A Gypsy Song (The Eye of the Crystal Ball - The Wolfboy Chronicles) (13 page)

“Excuse me!” she yelled.

But the snail just kept going on and on.

“Now-why-would-they-even-think-that-a-snail-like-me-could-ever-remember-such-a-thing-as-a-rhyme.-Now-I-have-never-even-heard-one.-I-am-not-sure-I-even-know-what-a-rhyme-is …”

“Excuse me!” Sara yelled again this time so loud it made an echo.

The snail stopped and the head came down to Sara again. Abigail looked her in the eyes.

“Yeees?”

She sounded like an old lady, Sara thought.

“Can you please try and remember if there is anything you know about opening a doorway in the mountains. Anything at all. A verse or a rhyme or just a word.”

The snail’s big eyes looked very pensive for awhile and suddenly it was like she remembered something.

“Well I ….”

“Yes?”

Sara looked at her hopefully.

“I … no.”

Abigail shook her head.

“I-am-sorry,” she said with a sad look.

Sara felt heavy as she sat down.

“It’s okay.”

Abigail made a turn and went to the river where she drank some water. As she did, something appeared on her shell.

“Manolo, look,” Sara said and pointed.

They both went closer, and as they did it became more obvious to them that it was a kind of inscription. It was letters and words engraved on the side of her shell.

But since Abigail kept turning they had to jump for their lives every time and they never could focus long enough on the engraving to get all the words right.

“Abigail,” Sara said. “Could you do us a favor and stand completely still for a while?”

“Okay.-Like-this?” she asked and posed for them.

“Precisely.”

So Manolo started reading the words out loud.

“Dies … irae, dies … illa Solvet …. saeclum in favilla.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means the day of wrath, that day which will reduce the world to ashes,” Manolo said.

“Now-that-was-a-weird-ryhme.-I-tell-you-it-was-my-first-rhyme-and-it-sounded-weird …” Abigail started talking again and as she did she turned around getting Manolo stuck under her body.

“Manolo!” Sara yelled. ”Move Abigail, move!” She started pulling Manolo’s hand and pushing Abigail away.

“Oh-no!-I-am-sorry,” Abigail said and moved her body from Manolo. He was pressed down into the mud when Sara pulled him out.

Abigail kept moving around all confused and still talking.

“Oh-no!-Not-again.-What-have-I-done.-I-do-sure-hope-that-the-boy-will-be-alright.-I-will-never-forgive-myself-if-he-doesn’t.-Oh-no!”

Manolo got back on his legs and luckily he was fine.

“I am fine!” he yelled, but Abigail didn’t hear a thing. She was tossing and turning and spinning around herself causing her big body and shell to crush flowers, bushes and even some trees.

“Abigail. I am fine!” Manolo yelled.

She stopped and turned around. Then she moved with the speed of light towards him with a big smile.

Manolo took a few steps backwards in order for her not to hit him.

“Oh!-I-am-so-glad,-I-am-so-glad-I-didn’t-hurt-you!”

Sara and Manolo had a hard time leaving the snail, since she was so very happy finally to have someone to talk to, she did just that. Talk and talk and talk. And they didn’t want to hurt the poor snail that had been so lonely for years, so they stayed for awhile and talked to her. Even though it was more like listening, since they could never get a word in.

But after an hour or so, they began to be tired of all her rambling on and they wanted badly to leave. They tried a few times to interrupt her, but never quite got through to her.

“Excuse me?” Sara tried. “Please, Abigail, we really have to move on now, see we have to …”

But the snail just kept on talking, telling them about every little thing she had ever seen or done. In the end they stopped listening altogether. The words were too many and they came too fast.

“Well-did-I-ever-tell-you-about-the-time-when-my-sister-accidentially-stepped-on-one-of-her-feelers-causing-her-to-tumble-on-to-her-head?-No-I-don’t-think-I-did.-Well-one-day-my-sister-was-…”

And so it went on and on and on.

Not knowing what else to do, Sara simply had enough. She got up and yelled at the snail:

“I am sorry, but we really have to leave now.”

Then she reached out and grabbed Manolo’s hand and they started walking. All of a sudden the snail became quiet behind them and they stopped.

“Well-I-am-so-glad-I-could-help.-I-sure-do-wish-you-guys-could-stay-a-little-longer.-I-hardly-ever-have-visitors-let-alone-anyone-to-eat-with …” she said as they turned around and smiled at each other. They left the valley to the sound of Abigail’s voice still rambling on.

12

THE BEADS OF SOULS

They walked without
talking for a long time. Sara kind of had enough of that for while and she was wondering about that strange rhyme they had found. She wondered what the meaning was of it, as it had such an angry sound to it, and then she wondered if Manolo knew more than he was telling her.

“Have you heard that rhyme before?” she asked a little later.

Manolo didn’t answer. Instead he stopped and took off his bag and guitar.

“It is time to eat,” he said and handed her some bread.

They ate in silence. Sara looked at the guitar. It had been a long time since Manolo last had played for her.

“Will you play something for me?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“We don’t have the time for it.”

Sara sighed. She missed the old Manolo that was childish and fun and loved to play music. Ever since they had gone on this quest he had been so serious and adult. Would he ever be the same again? she wondered.

“You do know that rhyme, don’t you?” she asked.

Now it was his turn to sigh.

“You do!” she said.

“Well … yes, okay? Let’s just leave it there.”

“No. I want to know what it is.”

Sara could tell he was struggling inside of himself. He was biting his upper lip, which he always did when he was concerned. Then he made a decision and told her: “Dies Irae, the day of Wrath is a thirteenth century medieval Latin poem. It describes the Day of Judgment, the last trumpet summoning souls, where it will be decided who will be cast into eternal flames of hell.”

“Oh, okay,” she said while eating. “So what does that have to do with this gateway that we are trying to get into?”

“The poem worries me.”

“Why?”

“It is dark. It has to do with the dark spirits that live in the underworld and we shouldn’t be having anything at all to do with that sort of thing. Especially not you.”

“Why not?”

Manolo gazed at her with a secretive look in his eyes.

“Because my job is to protect your heart from evil,” he said and got up from the ground. He looked at her and reached his hand out.

“Are you coming?”

The cloud hadn’t moved one inch when they got back to the mountain. It was still hanging over the mountaintop exactly where it had been when they left.

Manolo approached the mountainside and touched it with the palm of his hand.

“This is it,” he said and looked at Sara. “Are you ready for whatever awaits on the other side?”

“Yes I am,” she said. ”The book told me to find Sensisaron and the cloud leading us to her told us to enter this gate, so that is what we will do.”

Manolo smiled.

“Okay. Then let’s do it.”

Sara stepped forward and looked at the solid rock in front of her. Then she took in a deep breath and started reciting.

“Dies … irae, dies … illa Solvet …. saeclum in favilla,” she said with much determination and power in her voice.

The words echoed as they hit the wall. Then something happened to it. The wall started moving. Dust and sand fell and Sara took a step back to not get hit by anything. It was like the mountain wall dissolved in front of their eyes and when all the dust was gone, a beautiful ancient door made of olive wood appeared. It was carved and overlaid with gold. Small snakeheads with red ruby eyes stared at them.

“Wow,” Sara said and looked up at the astonishing tall door. It had golden handles shaped as big rings. She took one of them and then pushed the door.

It creaked and squeaked like it hadn’t been open for centuries, which it probably hadn’t. The door was blocked by a lot of sand on the backside of it so Manolo helped Sara push it all the way open. A dark hallway appeared in front of them. It seemed to go deep into the mountain. Manolo found a branch outside and made a torch of it. Then he blew fire on it to light it.

He used the torch to explore. The ground was filled with the finest white sand and it seemed to continue like that as far into the hallway as they could see. There seemed to be no animals on the ground or on the walls so they stepped forward in the sand. As they did the ancient door closed behind them with a bang.

Sara looked at Manolo.

“Guess there is no turning back now,” she said and started walking.

As they walked deeper into the mountain they started to feel confident that this wasn’t such a bad place after all. No animals hanging from the ceiling, no one crawling on their legs or surprising them by sitting on their back.

Nothing but the finest sand on the ground to walk in.

But as you probably guessed by now, it didn’t last long. As they walked, the hallway suddenly took a turn and around that turn waited two big black scorpions. They had to be size of Moeselman’s German Shepherds and were grasping at them with their claws. Their narrow tails were elevated in a forward curve over their backs, pointing with its venomous stinger at Sara and Manolo.

Sara felt her heart jump and stopped. Manolo started swinging the torch in front of them to keep them away.

Sara heard a sound from behind her and turned around. Out of the sand came another black scorpion. Now they were surrounded.

The scorpions grabbed at them with their claws, making snapping sounds. Sara was terrified.

Manolo stretched out his arms and closed his eyes. He started reciting:

“Ignem ... ignem ... ceram … sicut faenum …”

He lifted his hands slightly and out of the sand grew flames of fire. Then he said it again:

“Ignem ... ignem ... ceram … sicut faenum …”

He started turning around and the fire followed him creating a ring of fire in the sand around them. The scorpions hissed and took a few steps away from the burning flames.

Then Manolo lifted his hands even further up and elevated the ring of fire so it lifted off the ground. He looked at Sara.

“Follow me,” he said and started walking. As he did the ring of fire started moving with him. “Stay close.”

As the scorpions felt the flames coming closer they backed up. Manolo and Sara kept walking towards them faster and faster while the fire burned around them, and finally the scorpions turned around and started running. Soon there were nowhere to be seen.

Manolo exhaled deeply and let his hands come down. Then he bowed his head and kneeled in the sand worn out. Slowly the fire died out and they were alone in the sand again.

A bright light shone at the end of the tunnel. Sara saw it and pointed.

“Look,” she said and started running towards it.

“Take it easy,” Manolo said, still exhausted from his recent efforts. Creating a big fire like that drained him completely of his energy. “We don’t know what is down there.”

But Sara could not be stopped. She ran as fast as she could through the sand that seemed to get heavier and deeper the closer she got. Behind her, Manolo tried to catch up but he, too, seemed to be slowed by the heavy sand.

As they got closer to the light, a big grotto of some sort appeared in front of them. The light inside of it came from an opening in the ceiling. In it they saw gold and silver in piles, and money in leather purses. Lots of money.

“A treasure?” Sara said and remembered the adventures she used to go on in the worlds of her spellbinding books.

She felt Manolo’s hand on her shoulder.

“Be careful,” he said. “This place is filled with evil. I sense it.”

So they stepped cautiously closer, touching none of the riches. But the closer Sara got to the gold, the more drawn to it she felt. She kept thinking of her family back in the camp, of the tribe. If she could bring just some of this gold with her back they wouldn’t have to travel from marketplace to marketplace and perform for petty cash any longer. They wouldn’t have to beg people to give them money and the winters would be less hard on them. It would change their lives forever. They could even have meat in the winter. Maybe Sara could buy her parents a bigger caravan to fit the whole family. She could give her father a new stallion since she was to blame for losing the only one he had left. Her mother could buy new dresses and her little brother…?

Sara sighed.

Well maybe they could afford to get him to a real doctor. But Sara knew Settela never would do that anyway.

“He doesn’t belong to this world,” she always said whenever Sara brought it up. “We don’t belong to this world. It is only our earthly bodies that do. We live in a pact with the spirits and nature and if they can’t cure us, no one can.”

Sara reached out just to try and touch the gold in front of her. The light from the hole in the ceiling above her was reflected in it and made it shine and seem even more alluring.

“Just one touch, can’t harm anyone, can it?” she mumbled while reaching her hand out. She could almost feel it between her fingers and with it followed its promises of a better life. A life where money was not a problem. A life when everyone was happy and needed nothing. A life where she would have everything she dreamed about.

Enough to eat. Her own horse. Nice clothing. Maybe some books to read. Sara was certain that those things would make her and her family happy. But humans are strange like that. Always wanting what is not good for them. And although Sara was a sorceress, she still had a human body with human needs and a human nature.