"Not yet." Jack shook his head. "I didn't know you were here until now. But what's the deal? You still don't trust Oscar? Look, I've known him since he was little. He's a good kid, really. You truly think Oscar is hanging out with Baskania?"

Erec regarded his two friends in puzzlement. "Look, whatever you think of Oscar, there are some facts we have to face. I like Oscar too. But I can't overlook those facts." He paced. "Everything tells me this is stupid. But to prove you wrong, and to give him one more chance, I'll let Oscar see me here again. I just need to be ready to get out of here fast. So let's get set to leave now. As soon as Oscar knows I'm here, I'm in danger." He shrugged when Bethany crossed her arms. "If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But we have to be ready, in case."

Jam bowed from across the room. "I'm already prepared to go, young sir."

"I've got backpacks at my place," Bethany said. Erec was sure she had everything in the mansion that King Piter had given her, attached to the castle. "I'll bring one for you, too. Meet you back here in ten minutes."

Erec looked at Jack. "I'm going to get a few things too. Jack, promise me you won't tell Oscar I'm here until I get back."

Jack shrugged. "Whatever."

First off, Erec put on his magic Sneakers that let him run soundlessly, throwing distracting noises elsewhere. He took a sack of some of the money he had stashed under his bed, plus his Magiclight, a prize he had once won that could leave beams of light hanging in the air.

81.Then he had an idea. Before going back to meet Bethany, he fetched Wolfboy from his doghouse. "C'mon, boy. Wanna go on an adventure with me?"

Wolfboy wagged the whole bottom half of his body, then jumped on Erec, knocking him down. "Whoa, boy. I take that for a yes." Erec grabbed two bags of dog food and led Wolfboy into the castle.

Oscar was waiting, looking forlorn. But he smiled when he saw Erec. "You're okay! What happened to you?"

Everybody in the room seemed afraid to answer. Erec did not want Oscar to know anything. This was Oscar's final test as far as Erec was concerned. "I need to know, is there anything anything that you are telling anybody that could be getting back to Baskania somehow?" that you are telling anybody that could be getting back to Baskania somehow?"

Oscar threw up his hands. "No! I have no clue why Baskania said that. Maybe he's trying to split us up."

Erec really wanted to believe him. He looked sincere.

He took a backpack from Bethany and put his things in it. A strange feeling came over him, making the back of his neck prickle. He felt his eyes swivel until his dragon eyes faced forward. Everything looked green. In the distance he could hear his friends gasp, but that felt too distant to absorb.

Then it happened. Images whizzed before his eyes in reverse order, too fast to make out. He had the feeling that he might swirl away, as if the ground had dropped from under his feet. He tottered, with nothing around him to grab, and then latched on to something--might have been Jam's arm.

Suddenly the vision slowed down and he could make it out. But he did not like what he saw.

The west wing dining hall hung thick with white ropes and coils of Substance. Erec was frozen to the spot, wound tight in rope from his shoulders to his feet. Bethany and Jam were bound up as well. Oscar and Jack were not, but stood frozen in the room.

82.Baskania's laughter echoed through the high-ceilinged room. He strolled through the doorway. This time his face was completely full of eyes, except for his mouth. Even his nose was replaced by eyes.

Anger filled Erec, clenching his insides. He'd fight to save his friends.

"Thank you, Oscar." Baskania patted Oscar on the head. "You've helped me once again."

A surge of rage poured through Erec. He opened his mouth to shout, but his anger spilled out with heat and flame in a more satisfying way. He struggled against the ropes around him with the claws that had sprung from his fingertips...fighting, tearing.

Baskania pointed a finger at Jam. Jam's head toppled over onto the ropes that bound him.

"Noooo! Not Jam! Leave him alone!" Erec shouted. Then he roared in fury. He could feel his tail thrashing behind him.

In a moment, Bethany was dead. Wolfboy was dead. Erec saw his eyes getting removed, then all went black.

He opened his eyes. The vision had faded away, and the room no longer looked green. He'd had a cloudy thought, and it told him that he had to get away from Oscar and Jack now if he wanted to keep what he had just seen from happening.

"Run!" he shouted at Jam. "Hide!" He looked at Bethany. "Follow me!"

Nobody moved. They just stared at him in shock. "Go, Wolfboy! Out of here. Back to your house," he shouted. Wolfboy put his head down and slowly walked out, tail between his legs.

Oscar said, "You're turning into a dragon."

Erec looked down at himself. His skin had a greenish cast and did look scaly, but it seemed to be fading fast.

Bethany had tears in her eyes. "That looked awful. Are you okay?"

83.She pointed toward the singed tablecloth. "You breathed fire. How did you do that?"

"I'll tell you later. Let's go." Erec grabbed Bethany's hand and pulled her into the hallway. Jam, Oscar, and Jack followed behind them.

"Go away!" Erec shouted at them over his shoulder. But the only one who listened to him was Jam. Erec had really just wanted Oscar and Jack to leave so that Baskania would stop following him.

Jam shouted, "Yes, sir! Here, sir." He tossed a silver disc at him, and Erec caught it. He tucked the Serving Tray into his backpack, then dashed as fast as he could up the hall. A moment later, though, he tripped over a rope that was floating at ankle length in the hallway and he crashed onto his hands.

Erec picked himself up. The others stopped around him.

In front of him, Balthazar Ugry stood gloating, a twisted smile on his face. "And what might you be doing now, running wild in the west wing? You might break something." He gestured at the suits of armor lining the hallway, each holding monstrous weapons, except for the one holding a teddy bear. That one shrank farther away when Erec looked at it. "I thought you didn't need babysitting."

Erec's voice was controlled yet strong. "We have to get out of here. I'm going on a quest. Stop tripping me up."

Ugry gazed at Oscar coldly. "I told you, Oscar Felix, you are not allowed to go on any quests with Erec, because of your unpleasant associations with the criminal Rosco Kroc." He pointed at him, muttering, and Oscar disappeared.

"What did you do with him?" Jack said, outraged.

"Put him back in his apprentice boarding house." Ugry sounded bored.

"Thanks!" Erec ran right past him. They didn't have any time to waste.

84.Unfortunately, Jack followed right behind. Erec had to get rid of him. If Jack saw where they went, he would tell Oscar, and then Baskania would know.

As Erec ran, he thought. Maybe he could lose Jack, tell him to meet them somewhere. The castle maze. And then Erec just wouldn't show up there.

A moment later, an unearthly howl echoed behind them. They could hear Baskania's voice thundering, "Block the Port-O-Door. Guard the castle entrance. Search the castle for Erec Rex. Piter's not here now to get in our way." After a moment he added, "And send someone to the entrance of the castle maze, and the center of the maze, now!"

Jack and Bethany followed Erec out of the west wing. "Look, Jack," Erec said, "I need to take Bethany into the maze. There is a place in the center of the maze that we can escape through. Meet us there in a few minutes, at the front, okay? I forgot something for Wolfboy. Bethany has to come show me where it is."

"I don't know," Jack said. "Didn't you just hear Baskania say for someone to go look for you in the maze? It would be crazy to go there."

"I know," Erec said, "except we have a sure way out from there. Just hide somewhere near it. Wait till you see me so nobody will catch you. We'll be there in a few minutes."

"Okay." Jack shrugged. "Listen, this is so strange. I don't know what's going on."

"Neither do we," Erec said, patting him on the shoulder. "Just meet us there."

Jack disappeared, and Erec shuddered thinking about what just happened. He had lied to Jack about where they were going, but it seemed like there was no way around it. Jack trusted Oscar. If he 85.knew where Erec went it would just be a matter of time before he told Oscar everything.

When Baskania appeared in the castle, something odd started becoming clear to Erec. But an even stranger thing had just happened that really made him think. He would talk to Bethany about it and see what she thought.

He led her into the south wing. "This is our only chance of getting out of here. I thought about escaping this way when I found out Oscar was coming, even before I got that cloudy thought."

"Is that what that was?" Bethany shivered. "It looked awful. You were so...dragonlike."

"Yeah. Sorry." He took Bethany into the game room and flicked the shelf that had the water symbol up to the wall. The top of the pool table changed from a green, fuzzy surface to water. "I hope these backpacks are waterproof."

Bethany crossed her arms. "I don't get it, Erec. What's going on? Why did you tell Jack we were going to the maze? So we're not really meeting him there? You don't trust Jack now?"

It was time to try to explain to her what had just happened, but it would not be easy. Erec wished he understood it better himself. He leaned on the edge of the table near the water. "Listen, Bethany, and listen good. Our lives depend on it. You know what I saw in my cloudy thought?"

Bethany shook her head.

"I saw you and Jam getting killed by Baskania while he thanked Oscar for helping him again. Baskania knows everything Oscar knows. Everything. And Jack, whether he knows it or not, is helping. Jack tells things to Oscar."

Bethany was gripping her arms tight, shaking.

"Something really scary just happened out there," he said. "I realized that if Jack knew we were going here, to the game room, he 86.might tell Oscar. So I couldn't let him know. Then I got a thought. I decided to tell Jack something else--that we were going to the maze, that we had a secret way out through the maze. And guess what?"

Bethany looked pale and just stared at him.

Erec nodded. "After I decided to tell Jack about the maze, I heard Baskania yell for someone to get to the entrance of the maze and the center of the maze to look for us."

"That's creepy." Bethany was shaking. "I thought I knew those guys. I just can't believe it." Her voice quivered. "But how could Baskania know about the maze if you hadn't even told Jack yet, just from you thinking it? Could it have been a coincidence?"

"Some coincidence. I think once I decided to say it, somehow that changed the course things were going to take. Like as soon as it was set that Oscar would at some time know where we were, then Baskania knew it right away."

Both of them thought about that. What could be the connection?

They didn't have much time. They looked into the water in the pool table.

"Where does it go?" Bethany asked.

"I don't know. A lot of places." He wondered if he could find his way back into Al's Well. He doubted it. At the time, the water in the tunnels had pushed him right to the castle. Would it push him somewhere else this time?

Bethany dragged her fingers through the water. "How will we breathe?"

Erec pointed to his wrist. "Our Instagills. Remember?"

She smiled. "I almost forgot. Haven't used them in a while."

They both slid into the water, then Erec took a breath, grabbed Bethany's wrist, and plunged down the water tunnel.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A Dragon in the Jungle.AT FIRST BETHANY kicked and flailed so hard that her arm slipped out of Erec's grasp. But he didn't need to worry. Soon they were both floating gently downstream through a wide tunnel filled with water. Passageways shot off from theirs, and they swam randomly down odd forks with no idea where they were heading. Their soaked clothing and backpacks weighed them down, but they weren't cold at all. Erec felt great.

88.Bethany held up her palms with a grin. Little feathery gills opened and shut in her hands. "Which way?" she asked, pointing at a large fork ahead. The words bubbled from her mouth, but Erec could hear her clearly, a side effect of the Instagills.

Erec shrugged and pointed to the left. It was easy to swim anywhere. Unlike before, when it seemed the Fates had decided to deposit him at the castle, Erec found the water pulled him in any direction he began to swim. If he wanted to go back where he had come from, after a few kicks the current would reverse. He and Bethany played around with it awhile, and they found they could even go in opposite directions past each other, each with their own current pulling them.

"This is so cool!" Bethany bubbled.

"I just wish we knew the way to Greece," Erec said.

As they swam, the tunnel grew wider until it was more like a cavern. Then, around a corner, appeared a huge round opening, about twenty-five feet across. The tunnel leading from it was much larger than the others. A sign glittering above its entrance read ASHONA.

"Look!" Bethany pointed. "We could go see Queen Posey!"

Erec shook his head and swam away from the entrance to Ashona. "We have to find the Oracle and a medium somehow. We can't get sidetracked."

After swimming for what seemed like hours, Erec wondered if they would ever see land again. At last he followed Bethany into a small tunnel that led up toward a spot of light. The spot quickly grew, and their heads soon popped above the surface in a cold lake. Both of them gasped for air.

The lake was surrounded by mountains. Birds twittered in the air, but no people or animals were in sight. Blue pine and silver fir trees added hints of color to the otherwise snowy woods.

As soon as Erec took a breath through his mouth, he felt cold. An icy wind hit his face, and his teeth started to chatter.

89.Bethany's skin looked blue. She said, "D-did you realize that we don't have d-dry clothes? It's January. I forgot, being in Alypium. The gold d-dome keeps it warm."

She was right. They would freeze when they got out of the water. It was already hard for Erec to speak through his clenched teeth. "We can't stay here. We'll freeze. Let's try to find somewhere warmer."

They dove back into the water. As soon as Erec's gills opened up, he felt warm again. "That was awful," he said. "We need to go someplace warm. Plus, I'm starving."

Bethany counted on her fingers, calculating. "I think we're traveling faster than it seems. Once we start to swim, the current really pushes us. Maybe we're near a coast."

"Yeah, but where?" They swam past more tunnels. "We better be heading south."

"I don't think we are, but I'm not sure," she said. "I think we're going east. Or west."

"That's reassuring."

"It might be okay." Bethany plunged left into a smaller tunnel. "We were in the mountains. If we just get past them it might be a lot warmer."

Erec followed her awhile, hoping she knew where she were going. He was beginning to feel tired and a little worried, and wondered how Bethany could stay so positive. She swung around and seemed to be able to read his expression. "Hey, just think--we're free. Nobody knows where we are. Baskania's probably still searching the maze for us. And getting lost in it."

Erec laughed, good humor restored. Even if they were cold awhile, they were free. And they had food waiting for them too. He mentally thanked Jam for throwing that silver platter to him.

He dove into a small tunnel that led upward, Bethany at his heels. Above him opened a circle of light. This time when their heads 90.popped above the surface, the hot sun shone on their faces. They had surfaced near the edge of a huge lake surrounded by tropical teak forests and bamboo thickets. They swam until the water became shallow enough that they could walk.

Hot sunshine warmed Erec immediately, and his shirt began drying fast. "It must be over ninety degrees here," he said with a grin. "Don't know how we managed that one!"

"Look around," Bethany chirped. "No mountains. We must have gone pretty far."