"We'll follow you," Werrien said cheerily.
As they followed Raymond and Lilly, Kristina whispered to Werrien, "The last time I was here, you told me that there were no other rats in Bernovem."
"There wasn't—that is, until Lilly came to Bernovem from Tezerel."
"So did Raymond move out of Retzel's and Mitzi's house?"
"No, apparently Lilly now lives with them as well."
At the buffet table, Werrien handed Kristina a plate. Both were quiet for a while as they scooped up the food. Then Werrien said, "Come to think of it, I don't even think that Leacha saw him—she never mentioned him to me."
"Are you saying Leacha never met Raymond?"
"Oh, no—sorry. I was back to talking about the old man who rescued me."
Kristina felt frustrated as she scooped scalloped potatoes onto her plate. How could Werrien go back to that subject so quickly, when all I can think of is that my best friend has found someone else to take my place. She looked at Werrien. Well, at least Raymond was only one of my best friends.
Hester and Davina suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs, and noticing Werrien and Kristina, they hurried over to them.
"Oh, good! There's food here. I was just wondering when I'd be able to eat something more substantial than what those strange little servant men were pawning off on us," Davina said, already plucking a few olives from a tray before getting herself a plate.
Werrien stared at her oddly. "Help yourself," he said.
"Don't mind if I do," Davina replied, with a confident grin stretching across her face.
The two Brinewine brothers, Heerzek and Sepel, appeared at the top of the stairs, and when they spotted Hester and Davina at the buffet table, they quickly made their way over to them.
"Oh, great!" Davina said under her breath to Hester.
"You're just bummed because Sepel beat you in the croquet match," Hester whispered loudly.
"Uh, Earth to Hester! Didn't you notice? I actually let him win." Davina shoveled curried squid and rice onto her plate.
"Oh, come on, Davina! You just can't admit that you've been beaten," Hester said as her eyes trailed over the length of the table in search of desserts.
Heerzek, the boy with the black hair, took a plate from the front end of the table and went to stand by Hester. Sepel took a plate as well and went to stand by Davina.
"We've found a nice table set up right by the fire-breathers," Sepel said to Davina.
Davina half-grinned nervously and stared across the table at Hester.
"Sounds good," Hester said, casually shrugging her shoulders.
Davina rolled her eyes and sighed. "I guess that we will need a place to sit," she said unenthusiastically. She stared at Hester, loading her plate up with apple strudel, wobbly lime gelatin, and lemon poppy-seed cake. "You're doing the same as the last time—eating only desserts."
"What do you mean, the same as the last time?" Hester said. Then she glimpsed down the long table at three twinkling balls of light heading toward Kristina and Werrien, and her mouth suddenly fell open. Her food slid off her plate and onto the floor. "Now I remember," she said, looking bewildered.
"So do I," Davina said, suddenly recalling as well.
- 6 -
Behind the Wooden Cabinet
The three twinkling balls of light were actually fairies. Two of them flew up behind Kristina and landed on her left shoulder. They were so light in weight that Kristina didn't even notice them. One of them, a girl, tugged gently on a few strands of Kristina's hair, causing Kristina to flinch and almost let go of her plate. Luckily, Werrien, who was right beside her, quickly steadied it.
The fairies flew in front of Kristina's face. "Surprise!" they said in unison.
"Clover and Looper!" Kristina said. Then she held the palms of her hands up for them to land on. Clover landed on one and Looper on the other. "I was hoping I'd get to see you two." There was clear excitement in her voice.
Clover looked the same as the last time Kristina had been in Bernovem, but Looper had changed some.
"Looper, you've grown a little taller," Kristina said.
"An eighth of an inch to be exact," Looper said proudly, standing as tall as he possibly could.
Clover flew off Kristina's hand and again hovered in front of her face. Then suddenly, another fairy, this one a teenage boy, appeared at Clover's side.
"Kristina, I'd like you to meet my friend, Sage," Clover said, smiling gloriously.
"Uh ... Sis? Don't you mean your boyfriend?" Looper quickly added.
Clover's tiny cheeks turned hot pink, and she gave Looper an austere, older-sister look, meant to discourage him from saying more.
Even though Sage was no more than three inches tall, Kristina was amazed at how handsome he was, with his shimmering, blue-black hair and baby-blue eyes.
"Nice to meet you, Sage," Kristina said.
"Likewise," Sage said, giving her a composed wink. "I've heard a lot about you," he added coolly.
"Oh?" Kristina said apprehensively, her eyes shifting downward. Even though Kristina had made her peace with Clover the last time she was in Bernovem, her thoughts gravitated to the many arguments that they had engaged in before then.
"Clover really looks up to you," Sage added.
Kristina's eyes lit up. "Really?" she said, rather surprised to hear it.
"No doubt; she is a lot taller than me," Clover said, her hands now on her hips as she smirked and blinked her very hazel eyes at Sage. She grabbed Sage by his arm. "Come on," she said, tugging at him, her wings flapping harder than usual as he resisted. "Remember? You said you didn't want to miss the archery competition."
Sage waved good-bye to Kristina, just before being whisked away by the feisty, red-haired fairy.
Davina and Hester hurried over to Kristina.
"We remember now," Davina said excitedly.
"Remember what?" Kristina said, taken off guard by their abrupt approach.
"Well, duh! We were here before," Davina said.
"And you were too," Hester added, glaring at Kristina and thinking of her as being an absolute imbecile.
"I can't believe that you don't remember?" Davina added.
"I remember. I can't believe it just came back to you guys," Kristina said. She was surprised at how naive Davina and Hester could be.
"And now, I remember him," Davina said, smiling shrewdly at Werrien. "I guess you're not as bad of a guy as I made you out to be."
"And that rude, little, old gardener man who thought we were trespassing," Hester said. "Now I remember him as well."
"Actually, Ugan's really nice," Kristina corrected her.
Davina took a bite of her food. "Yeah, I guess he's not that bad," she said, talking with her mouth full.
At least the food doesn't hang from her braces like it used to, Kristina thought.
Werrien examined Davina's face. "What's different about you?" he asked her.
"Oh, it's probably that I'm not wearing braces. I've had them off for almost a year. Quite a few people have hinted that I should go into modeling." Davina smiled, revealing her straight teeth.
"May I ask who 'quite a few people' are?" Hester said flatly.
Davina thought for a moment and then said, "I meant quite a few people in my family, like for instance, my parents." Her face changed from a smile to a red-faced frown.
"I think you look great," a male voice said, coming from a short distance behind them.
Davina quickly turned around to see who had spoken, and at the same time Clover, who had come back to talk to Looper, whizzed over to Davina and landed on her shoulder.
"It was Se-pel," Clover teased Davina. Davina turned around and cringed.
"Oh, come on, Davina! They only want to be our friends," Hester said.
"Just because you have a thing for the black-haired one, doesn't mean I have to feel the same about the brown-haired one." She turned and glanced at Sepel's pointy ears. "I doubt they're even human," she hissed.
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Sepel and Heerzek approached Davina and Hester, carrying full plates of food.
"Are you girls coming to join us? We can still get the table next to the fire-breathers," Heerzek said.
"Actually, they've changed those tables over to a card tournament," Sepel said.
"I'm up for a game of cards," Hester said eagerly, grabbing a tall glass of punch from a servant gnome's tray.
"Well, all right; as long as there is a place for me to sit down and eat. My feet are killin' me," Davina said reluctantly. Then off the four of them went.
Once they were gone, Werrien took Kristina around the palace grounds, and they enjoyed the many events of the party. It was the most fun Kristina had ever had in her entire life, other than the last time she had been in Bernovem, when she attended the celebration feast of the Magic Warble's being returned to its resting place.
The evening seemed to go by so quickly and before they knew it, the party was over and the last of the guests were moseying on home—at least they thought that the last guests were leaving, but as Werrien and Kristina stood on the terrace, watching the servant gnomes and dwarfs clean up the grounds, they could hear voices just below the terrace, talking and giggling. They leaned over the railing and saw Hester, Davina, Heerzek, and Sepel still deeply involved in a game of cards and seeming to be having a lot of fun at it. Davina was leaning back on her chair with her feet up and crossed on the table top. Hester was wearing a visor on her head, and she sat with her elbows up on the table.
Earlier on into their card playing, Sepel had figured out that if he let Davina beat him, she'd be nicer to him, and so it was that Davina beat him at every hand of cards after that.
Feeling very tired, Kristina yawned.
"Would you like to travel with me on our sailing ship to Tezerel tomorrow?" Werrien asked her.
"Are you serious?" Kristina suddenly felt wide awake again.
"Yes, I'm serious." Werrien smiled charmingly.
"That would be awesome!" Kristina said, but then her mood suddenly changed to a more somber one. "What about Davina and Hester? What are we going to do about them? I'm sure that you wouldn't want to leave the two of them here at the palace while we're away."
"Sepel and Heerzek are shipmates. I have no doubt the two of them can keep Hester and Davina entertained."
"Cool! Then I'd actually love to go," Kristina said happily.
Werrien began walking toward the palace. "Come on! Follow me," he said. "There's something that I'd like to show you."
Kristina followed Werrien inside the palace, where only a few dimly lit candles lined the walls and gave off a faint light. Werrien took a candle from a table and led the way up a winding staircase. When they reached the top, they came to another hallway. Directly across from the stairs was a large ornate door. Werrien took a key out of his pocket, unlocked the door, and they entered a dark, cold room. In the center, barely visible, was a large, elaborate table.
Kristina looked puzzled at Werrien. "Why did you bring me here?" she asked while rubbing her arms to keep warm.
"Follow me," Werrien said eagerly, walking toward a wooden cabinet set against the wall on the right side of the room. He held the candle out to Kristina. "Can you hold this for a moment?" he asked her. Kristina took it. Then he pulled the cabinet a little way out from the wall. He reached behind it and took out a black, leather suitcase and laid it on the table. "Could you bring the candle over here?" he said.
Kristina placed the candle on the table close to the suitcase, and then Werrien clicked open its old latches. Inside it was a purple, velvet cloth. He lifted the cloth to reveal a cushioned bed of purple, crushed velvet that held a black, flat stone, around two inches in diameter. Its rough edges suggested that it was most likely once a part off of a larger rock. He picked it up, and as he did so, Kristina felt a chill run the course of her body.
"This is top secret—between you and me only, okay?" Werrien said, his earnest face aglow in the flickering light of the candle.
"Sure," Kristina said, shrugging her shoulders. "What is it?"
"I think it's some sort of crystal, but I'm not positive. It's not like any I've ever seen before."
"Have you asked your parents about it?"
"No, not yet. I actually only found it earlier this morning." He put the stone between his thumb and index finger and held it up toward the window, so that the moonlight could illuminate it.
"Wow!" Kristina said, amazed. It reflected a red light onto the wall in the shape of a spider web.
"And, would you like to know what else is extraordinary about it?" Werrien said, smiling.
"Yes, of course," Kristina said keenly.
"Remember, you'd asked me how I knew you were in Bernovem?"
"Yes."
"I saw you in this stone. It's a seeing stone." He held it out to her. "Would you like to hold it?" he asked.
"No!" she answered quickly. "Really—I'm good just looking at it from here." For some reason, only looking at the stone made her feel strange, like the sinking feeling she got in her stomach when she was on an elevator.
Werrien placed the stone back in the suitcase and then put the suitcase back behind the cabinet. He took another key out of his pocket and unlocked one of the cabinet's drawers. "Come and take a look at this," he said.
Kristina picked up the candle and went to the cabinet. "It's an old book," she said, curiously looking in the drawer.
"It's Bernovem's Book of Prophecy."
"Oh, yeah!" It was the same book Rumalock and her had looked through, in his living room, the first time she was in Bernovem, only it was much thinner, and it looked like it had taken a beating.
"My father found it on the bank of the Indra River, and the reason why it's so much thinner now than it used to be, is because it's only the middle section of it."
"So, where are its front and back sections?"
"The front section has been missing forever—well, not literally forever but at least my whole life. And, as for the back section, we think that after Rumalock got the book back from his brother, Ugan, Rumalock must have ripped the back section out of it, because it was missing when my father found it."
Werrien opened another drawer and held the candle above it. "Take a look at this," he said.
"The golden goblet!" Kristina said, full of wonder. "I thought it was destroyed when the Magic Warble became the Rainbow Tree."
"We thought so, too, but when my uncle Corin and I were hiking on Mount Bernovem one afternoon, I found it lying on the ground, not far from the Rainbow Tree."
"Wow, and it still looks the same, not even a dent in it," Kristina said, admiring the goblet as Werrien held it by the light of the candle.
While both of them were marveling at it, Werrien turned it upside down.
"Hey look! There's something written on the inside of the bottom rim," Kristina said.
"Where?"
"It's very faint, but I can see a B, and an E, and ... "
"I think it says Bernovem," Werrien said.
Before Kristina could read the next letter, some kind of creature flew by her, brushing up against her face. She gasped and leaned back on the meeting table, tensely gripping its edge in her hands.
Werrien turned around quickly.
"What was that?" Kristina asked nervously.
Werrien looked toward the window and noticed that it was slightly ajar. "It must have been a bird," he said, walking toward the window. "They nest in the tree right outside." He hadn't quite reached the window when they heard someone out in the hallway, approaching the room. "Hide! Get quickly—behind the cabinet!" He hastened to blow out the candle.
While standing quietly behind the cabinet, Werrien and Kristina could hear the doorknob slowly turn. Then the door opened, and the light from out in the hall spilled into the room. For a moment there was only silence, and then the door slowly shut again. They waited for a few minutes, and then Werrien went to get the candle from the table. "We'd best get out of here," he said, a
nd began heading for the door. Kristina gladly followed him.
Once in the dim hall, they could see someone at the far south end of it heading their way. As the figure drew nearer, Werrien recognized who it was. "Elzwur!" Werrien said enthusiastically. "I was just going to look for you."
The dwarf stopped in front of them and bowed. "What can I do for you, Werrien?" Elzwur said, with a suspicious look on his face.
"Could you show Kristina and the two other girls to their sleeping quarters?"
"Most definitely," Elzwur said quickly.
Werrien turned to Kristina. "I'll see you in the morning," he said.
"Okay. Good night," Kristina said, and they parted in opposite directions.
- 7 -
The Irgul
In an obscure cave, in a cliff, on the most southern coastline of Bernovem, a serpent hovered over a dip in a rock bed that was filled with a potent combination of the juice of the Efah fungus and the sap from the Aurum root. The serpent lowered its head and drank every drop of the concoction. Then it turned and slithered to the front end of the cave, where its victim sat waiting for it.
"Did you bring what I asked you to bring me?" the serpent calmly hissed.
"Ye ... yes," the victim stammered fearfully.
"Where is it then?" The serpent lashed out its thin, whip-like tongue.
"Do you remember that you promised me a reward?" the victim asked cautiously.
"Of course," the serpent crooned slyly.
The victim brought forward a dirty fist and then opened it in front of the serpent's face. On the victim's clammy palm was the item. The serpent's yellow-orange eyes shifted back and forth between the victim and the item. "You did well," the serpent finally said. Then very suddenly, it lashed out and pierced the victim's neck with its dagger-like fangs.
The victim grabbed its throat and gurgled in pain. It could feel the warm venom pump into its jugular vein and then slowly travel down its arms.
"To be the firstborn is your reward," the serpent said, just before scooping up the item in its mouth. Then it slithered slowly away, deep into the bowels of the cave.
On the cold, damp cave floor, the victim lay convulsing in agony. Gray foam frothed out of its mouth, and its body began to contort. Hard rope-like muscles formed beneath its now greenish-gray skin, and the hair on its head turned brittle and began falling out in clumps. At the same time, its teeth crumbled and fell out of its mouth. Then new teeth grew instantly in their place, jagged and sharp, like frayed metal.
The Black Shard Page 4