The Hostage Prince by Jane Yolen Page B

surprise. There was a sound of stone grinding on stone and then a puff of wind that blew the torch out.
    His next thought was:
Exactly like a lever
—as he plunged into darkness and a wall that was no longer there. He couldn’t tell which way he was facing or even which way was up, and when he took another step, his foot, too, met nothing but air.
    For a moment he hung there by one arm over the black pit and heard the two sniffers laughing, as the hissy one said, “That goes straight down to the dungeon, that does. Let’s head down there and watch the fun.”
    For a second he could make out their outlines—hairy things about his size, looking like weasels, with long pointy noses.
    The bigger one kicked out and connected with Aspen’s stomach, and the surprise of it made him let go of the lever.
    Boggarts!
he thought, and then—with nothing to hold on to and nowhere to stand, he tumbled away into darkness. But at least he didn’t scream.

SNAIL SPEAKS TO THE OGRE
    M istress Softhands had often said,
When speaking to ogres make your sentences small and direct. Say things plainly. They are not subtle creatures.
    She’d neglected to say that in a darkened dungeon room, surrounded by damp walls coated with a kind of phosphorescent fungus that turned everything a vomit green, ogres smelled like death.
    Snail tried not to sniff aloud, tried not to weep, tried not to fall to her knees in fear. She managed two out of the three. However, tears coursed down her cheeks unchecked.
    â€œGirl,” came the rumbling voice, “I don’t want to hurt you.”
    Somehow, she didn’t believe him.
    Somehow, she refrained from saying that. She refrained from saying anything at all. She didn’t want a trembling voice to give her away.
    But she held on to what Mistress Softhands had said. If ogres were not subtle, then perhaps he
was
speaking the truth.
    Perhaps. Seven letters that spelled out the possibility of life.
    â€œBut,” rumbled the voice, “I do have some questions.”
    And I have lots myself
, she thought. She didn’t say that aloud, either.
    In the dungeon’s dark, she couldn’t see him. Not really. Though she had a vague sense of something big and hulking moving in the shadows. The only light was a thin sliver of moon from a very high and very tiny window, which shone down on a plain wooden stool. Snail wondered if she’d be asked to sit.
    â€œI understand, Master Geck,” Snail said finally, her voice a shadow in the dark room. That it hadn’t trembled was a miracle. The Unseelie didn’t believe in miracles, though of course
everyone
believed in magic.
    â€œI don’t need understanding,” the voice rumbled on, sounding a bit testy.
    Snail didn’t like testy. She wanted the low rumbling back.
    â€œWhat
do
you need, Master Geck?” she asked as politely as she could. This time her voice shook. But only a little.
    â€œAnswers.”
    â€œI have answers,” she said. “I have lots of answers. Any kind of answers you want.”
    â€œI want the
right
answers.” Rumble. Grumble.
    This isn’t going well
, Snail thought,
and we haven’t even really begun
.
    But evidently they had.
    There was a shift in the air, and suddenly something grey, like a sliver of moon with fangs, smiled above her.
    It has to be the ogre grinning
, she thought, since it was just a little below the actual sliver of moon shining behind the bars of the single cell window. She couldn’t begin to imagine why his smile should shine so. Surely an ogre wasn’t interested enough in personal grooming to brush his teeth.
Or perhaps he brushes them with luminescent moss
. She wondered what he used for a brush. A twig? A carved stick? A finger bone?
    She shuddered.
    â€œAre you frightened, girl?” the rumble asked.
    She realized that in fact she’d been thinking about brushing teeth and not about being eaten, an improvement