Kitabı oku: «The Cup of Galfar. Alderosa's Daughter», sayfa 4

It cast the familiar unnaturally blue light around it. Lu gave the viamulator to Allie, and she started walking along the tracks with the cylinder in her hand like a candle burning with a steady blue flame.

All around them they saw the “horrible” things Lu had mentioned in her story. There were skeletons, bats, the red-hooded executioner and many others. They were all made with paper-mache, faux fur, plaster and cardboard and covered with a thick layer of dust and cobwebs.

The little scouting brigade was slowly making its way forward. The tracks made occasional sharp turns. Allie felt that the place was a little spooky, but there was nothing supernatural about it yet. But then, at one of the turns, the tracks split up and went in two different directions: one went left and downhill, and the other turned right and seemed to go straight into a solid wall. Like the real train tracks, the rails had a miniature automatic rail switch. Its cable stretched across the floor to a nearby wooden pole that supported the pavilion roof. There was an electrical switch lever on the pole. The little car that had just entered the “cave” was sitting on the tracks that went right. Allie came up to the pole and put her hand on the switch lever.

“Shall we try it?” She looked at the cat and the monkey questioningly.

“Let’s do it,” agreed Lu. “But be careful. Turn it off immediately if something goes wrong.”

Allie hesitated a second and then pushed the lever down. They heard the familiar hum and rattle, and the car began to speed up toward the wall.

“There’ll be a smal crash now,” the cat impishly rubbed his front paws and watched the car’s inevitable approach to the wall.

“No, there won’t be,” retorted Allie, turning off the switch. The car screeched to a stop about three feet from the wall.

“That’s right,” agreed Lu. “We don’t need a crash. We need to explore. Maybe there’s a secret passage there.”

So the friends set out towards the wall with a pioneering zeal. But when they reached the car, there came a bright flash of light from behind. With a cry of surprise, Allie turned around and covered her eyes. A bright flashlight or spotlight was shining in her face, blinding her and not allowing her to see anything. Then a tall dark figure stood in front of the light. Black itself, it stood as if in a bright halo like the sun during a total eclipse. But Allie thought that it looked familiar: the long hair, the familiar cut of dress. When she heard the voice, although the manner of speech was strange, there could be no doubt. It was Corgy. Fear like a steel ring squeezed around the girl’s throat, arresting her breath.

“So that’s who was spying on me,” Corgy was saying with a tone of slight surprise. “So it seems you didn’t get to taste the fried fish. Too bad, your Mom is an excellent cook. How naughty of you to treat her like that when she tried so hard for you. Well, who else do we have here? A cat, very well. Only makes sense, if there’s trouble, look for a cat.”

At those words Lemonade shivered and jumped on top of the car to hide from the bright light and Corgy’s eyes.

“And who is that scarecrow? Looks like an old friend of ours. Must be one of the transported,” Corgy said that, looking at Lu.

While the sorceress was talking, Allie calmed down. The gripping fear was gone. The girl picked up the monkey and stepped behind the car. Corgy, in the meantime, kept talking:

“Listen, Allie – that is your name, isn’t it? If you don’t want to end up like this monkey of yours, better hand over the viamulator. You’ve got it, I know. The pretty colorful cylinder. Be a good girl.”

“All right,” Allie’s ringing voice sounded firm. “I will give you the viamulator, if you help Mom and Dad.”

“Of course I will, don’t you worry,” quickly assented Corgy. “Well, give me the viamulator, just throw it to me. I’ll catch it.”

Everything else happened so fast. Allie couldn’t explain why she acted the way she did. She just knew one thing: she didn’t have a clear plan at that moment. Allie took a step forward and stood on the car. Putting Lu down on the seat next to Lemonade, she stretched her right hand with the viamulator towards Corgy. The blinding light wasn’t hitting the girl’s face now, and Allie was able to see the sorceress clearly now. She was standing next to the switch lever pole with one hand on the switch and the other extended towards Allie. Her eyes were gleaming with victory, her lips drawn apart in a sinister grin.

Suddenly Allie’s fingers made a subtle movement, as if on their own. There was a soft click, and a bright green beam of light burst out of the viamulator and hit Corgy’s face. Almost at the same time the car jerked forward, almost throwing Allie off. The girl held on to the seat. The last thing she saw was the tiny squirming figure of Corgy that was hanging off the switch lever and squealing.

Then all went dark.

***

The car rolled out of the dark into an enormous cave. Gigantic icicles were hanging down from the ceiling that couln’t be seen; some of them had reached the floor and turned into ice pillars. Thousands of colorful sparkles were playing on their crystal surface, and flames of cold light pierced the thick ice from time to time.

Lu was looking around with agitation. The cave was familiar to her. It seemed like it was just yesterday when she had gone down these tracks in a similar car. Allie, judging by her face, was utterly raptured. It was one thing to hear someone else’s story and quite another to see everything with your own eyes.

Lemonade was not moved by the beauties of the ice kingdom. He stretched out his neck and was intently looking ahead and sniffing the air with his sensitive nose.

“It’s so beautiful,” Allie whispered, delighted. Despite the rattle of the wheels, her voice sounded very clear. It seemed to resonate and amplify against the giant ice pillars.

“Yes it is,” muttered the cat. “But, if I remember Lu’s story correctly, there are much less pleasant and beautiful things ahead of us.”

Allie and Lu turned their heads and looked at what Lemonade was pointing at.

The car was on the home stretch now before a tunnel in the cave wall. Its mouth was a gaping black hole into which the rail tracks vanished.

“Everybody, jump off now,” quickly ordered Lu and lead the way, leaping off the car. Allie and Lemonade followed her. They watched their empty carriage disappear into the dark tunnel, and then looked at each other.

“Well, what do we do now?” inquired Allie.

“I believe we need to go back,” Lemonade suggested half-heartedly.

“But Corgy is there. She is probably waiting for us, unless she has set out on a chase,” said Lu.

“I shrank her,” Allie interjected modestly.

“You did… what?” Lemonade asked in astonishment.

“Remember that chair in my room? That’s what I did to her.”

Allie flung the viamulator, which she had been firmly gripping in her fist, into the air. And now she saw that all of the disks, including the blue one, were tightly pressed together and made up a solid cylinder. Therefore, there was no light coming out of it, that is, it was turned off. Allie looked at the monkey, concerned. But she was sitting on a rock, resting her head on her hands, as sound as a bell.

“How are you feeling, Lu?”

“Just fine, what can be wrong with me?” the monkey answered carelessly, but was suddenly suspicious: “Why are you asking?”

“That is why!” Allie showed her the viamulator that was off.

Lu stared at it for a few seconds, but when she realized what was going on, she yelled out happily and hugged the cat.

“Yippee! This means something is changing in me for the better, if I can do without this thing now.”

“Don’t be too hasty,” Lemonade reasoned with her, “it might be just the cave.”

“It might be,” Lu the happy monkey refused to stop, “but a fact is a fact.”

“All of this is well and good,” interrupted Allie, “but we should think what we’ll do next.”

After a short counsel, they decided to turn back.

They set out and made their way around the rocks and ice pillars. After a few minutes’ walk they turned a corner and saw a solid rock wall. The tracks disappeared into it, but there was no tunnel or passage in the wall.

“I was expecting something like that,” Lemonade said with a mixed feeling of satisfaction and despair.

“What do we do?” Allie patted the cold rough surface of the rock and looked at her companions, perplexed.

It was rather cold in the cave, and, despite her warm clothes, the girl was beginning to feel it. Seeing that, Lu turned to Lemonade:

“Kitty, dearest, please let’s find an exit, or else we’ll freeze to death here.”

Lemonade looked at the stuffed plush monkey dubiously, but didn’t argue. He turned his head this way and that way, sniffed the air and, telling them to wait for him right there, disappeared behind the closest ice pillar.

“What do you think would’ve happened to us if we’d gone further?” Allie asked the monkey.

“I don’t know what would’ve happened to me, but you probably would’ve ended up like me a while ago.”

“Lu, do you remember how it happened? How did they turn you into a toy? And why a toy?”

“No, I didn’t. But Lemonade’s story about what he heard from Corgy made me think. Remember, when she talked about your parents, she mentioned a shell and a ‘noose’ or something, if Lemonade told it right. And then, the way Corgy called me ‘transported’. So, I think I know what it’s about. Then it’s easy to explain my transformation…”

But then Lemonade appeared, and Lu stopped mid-sentence.

“Well, what did you find?” Lu and Allie exclaimed together.

“I think there’s a way out. Follow me.”

Lemonade led the girls down a path only he knew. For a few minutes it was easy to walk on the even floor of the cave. Then they had to climb over piles of rocks and go around huge boulders. But the hardest thing to do was to climb up a rock to a small crevice that opened up pretty high in the cave wall. The climb was steep, and the uneven surface of the rock was iced over. Lemonade flew up the wall easily. Lu, strangely enough, also turned out to be a nimble rock-climber. But Allie had a hard time. She had to plan out her steps very carefullyin order to avoid slipping and falling down. Several times her foot slipped on the icy rock. It seemed that she was close to falling, but then the girl would miraculously pull herself up and continue the climb. Finally she made it up to the crevice. It was completely dark, but now she knew that she could use the viamulator as a flashlight, and she didn’t hesitate to turn it on. The crevice was very narrow, too narrow for two people to pass by each other, and sometimes the walls were so close together that Allie had to squeeze through sideways.

“Lemonade,” Allie asked, feeling anxious, “are you sure that we are going the right way? Is there really a way out ahead?”

“There must be. I feel a stream of fresh air.”

That’s when Allie realized that she had been feeling a light cool breeze on her face for some time now. “So, I didn’t imagine it”, she thought with relief.

Meanwhile, the walls of the cave almost closed in, and the only way forward was to crawl on the floor through the hole that opened at the very bottom. Lemonade and Lu didn’t have to crawl, but Allie’s progress was slow. Fortunately, she didn’t have to crawl for a long time, otherwise she’d not only have torn her jeans, but also skinned her elbows and knees on the sharp rocks on the floor. The passage ended a few feet ahead, where a large boulder blocked the way. Its edges were not completely flush with the walls, and there were broad gaps on the sides. Gusts of cool air burst into the crevice through the gaps with a low humming sound. Sometimes the gusts were stronger, and the hum sounded more like whistling.

Allie put her hand on the boulder and felt it move slightly. She tried to push it, and it clearly made a little lunge forward.

“Well, guys, I think this is the exit,” Allie turned to Lu and Lemonade. “Let’s push.”

They leaned on the boulder together. It gave way and then suddenly lurched forward and downward. None of the three friends expected that, and they tumbled after the boulder into the dark.

***

There was a real storm outside: the wind was howling, the rain was beating down heavily, from time to time blinding flashes of lightning, orange and green, pierced the darkness, and then peals of thunder shook the sky and the ground. There was a burning smell in the air.

Allie had tumbled down a rather steep rocky slope and was now on the ground, clutching the branches of some kind of bush. Fortunately, she wasn’t hurt by the fall – her Dad had trained her well for all kinds of emergencies, and, while falling, she’d been able to draw her knees up and roll into a ball. None the less, she still had a couple of bruises on her arms and legs.

But it wasn’t the bruises that troubled the girl at the moment. Lu and Lemonade were missing. Allie tried to call them, but her cries were drowned by the rain, wind and deafening thunder. The lightning strikes came with surprising regularity: first green, then orange, and then green and orange again. It looked as if someone had turned on a gigantic strobe light up in the sky that accompanied the violent melody of the storm.

Allie kept holding on to the bush with one hand and covered her face with the other, and then looked around. the flashes of lightning were brief, but she managed to see that she was lying at the foot of a mountain the top of which was covered in thick, low stormclouds. The slope was less steep towards the bottom, there were trees growing there, and further down she saw a real forest. No matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t see Lu or Lemonade anywhere near, but she did notice something alarming: from time to time here and there rocks rolled down the hill. Most of them were small, but some were large enough to cause trouble. Allie realized that it was unsafe to stay there any longer. She let go of the bush and carefully climbed down to the trees. Catching her breath under one of them and trying to call the cat and the monkey, the girl made her way towards the forest. Lu and Lemonade might have taken cover there.

The forest was moaning in the wind, broken branches were snapping and crashing all around. But the peals of thunder seemed more muffled. Allie scrambled through the thick undergrowth and kept calling her friends. It was all in vain; the only answer was the howl of wind in the trees. Once the girl thought that somebody answered her calls. Allie froze and listened hard; indeed, there was something else out there besides the storm. It was a distant sound, powerful and measured, like the breath of a giant animal. But her friends were still not answering.

Allie didn’t know how long she’d been wandering around the forest. She was completely lost and stumbled along, almost completely exhausted. Finally she tripped over a tree root and fell down onto the wet grass. She was close to fainting. “I can’t go any further”, she thought. “Too bad, I’m gonna get an earache again.”

And then Allie felt the earth move under her. It seemed that its surface was rippled by waves like the sea, and the waves were growing with every second. Allie was scared and tried to get up, but then she felt the ground leap up beneath her. The girl was thrown into the air, and then she fainted.

6. ALLIE MEETS UNCLE ZAND

Allie opened her eyes and closed them again: the golden sun was shining straight in her face. Trying to hide from it, she sat up in bed. Yes, she was on a bed, or, rather, a small wooden settee with a nice carved back. It sat by a window in a spacious sunlit room with the same kind of carved wooden furniture. The window was cracked open, and the lacy curtain was moving slightly in the fresh morning breeze. The golden sunray broke through its delicate pattern and cheerfully danced on the pillow.

“That’s what woke me up”, Allie thought and smiled. She felt peaceful and rested. Looking around, she noticed that her clothes were clean, dry, and neatly folded on a chair near her bed. Allie dressed quickly and went over to the table by the other window. There was a skillet with steaming fried eggs and pink juicy-looking ham. Next to the skillet she saw a big sliced loaf of fresh golden-yellow bread with an appetizingly crunchy crust, a big mug of milk and a bowl of jam. Only then, looking at this bountiful spread and inhaling its divine aromas, Allie realized how starved she was. Unable to wait any longer, she sat down and dug in. She reasoned that since she’d been so well taken care of, then surely the breakfast was meant for her, too.

When she was full, the girl came up to the window, drew the curtain aside and opened the window wide. For a moment she froze in astonishment and delight: the window faced a real garden, but what a garden it was! There were flowers of all shapes and colors right by the window. A little further down, there were short bushy trees, some of them covered in blossoms, others – in young green fruit, and still others bent down their heavy branches laden with ripe fruits. The fruits were of unusual kinds: round, diamond-shaped, flat like a wheel, pear-shaped, and even some that looked like big striped doughnuts.

The garden was filled with such fragrant aromas that Allie felt a little dizzy. She went to the opposite window and stopped, stupefied: it was the land’s end. That is, she could see an empty grassy area with some shrubbery here and there. It ended about two hundred feet away, and there was nothing else beyond it, only a strangely-colored sky.

Just then Allie realized that she’d been hearing the familiar rhythmic breathing she’d first heard the night before. Only now it sounded like the breathing of some big, good-natured creature. The girl was struck by a sudden epiphany. She ran out of the room, down the porch and toward the land’s end. The breathing sounded louder, and the sky came nearer. Then Allie stopped – she couldn’t run any further. Entranced, she was looking at the thing in front of her. Here it was, alive and breathing, huge as the sky. The sea!

“The sea!” Allie yelled in delight and waved her arms to greet it.

She had been at the sea before. Her parents had taken her there twice to treat her ear infections, but she was too little then and didn’t remember much. Most of her knowledge of the sea came from books and movies. And now she was looking at it, up close.

The cliff she was standing on was quite tall, about a hundred feet above the sea level, but its slope was gradual enough to go down without breaking one’s neck. Allie saw a path that went down to the wide beach that stretched along the sea from left to right. The sand of the beach was bright yellow, almost orange. Here and there rusty-red smooth stones peeked out of the sand.

Yellows and oranges dominated the landscape. Th sky was blue only in the west; straight overhead it was yellowish green and turned bright yellow toward the east around the large sun. Right at the horizon it melted into rosy caramel.

Taking a good look, Allie realized something: the sun wasn’t as bright as always, so she could easily gaze directly at it. But it was clearly larger than normal. There was something uncanny, even unearthly about it all.

Nevertheless, the view that stretched before Allie was indeed splendid. The most marvelous thing of all was, naturally, the sea. It was dark navy in the distance, turned delicately azure towards the shore, and right at the shoreline blended together many hues of green, from bright grassy green to an almost transparent bottle-glass green. Gentle waves rolled lazily towards the shore. The golden-orange sun was playing on their glossy backs. They curled up with foamy pinkish white-caps near the beach, then spilled onto the sand with a quiet hissing sound and left wisps of foam all over. It didn’t have time to melt as the new wave brought more foam. This went on contunuously.

Allie couldn’t help herself any longer. She ran down the path and toward the sea, her feet sinking in the sand. The sun, albeit not very bright, was hot, and, although it was still morning, the sand had already heated through. It looked like it was high summer season.

Throwing off her clothes, Allie carefully touched the waves with her toes. The water was warm, and the girl threw her doubts aside and dove into the sea. She played in the pink foamy waves, forgetting about everything else in the world, even about the fact that she only had eight more days to save her Mom and Dad.

When she had played in the water to her heart’s content, Allie found herself a spot on a warm rock. The girl basked in the sun, soaking up its gentle warmth. The waves broke against the rock, and Allie could feel their pleasantly cool spray on her hot skin and taste the salt on her lips. A light breeze was playing with her already dry hair. The sea sparkled in the sun. Allie was taking in the sight of this shimmering emerald-colored marvel and couldn’t get enough of it. It mesmerized her; she forgot about time and felt like she could sit there forever.

Looking at this peaceful sea, Allie had a hard time believing that just a few hours before that awful storm was raging. The very thought of it made Allie shudder. There was only one reminder now: far away at the horizon, where the sky met the sea, she could see a ridge of black stormclouds. They didn’t look scary but rather picturesque at this distance, especially that one spot where the biggest stormclouds towered high above the rest of them. There was a rosy golden halo of sunlight around the clouds, so this stormy mass looked almost dreamlike, and the green and orange lightnings that lit up the clouds from time to time only added to the impression. In the light of one especially bright flash Allie noticed a swarm of black dots in the sky.

“Must be seagulls,” she thought.

Engrossed in this fabulous view, Allie didn’t pay attention to her surroundings. That’s why she didn’t notice when a stranger approached the rock she was sitting on. It was a short stout man dressed in a light-colored loose tunic and matching short trousers. His gray hair hadn’t been cut in a long time and stuck out in wisps. A shaggy curly beard framed his round smiley face. He looked old at first sight, but his smooth tan skin and merry blue eyes under the bushy eyebrows belied the impression.

“Aha, I thought I’d find you here,” he said in a pleasant low voice.

Allie started and looked at the stranger, feeling uneasy. But his open good-natured look soon put her at ease, and she smiled back.

“Good morning, sir. You must live in that house over there?”

“That’s right,” said the bearded man and sat down beside her. “Call me Uncle Zand. And what might your name be? And how did you get here, little traveler?”

“My name is Allie, sir. I’ll tell you everything, but first tell me, how did you find me? And did you see anyone else? The thing is, my companions were a cat and a monkey.”

“That’s right, a cat!” exclaimed Uncle Zand, slapping his forehead. “Of course, it was a cat! Why didn’t I realize that? Well, it’s one thing to see a picture, and quite another – to see a live one. Well, it was that cat who woke me up last night and brought me to the spot where you’d decided to take a nap. But there was no monkey.”

“My dear Lemonade,” whispered Allie, moved. “It was you who saved me.”

She suddenly felt ashamed that she’d completely forgotten her friends as she played on the beach.

“Uncle Zand, where is the cat now?”

“Early in the morning, while you were still asleep, he got up, had breakfast and left. But you promised you’d tell me your story.”

“Yes, of course.” Allie gathered her thoughts. She decided to tell him everything, or almost everything that had happened over the last few days. She didn’t seem to have much choice. Also, she felt she could be candid with her new friend.

“Well, it all began with a fish,” Allie sighed and began her story.

As she talked, Uncle Zand listened with attention and looked her straight in the eye. At the very beginning of the story he began to seem concerned. His good-natured serene face suddenly showed signs of surprise. Then he got up and started pacing restlessly around the rock. Finally he raised his arms in the air and stopped the girl:

“Hold on, little girl! Wait. Where did you live before you got here?”

Allie told him his address.

“No, no. Not that. I mean, which sphere is your home?”

Seeing her puzzled face, Zand added impatiently:

“Well, what is your planet?”

“Earth,” Allie said in a dismal voice.

Zand looked at her intently, then nodded and sat down again, suddenly regaining his composure.

“You can continue.”

Allie continued her sad and fantastic story. Any minute she was expecting him to laugh at her words, but Uncle Zand was listening with great seriousness and never interrupted her. Allie finished her story with her falling down in a faint in the middle of a storm-torn forest the night before.

“That’s all. And then I woke up in your house. Thank you for everything, sir.”

“Well, thank you’s can wait,” said Zand with a concerned look. “Everything’s not that simple about this whole thing.”

He stared at the sea and stroked his beard, silent. Allie didn’t want to interrupt his thoughts and was sitting quietly and looking at the stormclouds on the horizon.

“Looks like a fairy castle,” she said in a low voice, as if to herself.

“Huh? What castle?” Zand shook himself and, following her gaze, nodded.

“Oh, that thing. You are not too far from the truth. Castle or not, but there is something interesting there. I’ll show you. Follow me.” He rose and walked toward the cliff.

Allie quickly put on her jeans and T-shirt, grabbed her shoes and sweater and ran after Zand.

“Uncle Zand,” asked Allie when she caught up with him, “what’s this sea called?”

He looked back over his shoulder:

“This one? It’s the Forsifian.”

“What’s that? For-sif-i-an? Never heard of it.”

“Hmm, never heard of it. Does this lead you to any conclusions?”

“I think I know.” Allie stopped, and then burst out, “We are not on Earth, are we?”

“You are a smart girl,” said Zand kindly. “And also brave. Well, that makes it easier for me to explain some things.”

Talking like that, they walked up the path to the top of the cliff. When they got there, Allie saw the neat little house made with rather large blocks of pinkish stone with golden streaks. The flat sloped roof made the house look like any regular modern cottage on Earth.

To the left of the house was the garden that Allie had seen from the window; to the right there was a tall round tower. It was no less than ten feet in diameter, and at least fifty feet tall. Not far from the house was the edge of the forest where Allie had wandered the night before. Further to the right she could see forested hills that gently sloped up towards picturesque rocky mountains.

The tower was made of the same kind of stones as the little house. A sturdy metal steeple on the very top held a big windmill with slowly rotating blades. Just under the tower roof there was a glass-sided observation deck.

And then Allie saw something that made her give a happy yelp and run toward the house. There, on its porch, sat Lu and Lemonade. They looked rather beaten up, especially Lu. She was covered with mud, one side was torn with the stuffing sticking out, her left arm was barely hanging on one thread. All in all, she looked so pitiful that Allie was ready to cry. She picked up the monkey and held her tight, whispering comforting words in her ear.

After the initial excitement had subsided, Allie cleaned Lu with a hard brush that Uncle Zand had found. He also found a needle and some thread, so Allie didn’t have any trouble patching up the monkey.

While she was busy doing that, Lu and Lemonade hurried to tell her what had happened to them the night before. It turned out that they had been pinned down by a large boulder. They didn’t know whether it was the same boulder they together had pushed out of the tunnel or a different one. They just felt that they were falling into the darkness and held on tight to each other. That was what saved them. When the heavy stone crashed on top of them, the monkey was on top and softened the blow for Lemonade. He was just pushed into some loose gravel.

When he came to his senses, Lemonade began to dig himself out from under the boulder. The storm was raging all around them. The cat was trying to call Allie, but realized it was all in vain in such noise. Then he tried to dig the gravel from under the boulder to set Lu free. She was unable to move, but other than that inconvenience didn’t feel any pain or discomfort. She and Lemonade could even easily talk to each other. That is why when Lu heard the cat digging, she insisted that he go find Allie first. She assured Lemonade that she’d be just fine, while Allie could be in grave danger at that moment. Lemonade found her arguments quite convincing and, making no delay, rushed to find the girl.

He spent a long time wandering through the dark groaning forest and finally, thanks to his night vision and keen sense of smell, found the girl lying senseless on a forest clearing. He himself couldn’t help the girl; fortunately, he smelled a human dwelling in the vicinity and didn’t hesitate to rush there, led by a pet’s instinct. That’s how he found Uncle Zand’s house, woke him up and led him to Allie…

When the girl was out of danger, Lemonade drank some buttery sweet milk and fell asleep in the big soft chair. But he woke up with the first gleam of sunlight. He didn’t want to wake Allie up, because she needed more rest, and went to rescue Lu by himself. He easily found his way back to the mountain and the boulder. It was only a matter of time to dig Lu out…