Corvan pressed his hands against the rock on either side of the glowing portal and stared into the glassy surface. The rumbling flowing down from the Castle Rock overhead felt much the same as when he first discovered the black hammer, back when the two stone doors set into the ground in front of his collapsed fort had slammed shut, sealing Kate inside.

  The tremors faded away, but the blue light continued to flicker around the edges of the portal. With Jorad and his medallion just inside the first room, he hoped the portal would remain open long enough for him to locate the scepter, then return with Jorad to the Cor and rescue Kate.

  Turning away from the blue glow, he made his way up the dark passage, felt his way past the opening that led to Tsarek’s dwelling, then dropped to his knees and crawled up the steep incline that led to the underside of the stone doors at the top of the rock.

  The small chamber that held the bones of his grandfather was dark with no signs of light or sounds of life overhead. Feeling cautiously around the floor to avoid the bones, his hand came upon a small box; the matches from when he first dropped down with the hammer.

  Lighting one, he held it up to the thin outline between the tightly sealed doors. Specks of dust fell through the flame and in the dense silence, he caught the sound of something being dragged across the two slabs of rock. Someone, or something, was on top of Castle Rock.

  Dropping the spent match, he lit another, then retraced his steps, scooting around the corner and into Tsarek’s dwelling as the light died. Feeling his way across the room, he carried on and squeezed through into the passage his father had had been cutting out from their cellar. It was pitch dark in the narrow corridor with no indication that the lumien seed from the mother plant was still alive.

  Creeping forward, he discovered the secret door behind the shelves slightly ajar. A shadow moved passed the crack. Unsheathing Jorad’s black knife, Corvan gripped it tightly, then eased the door open just wide enough to squeeze into the cellar.

  A match flared from across the room in front of the workbench, casting a large shadow of the person standing there towards him. Corvan tried to slip in behind the shelving, but his cloak caught on the shelf and a wooden box of gears and pulleys toppled off, crashing to the floor, round objects spinning off in all directions. The lighted match by the workbench vanished as the cellar filled with the incredible racket of steel circles rolling, then spiraling slowly down until they lay flat on the floor.

  Tsarek’s sarcasm broke the silence. “Those silent shoes of yours are going to be the death of me, sir.” This time there was no respect at all in the word “sir”.

  Corvan walked into the cellar. “Then maybe you should stay at my side instead of running ahead of me all the time.”

  Tsarek shrugged as his match went out. “I want to see who made the rock shake. I wanted to check on my things to make sure they were not stolen.”

  Another match flared, right next to a stick with a fuse hanging from it.

  “Tsarek. Drop the match! That’s a stick of dynamite!” Corvan cried out as he jumped forward to grab the stick and throw it out the cellar doors.

  The fuse caught — the flame of a candle grew bright.

  Tsarek held the candle out to him. “If I dropped the match, how could I light the candle?”

  Corvan took the candle, shaking his head.

  “What is dynamite?” Tsarek asked.

  “A stick that can explode with much more power than a broken firestick. I left some in here when I followed Kate into the Cor through your dwelling.”

  Tsarek nodded. “Then that’s what made the loud noise on top of the rock. It made my home below shake, much more than when the trains go by.” He pointed to the cellar doors to the outside ramp. “Someone was just in here and was searching for something and I don’t see any exploding sticks here.”

  Corvan crossed to the workbench. Many of the tools had been pulled from their hooks on the wall and tossed on the workbench and the two sticks of dynamite he had left behind in the cubby hole were gone.

  “I bet Billy and his father came back and they’re trying to blow up the rock to get at the treasure,” Corvan called out, running to the cellar door. “I hope my mother didn’t go out there to see what the noise was!”

  Just beyond the double doors, a set of partially snow drifted boot prints led toward the cellar and a more recent set of imprints headed back up the ramp. Corvan followed to where the prints headed across the back yard towards the Castle Rock.

  The shaft of light from the kitchen window shot across toward the outhouse. The phone inside the home began to ring and Corvan stopped and listened. Two long rings followed by two short ones. It was their specific ringing cadence on the party line so someone must be calling his mother about the blast out the rock. He waited until it stopped, but there was no movement in the kitchen. Had his mother already gone up to the rock?

  He ran forward with Tsarek jumping along in the tracks behind him. Just ahead the deep imprints of the man’s footprints continued past the shoveled pathway leading to the outhouse. The drifts grew deeper as they reached the lee side of the Castle Rock, the smooth rounded sides punctuated by dark strips of dirt and dust.

  Soon the long strides of the prints where too far apart to follow and Corvan had to move to one side and slowly break his own trail with Tsarek wading and jumping along behind him. The snow thinned out where the tracks headed straight up the long depression of the summer water channel. At least the large boot prints were closer together on the slope and Corvan used them to climb towards the ring of snow-covered rocks. Tsarek leapt past him and sped up the slope on the outer rim of the channel.

  Corvan came to an abrupt halt in the western gap of the rocks. The area inside the circle of crenelations had been blasted clean, right down to the granite floor. Out beyond the rocks, the plumes of dirt had fanned out in blackened streaks against the sharp contrast of the new snow, like the shadowed spokes of a great wheel.

  Tsarek’s head poked out from the other side of the large rock that Corvan and Kate had pushed off the entry doors when they first went down to the Cor. “Come quick, Corvan!” Tsarek said. “It’s the large boy who used to shoot at me with his gun. The same one that was with the man named Pa who broke into your cellar.”

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  Corvan raced around the rock to find Billy Fry propped up against far side, his blackened face crusty and bleeding.

  Corvan touched the boy’s shoulder and Billy latched onto Corvan’s wrist.

  “Help me,” the boy croaked past cracked lips.

  “It’s okay Billy,” Corvan said. “I’m here now. I’ll get you some help.”

  Billy groaned. “I cain’t see you or hear you. Please help me.”

  Corvan patted Billy’s shoulder and gestured for Tsarek to come closer. “We need to get him to the hospital,” he said softly.

  Tsarek crept up to Corvan’s side. “He is much larger when you get up close. Much too big for you and I to carry.”

  Corvan tried to stand but Billy clenched his forearm even tighter. “Please don’t leave me here. I don’t want to die.”

  Corvan sat back and squeezed the boy’s tattered mitten.

  “Tsarek, my toboggan is in the cellar.”

  “I don’t know this word, Toboggan.”

  “It’s the sled with the thin wooden boards that curve up on the front. The one I would use to slide down the snow in the channel we just come up.”

  “Oh, yes, you and Kate loved doing that. When I served the black band, it was good for me to hear you two laughing and sliding down the hill. I’ll go get it for you.”

  “I can pull him down to the house and call for help from there.” Corvan shivered. “And bring something warm for me to wear and a blanket for Billy.”

  As Tsarek trotted off, Corvan reclined back against the rock and put his free arm around Billy’s broad shoulder.

  Billy’s soot covered face turned towards him. The boy’s eyes were sealed shut, much like the leader of the Rakash. Corvan squeezed the boy’s shoulder and Billy mumbled past bleeding lips.

  “Tell Corvan I’m sorry that I tried blow up his fort, but my Pa is real sick and we need the money, so I tried to get some of Corvan’s treasure. Tell him I didn’t’ mean to mess up his workshop. I know that was a special place for him and his dad.” The boys’ shoulders shook, and his lower lip trembled. “I guess I was jealous bout that too.”

  As Corvan patted the boy’s back, Billy slumped onto Corvan’s shoulder, almost topping them both to the ground. Corvan pushed him upright. Billy’s face was more relaxed, and now only slow puffs of vapor were coming from his nose. The boy had lost consciousness. If Tsarek didn’t return quickly he would need to leave Billy here and help bring the toboggan up the hill.

  Easing Billy to the ground, Corvan stood and peered around the large rock toward the house. The light was still burning in the kitchen but there was no movement inside. His mother must have gone for help but if she returned to find a large lizard pulling a sleigh across the backyard that would not be good. At least she didn’t know how to use his father’s rifle and hated even touching it.

  Billy’s breaths were becoming more erratic and the whisps of vapor from his nose were getting smaller. The wind from the north side of the rocks was picking up. Corvan shivered and stood to return to the house just as a strange apparition appeared in the western gap. Tsarek, dressed up as a Christmas elf, was pulling a sleigh holding a large brightly decorated sack.

  Tsarek dragged the toboggan over the rough stone and parked it next to the rock. “It is much harder to drag this back up the hill. I most certainly didn’t laugh with the joy you and Kate had going down.” He stepped out of the toboggan’s rope and tugged on the sack. “I found some clothing in a box with other winter holiday things. This one fit me, and I brought something for you to wear as well.”

  Corvan flicked the bell on the top of Tsarek’s pointy green hat. “That’s the elf suit I used to wear for the annual Christmas show at the mine. My father would play Santa Claus and I would be his helper elf to give out presents from that sack.” Corvan opened the gold braided drawstring and pulled out his father’s Santa costume. At least it was thick and warm. He pulled the hat on and discovered that his mother had sewed the Santa beard onto the brim of the hat which wasn’t a bad thing. With the cold wind, the beard was like a scarf around his neck,

  Pulling the toboggan in close he carefully rolled Billy onto it. At least Billy was wearing his usual heavy military style winter parka. Judging from the holes ripped into it, the dense filling had likely saved his life.

  Tsarek reached into the pocket of his elf suit and handed Corvan a round tin. It was a Red Ryder BB tin, but his parents had never allowed him to have a BB gun. His mother was concerned that a ricochet from one of the castle rocks might shoot his eye out. He gave the tin a shake. It was heavy but there wasn’t the familiar rattle of the BB’s. “What’s this?”

  “A salve from my dwelling. I make it to cure burns from firesticks. I think it may save this large boy’s eyes if you put it on him right away.”

  Corvan opened the can and carefully dabbed the gooey paste over Billy’s face and eyelids. The boy moaned but once the job was over, he grew still. Corvan tucked the empty Christmas sack under the boy’s head, then struggled to pull the toboggan across the bare ground to the gap.

  Once they got to the snow it moved easily but soon it was more difficult to maneuver the loaded toboggan down the water track without it getting away on him. Corvan leaned back against the curved-up front, dug his heels into the snow and held onto the curve of the wood behind him to control the descent.

  Once the slope leveled out in the field and the toboggan stopped pushing him along, Corvan turned to find Tsarek balanced on the very back of the toboggan between Billy’s feet, his short arms outstretched for balance like a surfer on his board. Hoping off, he came up to Corvan, shaking his head until the little bell of his elf hat tinkled. “That wasn’t much fun either. You went too slow.”

  Ignoring the complaint, Corvan stepped into the loop of red and white braided rope and began to pulled Billy towards the house, avoiding the tracks they had made on their way out to the rock so the toboggan would not tip to one side and spill Billy off.

  As he leaned into the work, he kept glancing over at the snow drifting into Billy’s original tracks going out to the hill. There was something odd about them, but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. There was no time to investigate. Putting his head down, he pulled hard until he finally reached the house.

  As he pulled the toboggan under the shelter of his backyard maple tree, headlights from an incoming vehicle swept down their long drive. Corvan kept moving the sleigh forwards to meet the car and found that his dad’s truck was still parked out front, surrounded by fresh snow. His mother hadn’t left after all.

  The incoming car stopped, its lights washing over Corvan and Tsarek. The doors popped opened, and Mr. and Mrs. Barron jumped out.

  “What happened?” Mrs. Barron asked. “I was looking out the store window and I saw the flash of light and heard the explosion. I tried calling but there was no answer.”

  Corvan’s voice was muffled behind the thick fake beard. “I think this boy may have been planning a prank with a stick of dynamite, but he was too close when it went off.

  Mrs. Barron leaned over the toboggan, “That’s Billy Fry. Up to no good again. I bet he was the one that blew up our outhouse at Halloween.”

  She looked to her husband. “He’s hurt pretty bad. We need to get him to the Fenwood hospital.” She pointed to Corvan and Tsarek. “If you two are going to make it to the Christmas party at the mine you had better move along. It’s likely already started. We can’t have Santa and his elf not showing up on Christmas Eve, especially with the difficult times at the mine.”

  Mr. Barron took the rope from Corvan and pulled the toboggan toward their car while Mrs. Barron followed behind.

  Corvan stepped forward to help, then stopped short. One of the smaller prints from Mrs. Barron’s shoe was centered inside the larger footprint from Mr. Barron’s boot. Of course! That’s what was odd about Billy’s footprints leading out to the rock. A taller person with smaller boots had stepped into Billy’s boot prints and had followed Billy onto the rock.

  That could only mean that mother had come from the house, left the outhouse trail, then headed out to the rock before he and Tsarek had even arrived in the cellar.

  His heart dropped as he looked up at the Castle Rock being brightly lit by the Barron’s headlights. She had not left any prints coming back from the rock. She had not seen Billy and somehow she had managed to get past the Castle Rock doors.

  His mother was already on her way to the Cor.