CHAPTER#98

At the back of the courtyard, rising ominously into the sky, was the actual entrance to the tower. The top of it was higher than the nearby peak that the tower seemed to grow from.

"This place is surprisingly peaceful." Zel approached one of the garden beds to inspect it. "Hey, most of these are vegetables!"

"I found some strawberries over here." Ratu plucked a few of them and tossed them in her mouth. "Mmm, they're good."

Salivating, Mike approached the bushes and the three of them picked the fruit. Daisy seemed content to watch the group, occasionally moving away from a bee or butterfly determined to interact with her. In the distance, they could hear the trumpeting of horns.

"Should we worry about that?" Mike asked.

"Nah. The only way the centaurs have ever gotten in was if the drawbridge was down." Zel said. "Well, at least that I know of."

"Is that true?" he asked Daisy. The fairy nodded and made some hand signs.

"I honestly don't understand you."

"But I might." Ratu licked the juices of a blackberry off of her finger and held her hand up with the same finger outstretched. "Come here."

Daisy seemed nervous, but with a glance at Mike, landed on the naga's finger.

"When you sign something, I want you to visualize the word. Try to keep it simple though." Ratu closed her eyes and made a Y with the thumb and pinky of her free hand. She moved Daisy close to her forehead, placing her thumb on her own forehead and her pinky on Daisy's.

Daisy made a couple of signs and Ratu's face scrunched up.

"Yuki... gone," Ratu said. "Tower... safe from... outsiders."

"Are you reading her mind?" Zel asked.

"Kind of. Now be quiet, unless you have a question for her. Keep them simple, I can only pick up bits of it, fairies think differently than mortals do."

"Is there a way to get home?" Mike asked.

"Only... portal. Guarded by... Jabberwock." Ratu winced between words, her brow furrowed in concentration.

"What the fuck is a... oh shit." The word came to him from out of a memory of a movie he had seen. "Are we in Wonderland?"

"Not... Wonderland. Yuki... lonely and... scared. Make Jabberwock... for protection."

"From who?"

"Emily... ah shit." Ratu moved the fairy away from her face and wiped blood away from her nose. "Yeah, I'm done doing that. It was a stupid idea anyway. Reading a fairy's mind is like trying to read a newspaper using a strobe light. Damn." She found a stone bench to sit on and lay down on her back. "Try not to bother me for a bit, my head is pounding."

"She was afraid of Emily." He held his finger out for Daisy and she landed on it. "Did she have a good reason to be afraid of her?"

Daisy nodded and pointed to the tower door.

"Is the tower dangerous?"

Daisy thought about the question for several seconds. She pointed toward the top of the tower and shook her head. She then pointed toward the door and pantomimed walking in with her feet and then nodded.

"So parts of the tower are dangerous. Can you keep me away from those parts?"

Daisy nodded and fluttered away toward the entry of the tower. She left a glittering trail in the air behind her.

"Is that wise?" Zel asked. "Going in by yourself?"

"You're welcome to come with me."

"Yeah, no thanks. I spent my childhood being terrified of the place."

"Ratu?"

"Ugh, don't talk to me." The naga had covered her eyes. "If you want to go now, you'll have to go without me. Just let me take a nap." She folded in on herself and turned into a snake. Coiling up on the bench, she closed her eyes.

He frowned. It was going to be dark soon and he didn't like the idea of sleeping outside, no matter how tame the courtyard garden seemed. The glittering trail hovered in the air, so he followed it, walking up to the rounded walls of the tower.

Staring up its walls, he felt a brief moment of vertigo. It was several stories high and had a few windows and ledges. To his right, he could hear the waterfall flowing out of the cliff. He turned to look at it. It was literally a hole carved into the stone. He wondered if there was a lake somewhere nearby, or if Yuki had put in an aqueduct system. Stepping inside the tower, he slowed his movements to a crawl, waiting for a trap to spring.

Torches on the wall lit up at his entry, and the glittering trail hooked a hard left just inside the entrance. Looking at the ground, he saw faint lines in the dirt around the block in front of him.

"It's a trap," he muttered, stepping around it and following the trail. When he waved his hand through it, the trail scattered like dust, so he walked just to the left to leave it intact. A flight of stairs ascended the circular wall, and Daisy was waiting for him at the bottom. She pointed at a lever, so he shrugged and gave it a pull.

A mechanism clicked somewhere, and Daisy flew over to the trapped stone and landed on it repeatedly.

"It's safe now?" he asked.

She nodded, then took off toward him and up the stairs, the glittering trail forming behind her once more. The tower was rather large, but mostly empty. Any furnishings had long ago been stripped away, and nearly every floor had a set of traps that he could easily disable with a lever or a touch of a button.

Nearing the top of the tower, they entered a room with a pair of black, double doors at the other end and another flight of stairs. Daisy pointed at the door several times and shook her head no.

"Is that the dangerous part?" he asked. Happy to be understood, she nodded and flew up the stairs. He followed her until the wall suddenly opened up to reveal a large balcony with a breathtaking view of the valley below. He stepped away from Daisy's trail and approached the railing. Up here, flower boxes had been filled with roses, violets, and plenty of other flowers he couldn't identify. He put his hands on the railing and looked down.