“That will be fine,” nodded Mistake. “Be careful.”
MistyTrail turned and left. Mistake crawled forward and kept watch on the chamber. She had not been watching long when she heard MistyTrail returning. She pushed back from the edge and was surprised to see that MistyTrail had brought the rope with her.
“What is that for?” asked Mistake as she accepted half of the dried meat.
“How else can we get down there?” retorted the Sakovan warrior.
“Get down there?” Mistake asked in horror. “Please tell me that you are joking. We are not going down there.”
“We said that we were going to look for our family,” pouted MistyTrail. “How can we not go down there?”
“So he has pointy ears,” argued Mistake. “Maybe he suffered the same quirk of fate that we did. His ears do not make him our relative.”
“Have you ever met anyone else who has ears like us?” asked MistyTrail. “Have you?”
“No,” admitted Mistake. “At least not until I met you, but that is no reason to do something foolish.”
“Just hold one end of the rope,” scowled MistyTrail. “You won’t have to go down.”
“No,” Mistake replied adamantly. “I spent my whole life searching for you. I will not let you throw your life away.”
“Fine,” retorted MistyTrail. “I will just hang from the ledge and drop.”
MistyTrail tried to move her legs to the edge, but Mistake grabbed her.
“Must you do this?” sighed Mistake.
“I have to,” sniffed MistyTrail. “I have to know who he is. Please help me.”
“But he is down the hole,” protested Mistake. “You can’t get down there without the apes.”
“I just want to get his hat,” explained MistyTrail. “He must have dropped it when he was whipped. The timing is perfect right now. There is no one around.”
“Alright,” Mistake shook her head. “You just grab the hat and get back up here. Do you promise?”
“I promise,” MistyTrail nodded vigorously as she grabbed the rope and began lowering one end to the floor below.
“Make it quick,” urged Mistake as she wrapped the rope around herself and found a rock to brace her feet on. “They probably stopped for the midday meal. They won’t be gone for long.”
MistyTrail grabbed the rope and swung her feet over the edge. She slid down the rope as fast as she could. When her feet hit the floor, she looked around nervously to see if anyone was nearby. Seeing no one around, she dashed for the tunnel that the man had emerged from. She peered along the tunnel and could not see the end of it. She ran into the tunnel.
Mistake watched her sister disappear into the tunnel. She chewed nervously on her lip as she waited. Suddenly, the whip man appeared out of one of the tunnels. Mistake cringed with fear. The man walked to the wheel and peered into the hole in the floor. He grumbled under his breath and stormed off down a different tunnel.
“Hurry, MistyTrail,” Mistake said softly to herself.
Mistake heard the whip man bellowing loudly and cracking his whip. The growls that followed let Mistake know that the apes were the targets of the man’s abuse. She began to sweat profusely as she silently urged MistyTrail to hurry.
Finally, MistyTrail emerged from the tunnel she raced across the floor, and Mistake felt the tension on the rope. Mistake held the rope tightly as her eyes remained glued on the entrance to the tunnel that the apes would use to return. MistyTrail pulled herself over the edge, and Mistake frantically pulled in the rope. She just managed to get the end of the rope as the apes stormed into the room. She exhaled her held breath, and turned to stare at MistyTrail.
“Did you find it?” she asked.
MistyTrail grinned and pulled the hat from her belt.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” warned Mistake. “I would rather be in danger myself than fear for you when I cannot help. What do we do with it now that you have it?”
“We wait for him to return from the hole,” answered MistyTrail. “Maybe we can use the hat to signal him.”
“And hope that he doesn’t point us out to everyone else,” frowned Mistake. “I do not like this plan.”
Chapter 12
Pointy Ears
Mistake and MistyTrail watched the large chamber for hours. Most of the activity was centered around the large apes rotating the large wheel and people moving from one tunnel to another. Very few people made use of the bucket elevator until late in the day. When people did start to come up in the buckets, it was a steady stream. Over an hour passed before an empty bucket was seen coming up from below. They watched carefully for the man without a hat. As the stream of people riding the buckets turned into a trickle, MistyTrail sighed in frustration.
“Maybe he isn’t coming up,” whispered Mistake.
“He will be coming,” retorted MistyTrail. “We will wait. He may be our brother. We can’t leave him here.”
“Our brother?” asked Mistake. “Do you really think we could just accidentally end up in this cave and stumble upon our long lost brother? I spent years looking for you.”
“How else can you explain his ears?” countered MistyTrail. “It must be a family trait.”
“A family trait?” echoed Mistake. “Don’t be silly. He is probably just descended from the ancient elves like we are.”
“Elves?” questioned MistyTrail. “What are you talking about? There are no elves.”
“Maybe not,” responded Mistake, “but there used to be.”
“You are crazy,” MistyTrail shook her head. “You are beginning to sound like HawkShadow. He always used to tease me about being an elf. There is no such thing.”
“You can’t just wish away history,” retorted Mistake. “The elves may indeed be long gone, but they did exist. I have read ancient scrolls in Fakara that speak of them.”
“They are probably just stories made up for children,” argued MistyTrail.
“Hardly,” countered Mistake. “They are the same scrolls that talk about the Torak, the Astor, and the Star. Do you believe those are just tales for children?”
MistyTrail’s face clouded in confusion. She remember when she first heard the reading of the Scroll of Kaltara and thought it was just a story, but then Lyra came to the Sakova and became the Star. How could she dismiss ancient scrolls after that?
“What did the scrolls say?” asked MistyTrail.
“The elves used to trade with the humans at Angragar,” recalled Mistake. “In fact, it was the elves who created the Qubari Jungle to hide the ancient city. They had been attacking it when they found out who their real enemy was.”
“They created the jungle?” MistyTrail asked skeptically. “That is hard to believe.”
“Perhaps for you,” conceded Mistake, “but I have been there. I entered the ancient city of Angragar. The city was partially destroyed by large siege engines, just like the scrolls reported. The city was guarded by hellsouls, just like the scrolls said. I also met trolls in the jungle who thought I smelled like an elf. They had no reason to lie, MistyTrail.”
“Smelled like an elf?” echoed MistyTrail. “What does an elf smell like? Do you think that you are an elf?”
“I think we are probably descended from the ancient elves,” nodded Mistake. “It would be strange for all of the elves to die at the same time. Some of them must have had families that lingered for years. I guess one of them was an ancestor of ours.”
“That still leads to the man without a hat being a relative,” MistyTrail pointed out.
“No,” countered Mistake. “It only means he might also be descended from some ancient elf. I am sure there must be plenty of people around with pointed ears.”
“How many have you known?” inquired MistyTrail.
“None,” conceded Mistake before she quickly added, “but that does not mean that they don’t exist.”
“We will wait,” MistyTrail said with determination.
Mistake shrugged and watched the scene below in silence. What bothered her most was not the wasted time spent to find the man with the pointy ears. What she was concerned about was the depression MistyTrail would go through when she found out the man was not her brother. Mistake had experienced enough of that to know the feeling.