“It’s not like the old days, you know,” he moaned to the others. “I used to be able to take on an entire army, all by myself. But now I get muscle spasms, and my hips are all full of arthritis. Old age, you know. Just another piece of misery waiting for all of us. Not that you two youngsters care. I might as well be talking to a wall.”

“Who is this guy?” whispered Kay to Sarah.

“I don’t know anything about him,” she replied with a shrug. “All I learned is that he’s very depressing and that he might or might not eat bugs.”

Meanwhile, Dax continued his moaning and groaning. “Ugh…here they come,” he said as the shadows of at least a dozen humans and beast-men marched down the corridor. “All that noise, noise, noise! The sound of their armor is going to give me headaches for weeks. Not that it really matters, I suppose. I’m so rusty with a sword I’ll probably cut my own head off in combat. I’m sorry your escape won’t be very long-lived.”

Despite his incessant grumbling, Dax moved forward undaunted by the guards in front of him. They came upon him in a wave, seeking to overwhelm him with their superior numbers. But even when they outnumbered him ten to one, not a single blade touched his skin. He moved the sword in deft arcs in front of him, knocking aside any other weapon that came near him. When one of the guards let down his defense, Dax rewarded him by slapping the flat of his blade against the side of the guard’s head. In short order, three human guards had fallen, knocked out by Dax’s expert moves. Even then, the old warrior didn’t stop his griping.

“What a bother all of this is going to be in the morning. I’ll probably go deaf from all the noise, and this sword hilt is giving me blisters. I swear, some days I feel like I should just have stayed in bed.”

A beast-man with bull’s horns charged Dax, ignoring the sharp blade in the warrior’s hand. Dax sidestepped expertly, parrying another trio of attacks from the other guards as he did so. With a whirling motion, he smacked the charging creature in the back with the flat of his blade, sending the beast-man off balance. The creature fell headlong at Sarah’s feet. When he got up, he didn’t seem interested in taking on Dax anymore. With angry eyes, his attention turned to Sarah.

“Uh-oh,” breathed Sarah just before the creature lowered its head into a charge. Sarah dodged just enough to avoid the monster’s horns, but the beast-man’s shoulder still rammed into her chest, sending her sprawling to the ground. She gasped in pain as the wind was knocked out of her body. The creature grinned and drew a large ax. Sarah held her breath, unsure of whether she could dodge this next blow.

Luckily, the creature didn’t follow through with his strike. Something hit him in the back of the head, and he turned around. Sarah heard a skittering of rocks as more small things flew past the creature and into the darkness of the dungeon. Squirming to reposition herself, she saw Kay holding a handful of small rocks he had gathered from the unkempt floor. He threw them one by one, as quickly as he could at the advancing monster.

“I might not have spells,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean I’m useless.”

“Stupid boy,” rumbled the beast-man. “Do you really think your pebbles can hurt me? I barely even feel them through my hide.”

“I figured that,” admitted Kay. “But I also counted on someone with a bull’s head not being terribly clever.”

On cue, Kay dropped the rocks and charged the beast-man. He hit the creature in the stomach as hard as he could. Even that blow didn’t manage to hurt the creature, but it did catch him by surprise. The bull-man staggered backwards. Sarah took the opportunity to launch her own offensive, getting low and charging her attacker’s knees. Although the pair hadn’t managed to do much to hurt the beast-man, they did knock it to the ground, giving them a couple of seconds to withdraw. Kay grabbed Sarah by the wrist and pulled her back toward their cell, away from the battle.

The beast-man picked himself up a moment later. With a roar of anger, he charged headlong after the fleeing pair. The sound of galloping hooves echoed down the hallway. To Sarah, it seemed that no matter how fast she ran, the creature was only a few steps away. But by the time they reached their cell, she got an idea.

“This way,” she said, grabbing Kay by his baggy robes and pulling him into the cell. Kay gave a shout of protest, but Sarah had already put him off balance. The pair tumbled into the jail, hitting hard against the stone floor.

“What are we doing back here?” cried Kay. “This place is exactly what we’re trying to stay out of!”

“Just trust me,” she responded, her eyes flashing in excitement. “I know what I’m doing.”

Sure enough, the guard that had charged after them followed, his horns lowered and his eyes red with rage. He slowed down just enough so he could turn the corner into the cell, but continued his charge. The last thing he expected was to see Kay and Sarah crouched on the ground right next to the door. The creature gave a roar of surprise as Sarah threw herself against his legs again. This time, one of the guard’s hooves cut into her side. She heard a rip in her pajamas, and shouted as she felt blood trickle out of the newly formed cut. Despite the sudden surge of pain, she didn’t back down, and sent the beast-man falling again. With a shout of surprise, the guard found himself sprawled out on the floor of the cell.

Sarah and Kay leapt to their feet at the same time and ran out of the jail cell. The one benefit they had over the large beast-man was that they were fast and somewhat agile – definitely more nimble than the lumbering bull-creature, at least. Before the guard could get to his feet, Sarah slammed the cell door shut and turned the key that Dax had left in the lock. Then she threw the key down the long dark corridor, leaving her attacker locked safely away.

“Good job,” said Kay. He smiled and gave her a low bow – so low that he almost tripped over his baggy clothes.

“Thanks. I think I’m getting the hang of this adventure thing.”

“Are you two okay? No, of course you’re not.” Dax approached from farther down the hall. “I guess the question I should really be asking is, how badly are you hurt?”

“We’re okay,” said Sarah, moving to meet the warrior. “I just got a bit of a cut here on my side.” She looked at the tear in her pajamas. Her skin was already a purple bruise where the hoof had hit her, and she was still bleeding a bit where the skin had broken.

“Oh, no!” Dax only glanced at the wound. As soon as he did, his face turned pale, and he looked like he might faint dead away. “Please, please step back into the darkness. We’ll bandage you up as soon as we’re able, but for right now…oh, my. I never should have gotten out of bed today.”

“Are you okay?”

“Not really. It’s…well, this time it’s your bleeding. I never did get the knack for stomaching the sight of blood, you see.”

“But…you’re a warrior.”

“Not exactly.” Dax gestured toward the bodies of the guards he had defeated. Each of them was battered and bruised, but had nothing worse than a nasty bump on the head from the flat of Dax’s sword. The warrior’s own blade didn’t even have a drop of blood on it. “You see, that’s the same problem that got me thrown down here in the first place. I was hired as a mercenary for Baelan’s armies, but I couldn’t quite get used to the life of a soldier. Not to mention the fact that it’s absolutely dreadful sleeping in the same quarters as some of these smelly horse-men. So when I tried to desert, I got caught and thrown down here. Then, I think they just sort of forgot about me.”

“Well, it’s going to be hard to forget about you when they wake up,” interjected Kay. He picked up his pace as he moved toward the stairway. “And we had better get out of here before they do. They’re probably not the only guards in this dungeon.”

“I suppose so,” whined Dax. “Although I can’t imagine I’ll enjoy it very much. After spending so much time down here in the dark, the light from outside will probably blind me.”

***

The dungeon was located beneath a tall tower that jutted out of the wilderness. Both Sarah and Kay had been blindfolded after their capture, and couldn’t figure out where they were. Dax, on the other hand, said that he remembered the area, and could help them retrace their steps back to the hidden spellbook. Or at least he thought he could.

“I’ll probably forget something along the way and get us all hopelessly lost,” he said. “Memory tends to be the first thing to go when you hit old age, you know. If we end up lost in the wild and starving to death, you have permission to kill me and eat me if you need to. Not that it will do much good, though. These bones probably don’t have any real meat on them at all. All you’ll get is gristle.”

“What’s wrong with this guy?” whispered Kay to Sarah as they followed along. “He’s giving me a headache.”

“I don’t know,” replied Sarah. “But he’s definitely got a morbid imagination. Between him talking about eating bugs and now eating him, I don’t know if I’ll ever have an appetite again.”

Despite Dax’s constant complaining, it turned out that he was an excellent tracker. Once the three travelers were clear of the tower, they made good speed across the wooded terrain of the valley. In a matter of hours, Sarah began recognizing the area a little bit.

Despite Dax’s talk about eating bugs and people in order to survive, Sarah quickly found herself working up an appetite. She hadn’t eaten all day, and the one thing she had definitely learned about having an adventure was that it is a very draining process. Fortunately, she didn’t have to resort to eating Dax. The warrior found a patch of berries along the way, and let the younger pair sit and eat while he left to scare up some food. He came back with a pair of small rabbits, which made a tasty meal even though they weren’t terribly filling. He also brought some herbs with him for Sarah’s wound. Dax was too squeamish to look directly at the cut, even after the blood had dried. Instead, he looked away as he told Kay how to apply the herbs and bandages.

“You seem pretty capable,” said Sarah when they had started traveling again. “But why are you so gloomy?”

“What’s there not to be gloomy about?” sighed Dax. “Sometimes I think it all starts with those mountains.” He pointed toward the horizon, where massive gray mountain peaks formed a rocky circle around the valley. “Everybody who finds their way into this valley winds up trapped here. Those big gray depressing things keep us all locked up, and it only gets worse from there.”

“That’s not the way it is at all,” said Kay indignantly. The young wizard apparently did not like people complaining about his home. “The mountains aren’t there as a prison. They’re there to protect this place from the outside world.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Sarah.

“I can make it a lot clearer once we get my book back,” replied the boy. “But the valley was never meant to be a prison. The wizard who created this place – the same wizard who created Castle Greystone – made it as a sanctuary. He saw the world changing. Things were getting darker, and people were becoming more cynical. So he made this valley, and gathered up all the stuff from humanity’s dreams. Dragons, fairies, wizards, they’re all here, in some form or another. If it wasn’t for this valley, there would be no place for wonder anymore.”

“How could one person do that?” asked Sarah. “It seems pretty impossible.”

“Of course it’s impossible. That’s why it’s called magic! If people knew how it was done, it wouldn’t be magical, and Baelan wouldn’t be hunting me to try and find the secrets hidden away in my book.”

“He’s better off not looking,” said Dax. “In my experience, meddling with that sort of thing only leads to trouble. Of course, so does everything else.”

They found the hillside before nightfall. Kay gave a shout of joy as he ran toward the boulder that he had hidden his spellbook under.

“Finally! I’ve been wandering around feeling naked without my magic. We’ll get my spellbook, rest up for the night, and then I’ll figure out a clever way to get my hat and staff back, and pay Baelan back for all this trouble. Sounds like a good plan, huh?”

Kay flipped over the large stone that he had hidden the book under and began digging like a happy dog. Sarah stepped out of the way to avoid getting dirt thrown in her face, while Dax just stood in the path and sighed as his clothes became covered with mud.

“It’s down here somewhere,” said Kay, still digging. “This is the right place.”

He spent a few more minutes at his task before the happiness left his face and he became frantic. The dirt came out of the hole faster now, flying about the area like a thick brown cloud. When Kay had dug deeper than he had before, he stood up, a look of panic drawn clearly across his now pale face.

The spellbook was nowhere to be found.