Book Two of the Travelers (16 page)

B
ut the next day when Alder showed up at Wencil's house, Wencil was not there. A note was tacked on the door.

Alder's heart sank. He'd hoped his fight the other day meant that he would be free from having to still endure the ordeal. Why couldn't Wencil have assigned him an ordeal like Master Horto did for his students at
the academy? At the academy the Grand Ordeal was over in the blink of an eye. You got a couple of bruises and the whole thing was over. For a moment he wondered why he needed to go into the mines. What would it prove? It didn't seem fair. None of the other knights had to endure an ordeal like this.

But the feeling of resentment didn't last long. If Wencil wanted him to go into the mines, he'd go into the mines. Wencil kept telling him he was special, right? So now he was going to prove it! He smiled and began walking down the road toward the mines.

 

A few minutes later Alder was looking down into the hole where he had escaped from Eman and Neman the previous day. There was no marker, no railing, nothing to keep the unwary from stumbling in. He could feel his heart pounding. Ever since he was young, he'd heard how dangerous the mines were. Bedoowan kids were even told that there were monsters living in the mines. His Novan nurse, when he was little, used to say, “If you aren't a good boy, the quigs will come and drag you off to the mines.”

He took two deep breaths, looked around to see if anyone was watching, then jumped into the hole.

Within two minutes he was down in the tunnel where he'd hidden from Eman and Neman. The torches on the wall threw a dim flickering light. The tunnel ran in two directions. Little trails of water ran down the rock walls. The air was close and chilly. Which way? He randomly chose to go to the left. After a minute or two of walking tentatively through the tunnel, he heard voices.

He began walking toward the sound. But as the voices grew louder, the tunnel grew darker and darker. Finally he could see nothing at all. He had to simply feel his way along the slick, wet rock.

Without warning, the floor gave way beneath him. He slipped and fell down an incline or chute, head over heels. Finally, with a sharp thump, he rolled out onto a solid rock floor. He found himself in a small, dimly lit cavern, its walls showing the marks of being carved by pickaxes. There was a hum of conversation around him.

He sat up and looked around. A group of Milago men were at work on the far end of the cavern, their bodies caked with grime, so that all that was visible of their faces was their white eyes. As soon as he sat up, the hum of speech ceased. Every miner in the room stared at him.

“Um, excuse me for interrupting,” Alder said. “But I'm looking for a room down here. It's got a star chiseled into the rock near the door.”

The miners stared at him as though he were a lunatic. Their eyes were not welcoming. In fact, they looked at him with undisguised hatred.

Finally one of the miners straightened up and walked toward him. “You're looking for a room?” the man said incredulously. There was something menacing in his voice.

“Yes. With a star chiseled next to it.”

“A
room
!” The man grimaced. “We don't have rooms down here, Bedoowan.”

Up on the surface Milago always looked at the ground when they were around Bedoowans. And they always referred to them as “sir” or “master” or even “my lord.”
Alder felt a little annoyed at the man's disrespectful tone of voice.

“Well, a chamber? A space? I don't know what you call it.”

The Milago man looked at the other miners. For a moment his teeth flashed. “A chamber! Well, then! Should we show him, lads?”

The cavern was silent.

The Milago man turned back to Alder. “No, Bedoowan, I don't think we will. Bedoowans aren't wanted down here.”

“Now, listen here…” Alder tried to use the commanding tone of voice that Bedoowan knights normally used when addressing their social inferiors. But he thought it didn't really come out right.

“No,
you
listen here.” The miner stuck his grimy finger in Alder's face. “You have no business here. Go back where you came from.”

Alder stood up. He was going to try to show these Milago who was boss. But because he was taller than most of the Milago, he hit his head sharply on the ceiling. “Ow!” he said.

“Oh, looooook!” one of the other Milago miners said in a mincing tone. “The poor clumsy knight hit his head!”

“Oops!” another shouted.

They all started standing, moving toward him. And they didn't look as if they were coming to help him. The miners all wore tiny lamps on their heads, the lights shining toward Alder, blinding him. He held up his hands, trying to block out the bright lights. What was wrong with these people? In the past he'd never heard
Milago talk like this. Not once. They were always quiet and respectful.

One of the miners lobbed a piece of rock gently toward him. It came so unexpectedly that it bounced off his face before he had a chance to move out of the way. The rock was big enough that it stung.

“Oops,” the man who threw it said. “The silly knight hit himself again.”

“You know, Bedoowan, mines are really not safe places,” another miner said, picking up another piece of rock and hefting it in his hand. The rock was as big as his fist. “All kinds of accidents happen down here. Cave-ins, explosions”—his teeth appeared in the dim light as he smiled broadly—“falling rocks.”

This time the miner hurled the rock as hard as he could. Alder dodged, but rock exploded as it hit the wall behind him, showering his face with sharp fragments. Alder felt his face. When he took his hand away, there was a red stain on his fingertips.

“Listen here,” he said angrily, “I don't know what you people think you're doing but—”

“Payback time, Bedoowan!” one of the miners yelled.

Another rock whizzed by his head. Then another. He tried to dodge, but there were a lot of miners. And they were all throwing rocks. The rocks pummeled him in the chest and shoulders.

“What's wrong with you?” Alder shouted. “I never did anything to you!”

A rock hit him in the head so hard that he saw stars. Suddenly he felt terrified. If the miners kept it up, they could kill him!

As he covered his face and attempted to stumble toward one of the nearby tunnel entrances, a voice yelled, “Hey, guys, stop!”

The rocks continued to thump into him, and the miners continued to shout insults.

“Hey! Stop!”

For a moment the rocks ceased to hammer into him. Alder uncovered his face. He saw that a thin young miner had come into the cavern. “What's your problem, kid?” one of the other miners yelled at him.

“This knight helped me out the other day. He saved me from those two creeps who are always beating people up around here.” The boy's face was so covered with grime that Alder didn't even recognize him.

“Who cares?” a miner shouted, hurling another rock at Alder. “One Bedoowan's no different from another. They're all leeches. All they do is steal our glaze and sit around up there in the castle getting fat.”

“But
this
one's nice,” the young miner said.

“Shut up, kid,” an older miner said. “When you grow up, you'll see. Even when a Bedoowan pretends to be your friend, it's only because he wants something from you.”

Several Milago threw rocks at Alder again. One of them caught him in the chest. Alder could see this situation was only going to get worse. It was time to run. He made a dash for the nearest tunnel.

“Not that way,” the young miner yelled. “Follow me!”

Alder didn't have to be told twice. He dashed after the young miner, his head ducked low so he wouldn't hit the rough timbers holding up the ceiling. Rocks clattered off the wall behind him as he raced down the tunnel.

Jeers and angry shouts echoed through the tunnels. He could hear the men running after him.

“Get him!” the voices called behind him. “Kill the Bedoowan!”

Rocks thumped against the walls behind him.

“This way!” the Milago boy's voice called. The light disappeared to the left. Alder dodged into another tunnel. This one was so small and so dark he could barely make out where to put his feet.

“Shhh!” The Milago boy had stopped and put out his light. “Don't move,” the boy whispered.

From the main tunnel behind them, Alder could hear angry shouting and footsteps. The two boys stood next to each other, frozen.

After a while the shouting died down. Finally the Milago boy relit his head lamp.

“Let's go back,” Alder said finally.

The boy shook his head. “They'll be looking for us back there. We'll have to go out through one of the old tunnels.”

Alder nodded. “Hey, look, thanks,” Alder said. “My name's Alder.”

“I'm Gaveth,” the boy said.

Alder held out his hand. Gaveth looked at it for a moment, then shook it dubiously.

“Come on,” Gaveth said. “Let's get you out of here.”

“Actually,” Alder said, “I'm looking for something. A chamber or room with a star carved in the rock next to it. Do you know where I'd find something like that?”

The boy turned and looked at Alder with curiosity. “Why?”

“There's something there that I need.”

“Glaze?”

“No, not glaze.”

“Then why would a Bedoowan come down here? Everybody knows Bedoowans don't come into the mines.”

“I'm looking for a ring.” Their footsteps echoed as they walked through the narrow corridor. The farther they walked, the thinner it got. Finally Alder was having to slide sideways through the narrow passage. The air seemed stuffier, hotter, danker, harder to breath. “Do you know where the room with the star is?”

Gaveth shook his head. “There are lots of tunnels down here. Nobody knows where all of it goes.”

“Do you even know where we're going?”

There was a brief pause. “Not…uh…exactly.”

They shuffled along for a while. “So, I heard there are quigs down here.”

“Look, the mines can be dangerous. If you're careless. People tell all kinds of stories to try and scare kids so they won't wander around down here. But I've explored down here a lot. And I've never seen a quig.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Finally, just as the passage was narrowing to the point where Alder wasn't sure he'd be able to squeeze through it anymore, the passage opened up into a large cavern. Tiny points of blue light glittered from all corners of the big room.

“Whoa!”

“That's glaze,” Gaveth said. “The main deposit here was all worked out years ago. But there are still tiny bits of it stuck in the walls.”

Alder stopped and stared.

“We need to keep moving,” Gaveth said nervously.

“Can't we take a break?” Alder's lungs were wheezing in the heavy, close air. “I'm not used to this air.”

Gaveth shook his head. “No, we
really
need to keep moving.”

“What's the rush?”

Gaveth pointed at the light on his head. “I've only got a limited supply of fuel for my lamp. There are no lights in the old sections of the mine. If you run out of light down here, you're in big trouble.”

Alder didn't like this place at all. The darkness, the air, the claustrophobic feeling of the low ceilings and close walls. Just the thought of being down here with no lights gave him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“You know what?” Alder said. “Moving's good! Let's keep going.”

They walked into another narrow passage. After a while it split in two. Gaveth stopped, hesitated.

“Which way?” Alder said.

“Uh…this way.”

“You sure?”

Long pause. “
Pretty
sure.”

“You're making me nervous,” Alder said.

“Hey, do
you
want to lead?” Gaveth said, his face clouded.

“No. I just—”

“Okay then!”

Alder followed. “So, can I ask you a question?”

“I guess,” Gaveth said.

“Why are all you guys so mad at us?”

“Mad at who?”

“Us. Bedoowans.”

Gaveth seemed surprised. “Are you
serious
?”

Alder shrugged. “Well…sure.”

Gaveth shook his head as though Alder had said something amazingly stupid. “You must be joking. Why would we
not
hate you?”

Alder felt puzzled. “Well…I mean, Bedoowans protect the Milago from invaders and bandits.”

“Protect us!” Gaveth said scornfully. “Is that what they tell you up there in the castle? There hasn't been an invader or a bandit around here in generations!”

“Yeah, but that's just because we're ready at all times to fight them.”

Gaveth laughed. “You Bedoowan live up there in luxury in your castle while us Milago work ourselves to death down here in the mines. Every year the king—or that nasty chancellor of his, Mallos—demands more glaze from us. Before Mallos showed up, it wasn't so bad. But now every year we have to dig harder and farther and deeper to find it. It's not fair. You know how many miners died down here last year?”

Alder shook his head.

“Dozens! And how many Bedoowan died defending us?”

“Uh…”

“If a miner gets hurt? Or dies in the mine? Guess what happens to his kids. They starve.”