The Unwilling Apprentice (Book 2) (5 page)

"I don't know, I'll think about it later. Right now I wanted to ask you if you heard about the fireworks they're putting on for you tonight," Fred told her.

Pat glanced down at the floor and nodded her head. There was a sigh on her lips. "Yes, I was told."

Fred's heart beat like a war drum before an epic battle. "Did you want to go with me to see them?" Pat shook her head; his heart sank. "Why not?"

"King Stephen ordered me to stay in the castle, and I must obey him."

Frank scowled, but an idea hit him. He leaned in and dropped his voice. "What were his exact words to you about leaving?"

Pat frowned and raised an eyebrow. "He said I couldn't pass the front gates."

A sly smile slid onto Fred's face. "You can't pass the front gates?"

The girl was suspicious of him. "That's what I said." She leaned back and gave him a careful examination. "You look too much like Ned. What are you thinking?" Fred pulled out the piece of metal and handed it to her. She turned it over in her hands and frowned. "What's this?"

"You're way out of the castle and into a little fun," Fred replied.

"Or trouble," she added.

Fred waved off her worries. "It just leads to a tunnel beneath the castle, and that'll take us outside. That way you won't have to pass through the front gates and disobey the king."

Pat's face fell. "I don't think that's the spirit in which King Stephen made his order."

The boy rolled his eyes, grabbed her hand and pulled her up with him. He nodded down at her dress. "You really want to be wearing that stuff the last night you have to be yourself?" He gestured to the room. "And stay here with nothing to do but sit here watching the fireworks all the way down there and then going to dinner with a bunch of stuffy people?"

Pat bit her lip. "No, but I don't know. Are you sure this will get us out of the castle?"

Fred frowned and swiped the metal from her hand. He teasingly waived it in front of her and backed up toward the door. "If that's how you're going to be than I'll just go exploring all by myself." Like hell he was going to do that, but Pat took up the challenge.

"Oh no, you're not. You'll probably need somebody to get you out of that trouble," she scolded. She stomped over to a dresser and pulled out her old clothes. Fred blushed and swung around while she quickly changed, and in a moment she looped her arm through the crook of his own and pulled him toward the door. "All right, Mr. Adventurer, where is this secret tunnel?"

Fred smirked; this was the Pat he knew.

CHAPTER 5

Fred led Pat downstairs and down the same corridors Hawkins had led them on their first entrance into the castle. He remembered they'd passed the kitchen at one point, and in a few minutes they came to the cooking room. Unfortunately the area was alive with men and women hurrying to prepare the night's feast, though that didn't stop Fred from looking for the stove. He found a group of them lined up on the wall on the opposite side of the room from where they stood. Fred noticed there was a small gap about two feet by two feet between the last stove and the corner. He just knew that had to be the secret entrance. Now the only problem lay in getting through it unnoticed.

Pat and Fred pulled back, and he crossed his arms over his chest in thought. "The secret entrance is in that far corner, but I don't know how we're going to get through them without being seen."

Pat looked around for an answer and her eyes lit on a large rat hole close at hand. She saw two beady eyes staring back at her, and an idea hit her. She crept past Fred and over to the hole, where she knelt down. With a swift swipe of her arm she reached into the hole and grabbed the squirming vermin. The creature squeaked and squealed, but she held tight and made sure not to let it bite her. Pat clasped the rat in her hand and hurried over to Fred, who cringed back from the ugly rodent.

Fred looked between Pat's captive and her twinkling eyes. "You're going to do it, aren't you?"

Pat grinned and nodded her head. She crept around him to the entrance of the kitchen and knelt down close to the ground, where she put her hands down. With a spring of her hands the rat was free and scurried into the chaos. One of the male cooks who had a platter full of food saw the rodent and let out a glass-cracking scream. He flung the platter into the air and his pudgy legs jumped for the nearest table. The other cooks turned at his cries and one of the women noticed the rodent. Her face lit up with a smile and she pointed her knife at the creature. "Catch that rat! I need it for the stew!"

As Fred and Pat looked on, the kitchen became a madhouse of chase-the-rat. Everyone, armed with spatulas, forks and spoons, dove at the poor, frightened creature. The pair ducked back into the hallway when the rat raced out of the kitchen and down the passage from which they'd come with the entire kitchen staff at its heels. The party rounded a corner down the hall and vanished from sight and, in a few moments, sound.

Pat slowly turned her head toward Fred with a surprised expression on her face, who looked likewise at her. "That didn't quite turn out like I thought it would," she admitted.

"Yeah, me either, but it got them out of there," he pointed out.

"Yeah, and remind me not to eat the stew tonight," she added.

The pair slunk over to the corner and knelt down to examine the stones. After a few moments Pat found a small groove in one of the stones, and pointed it out to Fred. He retrieved the metal from his pocket and inserted one end into the groove. The lip of the metal caught beneath the false top of the stone, and with their combined strength they lifted the flat rock up to reveal a wooden frame with a hollow center. In the hole was a flight of narrow steps that led down into a dark abyss.

Pat looked over to Fred, and nodded her head toward the hole. "Think you can use your castor staff to light our way?" Fred pulled out his broken stick and held it down into the hole; nothing happened. Pat rolled her eyes. "Well, let's grab some candles."

The pair swiped as many candles as they could hold and, each with a pair of candle holders, lit one for each of them. They stood at the top of the stairs and glanced at each other. Pat frowned at the boy. "What are you waiting for? This was your plan, so go on," she scolded him.

"Um, ladies first?" he offered. It was at that point they heard the hunting party returning from the chase, and his face paled. "On second thought, I'll go first. I don't want to know what's for dinner."

He jumped down and Pat soon followed. The flight of stairs went down only two yards, and Pat held Fred's flashlight while he slid the stone back into the hole. It wedged into place just as footsteps tromped into the kitchen. Fred dropped down, grabbed his candle from her and held it out to illuminate the way ahead. It was a tunnel about five feet wide and six feet tall, and had smoothed, chiseled walls with a rounded ceiling. The passage stretched out far beyond their light, and somewhere in the distance they heard the soft drip of water. Not a comfortable place by any stretch of the imagination, but it was either that or be found out by the rodent-eaters upstairs, so Fred stepped forward with Pat behind him.

The tunnel followed a straight path for a hundred yards and then surprised the two when the walls and ceiling around them stretched out to reveal an immense cavern. Large, jagged spikes hung down from the cluttered ceiling and all around them rose up stalagmites. Their weak lights reflected off a pool of water to their right and down a set of carved stairs that wound its way to the edge of the water. The pair could just barely make out ledges above them with openings at their backs signifying every spot was accessible via the ground floor.

Fred frowned. "She didn't say anything about a cavern..." he mumbled to himself.

Pat caught his words and whipped her head over to him. "She? She who?"

"The old chambermaid that told me about this place. She just said it was an escape route a long time ago," Fred replied.

Pat threw her arms up in the air. "We're following the old tales of a half crazed chambermaid?"

Fred ruffled at the description. "She wasn't crazed, and she was right enough about how to get down here," he shot back.

"That's great, but did you bother to ask her how to get out?" she countered. The boy opened his mouth, and shut it when he couldn't give a good answer. She put her hands on her hips. "I didn't think so."

He sullenly turned away from Pat. "I thought it was just a straight tunnel we could follow to the cistern."

Pat rolled her eyes and turned on her heels. "If that's-" Fred jumped when Pat grasped his arm and pulled him close to her. He looked over his shoulder at her, and the candlelight illuminated her pale face. Her wide eyes stared straight ahead and he followed her gaze back where they'd come. His own eyes widened when he saw a shadow standing very still at the entrance to the tunnel. "Fred?" Pat whispered.

"Yeah?" he softly breathed back.

"Are you scared now?"

"M-Maybe."

"Then light that god damn staff of yours so we can see."

Fred fumbled for his broken stick and the moment his hands enclosed on the leather it transformed into the staff, complete with the glowing stone at the top. He swung the stick around toward the shadow and his fear was so great that the whole cavern was illuminated. The youngsters blinked when they saw the shadow behind them was a statue of a bulky man with large bat wings and pointed ears. His feet were bare and showed off three toes with a high, pointed heel that stood off the floor a few inches. The hands were made of four clawed fingers, and He wore a long head of dark hair and a loincloth that wrapped around the front and back, and there were scars over the rough skin.

Fred frowned when a memory struck him. This magically-appearing statue looked very similar to the creatures he saw on the tapestries in the castle entrance hall and that in the fountain statue. While he pondered the significance, Pat glanced around and jumped into his arms. He nearly dropped the staff trying to hold her up. "What's wrong? It's only a statue," he reminded her.

She shook her head and nodded behind them. "It's not just one."

Fred slowly turned around and his staff showed him what it had allowed Pat to see. That there were dozens of statues nestled against the walls and spaces between the stalagmite. Many more stood on the balconies and looked down on them with their empty eyes. Each body was different than the last. Some were short and stocky, others tall and lean. Some had more wrinkles than others, but most looked to be about middle age. They wore ragged-looking clothes around their waists and, for the females, over their breasts.

The pair slowly squeezed against each other, and Pat wrapped her arms around Fred's. "I-I think I want to go back to the castle."

"I-I think that's a good idea," Fred agreed.

They backed up toward the tunnel and both of them bumped into the statue at the entrance. A large hand dropped down on their shoulders and the pair screamed. Fred's grip on the staff loosened enough that it reverted back into the broken stick, though he made sure not to drop it. They jumped free of the intruder and turned to face the statue, only it wasn't a statue any longer. The solid rock was now solid muscle, and red, glowing eyes glared at them. The creature took a step toward them and they scrambled back only to hear noises behind them. They swung around and watched as the other statutes broke apart and the thin stone covering shattered to the ground to reveal more of the winged creatures. The things stared back at the pair with yellow, green, red and golden-colored eyes, but none dared move toward them except the one that stood in their path of escape.

Pat clutched onto Fred, who clutched onto his staff with one arm wrapped around the girl. He heard footsteps and whipped his head around to find the large creature closer to them. "S-stay away. I'm warning you."

The creature straightened up and scowled at him. When it spoke its voice was like smooth gravel. "What are you doing here, human?" Fred blinked; the creature could talk. It could also get mad, which is what happened when he didn't immediately answer. "What are you doing here?" it repeated in a louder voice. The words echoed off the cavern walls.

"We, um, we just want to get through to see the fireworks," Fred replied.

The large thing wrinkled its nose, and opened its mouth to speak, but they heard something scrabble across the rocks. A smaller one of the creatures popped up over the top of a stalagmite, and its shining eyes lay atop a wide smile. From its physical aspects it appeared to be a girl not much younger than Pat. "Fireworks? Those pretty lights in the sky?"

"Get back!" barked the larger one. She whimpered and slid back behind the rock. He glared again at the pair. "This is our domain, and punishment for trespass is death."

While Fred cringed Pat bristled at the threat. She pushed off him and stomped up to the large creature. "How dare you threaten us! What right do you have to be beneath the castle, hiding like some common thief?"

The creature stiffened and his eyes narrowed. "Common thieves? We have a greater, more ancient right to be here than you humans. You are the ones who came here and asked for our help, and when we most trusted you you betrayed that trust."