The artistry and exquisite craftsmanship of it was of course spectacular, like all the Professor’s work tended to be. Though the true reason she’d enjoyed it so much, besides all the compliments she’d received that day, was because she felt in a very sincere way that this gift had been made especially for her, and was uniquely her own.
She cupped the tear-shaped medallion in the cradle of her palm to admire it, until something caught her eye, but it was not the necklace. It was the box that it had been wrapped in, that she had set upon her vanity counter earlier that same morning.
���What could this be?��� she thought, seeing the corner of a folded note stuck peculiarly beneath the white decorative paper that lined the inside of the box.
She gently placed her treasured necklace on the vanity table as she drew out the odd note from her gift box, unfolding and reading whatever message the Professor had sent to her.
���This is meant to be secretive, and has a curious way about it to make your hidden self clearly seen,��� the note read, and it was signed with ���many blessings and a happy birthday��� from Professor Asim.
���What could be so secretive about a necklace?��� she wondered, lifting the necklace up by its chain and holding the medallion close to her face to examine it, running her finger across the center stone.
The water blue stone twinkled in the candlelight of her room. Its preciousness and the uniqueness of it was immediately apparent as she felt its unflawed surface, but there was nothing so dangerous, or mysterious, about it that she could notice. Except that upon further investigation, the stone’s setting did not appear to be entirely unmovable. She pressed her finger onto the stone, so that it depressed into the medallion like a button, and she was instantly shocked by a tingling sensation that swept over her entire body. Looking down, she saw a subtle sparkling substance flow outward from the medallion washing down the length of her dress and around the tips of her fingers in an instant.
All of this was so horribly surprising that at once she was inexhaustibly and completely frightened. Though the most terrifying part of it all, was that although she, herself, could see the slight sparkling energy flow, over her hands and down to the ends of her hair, with her own eyes, she could see none of it in her vanity mirror.
In fact, she could see nothing at all: not this glittering energy, not her hands, nor her favorite night dress, not her blonde hair lain down over her shoulders, neither her own face, nor her eyes. Nothing. It was as if she had not existed at all.
The terrifying shock tensed her muscles, she could not scream, or run. A breath of horror filled into her lungs, and she dropped the medallion necklace out of her hand, letting it fall upon a plush rug beneath her feet. As soon as it left her grasp, the energy pulled away and she was visible once more.
And with that, her nerves returned to her, and she let out an awful scream of deathly terror. For sight is such a natural thing, and to be deprived of it, to lose sight of oneself, for any amount of time at all, is a shock that cannot be easily dealt with.
Chapter Eight
A Dishonest Mouse
���A mouse,��� Barbara answered, unconvincingly, after Asa had asked her, how she could scream with that amount of terror, and not be murdered?
���A mouse, child?��� Asa said. Which at these words, Barbara firmed up her lower jaw, out of a mild contempt, for she particularly disliked being referred to as a child, and more so recently now that she was closely becoming a young woman (though especially if Asa would say it).
���Yes… well now that I think about it, it might have been a rat. It went scurrying by my feet, and then under the bed,��� she said, though still not sounding at all believable.
���Did it?��� Asa questioned, who had rushed into her room with a drawn sword, expecting to save her from some deadly attacker.
���Well, there’s nothing here under the bed,��� Timothy said, after a swift but thorough investigation of her quarters, and finding nothing below her bed but cleanly swept floors, with no sign of mice or rats, at all.
���Maybe you imagined it. You know, sometimes the candlelight makes shadows-��� Timothy began to say.
���There was a rat, Tim,��� Barbara argued, cutting him short. And then she continued, slightly angered, as if she had even started to believe herself. ���You never take my word for things, you know, you always have to be-���
Though she was stopped, being tenderly grabbed by the arms by Asa.
���Very well,��� he said grinning at her. ���There was a rat, if you say there was one. Tomorrow morning I’ll have the gardener bring in a cat, but in the meanwhile I’m sure one of my nieces wouldn’t mind sharing a bed, in case it comes back.���
���No,��� she answered, shaking her head. ���I’ll be fine. I was just startled, is all.���
And with that, both Timothy and Asa, excused themselves, wishing her a goodnight’s sleep, and going back to their work at javelin training in the great hall.
And when her room was again quiet, Barbara sat alone on her bed, holding her medallion necklace firmly in her hand, and thinking over the fact that this had been the very first time that she’d ever lied to either Timothy or to Asa, and consequently she’d also not been in the habit of lying, while in Gleomu either, and this had been her first time for that as well.
Though, she thought it necessary. Considering, as the Professor had said, her necklace was meant to be secretive. And since she was overwhelmingly an honest natured person, she tried not to let this small inconsistency bother her sleep. Which it did, however, for several moments, before she had pushed it away.
The following morning, and throughout the next few days, a grouping of various members of the Gleomean royal family, and the palace blacksmiths and craftsmen, along with the friends and royalty of Earth, began their work diagraming and reconstructing the flying machine that Asa had found locked away in Darius’s mountain estate, so that it might fold and properly fit within their hidden cavern, and through the portal of the cave painting.
The work was meticulous and time consuming: as blacksmiths and craftsmen refashioned the machine’s frame using wood and lightweight metal alloys that Ata helped them to discover, and as Barbara, Matilde, Queen Delany, and most of the royal princesses stretched and carefully stitched new canvass over the wings, and as Timothy helped his grandfather with the work of, once again, fine tuning wind rudders and cables. So that, in the end, after several days spent in the great hall, which they had converted into a massive workspace for their task at hand, they had redesigned a foldable flying machine, and were ready to begin their search, fully prepared for whatever brave adventure might present itself to them.
Yet, one other thing I feel as if I must say before continuing with our story: Every night of that week, as they were rebuilding this new ingenious devices, Asa could be seen in the great hall, usually alone, until the candlewicks burned to their ends, sanding and expertly refinishing the machine’s wings, and readjusting and polishing every inch until it sparkled.
And on his last night, when he was making his finishing touches, it happened that Barbara came back to the hall to keep him company. Yet, upon arriving, she discovered that Timothy was there also, helping the Prince of Gleomu with these final modifications; And although she could not tell why, she felt strangely that if Timothy were to know that she was there for Asa alone, that that would be in some untellable way, an unexplainable betrayal to her friendship with Timothy. And so, although she felt bad for it, she became invisible, until after Timothy left, and then walked inside the great hall as if she’d been idly wandering the palace.
Prince Asa was there, along with a few of his chief craftsmen, reinforcing the machine’s wings, to make it as safe and as agile as they could.
���There you are,��� the Prince said, glancing at her. ���I was beginning to wonder,��� he sai
d, tightening a screw on the wing joint; And by this he had meant that he’d wondered where Barbara had run off to that afternoon, instead of helping to finish her work stitching canvas on the wings.
���It’s as if you’d disappeared,��� Asa said, with a smile, thinking he was making a joke of it.
Barbara’s eyes darted. ���No, I hadn’t,��� she said quickly. ���I was… at the market.��� Though that was yet another lie.
���Alright,��� Asa said, paying more attention to his task than to her. ���As long as you were safe, that’s all we cared about,��� he said.
And with this untruth passed over, and as mostly a distraction, she sat on the edge of a tool crate, and the pair spoke for hours, until nearly all his workmen had gone to bed for the night, and until she felt more at ease with the Prince.
���Why have you never married?��� Barbara asked, catching Asa completely by surprise as he retested the paddles in the machine’s cockpit.
This was a more directly personal question than Asa had had all night, and so he set his tools aside to answer her.
���Because you do not marry for marriage’s sake, you marry a person,��� he answered. ���And when I find her, I shall be married.���
���Do you think, perhaps, you might have already met her?��� Barbara asked, pulling a strand of hair from her face.
And it was possibly because of his more direct attention, that the Prince now caught a clearer glimpse of the girl’s intentions. And so, for this reason, and since he thought to know what was better for Barbara than even she could, at the moment, he said, with a firm tone, ���Goodnight, Barbara.���
Her heart sank. ���Goodnight, Asa,��� she said, looking back at the prince as she walked away, feeling confused and childish, although that was not the Prince’s intent.
Thus began their process of searching:
The following day, after a morning feast to celebrate their departure, Queen Delany, the Wolcotts, Barbara, Timothy, and Ata, snuck away from the city traveling to their secret cavern below the waterfall, and each climbed down a rope through the hole in the cave ceiling.
And they then began in pairs to scout each of the undiscovered worlds of men. Which began with Matilde and Wilbur, who chose a world at random, of the four, and reported back to the group after only a few minutes that this first planet was perhaps the most pleasant place they’d ever been to, with open pasture butted against snow capped mountains, with air filled with the insatiable smell of wildflowers, and with birds that sang the most spectacular choruses. And honestly, I would guess, if they hadn’t been made to leave, by the very finite nature of light travel, being reflected back to Gleomu after their time had been reached, then they might have decided to stay on that planet forever, in paradise as it were, and no one who’s visited that planet before would likely have faulted them for it.
The next planet to be chosen at random, however, was not so endearing, and Ata and Timothy came back with icy blue lips and breath that misted as they spoke. So that, as their light orb blasted back through the lifelike cave painting, Timothy and Ata collapsed onto the cavern floor, weary and exhausted from the cold, and only after being away for a total of five minutes.
���What happened?��� Wilbur asked, while pulling open each boy’s eyelids to check their pupils, and while feeling each of their pulses.
���A bunch of false advertising, that is,��� Timothy said, laying on his back, panting heavily.
���So it’s not a desert, then?��� Barbara said, kneeling down beside her friends, and feeling how frigidly cold Timothy’s forehead had been.
���No, technically it still is a desert,��� Ata spoke, in between coughing. ���But just imagine an ice desert, with frozen sand blasted in your face.���
���Yeah, and we’d be a lot worse off without my force field,��� Timothy interjected. And glancing over at Ata, he said, ���Remind me to thank your father again for these things [holding up an arm to show one of his platinum force-shield bands]. They’re absolutely brilliant.��� And Timothy, himself, let out a deep and ugly cough, to get some of the frozen sand from his lungs.
���Well… in my professional opinion, I think we can rule out this icy Sahara,��� Wilbur interjected, after asking each boy to open their mouth, to show their tongue.
It seemed a sound enough observation, and they all agreed that Arthur Greyford would obviously have been far too intelligent to have allowed himself to be reflected back to a frozen desert planet, while recently wounded and unsupplied.
���But even if he had,��� Queen Delany said, ���I think we can all agree there’d be no hope for him in a place like that.���
The third planet they’d discovered that day, was all densely forested in most places, with some trees as tall as city buildings, and others whose branches stretched out almost indefinitely to either side.
Barbara and Queen Delany walked delicately below the canopy, waiting for their pre-decided time limit of ten minutes to be up, yet by that time they’d already been walking for two or three minutes, without a word. And they’d both had their weapons of course: Barbara with her bluebird feathered arrows and crossbow, that the Queen had given her several years before, during the Great Giant War, and with which she was becoming quite a decent shot. And the Queen’s weapon was her favorite sword, engraved with ivy on the hilt (a gift to her from an old general she’d once befriend), and she held it ready in her hand as they walked with careful movements.
���This must be what ants feel like,��� Barbara said at last, gazing up into the branches, so impossibly high above her.
Though the Queen was too preoccupied at the moment to let herself become distracted by conversation. ���I should hope not,��� Delany said, in response to Barbara’s statement, and as she scanned intensely through the treeline, almost sure that she caught some movement off in the distance.
Yet, Barbara didn’t seem to notice the Queen’s reaction at first, as she began to speak again, saying, ���Do you think these trees would be just as tall in Gleomu, or is it this world that makes them so large?���
Though she had no sooner said this, than Barbara did begin to notice the Queen’s dreadful expression, that she had had for some moments. However, Barbara had been so overcome by the gigantic trees that she hadn’t notice the Queen’s face until then. For Delany, who had thoroughly explored dozens and dozens of worlds by that time, was much more quick to come to this conclusion: That if trees in that world had been twenty times their normal size, then it might stand to reason that the trees were not the only things so big. And this realization was immediately terrifying.
From the corner of her eye, the Queen saw something, green and grey colored on its underbelly, and it moved with a flashing speed.
���How much longer have we got?��� Delany asked, so that Barbara would check her wristwatch.
���Three minutes… why?��� Barbara said, seeing now how truly nervous Her Majesty had become. ���Is something the matter?��� she asked (just the way that you might, if you were certain that there is something wrong, yet still uncertain of what that might be).
���Good,��� Delany answered, with a slight terror in her eyes that Barbara could notice. ���Then I want you to run for that long, and keep running, until you’re back in Gleomu,��� she said, locking eyes with Barbara to show her seriousness.
And Barbara nodded her head with tiny movements, to show that she would do as her Queen had said, and with wide, nervous eyes herself. And behind a nearby tree, she saw the flick of a long scaly tail.
���Now,��� Delany said, almost whispering.
Though Barbara did not mistake quietness for a lack of sincerity, as she turned to run, with her crossbow gripped tightly in one hand, and a full quiver of arrows strapped onto her back. Yet,
she was not told to stay and fight, she was told to run.
The air in her lungs already beginning to ache; Her medallion beating just below her collarbone with every stride, and so she clasped it in her free hand.
There was something like the sound of claws scraping on wood, and she glanced behind herself when she heard the noise, seeing a massive lizard, more than eight feet in length from tip to tail. It sprinted upon a fallen branch, from one of the giant trees, heading straight toward the Queen. It would be impossible to outrun, moving as quickly as a galloping horse, and precisely, upon muscular clawed feet.
And all of this happened in the instant that Barbara turned her head: the lizard creature rushing at a full sprint toward the Queen, and Queen Delany pulling a dagger from her waistband, and with the flick of her wrist sending it sailing through the air, with a lightning precision, the knife’s blade piercing into the soft skin below the creature’s jawline. It fell, lifeless.
The beast’s limbs were limp, but with its tail still twitching as a reflex, though you knew it was murdered instantly.
Barbara sprinted below the canopy of trees, leaping over smaller fallen branches, cracking twigs as she landed, and frightening a pair of average-sized wrens, that made distress cries to the other birds of the forest.
Another noise behind her, Delany was pulling her dagger from the dead lizard creature’s throat, as another of those monsters leapt through the air, mouth opened wide, finely sharpened razor teeth and claws like daggers of its own. Delany turned quickly, and in one fluid motion, knelt and bracing the butt of her sword against the curve of her boot, she lifted the point of the blade into the air, just as the hissing creature leapt, impaling itself on her sword’s blade. Blood splattered on her dress, as the Queen retrieved her weapons from the fallen beasts.
Sprinting, she could not stop. She was far ahead of the Queen, yet still in sight. Barbara had thought to be coming out of the thick of the danger, until she heard rustling leaves behind her. Another of the reptile creatures had climbed down the trunk of a nearby tree, and was chasing closely behind her. Her feet rushed at their maximum speed. Back in Gleomu, she’d grown to be one of the fastest girls in the palace, but it was not enough, still it advanced on her. She could not get away.
The Histories of Earth, Books 1-4: In the Window Room, A Prince of Earth, All the Worlds of Men, and Worlds Unending Page 43