Found (11 page)

I
picked up my knapsack and stepped into the dark cave. The stone under my feet trembled. Or maybe it was me trembling with tiredness from a whole day of climbing up the side of the mountain.

I knew how to find my locus magicalicus. I took a deep breath.
“
Lothfalas
,” I said. The word fell out of my mouth and landed
splat
on the floor. Nothing happened.

“
Lothfalas!
” I shouted, and
lothfalas
went deep into the cave and bounced back to me—
falas—alas—alas
…

Nothing.

Maybe there was no magic here, so my locus stone, wherever it was in the cave, wouldn’t light up when I said the lothfalas spell. But that couldn’t be right. I could feel magic here. Not the same as in Wellmet, not that warm, protecting feeling, and nothing like the cold, stony dread of Arhionvar, but the prickling at the back of my neck and the watchful feeling of the cave felt like magic. Like a magical being was here.

Maybe I was too far away from my locus magicalicus.

The cave was black-dark. I shuffled farther in, my hands held up to stop me from bumping into anything, sliding my feet just in case the ground fell away. My feet kicked small stones that went
rattling away over a floor that felt rough, but not too bumpy.

“
Lothfalas
,” I said. The dark stayed dark.

My foot knocked against something else. I stretched out my hands until they found a tumbled heap of stones, all the size of my fist or smaller. My locus magicalicus might be in the pile. “
Lothfalas
,” I said again. I climbed onto the pile and pushed aside some of the stones.

Late into the night I climbed that pile of rocks and then other piles, saying the lothfalas spell until my voice got hoarse.

I woke up in the morning sprawled out on a pile of stones, my knapsack under my head for a pillow. The ground had been shivering again. A cold breeze trickled in from outside. I sat up, rubbing my eyes, squinting at the morning light. I looked around at the cave.

It was even bigger than the courtyard outside Heartsease, maybe as big as the whole island, a huge
hollowed-out space inside the mountain. The walls and ceiling were lost in the dim darkness, but they seemed patchy and shiny in places, as if water was dripping down. The air was warmish, but it made goosebumps prickle on the back of my neck. The air smelled, just a little, of the smoke after a pyrotechnic explosion. The cave floor was flat, chiseled out of the mountain just as the stairs had been. The floor was covered with stones; stones glittery and pebble-dull, big and small, scattered and heaped up in piles; thousands of stones.

I looked down at the pile of stones I’d been sleeping on. It was as high as my chest and as wide as a street in the Twilight. The stones were jumbled together. Some were smooth and brown like river stones; others were weatheredy-gray like the mountain and bigger than my fist; some were shards of shiny black rock; some were lumpy gray gravel. They hadn’t all come from the mountain. They must’ve been gathered here.

“
Lothfalas
,” I said loudly. None of the stones lit
up. I dug into the pile, shoving the rocks and stones out of the way. They went tumbling and rattling onto the cave floor. “
Lothfalas
,” I said again. Still nothing.

I didn’t have time for this. I needed to find my stone and get back to Wellmet.

My stomach growled. Right. I did have time for breakfast.

I opened my knapsack and dug inside. Water canteen. Packet of cheese. One, two, three biscuits. Hadn’t there been four? Maybe I’d miscounted. I poured some water into the battered tin cup and dunked one of the rock-hard biscuits in to soften it. I ate that, and a piece of cheese, then wrapped up the food and put it away.

Then, leaving my knapsack, I went back to searching. The mouth of the cave grew brighter as the midday sun shone down on the cave’s doorstep. Inside stayed dark-dim. I gave up on the pile I’d slept on and moved to the next pile. I climbed onto it and started pushing some of the rocks aside, when I caught a glimpse of something glitter-bright.
There, right under two plain brown stones. I picked it up and polished the dust off it with the hem of my sweater. It was about as big as a hen’s egg, and deep blue.

I caught my breath. “
Lothfalas
,” I whispered.

The stone lay quiet in my hand. Drats. I’d know my locus stone when I found it, and this wasn’t it.

I tossed the jewel stone aside. It tumbled down the side of the stone heap and dribbled out onto the floor. I stared down at it, shining softly in the late-afternoon light from the cave mouth.

Oh. I was being stupid. The blue stone was a jewel. Just like my first locus magicalicus had been. I looked around the wide, dark cave, at the piles of stones all over the floor. They wouldn’t respond to the lothfalas spell because they weren’t mine, but all of these stones were locus magicalicii, weren’t they? What were they doing here? Had they been collected here? Why?

Not something I could answer now. I got back to my search.

When my voice was hoarse from saying
lothfalas
over and over again, my empty stomach told me it was time for something to eat.

I shuffled through the stones scattered across the floor, picked up my knapsack, and scuffed over to the cave mouth. I looked out. The sun had gone down behind the mountains. Cold air breathed in from outside; I shivered and hunched into my coat. My stomach growled.

I dug through the knapsack, looking for the packet of dried apples. I took a drink of water from the canteen, which was almost empty, and pulled everything out of the knapsack to look again.

The apples were gone.

Just like the biscuit, in the morning. I hadn’t miscounted; I’d never miscount biscuits.

The cave must have rats, just like in Rat Hole, where I’d lived in the Twilight. Those rats had nibbled at everything, even soap and books and candles, even the bristles of my toothbrush.

I looked around the cave. A little leftover sunset shone in, but it was almost completely dark except
for the glimmer of silver water on the cave walls, way across from me.

“Stay out of my bag, you rats,” I said.

No scurry of feet or squeaking.

Oh, well. I broke a biscuit in two and ate one of the halves and put the other half in my coat pocket; then I slung my knapsack onto my back. They were good thieves, these rats, but they couldn’t steal my food from under my nose.

I went back to searching until I fell asleep.