The blades of the swords were no longer sharp. The heat of the fire she’d summoned had melted the weapons together, solidifying the bonds the demon had created with her magic. Grasping the bars with both hands, she tried to lift the cage, but its weight was beyond her strength. Stubbornly she tried again. And again.
Sweating with the effort now, Saturday fell back into the middle of the cage. She had defeated the lorelei, and in doing so had imprisoned herself even further.
Beneath her, the ground rumbled. Saturday had felt this sort of tremor before, on the day she’d broken the earth and called the ocean. The rumble came again.
As predicted, the mountain was waking up, and the dragon with it. And if she had truly fulfilled her destiny, then she could die now and would, here in this cage of her own making at the Top of the World.
“NO!” The screech Saturday let loose would have made the witch proud. She railed at the bars. She pulled and lifted and kicked and strained. She made up nonsense rhymes and cried them into the darkness, one after another, but the magic in the walls did not answer her. She screamed at the ceiling in fear and frustration, her shrieks turning to hysterical laughter at her predicament.
“I thought you’d killed the lorelei, but I could swear I still hear her.”
The voice that split the darkness was not Peregrine’s. “Betwixt?”
“To the rescue,” said the chimera. “Though to be fair, you rescued me first.”
In the blackness Saturday could not see what new form Betwixt had taken, but the sound of the bars creaking apart was a blessing in her ears. She stood to face the noise, and was subsequently embraced by a pair of very large and very fuzzy arms.
“My hero,” Saturday said into the musky fur of the chimera’s shoulder.
“My hero.” Betwixt returned the greeting. The mountain shivered and rocked. “We need to get out of here.”
“Do you have a light?”
“There’s no time,” said Betwixt.
“I’m naked,” said Saturday. “And unlike you, I can’t see in the dark.”
“Ah.” Saturday stood still while Betwixt rummaged in the dark. A bundle of cloth hit her in the midsection. “Put those on. I’ll see to a light.”
One of the items Betwixt had tossed her was a shirt. She quickly put it on. The other was a skirt, but she could not tell the top from the bottom. Eventually, she discovered a drawstring in the thing and pulled it tightly around her waist. Though she was covered in yards of cloth, she still felt naked, but there was little time to care. She heard flint strike steel and waited. And waited. Her ruined ear throbbed. She pushed her muddy hair over the ragged lump of flesh. The mountain bucked and chuckled at her predicament, tickling the dust between her toes.
She heard the unmistakable crack of a fingerstone before it plummeted to the floor behind her. It was nothing like the crack of the portal to the demon world the witch had almost made. Those inhuman cries would haunt her for a long time.
A spark burst into life, and within moments Saturday could see the torch. It was held by a hulking, ugly minotaur. Dark fur bristled over his wide chest and bare human feet. Dark horns sprouted from either side of his head. His well-muscled arms and legs radiated pure brute strength.
He was the most beautiful thing Saturday had ever seen.
Betwixt handed her the torch. “Let’s go.”
“Is Peregrine with you? Is he safe?”
“He’s fine. I’ll take you to him. But we must hurry.”
Saturday followed the chimera’s lead through the caves. Around them, boulders trembled and fingerstones fell. The blasted skirt continued to tangle in her legs, catch on protrusions, and trip her up. When the floor became too steep for her to climb and hold the torch and her skirt at once, Betwixt grabbed the back of her shirt and hauled her up the rest of the way.
Saturday’s torchlight fell on the walls of the small cave they had entered. “These rocks are unfamiliar to me.”
“Peregrine would not have brought you to this place. But this is the faster path. And I thought you should see this before it crumbles into legend.”
On every wall there was a picture of her. In shadows and colors Peregrine had captured her wide smile and bright eyes. There were axes and swords and trees and her, over and over again. “Peregrine did all this?”
“Yes.”
“When did he have the time?” As the words left her mouth, Saturday felt a fool for asking.
“He has been dreaming of you his whole life,” said Betwixt.
“He told me as much, but I never . . . I guess I never realized what that meant.”
“I thought you should know.”
Saturday touched the closest cave painting, wondering how it felt to love someone so completely, for so long. The sheer grandeur of his passion made her feel small. She wasn’t sure her own meager feelings would ever measure up to this obsession.
“Come,” said Betwixt, and in a heartbeat he had morphed into a lizard with batwings. Saturday followed him through a gap where the ceiling dipped low, tossing her torch to the other side before crawling under to retrieve it. Betwixt had changed back into the minotaur; he held the torch aloft to light her passage.
This chamber’s walls held no paintings, only hash marks. “Peregrine began marking his days here. Eventually he gave up.”
Betwixt blew softly on the torch, and the flame rose. With it, Saturday could see more marks, so many that they completely blackened the calcite, as far up as a human hand could climb or reach.
“How long has he been here?”
“Too long,” said Betwixt. He blew on the torch again, this time extinguishing it completely. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Saturday saw a glow coming from a hole in the space before them.
“It is a slide to the witch’s lair,” said Betwixt. “I will go first, so I can catch you when you fall.”
A shadow moved across the hole, and Saturday heard Betwixt’s mass barrel down it. She counted slowly to five, giving him a moment to land. The mountain groaned, and Saturday felt a blast of air from the aperture behind her as the back half of the cave collapsed.
She blew a kiss to the dark walls around her, crossed her arms over her chest, and jumped.
16
Wings of Ice and Stone
PEREGRINE HAD just crossed the moat outside the witch’s lair when a minotaur dropped from the sky. The beast landed well, but hard, and then turned his snout back up to the ceiling as if he were waiting for something. The mountain groaned.
“Betwixt! Is that you?”
“Yes, my friend.” The chimera’s gravelly voice came from deep inside his hefty bull chest.
“What about Saturday?” Peregrine lost his footing and fell backwards into the moat. The water was hot. The Earthfire was rising up the mountain to meet them.
“Close behind me,” said Betwixt. “The witch is dead.”
Peregrine considered the mountain’s revolt. “So we are free now? Truly free?”
“As free as any band of misfits trapped on top of the highest mountain in the world as it begins to crumble.”
A cascade of pebbles and dust fell from the hole onto the minotaur’s outstretched arms. He roared mightily. The mountain roared and shook in answer. Another shower of rocks fell and Saturday came immediately after. Betwixt caught the large bundle of blond hair and rags easily in his brawny arms.
Saturday smiled at the minotaur. “No one’s been able to catch me like that since I was a girl.”
“You still are a girl,” said Betwixt.
“We must go,” said Peregrine.