Free Empress of the Underworld by Gilbert L. Morris

to go after her,” Sarah said.
    Josh looked at Zohar. “Can you take us there?”
    Zohar shook his head. “We wait for Goél’s word. Place is hidden underground. Nobody knows how to get there.”
    This bit of information dismayed Josh. He ran his hand through his auburn hair and looked despondent. “I wish Goél would come. I don’t know what to do.”
    Dave was very practical. “There’s really nothing to do but wait, Josh. We can’t go tearing off into the jungle, not knowing where we’re going.”
    â€œDave’s right,” Sarah said. “We’ll just have to wait.” She looked down at her tattered clothes. “One thing we can do is get rested and get into better outfits.”
    â€œThat’s right,” Reb said. “I don’t want to be tackling a whole kingdom without something to fight with.”
    In the end, the Sleepers forced themselves to rest a great deal. The hunting had been good, so the food strengthened them. A week went by and then another. Still no word from Abbey—or from Goél.
    Josh almost worried himself sick.
    Sarah said, “You’ve got to learn to wait, Josh. I know it’s hard. But soon the time for action will come, and you’ve got to be fresh.”
    Josh forced himself to grin. “Why is it that you’re always right and I’m always wrong?”
    â€œThat’s not true. I’ve been wrong lots of times, and you’re nearly always right, Josh. It’s just that you’re feeling this responsibility. You’ve had it ever since we came to this place. It’d be hard on anybody.”
    Josh shrugged his shoulders. “You’re right, of course. We’ll just have to wait. I’ll stuff myself and sleep, and sooner or later we’ll get a message. Then we can go.”
    That very night Josh lay on his cot, tossing and turning. It was warm, and he found great difficulty in going to sleep. He looked across the room where the moonlightwas filtering through the window. It illuminated the still forms of the other boys, all of them dead to the world.
    Why can’t I go to sleep like that? Josh thought. It’s miserable staying awake like this. I’ll try counting sheep. He counted up to two thousand sheep, then thought, That’s no good. I’ll try counting dinosaurs. T-Rexes, maybe. This was no better. It only brought back memories of when he’d barely escaped with his life from the teeth of such monsters in the land of the cavemen.
    Finally he did drift off, but it was not into a sound sleep. Images flitted through his mind, some of which he could not identify. Many of them were from past adventures he’d had with the other Sleepers. Once he saw the Snakepeople—beings that had upright bodies but heads like serpents, their fangs glistening with poison. He wakened, rolled over, and forced that image from his mind. Sleep would not come again for a long time.
    Then he fell into one of those modes where he knew he was dreaming and could not separate himself from the dream. He tried to wake up but could not. Sweat popped out on his forehead, and he writhed and tossed on his bunk.
    In the dream he was in a cave of total blackness. He was crawling along on his hands and knees. The dream seemed so real that he could feel the sharp stones bite into the palms of his hands and cut into his knees. He had never liked dark, closed spaces, and such fear came over him that he wanted to call out.
    Faster and faster he scrambled, trying to find his way out. There were many turns and twists. And each time he thought he was almost out and would soon see a light, always there was only darkness. It was like being buried alive. He struggled on forever, it seemed.
    Then finally, far up ahead, he saw movement and afaint flickering. With a glad cry, he scuttled forward. The tunnel enlarged, and he yelled, “Hello, anybody there?”
    But when he came to the