Chardiye [pronounced KAR-dee] straightened his favourite black scarf as he
warmed his freezing tail by the fire. The warm lodge felt wonderful after the
young green Eyrie had spent a long day zooming down the frigid Terror Mountain
slopes. Nevertheless, he had had the time of his life.
Chardiye was just about to finish a chocolate-coated mint bar when his sister,
Keetri, a red Pteri, came twittering up to his side. "Chardiye! Chardiye! Come
and see! Come and see!"
Chardiye gave his overexcited little sister a half exasperated, half bemused
expression. "Come and see what, exactly, Keetri?"
"I'll show you when we get there, come on!" Keetri grabbed her brother's tail
and attempted to drag him out of the lodge.
"All right, all right, I'm coming," Chardiye said. He stuffed the last bit
of candy bar into his mouth and followed her out of the mountain lodge.
Chardiye tried to keep up with Keetri's spear-like tail as she zigzagged in
every direction, still jabbering happily about her discovery. It must be
something very important, Chardiye thought, for her to make such a fuss
about it...
Chardiye was panting to keep in toe with Keetri when finally she stopped, causing
him to nearly run into her. Keetri fluttered above the snow, pointing downward
with her tail. "There it is, Chardiye," she whispered, sounding almost painfully
excited.
Chardiye stared down at what she had indicated and snorted. "That's a gofer
hole, Keetri," he said, now very annoyed with his little sister.
"Oooooh!" Keetri cried, "Really? Really really? What lives down there, Chardiye?"
"Gofers."
"Ooooh!" Keetri stuck her head down into the hole in the snow, evidently trying
to see the gofers.
"I'm cold, Keetri," Chardiye said irascibly, "Let's go--"
Keetri looked like she might have gotten her head stuck down the gofer hole.
Moreover, a rumbling noise like the sound of a hundred Tonus in a foot race
was coming from somewhere beneath them. The snow underneath Chardiye's paws
was quaking now too. Suddenly, an enormous crunching noise and a huge jerk befell
the two of them. Chardiye heard Keetri's frightened voice cry out once, and
everything went black.
When he came to, Chardiye thought that he was dreaming, or had been knocked
silly by his fall. He closed his eyes, gave his head a little shake, and opened
them again. What he saw made him nearly pass out again. He and Keetri were in
a vast underground passage made entirely of ice. It was obvious that no human
or pet had set foot in this place for a thousand years. Or had they? Now that
his head was becoming clearer, it seemed as if those stalagmites resembled crude
effigies of ancient NeoPets. One of them Chardiye could have sworn looked exactly
like a Chia.
"Keetri! Come look at this!" Chardiye whispered, looking around for his sister.
"...Keetri?"
"Here I am," said a small voice from somewhere behind Chardiye.
Keetri looked dreadful. She was pale and some of her feathers had been pulled
out from her fall. "I'm so scared, Chardiye," she sobbed into his wing. Chardiye
put his arm around her.
"It's all right, Keetri, we're both fine. You're not hurt, are you? There now,"
he said in a pacifying tone as she wailed louder and wiped her nose on his feathers.
"W-what are we g-g-going to d-do?" Keetri choked, "W-we'll be s-stuck in here
f-f-forever!" She gave one anguished cry and a few chips of ice fell from the
roof of the cavern.
"Ssh, Keetri," Chardiye muttered, staring apprehensively up at where the ice
shards had fallen from, "Ssh, now."
A distant crunching noise echoed through the catacombs. Keetri stopped crying
abruptly. Both of them stared hard through the dim passageway, not daring to
speak or even move.
Without a second's warning, something small bounced up directly in front of
Chardiye's nose. He yelled and sprang backward. The Thing leaned away from him,
looking slightly alarmed.
For a minute or two the three of them stared at each other. Then, only because
he couldn't think of anything else to do, Chardiye made the first move.
"Hello," he muttered.
The Thing bounced backward a few paced and then leaned forward in curiosity.
Keetri simply stared.
The Thing had bounced into a strand of light issuing from the place that had
caved in when the two of them had fallen, and the Eyrie could see what it was.
"It's a Chia," he mumbled to his sister.
So it was. A small blue Chia, all bundled up in furs and wearing quite an assortment
of teeth and beads around his neck stood before them, looking suspicious. Chardiye
smiled and Keetri actually stifled a giggle.
The Chia was holding was looked like a large tooth bound to a stick with a
length of twine. When it seemed to have decided that Chardiye and Keetri were
safe, the Chia began to hack away at the ice at its feet. When it left carrying
a pile of ice chippings in its arms, Chardiye understood.
"I think these Chias have been living here for a very long time without contact
to the rest of Neopia at all," he hastily explained to Keetri, "They're living
off the minerals in the ice. If I'm not very much mistaken, their whole community
might be made of ice. I do hope we'll be able to see it."
Just at that precise moment, the blue Chia had returned this time accompanied
by three more fur-donning Chias. One of them, a yellow one, hopped up to the
Eyrie and the Pteri and stared inquisitively at the two of them. To both the
Chia's and Chardiye's surprise, it was Keetri who spoke next.
"Do you know how to get out of here?"
The yellow Chia seemed amused my Keetri's question. It bounced up and down
a few times and then away down the passage. Looking back, it beckoned for the
two pets to follow.
Chardiye's hunch about the Chias' living conditions had been nearly correct.
The yellow Chia had taken them to their little village, which was comprised
entirely of ice. Stumpy little igloos no taller than a human's waist were placed
every few feet along this cavernous ice chamber.
Chardiye and Keetri stared, open-mouthed, at the amazing sight. Neither of
them noticed a yellow Wocky sidle out of a larger igloo a little way away from
the other igloos.
"Hey-ho, you there," the Wocky whispered into Chardiye's ear.
Chardiye jumped and stared at the Wocky, who giggled. "Scared you, did I?"
The Wocky nodded. "Not many folks come down 'ere anymore. Gotta tell you though,"
she looked around over the tops of the countless little igloos, "they don' know
what they're missing."
"How did you get down here?" Chardiye asked in awe.
"Fell, like you two, I'm guessing," the Wocky replied. "Made friends with them,
I did, kinda became their supervisor. Mind you," she said, sounding slightly
amused, "don' need much supervising, this lot. Don' fight, don' even talk. Stupid,
they are."
"So-so can you show us the way out of here?"
"Mmm. I can, but it's not easy, that's the thing. What you really don' wanna
meet is..."
"What?" Keetri said.
"Dunno if I should tell you that." The Wocky shivered, and changed the subject,
"Say! Never innerduced meself to ya, did I? The name's Wanda. Wanda the Wocky."
She laughed. "Now, come on, if you want supper when ye get 'home."
Wanda turned and whisked away down a side passage. Chardiye, slightly curious
and glad that the Wocky was so willing to help, followed her, with Keetri flapping
behind.
Wanda the Wocky led them through innumerable passages and tunnels that neither
the Eyrie nor the keen-eyed Pteri would have seen if they didn't know they had
been there, but the Wocky seemed to know where she was going. Suddenly she halted
just before a bend that Chardiye couldn't see around.
"This is where it gets a bit tricky," said Wanda so softly they could barely
hear her, "That's where it sleeps. And it's the only way out."
"And... what is it?" said Keetri shakily.
Wanda sniffed and looked as if she might cry, and did not answer for a long
time. Finally, she said, "It's an evil thing. It hibernates year round, except
for one day, when it eats. And, naturally, the only thing other than ice down
here is... Chia." Wanda swallowed, "The thing is, he's a very light sleeper,
so whatever you do, don' wake him up."
Chardiye and Keetri nodded, and followed Wanda into the next ice chamber. Personally,
Chardiye felt as if he were in a procession heading for the gallows. His paws
felt like they might be frost-bitten. He thought longingly of his comfy wooden
NeoHome with a fire blazing on the hearth, a hot bowl of potato soup and a steaming
mug of hot chocolate. He sighed, wishing he were back there now.
But he wasn't. Just as he turned the corner the full sight of what it
was met his golden eyes. It was a monster, configured of large slabs
of ice, and it was presently asleep. Wanda caught Cherdiye and Keetri's attention
by waving frantically and pointing to an opening on the other side of its
chamber. The three of them crept along the wall farthest away from the ice monster
as quietly as they could possibly be. Then, just as if it seemed that they would
make it through, Keetri sneezed.
Chardiye stifled a gasp as the sound from his sister's sneeze reverberated
around the cave. Keetri gave him an apologetic grin. It didn't move.
They crept on, hoping that it hadn't heard Keetri's sneeze. While it
slept, the huge monster appeared to be nothing more than a pile of chunks of
ice.
Finally, the three of them reached the other side of the chamber and let their
breaths out with relief. But, just as they were turning to continue down a steep-looking
passage, an ear-splitting roar issued from behind them.
It had risen up to its full height. It was now moving sluggishly toward
the three pets, which were too frightened to move. It roared again and plunged
its frigid fist down at the pets, which scattered.
Chardiye grabbed a rock and lobbed it at the ice brute's head. This had no
affect whatsoever except to attract the monster's attention to the Eyrie. Panicking,
he ran to a small alcove in the wall of the cave and began furiously searching
his pack for a plan. Keetri was making a real racket, screaming and crying,
which gave Chardiye an idea. He reached into his bag and yanked out a Trumpet
of Deafening. He considered this plan for a minute or so, since the ice monster
didn't seem to have ears or, truthfully, any face at all. Sweating, he shoved
the Trumpet back into his bag.
The monster had evidently found Chardiye to be rather boring because it had
now begun to harass Wanda. She seemed to be fairing all right; her quick, catlike
movements were definitely coming in very handy. Keetri, meanwhile, was rummaging
in her own pack.
Chardiye had been too involved in watching Wanda's skillful movements to notice
that the ice monster had turned back to him. It grabbed the end of his scarf
and pulled him high into the air. The monster did have a mouth, and quite a
lot of nasty broken teeth, all of which looked like they were made of ice. They
were bared in what looked horribly like a grin. Chardiye yelled and struggled
to free himself from the monster's clutches, but the scarf was bound much too
tightly around his neck for him to slide out of it. All was lost.
Keetri had pulled out a bottle of something and was now trying to uncork it.
The combination of feathers and sweat on her hands was making it difficult to
open the bottle. She looked up at her brother's situation, gave up on trying
to pull out the cork, and threw the bottle and its contents at the ice monster's
feet. The bottle shattered on the hard ice floor. Out of it came a cloud of
steam and some red liquid that smoked and crawled up the ice monster's legs.
Chardiye managed to pull himself free of his scarf and fell to the ground. He
huddled with his paws over his eyes, not daring to look up.
More screeches and roars came from the ice monster above. Chardiye might have
been hallucinating the dripping of water on his back. One last pained screechy
wail came from the ice monster, and all was silent. Chardiye opened one eye,
and his jaw dropped.
The only thing left from the ice monster was a pool of water and the remains
of the bottle that had shattered. Chardiye's black scarf was floating in the
middle of the pool. Shakily, he rose to stare at Keetri.
"Wha...wha..." Chardiye stammered. "What happened?"
"It was a bottle of fire snow," said Keetri triumphantly, "I found it just
after we fell. Came in handy, didn't it?"
"Haha!" cried Wanda ecstatically, "You killed it! You killed it! Oh, happy
day!" She grabbed Chardiye and did a little jig, "It'll never eat my Chias again!
Hoho!"
Chardiye waded through the pool to retrieve his scarf and, laughing together,
the three of them headed up the steep passageway out of the monster's chamber.
When their paws found level ground, Wanda pointed upward to a hole in the cave
roof.
"The only way out is up," she said, "You'll be okay, as you can both fly."
There was a rather awkward pause. Then Chardiye said, "Erm, thanks."
"No problem. Only," Wanda blushed and shuffled her feet, "Er, if you're ever
up 'ere again, er, don' hesitate to pay a visit."
"Deal," said Chardiye, shaking Wanda's hand. The Wocky blushed more furiously.
And, without another word, Chardiye grasped Keetri's hand and they both flew
up and out of the dark catacombs and into the bright sunlight.
"Well," said Chardiye, "We made it home before supper!"
The End | 
