Midnight

Thurgs, Elena discovered, were something like two elephants stitched together. Each had two side-by-side trunks and four wicked-looking tusks. Each also had a high, wide, long ridged tail, like a reptile. Their smal yel ow eyes were placed al around their domelike heads, so that they could see 360 degrees around, looking for predators.

Predators that could take down a thurg!

Elena imagined a sort of saber-toothed cat, enormous, with a milk-white pelt big enough to line several garments of hers and Stefan’s. She was pleased with her new outfits. Each one was essential y a tunic and breeches, soft, pliable, rain-shedding leather on the outside; and warm, luxurious fur on the inside. But they wouldn’t be genuine Lady Ulma creations if that was al there were to them. The inner bodysuit of white fur was reversible and removable so you could change depending on the weather. There were triple-thick wind-around col ars, which trailed behind or could be turned into scarves that wrapped a face up to the eyes. The white pelts spil ed out of the leather at the wrists to make mittens you couldn’t lose. The guys had straight leather tunics that just met at the breeches, and fastened with buttons. The girls’tunics were longer and flared out a bit. They were neatly fringed, but not stained or dyed except for Damon’s, which, of course, were black with sable fur.

One thurg would carry the travelers and their baggage. A second, larger and wilder looking, would carry heating stones to help cook human food and al the food (it looked like red hay) that the two thurgs would eat on the way to the Nether World.

Pelat showed them how to move the giant creatures, with the lightest of taps of a very long stick, which could scratch a thurg behind its hippo-like ears or give it a ferocious tap at that sensitive spot, signaling it to hasten forward. that sensitive spot, signaling it to hasten forward.

"Is it safe, having Biratz carry al the thurg food? I thought you said she was unpredictable,"Bonnie asked Pelat.

"Now, miss, I wouldn’t give her to you if she wasn’t safe.

She’l be roped to Dazar so al she has to do is fol ow,"Pelat replied.

"We ride these?"Stefan said, craning his neck to get a look at the smal , enclosed palanquin on top of the very large animal.

"We have to,"Damon said flatly. "We can hardly walk al the way. We’re not al owed to use magic like that fancy Master Key you used to get here. No magic but telepathy works up at the very top of the Dark Dimension. These dimensions are flat like plates, and according to Bonnie, there’s a fracture, just at the far north of this one – not too far from here, in other words. The crack is smal by dimensional standards, but big enough for us to get through. If we want to reach the Gatehouse of the Seven Treasures we start on thurgs."

Stefan shrugged. "All right. We’re doing it your way."

Pelat was putting a ladder up. Lady Ulma, Bonnie, and Elena were weeping and laughing over the baby together.

They were Stilllaughing as they left on their way.

The first week or so was boring. They sat in the palanquin on the back of the thurg named Dazar, with a compass from Elena’s backpack dangling from the roof. They general y kept al the sides of the palanquin’s curtains rol ed up, except the one facing west, where the bloated, bloody red sun – too bright to look at in the higher, cleaner air outside the city – constantly loomed on the horizon. The view al around them was dreadful y monotonous – mind-bendingly so, with few trees and many miles of dried brown grassy hil s. Nothing interesting to a non-hunter ever showed up. The only thing that changed was as they traveled farther north, it got colder.

It was difficult for al of them, living in such close quarters.

Damon and Elena had reached an equilibrium – or at least a pretense – of ignoring each other, something Elena would never have imagined could be possible. Damon made it easier by working on a different sleep cycle than the others –

which helped to guard them as the thurgs trudged onward, day and night. If he was awake when Elena was, he would ride outside the palanquin, on the thurg’s enormous neck.

They both had such stiff necks, Elena thought. Neither of them wanted to be the first to bend.

Meanwhile those inside the palanquin began to play little games, like picking the long dried grasses from the side of the road and trying to weave them into dol s, fly whisks, hats, whips. Stefan proved to be the one who made the tightest weave, and he made fly whisks and broad fans for each of them.

They also played various card games, using stiff little place cards (had Lady Ulma thought they might give a dinner party on the way?) as playing cards, after careful y marking them with the four suits. And of course, the vampires hunted.

Sometimes this took quite a long time, since game was scarce. The Black Magic Lady Ulma had stocked helped them stretch the time between hunts.

When Damon visited the palanquin, it was as if he were crashing a private party and thumbing his nose at the hosts.

Final y Elena couldn’t stand it any longer, and had Stefan float her up the side of the thurg (looking down or climbing up were definitely not options) while flying magic Stillworked.

She sat down on the saddle beside Damon and gathered her courage.

"Damon, I know you have a right to be angry with me. But don’t take it out on the others. Especial y Bonnie."

"Another lecture?"Damon asked, giving her a look that would freeze a flame.

"No, just a – a request."She couldn’t bring herself to say "a plea."

When he didn’t answer and the silence became unbearable, she said, "Damon, for us – we’re not going on a quest for treasure out of greed or adventure or any normal reason.

We’re going because we need to save our town."

"From Midnight,"a voice just behind her said. "From the Last Midnight."