The Dark Portal (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 3) (7 page)

Jake’s eyes widened as the Gryphon reared up over him, tail thrashing, claws bared, his eyes glittering with fury
as they did when he was in battle-mode.

Landing on all fours, his lion-paws planted wide before him, Red’s scarlet mane-feathers stood on end.

Then the fierce beast roared, full throttle, in his face—and Jake suddenly remembered who all that gold
actually
belonged to.

Claw the Courageous.

Who alone could not be corrupted.

CHAPTER THREE

All That Glitters

Jake had never been scared of Red since the night he had first met him, when they were both Uncle Waldrick’s prisoners. But at the moment, he cowered from the beast, terrified that the noble Crafanc might rip his throat out.

Instead, s
atisfied he had made his point, the offended Gryphon flew away, disappearing far above them through the elevator shaft.

Jake
let out a shaky exhalation and sat up slowly, trembling. Oh, he got the message, all right.

He had just
humiliated himself with a spectacular show of greed. He felt like an utter fool. At least Archie and Dani didn’t seem to mind his complete lack of character, he thought with a wince as they rushed over to help him up.

“Jake!
Are you all right?” they asked.

But he wasn’
t, especially when he saw Derek looking about as disappointed in him as Red was. The warrior lowered his head, pivoted, and walked back to wait in the elevator without a word.

“I’m sorry,” he forced out a
s Dani and Archie managed to pull him to his feet between them.

H
e still felt so weird and out of sorts. And kind of nauseated by his own demented display.

This was the first time
, moreover, that he had ever had a real spat with Red. “I-I don’t know what came over me.”

“Oh, that would be the
gold fever, I should think,” Emrys said kindly. “Don’t worry, lad. It’ll pass. You’ll feel better in a moment.”

“Gold fever?
” Jake echoed, steadying himself. “That’s a real thing?”

“L
ooked to me like a horrid attack of self-pity,” Isabelle said with a cool stare.

Jake cringed, knowing she was right. He mumbled another ap
ology for his behavior, and his cousin gazed at him intently for a moment, no doubt sensing all his tangled emotions with her telepathic powers.

“You’ve had a hard life,
Jake, no doubt” she said at length. “But the other orphans, the ones you left behind in your old life? They’re still there.”

“Right,” he whispered, bare
ly able to find his voice at her simple reminder of the kids he used to know back at the orphanage and in his homeless days as a pickpocket.

Still there.

Her frank words were more effective than a much-needed slap across the face and worked at once to clear his head.

Then she, too, walked away, returning to the elevator.

Jake stared at the floor, his blond forelock hanging in his eyes, veiling his embarrassment.
What an idiot I am. What a selfish, greedy fool.
Between Red’s rebuke, Derek’s disappointment, and Isabelle’s soft-toned skewering, he felt lower than a worm.

Dani propped him up by his elbow and searched his face with a frown. “You don’t look so good. Maybe we should go back to the cottage
.”

“No,” he managed
. As much as he wanted to go and hide under a rock, the dwarves had gone to a lot of trouble to welcome him here today. He couldn’t just ruin the day for everyone—that would be selfish all over again. “I’ll be fine,” he said, and swallowed hard. “I’m…looking forward to our tour.”

Emrys exhaled in relief when he said that.

Then they all started back toward the elevator. Jake glanced upward, wondering where Red had gone.

“Don’t f
eel too bad, laddie,” little Ufudd offered, noticing his anxious look. “Lord Crafanc is likely just a bit touchy after how things went here at the mine with your Uncle Waldrick.”

“W
hat do you mean?” he asked in surprise.

“
Well, when your uncle inherited everything, after what he and the sea-witch did to your poor father and mother, and since
you
couldn’t be found, the rightful heir—well, as the new Earl of Griffon, your Uncle Waldrick came here to look at all the gold.”

“
He spent ten hours in the Vault,” Emrys said. “We could barely pry him out of here for breakfast.”

No wonder Red
had reacted so angrily. Jake did not want to be
anything
like his horrid Uncle Waldrick, who was even now imprisoned in a tower for his crimes, deep in the heart of dragon country, where he would remain.

T
hey stepped back into the elevator, rejoining the pure-and-virtuous Isabelle and the always-honorable Derek.

Jake knew t
hey would never behave like he just had. “I-I wish to apologize for my outburst. I had no cause to be rude to you—Derek, especially. I hope you can forgive me. I guess the past just sort of hit me. Still, that’s no excuse.” His cheeks flamed and his voice faltered with the awkwardness. “I just wanted to say—I’m sorry.”

The Guardian
gave him an understanding nod. “It’s all right, lad. We’ll help to keep you honest.”

Isabelle
smiled ruefully at him. “It was a nice idea about the animal hospital, anyway,” she said.

Then Emrys closed the door
, and when they all held on, the elevator went shooting up again.

G
enerous-hearted as they were, Jake’s friends spared him any further mention of his unseemly temper tantrum.

As the
elevator ascended, he reflected on how he was fortunate, indeed, that the people he cared about were willing to let his ugly moment pass as water under the bridge.

But when they returned to the Atrium, Jake wo
rried that the Gryphon might be another story. Red was already there, surrounded by dwarf engineers and geologists who were showing him maps of the mine’s newest tunnels and trying to get the beast to indicate where they ought to dig next, for gryphons had an instinct for finding gold.

Red sent Jake a chilly glance over
his winged shoulder and huffed through his beak, then turned away again.

Jake’s heart sank.
But there was no time to waste, for the dwarves’ workday was waning. They had to get on with their tour of the mine.

Emrys put the gold key away while
Ufudd passed out rain slickers and a hard protective hat to each of them. Goggles were optional, but each received a little pouch of powdered Illuminium to light their way back in case they got separated.

If being underground weren’t bad enough in itself, Jake blanched at the thought of getting lost by himself in that labyrinth of subterranean tunnels.

Of course, Emrys had no intention of letting that happen, so the Illuminium was really just a keepsake from their visit to the mine. Dani was jumping up and down with excitement over having some Illuminium of her own when Derek announced that he’d be staying behind with Red in the Atrium, where he’d wait for them to return.

He’d been on the tour many times before
, he said, and for a fellow of his size, some of those passages, tunnels, and low arches were just a bother.

Jake
instantly worried that this was just an excuse, that Derek really just wanted to get away from him after his obnoxious outburst in the Vault.

Not that he could blame him.

Before they set out, Emrys issued a formal invitation to them all to come tomorrow night to Waterfall Village and enjoy the dwarves’ hospitality. They eagerly accepted the invitation, then with a final warning from Derek to do as Emrys said, they marched off into the wide main tunnel off the Atrium to begin their tour.

Crews of dwarves with all their tools and gear
bustled about in all directions, heading for their assigned work areas. Halfway down the tunnel, Emrys led them past an alcove hollowed out of the bedrock, with a few small tables built into it like a tiny restaurant. Here some of the dwarf miners were taking their breaks until a signal bell rang; then the hardworking miners picked up their tools, put on their hats, and trudged back to work.

Next, their tour
proceeded into even darker, narrower underground passages, where they saw many wonders. Great stone arches, dramatically lit with lanterns. Rock formations in an array of colors, like natural sculptures formed by water and erosion. Startlingly bright white calcium formations grew next to sleek, jet-black coal. Reddish clumps of iron mingled with sparkly green galena and silvery lead sulfide. Bright blue copper sulfate striped bold yellow deposits of garish sulfur.

“Whew, that stinks!” Dani declared, holding her nose.

“It wasn’t me,” Jake said on cue.

T
he girls rolled their eyes at his joke, but at least Archie laughed. They were just glad he was starting to act like his normal self again.

“Ah, that’s sulfur for you! Rotten egg smell.
Well, way down here, we’re not that far from the underworld, you know,” Emrys jested. “We always joke we mustn’t dig too deep, or we might accidentally crack open the Pit of Hades and let the devil out. Then we’d have some explainin’ to do.”

The boys laughed, but Dani’s
eyes became like saucers. Ufudd stamped his feet. “You hear that, Old Scratch? You stay down there where you belong!”

Dani O’De
ll, the good Irish-Catholic girl, was suddenly looking over her shoulder, obviously wishing she had brought her little rosary. She seemed to fear that every shadow thrown out by the lanterns might be a demon lurking in the tunnels.

Jake resisted the
urge to sneak up behind her and scare her with a roguish “Boo!” He could hardly blame the carrot-head for believing in the devil, considering that a bona fide angel had once saved her life.

Come to think of it, it had been a
while since they had seen Dr. Celestus.

Ufudd
also noticed Dani’s uneasiness and spoke up to put her at ease, for at age ten, she was the youngest of their party. “Now, now, don’t you worry, my pip,” said the little old dwarf. “We’ll not dig that deep. We’re very careful here, as you can see. Master Emrys, tell them about how we make the gold.”

“Right.” They continued on their tour with the head dwarf narrating as they went.
“Gold, you see, is nearly always mixed with other kinds of minerals. That means it has to be separated out from them. Fine gold has to be purified. All the worthless stuff has got to be burned away. Just like with people,” Emrys added with a chuckle.

He
led them along to watch the dwarves at work at all the various stages of the process, from the initial taking of samples with a diamond-bit drill to the final smelting process that turned out pure, solid-gold bars.

“
You may not realize it,” he continued, “but it takes one whole ton of rock to get just six and a half grams of gold.”

“Really?” Archie exclaimed. “No wonder the alchemists
back in the olden days tried so hard to do it the easy way, changing lead into gold.”

Emry
s snorted. “Legend has it there was a local wizard once in these parts who succeeded. Unfortunately for him, it turns out that gold made from magic only lasts for a couple of hours and crumbles when sunlight touches it. What we bring out of the Everton Mine is the genuine article, 99.9 percent pure. Now, let’s head up this way. Watch your step. It can be slippery.”

Indeed, they had long since realized
why Derek had told them to wear their boots. Water trickled down the walls of the mine here and there and made their footing treacherous in places.

They steadied each other as they went, with Emrys at the head and Ufudd bringing up the rear of their party.

As they trekked on through the twilight, Jake was able to forget about his phobias from working in the coalmine. Bit by bit, he finally relaxed until he noticed he was actually having fun, trekking through tunnels, up ladders and down slides, over wooden footbridges suspended high above the central canyon of the mine.