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  “It’s just weird that after all the things you’ve done, all the tales people at court tell about you and you compliment me,” she said.

  “Is this just a stream of consciousness or are you leading up to something?” he asked.

  “I’m still not one hundred percent on you Arthur; I mean you appear all perfect but I bet you are someone completely different when I get to know you,” she replied.

  “I guess you can find out, now come on,” he replied, walking along the frozen path and trying not to slip.

  “This place is beautiful, how did you know about it?” she asked. “When I was trying to capture Jeff the Cracker, the escaped mass murderer, I followed him through these tunnels; unfortunately for him he fell down one of the many random holes in the floor and was impaled on a crystal stalagmite” said Arthur.

  “That doesn’t sound pleasant by any means,” said Jo.

  “It wasn’t, but it was so cold down there that his body is still preserved on the crystal,” said Arthur.

  “You left him there?” she asked.

  “Yes because it would be very difficult to get him down and it would serve as an example to any other prisoners,” said Arthur.

  They walked along a frozen bridge that spanned an immense cavern with stalagmites made from ice poking out of the floor, and Jo was glad that Arthur had given her special shoes with small iron spikes on the soles; that way, she could walk on the slippery floor without looking stupid. After they had walked along the bridge they came to a large cave, and the floor descended down as far as the two could see.

  “It’s downhill from here,” said Arthur.

  “How are we supposed to get down?” asked Jo.

  Arthur walked over to the wall by the entrance, and there was a pile of wooden boards. Arthur picked up one, and threw it to Jo. “What are we going to do with these?” she asked.

  “Really big snowy downhill cavern, wooden boards, any of this adding up for you?” he asked.

  “Oh, we’re going down together right?” she asked.

  “In a sense,” he replied. Arthur took his board and ran for the slope; he placed the board on floor and slid down.

  “This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong,” she shouted, and followed Arthur down the slope.

  Arthur slid down the slope, dodging snow covered ropes as he descended. The cold wind blew on his face but he didn’t notice it, instead he was focusing on not crashing into any obstacles. Then Jo whizzed past him and he saw that she was quite good at this. “I thought you were scared!” he shouted.

  “I thought you were fast!” she retorted.

  Arthur shook his head and leant down to gain more speed. The cave then became a tunnel that was in a perfect circular shape. Arthur saw Jo up ahead and pushed his foot on the floor to pick up more speed. He saw his chance and he undulated up the wall past Jo and overtook her. She gasped as he had come out of nowhere, and she instantly tried to catch him up. Arthur then began to slow down and large drifts of small ice particles flew up in Jo’s face.

  They emerged into a huge ice cavern and Jo saw her chance for revenge. She swiped her hand across a snow covered rock and collected some. She then fashioned it into a ball and threw it. It sailed over Arthur and missed completely. “Missed,” he shouted. The ball hit a mass of snow that hung above the entrance to another tunnel ahead, and knocked it down. Arthur then took a not-so-pleasurable snow shower. He sailed through the frozen rain and it stopped just as Jo entered.

  She was beginning to get the hang of it as they entered another tunnel. The walls were a beautiful shade of blue, and everything was lit by the ice crystals that were either frozen in the ice or hung from the ceiling. They then sailed out of the tunnel and there was a large rock right in front of the exit. Arthur flew at it, and Jo then flew into him. The rock didn’t block the entrance; however, it did stop them from flying down about 30ft into a chasm.

  There was a snow-covered path that led around the large circular chamber, but it was what lay at the end of the path that caught their attention. The circular chamber was part of an even greater cavern which was filled with buildings, all made of wood, and they were all lit up like a Christmas village.

  “It’s a subterranean town, but what is it doing below Icester?” asked Arthur.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” said Jo, who slid down the circular path before Arthur could stop her. He watched Jo slide down, and then slide straight into a guard who was standing outside the wooden walls of the city. She was grabbed and taken in, and then the gates were locked.

  “Oh dear, now I’m going to have to rescue her, ‘Miss I don’t need him’ says what?” he said.

  Ice Diamonds and Snow Gold

  Arthur made his way slowly down to the fence, climbed up and looked around. This part of the town was empty so he jumped over and hid behind a fence. All the wooden shacks were empty so Arthur pushed on, trying to find Jo. He climbed up onto the roof of a house and saw that at the end of the immense cavern was a large building; that rose above all the others. Arthur figured that this was the place he should head for since it was the only place with lights. He ran across the roofs of the houses and made his way to the building.

  “You’re putting a lot of effort into saving someone you believe you don’t really care about” he said to himself. “She’s a member of the royal family, doing nothing would be like treason by proxy, or something” he replied to himself. “You can believe that all you want, but you’re beginning to like her” he said. “When did I start talking to myself?!” he shouted, and realised that he had probably alerted the whole town. Nothing stirred and he pushed on, thinking he must be going mad.

  When Arthur reached the building he saw that is was as badly built as the others. He climbed up to the window and saw that in a room was Jo, tied to a chair. There were two other people in the room, a nasty looking guard and another person who was wearing similar clothes to Norso. Arthur couldn’t hear what they were saying so he climbed over to another window, and saw a room with no one in it. He opened the window and climbed in. He closed the window and turned around.

  The room was full of sacks, and Arthur took out his knife and ripped one open. He reached in and he felt rocks that were cold to the touch. He pulled them out and they were diamonds, but ice cold diamonds. He looked over the sacks and saw that there were bars of a white metal. Arthur put the handful of diamonds into his pocket and walked over to the bars. They were purely white, and he picked one up. It was gold, but snowy coloured gold. He put one of the bars into his other pocket. He heard someone coming out of the door and he ducked behind one of the larger sacks.

  The two people walked out, and Arthur saw that the man had a straight dark beard and slicked-back hair. He wore a purple commander’s uniform, and had silver epaulettes too. The man that walked behind him was a purple guard, and had on the usual obsidian armour. Arthur watched as the commander started talking to the guard. “You stay here and guard her, lost mountain climber my backside, she knows more than she’s saying and looks just like Princess Josephine,” he said, and walked off. The guard stood there in front of the door. Arthur thought about it, and then stood up.

  “Good evening, how are you today?”asked Arthur. The guard was taken completely by surprise, and didn’t know what to do. He went for his pistol, but Arthur punched him as hard as he could. The guard fell to the floor, but to Arthur’s surprise he got back up and used his pistol to hit Arthur on the shoulder. Jo was tied up but she heard the sound of crashing outside the door, and wondered what was going on. Arthur barged the guard over to the door and grabbed a bar of snow gold, which he threw at the guard. It flew through the air and caught him square on the head. The guard flew back and smashed through the door, right to the feet of Jo.

  Arthur walked through and leaned in the doorway. He had a black eye and his lip was bleeding.

  “Hey, how are you?” he asked.

  “Better than you I see,” she said. Arthur untied Jo and tied up the g
uard. He took her to the room full of gold and sacks of diamonds. “What on earth do they have all these for, do you have any idea how rare these diamonds are?” she said.

  “They’re the second rarest and second most expensive gem there is,” said Arthur.

  “There’s only one jewel that beats it, and that’s Chrysalidium,” said Jo.

  “Yes, but I’ve never seen any of that before,” said Arthur.

  Jo put her hand in her chest and pulled out her necklace. It was a white glowing gem surrounded by gold, and was about the size of a grape. “Oh, I thought you were about to…never mind, that’s beautiful and it must be worth a fortune,” said Arthur.

  “It is but we’ll talk about it later we need to be getting out of here” said Jo.

  Arthur couldn’t leave all this wealth behind so he took as much as he could carry as did Jo, then with her help they hid it below the floorboards in another room and left it just in case they returned.

  They ran for the door and ran straight for the roofs. Arthur ran as fast as he could and Jo followed him, surprised at how agile he was. Down underground it wasn’t as dark as they would have expected, however it was not the temperature that was bothering Arthur but the thought of climbing up to the Nostradamus again. Arthur stopped, and changed his direction as he had seen something.

  They ran between the place they had entered and the large building to the back of the cave. Arthur saw what appeared to be a tower which was lit up in the darkness, but in fact it was something else entirely. They got closer and Jo saw that it was a huge elevator, and Arthur was making for it because it seemed so much easier than climbing.

  They reached the building that was built into the side of the cliff, and snaked up into the dark cave roof. Arthur looked around and saw that the lift was at the bottom of the cave, and the commander that they saw in the big building was going up. “He’s going up and so are we, break down that metal grate and climb in the shaft.” said Arthur.

  “We’re going on the top?” asked Jo.

  “Yes, now, quickly before we get stranded down here,” he said.

  Jo pulled the grate off the cage that the elevator went up and down in. Arthur then slipped in and Jo followed. They stood on a ledge watching the rope shake as the people got in.

  “Now when it comes right to us, you don’t want them to hear us jumping on it,” said Arthur.

  “I know,” said Jo.

  The rope went taut, and it started to move upwards. When it got to them, they walked on it as quietly as they could. The lift carried on ascending, and as they looked out they could see the whole cave, and all the tiny houses and shacks that lay on the floor.

  Below them they heard the sound of two people talking. Arthur listened in, and he heard the conversation they were having. “So tell me again what all the ice diamonds and snow gold is for,” said one.

  “It’s for cold fusion fuel; her majesty thinks that by fusing cold diamonds together and using the gold as a snowy insulator, then it will create a super fuel for the machine,” said the other.

  “Oh, well I guess that makes sense,” he said.

  Then the conversation got really interesting. “She’s going to go nuts if she finds out that Princess Josephine was here and that she escaped. Not to mention Sir Arthur Pageon,” said the guard.

  “Nobody tells her, as far as we know nothing happened here and she’ll get her delivery of ice diamonds and snow gold,” said the commander.

  They arrived at the top, and Arthur saw that there was a large vent that was blowing cold air. Arthur pointed up, and Jo nodded. They climbed up the vent, with Jo going first and Arthur going behind. The vent was at a diagonal angle, and they climbed for about ten minutes until the vent levelled out. They continued going until they reached the end; Jo pushed on the frozen vent and found that they had ended up outside the walls of Icester.

  “Up there, there’s some stairs so we can climb up and get back to the ship,” said Arthur.

  “OK but you lead, since you’ve been here before,” said Jo. They walked across some flat wasteland, and found that here the snowstorm was worse. They reached the mountains, and Arthur found the old frozen staircase. Suddenly they heard the moaning sound again, and it echoed through the mountains.

  “Umm, still think that that’s the wind?” asked Jo.

  “If I said it was a snow monster, then you would probably overreact,” said Arthur.

  “Why did you have to say snow monster?” asked Jo, now trembling, but not from the cold. They continued up the stairs, and to take her mind off snow monsters, she began to count the steps. When she reached two hundred with no end in sight she started to worry.

  “You know, you can take that idea that I’m a defenceless rich girl out of your head right now,” said Jo.

  “I’m sorry?” he asked.

  “If there was a chance of there being a snow monster out there then it’s perfectly logical to be alert, or in my case just a little frightened” she replied.

  “I never said a word, but maybe you should ask yourself what you are really afraid of,” said Arthur cryptically. Jo couldn’t think of an appropriate reply so she remained quiet.

  “How much further is it?” asked Jo.

  “We’re about halfway, are you getting tired?” he asked.

  “No I’m good, I was just wondering since we’ve been climbing for a while,” she replied. They continued up the stairs that were carved into the rock wall, and which offered no protection from the sheer drop on the other side. They suddenly heard the moan again, however this time it sounded more like a roar and it seemed closer. Jo was now very frightened, and she clutched onto Arthur as tightly as she could, and wouldn’t move. “I’m not moving,” she said.

  “We’re not that far away now, come on,” he said.

  “Why aren’t you scared?” she asked.

  “There’s a cave over there, let’s go in and we can talk,” he said.

  Inside the cave, they sat down by the wall, while Arthur lit a small fire.

  “So tell me, why aren’t you scared?” she asked.

  “If I was scared then we would both be sunk. At least with me not losing hope, you won’t completely lose yours,” he replied.

  “So you’re being a tough guy for me?” she asked.

  “Yes, I am, now tell me why you’re so scared,” he said.

  “When I was little I had a rather traumatic experience at the dance school in Ashin,” she said.

  “Tell me about it,” said Arthur.

  “I was in a room with two other students, Lady Julia and Lady Josette, this was before she became the ruler of the city of Adlin,” she explained.

  “How old were you at the time?” he asked.

  “I was 130, that’s the only age you could study at the school until it changed,” she said.

  “Did you know about the Red Coven then?” he asked.

  “I’m getting to that,” said Jo.

  “OK, carry on,” said Arthur, who was happy that Jo didn’t seem as scared as she was before.

  “Anyway, they kept telling me scary stories, and one night I woke up to find that they had all gone. Being young and impressionable at the time I went to look for them. There was something funny about the way the place was, it was painted in really stark colours and all the fixtures were too high to reach,” she explained.

  “So, did you find them?” he asked.

  “No, the rest of that night is a bit of a blank, though I remember seeing a horrible face, it was all furry and had big red eyes and fangs,” she said.

  “So you’re worried about a similar creature being up here in these mountains?” he asked.

  Just as he asked, they heard the roar and crunching sounds from outside the cave. Arthur kicked the fire out and covered Jo, who was so scared that she hid her head in Arthur’s coat. She heard the sound of something entering the room, but didn’t dare to look up. She then heard the sound of it leaving the room, and then she finally looked up. “Is it gone?” she
asked, but Arthur was just staring at the cave entrance. “What was it?” she asked.

  “I, I, I don’t know, it was too dark,” he said.

  “We need to leave, now” she said. They both got up and slowly moved out of the cave. Any footprints were gone from the path, due to the snow.

  After climbing up the rest of the stairs they made it to the Nostradamus, and Jo couldn’t wait to get back in. They climbed up to the banister, but something horrifying had happened. Part of the banister had been ripped off, and now all that was left was bits of wood and some deep footprints in the snow.

  “That thing was up here; let’s get out of these mountains while we still have the chance” said Jo, who scrambled through the snow for the door. She banged on the door but there was no reply from Corky. “Corky it’s us, you can open up” shouted Jo. Arthur was standing by the broken banister looking at the damage when he heard the sound of roaring coming from the path.

  Corky opened the door, holding a blunderbuss. “Come in quickly, before that thing comes back,” said Corky. Jo ran inside but Arthur stayed outside. “This is no time for heroics sir, let’s leave this accursed place now,” said Corky.

  “Give me the gun, and start the ship so were ready to lift off” said Arthur. Corky handed the single barrelled gun to Arthur and ran into the cabin. Arthur waited for the creature to come up the path again, and he felt the ship whirr to life.

  Jo ran out to join him. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Get over to that searchlight, turn it on but don’t point it until I say,” he said. Jo ran over and activated the large light which warmed up and cast its light onto the floor.

  Arthur waited, and when he saw a black shadow in the darkness over by the path he shouted for Jo to turn the light. She did and the ship began to take off, because Corky had misunderstood Arthur’s command. For a split second Jo and Arthur saw a large black furry shape with glowing red eyes. It put its arms up to shield its eyes from the light and as they pulled farther and farther away, the less they could see.