now." She surveyed the cavern with an expert eye. "The rock here is still good and strong. Perhaps I'll talk to Lapis about coming back, though I can only imagine how much she'll tease me for it." She sighed and began to straighten up the remains of her lunch. "I'm afraid my orders were to leave you here. There is enough food in the basket for three light meals as well as two days' worth of candles and directions out of the city."
"You mean you're just going to leave us?" Lor asked.
Amber nodded. "I'm sorry." She scooped up an extra bundle of candles. "Farewell my friends. I shall never forget you." She hugged each of them in turn and then turned to face the long walk back alone.
As soon as the tunnel swallowed up the glow of Lapis' light, Lor reached toward their candle to snuff it out.
"What are you doing?" cried Willow.
"Look." She grabbed his hand and pinched the wick between her fingers. The darkness was so intense that Willow could not see any of his body when he looked down. Lor directed his hand so that it was pointing somewhere over where the lake should have been. At first, all he saw was blackness, but as his eyes adjusted, he became aware of a faint glowing light at the edge of the cavern.
"Keep looking at that spot," Lor told him as she let go of his hand to grope for the flint to light the candle. After several attempts, a light flared up, and Willow had his eyes fixed on the spot where he had seen the light.
"Where is it?" asked Lor.
"Right under that boulder with all the stalagmites on it."
"Hmm." She began to yank off her boots. "I'm going to swim over and – hey, what're you doing?" Willow had his boots off and was up to his knees in water already. "STOP!" she called.
Willow turned around. "I'll be right back."
"Like the Core you will. You'll drown!"
But he wasn't listening anymore. He had done this once before in Yarthel, walked away from her and come back grinning. He knew he would do it again.
He had not been swimming long when he heard a splash, and turned around to see Lor wading in with her boots and belt one hand and his pair of boots in the other.
"Are you crazy? You're the one who's going to sink!"
She paid no attention to him, just waded in deeper and began to tread water. He swam back to her and she threw his boots at him.
"You bring it, you carry it."
He fished his shoes out of the water and kept swimming. It was slow and tiring work with his clothes pulling him back and his boots filled with water. Lor began to lag behind because of the weight of her sword dragging in one hand. Once she dropped it. Her shriek filled the cavern as she dove down, and was still echoing when she came up gasping seconds later, clutching her sword.
"Keep going," she called.
They reached the boulder on the other side exhausted but alive and clung to the stalagmites as they rested. Lor reluctantly agreed that Willow should be the one to see where the light was coming from, so he took a breath and dove.
He was surprised to find that the lake was no more than eight feet deep. He cracked his eyes open and saw that the light was even brighter on the other side of the boulder, so he swam over to get a closer look. There was a large crack there, dark, but with a faint light glowing at the other end. He felt drawn to it, as though he had to go in, and he panicked, remembering the hole in Korrika, yet somehow he knew that this crack was not dangerous and he swam in.
A short tunnel led to another, wider tunnel that slanted upwards. Unable to turn around he swam forward, hoping to find air at the other end, and surfaced a few seconds later in a small cavern.
A flame burned an eerie shade of blue in a metal basket at the base of huge stone double doors. He heard Lor come up and gulp down air behind him as he headed for land. He had known that she would follow him, not because she thought he could not manage by himself, but because she felt drawn toward the tunnel and the light too.
He crawled ashore and examined the door. There was a single knob for both doors, also made out of stone, with a strange carving. It was a small, delicate engraving of a many-pointed star with a five-pointed star in the middle, the triangles protruding from the stone. Willow counted the points on the outer star--one, two, three…
Lor's sword clattered as she threw it on the floor and pulled herself out of the water. As she leaned over to dump the water out of her boots and pull them onto her feet, her silver necklace slipped out from her shirt collar. Willow stared at it.
"Lor, give me your necklace for a minute."
"Why?" She stood up and sheathed her sword.
"Just for a minute."
She hesitated, then undid the clasp and handed it over. Willow held up the nine-pointed star to the carving and set it against the stone. With a gentle nudge, it slid right onto the triangles until it was level with the wall, a perfect fit.
Willow seized the doorknob and threw his weight against the door. It opened a crack, so Lor started pushing as well. When the space was wide enough for them to fit through, Lor pulled her necklace out of the carving and they slipped through one at a time. The huge door groaned shut behind them.