by Dory Perlman
7
The Secret Potion
Sheila lay on dirt-caked straw in a tiny prison cell, trying not to notice the two skinny rats who were eyeing her hungrily. A weak trickle of sunlight filtered into the filthy room through a single window, secured by sturdy iron bars. In the far comer of the cell a human skull sat atop a pile of bones. Its death's head grin seemed to mock Sheila, You'll never get out of here, it said, laughing. Just like me.
Sheila had never felt so alone. "I will not cry, she murmured with determination, "A warrior-woman has to be brave..."
But suddenly she remembered something Illyria had told her long ago, when she had just been starting her warrior training. Being brave isn't about never feeling scared—it's about doing the right thing in spite of being scared.
And all at once the tears came. Great, big, salt-laden tears. They poured out of Sheila's hazel-green eyes, soaking her unhappy cheeks and the filthy straw beneath her.
As she lay sobbing, her mind began an unhappy tour of everyone she had ever known and loved in her short life. They paraded before her eyes, a sad procession of lost friendships. There was her best friend from home, Cookie, and sweet old Dr. Reit. An image of Illyria's rugged yet gentle face, along with Darian and Morning Star and Myno, floated before her. At this point Sheila even missed Dian.
And as she remembered everyone she knew, the sobs kept coming. The woman warrior had transformed back into a frightened, helpless fourteen-year-old, Sheila couldn't imagine ever not feeling scared again.
Half an hour later Sheila's tears had almost dried.
There is only so long you can keep up this kind of misery, Sheila decided. Finally she just felt empty and hollow. The most painful pangs were gone, leaving just a dull, aching throb in the center of her chest.
Pushing herself off of the grimy straw bed, Sheila leaned against the cold stone wall, letting the faint ray of sunlight warm her face. She had been in this prison once before. Illyria had been with her then, and the place hadn't seemed nearly as lonely or tedious. Now she had only the rats for company.
Still, even the well-trained Unicorn Queen hadn't been able to slip through the bars of the tiny window or pick away at the hard mortar that held the huge wall stones in place. They had used a trick to get out that time. Luckily, Dr. Reit had appeared in the nick of time and scared the guard so badly that Sheila and Illyria had been able to escape. Oh, if only Dr. Reit were here now, Sheila thought. But he wasn't, and Sheila had no possibility of escaping. She would just have to fill the time and wait . . . for her execution.
Shoving her hand into her pocket, she pulled out everything she had hidden there. First came her dagger, then the matches. Her hand mirror had cracked during all the rough treatment the guard had given her. Last were her lucky baseball card and the paper with the formula for Laric's men on it.
Idly she picked up the knife and began cleaning underneath her fingernails, The weapon was useless now—it wouldn't help her get out of this place. Still, it was somehow comforting to have it around. She was glad the guard had missed her few possessions when he had searched her. No one in Campora had pockets, so the guard hadn't looked for Sheila's.
Sheila groaned in frustration. She grabbed the baseball card from the floor and glared at it. What good would knowing Mookie Wilson's batting average do her now? She shoved the useless card back into her pocket. Then Sheila picked up the formula for the secret potion. It was written in complete gibberish-probably some kind of code. Well, maybe she could figure out what that code was. It wasn't likely she would ever pass such information on to Laric, but it would fill the time.
Heaving a sigh, she studied the strange words.
SOUZS GDSZZ: AWL NOBUO BIHG, GDFWBU KOHSF, OBR VCBSM. At the bottom of the page was the tiny notation-A = 25 x 3/5.
It was only one line, but it held the key to a magical mystery that kept twelve good people enchanted.
And… Sheila had the feeling she could crack it. Dr. Reit had taught her a thing or two about using logic to break through seemingly impossible problems. It was all part of the scientific process, he had told her. Well, all through her adventures in this distant land she had been using “science” –the inventions of modern-day life crammed in a jumble in her backpack—to overcome Mardock’s magic. Why not try again?
Sheila settled back against the bumpy stone prison wall. Smoothing the paper she had stolen from Mardock’s chamber, she trained her eyes on the mysterious words once again.
There was always a logic system behind a code, Dr. Reit had said. According to the scientist, codes worked on one of two very simple principles. The first was to substitute one word for another. If you wanted to say diamonds, you use an innocent word like apples or potatoes or bubble gum.
The second kind of code involved substituting one letter for another. You might substitute X for B or L for X. Then you would get gibberish. Obviously, that was the method Mardock had chosen. Now all Sheila had to do was figure out which letters to exchange.
Well, the paper itself seemed to hold a clue “A = 25 x 3/5” That had to be the key. Mardock must have written it down to remind himself of how to crack this particular code—he probably used dozens of different ones for all his spells.
But…somehow the strange equation reminded Sheila of something. Something distant, from a far-away life. Something from . . . her algebra class!
"Hmmm,'' Sheila murmured thoughtfully. "If this were an algebra equation, the first thing I'd do is simplify the whole thing. Let's see . . twenty-five times three is seventy-five. Divide all that by five and you have fifteen.
So . . A equaled fifteen. But how could a letter be a number? Maybe the fifteen stood for something else. Like . . . like maybe the fifteenth letter of the alphabet. Quickly Sheila counted forward. The fifteenth letter was 0. And if the letter A was written as 0, then maybe B was set down as the letter following 0. That would be P. And C would be the next letter after that-Q.
Quickly Sheila cleared a place in the straw. The floor was so dirty underneath it that she could scratch letters into the filth. She retrieved her dagger and, using its tip as a pen, scribbled down the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. Then underneath she wrote a second alphabet, but this one started with the letter 0.
Let's see, Sheila thought. The first word was SOUZS. Using her decoder she translated. S would equal E. And OUZS would be AGLE. The first word was EAGLE! That was it. She had cracked the code-only six more words to go.
It didn't take Sheila more than five minutes to unravel the rest of the message. It read: EAGLE SPELL. MIX ZANGA NUTS, SPRING WATER, AND HONEY. Simple!
And yet, it wasn't realty simple at all. Sheila had never heard of a zanga nut. It was probably one of the many exotic luxuries Dynasian had imported into his palace from faraway lands. Sheila's heart sank… even with the formula, Prince Laric couldn't hope to get enough zanga nuts to make twelve portions of the potion, certainly not by tomorrow night.
Suddenly Sheila noticed a faint drumming sound seeping into her cell from the street outside the prison. Sheila tried to ignore the sound as she searched her mind for some way—any way at all—to get a few dozen zanga nuts in one day. But the sound wouldn't go away. It kept worming into her head like a lawn mower that had been left on.
A Lawn mower? But there weren’t any motors in Campora.
Dropping the slip of paper with the decoded message, Sheila jumped to her feet and ran to the window. The opening was too high. Still, if she used all her arm strength, she could probably hoist herself onto the stone window sill.
The motor sound throbbed insistently outside. Inside, Sheila slowly managed to hoist herself onto the skinny ledge. She stared outside, taking in the ground about six feet below her.
"Dr. Reit!" Sheila shrieked. It was unbelievable, but there he was!
The scientist's shaggy white hair was flying in three different directions, as usual. His grease-stained lab coat hung on his thin frame like a sack, and he was very happily and securely putting
along on a shiny red moped!
"Dr. Reit!" Sheila called again.
"Sheila!" the scientist exclaimed. He smiled up at the window and waved.
As he let go of the moped's handlebars, it tipped dangerously. His face twisted into a comical grimace, and he made a mad grab for the bike, righting it just before it tumbled him onto the stone pavement.
"Oh, dear," he murmured. Then he returned his attention to Sheila. "Thank goodness, I've found you. I was afraid the Molecular Acceleration Transport Device's tracking device was on the blink,"
"Dr. Reit, what are you doing on that moped?" Sheila's voice cracked with laughter. The scientist was hardly the motorbike type.
Dr. Reit grinned. "You'll recall, speed is the key to the Molecular Acceleration Transport Device. The faster I go, the longer I can stay—and the more likely I am to be able to rescue you." But as he looked at Sheila through the bars of her prison cell, his expression turned somber. "But I can hardly save you if you're locked up in prison, can I?"
"No, Dr. Reit, you can't!" Freedom was so near and yet so thoroughly impossible. The thought brought back Sheila's tears—tears she had thought she had sobbed out of her system. But she couldn't let them out. Even with the moped Dr. Reit's visit to Campora would probably be all too short. He could begin fading out at any moment, sucked back home by the machine he had invented. They had a lot of information to exchange before that happened There was no time for crying.
"I wish I could show up in your cell," Dr. Reit was saying. "Then I could get you out of prison and Campora, all in one stroke. But I don't think I can do it. The Molecular Acceleration Transport Device just isn't that precise about where it sets me down.”
"Look, we don't have time for that right now,” Sheila broke in. "Everything's going wrong. The unicorns are going to be slaughtered, Laric's men are about to miss their only chance to break the spell, and . . . and I…” But Sheila stopped herself from telling Dr. Reit about the awful death sentence that hung over her own head. There was nothing he could do to help her.
Still, maybe Dr. Reit could help—not to set her free, but to save Laric and the others.
"So here's what I want you to do," she said quickly. "Find Laric's band and tell them the potion is made out of zanga nuts, spring water, and honey!"
"Hmmm, zanga nuts, eh? That's a new one," he said. Sheila knew his brilliant mind was already at work on the formula.
"And what about you, Sheila?" Dr. Reit asked, his deep, dark eyes brimming with concern, "Are you safe where you are—at least for the moment? At least until I can come back for you?"
Sheila paused for one, frantic moment, Should she tell him the truth? If she didn't, she doomed herself—Dynasian was going to kill her tomorrow night. Dr. Reit couldn't save her—he had already told her that. . . . No, she couldn't tell him,
"Don't worry, I'll be fine," she said softly. "Tell Illyria not to worry about me. With the unicorns about to be sacrificed, there's just too much for her to do to help me."
Dr. Reit stared at her sadly from the ground below, his long lanky legs balancing him precariously on the moped. "Sheila, I can't do what you're asking," he said. "There's no way for me to find Laric. The Molecular Acceleration Transport Device's tracking device isn't set to this frequency. You’re the only person in this world whom I can trace—and even that is pretty difficult."
As she listened to his words, a twinge of desperation twisted up inside Sheila's stomach.
"Don't give up hope," Dr. Reit said.
He was beginning to fade, his form flickering in and out between Campora and his lab back home. In a few minutes, Sheila knew, he would be safely back home, far from the land of unicorns, cruel dictators, and magic.
"I'm sure Illyria and Laric haven't given up on you. I bet they're looking for you all over Campora. They'll find you in time, and you can tell them everything they need to know about the potion."
Sheila let out a long, miserable sigh. "Thanks, Dr. Reit," she said, even though she didn't have much faith in what he was saying. "Maybe things will work out for Laric." And for me, she thought desperately.
"I'm sure he'll get his potion in time," Dr. Reit nodded, though his head was barely more than a shadow at this point. "Actually, that's an interesting formula you mentioned. Zanga nuts, spring water, and honey. Odd but . . . it sounds rather familiar, somehow." It was just a murmur of his voice that whispered the final words. With one more weak flicker he was gone. His last word echoed back through the many dimensions of time: somehow . . somehow…somehow…
Sheila stared down at the spot on the ground where Dr. Reit had been. Then she pressed her lips together, willing herself not to cry, and slid off the window ledge.
She was all alone now, alone with two crucial pieces of information. And there was no way to get them outside her musty prison. No way whatsoever.
8
Laric's Sacrifice
A rough scratching sound was rousing Sheila from her sleep. "Five more minutes," she mumbled, thinking for a moment that she was home and her mother was waking her for school.
Sheila hadn't slept for more than a day, and so despite her terror at being imprisoned in this squalid cell, she had been unable to keep her eyes open a moment longer and had fallen into the deep, dreamless sleep of total exhaustion.
The noise persisted, and slowly it dragged Sheila into consciousness. Rubbing her eyes she remembered, dejectedly, where she was. A patch of white moonlight that shone through the window onto the floor was the only illumination in the otherwise pitch-black cell.
Clink, clink, crunch. Where was that noise coming from? She followed the sound to the window. It sounded as if someone was scratching at the window sill with a knife.
Pulling herself up to the window, she came face to face with Laric and Cam, who were chipping away at the stonework around the bars of her window. "I hope I'm not still asleep and dreaming," she whispered happily.
"We're real, don't worry," Laric said with a quick smile.
"How did you get into the city without being spotted?''
"Flew, of course," Cam answered with a wink.
"That's right, I almost forgot," Sheila said. She noticed that their daggers sparkled and flashed lightly as they worked. "You almost have that bar loose," she observed, new hope surging back into her.
"These daggers hold magic of their own," Laric told her, not stopping his work for a second. "They are made of hammered diamonds, a gift to me from the swordsmiths of the Far East,"
Sheila pulled her dagger from her pocket and joined the effort. One bar started to wobble. Red-faced with effort, Cam and Laric grunted as they pulled the bar from its stone casing.
"Hop down and lay this gently on the floor," Laric instructed Sheila. "We don't want any clanking bars alerting the guards."
Sheila did as she was told and then climbed back to help them work on the second bar. "Did . . . Dian make it back?" Sheila asked.
"Muddy and bruised, but in one piece," Cam said, wiping the sweat from his brow. "It was close, though; the tunnel collapsed not ten feet behind her just as she climbed out."
Sheila heaved a sigh of relief. "One, two, three, pull," Laric told Cam as they heaved the second bar from the window. Again Sheila climbed down and placed it quietly on the floor.
"One more and I bet I could squeeze through," Sheila said, climbing back up to the sill. Laric and Cam's hands flew with almost lightning speed. Sheila almost thought she saw sparks flying as they worked. "Listen," she said, "I guess Dian told you that the disk led us to the potion. I figured it out. It's zanga nuts, spring water, and honey."
Laric and Cam exchanged glances. "Zanga nuts, eh," said Laric unhappily. "I don't know where you'd find a zanga nut in this part of the world."
"I've seen them south of here in Kumuru,” said Cam. "A strong flyer might be able to make it in time, if he never rested."
"I am not so sure," Laric disagreed, as he pushed the third bar off its base with all the strength in his body. With the bo
ttom free, he and Cam set to work chipping away at the top of the bar.
Sheila could almost taste freedom. "What is a zanga nut anyway?" she asked.
"It's a nut that grows in very warm climates and is-" Cam started to answer her, but suddenly broke off. A sound had alerted him to danger. "What was that?" he whispered to Laric.
Sheila turned with a start at the sound of a key grating in the lock of the huge iron door of her cell, "Hop down and pretend to be asleep," Laric instructed,"and pray they don't notice these loose bars."
Sheila watched for a second as Laric and Cam transformed themselves into eagles. The guards entered the room more quickly than she had expected. She was just dropping from the ledge when they found her.
One guard grabbed her roughly by the arm. "Climbing out the window!" he shouted, mistakenly thinking she was heading up instead of down. He looked up and saw the missing bar.
"How did you do that?" he shouted, shaking her roughly.
"I've heard this one is a sorceress," said the second guard.
"I'm taking you to Mardock now," said the first guard, pushing Sheila toward the cell door.
Just then a sharp caw was heard overhead, Laric swooped into the room and dived for the first guard. In bird form he had been able to squeeze through the gap in the bars. Behind him Cam also attacked the guards, his wings flapping furiously around their heads.
"I told you she was a sorceress!" cried the second guard. He whipped out his crossbow and took aim, but Laric was too quick for him. Before the arrow left the bow, one powerful wing knocked the bow from the guard's hands, and the other wing swatted him to the floor.
Two more guards charged into the cell. Cam and Laric were busy with the first two guards. Instinctively Sheila snatched her small dagger. With one heedless dash she came up fast on a third guard, who aimed a steel-tipped arrow at Laric as he flew overhead. Her dagger caught him in the shoulder.