Changing the Prophecy Chapter 18

 

Chapter 18 The Emerald Crystal

After a few minutes, when Doshmisi could finally let go of her father, and after she had stopped crying, she greeted her brothers and sister. She gave Cardamom a warm hug. “Wow, Elena,” she said to Maia’s friend, “you must have had the surprise of your life when you popped through after the passage.”

“Surprise is an understatement,” Elena replied.

“Did you guys bring that thing with you?” Doshmisi asked, as she nodded her head uncertainly in the direction of Guhblorin.

“I can hear you,” Guhblorin said. “I’m standing right here. I’m not a thing.”

“You’re a geebaching,” Doshmisi said.

“I am?” Guhblorin asked, acting surprised. “Why didn’t someone tell me?” Elena pinched him and he hollered “Ouch!”

“I think I can guess where you landed after the passage,” Doshmisi said to Elena and her siblings.

“We didn’t land inside the Amber Mountains, if that’s what you think,” Denzel informed his sister. “We turned up outside of them. But we had to run inside immediately because we pretty much landed on a buzzing hive of Special Forces.”

“I received an interesting introduction to Faracadar,” Elena said.

“I’ll bet,” Jasper commented with a chuckle.

“We had to use one of the through-tunnels to get to the Wolf Circle,” Maia explained.

“And I followed the direction of the mold on the ceiling, just like you showed me last year,” Denzel told Jasper proudly. He had looked forward to relating this to his friend.

“Cool,” Jasper responded.

“The passage took me right to Debbie’s Circle, same field as last time, where Jasper was waiting. I don’t know why you fools couldn’t turn up in the right spot,” Doshmisi teased.

“Debbie’s Circle?” Reggie asked.

“They named it after Momma,” Maia told him.

 “Where did you wind up?” Doshmisi asked Sonjay.

“In the Final Fortress,” Sonjay replied with a quick laugh. “Just my luck. You land in a rosy field of flowers. Denzel and Maia turn up right by the Wolf Circle. And I land inside the dungeons.”

“You’re joking,” Jasper said, sympathetically.

“No lie,” Sonjay affirmed.

“How is Clover?” Cardamom asked.

“Not good,” Doshmisi replied, her expression growing serious at once.

“You tried using the herbal, of course, right?” Cardamom continued. Doshmisi didn’t reply right away because she didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t told anyone that the herbal had stopped acting normal. Fortunately, Iris entered the room at that moment and rescued her from answering the question.

“Excuse me for interrupting,” Iris said. “I have food prepared in the kitchen if you want to eat dinner. Clover is sleeping and the nurse will tend to her needs if she wakes. Please fill a plate and we can eat together outside in the courtyard at the long table.”

They helped Iris carry the food platters, plates, and utensils out to the courtyard and once everyone had settled at the wooden table, they took turns telling each other about everything that had happened to them since they had arrived in Faracadar. Sonjay and Reggie related their adventures with Crumpet and Buttercup and shared everything they had learned about the Corportons, including what Compost had said when they ate dinner with him at Big House City. Elena interrupted them to explain how they happened to sit down to dinner with Compost in the first place and all about Compost’s reformation. Denzel and Maia shared the story of the garbage labyrinth and their travels with Princess Honeydew and Biscuit. Elena insisted on describing how they met Guhblorin and his role in rescuing the others from the garbage labyrinth. They told about the siege and how Sonjay had talked Compost’s army into deserting so they could go home to eat buttered biscuits. Jasper and Doshmisi related everything they had learned from their trip to the North Coast. When they got to the part about Dagobaz, Doshmisi left the table to fetch the beautiful stallion and brought him into the courtyard for the others to admire.

“Is he an enchanted creature?” Cardamom asked, with a note of awe in his voice.

“No. He’s just a horse,” Doshmisi said. “Horses are commonplace in the Farland.”

“But what a magnificent horse!” Maia exclaimed.

“Yes,” Doshmisi agreed. “The most magnificent I have ever seen.”

“Commonplace or magnificent; we’re a moving target as long as we have that horse with us,” Jasper pointed out quietly. “He made quite a stir when we stepped off the ferry with him. People will spread the word about Dagobaz up and down the coast and throughout Big House City within a few days. I doubt the Corportons will say ‘oh well’ and let this valuable animal slip from their grasp. They’ll attempt to retrieve him.”

“They don’t deserve to have him,” Doshmisi insisted angrily.

“Of course they don’t,” Jasper agreed, “although I doubt they will see it that way. We can’t return him to them; but we need to accept the truth of it. He’ll lead them right to us, so we need to prepare ourselves.”

“Anyone who abuses an animal has no right to own an animal,” Doshmisi stated.

Sonjay looked around the table at the others. “So,” he said, “I want to say that we are all on the same page now, but I’m going to spell it out to make sure. Correct me if I get anything wrong. It looks like these Corportons came to Faracadar to drill for oil in the ocean at the North Coast. We don’t know where they came from. We don’t know what they’re capable of doing. They have guns and they will shoot to kill. The oil well that they drilled has exploded and is spilling oil into the ocean.”

“Meanwhile,” Denzel picked up where his brother had left off, “Daddy, who is a Prophet of the Khoum, has foretold the destruction of Faracadar to Sissrath who, believing this prophecy, has cut a deal with the Corportons to help them drill for oil if they take him with them when they leave.”

“We don’t know how much oil they expected to get or if they have however much they wanted,” Maia pointed out anxiously. “We don’t know when they plan to leave or how much oil they have already taken out of Faracadar.”

“There’s something else,” Doshmisi said hesitantly. “I didn’t want to cause alarm; but I have known for some time that something is wrong with the herbal. It doesn’t act right when I try to use it. It says strange things.”

“How do you mean?” Cardamom asked.

“I can’t use it to heal anymore,” Doshmisi said, her voice cracking as she spoke.

Jasper put a hand on Doshmisi’s arm reassuringly. “Whatever it’s doing is something that’s just happening and not your fault. You know that, right? What exactly does it do when you try to use it?”

“It doesn’t tell cures or medicinal recipes. It doesn’t open to words about how to heal a person. It opens to undecipherable stories about resilience and adaptability. It says cryptic things about developing resources. It acts almost as if it’s angry, as if it has given up on healing. When I placed it on Clover’s chest, it refused to open. The indentation in the top, where I usually put my amulet, became red hot and it repelled the amulet the way two polarized magnets repel each other. I couldn’t force the amulet into the indentation. The herbal resisted me.” Doshmisi’s eyes welled with tears and Jasper put his arm around her shoulders. Doshmisi continued in a quavering voice. “I think that Grandma Clover is dying and the herbal doesn’t wish to help me try to save her.”

“Your grandmother is a wise woman,” Cardamom said. “Do you think that she would not realize that she is dying if it’s her time?”

“No, no I don’t,” Doshmisi replied. “But we have not spoken of it.”

In the waning light, Iris lit one of the glow-lamps on the table and, as she leaned forward to light the other one, she said softly, “Clover has been ill for quite a while. I think she has been hanging on, waiting for all of you to arrive, because she wanted to see her grandchildren once again and after that she will feel ready to leave in peace. Not just because she loves you and has had so little opportunity to spend time with you, but also because she expects that you will protect and preserve the land, that once you have arrived here then you will keep Faracadar safe. She has waited for all of you to arrive so that she can tell you about the Emerald Crystal.”

“Emerald Crystal?” Elena repeated reverently, because it sounded like a tremendously magical thing.

Suddenly, a flurry of activity in the entranceway to the courtyard drew their attention. It was Mole! After he stumbled over a loose cobblestone and sprawled on the ground, he bounced right back up, his dreadlocks flopping gaily around his head. A half a dozen other battery makers accompanied him. They appeared grimy and travel-worn, with smudges of oil on their clothing.

Mole smiled broadly. “We found you,” he announced merrily. Jasper and Denzel leapt from the table and hurried to greet Mole. Denzel had become good friends with Mole the previous year when they invented and built things together in the battery barn at the Passage Circle.

“That you did,” Jasper said. Denzel thumped Mole on the back happily.

“You said Whale Island and here we be,” Mole told Jasper.

“We worried about you after that explosion in the compound,” Doshmisi said.

“I’m good. I brought my friends with me too,” Mole responded, as he waved his arm to encompass those who had traveled with him. “We blew up the workshop at the compound. We created that explosion to make a lot of smoke so more people could escape.”

“It sure helped us escape,” Doshmisi confirmed.

“I’m glad for that,” Mole said with satisfaction. He turned to his fellow battery makers and introduced each of them by name. Then Denzel introduced all of those who sat around the table.

After Denzel introduced her, Iris rose from her seat and came forward, took Mole’s big muscular hand in her slender one, and shook it gently. “Welcome to my home,” she greeted him.

Mole was one of the Coast People so he normally had a blue glow to his rich brown skin. But when Iris took his hand he flushed an interesting plum-colored shade of reddish-purple. After shaking her hand, he stepped backward, right into a metal bucket of rainwater. His foot stuck in the bucket and the water sloshed up onto his leg.

“Aiyeee,” he exclaimed as he leaned on the table so he could pick up his foot and remove the bucket. When he pulled the bucket off, he fell backward and sat down abruptly in a platter of potato salad.

“Oh dear,” Iris said sympathetically, as she attempted to scrape potato salad off the seat of Mole’s pants with a butter knife.

“Not a problem,” Mole said. “It’ll wash off.” The others observed in fascination as Mole swung his arm open to emphasize his point and managed to sweep a metal bowl filled with sliced mangoes and papayas off the table and onto Iris’s dress, which became instantly soaked with fruit juice. Mole then picked up a cloth napkin from the table and attempted to mop up the juice on Iris’s dress, but the napkin had mustard on it and so he made the mess worse.

Iris stepped away from Mole as she said, “Stop, stop. I’ll take care of it. Just stop.” Mole hung his head dejectedly.

“I was about to clear away the food, but do you and your friends want something to eat?” Iris asked Mole.

“No thanks, we ate on the ferry,” he mumbled as he stared at his feet.

Iris turned away from Mole and picked up an empty food platter. She began to stack dinner plates on the platter as she remarked to Doshmisi, “You should go see your grandmomma. She hasn’t much time left and she has much on her mind that she wishes to share with you now that the four of you have come. Poke your head in her room and see if she’s awake.”

Doshmisi turned quickly to go check on Clover. Maia took her hand and went with her.

“I’ll go too,” Reggie announced as he accompanied his daughters out of the courtyard and into Clover’s house. Iris trailed close behind them with the tray of empty plates. The others in the courtyard began to help Iris clear the table, carrying things inside to the kitchen.

“Let me know right away if she’s awake,” Sonjay called after his sisters.

“Me too,” Denzel added.

Doshmisi, Maia, and Reggie opened the door to Clover’s bedroom quietly and slipped inside. A glow-lamp on the nightstand cast a soft amber light across the room and a nurse sat in an overstuffed chair by the window, reading a book. Clover’s eyes fluttered open when she heard the door close behind her visitors.

“Are you awake Grandmomma?” Maia asked.

Clover smiled faintly. “Maia. How wonderful. Come here and take my hand, child.”

“Denzel and Sonjay have arrived also. We ate dinner while you slept,” Doshmisi explained. “Do you feel up to a visit from us?”

As Maia took her grandmother’s frail hand in her own, Clover looked over Maia’s shoulder at Reggie and her eyes grew wide. “Is that? Oh my. Is that you, Reggie?”

“Yes, it’s me, Rosemary,” Reggie approached the bed and, as Maia stepped back, he took both of Clover’s hands in his. He had called her by her given name, Rosemary, from her former life in the Farland. She had left that name behind many years before when she bound her fate irrevocably to maintaining the library in Faracadar.

“Where have you been?” Clover asked her son-in-law.

“Short version or long version?” Reggie asked.

“I’m afraid I may not have time for the long version,” she replied wistfully. “As you can see, my health has failed.”

“Sissrath held me as his prisoner in the Final Fortress these many years until Sonjay rescued me,” Reggie said. “While imprisoned, I became a Prophet of the Khoum.

“Remarkable. If only I had suspected that you were there, I would have sent someone to look for you,” Clover responded, as tears stood in her eyes. “Very good. Good that you are of the Khoum and good that you have returned to the children. They must complete a difficult task and it will perhaps be easier with their father here to help them. Bring the others to me. I must speak to all of you together.”

Reggie went to fetch Sonjay and Denzel. While they waited for their brothers, Maia and Doshmisi helped Clover sit up in her bed. She leaned back against an avalanche of pillows. She was gray and thin and her hair had become brittle, her skin papery. She looked so different from the vibrant and spry old lady who had met them at the dock when they arrived on Whale Island the year before.

With her eyes closed, Clover told Doshmisi quietly, “It doesn’t work anymore, does it?”

“What?” Doshmisi asked, but she knew.

“The herbal, it won’t give you healing recipes or instructions, will it?”

“No,” Doshmisi confirmed reluctantly.

“It prepares itself for a greater healing and, after that, it will leave, just like me,” Clover said. Doshmisi’s eyes filled with tears.

At that moment, Reggie returned with Denzel and Sonjay, who went directly to embrace their grandmother. Clover could barely muster the strength to lift her arms to offer them each a feeble hug.

“Oh Grandmomma Clover,” Doshmisi burst out, “is there anything I can do to heal you? The herbal won’t help. Do you know of anything? Just tell me and I’ll do it.”

“Even if the herbal worked the way it used to, it would not have any healing words for me. I have grown old and my time to leave approaches.” Maia leaned over and rested her head on Clover’s shoulder. Maia and Doshmisi cried softly, but Clover told them, “Don’t cry for me. I had a splendid, long life filled with friends and music, laughter and delicious food, surrounded by the books that I adore. I have loved and I have danced and I have watched the stars at night.”

“They’re not crying for you, Rosemary,” Reggie said gently. “They’re crying for themselves. They barely had any time with you.”

“One day, in the future, in a time of peace, come back to the library, my children, and Iris will guide you through my writings and my drawings and you will have a lot more of me than you can imagine. For now, time is short and you have much work to do if you hope to save this library and this land.”

“What kind of work?” Sonjay asked.

“The herbal,” Clover said. Then she ceased talking and rested briefly with her eyes closed. No one spoke. Maia and Doshmisi wiped their eyes and waited for their grandmother’s instructions. Iris slipped into the room and stood near the door.

“The herbal,” Clover continued with great effort, as she opened her eyes again, “will not heal people anymore. It must heal the land. A poison has spilled into the ocean and it will spread if you do not stop it. The poison has started to kill the green algae and when all the green algae dies, our air will become unfit to breathe. Heal the ocean with the herbal, Doshmisi.” Clover paused as she struggled to continue speaking. Iris sat on the edge of the bed next to Clover and took her thin wrist in her hand.

“Please explain it to us,” Doshmisi begged. “Don’t go yet.”

“I’m still here,” Clover said, although her voice sounded distant and faint. “Put the herbal in the ocean at the North Coast. Where the poison started. Near the wound in the ocean floor.”

“We can do that,” Sonjay said.

“But it needs the Emerald Crystal to work,” Clover said softly as she closed her eyes again.

“Where can we find the Emerald Crystal?” Denzel asked, urgently.

“The whales hid it in the Coral Caves for safekeeping,” Clover answered.

“The Coral Caves,” Sonjay repeated.

“Doshmisi must put the Emerald Crystal into the indentation in the cover of the herbal,” Clover instructed. She gasped for breath.

“Like I did with my amulet?” Doshmisi asked.

“Like that,” Clover whispered with great effort. “Emerald Crystal in indentation in herbal. Herbal in ocean at North Coast. Under the water. Heal the ocean. Algae. Whales…” Clover’s voice trailed off.

“This is too much for her,” Iris said anxiously. “Too much.”

Clover nodded gently and opened her eyes. “Too much is fine,” she said so faintly that they could barely hear her. She looked around at her grandchildren and Reggie. She smiled with deep satisfaction. Then she looked into Iris’s eyes and whispered, “I love you. I love you all.” Her eyes closed again but the smile did not leave her lips. She said nothing more. Iris sat quietly and held her hand.

Maia leaned over and kissed her grandmother’s forehead. Doshmisi, Denzel, and Sonjay each did the same in turn. Then they filed solemnly out of the room. Reggie followed them and closed Clover’s door behind them.

“Well, we know what we need to do,” Denzel said with resolve. “We need to go to the Coral Caves and retrieve the Emerald Crystal.”

“We have to move quickly because that oil spill is spreading,” Doshmisi reminded the others. “We need to get the Emerald Crystal as soon as possible.”

“We can leave first thing in the morning,” Sonjay announced, ready for action.

“I wonder where the Coral Caves are,” Maia said.

Reggie cleared his throat before informing them, “I happen to know exactly where they are.”

“Cool. Then you can show us how to get there,” Sonjay replied.

Reggie continued, “I know where they are, but I have no idea how to get there. They’re underneath Whale Island, at the bottom of the ocean.”