Uncle Press smiled and said, “No, you don’t.” Then he took off running.
I hesitated a moment because, well, I was scared. But I also had to think about what Uncle Press just said. Sure, if I had gone to that basketball game I wouldn’t be lying here facing certain death. But that’s not where my head went. This is going to be hard to explain because I’m not really sure I understand it myself, but as dire as the situation was, it somehow felt right. Believe me, it’s not like I was having fun or anything. Far from it. But when I took a few seconds to do a gut check, I got the strange feeling that this was the right place, no, theonly place for me to be. What was that Traveler motto? “This is the way it was meant to be.” Okay, stupid motto, but it really felt to me as if this is the way it was meant to be. I don’t mean to make this sound any more dramatic than it was, but the word that came to my mind right then was “destiny.” Maybe this was my destiny. Now I could only hope that I’d get the chance to play a basketball game again sometime. But that wouldn’t happen if I didn’t get moving. So I jumped up and ran to do my part of the plan.
As I ran along the top of the stadium, I wasn’t worried about getting caught because all eyes were focused on Rellin. It must have been amazing for the Bedoowan people to see this Milago miner addressing their queen. It was a spectacle that never would have happened if Mallos hadn’t orchestrated it. I guess that’s the kind of thing Uncle Press was talking about when he said that Mallos never did any of his own dirty work. He said how Mallos would influence others to do it for him. Well, Rellin was definitely about to do some dirty work, courtesy of Mallos.
“People of Denduron,” Rellin continued. “I come before you today with a gift that is more valuable than you can imagine.”
It seemed as if Rellin was indeed about to give a speech. That was good. Hopefully he was long-winded because I had no idea how much time it would take to pull off my plan.
“My gift is more valuable than the glaze you see before you,” he bellowed. “It is more valuable than all the glaze that has ever been taken from the mines. It is the gift of a wonderful future, and it is forall the good people of Denduron to share.”
Was this guy dramatic or what? Well, why not? He wasn’t planning on being around long enough to hear any bad reviews. This was his moment in the spotlight. Keep going Rellin, I thought, make it good and long.
As I ran I saw that Loor and Uncle Press had already managed to pull off the first part of their jobs. They had each snuck up on a Bedoowan knight from behind, whacked them and taken their armor. They needed to wear the armor so they could make their way down to the stadium field without being noticed. That’s why I gave them the jobs I did. There was no way I was going to knock out a knight and steal his armor. And even if by some miracle I was able to do that, I was too small. If I put on the armor I’d look like a little kid wearing his daddy’s clothes.
No, I had another job and I knew exactly where I had to go. It was only yesterday that I had been there. At the time I swore never to go near the place again but here I was, headed right back. It only took me a few minutes to get there. I was pretty fast, so running three hundred yards was nothing. But as I approached my destination I had a moment’s hesitation. I thought that maybe if I ran fast enough and far enough, I could survive the blast from the tak bomb. But that thought lasted only about a nanosecond. There was no way I was going to bail on the plan.
At this point it wasn’t even the bomb I was afraid of. That’s because I had arrived at my destination: the horrible hole that looked down into the dark depths of the quig pens.
Yup, if my plan was going to work, I was going to have to climb down there and make my way to the stadium through a minefield of hungry quigs. And I didn’t have my trusty whistle to protect me either. This could hurt. I stood on the edge of the hole trying to get the nerve to climb down. The rope ladder was in a heap at the bottom of the hole, right where it had fallen yesterday. But the thick rope that Loor had climbed to make her escape was still hanging there. That was my ticket down. I had to stop worrying and kick myself into gear because Rellin could hit that button at any second. So I grabbed the rope, swung my legs over, and slid down the rope into the pit of hell.
When I got to the bottom the first thing that hit me was the smell. It was as nasty as I had remembered it. Then I realized I had landed in a puddle of some kind of thick brown goo. I realized what it was and I nearly barfed. It was a congealed pool of blood from the quig that Uncle Press had skewered. I fought back the rising puke and quickly looked around. The injured quig wasn’t there. Maybe it was dead. Better still, maybe it had been eaten by the other quigs. Can you believe this was the way my mind was working now?
My next goal was to get to the door that led to the stadium as fast as possible. I couldn’t sneak quietly through the quig pen. No, I had to beat feet and get there fast, so I took off running in the direction I remembered traveling the day before. The run through the quig pen was terrifying. As I rounded each turn in the labyrinth, I kept expecting to see a monster quig waiting there with its mouth open, ready for dinner. My adrenaline was pumping so hard I don’t think I could have walked slowly and cautiously if I’d wanted to. I should have been exhausted by now, but I wasn’t. Fear will do that. If a quig didn’t get me, then the bomb would. I wasn’t sure which would be more painful. My guess is that the bomb would be quicker. But I forced those morbid thoughts away because the goal was to stay alive, not choose the least painful way to die.
After a few more turns I saw the door to the stadium. I had made it! Believe me, I never thought I’d get this far. I ran to the huge door and put my ear to it. I could hear Rellin still giving his speech. That was good. But there was another sound I wanted to hear as well. The job I had given to Loor was to get down to the stadium floor and unlock the door. That wouldn’t be easy because as soon as she started to lift the heavy latch, somebody would certainly see her and try to stop her. Timing was everything. If she opened the door too soon, my plan would fail. If she opened it too late, my plan would fail. There was a small window of opportunity and it was getting close.
I listened again, and that’s when I heard it. Two quick raps on the door. That was the signal. Loor had made it and was standing outside. Excellent! Now she had to wait for my signal before opening the door. Of course she had no way of knowing if I was on the other side or not. For all she knew I was being munched on by a quig who had a surprise treat fall into its lap. Still, I knew it didn’t matter. She would stand there until I signaled for her to open the door, or the bomb blew up. Whichever came first.
Now came the hardest part of all. Talk about gut-check time. Everything that I had done up to this point was easy compared to what I had to do next. I looked around for something to help me and found a metal shield that one of the Bedoowan knights had dropped yesterday before he became quig food. I needed something else, too. I hoped to find one of the knight’s spears, but for some reason they were gone. Time was running out, I had to move faster. I looked around again and saw the perfect thing. It turned my stomach to use it, but I couldn’t let my squeamish belly stop me from doing what I had to do. So I picked it up. It was a leg bone. A human leg bone. As disgusting as it was, it was exactly what I needed. At least this one didn’t still have the foot attached. I fought back my disgust, took a few steps back into the cavern, and rang the dinner bell.