it was more than that. They were happy. Happy to be in this place called Sanctuary—that seemed like a happier (almost dreamlike) version of the Forest of Giant Trees. Happy to be right here, where all their memories seemed more present, and all that they remembered seemed more real and more fully remembered, but which at the same time seemed to be somehow charmed, as if this place called Sanctuary, whatever it really was, if anything at all (to echo the words of Aneht), was a larger existence within which everything else existed and that this place was controlling it all.
It was as if all was well—not that it would be well, but was well; and well not just here, but well elsewhere, too! And well inside them, with each able to feel and think the same thing, and actually feel and think the other feeling and thinking! Elli recalled what Childheart said about being in Bairnmoor in better times, and whether that wasn’t what this right now was all about: where here, too, Beatríz and Elli could not only think and feel the other’s thoughts and feelings, but also feel the other feeling and think the other thinking, as well as having the same thoughts and feelings that they seemed to be somehow sharing with everything else in Sanctuary!
And yet, they knew implicitly, even if in fact they were not at that point actually feeling it, that here they could still feel sad—and angry, and scared—and more genuinely so than ever before; and yet it would also be more bearable, as if here in Sanctuary a delicate loveliness coated every feeling and thought, regardless of what it was.
The three of them walked hand-in-hand among the trees for a short while, turned sharply, and then were gone.
~five~
There was no more fight in either Alex or Jamie. They had struck with their knives a multitude of times “in the will of the Good,” and had killed or critically injured dozens of Wolfmen and Unpersons, but they had lost the battle’s endgame. No amount of will, be it their own or even the will of the Good, could marshal enough strength in their bodies to strike once more, and they were now surrounded. They stood, arms and weapons to their sides, waiting for the onslaught that would send them into oblivion in this world called Bairnmoor—and into nonexistence in their own. The loud creatures, dancing in vile relish, closed in with weapons raised, and the boys bowed their heads to receive the blows.
Instead, they felt the sharp claws of several Wolfmen grabbing their limbs and hoisting them atop the shoulders of other Wolfmen, not even bothering to disarm their passive captives. Far from feeling any degree of relief Jamie and Alex shuddered at the thought of what was likely to ensue once they had been delivered to Santanya. The battle for Taralina’s castle still raged in the distance, and the boys wondered how many of their party remained to fight. Among them was not Thorn; they didn’t know what had happened to him, but they knew he was down—and either dead or critically wounded, and if wounded also likely captured. Thorn had fallen swiftly to the enemy when he stumbled carrying the girls; fortunately, but to no known end and with little to kindle hope, Alex and Jamie had seen Childheart appear, out of nowhere it seemed, and rescue the girls from an imminent assault or capture.
As the Wolfmen scurried with their captives across the battlefield southeast toward Santanya’s castle, Alex and Jamie grimaced from the stabbing pains of the claws piercing their skin—and made all the more torturous from the jolting by the heavy-footed stomping of their captors. The fighting at Taralina’s castle was now a faint din; about three hundred yards ahead the drawbridge across the swift river surrounding Santanya’s castle was being lowered.
Suddenly, a roaring, like that from a thousand lions riled in caverns deep below ground and racing toward the surface, caused the earth to shake and the enemy forces to quake and stumble, many falling into or on top of one another. As the ground shook and shifted more violently, it split open in the middle of the battlefield, producing wide cracks and deep crevices that traveled with the speed of cracking glass toward the enemy forces carrying Alex and Jamie.
In the enemy’s panicked scramble to outrace the splitting of the earth that threatened to swallow them, and looking like staggering drunks, the Wolfmen, who had only moments earlier swept Jamie and Alex into their arms, abruptly dropped them, sending the two boys tumbling harshly to their fate on to the devouring ground. They fell hard, and in their delirium lay involuntarily still—but only for the briefest of moments. For the earth near the boys cracked open, the quaking causing Alex and Jamie to tumble into a wide, shallow depression, where, toward the middle, they rolled to a stop at the edge of a deep crevice, the boys looking lifeless.
When the earth had finally stopped shaking, the Wolfmen and others had vanished, leaving behind their dead and the chilling moans of their injured whom they had abandoned. Clouds drifted in all directions overhead, casting pale shadows that flitted fitfully among the detritus of concluded battle. Alex regained consciousness and stirred looking for Jamie, whom he discovered only several feet away. Alex crawled on his stomach over to his friend and shook him gently for a minute until Jamie too became conscious. Jamie stared into Alex’s eyes. “Where are we?” he asked drowsily.
“I don’t know, Jamie. But we ah in a hoe—and thew is anothuh hoe wight behind you.”
Jamie turned over, saw the yawning crevice only several feet away and abruptly sat up, scooting himself away from the edge. Together they sat, looking all about them and not speaking. Alex spoke first. “I wiw go wook,” he said, pointing toward the rim of the depression some six feet above their heads and about fifteen feet away.
“Okay, but stay on your belly, Alex, and just peak a little bit above the edge,” replied Jamie, rubbing his eyes and feeling his wounds. Alex returned a minute later. “What did you see, Alex?”
“You go wook, too, Jamie. What should we do?” Alex whispered, staring at Jamie searchingly.
When Jamie had returned from his own brief reconnaissance, he said, “I didn’t see anyone at all; did you?”
“No,” replied Alex.
“Well, we are only about three hundred yards from the castle, and I suspect now that it’s quiet they’ll be searching for us soon. Can you run for it, Alex?”
“Yes, Jamie, but wheyuh ah we going to wun to?”
“Left of the castle, to the river behind it. Maybe there we can crawl away along the riverbank—if there is a riverbank—down below, on the other side of the castle. Anyway, I don’t know what else we can do,” concluded Jamie.
“But, Jamie, thew is that hoe,” Alex replied, motioning toward the crevice. “Maybe it goes to the wivuh.” Jamie saw that the crevice did indeed extend beyond the rim of the depression and out of sight—in the direction of the river and left of the castle.
“I don’t know how deep it is Alex, or how we’ll climb out at the end of it, but,” he said, and then paused. “But it’s probably better than being in the wide-open where they’ll almost certainly see us.”
The boys slid down into the crevice, the top of which was just above their heads, and began the slow, arduous trek in the loose dirt and sliding stones, wondering how close the opening in the earth would take them to the river, if close at all—and where the river would take them, and whether it would provide a way of escape. They continued on in this fashion for half an hour when the crack turned sharply left, winding a path in a direction away from the river. They debated briefly whether to climb out at that point or continue on, and decided to keep following the narrow trough, at least for a while. Soon the crevice deepened considerably, taking them thirty feet below the surface, but at the same time snaked to the right and back toward the river.
Half an hour later they heard a couple of indecipherable voices far above them; they stopped and waited, not daring
