Chapter 12

I opened my eyes slowly to see a stone wall flickering with firelight. I turned my head and saw Tobeke beside me, his head turned away. I would have been quite happy to see him if I hadn't passed out and awoke in an unknown place.

"Tobeke!" I said. "Where are we?"

Tobeke turned to me and smiled. "Valiansa!" he exclaimed. Then his smile faded. "I thought you had walked away with my brothers."

I remembered him and the others leaving me, saying I was foolish and had caused the doom of Joyaska. "You left me to die. I don't remember..."

We looked at each other for a few seconds. Then the realization came to us at the same time: "We were hallucinating." we said in unison.

I looked around the area. We appeared to be in a dark cave, lit only some torches on the cave walls. The cave opening was dark, it appeared to be night outside. 

"Where do you think we are?" I asked Tobeke. He thought for a second, furrowing his brow.

"We must have passed into the land of.... I don't know, fear or sadness maybe, when we had the hallucinations?" he said, stuttering slightly.

"But where are we now?" I persisted. 

"I don't know!" he cried. "I don't know EVERYTHING about Swaya!"

"Sorry." I mumbled. "Let's go look around. Maybe Wanae Mountain is around here."

"Alright." Tobeke said. We began to stand up.

All of a sudden, a strange sensation went down my spine and we were being pulled backwards. I shrieked as ropes snaked around us and we fell to the ground, trapped. 

"We're trapped!" I cried. "What was that?"

Tobeke pulled against the ropes to no avail. The rope that tied us together was firmly anchored into the stone wall. I thought with all my might of a way to escape. Would we die here, slowly and painfully as we were deprived of food and water? Who lived in this cave? Whoever, or WHATever it was, and whether or not they were friendly (probably not, hence the ropes), it was obvious because of the ropes that someone lived here, and the torches too.

The torches!

"If we could just find a way to use that torch above us to burn the rope, we could escape!" I said.

"Yes!" Tobeke exclaimed. "We could use this rock right here. I'll throw it, and hopefully it will knock over the torch and burn the rope." Then his smile faded as he looked at me, concerned. "But... I don't want the fire to burn you."

I sighed. "And I don't want it to burn you." I said. "But what other choice do we have?"

"You're right." Tobeke said. With that, he took the rock with the part of his arm that could reach from under the tight rope, and tossed it up at the torch. It hit the torch with a plink and fell to the ground. 

"Can you reach it?" I asked him.

He leaned against the rope with all his might and tried to strain his arm to grab the rock, but it was no use. The rock was just out of reach.

"I can't!" said Tobeke. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know!" Think of something, anything. I looked around the cave for something, anything to set us free. But there was nothing but the torches and the one rock that was our last hope, now out of reach.

Then, I heard a roar in the distance, and the ground began to shake. Joyaska had experienced earthquakes before, but none as violent as this. The ground was bouncing as if someone underground was pounding their ceiling. Small rock particles rolled down the cave walls from the ceiling.

"Earthquake!" Tobeke screamed. His eyes were shut tight, but he grabbed my hand under the rope and held it tight.

Then I glanced up at the torch to see it falling out off the wall- toward us! I screamed and braced for impact. I felt a burning heat at my back, sizzling in my ear. 

"Push forward!" Tobeke shouted. The skin on my back seared with pain, but I followed his instruction and pulled my body forward as hard as I could. The air around me filled with smoke as the hard rock underneath my rump kept bouncing. 

I could hear the rope beind me tearing. My back burned more and more. I gasped for breath but my throught burned with smoke more with every breath. The ground lurched forward once more. With a rrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiipppppp, I felt the rope tearing and we fell forward.

I felt the cool ground, no longer shaking, underneath my face, and groaned in pain. My back was throbbing from the fire. "Are you alright?" I asked Tobeke. "The back of your tunic is burnt." It was true; the golden fabric was singed black.

"Yes," Tobeke said. "Yours is too. I mean, your sweater, not your tunic. And your hair is a bit burnt." 

We got up off the ground, and it started shaking again. Another loud roar shook the air, this time so loud I almost covered my ears. I held my arms out for balance. "Let's go outside the cave." Tobeke said.

We went outside the cave. The ground was gravely and rough under my feet, and by the moon's light I could make out two monstrous creatures fighting each other on the side of the mountain, a few feet above us. They were twice as tall as a palm tree, and roaring very loud. Their bodies were squarish, and they clawed each other with giant claws. 

Tobeke grabbed my shoulder and pulled me behind the cave. I could feel him shivering against me.

"Those monsters. One of them must have captured us!" he wimpered. 

"Be quiet. We don't want them to notice us." I whispered. "Can you tell if Wanae Mountain is around here?"

Tobeke shut his eyes in concentration. "It's.... here! This cave is connected to Wanae Mountain! And look- see that glowing purple thing? I think that is the flower!"

I did see it. It was toward the top of the mountain. It was a beautiful, bright color of purple, a beacon in the wasteland. Then I looked down and saw the roaring monsters we would have to go past.

My stomach lurched. "We would have to go past them."

Tobeke smiled sadly. "But, like you said, what choice do we have?"

"You're right." I sighed. 

"This will probably be the most dangerous part of the quest." Tobeke said, with a hint of nervousness.

"Yes." I agreed.

"So, there's one thing I need to do first, because I may not be able to do it again." And with that, he leaned over and kissed me sweetly on the cheek.

I just stood there for a second, dazed. My cheek was warm and tingling.

Tobeke began to stutter again. "Oh, well, uh, was I not supposed to do that? D-did I just make things awkward? Ohhh, no, I'm so sorry and-"

That was when I drew him close and kissed him on the lips, longer this time. He was at first startled, but then relaxed. In Joyaska, it was vulgar for a woman to kiss a man instead of the other way around, but I swear, the kiss was truly magical for both of us.

Author's Note

I've been trying to develop Tobeke's character as not your average Prince Charming. He is supposed to be kind of the "geek" character, very smart, a little nervous, and self concious about not living up to the expectation of being strong and heroic. How am I doing on that?