Queen of Their Colony (Kindred Tales)

“Don’t…don’t know!” he gasped and then went off into another giggle fit—only his voice was so low it was more like a bellow-fit, Terra thought. The echoes in the cave made it hard to think.

Then she remembered the Chirrips and the huge brown clouds they’d been releasing. All three of the Monstrum must have sucked in some of those damn floating spoors as they ran through them!

Terra had kept a hand clamped over her nose and mouth and had tried her best not to breathe—easier for her since she was being carried rather than running herself. Even so, she felt slightly buzzed, like she’d had more than her usual limit of two glasses of wine. But she wasn’t nearly as affected as the guys.

“High,” she muttered to herself as she looked at them. “They’re all high.”

Which meant they weren’t going to be much help for the foreseeable future. It seemed that right now, she had to be in charge.

“Well, am I Queen of the colony or not?” she said aloud. Then she frowned—she most definitely was not the Queen of their colony! Still, she had an obligation to keep the three Monstrum safe when they were incapacitated like this. The four of them were kind of a team—though not a colony, she told herself—and right now she was going to have to take the lead.

“Come out here!” one of the daisy guards shouted. “We just want to have you at our feast!”

“Right, as the main course,” Terra snapped. “That’s it—we’re getting out of here,” she said, turning to her guys. “Rive, take V’rone’s hand. And V’rone, grab Tem.”

None of them did as she asked, so she had to physically go make them hold hands. It reminded her of the one year she’d taught Kindergarten, only these “kindergarteners” were seven-foot-tall Monstrum warriors and they were being ridiculous.

“Come on, now,” she said, taking Rive, who was in the lead, by the hand once she had them all linked up. “Keep hold of your buddy’s hand and let’s go!”

She left the shouting Froozle guards at the entrance and moved deeper into the long, narrow cave. It was more like a passageway than an actual cavern, she noted, as she led her chain of Monstrum by the hand like they were little kids.

Once on a family vacation with her ex and their son, Terra had been to Mammoth Caves in Kentucky—the largest cave system in the world. That was back when they were still happily married and Gregoryory hadn’t started running after interns that were half his age yet, she thought dryly.

Anyway, the cavern reminded her a little of that vacation. The long walk into darkness…the chilly, windless space…the echoing sounds….the feeling of a massive amount of soil and stone hovering just over your head.

It was claustrophobic and cold in the cave tunnel and she kept expecting it to get too narrow to navigate, like that awful part at the Mammoth Caves called “Fat Man’s Misery.” She’d nearly gotten stuck there because of her broad hips. Now that was a cave trail she never wanted to go on again!

But, to her relief, the circumference of the tunnel stayed roughly the same and eventually even the shouts of the Froozle guards died away. Either they had given up, or she and the guys were deep enough under the mountain not to hear them anymore. The golden path glowed softly, lighting her way, and she just kept leading her Monstrum colony deeper, wondering when the path would end and where they would end up.

She seemed to keep going for hours with no sounds but their scuffling footsteps and the occasional giggle-fit from V’rone, but at last the narrow rock passageway opened up into a much larger cavern. It seemed to be the end of the line because there was no exit out of it other than the way they’d come in—just a rock wall at the far end of a large space with a domed ceiling, faintly visible in the glow of the path.

To Terra’s great relief, she saw that the door they needed was lit up on the far wall. It was green this time, outlined in the glowing gold of the path, which led right up to it.

“Okay, we made it—we’re here,” she told her guys.

But there were no answers. Rive was still just standing there with a look of horror on his face, V’rone was giggling to himself, and Tem was still staring at his hand with silent wonder. Clearly all three of them were still tripping hard, as they used to say in college, a million years ago when she attended, Terra thought dryly. She’d never taken acid herself, but she’d had a roommate who was very fond of hallucinogenic substances and she knew the signs.

“Well, whatever,” she sighed. “Let me see what we have to do to get out of here and into the next world.”