Alosha (26 page)

“
Something else troubles you
.”

“
Yes
.”

“
You feel something is wrong that you're not seeing
.”

“
Yes. How do you know?
”

Something wrong that she was not seeing? She could not see air.

But what did it mean? What had he said near the end?

“
. . . You have learned to trust your feelings. There must be something important that you are missing. It could be right in front of your face
.”

“
And that's the test of air
?”

“
It might be.”

Ali tried to match the clues. Something carried on the air. Something she was missing. Something right in front of her face. All related to her feelings, which she was supposed to trust.

“This is the stupidest riddle I have ever heard of,” she said aloud.

Then she had it. The answer, it came to her in a flash. The stupidest riddle she had ever heard of? What did she hear? What did all of them hear all the time?

Words. Language.

Language was the greatest of all human inventions. It was because of language that civilizations had formed. Language was carried through the air, between people. What words were right in front of her face that were troubling her? The question could have only one answer.

They had to be words that were not true.

Nemi had been telling her that someone was lying to her.

The test of air was unlike the other tests she had taken. She was not going to be swept away by a hurricane or lifted off to Oz in the center of a tornado. The test of air was the test of hearing what was true and what was false.

Unfortunately, the solution to the riddle raised even bigger questions.

Who was lying to her? Why were they lying to her?

Would they all die if she didn't figure out the answers?

All of them except one? The one who was lying to her?

Ali's thoughts swam. Her friends couldn't be lying to her, could they? Farble was too stupid to lie. Wasn't he? Paddy lied all the time, but so did all leprechauns. Or did they?

Ali had a headache. Falling back a few steps, she let the others walk ahead. Her trust was shaken to the core. All of a sudden she was not sure if she wanted any of them for traveling companions.

They came to a fork in the cave; or rather, they ran into three metal doors, set one beside the other, arranged in a shallow semicircle. Perhaps to accommodate the doors—they were larger than those on normal houses—the cave swelled in size. The metal was dark and slightly dusty, cold to the touch, and all three were simple rectangles, devoid of special markings, although each had a domed curve at the top. Ali wondered if the doors led to other sets, if tunnels covered the entire interior of the mountain.

They stopped for a break. They had been walking underground for two hours and they were thirsty. Of course there was nothing to drink. Except for Karl, they sat against opposite walls near the three doors and stared at each other.

Their impromptu break was a sign of how exhausted they all were. Obviously they had to go through one of the doors to continue on their way and—it was almost a joke—they didn't even have the strength to study them. Or perhaps they all assumed Karl would check them out. Basically, he was the one leading them forward.

“Turn off the flashlight since we're not walking,” Ali told Karl. He went to obey but Cindy freaked out.

“I don't want to sit here in the dark!” she said.

“We should save the batteries,” Karl said.

“Why do you always take her side?” Cindy asked.

“This isn't about sides. If the light runs out, we're all in trouble.”

“Leave it on then, we won't sit here long,” Ali said.

“So now you're deciding how long our breaks are going to be?” Cindy said.

“You want the light on, I told him to keep the light on,” Ali said. “What else do you want me to do?”

“I don't want anything from you,” Cindy grumbled.

“Oh brother,” Ali muttered.

“Stop it,” Steve said. “We have bigger problems. Or am I the only one who's worried about the three choices we have in front of us? Which door leads out of here?”

Karl, who had never sat down, tried opening the door on the right. But the black handle refused to move; it appeared locked. Yet it was interesting—there was no place to insert a key. Karl tried the door in the center, and they were relieved to see it swing open. Especially when the door on the left also refused to budge.

“We might not have a choice after all,” Karl said. Stepping through the door—which appeared to simply extend the cave they were in—he stood silent for a moment, occasionally holding up his palms to feel the air. He even sniffed a couple of times, softly, before striding back through the door and walking over to Farble, who was sitting near Ali. Karl spoke to the troll.

“Does the central door lead outside?” he asked.

Farble nodded. “Outside.”

“Karl!” Steve exclaimed. “We've been over this with Ali. Don't ask Farble to confirm what you think. First ask him what
he
thinks.”

“He's probably agreeing with you because he wants you to like him,” Cindy said.

Karl nodded. “My mistake. But I'm pretty sure the middle passageway is the right one. It has a faint breeze in it. You can feel it.”

“What difference does it make?” Cindy asked. “It's the only door that's open.”

“It makes a huge difference,” Karl said. “If I didn't feel fresh air, I would hammer on the other doors until we got them open.” He added, “I wonder if we shouldn't do that anyway.”

“With what?” Steve asked. “Our heads?”

Ali forced herself to stand, and stepped through the central door. Like Karl, she could definitely feel a faint breeze, although the air continued to be warmer than expected. Because the open door was two feet thick—and solid metal—she didn't see the point in Karl's last remark. If the doors were locked, they were locked, they were not going to break through them. She tried each one to be sure, and it was as if the knobs had froze in place centuries ago.

Ali glanced at Paddy. “Do dwarves make doors like these?” she asked.

He hesitated. “No.”

The answer surprised her. Did dwarves avoid domes at the top of their doors? “Who does? Elves?” she asked.

“Paddy has never seen doors like this before.”

Again, his response surprised her—particularly since the doors did not have an elaborate design. They were thick, though, she had to admit that much, and they were heavy. The central door swung smoothly, the hinges did not even creak, but because of the sheer mass of the door, she had to lean into it to get it to move.

After ten minutes of rest, they continued on, through another square tunnel that seemed to lead nowhere. But just before they left the area, Ali lagged a little behind and tore a button off her shirt and set it in the crack—on the floor—where the door would fit if someone tried to close it. The button was on the large size and it was made of wood. It was possible—not likely, but possible—it could help wedge the door open if the breeze, or even a dwarf, tried to close it. She was paranoid of the door closing on them. Yet she was afraid to leave anything substantial behind—like a scarf—in case the dwarves saw it and used it to track them. One good thing about the button, it was painted black, and was hard to see on the floor of the cave.

Ali quickly caught up with her friends, and as they moved on, the cave began to angle upward, which Ali took to be a good sign. They had to go up sometime if they were to reach the top of the mountain.

Unfortunately, the altitude came back to haunt them. The air was no
thicker inside the cave than outside. The increase in the slope demanded more effort. They got winded fast, especially Steve. Because Farble was bent over, trying to keep his head from hitting the ceiling, he was unable to carry Steve. And they only had the one light; they could not split up. They ended up having to take more frequent breaks.

Another couple of hours dragged by; these two were deadly. Ali didn't know their altitude, but it must have been over twelve thousand feet. The floor kept getting steeper. As a group they would walk fifty feet, then stop and breathe for five minutes. Soon they were taking ten steps and stopping.

Despite Karl's warnings, Ali could never have imagined the altitude bothering them so much. It felt as if they were hiking through an airless cavern on the dark side of the moon. Even when they did stop, Steve could not catch his breath. In the dim light, his skin shone with a blue tinge. He was slowing them down, and the clock kept ticking.

Ali wondered if taking the cave had been a mistake.

They came to another fork in the road, and the cave grew extremely wide—it was almost as if they entered a small cavern—because here there were
seven
doors to choose from, all neatly arranged in a
deep
semicircle. The doors were similar to the previous three, made of metal, with featureless handles in place of knobs, and with neatly designed domes on the tops. However, there was one major change. Each door was a different color. Starting on the far left, there was a red door, followed by an orange one, a yellow one, a green one, a blue one, a violet one, and on the far right there was a white door.

The colors intrigued Ali. She immediately stepped forward and tried to scratch at the blue paint—on the fifth door—to see if it would come off, and almost broke a nail for her efforts. It was as if the color was intrinsic to the door, not just a coat of paint that had been brushed on.

The Fifth Door
. She had called it that in her mind without thinking.

The Blue Door
. Something about it intrigued her.

She noticed there was no dust on these doors.

As a group they tried the doors, but only two opened—the red and yellow
ones. Ali felt a stab of disappointment. She was not sure why. She had wanted the fifth door to swing wide. But five of them appeared locked and, once again, there was no place to insert a key.

Beyond the open doors, the red and yellow ones, the caves looked identical.

Identical to the cave they had been hiking in. At least, up until it had expanded.

“It looks like we have a choice this time,” Steve said.

Ali finally turned to Farble. “Which door leads outside?” she asked.

The troll pointed to the yellow door.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

Farble nodded his head.

“Have you been this way?” Ali asked Farble.

The troll shook his head.

“Oh no,” Steve groaned.

“Have you been through the red door?” she asked.

The troll nodded. Then shook his head.

“Are you confused?” Ali asked.

Farble glanced at Steve and nodded. “Sorry,” the troll said.

“But he liked the yellow door. That was his first choice,” Karl said.

“It means nothing,” Cindy said.

“I disagree,” Karl said. “I think we confuse him when we ask a lot of questions. His first choice might count for a lot. Also, I think the air is a bit fresher in that cave. It feels cooler. Plus the yellow door is more in the center.”

“What if both doors lead to the outside?” Ali said.

Karl nodded. “That's possible. But if I were a dwarf and I was designing the layout of my tunnels, and had only one door that led to the outside, I would put it more in the center.”

“Now we're getting into dwarf psychology,” Cindy muttered.

“The green door is the central door,” Ali pointed out.

“Yes. But it's locked,” Karl said. “The yellow door is the next best thing.”

“You don't want to
pound
the green door open?” Ali asked. “You considered that at the other doors.”

Karl shrugged. “I was being foolish. These doors are thick. We're not going to force them open.”

“I wonder why only two are open?” Ali mused.

“Why are
any
of them open?” Cindy said.

“We have to make a choice,” Steve said, still trying to catch his breath. “We have come too far to go back to the entrance.”

Ali turned to Paddy. “Do you know?” she asked.

He hesitated. “No.”

“Have you been in here before?” she asked.

He lowered his head. “Missy asked that before. Paddy said no.”

The cave they had just hiked trailed behind them like a gully into a bottomless pit. Yet the two caves before them—through the two doors—leveled out. Ali wondered if they were already near the top of the mountain. It seemed too much to hope for.

In the end, Ali knew she was the one who would have to choose. Like Karl, she felt the cave through the yellow door had fresher air. But the difference was slight—for all she knew they could be imagining the difference. Yet there was something mysterious about the first cave, behind the red door. It was identical to the other one, in appearance, but like the green and blue doors, it drew her. Almost like a voice, talking softly inside her head.

Magic, Ali. Black and white magic. Let us show you
.

Yet the voice did not belong to Nemi.

She was not even sure if it was real.

“I think we should take the red door,” Ali said.

The entire group stared at her.

“Why?” Steve said.

“I have a feeling about it,” she said.

Karl was worried. “That's not a good reason to choose it.”

“It is to me,” Ali said.

“I agree with Karl,” Steve said, stepping toward the yellow door, feeling with his outstretched palms. “The troll's first choice probably has some meaning. I think I feel a faint breeze coming out of here.”

“You didn't say that a minute ago,” Ali said.

“I didn't feel it then,” Steve said.

“Let's flip a coin,” Cindy said. “Got a gold one, Paddy?”