“Do you at least know where the tree is?” I asked Uli.
She cocked her head sideways. I wasn’t sure if she meant to tell me, or if she thought I was mad for asking her. “I do,” she whispered. “Though I am not supposed to know.”
Finally, some good news. Now all I had to do was get us free, avoid execution, and allow a questionably sane pixie girl to guide me to the tree. Piece of cake.
“I found it once,” she explained. “When I was younger. I was a very curious child. My mother called me her nosy one. Always into something. I’d heard stories of the tree and its great powers. I determined that I could not rest until I had found it. After I felt as though I’d searched everywhere, I found it in a very unlikely place. It wasn’t even guarded! So I went to it, and that’s when I saw the vision that got me into trouble, that made me…” She tugged on her tatty clothes.
“Made you what?”
“Made me a simpleton.”
“The tree made you go mad?”
“Not mad,” she snapped. “I have not gone mad.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. The tree showed you a vision?”
Her gaze left mine. She stared out through the bars. Slanted pools of light rested on the floor and shone over the sunken features of her face. She seemed older somehow, and sad. “I do not speak of it,” she whispered.
The tree had shown her a vision, and it had only cost her sanity. If I found the tree, would it do the same thing to me?
Best not to worry about it now, Bill Clinton offered.
“Uli, if we escape from here, could you take me to the tree?”
“Why do you wish to see it?”
“I need its magic.”
She drew back as if I’d thrown a snake in her face. “You cannot! It is forbidden. You will be killed for sure.”
That was nothing new. I had to get through to Uli. How could I make her understand how important this was? “I really don’t have a choice. There’s a little boy that I care for. His name is Jeremiah. He’s very sick and close to death. I need the pure magic so I can break through a wall and get to him. It’s so important that if I don’t rescue him, he’ll die. The rest of our world may die with him.”
“You speak the truth?”
“Yes.”
She sucked on her lip again as she mulled it over. “I will think on it.”
Her answer wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but it was a step in the right direction. I knew time worked against me. The longer I sat here, the longer Jeremiah had to wait. “Uli, Jeremiah is like a son to me. Do you have any children? Or brothers or sisters?”
“Ha!” She looked at me as if I were the mad one.
“Don’t you have a family?” I asked her.
“I have my mother and father. My brothers are dead. My parents found a husband for me once. He lived very far away and did not know of my condition.”
She spotted a bug on the floor. With dexterous fingers, she grabbed it and then stuffed it in her mouth. My stomach turned as she ground the bug between her teeth.
“A friend told me of this man who was to be my husband.”
She couldn’t keep her mouth shut while she chewed. I looked away.
“I learned that he’d had three wives, and all three were dead.”
“How did they die?
“He’d beaten them. I told my parents what I’d learned. They didn’t believe me. I was to marry this man who killed his wives, but—”
The blaring of a horn came in the distance. Under the tangle of stone roots, a flock of pixies darted through, flying so fast they became a blur. Uli sat up, staring through the bars with apprehension.
Another blast from the horn came, shaking the ground under our feet.
“No,” Uli said in a hushed voice.
“Is something wrong?” I asked. The blaring from the horn became insistent, so loud I had to cover my ears. A few pixies carrying spears flew past. A moment later, a beast emerged.
I’d never seen one except in books. They were called vexons. They were nasty creatures with long, serpentine heads, wings like a bat’s, and a forked, poison-tipped tail, yet it was their hides that made them so dangerous. I knew of no weapon that had pierced through vexon hide. Killing one of the creatures was nearly impossible.
Another beast emerged behind the first. My stomach dropped. The second beast was triple the size of the first. Thick, callused hide covered its body. Horns rimmed its head and tail. My mouth grew dry as it hovered above us, leering with yellow, hungry eyes.
“Yes,” Uli answered. “Something is very wrong.”
Chapter 35
Shouting came from above us as the warriors descended on the creatures. With only two beasts and a dozen warriors, I’d expected to see a slaughter. It was. Just not the kind I’d hoped for. The pixies didn’t have a chance.
A body landed next to us, thankfully still alive. Uli shouted at him. She screamed with a high piercing wail that I swear shattered my eardrums.
The warrior sat up, his eyes blinking slowly. It was then that I recognized him—my old friend who had locked me up.
“Let me out, Mochazon. Let me fight. You know I will fight!”
He pressed a hand to his forehead. “Uli,” he growled.
Yells erupted from the battle as the larger beast let out a roar and then spat poison at a warrior. Spitting poison. I had no idea they could do that.
“Let me fight!”
“You will not,” he said.
“I will kill those beasts. Let me free!”
“You are safer in there.”
“I don’t want to be safe.”
He scowled as he crawled onto his hands and knees. “You are only trying to run off. You probably called the beasts yourself so you could make your escape.”
“No, Mochazon!”
He held a hand to his chest where he’d been
