Chapter VIII
Tiger
snapped at Harold as he let out an ear-shattering scream. “You’re so loud, I
bet they could hear you in the Lighter Kingdoms!”
Harold
sniffed as he tried to step out of the thick, goopy, slimy brown mud. Tiger
looked around, trying to find a way out of what could potentially be the death
of all of them.
“Look! Why
do we follow Tiger? He leads us all into mud!” Tiger didn’t have to turn around
to know that the rude comment came from Talon. Tiger thought fast. “Okay,” he
nodded. “I know what we have to do here. We can’t use our strength, so we have
to use our brains.”
Talon
rolled his eyes and groaned. The rest of the princes had uncertainty in their
eyes as they slowly agreed.
“Okay,
almighty Tiger, what do you suggest?” Talon sneered. Tiger looked around and
immediately perked up as he saw the small Silver struggling in the mud.
“Silver!” He barked. “Stop moving.”
Silver’s
eyes widened and he shook his head violently. Tiger looked him straight in the
eyes. “Trust me. I won’t let any of
you get hurt.”
Silver took
a deep breath and relaxed. To everyone’s surprise, he floated to the top! Tiger
smiled as he gave instruction to Silver. “Okay. Grab that stick and climb onto
that rock over there, closest to us. Right, okay, everyone’s going to wade over
there. You pull us out, okay?”
Soon
everyone was out, and Yellow managed to sniff out a clear path.
Before they
knew it, they found themselves at the end of the passage. Yellow trotted up to
the two goblets on the wooden table and inspected them. “There a-seems to be
a-something a-written on some a-papers over a-here!” He shouted, them opened
his mouth to read them. Talon shoved Yellow aside, wanting to be the important
one here.
“All of you
must drink out of one goblet. One contains a powerful poison that will kill you
all slowly, and the other contains the small key out of here. Choose wisely.”
Talon
reached to pick one up hesitantly, then handed it to Tiger. “All of you can
drink it,” he laughed, “so that if it’s the poison, I’ll win.”
Tiger
growled and snatched the paper off the table and looked over it, then turned to
the goblets. He looked inside each and began to laugh. “They’re both the same!”
“No,”
Harold yelped. “This one’s liquid is blue. The other is green!”
“So?” Tiger
shrugged. “A key dipped in poison placed in water will poison it, no matter
what. And the colors are from the goblets, not the poison.”
Tiger
grabbed both goblets and dumped the poison out. A small key fell out of both.
Tiger picked one up and felt around for a door. The unlocking of it brought a
welcome burst of warm, blinding sunlight as the princes burst out of the
chamber. The king ran over to welcome them, immediately recognizing Tiger as
the winner of this round. “Smart fellow!” Malicis commented, and then nodded to
a few guards, who took the key from Tiger and nudged the princes into another
dark room.
But this
time, it didn’t stay dark. Torches mysteriously lit themselves, and the princes
were greeted with their next challenge: a giant maze.
-Frost
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