“Yes, my lady, and what might that be?”
“I have made the decision to have you bring the three children to the spot where the Warble is supposed to be laid, and wait for Werrien’s and the girl’s arrival.”
“Yes, that is exactly what I was meaning to say.” Rumalock eyes grew large with enthusiasm.
“Don’t try to take credit for my idea!”
“Of course not, my lady. I could have never come up with such an idea myself.”
“No, you couldn’t have, that’s for sure.” The Queen walked over to the entrance of the tent and peeked through the door flaps. After viewing the foul weather outside, she turned around to face Rumalock. “Before I resort to blackmailing them with the other children, I have one more idea up my sleeve.”
~ ~ ~
Meanwhile, near the bottom of the mountain, the gnomes and dwarfs finally defeated the zelbocks in battle. They had killed or wounded many of them. The ones that were left standing ended up retreating back to Ramon. When they arrived back to where Ramon had landed in the thorn bush, they found him sitting on his knees with his hands cupped together in front of him. “I knew you idiots wouldn’t be able to defeat them without my leading you,” he said. The zelbocks said nothing in return. “Well, don’t just stand there like great lumps. Get me my canteen!”
Malodor went to where Ramon’s horse was now happily grazing on forest ferns that had not yet been covered by snow. He untied Ramon’s canteen from the saddle and quickly brought it back to him. “Open it, you brainless fool,” Ramon demanded.
Malodor pulled the cork out of the canteen and then sniffed what was inside it. The fumes of fermented fairy blossom juice streamed up to his nostrils. Being very thirsty from fighting in the battle, he was about to take a sip of it, but Ramon stopped him.
“Drink that,” Ramon warned, “and it will be the last drink you’ll ever take.”
Malodor took the canteen away from his mouth and held it out to Ramon.
“Hold it steady.” Ramon put his cupped hands over it and dropped something inside it. “Hurry—give me the cork.” He held his hand over its opening. Malodor handed Ramon the cork and Ramon quickly plugged the canteen with it, however Malodor could hear the sound of something fluttering around inside the canteen.
“You may have gotten away before, little princess, but this time there’s no escaping.” Ramon began to laugh insanely.
33
As Werrien and Kristina climbed the mountain, the fierce winds grew very strong, and it seemed like even the elements were working against their delivering the Warble. The icy wind even penetrated the thick, wool cloaks they wore. To add to their problems, the mountain was growing steeper and steeper, and even though they had just started their ascent, the horses were having a hard time climbing. Werrien brought Lisheng to a stop and then jumped off him. “This is as far as the horses can go. We’ll have to travel on foot the rest of the way.”
Kristina jumped down from Taysha. Then she untied Raymond’s container from the saddle and peeked inside it. Raymond lay curled up, sleeping at the bottom of it. Trying not to wake him, she gently closed the lid, but he heard her and woke up. She peeked inside again. “How can you possibly sleep in this freezing cold weather?”
“It’s called hibernation,” Raymond said yawning.
“Oh, that makes sense. I’ll try not to bother you anymore.”
“Thanks.” Raymond lay back down to sleep.
She closed the lid once again, and it made her feel a little better, knowing that Raymond wasn’t feeling the effect of the cold as she was.
After gathering their small amount of food supplies, Werrien told Taysha and Lisheng to go back down the mountain to join the gnomes and dwarfs. They said good-bye, and then Werrien and Kristina watched as the horses disappeared down the mountain and into the wind-driven snow.
They turned and began to climb the mountain on foot. They climbed for what seemed hours, with the wind blowing the snow into their faces. It made it hard for them to see anything, except for white and the occasional rock or tree branch sticking up out of the snow.
“I’m feeling really weird, not being able to see anything other than whiteness,” Kristina yelled to Werrien.
“I feel the same, but we have to keep going. It shouldn’t be too much farther before we reach the top,” Werrien yelled back.
He really had no idea how much longer it would take them to actually reach the top, but he felt if he told Kristina that, she wouldn’t be able to make it.
The mountain grew even steeper, and the snow got even deeper as they trudged upward on ever-so-tired legs. “Could we stop and rest for a moment?” Kristina said, feeling out of breath.
“Let’s go a little farther,” Werrien suggested, but Kristina’s foot suddenly slipped on some slick ice below the snow’s surface and she fell. Werrien grabbed hold of her cloak, but his hands were so cold and numb that it slipped through his fingers, and she went tumbling down the mountain. Once again, Werrien felt that familiar ache in the pit of his stomach, as he watched Kristina disappear into the pure-white atmosphere. He called out to her, but there was no answer, and so he began to descend the mountain. He soon found out that going down was no easier than climbing up. Then his foot hit some ice as well, and he slipped and fell, but he was fortunate not to tumble down the mountain as Kristina had.
“Kristina! Kristina!” he called again, but there was still no answer. What am I to do now? The mountain was so vast, and with the snow blowing in his face, the odds of finding her were slim. After descending almost a quarter of the way back down the mountain, he stopped for a moment to rest, and as he stood in the wind and snow, contemplating what to do next, he felt the Warble heat up inside his shirt. Then lightning flashed in the sky above him, followed by a very strong wind that almost knocked him over. He heard a voice in the wind say, “Look up the mountain, to your left.” He looked up and saw something very small, bounding toward him over the snow. As it drew nearer, he could see that it was Raymond. “Raymond! Am I glad to see you.”
“And I to see you.”
“Is Kristina okay?”
“Yes, but for how long, I can’t be sure. You must come quickly.”
Werrien followed Raymond a short way back up the mountain to a cliff. Near the edge of it was Raymond’s container. Werrien quickly went over to the cliff’s edge and saw Kristina hanging from a tree branch. More than fifty feet lay below her, and there was only a chunk of rock sticking out of the mountain for her to land on, if she were to fall.
“Werrien! I don’t think I can hold on much longer!” Kristina yelled, as a strong wind blew against her, causing her to sway to and fro.
“Try to stay calm!” Werrien lay on his stomach and reached his hand down toward her. “Grab hold of my hand.”
Kristina tried to reach his hand, but it was too far away from her. “It’s no use! I can’t reach it!”
Once again the wind blew her away from the cliff. Werrien stood up to take off his cloak. While doing so he heard a familiar caw in the sky above him, and he looked up to see Roage soaring on the strong winds. “Roage!” he called out.
Roage began to descend toward him. Werrien lay at the cliff’s edge again and hung his cloak over it for Kristina to grab. The wind blew her away from the cloak and then back toward it. She reached out to grab it, but again, the wind blew the cloak one way and her the other way. After one more try, she finally grabbed hold of it. Werrien pulled her up to the cliff’s edge, however just as she made it up, the gold case slipped out of his shirt and rolled over the edge of the cliff.
Werrien’s face went as pale as the snow as he watched the gold case tumble away from him. “No-o-o-o!” he yelled, his voice echoing over the treacherous mountain.
Kristina was safe now, but the Warble was gone, and this time there was no way either of them could retrieve it. Kristina felt it was her fault they’d lost it, and she knelt down beside Werrien. “I’m so sorry, Werrien,” she said.
“Sorry for what?” Werrien asked.
“If I wouldn’t have fallen over the cliff, you wouldn’t have had to come and look for me.” She choked on her tears. “And then you wouldn’t have had to lean over the edge of the cliff, which caused the Warble to fall out of your shirt. It’s my entire fault that this happened. I should have never been given the gift from Miss Hensley. She should have realized that I wasn’t one to whom the Warble could be entrusted.”
Werrien looked up with tears in his eyes. He wanted to say something from his heart, but before he could speak, he saw something at the cliff’s edge. It was Roage, and gripped tightly in his talons was the gold case. “Roage!” Werrien called out, enthusiastically.
“I think it’s high time you two got moving along.” Roage rolled the gold case over to Werrien.
Kristina was happy to have the Warble back, but at the same time, she felt that Werrien was about to tell her something important. Now, she’d probably never know what that was. She quickly pushed the thought out of her mind when Werrien turned to her and said, “We’d best be moving on. This episode has lost us quite a bit of time.” He tucked the gold case back in his shirt and turned to the raven. “Thank you, Roage. I will never forget this.”
Once again, the two children began their grueling upward climb, but they hadn’t gotten very far when they heard Roage’s familiar caw behind them again. They turned around to see that he was still standing at the edge of the cliff.
“What is it, Roage?” Kristina called out.
“Oh, I was just wondering if you might have forgotten something.”
Kristina and Werrien looked at each other, puzzled. Then Kristina suddenly realized what it was. “Raymond!” She made her way back down again. “How could I be so absent-minded as to forget Raymond?” She searched all about the area where she had last seen him, but he was nowhere to be found. “He must have gotten buried!” She began digging in the snow. Roage cawed, but Kristina ignored him and kept on digging. He cawed louder again and finally got her attention. She stopped digging and looked over at him. “Roage, can’t you see that if I don’t find Raymond fast, he could freeze to death?”
“If you would stop digging, maybe I could help you find him.” Kristina stopped digging. “I suggest you take a look over the cliff’s edge.”
Kristina’s stomach sank as she thought about looking over the edge of the cliff and possibly finding Raymond dead. She cautiously went to the edge of the cliff, and even though it was extremely hard for her to look over it, she knew she had to do it—and be brave about it. She crept up to the snowy edge and then, with her eyes tightly shut, she poked her face over it. When she opened her eyes, the biting wind blew at her face. She looked down, expecting to see Raymond’s dead body, but to her surprise, she found him sitting on a very small piece of rock that jutted out of the cliff’s snowy wall. The rock was barely big enough for even Raymond’s little body.
As the harsh wind and snow blew at him, he yelled up to Kristina, “It’s about time you came for me! I’m freezing to death down here!”
“Raymond, hold on, and we’ll get you back up here.” Kristina pushed herself away from the edge of the cliff, stood up, and turned around to face Werrien, who was waiting for her a short way up the mountain. “Werrien, I found Raymond!”
Werrien headed back down to the cliff’s edge, and Kristina showed him where Raymond was. “I’m glad that you found him, but how are we going to get him back up here?”
“I was kind of hoping that you could help me out with that.”
Werrien looked seriously at Kristina. “He’s too far down.”
“Couldn’t you hang your cloak over again so that he could climb up it?”
“No―the cloak isn’t long enough.”
“There must be some way.”
“Would you like me to get him?” Roage interrupted.
Werrien and Kristina stopped talking and turned their attention to Roage.
“You mean, pick Raymond up with your claws?” Kristina said.
“Well, I could try to pick him up with my beak, but the taste of rat really appalls me.”
“I think you should let Roage get him, Kristina, unless you can come up with a better idea, besides, we really need to get going,” Werrien said.
Kristina looked once more over the cliff’s edge again and tried to think of another way to get Raymond, however she just couldn’t come up with anything. “Raymond,” she called down to him. “Raymond, can you hear me?” There was still no response. She quickly stood up, turned to Roage, and said, “Be gentle with him; he’s my best friend.”
“I won’t let you down, or should I say, I won’t let Raymond down,” Roage said.
The raven flew over the cliff’s edge, and a few minutes later, came back up. Raymond was gripped in his talons, and he laid his limp body down in the snow.
34
When Kristina saw Raymond’s body lying on the cold, snowy ground, she gasped, ran over to him, and gently lifted him up. She cradled him in her arms, and then checked his body to see if Roage might have left any claw marks on him—there were none to be found. “You froze to death! I’m sorry, Raymond. I shouldn’t have taken so long to make the decision to let Roage rescue you.” She closed her eyes and began to sob.
Roage, who was standing beside her, noticed Raymond’s nose twitch. “Your friend is not dead.”
Kristina sniffled and swiped her long hair out of her face. “Oh, yeah? What do you know?” she said coldly.
Suddenly, Raymond let out a loud sneeze, blowing the snow that had fallen in his face into the air. He shook his little head and looked up at Kristina. “Why do you always have to wake me? I was having such a wonderful dream. I was flying like a bird, high in the sky, soaring effortlessly over treacherous mountain peaks.” He had a relaxed smile on his face. He stretched out his limbs and opened his mouth very wide in a yawn, revealing his two large front teeth.
“He’s quiet the exaggerator—flying like a bird, soaring in the air,” Roage said.
Kristina sighed. “Well, I’m just glad he’s alive.” She gently placed him back in his protective container.
As she was closing the lid, she heard Raymond’s echoing voice say, “Do I have to go back inside this cold contraption? I think I would sleep much better somewhere else.”
Kristina slammed the container’s lid shut. Then she opened it slightly. “I think you’ll sleep just fine, Raymond. If you can handle the cold from down the cliff, you can handle sleeping in this container.” She closed the lid again.
Raymond didn’t seem to be affected by the bone-chilling cold; he slept soundly in his protective container. But the harsh winds were almost unbearable for Werrien and Kristina as they began climbing again. Kristina had never experienced such cold conditions; she was beginning to have serious doubts that she could hike much farther. She wouldn’t tell Werrien, of course. She felt that she had caused enough trouble as it was. I’ll keep going until I pass out or drop dead, whichever comes first.
Not long afterward, her legs gave out, and she fell forward. Werrien tried with all his might to pull her up, but he had very little strength left, and so she lay there, and the snow began to cover her.
“Kristina, you’ve got to get up or you’ll freeze to death,” Werrien said.
“I can’t make it. You’ll have to leave me and go on your own.” She was very weak.
“I can’t leave you. You’re the only one who can deliver the Warble to its resting place.” He wouldn’t have left her, even if it weren’t so, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. When she didn’t respond, he sat down beside her. “I guess we’ll both just sit here and die together.”
All was silent, except for the sound of the howling wind, and as Werrien sat there, looking at nothing but the white snow falling, he began to grow extremely tired. He started to imagine that the snow covering them was a soft down blanket. He even imagined it to be very warm and cozy. Then his mind began to drift off, and he suddenly
found himself on a warm sandy beach looking over a clear blue sea. It was so beautiful and inviting that he ran toward the water, but then, when he was just about to dive in, he heard the strong, voice say, “Turn around Werrien. You must go back. You must do what is right, even though it seems impossible to you.” Werrien stopped dead in his tracks—he knew he must listen to the voice, but the water was so inviting, and the air was so warm that he didn’t want to obey. He just stood still, looking at the beautiful, clear blue sea, as if hypnotized by it. It provoked him so much that he decided not to obey the voice. He would dive in, but just before he did so, a tall tower appeared in the water. The sun was so bright that he had to squint. Suddenly, the clear blue sky and water began to change. They turned a cold, gray color, and the water grew rough and turbulent. The warm sand under his feet became cold and hard, and the air grew ice-cold. He looked toward the top of the tower; through a window he saw a beautiful woman. Her complexion very pale, and she looked sad. He knew right away that the woman was his mother, and his heart ached in his chest. He was deeply saddened to see her sitting in the window, looking so unhappy, and pale from lack of sunlight, but then the tower faded away, along with his mother and the cold, cold sky. The rough, turbulent water changed back to a bright, crystal-clear blue sea. His feet began to sink into the warm, soft sand, and it wasn’t too long before his feelings of sadness faded away. He began to feel happy again, and he wanted to go swimming and have fun in the crystal-clear blue sea. A dolphin jumped up out of the sea and playfully tried to coax him to come in and play. It did flips and swam backwards, flapping its front fins together. The dolphin brought a smile to Werrien’s face, and he wished, more than anything, that he could dive in the water and play with it. But he knew it was not the right thing to do, so he turned around and began to walk away from the water. As he did so, the sky began to change back to gray, and a cold wind blew at him, lifting the sand up and blowing it in his face. It made it hard for him to see or walk, and he began to run. The wind grew stronger, as if trying to push him back to the sea, and it took every bit of his strength to run away from the sea. Then, suddenly, he felt something sharp pinching the skin on his ankles. He looked down and saw many large, slimy, rotting crabs, all grabbing at his ankles with their razor-like claws. He looked up again and noticed that they were coming at him from every direction, thousands of them circling around, closing in on him; their slimy claws, open ready to pinch him. It was a terrifying sight, and the smell was horrendous. He lost his balance and fell backwards, yelling, “No-o-o-o-o!” As he hit the ground, he suddenly felt so cold that he thought he might be frozen solid, but he sat up to find himself back on Mount Bernovem, covered in snow.
The Warble Page 18