Bewi and the Lagaru

Maximilian and Alexandra walked for two more hours. There was no change in the ghostly gray light that cloaked the Lands Below in perpetual dusk. Maximilian's Danger Alarm jangled a few times when they approached tumbled piles of rocks or dark crevices that seemed to go deep, deep into the earth, and each time, they took a wide detour, though they never saw the source of the alarm's warning.

Alexandra was a little more careful to look around when they sat down, during their periodic rests, just in case the corn maidens' line about snakes and scorpions had also been literal.

The Lands Below had seemed almost lifeless at first, but gradually they began to notice other things besides lichen and mushrooms. They crossed black streams that were lined with dark green weeds, and walked warily around another large pool of water that had plants that looked like lily pads floating on it, though the 'flowers' on the pads were grotesque, worm-like things. They walked through clouds of black flies, which Maximilian banished with a Vermin Repelling Charm. Sometimes, things skittered and slithered out of their path, or they caught movement out of the corner of their eye. They heard flapping noises overhead, too. Alexandra looked up each time, hoping it was Charlie, and worrying about what else could be up there.

“Just bats,” Maximilian assured her, after the sixth or seventh time something unseen flapped overhead.

“Nothing down here is what it seems,” she repeated. Why had she sent Charlie away? It was impossible to know the time of day – there was no 'day' – but she knew they had been walking for a long time, and she was very tired.

Maximilian looked at a pocket watch in his coat pocket, and announced, “Let's stop for the night.”

She nodded, looking at the sky. How far would Charlie fly before returning? How long?

They encountered another underground stream, this one wide enough that they used their brooms to cross it. On the other side, they found a mostly flat stretch of packed gray clay, on a slight rise surrounded by the sort of small rocky hills that dominated this landscape. They had seen some ghostly white fish swimming in the stream, but Alexandra had no desire to try to catch or eat them. Instead, Maximilian handed her a can with a plain blue and white wrapper around it. She frowned at the label: 'Magically-Ready Meal,' below the Regimental Officer Corps crest and the Confederation seal.

Maximilian popped open his can. He pulled out several long strips of jerky, a tied bundle of dried vegetables, and a cookie, then poured the can over a bowl, and some sort of corn mush spilled out, steaming hot.

Alexandra's tiny can produced a small bag of dried apple slices, two chicken drumsticks, hot though a little desiccated in appearance, a small piece of chocolate, and, when she dumped the rest of her can into a bowl, a lump of mashed potatoes.

“You can live indefinitely on MRMs,” said Maximilian. “Get used to them.”

Alexandra wrinkled her nose, and nodded. They ate in silence, while the only other noise was the faint sound of water running sluggishly in the stream downhill, and occasional flapping overhead. Maximilian finished his meal, and carefully tucked away the can, then unrolled a green tent. Alexandra thought she'd seen tents like that in the JROC Headquarters storage room; it looked awfully small for two people to share. Maximilian erected it with a wave of his wand, then circled their campsite casting protective charms and wards.

When he held the flap open, though, and bade her enter, she poked her head in and gasped in surprise. The interior was larger than the room she shared with Anna back at Charmbridge, and contained bunk beds for eight people, chests and cushions, a small commode, and even a writing desk with a lamp.

“Awesome,” she murmured, and entered the tent. Maximilian followed.

Alexandra slept fitfully. She woke up several times and listened for noises, but nothing disturbed the air outside their tent that she could hear. When it was finally 'morning' (according to Maximilian's alarm clock), she rose quickly, and put her clothes back on, behind the curtain that Maximilian had conjured to hang as a barrier between his side of the tent and hers. The commode was a definite improvement over using Defodio to dig a hole behind a rock.

“Wait!” Maximilian ordered, as he was pulling on his boots, but she was already darting out of the tent and looking around.

It was the same dismal gray landscape as before. And Charlie was nowhere to be seen. Her shoulders slumped. Maximilian stormed out of the tent, angry and ready to yell at her, but he paused when he saw her morose, worried expression.

“Charlie will be fine,” he reassured her. “If anything can find its way around the Lands Below, it's a raven.”

She nodded, not feeling at all reassured.

His hand fell on her shoulder, and he squeezed it, half in affection, half in anger. “Don't run off like that!” he warned.

“I only stepped outside. There's nothing here.” She looked up, and caught his angry expression, the suppressed fury in his eyes. Her brother was trying very hard not to erupt at her, she realized.

“I won't do it again,” she promised.

He looked at her for another moment, and then his hand relaxed. “Let's see if that stream is fit to bathe in,” he said.

The water running through this vast subterranean realm appeared to be quite clean, in fact, though Alexandra knew a Muggle scientist would say there was no telling what sort of bacteria or other bad things might be in it. The pale white, blob-like fish squiggled away from them, and after setting his Danger Alarm down, and casting several charms on and around the stream, Maximilian satisfied himself that they would not be pounced on by underwater panthers or other creatures if they entered the water. He told Alexandra to bathe first, while he stood guard.

She undressed, feeling a little exposed surrounded by the vast, empty landscape and an impenetrable darkness overhead, and stepped into the stream. She clenched her teeth, and told Maximilian, “It's freezing cold!”

“What did you expect?” he laughed. He was standing with his back to the stream, his wand at the ready.

Shivering, she forced herself to the deepest part of the stream, which barely came up to her waist, and knelt to submerge herself quickly in the cold, black water. It was good to wash the sweat and grime of the previous day off, but she jumped back ashore as quickly as she could. She considered trying to cast Exaresco on herself, but she didn't want Maximilian to lecture her again about using unfamiliar spells. She settled for drying herself as thoroughly as she could with a small towel, and then dressed.

Next she stood guard as Maximilian took his turn bathing in the stream.

“Charlie's really helpful as a lookout,” she muttered, with her back to him.

“Charlie will come back, Alexandra.” She heard him take a breath, and then there was a splash as he dunked himself. “Merlin, that is cold!” he sputtered, as he emerged.

She caught motion in the corner of her eye, and turned her head, just a little.

She thought she might catch something darting under a rock, but nothing was moving at all. Then she saw what her eyes had passed over at first, and she gasped, “Max!”

A dozen yards away, where another smooth, igneous rock formation rose alongside a bend in the stream, a woman was crouching, with her hands pressed against the rocks on either side of her. Her eyes were fixed on Maximilian.

She started when Alexandra saw her and called out, and for a moment, she stared directly back at her. Then, brazenly, she turned her head again to look at Maximilian, who had stood straight up, as Alexandra could see in her peripheral vision.

The woman only moved when Alexandra and Maximilian both pointed their wands at her. Then she stood and darted behind the rock formation, in a flash.

“Wait!” Maximilian called, as he scrambled towards the edge of the stream where his clothes were, but she was gone.

“That was creepy,” Alexandra commented, still watching where the woman had been lurking, as Maximilian got dressed. “Should we chase her?”

“No.” Maximilian shook his head. “Stay alert. We don't know who – or what – she might have been.” He pulled on his clothes without bothering to dry himself, and they ate and packed quickly.

They resumed walking across the gray landscape. It gradually became more of a grayish-brown, as they descended into a long, stony gully that zigzagged and branched into other chasms whose walls reached ten or twenty feet up. They seemed to have entered a region that was made up of a vast network of giant cracks in the ground. Maximilian took out his Lost Traveler's Compass and made sure Alexandra still knew how to command the needle to direct them back the way they'd come. Unfortunately, it could show them nothing else – its ability to display distance, direction, and relative location were all useless in the Lands Below.

Occasionally, they would use their brooms to rise out of boxed canyons or ravines that narrowed and became impassable on foot, but Maximilian insisted on walking the rest of the time.

“Distance and time aren't the same here,” he reminded her.

“Blisters are,” she grumbled. Her feet were beginning to hurt.

More bothersome than blisters was the occasional, but increasingly frequent, buzzing of Maximilian's Danger Alarm. Sometimes it was a snake, or a scorpion – they did live here, scuttling and slithering among the rocks, and some of them were big. Once they passed a cave, recessed into the wall of the chasm they were hiking through, about six feet off the ground, and the alarm rang loudly, as they saw a pair of yellow eyes gleaming back in the darkness. Maximilian hurried Alexandra along, as both of them held their wands at the ready, but whatever was lurking in the cave didn't emerge. The alarm stopped its noise, for a few minutes, once the cave was out of sight.

Sometimes the alarm would ring for no apparent reason, and they would both try to look in all directions at once. Yet nothing jumped out at them, and nothing chased them. Alexandra did occasionally get the feeling that they were being followed, though, and when she finally admitted this to Maximilian, he nodded and admitted that he felt it, too.

They stopped now and then, to drink water or eat another Magically-Ready Meal. Alexandra spoke little, increasingly worried about Charlie.

Distance and time aren't the same here, she thought. But her earlier feeling, that Charlie was meant to go and come back to them, increasingly struck her as stupid and foolish. She'd only sent her familiar away to starve or be killed in an alien landscape. She didn't admit to her brother how worried she was, but he sensed her mood, and he spoke to her a little more gently, when he spoke at all.

Maximilian finally decided to risk taking his broom up into the air, to get a better look at their surroundings. He descended quickly, chased by a swarm of bats that only dispersed when he and Alexandra sent jets of flame shooting out of their wands.

“Aggressive as heck,” he commented, and then closed his mouth when he saw the look on Alexandra's face, as she imagined Charlie being set upon by a swarm of bats.

“There's a river in that direction.” He pointed. “And these infernal cracks and gullies end where it flows. I saw what looks like a large underground lake, and flatter lands around it, so the hiking should be easier tomorrow.”

Two days, Alexandra thought. Tomorrow would be Sunday, back at Charmbridge. Assuming they returned after spending the same time away that they spent down here. If they didn't find the Generous Ones tomorrow, then Alexandra and Maximilian would be missing class. She laughed strangely, in a way that made Maximilian ask if she was all right.

She just nodded, and helped him set up the tent at a juncture where two long, relatively straight crevices in the ground met, after they inspected the immediate area and found nothing more threatening than a nest of lobster-sized scorpions that fled from a Vermin Repelling Charm. Alexandra was disturbed to see that the scorpions had flat faces with eyes, mouths, and noses, rather than bug-like features.

While Maximilian cast more wards all around their tent, Alexandra asked if they could light a torch or create a magical light that would help Charlie find them. He refused, but he allowed her to sit outside the tent after they ate. He came out and joined her, and they sat together quietly, after she declined his invitation to play Exploding Snap or chess. Alexandra stared off into the 'sky,' and the purplish black 'horizon,' wondering if it was even real. Her eyelids began to droop, and she kept nodding off. Her head would bump against Maximilian's shoulder and she would wake up, and try to stay awake again, maintaining her vigil for Charlie. She was a little surprised that Maximilian didn't start scolding her, or order her to go back into the tent and go to sleep.

She didn't notice when she fell asleep for the last time, and Maximilian carried her into the tent. She woke up a long time later, and realized she was lying on her cot, with Maximilian breathing softly on the other side of the tent. He had taken off her boots and her cloak, but had not undressed her further. She lay there for a while, and then closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

She was a little stiff when she awoke in the wrinkly clothes she'd slept in. She sat up, stretched and yawned, and then jumped to her feet. Maximilian was not in the tent, and she heard voices outside.

Alexandra stumbled out of the tent, still pulling on her boots. Her brother was a few yards away, and her mouth opened in surprise when she saw that he was talking to a strange woman – the same woman they had seen spying on them the day before!

The stranger had brown skin that was only a little lighter than her long, dark hair, and a beautiful face, with remarkably large, brown eyes, and a long, sloped nose. She was wearing a beaded blouse and skirt, both made of animal skins. She didn't even look in Alexandra's direction, but was staring intently at Maximilian, with a curious smile that Alexandra found disturbing.

Alexandra noticed that Maximilian was holding his wand at his side. And from his pack, she could hear his Danger Alarm ringing.

“Who is this?” she demanded aloud, drawing her wand and pointing it at the stranger.

The woman leaped backward, as she took notice of Alexandra for the first time.

“Wait, please!” Maximilian pleaded, holding up his empty hand, as the woman began backing rapidly towards the nearest ravine. “We mean you no harm.”

“You have noticed your Danger Alarm is ringing, right?” Alexandra asked, still pointing her wand at the stranger, who had paused in her backward retreat.

“It's been ringing pretty much continuously since yesterday. Bewi says there are Lagaru all around us.”

“Bewi?” Somehow, Alexandra found the mysterious woman more worrisome than 'Lagaru,' whatever they were.

The woman's head jerked back and forth as Maximilian and Alexandra spoke, but her expression when she looked at Alexandra was decidedly unfriendly.

“Bewi, this is my sister, Alexandra.” Maximilian's voice became sharp. “She's young and lacking in manners.”

Alexandra stared at Bewi, who returned her hostile stare with one of her own.

Maximilian cleared his throat. “Alex!” he hissed.

Reluctantly, Alexandra lowered her wand.

Bewi immediately turned her attention back to Maximilian, and smiled. He looked a little bedazzled. Alexandra was fascinated – Bewi's features were striking, and her eyes had a captivating quality.

“You must be very brave, to travel alone through the Lands Below,” Bewi purred.

“He's not alone,” Alexandra interrupted.

“We are looking for those who rule here,” Maximilian told her.

“Rule?” Bewi arched an eyebrow, as if she didn't quite understand the concept.

“We're looking for the Generous Ones,” Alexandra announced.

Maximilian took a deep breath, as Bewi's gaze flickered in Alexandra's direction again.

“It is dangerous to seek the Generous Ones,” the woman said slowly, looking back at Maximilian. She smiled, and sashayed closer to him. Her blouse hung rather loosely on her, and Alexandra could see that she wasn't wearing anything underneath it. Maximilian licked his lips nervously as she fixed her eyes on him and approached, but he didn't back away.

Alexandra pulled open her brother's pack, and held up the buzzing Danger Alarm.

“Turn that off, Alex!” Maximilian snapped. “It doesn't do us much good to know there's danger nearby when it's all around us constantly.”

Alexandra slapped the bell on the alarm, silencing it, and watched suspiciously as Bewi laid a hand on Maximilian's chest. She couldn't tell for certain, from where she was standing, but it looked as if the strange woman were giving him a nice view down the front of her blouse.

“Such a handsome man you are,” Bewi said softly, leaning towards him.

“Er, thank you.” Maximilian put his hand on hers, and gently pulled it away from his chest.

“He's sixteen,” Alexandra said.

Bewi didn't look at her this time, but Alexandra saw her eyes flash for a second, before she spoke again. “Little Sister is troublesome and has an irritating voice.”

“She is very troublesome,” Maximilian agreed.

“Little Sister can hear you, you know,” Alexandra said.

“Why are you burdened with her? Traveling with her must be a great trial.” Bewi extracted her hand from his.

Maximilian smiled. “You have no idea.”

“Really. I'm standing right here,” said Alexandra.

Bewi was sidling up against Maximilian again. He looked uncomfortable, but seemed unsure what to do about it.

“Why don't you... send her away?” Bewi whispered, leaning closer.

“I can still hear you.” Alexandra was nearly as fascinated as she was appalled by Bewi, but she knew there was something very wrong about this woman.

“Where would I send her?” Maximilian asked. He was subtly shifting away from her, but the beautiful, disturbing woman continued clinging to him, and her lips were almost brushing his ear.

“Send her to fetch water,” Bewi breathed.

“You're kidding, right?” Appalled was winning. Alexandra was itching to hex her. “Hello? How about asking her why she's been stalking us?”

“Alex!” Maximilian snapped, as Bewi seemed intent on embracing him. His hands closed on the woman's wrists, holding her at bay. “Go fetch water!”

“What?” Alexandra gasped, in disbelief.

Bewi turned her head towards Alexandra, and her eyes flashed in triumph.

“Remember what I told you!” he barked. “Do as I say!”

“I – you – Fetch water? Are you serious?” Her face turned red with indignation, and she shot daggers at Bewi with her eyes. The doe-eyed beauty was already ignoring her; all of her attention was focused on Maximilian again.

Somehow, Maximilian's words penetrated her outrage. He and Bewi were talking – or rather, he was talking, while Bewi was trying to whisper breathily in his ear, and pawing at him in a way that would make the amorous, PDA-flaunting teenagers at Charmbridge blush. Alexandra clenched her jaw, picked up her broom, and stomped noisily off down the nearest trench branching away from their campsite. As soon as she passed a rock outcropping, she dashed behind it and crouched there, then peeked her head around to spy on her brother and Bewi.

“Why did you not follow me?” Bewi was saying to Maximilian, in a low, throaty voice. She was practically trying to wrap herself around him, or so it seemed to Alexandra.

“I... I didn't know what you wanted,” Maximilian stammered. “And my sister was with me. Who are your people, Bewi?”

Their voices became lower, and Alexandra could no longer hear what they were saying. Maximilian seemed to be trying to converse, while Bewi was relentlessly... Alexandra didn't think 'flirting' was even the word. She was actually rather impressed that Maximilian seemed to be resisting the woman's charms.

Bewi was starting to look annoyed and frustrated, too.

Something skittered behind Alexandra, and she spun around, wand extended. She didn't see anything. She looked at the rocks carefully, and scanned the mini-canyon behind her, and the rocky cliffs lining it.

“Am I not a comely maiden?” Bewi's voice rose a little, sounding both seductive and a trifle impatient. Alexandra, still crouched with her back against the rock that hid her from the couple, turned her head and leaned around it again to peek at them, while still holding her wand pointed in the direction from which she'd heard the sound.

“You are very comely.” Maximilian had cupped Bewi's face in his hands. Alexandra's face screwed up in a grimace. Had they been kissing?

Maximilian was murmuring something to her, but Bewi didn't seem satisfied. Her hand moved somewhere that made Maximilian jump and Alexandra gasp in outrage. Then another noise snapped her head around to stare at the base of the cliff behind her, perhaps twenty feet away. She saw what might have been a little puff of dust, as if something had been disturbed there, like from a pebble falling from above. Her eyes traveled up the rocky face of the short cliff, to the top of the ravine. Fifteen feet up, she could see the edge of the cliff, against the dark grayish-purple that marked the perpetual twilight layer between the floor and the ceiling of the Lands Below.

One could walk up on those cliff tops, looking down at the cracks and fissures and trenches through which Alexandra and Maximilian had been hiking, but staying up there would require being capable of flight, or making prodigious leaps with the sure-footedness of a mountain goat.

Alexandra looked over her shoulder again. Maximilian seemed to be trying to fend off Bewi now. She looked back at the cliff top, and suddenly there were a dozen heads looking over the edge at her.

From where she sat, the faces now staring down at her looked soft and fuzzy. They were white and brown and gray. She saw long ears and bright red eyes.

They were rabbits. Very large rabbits.

Kind of cute, Alexandra thought. She smiled at them.

They all smiled back, baring bloody red mouths full of vicious, needle-sharp teeth.

“MAX!” she screamed, springing to her feet. The fuzzy bunny-heads rose as she did, and she saw many more of them, crowding along the entire length of the ledge overlooking this little part of the trench they were in. Each fuzzy head was attached to a fuzzy body that stood on two legs, and some of them were holding sticks, spears, and other weapons.

She came around the rock outcropping, broom in one hand, wand in the other, and saw Bewi screaming in frustration and anger. Maximilian pushed her away, and the woman lifted her skirt.

It took a split-second for Alexandra to register what she was seeing, because it was so wrong. Bewi's legs were the hairy hindquarters of a deer. Alexandra didn't even have time to shout another warning, before one of those powerful, hooved legs kicked out, and caught Maximilian in the chest. He grunted and went flying.

Alexandra hurled a hex at her, but Bewi had already turned to face her, and jumped aside easily, with a step that covered ten feet in a single bound. Her next step brought her ten feet closer to Alexandra, eyes enormous and crazed as her hooves struck the ground. Bewi was a rather small woman, barely taller than Alexandra, but with one more step, she'd be close enough to kick the girl's head off.

Alexandra conjured a Choking Cloud between them, directly in Bewi's path. The deer-woman shrieked and leapt straight into the air. When she landed, Alexandra yelled, “Tarantallegra!”

Bewi screamed in outrage as her legs began kicking and jerking about uncontrollably. Alexandra dashed past her and ran to where Maximilian had fallen. He had a visible hoof-shaped indentation in his chest.

“Max!” she cried out.

“Ow,” he groaned. “That hurt.”

“We need to get out of here now! Bewi is a crazy psycho deer-woman and we're surrounded by killer rabbits!”

He looked at her, dazed, as if she'd been babbling in a foreign tongue. She supposed, given what she'd just said, that she may as well have been.

“Get up!” she screamed, as she saw a horde of small, furry creatures leaping off the cliffs, landing easily on the ground, and hippity-hopping towards them with spears and bows and blowguns. She tried to jerk Maximilian to his feet, but he was too heavy.

“Protego!” she shouted, and her Shield Charm stopped a volley of arrows and darts that came whizzing at them. She yelled, “Defodio!” and caused part of the nearest cliff to collapse, dumping several rabbit-people off the edge and dropping rocks and dirt on those below, and then dashed over to where Maximilian's broom and pack lay. She picked them up and ran back to him. He was struggling to sit up, and he had already scattered some of their attackers with jets of flame from his wand.

As Alexandra returned to his side, he began conjuring snakes by hissing, “Serpensortia!” Large angry serpents went shooting from his wand and landed around them, hissing and rattling, causing the rabbit-people to gnash their teeth and jump out of reach. But more were rushing at them, from all directions.

Alexandra thrust her hand into his backpack, hoping to find Homing Stars or some other weapon. She withdrew a handful of smelly, hard, brown clods, wrapped in bright red paper, with fuses sticking out of them. Grimacing, she pulled every string and flung them in all directions.

“Broom. Get on it!” she commanded, as the dungbombs went off. Maximilian nodded and grabbed his broom.

The rabbits ducked and cringed as flaming brown chunks blew past them, scorching the fur of those who were too close and soiling the rest. Alexandra and Maximilian didn't escape the rain of dung either.

More rabbit-people were surging in their direction. The snakes were speared or shot up with arrows. Alexandra saw Bewi still spinning and leaping about like a deadly, out-of-control ballerina. The rabbits scattered away from her, wherever she landed.

Alexandra tossed more hexes and Maximilian cast a Shield Charm as the two of them lifted off on their brooms. She was holding onto her brother's backpack; it wasn't as light as it looked when he was carrying it. Their tent was still sitting where they'd left it, and was already being trampled by the fuzzy horde.

Maximilian looked a little dizzy, and Alexandra veered close to him, afraid he might tumble off his broom, but he managed to hold on as they ascended away from the ground. An arrow went through his cloak, missing him. A dart bounced off of Alexandra's broomstick. More projectiles came flying at them. A few stones struck her, but without much force. From high above, they could see that there were hundreds of rabbit-people now, dancing and hopping about.

“Lagaru,” Maximilian groaned.

“Bats!” Alexandra exclaimed.

“No, I think the Lagaru are the rabbit-”

“Bats!” she shouted, as a cloud of chittering, screeching bats descended on them. They both leaned forward, diving away from the winged swarm. The underground lake Maximilian had spoken of earlier stretched before them, and next to it, a dusty gray plain dotted with rocks and plants that might have been a sort of cactus. Maximilian still looked half-stunned, so Alexandra led this time, veering away from the black lake and towards the flatland beyond the labyrinthine network of trenches and ravines that stretched out behind them, as far as the eye could see. The swarm of bats pursued them, and more kept descending from the cavernous air above, but when they went closer to the ground, the creatures seemed to lose interest, and after a while, the last few stragglers flapping after them fell behind.

They landed at last. Alexandra didn't know how far they'd come, but she didn't think the rabbit-people could catch up to them immediately. Now they were surrounded by what looked like an underground clay desert. The plants she'd initially thought were cacti turned out to be stunted trees. Nothing about this environment made sense. She wondered if Magical Ecology taught anything about the Lands Below. She shook her head, and looked at Maximilian. He slid off his broom and sat down, breathing heavily.

She knelt next to him, and opened his pack. “You should take off your shirt,” she ordered, looking for Bruise-Healing Paste and Fudd's Grow-All, hoping that Bewi's kick hadn't actually broken any bones. “What the heck were you thinking? What happened to 'Nothing is what it seems, and everything will try to kill us'?”

“You forgot, 'Be polite to everyone we meet.'”

“Even people who might turn out to be crazy half-human monsters who want to kill us?”

“Especially people who might turn out to be crazy half-human monsters who want to kill us.”

He pulled off his cloak, unbuttoned his jacket, and pulled his shirt up. In the center of his chest was a large, angry red and purple bruise, swelling and spreading even as Alexandra examined it.

“You think it might have cracked the bone?” she asked.

“I'd better drink a little Fudd's just in case.” He grimaced. Alexandra remembered how awful that stuff tasted, and how much it hurt as the bones mended.

She began spreading some of the Bruise-Healing Paste on his bare chest with her fingertips. “I'd be the envy of half the girls at Charmbridge right now,” she joked, as she tried to cover all of his discolored skin with the paste.

“Half, huh?” He took a swallow from the bottle of Fudd's Grow-All. He hacked and coughed.

“The other half are lusting after Martin.” She shook her head. “Why did you play along with Bewi? I mean, it was totally obvious she was nuts. You weren't really planning to... you know, do anything with her...?”

“Of course not!” Maximilian wiped his mouth, with a look of disgust. “But I wanted to find out what she was about.”

“I thought it was pretty obvious what she was about,” Alexandra muttered.

“She knew about the Generous Ones, and the Lagaru. I could have gotten her to tell me more.”

“With your incredible powers of seduction? Before or after she got your clothes off and then stomped you to death and fed you to a bunch of killer rabbits?”

“Enough, Alex.” He winced as she started pressing Healing Patches on his chest for good measure. He pushed her hands away and yanked his shirt down. “Don't use up all the patches. I'll try a spell to finish the job.”

She looked around, at their surroundings, while he waved a wand over himself and muttered one of the basic first aid charms they'd learned in JROC. Although it did look like it would be easier hiking now, there was still no indication of which way to go.

“You sent me away,” she complained. “That was really stupid.”

He smiled. “As if I thought you'd actually go anywhere. You kept a lookout, as I wanted you to.”

“Bewi probably led the Lagaru to us.”

“Probably.”

“So did you learn anything?”

Maximilian stood up, hissing as he took a deep breath. “Yes. I'll never eat venison again.”

Alexandra looked at her brother with concern, but he patted her on the shoulder, leaning on her a little.

“You stink,” she commented, flicking a piece of burnt dung off of his sleeve.

“You don't exactly smell like roses.”

She grimaced, and ran a hand through her hair. No, she could definitely use a bath herself. “Which way now?”

The excitement of the last hour had made her forget about Charlie, but now she was reminded of their situation: lost, wandering aimlessly, and with her familiar possibly gone forever. And now Maximilian was injured, and they had no tent. And they smelled like manure. She began to feel the same sense of gloom that had weighed her down the previous day depressing her again.

And as if summoned by her thoughts, they heard a caw, resounding clearly across the somber gray landscape.

Alexandra looked up, and cried out with glee. Flying just a little higher than the highest of the stunted trees surrounding them, a familiar black raven was winging its way towards them, with no sign of bats in pursuit.

“Charlie!” Alexandra dropped her broom and held out her hands.

“Alexandra!” Charlie's wings spread and almost covered her face as the raven dropped something in her outstretched hands, and then settled on her right arm, talons gripping her sleeve. Alexandra pulled the raven to her breast and wrapped her other arm around her familiar, nuzzling the bird's head with her cheek. She felt hot tears spilling from her eyes, and tried not to look at Maximilian.

“You came back,” she whispered.

“Alexandra,” Charlie cooed.

Charlie seemed a little scrawnier than when she'd sent the bird off. “Are you hungry, Charlie?” As the raven clacked and squawked emphatically, she dug into her pockets and fed the raven the last of her owl treats.

Maximilian, after waiting patiently through Alexandra's reunion with her familiar, inquired, “What's that?”

Alexandra finally looked at the object Charlie had dropped into her hands. She sat down, letting Charlie remain balanced on her right arm, and examined it.

“A bone?” Maximilian frowned, for it did indeed appear to be a bone – smooth, polished, and white, about six inches long. Its shape was just a little bit irregular. Alexandra couldn't guess what sort of being the bone had come from, or what part of the body,

She held it up for closer inspection, and realized it wasn't just a bone. “It's a flute!”

The bone had been hollowed out from end to end, and there were holes drilled along its length; four in all. A few grooves were carved into it; they appeared purely decorative, though they made no pattern she could discern.

It was a strange, primitive work of art. She looked into the black eyes of her raven, who said nothing, and then at the bone flute again. She lifted it to her mouth.

“Alex!” Maximilian's sharp voice made Charlie squawk and flutter to her shoulder. Alexandra paused.

Maximilian gave her a weary, exasperated look. “Just out of curiosity,” he asked mildly, “did any thought at all go through your head before you decided to stick that thing in your mouth and blow on it? Like the possibility that a bone flute from Merlin-knows-where might be cursed?”

She glared at him. “Charlie wouldn't bring me something cursed.”

“Yes, I can see how you'd trust Charlie's judgment. Ravens have such discriminating taste in bones and shiny things.”

Charlie screeched. Alexandra petted the raven, and glowered at her brother.

“I doubt Charlie just found it lying around. Why would the Generous Ones send us a cursed gift?”

Maximilian looked annoyed, but she held up the flute and kept talking. “I sent Charlie to bring back a gift. Here it is. So what do you think we should do with it? Oh, I know – let's put it in your pack, to bring back as a souvenir. Then we can just keep walking in a random direction and hope we find someone else helpful to tell us where to go, like Bewi.”

Her brother's eyes flashed dangerously, but Alexandra held his gaze, while Charlie sat quietly on her shoulder.

“At least let me check it for curses,” he said at last.

“Be my guest.” She handed it to him.

He held up his wand, and began running through all the spells he knew to detect Dark magic, as well as examining it through a lens he took out of his backpack, and even poured a few drops from a potion vial on the bone flute.

“Can't detect any curses or other Dark magic,” he admitted, finally. “But that doesn't mean there aren't any.” He looked at Alexandra, and suddenly brought it to his lips.

“No!” she yelled. She lunged and snatched it out of his hand.

He tried to snatch it back. Charlie cawed angrily as Alexandra held the flute away from her brother. He reached past her, nearly knocked her down, and then loomed over her, while she held her arm extended behind her, trying to keep the flute out of his reach. His arms were longer, but before he could seize the flute again, Charlie flew at his face, cawing and clawing, and Maximilian staggered back, covering his face with his hands to fend off the raven. “Argh! Damn it!”

“Charlie!” Alexandra snapped her fingers.

“Jerk!” Charlie responded, and returned to her shoulder. Maximilian looked furious. She was afraid he might use his wand on the raven, and she hastily stepped in front of him, turning to put herself between him and the bird.

“Charlie brought the flute to me,” she said. “If there's any danger, it's my risk to take.”

He shook his head, but she continued speaking, in a softer tone. “If something happens to me, you might be able to save me. What will I do if something happens to you?”

He paused, looking frustrated and helpless.

“You don't really have any better ideas, do you?” she asked quietly.

He made a face, then slowly shook his head.

She nodded, and brought the flute to her lips, holding it with both hands now. She took a breath and blew.

She had never played any sort of musical instrument. She put her fingers over a couple of holes, and a long, melancholy note came out of the flute. She moved her fingers, covering one hole and uncovering another, and the flute continued to issue a haunting, eerie sound. She closed her eyes, doing her best to produce something resembling a melody, but it was all clumsy, atonal noise.

After a minute of this, she had produced only a sequence of random notes. She lowered the flute, disappointed. She would almost rather have been struck by a curse – at least then, they'd have known that there was a point to all this fuss.

She opened her eyes and looked at her brother, but he was looking over her shoulder.

“Alex,” he said, in a tight voice.

She turned around, and realized they were no longer standing on the flat desert plain. They were on top of a mountain.

The sky overhead was the same endless darkness, and in every direction, the horizon was the same murky, purple haze. She knew they were still in the Lands Below, though it couldn't be anywhere within sight of where they had been. There were other reddish brown mountains and canyons and rocky spires surrounding them, and far, far down, at the base of these barren, unnaturally angular mountains, were caverns, yawning like entrances into even deeper realms.

Behind Maximilian was a precipice that could send either of them tumbling to their deaths with a careless step. But behind Alexandra, ringing them in a semi-circle on the mountain top, were at least twenty small, half-naked creatures with wrinkled skin like brown paper, and large, bulbous eyes. Their chests and arms were bare, for the most part, though a few had animal skin vests, or necklaces of feathers and bone beads, crystals and gems, or long furry tails. They wore strips of fur and leather as loincloths, and a few wore thick sandals, though most were barefoot. Some held carved wooden sticks – Alexandra might have called them 'wands,' except they didn't really look like wizards' wands. She saw one with a pair of what appeared to be rabbit skulls, hanging from his waist.

“Greetings,” Maximilian said, speaking slowly. “I am Maximilian King.” He opened his hands, and nodded towards Alexandra. “This is my sister, Alexandra Quick. We come in peace.”

The small humanoids all regarded them silently, blinking one by one. Then one of them replied: “Greetings, Maximilian King and Alexandra Quick.” His voice sounded dry and papery, like his skin. “I am Tiow. We are the Generous Ones.”

The Generous Ones, Alexandra thought, looked very much like elves.

Tiow smiled, eyes gleaming. “You accepted our gift.” The Generous One nodded solemnly towards Alexandra, who was still holding the bone flute. “So, you must also accept our hospitality.”