Chapter Fourteen: Pethochos

“So how did you two get in here?” Dana asked Ivria.
“There’s no time to talk about it,” Ivria replied hurriedly. “You have to get out of here!”
“She’s right,” Darien agreed. “You will get caught too if you are found down here.”
“But I can’t get out,” Dana insisted. “I can’t just leave you two here. And besides, I don’t even know how to get out.” A determined look came over her face. “I’m going to get you guys out of here.”
“How?!” Ivria and Darien replied in unison.
“I don’t know…yet.” Already Dana’s mind was forming a plan. “Do you have any weapons?”
“Hidden ones,” Ivria said, still confused. “I have a dagger.”
Darien spoke up. “And I have a vial of syliokene.”
Dana had not the slightest idea as to what that was, but if it was a weapon, she was fine with it. Then Ivria spoke up with the voice of reason.
“But even if we do have weapons, and know how to fight, Darien and I are both shackled and locked in cells. How are we going to get out?”
Frustrated, Dana sat down on the floor of the filthy dungeon, and rested her head on her hands, desperately thinking. When her head touched her hands, however, one of her fingers was placed behind her right ear. A warm, tingling sensation pulsated from her ear to the rest of her head. At the same moment, Ivria let out a small shriek, and Darien gasped.

***********

After walking through the tunnel for nearly an hour, Candace and Rainbow began to long to see the light of day. They had just finished telling Mason of their journey to Keenzendura. He listened with amazement.
“So… do you know how… and why we came here?” Candace asked him.
Mason shook his head. “Did you speak with Sapphire about it yet?” he asked.
“No,” Rainbow replied.
“I will question her about it the next time I see her,” he concluded.
The girls agreed. They soon rounded a bend, which came to a dead end. Mason lifted his arm, and looking up, the girls could see what looked like roots dangling down from the roof of the tunnel. Mason grasped the longest one. A sudden crack broke the silence and startled Rainbow and Candace. Dirt fell down on top of them, and all three of them lifted their arms to shield their faces. Sunlight streamed into the tunnel, blinding all three of them for several moments. When their eyes adjusted to the light, Rainbow and Candace gasped.
They were looking up into a vast cavern. It was lit by a single large crack on the ceiling, several hundred feet high, through which sunlight streamed. But the cavern was not half as amazing as what was in it.
When the tunnel first opened, the sounds of voices, laughter, and yells had filled the air. There was also the noise of swords ringing and clashing, and a noise the two girls did not recognize, a swooshing noise. A fortress, that seemed to be carved out of the cavern rock itself, rose up nearly touching the top. Around the entrance to the fortress, there were many people. Some were talking, some were “battling” with each other. Above the fortress, dragons with riders swooped and dove through the air in combat. The “swooshing” sound was that of the dragons’ enormous wings flapping through the air.
As Candace and Rainbow stared in fascination of the scene in front of them, Mason pulled himself out of the tunnel. They did not notice until he was until he called them.
“Rainbow, Candace, come.”
They snapped out of their trance and accepted his help out of the tunnel. Someone else ran over to help Mason pull them out.
“Hey, Buddy!”
Mason glanced back at the person who had greeted him. “Hi, Just. A little help?”
The two of them pulled Rainbow and Candace up and out of the tunnel. The girls brushed themselves off and then looked at the boy in front of them.
He was older than Mason, though not by much. Chain mail was his clothing, with a red and gold tunic draped over it. The figure of a heart with a key going through it was embroidered on the chest of his tunic. But his eyes were what caught the girls’ attention. They were a bright copper color, like a shiny new penny. He held in his hand a long wooden handle, and hanging from it on a chain was a mace with foot-long spikes jutting out of it. The mace hung close to the ground by his black, dusty boots. On his left hand sparkled a ring, not unlike Mason’s. The boy had glossy, short-cropped hair, which was, of course, black.
Mason turned to him. “This is Rainbow and Candace,” he said, gesturing towards each of them.
“Your name’s Rainbow?!” the boy blurted out.
“Yeeeees,” she replied.
“You mean, like a real rainbow?! Oh, by the way, my name’s Justice,” he answered back, laughing while he was talking. Justice made the girls, and Mason, feel happy and welcome at once.
“Come on,” Mason said, and the group began to walk toward the fortress.
“So, is your hair real?” Justice asked Rainbow, while touching it gingerly.
“Yes, it is.”
“Yours, too?” Justice asked Candace, touching her hair this time. She didn’t try to cover up her smile, or her laugh.
“Of course, it is!”
“On guard, Just!” A voice rang out as another boy ran up from behind and swung a sword at Justice. Rainbow gasped and Candace jumped, but Justice only laughed and ducked, swinging his mace at the other boy’s feet. The boy leapt over it, brought his sword down on the chain, and yanked the handle from Justice’s grasp. The whole “battle” lasted maybe fifteen seconds. Justice raised his hands in defeat, laughing. The other boy laughed as well.
“Once again, I win.”
“Not fair!” Justice complained. “You had the advantage of surprise, and you’re an elf!”
“Half-elf,” the boy corrected, grinning.
Mason joined in the conversation. “But still, a half-elf is far more powerful than a mere human.”
Justice smirked. “My point exactly.”
The two warriors who had just fought stuck their tongues out at each other. Mason shook his head.
“Come on, girls.”
The boy who had not yet been introduced bowed. “A thousand pardons, fair maidens, for being so impolite as to not introduce myself. They call me Griffin.”
“Who’s ‘they’” Justice muttered. No one answered him as the girls studied Griffin.
He was tall with fair, clear skin, and startling blue eyes. Pointed ears peeked out from behind his curly, black hair. Clothed in a light blue tunic that matched his eyes, with leather pants, a thick leather belt, and a pouch like Mason’s, he hardly looked as fierce as Justice. Yet Rainbow and Candace both got the sense that he was a very experienced warrior.
“And in case you were wondering,” his soft, yet mocking voice spoke up. “I am a year older than Justice. He is only sixteen.”
“Who cares?” Justice mumbled.
“I’m Rainbow,” she of that name said.
“And I’m Candace,” Candace said.
“Welcome, Lady Candace,” Griffin bowed to her. “Welcome, Lady Rainbow. Your names are sweet and melodious to mine ear.” The girl’s blushed involuntarily.
“Flatterer,” Mason breathed to Justice.
“Tell me about it,” Justice whispered back.
To Griffin, Mason said, “We are entering the fortress, care to come?”
“But of course,” Griffin cheerfully answered. He ran up to Rainbow and offered her his arm.
“Ummm, hi,” she awkwardly said, never having had someone do that before.
“M’lady,” he answered.
Since he and Griffin were rivals in everything, and not to be outdone, Justice spun around and offered his arm to Candace. She took it, and with a glance at Rainbow, they walked up to the fortress.