He turned and examined the wall of the tunnel.
As my vision cleared and my teeth stopped chattering quite so violently, I took stock of our sanctuary. At our feet, the river continued to roar, fierce and loud. Downstream, the channel shrank until there was no headroom at all—meaning Grr-Fred had pulled us to safety just in time if we wanted to keep breathing. Our ledge was wide enough for us all to sit on, barely, but the ceiling was so low even Grr-Fred had to stoop a little.
Other than the river, I saw no way out—just the blank rock wall Grr-Fred was staring at.
“Is there a secret passage?” I asked him.
He scowled like I was not worth the strip of sponge jerky he’d given me. “No passage yet, crust-dweller.”
He cracked his knuckles, wriggled his fingers, and began to dig. Under his bare hands, the rock crumbled into lightweight chunks like meringue, which Grr-Fred scooped away and tossed in the river. Within minutes, he had cleared twenty cubic feet of stone as easily as a mortal might pull clothes from a closet. And he kept digging.
I picked up a piece of debris, wondering if it was still brittle. I squeezed it and promptly cut my finger.
Meg pointed to my half-eaten jerky. “You going to finish that?”
I’d been planning to save the jerky for later—in case I got hungry, required extra strength, or got a bad attack of pimples—but Meg looked so ravenous I handed it over.
I spent the next few minutes emptying the water from my ukulele, my quivers, and my shoes as Grr-Fred continued to dig.
At last, a cloud of dust billowed from his excavation hole. The trog grunted with satisfaction. He stepped out, revealing a passage now five feet deep, opening into a different cavern.
“Hurry,” he said. “I will seal the tunnel behind us. If we are lucky, that will be enough to throw the tauri off our scent for a while.”
Our luck held. Enjoy that sentence, dear reader, because I don’t get to use it often. As we picked our way through the next cavern, I kept glancing back at the wall Grr-Fred had sealed, waiting for a herd of wet evil red cows to bust through, but none did.
Grr-Fred led us upward through a winding maze of tunnels until at last we emerged in a brickwork corridor where the air smelled much worse, like city sewage.
Grr-Fred sniffed in disapproval. “Human territory.”
I was so relieved I could have hugged a sewer rat. “Which way to daylight?”
Grr-Fred bared his teeth. “Do not use that language with me.”
“What language? Day—?”
He hissed. “If you were a tunnel-ling, I would wash your mouth out with basalt!”
Meg smirked. “I’d kinda like to see that.”
“Hmph,” said Grr-Fred. “This way.”
He led us onward into the dark.
I had lost track of time, but I could imagine Rachel Elizabeth Dare tapping her watch, reminding me I was late, late, late. I could only hope we would reach Nero’s tower before sundown.
Just as fervently, I hoped Nico, Will, and Rachel had survived the bulls’ attack. Our friends were resourceful and brave, yes. Hopefully, they still had the assistance of the troglodytes. But too often, survival depended on sheer luck. This was something we gods didn’t like to advertise, as it cut down on donations at our temples.
“Grr-Fred—?” I started to ask.
“It’s Grr-Fred,” he corrected.
“GRR-Fred?”
“Grr-Fred.”
“gRR-Fred?”
“Grr-Fred!”
You would think, with my musical skills, I would be better at picking up the nuances of languages, but apparently, I did not have Nico’s panache for Troglodytish.
“Honored guide,” I said, “what of our friends? Do you believe Screech-Bling will keep his promise and help them dig to the emperor’s fire vats?”
Grr-Fred sneered. “Did the CEO make such a promise? I did not hear that.”
“But—”
“We have arrived.” He stopped at the end of the corridor, where a narrow brick stairwell led upward. “This is as far as I can go. These steps will take you into one of the humans’ subway stations. From there, you can find your way to the Crusty Crust. You will surface within fifty feet of Nero’s tower.”
I blinked. “How can you be sure?”
“I am a trog,” he said, as if explaining something to a particularly slow tunnel-ling.
Meg bowed, making her acorn squash knock together. “Thank you, Grr-Fred.”
He nodded gruffly. I noticed he didn’t correct her pronunciation.
“I have done my duty,” he said. “What happens to your friends is up to Screech-Bling, assuming the CEO is even alive after the destruction you hatless barbarians brought to our headquarters. If it were up to me…”
He didn’t bother finishing the thought. I gathered Grr-Fred would not be voting in favor of offering us stock options at the next troglodyte shareholders’ meeting.
From my soggy backpack, I fished out Beanie Boy’s crystal ball and offered it to Grr-Fred. “Please, would you take this back to its owner? And thank you for guiding us. For what it is worth, I meant what I said. We have to help one another. That’s the only future worth fighting for.”
Grr-Fred turned the crystal sphere in his fingers. His brown eyes were inscrutable as cavern walls. They might have been hard and unmovable, or about to turn to meringue, or on the verge of being broken through by angry cows.
“Good digging,” he said at last. Then he was gone.
Meg peered up the stairwell. Her hands trembled, and I didn’t think it was from the cold.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked.
She started, as if she’d forgotten I was there. “Like you said, either we help each other, or we let a snake eat the future.”
“That’s not exactly what I—”
“Come on, Lester.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s get going.”
Phrased as an order, it wasn’t something I could have refused, but I got the feeling Meg was saying it to steel her own resolve as much as mine.
Together we climbed back toward the Crusty Crust.
I EXPECTED A MOAT FILLED WITH ALLIGATORS. A wrought-iron portcullis. Possibly some vats of boiling
