Beyond the Valley of Thorns Read online

  There is a secret cave in the Dark Hills, beyond anyplace you can see from Bridewell. Within this cave there is something you must retrieve, something very important and very special. This something is for you alone, Alexa, and you must find it. I have taken the liberty of including a letter for your father. Leave it for him, and he won’t follow after you. This is a secret journey that he can have no part in. He is aware of certain facts, certain situations, and you can be sure he will understand why you must go into the Dark Hills.

  Off with you now. Go!

  Warvold

  Beneath the words was an intricate map. The map led to an entrance I knew nothing of, but beneath the entrance on the map was a squiggly double line clearly marking the place I was to go: Dark Hills Caves, Secret Far East Chamber.

  I looked up at Yipes, and though I should have been feeling a sense of dread, instead I felt an overwhelming joy at the prospect of adventure. From the grave, Warvold was calling me to do something unexpected and scary, but in my heart I felt as though I’d anticipated just such a development. A big grin spread across my face.

  “Yipes, this is incredible,” I said. “Will you go with me?”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he replied.

  I could tell he was just as excited as I was at the prospect of what we might find in the Dark Hills.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE SECRET CAVE

  I ventured back to my room and packed my leather bag with everything I could think of that I might need. On the way back to the library I stopped in the kitchen. It was midmorning and the cooks were taking their break in the smoking room. I went to the large pantry and hoarded all the dried meats and fruits my bag would hold.

  When I returned to the library, Grayson was back in his office, mending an especially large book. I peeked in, knowing I couldn’t avoid him on my way back to my chair. He turned away from his work and looked up at me.

  “Off on a journey, are we?” he said, seeing the bag over my shoulder.

  “Just some snacks and books for an afternoon of reading and strolling around town.”

  “Ahhh. Sounds wonderful. I only wish I could join you. The mending on this book is past due and Silas is scheduled to take it to Ainsworth tonight. I’m afraid I’ll be slumped over my desk for some time yet.” He turned back to his work and shifted in his chair, his big stomach rubbing against the desk. I was relieved — what if he’d wanted to come with me?

  “Happy reading to you,” he said, and then I walked away toward the back of the library.

  When I arrived back at the chair it was just as I’d left it — back in place, with the secret door shut tight behind it. Yipes was nowhere to be seen, and I began to think again that I’d imagined everything.

  I pulled the letter for my father out of my bag and set it on the chair. Then I heard the quiet knocking once more.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  This time I knew it was Yipes, waiting for me on the ladder in the tunnel. I went about the grueling business of pulling the chair out again, and there he was, dangling from the ladder, hiding in case Grayson came to find me. Yipes moved down on the ladder, and I stepped inside, the cool earthen air refreshing on my skin. I took one last look into the library and shut the secret door behind me.

  It was darker than I remembered it, the light from the lantern only a faint glow against the smothering blackness all around us. I felt like a tiny firefly, caught all alone in the depths of the night.

  “We need to be very quiet,” whispered Yipes. “No telling if one of the guards is doing rounds within the tunnels.”

  I nodded in agreement and we descended to the dirt floor in silence. Yipes led the way as we walked along the tunnel, the light dangling in his tiny hand, shadows thrown along the walls. We walked for some time, twisting and turning into places I’d never been before. As we came upon a sharp turn to the right, Yipes stopped, turned back, and crouched down. Then he blew out the light, and we sat motionless against the tunnel wall.

  “What is it?” I whispered. I couldn’t see Yipes in the dark, and he made no reply. He only touched my shoulder, moved his hand along my face, and put his fingers over my mouth. A moment later I saw light dancing on the wall, coming from a distance and moving toward us.

  My instincts told me to run back before the guard discovered us, but Yipes held me down at my shoulder, as if to tell me we should stay perfectly still. The light came closer, until it was almost on top of us, and I heard the footsteps approaching.

  I was fighting the urge to get up and escape as Yipes continued to hold me there, breathless, against the wall. Just about the time I expected to see the guard come around the corner, the light from his lamp began to diminish, and his footsteps became harder to hear, until finally it was all darkness and quiet again.

  “Where did he go?” I whispered.

  “Another tunnel shoots off to the right, just around the corner. I’ve been watching the guards as they make their way through the tunnels, and they always turn there, then double back and come this way. We’ve got only a moment to get across before he returns.”

  We stood up in the dark and felt along the wall. I followed Yipes as we turned the corner and made our way past the opening where light was moving down the tunnel the guard had entered. Near blind, I stumbled over a rock on the ground, letting out a small gasp as Yipes steadied me and pulled me along more quickly.

  “Who’s there?” yelled the guard, footsteps sounding toward us.

  Yipes hurried me along the floor in the dark, then turned to the left.

  “Show yourself!” the guard commanded. But then he went past where we had turned, continuing on in the wrong direction. With the careful silence of cats, Yipes and I moved far enough ahead in our own direction that I began to feel we’d lost the guard in the maze of tunnels.

  “That was close,” Yipes said, after a time. “But we’re almost there now. Just hold my hand — I know the way in the dark.”

  A few twists and turns later, Yipes stopped and let go of my hand. I couldn’t tell where he was, and then a shaft of light appeared near the floor. Yipes had removed the boards from the wall, and with the light from the opening, I found I could see the dimly lit space around me. We had entered a room, surrounded by wood planks on the walls. It looked as though it might have once been sleeping quarters for the escaped convicts who’d hidden in the tunnels before the walls had come down.

  “In you go, then,” said Yipes. “It’s a tight fit, but it’s not far to the surface.”

  Once again, Yipes was pushing me forward. Sometimes it seemed that forward was the only direction he knew. He’d already pushed me through tunnels and forests. Now he was clearly determined to lead me forward beyond those earlier adventures. He was my friend and I trusted him, so I followed. I moved in front of Yipes and looked into the hole, then I put my arms in front of me as if I were about to dive into a pool of water. It was truly a challenge to move once I was inside, but I managed to slowly inch my way along until my head popped out aboveground in the bright, hot sunlight.

  Yipes followed and we found ourselves out in the Dark Hills, the walls of Bridewell standing closer than I’d hoped in the distance. But we were hidden by the thick underbrush, which formed something like a tunnel above the ground, leading away from Bridewell, deeper into the wild.

  “That guard might have gone back to bring help,” Yipes warned. “They’ll be looking for trouble, so we’d best move quickly.”

  We turned and walked as fast as we could down the hidden pathway. It was hot and cramped as we went, winding our way farther and farther into territory I’d never dreamed I’d be brave enough to venture into. After a long while, Yipes stopped where the pathway split in three directions.

  “This is it. This is where the map begins,” he said.

  I took the map from my bag and laid it flat on the ground. There was indeed a fork on the map with three pathways leading in different directions. The map indicated that we should take the middl
e fork and follow it until we met with a giant stone somewhere down the way. It was there that we would find an open space and the entrance to the secret cave.

  “We’re not too far off, maybe a mile,” said Yipes. “Let’s get on with it. No telling what we’ll find when we get there.”

  About a half hour later we emerged from the confines of the brush, into lands that were more rocky and desolate. We were in a long, skinny ravine, the ground gnarled with deep green brush and sharp, dead trees. It was a dim and gloomy atmosphere. Everything was brittle and hard underfoot. Large, colorless boulders spotted the landscape in every direction.

  I sat on the warm ground and spread the map out before me.

  “There are rocks all around this place,” I said. “But that one is definitely the biggest.”

  I pointed to a large stone mass protruding from the ground in front of us. It was red and brown and shaped like an enormous nose poking out of the earth.

  I wiped my forehead, dripping with sweat, and drank a bit of water from my wineskin. We walked around the rock and the thick brush, looking for an entrance to the cave or a sign that one existed. White cotton clouds crept over the sun, and shadows filled the ravine.

  Yipes scampered up the rock and stood at the very tip of the nose. He seemed to be thinking about the way things looked around him, measuring the dead trees and the brush to see if they were where they ought to be. A moment later he bounded across the rock and jumped down to the ground a few feet across from me.

  When he landed it didn’t sound like I’d expected it to. I anticipated a hard, solid thud, but instead I heard a hollow emptiness beneath the dirt, as if very little was holding Yipes up. He jumped up and landed on the dirt again, and I had the uneasy feeling that all was not right with this patch of earth. Yipes jumped again and again as he moved away from the rock, and eventually he landed on ground that sounded more like it ought to.

  He turned around and faced the rock, crouching down on his knees. At the same time, we both saw with some surprise a small piece of crudely twisted rope, half buried in the dirt. Yipes picked it up and looked at it, then turned and faced me, holding the rope out in his hand.

  “You do the honors,” he said.

  I grabbed the rope and pulled, throwing a dirt-covered wooden door up into the air, bugs and spiders scurrying around its underbelly. A gust of cool, dank air rose from the black hole beneath.

  CHAPTER 4

  JOHN CHRISTOPHER

  Yipes and I sat down and let our feet dangle into the hole; the air, though musty, felt refreshing. I ran my hands along the sides of the opening, where the earth was hard. The lower I felt, the cooler the wall became. I let my feet and arms dangle down into the opening for a moment longer, then I felt a spider crawling along my fingers and quickly jerked all my limbs back into the heat of the ravine.

  “There’s not much choice,” said Yipes. “We’re going to have to go down in there, and the sooner we do it, the better. At least it won’t be as hot as it is out here.”

  There was no ladder along any of the sides, and though the light poured into the hole, I could not be sure if I was seeing the floor of the tunnel or not. At first I thought the bottom was only seven or eight feet down, a distance I could manage if I jumped in. But then my eyes began to play tricks on me. I wiped the sweat from my face and dropped a rock the size of my fist into the opening while I watched and listened. To my relief it landed quickly and within sight, its gray mass outlined in the shadows less than ten feet below. Yipes jumped first and seemed to have no problem whatsoever with the landing. This gave me the courage I needed to do the same, and though my landing sent me careening across the floor on my hands and knees, we’d made it safely into the secret cave.

  I picked up the rock I had tossed into the hole, thinking it might suit me as a weapon should the need arise. The tunnel went in one direction only, and the ceiling was lower than I’d hoped, so low that I had to stoop to manage it. Six steps into this new underground world left me in near-total darkness with Yipes close behind. Something small, probably a field mouse, scurried at my feet as I pushed cobwebs away with my hand. Without thinking, I felt for the dirt ceiling above. As I’d moved along, the tunnel had widened and risen in height, and I realized that I was able to stand upright in the chilly air. In front of me I saw what I expected to see behind me: the light from the opening, looking more like a faraway lamp than light pouring in from outside. I felt along the cold earthen wall and turned back in the other direction. It wasn’t until then that I realized the spot we’d gotten ourselves into.

  Down the expanse of the tunnel there was a round spot of light — the opening we had come through. I turned and looked again in the direction we were moving and saw the far-off light that looked like a flickering lamp. Then I heard a loud bang off in the distance and turned to see that the round spot of light had disappeared. Someone or something had closed us in.

  “That’s an unfortunate development,” said Yipes.

  “We don’t have any choice now,” I said. “Whatever Warvold wanted us to find is down here somewhere. I just hope it doesn’t have claws and sharp teeth.”

  A small furry creature brushed against my ankle and I yelped, hopping off the ground, bumping my head against the ceiling, and showering myself with crumbling earth.

  “There’s something in here with us, Yipes. Something at my feet.”

  “It’s probably just a field mouse or a rat,” he replied. “I wouldn’t worry too much until you feel a nibble on your toes.”

  I brushed myself off, then continued walking in the direction of the flickering light, slowly inching my way along in the darkness, my hands held out to gather the cobwebs and feel for obstacles in my path.

  “Hello?” I said quietly. “Anyone there?”

  “I’m here,” Yipes teased.

  I smiled in the darkness and asked out loud if anyone besides Yipes was there, but no one answered.

  Ten feet away were three wide candles nestled close together on a large stone table. A shadow darted across the wall and my breath was caught in my throat. I leaned flat against the right side of the tunnel and remained still, the cold of the wall gripping the back of my neck. Again I felt the scuffle on my ankle as something moved over my sandals. This time the light from the candles illuminated the floor just enough to make out shapes, and I saw the silhouette of a large rat walking across my left foot. I screamed and kicked the beastly thing across the tunnel. It crashed into the wall with a thud, then scuttled off out of sight.

  “Well, come on, then, we haven’t got all day. Lots to do and a short time to do it in.”

  It was a voice I didn’t recognize, deep but friendly, coming from somewhere up ahead. Yipes was the first to answer.

  “Who are you? What are you doing down here?”

  There was a long silence, and then the voice answered.

  “My name is John Christopher. Warvold asked me to be here when you arrived. And if that doesn’t comfort you, maybe another friend of yours will.” The voice was quiet for a moment, and then it spoke again. “That poor beast you’ve been kicking back and forth in the dark is a rodent that’s been driving me half out of my mind down here for hours. He won’t stop running around and flitting all over the cave. I believe you both know Murphy.”

  I came out into the open, and the squirrel ran across the cave in front of me, then leaped into my arms.

  “Murphy!” I cried. “What a splendid surprise!”

  Yipes walked the rest of the way into the light, and I followed, running my hand over Murphy’s soft fur as I went. We found ourselves in a small underground chamber, softly lit by the three large candles.

  “It is awfully good to see you again,” I whispered to Murphy. “If only I had a Jocasta so we could talk to one another.”

  “You should get used to stumbling around in the dark,” said John. “There will be much of that in the coming days.” Candlelight flickered across his face, the glow just enough to make out his bright
eyes and the shape of his face. He was a tall man, thin but powerful, and to my surprise he had the letter C branded on his forehead. He was a former convict, and I was suddenly very uncomfortable in the confines of the cave.

  “I see you’ve noticed my forehead,” said John. “That’s good. We might just as well get that out in the open before we do anything more.”

  I set Murphy down and tapped him on the head, then he scampered a few steps and leaped onto the stone table in the middle of the room. His big furry tail twitched up and down nervously, casting erratic shadows across the walls.

  “Murphy!” Yipes cried. “Calm down, will you? You’ll give us all a headache.” Murphy moved away from the candles, did a backflip, and caught his long tail between two front paws on the way down. He continued to shake and move about nervously, his big black eyes bulging comically, a silly look on his kind little face.

  “I don’t know what we are to do with him,” said John. “The poor thing can’t bring himself to sit still. Have you ever spied him sleeping? It’s more of the same, twitching and carrying on. I tell you, I don’t know how much longer I can stay down here with him. One day is enough to last me a lifetime.”

  Everyone looked at Murphy, and he sneezed three times in the course of five seconds, all the while trying not to let go of his tail and having quite a time of it. As Yipes tried to calm him down, John began speaking again.

  “Where were we?” asked John. “Oh, yes, this letter C on my forehead. It’s true I was once a convict in the service of Mr. Warvold. But he and I had a special relationship. I was what you might call a petty criminal. I only took what we absolutely needed to survive: a little bread here, a chicken there, the free lodging of a barn or a shed. Warvold saw in me someone he could put to some use, someone he could trust with an important, secret task. It is this task that we must turn our attention to now.”