Little Yokozuna (9 page)

Q.J. was paying no attention. She was playing the beam along all the walls, looking for any kind of opening at all. By shining the light directly back toward the next crook in the cave, she could just see past it the dim shapes of the stone garden, its lantern and "trees."

"Almost home," she said. "It's not really much of a tunnel."

She was surprised at herself for
not
feeling more panicky about their situation. Neither of them were hungry, there was a source of water, and it was impossible for there not to be an exit from this unimaginable cave. Then suddenly her light dimmed for a second, and fear clutched at her before the little bulb brightened again. She realized then that it was nothing but the light that was giving her hope. She took a deep quivering breath and tried to speak in a steady voice to Libby.

"Let's get back to the garden," she said. "These batteries won't last forever."

They took hands again and started to walk on.

But hardly had they done so when Libby stopped without warning, pulling at Q.J.'s hand.

"Did you hear that?" she asked.

"Hear what?" asked Q.J.

"A noise" said Libby. "I don't know
what
, you silly." They listened.

"Nothing," said Q.J. "It was just the echo of our footsteps."

"Maybe," said Libby.

They started to walk again, but then, just as unexpectedly, Libby pulled to a stop again. Q.J. lurched off balance against the cave wall.

"Lib!" she said. "What are you
doing?
"

"I heard it again," said the little girl. "It's a sound. It's not water, and it's not
us
."

Q.J. stood still and listened, but not for very long. That momentary dimming of their only light had frightened her, and made her impatient. She yanked on Libby's hand.

"Come
on
," she said. "We're wasting batteries. Don't you get the idea?"

But before they could take two more steps they both heard it, a sound that was impossible to identify. There was something nonrandom, purposeful about it, making it more than just a fall of pebbles or a natural shift in the earth. There was something else, something alive, there in the tunnel with them.

Q.J. looked wide-eyed at Libby. "I'm sorry," she breathed.

Trying not to panic, she swung the beam of light all around them, then back again in a quick sweep, to catch anything that might be trying to sneak up on them. Nothing was there. She swung it around again. Still nothing, not even any jumping shadows in the wild beam of the tiny lamp. The cave was empty.

"What is it?" whispered Libby, gripping Q.J.'s hand with both of hers. "What is it?"

Then Q.J. felt it, a ghostly sprinkle of something across the top of her head and shoulders.

"Hey!" she said in a hoarse whisper.

More particles of something fell on her, then a small hard thing like a pebble hit her shoulder.

"Ow!" she said, aloud. "It's caving in! Run!"

Grabbing Libby's hand, she fled toward the garden,

expecting to hear a roar of collapsing earth behind her. Flinging herself to the ground between the lantern and the crane stone, with Libby shielded below her, she covered her head with her hands. She held her breath. Nothing happened. After several long breathless moments she opened her eyes and turned the beam back down the tunnel. There was nothing new to see.

Perplexed, she turned the beam toward the ceiling for the first time since they had come into the cave. Seeing nothing noteworthy near her, she shone it upward and outward along the tunnel, drew in a sharp breath and stared..

"What is it?" asked Libby, pulling her sister's arm more tightly around her.

Q.J. flicked the beam as far along the ceiling as it would go. There was
something
there, a third of the way back down the passage, an ominous black shape clinging to the ceiling. Even as she stared hard at it, it seemed to move. Her breath caught halfway down her throat as she forced herself to look harder at the shape, trying not to remember that they had walked under it several times already, perhaps had stopped and stood directly under it. The sudden thought that whatever it was must have peered down at them with pale eyes or some other horrible apparatus turned her cold and the beam wavered, but she didn't dare turn it off. The thought of not being able to see the thing was far worse than the danger of showing it exactly where they were. She didn't know what to do. In one instant things had gone from hopeless to hideous. She began to walk backward, drawing Libby with her.

"Hey, Quid!" said Libby. Q.J. tried to hush her.

Better not to give the Thing any more reasons to notice them. "Q.J., it's a hole in the ceiling!" cried Libby.

"What!" said Q.J., forcing herself to look again. She flicked the little lamp beam like a long whip, trying to get it to go farther. It certainly could look like a hole in the ceiling, looked at in a certain way. In fact...

"Hey!" shouted Q.J. "You're right, Lib! It's our front door!" She laughed and jumped up, pulling Libby to her feet and dragging her back toward the shadow on the ceiling. "The mystery is solved!" she shouted.

"What are you talking about, Q.J.?" asked Libby, hardly able to keep up with her sister. "It's just a hole in the ceiling!"

"Exactly!" said Q.J. "Look!"

The shadow on the ceiling was a great black opening, perhaps four feet wide. They stood under it and looked up. The weakening beam of the light ventured about thirty or forty feet up the smooth sides of a shaft, perhaps just catching the edge of another level of tunnel up above.

"Q.J.!" shouted Libby, now annoyed and frightened at her sister's strange enthusiasm. "
What good does this do us!
We can't fly!"

"No, Lib, I know," said Q.J. "But we
heard
somebody up there, and stuff was falling on us down the shaft. There must be miners working up there who can rescue us! Don't you get it? All we have to do is scream for help. Sooner or later someone will hear us."

The little girl did get it, and hope came like sunrise to her face."Hello!" she called at the top of her lungs. "Help!"

"Help!" cried Q.J. "Help! Help!" they both cried together. The echoes of their shouts ran up and down the passage and swirled around them like laughing voices, rejoicing and dancing like invisible elves. "Help! Help!" they cried with all their might, and the echoes shouted with them, having a wonderful time.

When they finally ran out of breath they stopped and listened, and when the echoes died away, there was a deep and awful silence. They stood absolutely still for a long time, listening.

"Nothing," said Libby. "Nobody."

"It's OK" insisted Q.J., hope still strong in her heart. "Maybe their workday is over. We don't really know what time it is. Let's try again, then wait awhile."

"You mean we might have to stay in here for another whole
night?
" asked Libby, her voice trembling again.

Q.J. squeezed her sister. "It's OK, Lib," she said again. "It would be worth it, because we will be rescued. But let's try again, now."

They shouted and called again until their voices were croaking, like frogs. Q.J. shone the beam of her little reading light up the shaft.

"It's OK," she said to her little sister, for the third time. "They'll come. We just have to be patient."

Then they both heard it, sounds like faraway steps. Joy rose in them again, and they craned their necks to see up the dimly lit shaft.

"There's a light up there," said Q.J. "Do you see it? Shout!"

"Help! Help!" they shouted with every last ounce of their strength.

There was a dull red glow far above, bright enough now so they could see the clear edge of the upper opening of the shaft. They shouted some more, Q.J. flashing her light on and off upward, heedless of batteries now.

"Someone's there!" cried Libby. "Oh, hello! Help us! Rescue us! Don't go away!"

There was at least one dark silhouette against the red light, of someone apparently looking down the shaft.

"It's just us!" cried Libby. "Get us out of here!"

There was something strange about the shape of the silhouette above, as if the head was very large and maned, like a lion's. Q.J. stopped and stared upward, her mouth opened wide. She laid her hand on Libby's arm. Something large and black seemed to break away from the shape above them.

"Look out!" shouted Q.J., flinging Libby aside, where she crashed against the cave wall. But before Q.J. could save herself, a large stone fell from the shaft, struck her a glancing but dreadful blow on the side of her head, and bounced away with a clash and clatter of echoes. She spun to the side, collapsed to one knee and sprawled on the floor. The little lamp flew from her hand, ricocheting a couple of times before going dark for good. The red light above was gone. The cave was as dark as ever. There was no sound, no sound from where Q.J. had been.

Libby cowered in the corner, terrified at the turn things had taken, the swift death of hope.

"Q.J.!" she said, in a hoarse voice.

There was no answer. This was the most awful thing, this silence of her sister.

"Q.J.!" she shouted. "Answer me!" Fear sometimes made Libby angry, as if she thought the Universe was out to get her. Now rage blazed up in her, trying to drown out the fear. "You answer me, Q.J.!"

She was no ordinary six-year-old. It occurred to her suddenly that Q.J. was still lying directly under the shaft opening, unprotected against more missiles from above. She crawled on hands and knees across the floor, feeling with one hand and then the other. It didn't seem as if it could be difficult to find her sister, who must have fallen only a few feet away. But in the darkness she got confused somehow, and actually seemed to crawl in several wrong directions, and maybe even in a circle, before she finally laid a hand on her sister's warm body.

"I have to get you away from here," she said through her teeth, which were beginning to chatter. If she had been older, and had studied first aid, she would have known that she should never move anyone with a head injury. But she was only six, and all she knew was that horrible stones fell from this shaft, and that she had to get Q.J. away from it. She was so confused now in her directions that she had no idea which way she was going, but it didn't seem to matter now. Toward the stream or toward the garden, either way would get away from the dreadful opening in the ceiling.

She jammed the heels of her sneakers into ruts in the ground, planted her sturdy little back against Q.J.'s back, and pushed with all her might.

"Oof!" she grunted, and Q.J. rolled a quarter turn away from her, toward safety, but not without her head bumping on the ground.

"I'm so
stupid
," said Libby, which anyone else could have told her she wasn't. She pulled off her sweatshirt and tried to put it under where Q.J.'s head would roll next. She planted her feet again and pushed, upward and outward with a terrific heave, and felt Q.J. roll away again, up onto her side and down onto her back.

"
Yes!
" said Libby. Again she shoved her heels into holes in the uneven floor, and rolled Q.J. another halfturn onto her face again. Again she did it, placing the folded sweatshirt, planting her heels, lifting and heaving. Again, and again. She had no idea how many rolls it would take to get her sister to a safe place, so she did it many more times than seemed necessary. Over and over she rolled her sister, away from that awful hole, until it seemed she had never done anything else but plant her heels, lift, and roll, but still she did it again and again. It was to her complete astonishment that Q.J.'s limp body suddenly rolled up against an obstacle that Libby discovered with her hands was the crane stone.

"Wow!" she said. "We've come a long ways, Q."

For some obscure reason, she still was not satisfied till she had rolled, pushed, and pulled Q.J. into a position between the lantern and the little ridge of trees. She flopped down and laid her head on Q.J.'s warm stomach, exhausted. She felt a deep, weary satisfaction in what she had accomplished, and the fear and anger were almost buried away inside her, or had been burned off in the great effort.

"We've done a good job, Q.J.," she said, and fell fast asleep.

When she awoke, the cave was filled with red light. She sat up with a start and looked around her, but could see nothing strange but the light. It seemed to be coming from the other side of the first bend in the tunnel, perhaps from the ceiling shaft itself. She could see the opening, and it seemed less black than before, as if there were a source of light inside or above it. Then she saw the great rope.

Swaying like a strangely deformed snake, the thickly knotted rope was hanging down from the shaft, and even as she watched, a pair of massive armored legs came swinging down it, followed by the rest of a horrible figure.

"
Oni
," she said to herself, a hopeless fear surging up inside her. "The demon warrior." She sat as still as it was possible for a human being to sit, trying to will herself to be invisible, trying to silence the hammering of her heart in her chest, trying to stop all the breathing and beating and pulsing that her terrified little body insisted on doing.

She noticed in a sort of detached way that the armor of this
oni
was not red and blue, like that of the one who had stolen Little Harriet away, but was black and gold and green. He crouched down in the passageway on his haunches, too tall to stand upright. Red light seemed to pour out of his helmet and through the stitches and chinks of his armor. He said something in a voice like crumbling stone.

Libby froze. There was a burst of harsh laughter, and answering voices, and Libby realized that there were other huge warrior goblins, around the bend, out of sight. There was no hope at all, no hope, only a black wall behind her and cruel demons before her, but she felt from nowhere a strange thrill, almost painful, like happiness. She had no idea why. She felt the warmth of Q.J. through her back and drew strength from the company of her sister.

One of the invisible demon warriors came into sight,

at the bend in the tunnel. He was stooped over almost double, but the ghastly mask of his helmet was looking directly at her. Libby looked back, as if hypnotized.