Kendra Kandlestar and the Door to Unger by Lee Edward Födi

his guards enter the crypt.
    “Traitors!” Burdock shouted angrily, and Kendra could imagine his one eyebrow arching furiously on his forehead. “Come back here!”
    “Humph!” muttered Uncle Griffinskitch, and with that, he pulled a small lever from the inside of the tunnel and the hatch closed above them.
    There was a series of loud thumps on the floor above their heads.
    “What was that?” Kendra asked her uncle as they crouched together in the darkness of the stairs.
    “Burdock’s guards threw their spears at us,” the wizard replied. “I guess I closed the hatch just in time.”
    Kendra turned and gazed down the stairwell. Jinx had already led Oki, Ratchet and Professor Bumblebean into the darkness and she could only see the faint glow of the grasshopper’s torch, far below. She guessed that they had started descending the stairs without realizing that she and Uncle Griffinskitch weren’t right behind them. Still, Kendra waited with her uncle, for now she could hear more footsteps above them—Kendra knew it was Burdock and his Een guards running across the crypt to find the lever for the hatch. She clutched at her braids nervously.
    “Don’t worry,” Uncle Griffinskitch said, as if he could read her thoughts. “Even if they find the lever, we’ll be long on our way.”
    With these words, the old wizard waved a wrinkled hand over his staff to make it glow like a torch and began leading the way down the long, stone stairs.

    Now that she could see better, Kendra caught her breath. The stairs spiraled downward, like a corkscrew with no railing or wall on either side. Peering cautiously over the edge, she could not see any bottom to the long sheer drop. One wrong step would mean a plummet to the death. Complicating this treacherous journey was the fact that each step was quite long—certainly, the stairs had not been built by Eens—and Kendra and her uncle almost had to hop from one step to the next.
    “Oh, dear,” Kendra murmured with a gulp. “Poor Oki must be terrified!”
    As for Uncle Griffinskitch, he did not seem bothered at all by the steepness of their path. He marched steadily downward, grunting here and there and never letting go of Kendra’s arm. Kendra felt as though the chasm was enormous. The air was stale and cold and each time Uncle Griffinskitch grunted, the sound echoed. Kendra pulled her green cloak tighter to her shoulder and tried to concentrate on the faint light of her uncle’s staff.
    After what seemed like hours, Kendra and Uncle Griffinskitch reached the bottom of the mighty chasm. Here, the stairs ended in a sort of dock that jutted out over a vast underground river. The water looked deep and inky as it slowly wound its way down a long horizontal tunnel.
    The others were waiting at the end of the dock.
    “What now?” Jinx asked as Kendra and her uncle joined them. “We didn’t bring a boat and I don’t think we’re going to swim.”
    “You won’t catch me in that water,” Oki squeaked. “Not for all the turnips in Turnipville.”
    “Turnipville?” Professor Bumblebean asked. “I do say, where is that?”
    “I just made it up,” Oki said with a shrug.
    “What are we going to do, Uncle Griffinskitch?” Kendra asked, toying with her braids.
    “Humph,” the old wizard muttered, and Kendra knew it was the type of humph that meant he had to think.
    The white-bearded Een sat down on the cold, rickety dock, closed his eyes, and clasped his hands in front of him. Kendra and the others knew enough to be quiet so he could think. They moved off into the distance and waited glumly in the darkness. After awhile, Uncle Griffinskitch opened his sharp blue eyes and said simply, “Kendra, find me a walnut.”
    It seemed a strange request, but the girl did indeed have a small supply of nuts in her pouch. Of course, these were Een-sized nuts, and quite tiny. Kendra passed one to her uncle. He eyed it carefully in the light of his torch then placed it on the ground and