“Sage, you never told me how you got out of the Hole,” Heather whispered after half-an-hour of walking. “You usually tell me everything.”
“I can’t tell you that,” I told her. “I can’t tell anyone that.” My voice had gotten hoarse and quiet, and my eyes felt dry. An unbidden scene flashed in my mind, a scene much like the cave we were in. Stone surrounded me in the interrogation room. Miles of stone were on either side of me. There was no pure air.
“Gyps,” Pete whispered. I took a deep breath and nodded.
“So, yeah,” I muttered. I cleared my throat and my mind and looked back at Pete. “When are you going to stop calling me ‘Gyps’?” I asked, trying to ease the tension.
“When you stop being a gypsy,” he replied casually. “So, uh, around never.”
“You do know that the word gyps means cheat or swindle, right?”
“Yeah, and I use it on you,” Pete chuckled. “I pick words to describe my friends. I’m still working on Jae’s, though.”
“What about me?” Heather asked coyly. “You’ve known me almost as long as you’ve known Sage. I was your girlfriend’s best friend.”
“I’ll think of a nice name for you,” Pete promised.
“As long as it’s flattering,” Heather stated.
“Oh, it couldn’t be anything else,” Pete assured her.
“I wonder how close we are to getting out of here,” I thought out loud. The tunnel we were walking in seemed to stretch on forever.
I started to believe that it did, since we walked as long as our bodies would allow us. The path went steeply down-hill for a while, before leveling out again, but there was no end in sight. Instead we decided to make dinner and camp. We ate granola and drank water from our own packs so we didn’t need to start a fire. The torches along the walls lit the tunnel up enough.
I called everyone’s attention to read the legend to them.
Recall to yourself the distant dream of why you came to this land; remember that not everything is as it may seem, and is more than what you can understand.
“Well, that’s no help,” Michal scoffed.
“So, the next task has something to do with dreams and their meanings?” Landon asked.
“Well, I hardly ever dream, so that’s no use,” Carson sighed. A loud THUNK sounded through the tunnel and we all looked at Jason.
“Sorry,” he muttered, picking up the boot he had smacked on the ground. “There was a spider.” There was a smattering of blood and spider parts where the boot had been. Heather crinkled her nose in disgust.
“I hate spiders,” she commented. I smirked.
“Yeah, almost as much as you hate worms.”
“Ugh,” she shuddered, “don’t even joke about that, Sage.” She shot me a joking smirk and I smiled back.
We eventually got ready to sleep, trusting our inner clocks to wake us up since there was no sign of sunlight, or lack thereof, in the tunnel. I went to sleep quickly.
~*~*~
I woke up, but the torches had all gone out. I tried to wake up Pete, or Argus, or Jason, but none of them would even stir. Then I saw Sage sitting up on her sleeping bag, staring at me.
“Oh, you’re up,” she said quietly. She then stood up and I noticed that she was wearing a beautiful black gown that flowed to the dusty cave floor. It was almost impossible to see in the darkness, but it made her look beautiful.
“Sage,” I smiled, standing up as well.
“I’ve been waiting for you to wake up. I wanted you to see something,” she said, smiling coyly. My heart stuttered and I walked over to her.
“What is it?” I asked. She held out her hand and I took it, loving how it fit in mine. Then, however, she held on tightly and her face contorted in wrath. Her eyes grew darker, like they had been when she fought the werewolf, and her voice screeched at me.
“I wanted to show you where your father put me. I wanted to show you the Hole.” She dragged me along down the dark path, her nails cutting into my arm. We came to a large hole in the ground, only distinguishable by its darker shade than the floor around it.
“Sage, no,” I gasped, trying to tug my hand away. Her voice grew softer again, and her eyes faded to their normal spiced-coffee brown.
“Do you not want to see what men like your father do?”
“I don’t,” I replied.
“Not even with me? We could go down together, and then we’d be safe there. I can get us out again, and we would live together.”
I swallowed thickly. Sage was asking me to run away with her, and I was all for it. She looked at me with soft eyes. I nearly opened my mouth to agree, but a nagging thought stuck in my head.
Sage wouldn’t leave the questers, or give up the quest.
Then I realized that I had a long sword strapped to my waist. I pulled my hand away from Sage, who was now holding it lovingly, and gripped the hilt.
“Sage, you’re the quest leader,” I said. She turned and pouted at me like a little girl. Sage wouldn’t be caught dead with an expression like that. I unsheathed my sword.
“Oh, come on, Jae, you and I can be happy together. I know that you’ve thought it.”
I ignored the fake Sage and swung my sword at her. Before I could hit her, however, she had a sword of her own and the sound of metal clashing reverberated off the silent stone walls. Her eyes darkened again, turning a beautiful back again. She swung her sword high and I parried the blow. Her long, flowing down spun around her frame as she turned around me, putting me in between her and the Hole.
I lunged and my sword sunk deeply in her stomach, tearing the thing black fabric. She staggered forward and gave me a huge gash in my arm, missing my heart by half a foot, before going to the edge of the Hole.
“I always knew I’d die in the Hole,” she gagged. She walked over the edge and fell.
I woke up, for real this time, with a start in a cold sweat. As I sat up I felt something hot and sticky running down my left arm. There was a long gash where the dream-Sage had cut me. I clutched the wound and tried to wake Argus up so he could heal it, but he wouldn’t stir. He just rolled over and muttered about his dad. I looked around and saw that everyone was in as deep a sleep. I even tried to wake Sage up, but she responded by striking out and curling back up to sleep.
Then I realized that she had a giant spider in her hair, which was casting a long yellow-glowing web around her head. I batted around my head and felt a spider there too. I swatted it off, breaking my own yellow web. I stomped down on the spider and went to take off the others’ brain bugs, but something stopped me.
The spiders looked simple, with green and red specks in the black body, but something about them made me worry that the thread was too volatile to move. I clutched at my wound and sat down, watching Sage’s face as the spider worked on her.
Perhaps the spiders used a bit of my own dream to hurt me, because at that moment I wouldn’t mind her waking up and running away with me. She looked worried, scared, and hurt by whatever she was dreaming. As I watched she winced and clutched her neck, and I prayed that she woke up soon.
~*~*~
I was in the Hole. I could tell by the smell of rotting flesh and the sound of screaming. I pounded my fist against the wall of my cell. I tried to break through the bars of the door, screaming for my friends.
“Heather! Pete! Help! Jae! Dad! I’m trapped! I’m not supposed to be here!” I screamed.
“Shut up!” a gravelly voice ordered. My hands froze and my throat seized up. The guard with pale green eyes stood outside my door. “Oh, you’re back, are you? Come along, girl. You know what to do.” He opened my cell and grabbed my hair. I followed behind him to the torture room.
“NO! I escaped! I’m not supposed to be here!” I tried to fight, to pull away, but he just pushed me down to my knees. I closed my eyes and cowered, not moving. He shoved me again and I stood up, but I was already in the torture room. “NO!” The pale-green-eyed guard hit me across my face, tearing my cheek against my teeth. As soon as his soulless eyes came into view again, I spat at him. The red of my blood stuck to his broad, thick face.
“You filthy mage,” he growled. He tore off my travelling clothes to show only my old red tank that I had been captured in and took pushed me to the Dunk. He held my head under while pushing me against the hard, cold metal tank. I couldn’t breathe. I tried to keep my eyes open, but black clouded my vision. Tried to push back, to breathe, but it wouldn’t work. He was there, right behind me, holding me in. Just before I passed out he pulled me out. I gasped.
“Who’s in charge here?” he asked me, shaking me. I sobbed, but didn’t answer. He shook me harder. I hit him.
“Stop,” I sobbed. “Just kill me.”
“Tell me,” he ordered. His had closed over my throat. I gasped, unable to breathe again. I clawed at the hand, tearing at the skin. He was going to kill me.
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t hurt me anymore.
“You can’t do this,” I said clearly. I pushed him away and he fell down the chute that led to the pit of dead. “I am free.”
I opened my eyes and saw the lit tunnel. It had all been a dream, just a dream. I sat up and saw a few other people awake. Jae, Michal, Austin and Argus were sitting in a small circle. Jae noticed me first and came over to me. He had a bandage around his arm.
“Hold still,” he said quietly. He picked something out of my hair. “Do you know what this is?”
“A spider?” I asked. My voice came out hoarse. I felt my neck and winced. There was a large bruise the size of a hand around it. Jae looked at my throat and grimaced.
“Everybody is getting injuries,” he told me, helping me stand up. He tossed the spider down and stomped on it. “May I ask what your dream was about?”
“The Hole,” I replied. “It was my worst nightmare.”
“I suppose that was everybody’s,” Argus commented. He pointed his wand at me slowly, showing that he meant no harm, and my throat healed. “I dreamt o’ my pa. He died when I was young, and in the dream…” Argus shuddered. “Well, it wasn’t a good dream.”
One by one everybody woke up and Jae killed the spider-creatures on their heads. When Landon woke up he told us that they were called Jorogumo. He could tell by the markings. Emily was the last to wake up, and when she did she was screaming. Jae led her over to the circle. I scooted to make room. She sat down between me and Pete. Jae sat down next to me.
“Are you okay?” I asked quietly.
“No, not really,” Emily chuckled sadly. “I don’t know why I’m so… so watery, but I didn’t like that.”
“Whatever you saw, it wasn’t real,” Peter said gently. “It wasn’t real.”
“How did the magic know, Sage?” Heather asked suddenly. “You do Stage magic and it is nothing like that. This kind got into my head and showed me…” Her voice died away, unable to finish the sentence.
“There are forms of Stage magic that get into your head. People use it to show what you want to see, or to scare you by showing you your worst nightmare,” I explained.
“It was very realistic,” Emily muttered into the silence.
“Why’d you come, Emily?” I asked.
“Wha-, oh, well, my sister, Amber, was captured a… a month ago. I… I think that this… this wish is the only way to get her back,” Emily sobbed. I put my arm around her and rubbed her shoulder, trying to comfort her. It was awkward for me, but she seemed to relax.
“It will be okay. I… promise.” I hated how my voice wavered slightly. “Talisman will grant our wish. He must. And then your sister and my father and everyone in the wretched, forsaken mouth of Hell will be free.”
“Is it, I mean, can you tell us what it’s like in there?” Everyone had gotten quiet after the question, wanting to hear what the Hole was like. I tried to think of a reason to not say anything.
“No,” was all I could say.
“But, is Amber going to be okay?”
I didn’t answer; I couldn’t answer honestly. Instead I tried to get everybody to get ready to walk again. Soon we were packed and moving, and it hardly took fifteen minutes to see the sun again. I didn’t talk to anyone else and we left the mountain behind us. I tried to push away the dream I had, and the image of the guard. He seemed seared into my head and I started to feel nauseous. We made camp early and I set up the tent, not taking the food that Emily had made. I went to sleep quickly and easily, the stress of the dream weighing my eyes down.