In the tunnel, Aidan and Gwenne could hear the howling winds of the Tempest churning up the Grimwalk above the opening.
They found themselves sliding on their rear ends and picking up speed. Gwenne was ahead of Aidan, and she was the first to exit the tunnel. She landed with a clumsy crash and looked up just as Aidan slammed into her.
They stood up awkwardly and looked around. They found they were in an underground chamber of some kind, lit dimly by several glowing streaks gouged into the ceiling. The chamber was circular and had other openings to tunnels all around.
Aidan was the first to notice they were not alone.
“Look!” he pointed. “Look, Gwenne, moonrascals!”
Gwenne did look, and huddled in several of the tunnel openings were little groups of white moonrascals. They stared at Aidan and Gwenne with their peculiar glowing eyes as if trying to decide if their uninvited guests were friends or foes. Then, one by one, the moonrascals scurried away up or down the various tunnels.
Aidan and Gwenne stood for a moment in awkward silence. The reality of what had just happened came crashing down on them. Aidan was the first to speak.
“Gwenne, the other knights, is there any chance? I mean . . . are they?”
“If anyone was caught in the Tempest, yes . . . they are gone,” Gwenne confirmed grimly.
Memories flashed through Aidan’s mind. During the time he’d spent with the knights, many had become his friends. Aidan felt as if his insides were being crushed.
“But if there is anyone besides the King of Alleble who could somehow lead the knights to safety, it would be the noble Captain Valithor.”
Aidan nodded. Valithor, Mallik, the twins—all gone in an instant.How could this happen? Aidan searched his heart for answers. There were none.
“What now?” Aidan asked. “Do we try to climb back up that tunnel?”
“I don’t think that will work,” Gwenne replied. “Those tunnels are slippery, and even if we could somehow climb, the Tempest has probably filled in the top of the tunnel with snow and debris.”
“What about these other tunnels? Are they blocked too? Are we trapped underground then?” Aidan asked, pointing frantically at the openings all around the chamber.
“Aidan, I know it’s hard,” Gwenne said. “But with King Eliam’s help, we will find a way. Most of the tunnels come out somewhere on the Grimwalk. It may be that they are not all blocked.”
“So, what if we do get back out on the Grimwalk? What’ll we do then?” Aidan asked pathetically. “Eleazar was supposed to meet with the King of Mithegard, but he’s gone. Captain Valithor too. I mean, it’s just the two of us. Are we just supposed to go back out there and plod our way to Mithegard without any help?”
“Thanks to that double-crossing, foul Glimpse Acsriot, the Grimwalk will probably be crawling with Paragor Knights,” Gwenne raged. “I know we are sworn to complete our mission, but I don’t see how—”
“Shhhh . . . I hear something,” Aidan whispered. There came a scratching sound from one of the tunnels. Aidan looked from opening to opening, and then he saw it! There was a glowing arrow on the inside of one of the tunnels.
Aidan had been on the verge of despair, but now there was something he could grab hold of, a thin strand of hope. “Look, Gwenne!” Aidan exclaimed excitedly. “The moonrascals are trying to help us! I bet that tunnel will lead us somewhere safe. Maybe even to Alleble!”
“Alleble is leagues away,” Gwenne argued. “And so close to Paragory, how do you know that those snowy moonrascals are not under a spell of the Prince? That tunnel could lead us right to the enemy’s front door!”
“Yeah, but what choice do we have?” Aidan said. “We can’t just stay here!”
Reluctantly, Gwenne agreed. She paused for a moment, looked thoughtful, and then said, “You have made quite a knight, after all, you know. With the Tempest bearing down on us, you could have made other decisions, and the disaster would be complete. When you pulled me off my unicorn and threw me into the tunnel, you . . . you saved my life.”
“C’mon,” Aidan said. “You’re acting like I did something brave. I was scared out of my wits when the Tempest came tearing through!”
“That is the very essence of bravery,” she said. “We all become frightened in the face of danger, but it is those few, like you, who act in spite of their fear—who are the heroes.”
Me? A hero? Aidan thought. If Mom and Dad . . . if Robby could see me now.
While Aidan was imagining sharing his adventures with Robby, Gwenne came close to him and kissed him on the cheek. All the thoughts in Aidan’s mind quickly turned to mush! He felt dizzy and short of breath, and the place on his cheek Gwenne had kissed felt warm and tingly.
“Sir Aidan,” Gwenne called, snapping Aidan out of the trance. “Shall we travel this tunnel?”
“Verily, we shall,” Aidan replied, trying to sound herolike.
The tunnels had been created by moonrascals for moonrascals—not humans. It was always night in those narrow passages, and the air was thin and foul-smelling. Aidan led the way, but he didn’t feel much like a leader. His heart raced the whole time, and he felt like he could barely breathe as he inched along the passage. It seemed like forever passed between each glowing arrow, but they always appeared.
Every once in a while the tunnel would split, and a glowing arrow would direct them left or right. The moonrascals were obviously leading them somewhere.
The tunnel had been level for several hours, but it gradually began to rise.
“We’re going up,” Aidan whispered back to Gwenne. “Maybe we’ll come out soon.”
“I hope so,” Gwenne replied. “My knees are aching rather fiercely!”
But they did not come out soon.
The tunnel curled, swerved, and banked. Occasionally, it would level out for a time, but it always began to rise again. Though their straining muscles suggested that they had been crawling for an eternity, Aidan and Gwenne had lost any real sense of time.
“How many arrows have there been?” Gwenne asked.
“I stopped counting,” Aidan admitted. “I think there were thirty-three when I stopped, but that was hours ago.”
More time passed, and Aidan simply fell over on his side.
“How can it keep going up like this?” Aidan asked, weariness in his voice.
“I do not understand it either,” Gwenne agreed. She fell to the side of the tunnel. “By my reckoning we should have come out by now. Though where we might come out, I have no idea. There have been so many turns, I have completely lost any sense of direction.”
After another couple of hours of climbing, Aidan felt a warm breath of wind sail through his hair. It was startling in the dark.
“Did you feel that?” he asked.
“Yes, we could be nearing the surface!” she replied excitedly.
They increased the speed of their climb, hoping to find an exit soon, but what they found was a large hole in the floor of the tunnel. It had glowing arrows all around it.
“Uh-oh,” Aidan muttered.
“What?” Gwenne asked, straining to see.
“There’s a hole with arrows around it. I think it’s a slide!”
“A slide? You mean . . . like the one in the hole when the Tempest was coming?” she asked.
“Yes, exactly. I think this is another one. And unless you want to crawl all the way back the way we came, it looks like this is the only way. The tunnel ends here.”
“There is no way we are going back,” Gwenne argued.
“I know, but I feel like we’re so high up . . .” Aidan was unsure. The warm breeze wafted up through the hole. What if the slide leads to some fiery dungeon in the pits of Paragory? he thought.
“Look, Sir Aidan,” Gwenne said as if reading his mind, “we need to go. We will die anyway if we stay in these dreaded tunnels any longer.” With that, Gwenne gave Aidan a surprisingly strong push, and he tumbled into the hole. Gwenne quickly eased herself over the edge, and just like that, they were gone.
SPEED! It was the only word Aidan could think about as he screamed headfirst down the tunnel slide. He had always enjoyed the power dive of a roller coaster, but this was ridiculous! It was almost straight down, and his hair whipped in his eyes as he struggled to see what was ahead. Aidan felt his cheeks stretching backward as he picked up even more velocity.
He tried to bring his hands up over his head in case he hit something, but the wind pressure kept his arms pinned to his sides. Besides, he thought, if I hit anything going this fast, it won’t matter one bit if I have my hands over my head.
Gwenne didn’t know it, but she was sliding only about twenty yards behind Aidan. She couldn’t hear Aidan screaming because the wind whistled in her ears as she sped down the slide.
They continued to plummet for several minutes, accelerating as they went, but suddenly, the slide began to bottom out. It curved at the bottom and then went back up.
Aidan’s stomach did flip-flops as he hit the bottom of the slide and jetted up the other side. He opened his eyes a crack and saw he was nearing a light—it was an opening. Yes! he thought. A way out!
But he was going too fast. What good would it do to escape the tunnel, only to slam into a rockface or a tree trunk at a hundred miles an hour? But there was nothing he could do.
With a yelp, Aidan launched from the tunnel like he had been shot out of a cannon. When he opened his eyes, he found himself sailing through the air far above the ground. He looked down and saw that his momentum was carrying him through the air over some rocky foothills and then over some trees. But slowly the speed from his launch started to wear off, and he began to arc downward.
That’s it! Aidan thought. I’m dead. I’m going to smash into a tree or splatter all over the ground somewhere!
He screamed as he looked ahead and saw the ground rising up to greet him. He closed his eyes and tried to curl into a ball just before impact.
Gwenne shot out of the tunnel feetfirst, so the only thing she could see as she flew was the sky. But she could feel herself starting to fall, and she, too, thought the end was near.
They hit the ground in different spots, fortunately, but rather than being smashed to bits on hard ground, they bounced and rolled on something purple and very springy. Aidan rolled a couple of times and flopped onto his back.
Relieved to be alive, Aidan stood up, wiped something sticky off of his face, and turned to look for Gwenne. She stood up about fifteen feet away. And she was laughing hysterically.
“What?!” Aidan yelled.
“You . . . you have . . .” She was laughing too hard to speak clearly. “You have moss hanging out of your nose!”
Turning bright red, Aidan swiped at his nose. Sure enough, there was plenty of purple moss up there! It was everywhere else too. The force of impact had jammed tons of the stuff into his hair, behind his ears, and all over his armor. Aidan shook his head, laughed, and let himself fall backward into the moss. It was good to be alive!
After cleaning themselves off, they climbed down from the huge mound of purple moss.
“The moonrascals’ tunnel must have taken us under the Prince’s Crown!” Gwenne announced, looking back at their exit from the tunnel. “Those tunnels are an incredible shortcut! Sir Aidan, do you know where we are?”
“Near Alleble, I hope?” Aidan answered.
“Nay, Sir Aidan. Apparently, the King of Alleble has decided that we must continue our quest without the other knights. Look over there, not five miles from here . . . Mithegard!”
Aidan looked in the direction Gwenne had pointed. Indeed, across the fields, dotted with mounds of that purple moss, was a beautiful city with seven towers. It was Mithegard—their destination!
