Becoming P.T. Lyfantod - 56
A serial fantasy novel
What follows is Part 56 of Becoming P.T. Lyfantod
If you missed Part 1, start there:
Tom whispered hoarsely, “What the hell w—”
Doom, doom. The drum sounded again.
“Can we please, please go back?” Stuart hissed.
“Stu, we can’t just give up,” Iain whispered. “We’re meant to be heroic—”
“I don’t think I’m cut out to be a hero.”
“There’s no doubt about it,” I nodded, though no one could see it. “This is a test of bravery. He’s—”
DOOM!
—trying to scare us.”
“Well, it’s working! This is bad. I know it.”
“When light without cannot be found, you must find it within yourself,” Merry murmured. “P.T.’s right. We’ve got t—”
Doom doom.
I heard her shudder. “—to keep going. This is a test. And I for one don’t mean to fail.”
“Is that Merry talking, or Dona?” Iain joked, though his throat sounded tight.
“Very funny. Come on.”
“Wait,” Iain said.
“What?”
“I was thinking about what you said before. About the maze. Since we can’t see anything, I thought we ought to be following both walls. In case—”
“In case we miss a turn… Oh, Iain that’s clever.”
“Not that clever,” muttered Tom.
“You’re just sorry you didn’t think of it,” Iain said. “C’mon Stu, let’s shift over to the other side…”
“Careful!” I hissed. “For all we know, the wall there disappeared some point and we’re walking on a… a ledge or something.”
Stuart squeaked, now somewhere off to my left. The drum boomed.
“No, it’s fine,” Iain said, exasperated. “I found it. We’ll have to make noise from time to time, in case the paths diverge. And Stu, you’ll have to be more careful. You’re in front now too.”
We trudged on, toward the beating of that awful drum. I never thought a sound could be so… ill-boding. It set my teeth on edge. Go back, it demanded, in no uncertain terms. This way lies only danger.
There was a strange quality to the fear, peaking in that nail-biting instant when the drum was struck, then fading as the sound did. It forced us into a halting rhythm. One moment I was convinced I should run, the next determined to carry on. Maintaining a coherent train of thought was a struggle.
Iain grunted off to my left. “Stu,” he whispered. “Why’ve you stopped?”
“I had a terrible—”
Doom doom.
“—thought.”
“What is it?” hissed Merry, just ahead.
A beat of silence. “What if it’s orcs?”
“What?” Iain was incredulous.
“Drums!” Stuart hissed. “Drums in the deep!” He lowered his voice. “We cannot get out—”
“We cannot get out,” echoed Merry, in the same hushed tone. “They have taken the bridge and the second hall. Frár and Lóni and Náli fell there… The pool is up to the wall at Westgate. The Watcher in the Water took Óin. We cannot get out. The end comes. Drums, drums in the deep. They are coming—”
“Have you two lost your minds?” snapped Tom. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Merry ignored him. “This isn’t Moria, Stuart,” she said softly. “Orcs aren’t real. Tolkien made them up.”
Doom, called the drum, as if to disagree.
“You’d have said the same thing about bards and ghosts a few months ago. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it isn’t orcs down there. But I don’t want to find out. I want to go back. I—I want to go home.” There was real anguish in Stuart’s voice.
I realized then that Stuart wasn’t scared. He was terrified. And to my own surprise, I found the revelation… reassuring. I was frightened. We all were. Certainly a part of me wished to be elsewhere. But as uncomfortable as it was to be afraid, what I mostly wanted was to be here, more than anywhere else in the world. Perhaps I’d have felt differently if I’d been on my own. But with my friends around me, I could go anywhere… attempt anything. More, I found that the very knowledge of Stuart’s fear made mine more bearable. If he was going to succumb to panic in the dark, I had no choice but to overcome it. I think everyone else felt the same.
“Stu,” Iain said. “It’s just a—”
Doom doom.
I heard him trying to convince himself. “—a drum. It’s probably Godwyn banging that thing. You heard what he said. This test is about fear. Not strength, or fighting, or monsters. He’s trying to scare us.”
“You have no way of knowing that,” Stuart’s voice shook. “For all you know, it could be a… a cave troll.”
“Jenkins,” said Tom. “I saw you stand up to Dafydd. Even though he’s bigger and stronger. Even though he… and I… have been giving you a hard time, since—err,” he coughed. “That took guts.”
Stuart scoffed. “Whole lot of good that did. If you hadn’t showed up, he’d have put my head in a toilet.”
“It’s not about winning,” Tom said. “It’s about fighting back.”
“And what’s going to stop whatever’s down there from finishing what Dafydd Roberts started? There’s no one coming to help us down here. That’s what Lightfoot’s showing us. We’re on our own.”
“We’re not on our own,” I said. “We’ve got each other.” I took a breath. “You know, when I first told you and Iain about Lightfoot and the stones, and you wouldn’t come looking… I wasn’t entirely disappointed. I thought if I could find Lightfoot by myself, it would make me special. Then, that night in Clyne Woods, out on my own… I was scared half to death. I didn’t last an hour. And I know Clyne Woods. I didn’t just invite you along because I’m selfless… I brought you because I needed help. And you know what? It worked. I mean, aside from Tom and his frogs. With you guys there, the dark didn’t seem nearly so menacing. Because I knew whatever came, we’d face it together.”
“And if anything attacked you, you just had to outrun them,” Rudy said.
I frowned at him. “I suppose that’s true. But I wasn’t thinking that way—any more than you would have.”
“I dunno,” he shrugged. “There are a few Bloomers I wouldn’t mind outrunning.”
“And if whatever’s down there is more than five kids can manage?” Stuart asked. “If we get killed and eaten?”
“Then we get killed and eaten together,” said Merry. “Even if it’s orcs.”
Stuart snorted with something approaching amusement. The drum was there to fill the silence that followed.
“All right,” he said at last, though it sounded like he was forcing the words out. “On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You get eaten first.”
Merry’s smile was audible. “Deal.”
“It’s settled then,” Iain said. “Let’s get going. Orcs or not, I don’t want to spend the night at Marg—DOOM—Margam Park.”
We could all agree to that.
