Changing the Prophecy Chapter Twelve

Chapter 12 In the Dungeon

During their first few days of confinement in their cell in the dungeon, the captives developed a routine built around when the Corportons brought them meals. The food tasted surprisingly good and it appeared twice a day. The Corportons showed no interest in the captives and left them to their own devices, which suited them fine since they had plenty to keep them busy.

In the morning, before breakfast, Crumpet worked with Sonjay on practicing clearing his mind in preparation for conducting enchantments. After breakfast, Reggie insisted that everyone join him in his exercises. He had a work-out routine he did to stay fit. Bayard flew around the cell madly as the others did sit-ups, push-ups, jumping jacks, and danced to old R&B and Soul music that Reggie played on an ancient vinyl record player. Overweight and out of shape, Buttercup had difficulty with the exercise routine, but she valiantly tried to keep up. Sonjay enjoyed it. Without the exercise, he would have gone stir-crazy. He didn’t have the sort of disposition that leant itself to sitting still all day long.

After their work-out, Buttercup gave Sonjay lessons in the basic operation of enchantments while Crumpet studied the Mystical Book with Reggie. They received no lunch, but they had enough food left over from breakfast to munch on during the day, and always plenty of fruit for Bayard. In the early evening, their jailers brought them a large dinner. After they ate, they brainstormed ideas for making their escape. Reggie had a stationary bicycle and he would bike a mile on it every day before dinner and then Sonjay would bike a couple miles on it after dinner. Behind a screen there was a small bathroom with a sink, shower, and toilet. Reggie had negotiated a fairly comfortable living situation, which had made his life in the dungeon tolerable. The captives could tell the time by the nature of the light that entered the cell through a small window high up in the stone wall. They could not see out of it, but they relished the little sliver of sunshine it allowed into the cell.

At the end of the day, they talked and told stories, often until well after dark. Reggie could never get enough stories about his other children from Sonjay. Crumpet and Buttercup filled Sonjay in on things that had happened since his last visit to Faracadar. Reggie told the others everything he could think of that might be useful about Sissrath and the Corportons, and he told them about his years in confinement. Crumpet listened intently to everything Reggie had to say about the Mystical Book. Sonjay related for his father the adventures from his previous visit to Faracadar the year before. Reggie also wanted to hear about the world he had left behind and what was going on there. Sometimes, if Sonjay felt in the right mood, he would tell his father about his mother.

The restrictions on the use of enchantment within the cell made it impossible for Sonjay to actually attempt a real enchantment. He would follow the instructions provided by Buttercup or Crumpet to produce an enchantment, thinking all the right thoughts and concentrating as they instructed him, but nothing ever happened because of the restrictions within the cell, which frustrated him. He couldn’t tell if he had done the enchantment correctly or not.

Unbeknownst to his teachers, he secretly harbored the idea of locomotaporting out of the prison. Each night, Sonjay waited for the others to fall asleep, and then he concentrated on locomotaporting. He figured that he would have to teach himself how to do it, since Crumpet and Buttercup didn’t have the special skill needed for it. He feared that he would eventually transport part of himself somewhere and not have the ability to get back to the rest of himself left behind. He discovered by trial and error that he could locomotaport despite the restrictions on enchantment in the cell. He had no idea why that might be the case and he decided against discussing it with his cellmates. One night, he managed to lift a phantom version of himself out of his body by imagining his mind leaving the rest of him behind. He floated the phantom Sonjay, which looked like the real Sonjay but had no weight to it, up to the window of the cell.

As he looked out into the inky-blue night sky, spattered with the colorful bright stars of Faracadar, he attempted to touch the bars on the window, but his hand passed right through them as if made of fog. He realized that he had the power to sail out of the window if he chose, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not yet. He looked down and saw his body stretched out on the rug on the floor of the cell and he didn’t feel confident that he could get back to his body if he left the room. He would have to overcome his fear and make a leap of faith eventually if he wanted to succeed at locomotaporting. The phantom self drifted back down to his body and merged with it. Bayard eyed him silently from his usual nighttime perch on Reggie’s desktop. Bayard’s silence made Sonjay even more uneasy. When a chatterbox of a parrot says nothing, it can set a person’s teeth on edge.

The very next day after Sonjay had nearly locomotaported out of the cell, Crumpet broached the subject that weighed most heavily on their minds. “It’s all good that we make use of our time in this cell, but we need to get out of here if we want to help save Faracadar,” he said.

“What do you have in mind?” Reggie asked.

“I need to see out,” Crumpet replied. Reggie and Sonjay looked up at the little window and Crumpet followed their line of sight. “Not like that,” Crumpet said. “I need to see what’s going on elsewhere in Faracadar, and that’s your department, Prophet.”

“I’ve shown you enough about the Mystical Book for you to understand that it doesn’t work that way,” Reggie reminded Crumpet. “The vision will manifest what it chooses and will not obey a directive from me.”

“Whatever it chooses to be important will be worth seeing. I think you should summon a prophetic vision,” Crumpet announced, as he crunched on a deep-fried goose-chicken eyeball, which was one of Sonjay’s favorite treats from Faracadar. His siblings did not share his tastes and they refused to eat the things.

“I might not succeed in summoning a vision. I can issue a call, but often I get no reply,” Reggie warned.

“At least give it a try,” Buttercup encouraged him. “Put out the call and see what happens.”

Reggie shrugged. He took a candle off a shelf, set it on his desk, and lit it. Crumpet sat down expectantly on the edge of Reggie’s bed and crossed his arms.

Reggie held a bundle of sage above the flame until it caught and then set it in a bowl. The scented smoke drifted upward in a steady stream as the sage bundle smoldered. Reggie opened the Mystical Book, found the page he wanted, and placed his hand gently on the page. “By fire, earth, air, water,” he intoned softly, “by music, metal, trees, whales, and truth…” His voice dropped and his words became unintelligible. He closed his eyes in concentration and rocked back and forth. Suddenly, flashes of rainbow colors shot out in all directions from his hand where it rested on the book.

“Awesome,” Sonjay said quietly. The color flashes of green, red, yellow, blue, orange, purple, and pink banged against the walls and shattered into fragments of brilliant color that bounced around the cell. They pinged against Sonjay’s skin in pleasant tingly bursts. Bayard attempted (without success) to catch them in his beak and eat them. Buttercup giggled. Oblivious to the light show, Reggie drifted upward out of his chair and floated above the desk, while his eyes remained closed and his hand stretched out in front of him as if it still touched the surface of the Mystical Book.

Bayard flew to the top of the cell, chasing fragments of colorful light. Sonjay observed his father floating in the air. After a few minutes, the color-flash fragments disappeared and Reggie floated back down. His hand returned to the page and he returned to the chair. His eyes fluttered open.

“That was hecka cool,” Sonjay told Reggie.

“What was?” Reggie asked.

“The colors, the light, the floating. You know,” Sonjay said.

Reggie cast him a puzzled look.

“Whoa,” Buttercup said. “You don’t know, do you? You’ve never seen what happens when you summon a prophecy from the book, have you?” Buttercup asked Reggie.

“What to do you mean?” Reggie asked.

“You made these blasts of colorful light fly all over the cell and they broke up when they hit the walls,” Sonjay informed his father.

“They shattered and bounced all over the place,” Crumpet said.

“And they bounced off of us,” Buttercup added.

“And made our skin go all tingly where they hit it. Bayard tried to eat the bits of colorful light,” Sonjay told his father, “which was pretty funny.”

“Funny,” Bayard repeated. “Funny, funny.”

“While the bits of colorful light flew around, with Bayard chasing them, you floated up in the air for a few minutes. Then you floated back down into your chair,” Sonjay concluded.

“Interesting,” Reggie responded to the account of the events surrounding his prophetic reading.

“What did you see?” Crumpet demanded.

“What did I see?” Reggie echoed. “I saw a group of children heading to a garden outside of Big House City. I think one of the children was Denzel, because he resembled me, and one was Maia, because she resembled Debbie. Does Maia wear her hair in a lot of braids?”

“Sure enough,” Sonjay replied. “Did she carry a drum slung over her shoulder?”

“She did,” Reggie continued, “and the boy who looked like me when I was young wore a flannel shirt and he had a big backpack. I also saw a girl with glasses and one long braid going down her back and another girl with straight black hair and I saw a little creature with orange hair all over its body. It might have been a geebaching, although I have never seen one in real life (only in books) so I don’t know for sure.”

“Those girls sound like Princess Honeydew and Maia’s friend Elena,” Sonjay informed him. “I wonder where Dosh is.”

“I wonder if the little creature with the orange hair could really be a geebaching,” Buttercup said.

“But the most important thing,” Reggie continued, with a new sense of urgency, “is that the children I saw are about to attempt to enter Big House City through a passageway that runs under the garden. The city is under siege. There is a large army at its gates. Your sister and brother and their friends are about to sneak into Big House City through a secret underground passageway. They plan to try to bring people out of the besieged city.”

“Trouble,” Bayard squawked. “Trouble, trouble.”

“Yes, trouble indeed,” Reggie agreed with Bayard. “The prophetic reading indicated that their plan won’t work. If they follow that path they will become trapped inside the city with the others. The result has not become fixed. If they can be stopped then a different thread of events will occur.”

“They can’t possibly believe they can sneak everyone out,” Crumpet said.

“And they can’t possibly sneak enough food in for the entire population of Big House City,” Buttercup pointed out.

“Or water,” Reggie added.

“They have water,” Buttercup informed him. “Deep wells inside the city provide water. But food must be running low by now.”

“The more immediate problem is that my children could become trapped inside this soon-to-be-starving city,” Reggie reminded them anxiously.

“What can we do about that?” Crumpet complained. “We’re locked in a dungeon.”

Sonjay cleared his throat self-consciously. “I might be able to do something.”

The others slowly turned to look at him appraisingly.

“I could maybe locomotaport there,” Sonjay said in a quiet voice. The others stared at him in stunned silence. “I’ve been practicing. Every night. I can leave my body, but I haven’t left the cell yet. The ban on enchantments doesn’t seem to prevent locomotaporting.”

“Interesting. Locomotaporting must be in a unique class of enchantment,” Crumpet conjectured.

“If you leave, can you get back?” Reggie asked.

Sonjay’s voice quavered as he replied, “I don’t know.” He turned to Buttercup and asked, “What happens if I can’t find my way back to my body?”

“Disembodied impairment,” Buttercup answered. She winced.

“That does not sound good.” Sonjay grimaced.

“Not good,” Bayard observed.

“You said it feather-top,” Buttercup agreed.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll call you back,” Crumpet said. “We’ll help you.”

“How come he can locomotaport from within the walls of this cell?” Reggie wondered aloud.

“No one has had the ability to locomotaport since Hazamon died. It’s not your normal kind of enchantment. Sissrath would not have even thought of preventing it, even if he could do so,” Crumpet speculated.

“Show us,” Buttercup demanded.

“What? Now?” Sonjay stammered.

“You betcha. Right now,” Buttercup insisted.

Sonjay obediently stretched out on the rug where he usually slept at night. His fingers trembled slightly as he placed his hands on his chest. He closed his eyes. His father knelt beside him and put a hand on Sonjay’s shoulder. Sonjay opened his eyes and looked up into his father’s face. “One more piece of information, son,” Reggie said. “This is important. The army outside the gates of Big House City is a reluctant army. They don’t want to be there. They would rather be at home with their families on their farms. It would not take much to turn them around.”

Sonjay nodded. “Thanks, Daddy,” he said. “Now you have to move away and not touch me or I won’t be able to go.”

Sonjay cleared his mind of clutter, as Buttercup had taught him, and felt the spirit presence filtering into his being. The phantom Sonjay emerged and began to float up to the window. The others could see the phantom self. They followed it with their eyes. Sonjay floated in front of the window and then he looked down at his body. The same old doubt and fear squeezed his heart. What if he could not get back? What if he lost his body? What was disembodied impairment? He began to drift back down to the rug. But Reggie called up to him, “There is a great enchanter inside of you, son. Bring it.”

Sonjay nodded once to his father and then resolutely floated through the wall and out of the cell. Bayard Rustin slipped easily between the bars of the window and flew after him.

Changing the Prophecy Chapter Eleven

 

Chapter 11 Labyrinth

A rough tongue licking his ear woke Denzel. He found himself lying on his side on the ground and breathing a foul odor. When he opened his eyes, he saw towering walls of garbage rising up around him and framing a patch of sky glowing with the early morning light of sunrise. He must have remained unconscious for a whole night.

Bisc whimpered softly and continued to lick Denzel’s ear. He still wore his backpack, for which he was grateful. He had a headache, felt a bit dizzy, and ached all over as if someone had picked him up and dropped him in this spot, which most likely was exactly what had happened. When Bisc saw Denzel’s eyes open, the great white wolf sat back on his haunches and watched Denzel attentively. Denzel raised himself up to a sitting position. His head throbbed.

The tigers were nowhere in sight, but he saw Maia, Elena, and Guhblorin sprawled on the dry, raked dirt nearby. Honeydew sat up and smiled weakly at Denzel. “We’re alive,” she said.

“And they didn’t take our things. I’m guessing that some pea-brained soldiers tossed us in here at Compost’s orders. Maybe, since there are four of us, Compost thinks he captured the Four,” Denzel speculated.

“Probably. I doubt he bothered to pay close attention. He’s sloppy. I think you might be right, that he had his soldiers handle us, and that he doesn’t realize that we’re not exactly the Four,” Honeydew replied.

“Let’s hope he thinks we’re the Four and let’s hope that Sonjay and Doshmisi are out there somewhere making trouble for him,” Denzel said. He cast his eyes over the mountainous walls of trash and junk. “Where do you think we are?”

“Bisc, go wake Maia,” Honeydew instructed the white wolf as she pointed in Maia’s direction. The sun slowly rose in the cloudless and cheerfully blue sky. Bisc proceeded to lick Maia’s cheek until Maia opened her eyes and sat up with a dazed expression. “Inside a garbage labyrinth,” Honeydew answered Denzel’s question. “It must be large and convoluted, or Compost would not have depended on it to contain us.”

“He has the most perverse idea of entertainment,” Denzel said, as he rolled his eyes.

“Seriously. Why didn’t he just imprison us like a normal villain?” Honeydew complained. “Wake them too,” Honeydew instructed Bisc as she pointed to Elena and Guhblorin.

“Do we have to?” Denzel asked.

Maia gave her brother “the look” and chided him. “Just stop. Remember how long it took us to get used to things here last year? Give Elena a chance. She’s trying.”

“And the geebaching?” Denzel asked.

“He has barely been out of his cave a few days. He’s trying too,” Maia insisted.

Denzel sighed. He hoped the geebaching wouldn’t begin hollering the minute he regained consciousness. Bisc gently licked Elena awake and then sat back on his haunches, clearly refusing to lick a geebaching. Maia patted Guhblorin on the shoulder until he opened one eye cautiously.

“Quivering fish shivers, this place stinks!” Guhblorin announced.

“Where are we?” Elena asked.

“Inside a labyrinth that appears to be made of garbage,” Honeydew stated.

The walls of the labyrinth contained every imaginable used-up broken-down worthless decomposing or cast-off piece of junk, and all of it jammed together this way and that. They could see shoes, clothing, bottles, cans, paper, machine parts, scrap metal, sticks, stones, furniture, toys, food waste, wood, bags, boxes, and unrecognizable broken-off bits of things that had lost all semblance of usefulness long ago.

“Where did this stuff come from?” Guhblorin asked incredulously.

Honeydew scrutinized their surroundings and plucked a bent and corroded metal shield from the wall next to her. She held it up for the others to see. “I think a lot of this stuff comes from Compost’s occupying army camped out at Big House City. The People of the Mountain Downs have a reputation for limited skill at organizational management,” she informed the others disdainfully.

“I suppose we have to give Compost credit for thinking of something creative to do with their garbage,” Maia said.

“Why?” Denzel grumbled.

Guhblorin pulled a dinged and dented trumpet out of the wall beside him, and in the process he dislodged a few odd objects, which tumbled down at his feet. He puffed out his cheeks and blew into the trumpet. It squawked like a goose trapped in an elevator. Guhblorin grinned. Honeydew reached for the trumpet with a stern expression and Guhblorin handed it over, crestfallen.

“Let’s try walking,” Honeydew suggested. “Maybe we can figure out how to get out.”

Denzel’s amulet began to glow red against his chest.

“Yay,” Maia exclaimed as she pointed at the amulet. “Denzel has an ingenious idea.”

“Did he get the idea from that necklace thingy?” Elena asked.

“No. He got it from his brain. That necklace is called an amulet. I have one too; so do Dosh and Sonjay. We inherited them from the previous Four and sometimes when we use our greatest talents, our amulets glow," Maia explained.

“Like when you played your flute in the caves,” Elena noted.

“Exactly. And Denzel’s glows sometimes when he invents something or figures out a scientific or engineering problem.” She turned to her brother and asked, “So what do you have going on in your head?”

“See if you can find clothing with buttons. I want to make a button-trail through the labyrinth so we can keep track of where we have been as we walk through it,” Denzel explained.

Before long, they had pulled a large assortment of jackets and shirts from the garbage walls and had torn off a sizable stack of buttons. Denzel put the buttons into a can. Then they began to walk and as they went Denzel dropped buttons on the ground so they could trace their steps. Unfortunately, they did not get far before they discovered themselves back in a passage marked by the buttons, indicating that they had already walked there.

As they looked dejectedly at the buttons that they had placed in the passage only a short time before, Elena announced, “I’m hungry.”

They had not eaten any breakfast and had, instead, spent a couple of hours collecting buttons and then wandering in the labyrinth. “I have some bread and peanut butter in my backpack,” Honeydew offered. She sat on the ground and foraged in her backpack for the food. She unwrapped a large drumstick and gave it to Bisc, who chomped off all the meat and then chewed greedily on the bone, grunting happily. The rest of them ate the bread and peanut butter. Guhblorin said that geebachings could go for several days without food if necessary and not to worry about him.

“That’s helpful,” Maia told Guhblorin, “because we don’t have much food left.”

Denzel stared up at the sky, but it yielded no clue as to which direction would take them out of the garbage labyrinth. After they ate, they wandered in the labyrinth for the rest of the day, placing the buttons to mark their path and crying out to each other in dismay whenever they turned a corner and discovered their button trail staring up at them.

“I think this labyrinth might have an enchantment on it,” Honeydew suggested finally, as the violet shadows of twilight began to creep across the ground.

Elena encouraged Denzel by telling him, “The buttons were a great idea. They could have worked. It was worth a try.”

“Yes, well, they didn’t work, did they?” Denzel couldn’t conceal his frustration after wasting an entire day wandering the labyrinth. He felt disappointed that the buttons had not proved more useful. He also worried about what they would eat and drink if they remained trapped in the labyrinth for days on end.

“The buttons might work yet,” Maia suggested hopefully.

“Not if the labyrinth has an enchantment on it,” Honeydew warned. “Do we have anything left to eat?” They combed through their backpacks and found several bruised pears, a couple slices of bread, a good-sized chunk of cheese, and some chocolate. They shared the dregs of their food, with the chocolate being the prize. Honeydew made them give some of the cheese to Bisc.

“When we run out of food for that wolf, will he eat us?” Elena asked anxiously.

“No, he won’t eat you. He’s a tame wolf,” Honeydew answered patiently, trying to keep her annoyance out of her voice. Sometimes she wondered how people could go through life with no comprehension of the nature of the many other creatures with whom they shared the land.

“We’re out of water,” Maia mourned, as she peered into her empty canteen.

“That I can do something about,” Honeydew told her.

“You can?” Maia asked.

“I just need a container, like a bucket or a pitcher or something,” Honeydew answered.

Guhblorin pulled a tin watering can out of the wall of garbage beside him and handed it to Honeydew. “Will this work?” he asked.

“I think so,” she said. She put the watering can in front of her on the ground and she aimed three fingers at it. Concentrating hard she said some unintelligible words. Water began to bubble out of the watering can. Honeydew picked it up. “Quick, bring the canteens,” she instructed. The others hurried to hold their open canteens out to her as Honeydew filled them with clean, clear water that amazingly bubbled from a rusted, dirty can. After they refilled the canteens, Honeydew set the watering can on the ground for Bisc, who drank his fill.

“Hecka cool trick,” Denzel complimented Honeydew, as he took a refreshing swig from his canteen.

“No trick,” Honeydew responded. “The water is real. I summoned it to our need.”

Dark descended quickly and they could do nothing more until the sun rose again in the morning. They had worn themselves out repeatedly walking the same passages in the labyrinth, but sleep did not come to them easily; except for Guhblorin, who curled up inside a discarded sink and snored softly. The others lay awake, each one silently pondering their predicament. They knew they would wake up hungry and they had nothing to eat, but at least they would have water.

In the morning, Guhblorin hopped up bright and early. He carefully studied the wall of garbage before him and then he pulled a box from the mess of trash, grinning broadly. When he yanked out the box, he dislodged other items surrounding it and caused a small avalanche of junk that fell into the passage with a racket that woke everyone else. As they blinked in the blazing morning sunlight, Guhblorin giggled. “Chocolate cookies for breakfast,” he said.

“That’s not funny, amigo,” Elena complained.

“Don’t start,” Denzel warned.

“Seriously,” Guhblorin insisted. He giggled again, with a giggle that verged on becoming contagious in that dangerous geebaching way, as he held out a large box of chocolate chip cookies and offered them around to the others.

“Where did you get that?” Honeydew asked in amazement.

“I found it in the wall,” Guhblorin told her.

The cookies seemed none the worse for the wear after being trapped in a wall of garbage. The closed box had protected them and they tasted delicious.

Maia gazed up into the clear blue patch of sky visible high above the labyrinth walls. Little bits of something unrecognizable began to fall down from above, like confetti. She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked more carefully, wondering what caused the confetti. Then she laughed with delight.

“What?” Denzel demanded, a bit gruffly. He felt responsible for getting them out of the labyrinth and he had no idea how to do that. He knew it was in his own head and that no one held him responsible, but he was the oldest, and a boy, and so he had expectations for himself. But here they remained, another day in the labyrinth, and he didn’t know what to try next.

“Look,” Maia said, as she pointed to her arm, on which several bright orange, red, and turquoise butterflies perched. Maia had befriended the butterflies the previous year and they had once protected the Four from discovery when they hid from Compost. As she held her hands up in the air, butterflies descended and surrounded her. They poured into the labyrinth from above. Although she couldn’t think how they could help in this situation, Maia felt cheered by their presence.

The butterflies swarmed around Maia’s head, and then they flew to Guhblorin. As the number of butterflies swelled to hundreds and thousands, they perched in the hair that covered his body. Suddenly Guhblorin screeched in alarm.

“Don’t be afraid,” Maia reassured him. “They’re my friends. They won’t harm you.” Just as these words left her lips, the butterflies completely engulfed Guhblorin, making him no longer visible, and they lifted him off the ground, into the air above the labyrinth, and flew away with him.

“What in the heck?” Maia exclaimed as Guhblorin disappeared overhead. She glanced at Denzel, who shrugged. Bisc let out a mournful cry and Honeydew stroked his chest comfortingly. Many butterflies remained nearby, flitting about, circling Maia’s head, and occasionally landing on Maia’s arms and shoulders.

Bisc cocked his head to one side, his ears erect, as he heard something. Honeydew watched him intently, and then she grinned. “Listen,” she told the others. They stood and listened. The sound of uncontrollable, side-splitting, breath-taking, gut-twisting human laughter reached them. It was the kind of laughter that only a geebaching attacking its human prey could cause. It was not a pleasant sound and they winced as it reached a wrenching crescendo and then stopped cold.

“Do you think he killed them?” Maia asked.

“No!” Elena replied emphatically. “He wouldn’t. He swore he would never do that again.” Stunned by what she had heard, she began to truly comprehend the deadly power of a geebaching.

Within minutes, the swarm of butterflies returned with Guhblorin, but they did not place him back in the labyrinth. Instead they hovered overhead with him. The travelers gazed up in wonder at the sight of a multitude of butterflies packed so tightly. All those tiny creatures working together were keeping a geebaching in the air.

“Are you OK, amigo?” Elena called to Guhblorin.

A slightly muffled voice emerged from the mass of butterflies. “I think so.”

“Did you kill them?” Denzel asked.

“No, of course not. But they’re passed out pretty good,” Guhblorin answered.

“Who are they?” Maia asked.

“Special Forces,” Guhblorin replied. “About a dozen of them are guarding the entrance to the labyrinth. From up here I can see how to get out. I’m good at mazes. I grew up inside the Amber Mountains and they’re one big maze. Follow me.”

The captives on the ground followed Guhblorin while the butterflies continued to hold him aloft. With Guhblorin’s guidance they soon arrived at the entrance to the labyrinth. “From up here I can see our tigers coming around the side of the labyrinth,” Guhblorin informed them. “They should turn up in a couple of minutes.” The butterflies gently lowered Guhblorin to the ground. They swarmed around the heads of the travelers, while Maia and Honeydew called out their thanks to them.

“Can butterflies hear?” Denzel asked.

“Not really,” Honeydew replied, “but I think they can understand gratitude if we intentionally focus on sending it to them.” Denzel sent grateful thoughts to the butterflies, in case Honeydew was right and they could sense his intent.

 The tigers had not arrived yet, but the guards had begun to regain consciousness, groaning and holding their aching sides.

“Walk along the garbage labyrinth that way. And don’t look back,” Guhblorin instructed with grim determination. “Go now. I have to do these guards again. You’ll meet up with the tigers in a few minutes. By then you can safely come back for me, OK?”

“You got it, little fella,” Denzel said. He took Elena’s wrist in his hand and led her away with the warning, “He means it. Don’t look back.”

But Elena was curious, and following orders was not her strong suit. “Are we holding hands?” she asked Denzel, who quickly released his grip on her wrist as if it had burned him to touch her. When the guards began to laugh uproariously, Elena snuck a quick glimpse behind her. She saw Guhblorin dancing a mangled version of ballet. He looked so comical that Elena could not resist snorting with laughter. Maia and Denzel both reached out at the same moment, whirled Elena around, and propelled her forward. They ran toward the approaching tigers and when they reached one another a joyful reunion ensued. Since no sounds of laughter from the guards met their ears, the travelers mounted the tigers and rode back for Guhblorin.

“I think we should drag these guys into the labyrinth,” Denzel said, as he gestured to the unconscious guards. He produced his can of buttons and created a trail into the confusing twist of garbage walls. Following the buttons, and with help from the tigers, the travelers dragged the guards inside the labyrinth. Denzel picked up the buttons as they made their way out of the labyrinth for the last time. “That should hold them for a little while,” he said.

As they emerged from the garbage labyrinth, Honeydew pointed in the direction of Big House City. “That’s the way to the Whispering Pond,” she said. “I can find it from here. The pond is surrounded by trees that will provide us with a place to hide from Compost and his army. We can sleep there tonight.” With those words, she urged her tiger forward and the others followed her lead.

            

Changing the Prophecy Chapter Ten

 

Chapter 10 North Coast

Jasper crept silently through the undergrowth and toward the compound with Jack floating alongside and Doshmisi stepping softly behind him. They managed to work their way around the beach and close enough to the compound for them to catch a clear glimpse of the activity inside. Crouching in a dense collection of young tree sprouts, cottonwoods, and brush, they observed. A few women and many children scurried about within the confines of the fenced area. The women spoke in small groups or tended campfires in front of the tents scattered throughout the enclosed encampment. The children ate by a campfire or played with one another in the open spaces between the tents and campfires. Many creatures in white jumpsuits, all equipped with guns of some kind, stood guard. A high fence topped with barbed wire encircled the compound. A group of women rounded up the children and herded them to a cluster of three tents. The babies and toddlers remained behind with their mothers.

“School,” Jack whispered. The children had gone to some type of school for the day. These women and children apparently lived in the compound, at least for the time being.

A group of men emerged from one of the buildings adjacent to the fenced area. Under heavy guard, they marched to the beach and boarded small boats, which headed out toward the oil derrick. After that, not much happened. Doshmisi tapped Jasper’s arm and whispered, “Let’s go back into the forest so we can talk.” Jasper turned and led them to a secluded and sheltered spot.

“Those people are being held prisoner,” Jasper said.

“But don’t you think it odd that their captors leave them to themselves to hold school and cook over their campfires and all that?” Doshmisi asked.

“They left the women and children to their own devices, but they took the men to that machine in the ocean,” Jasper pointed out.

“I recognize that machine,” Doshmisi told him. “We have them in the Farland. It’s pumping oil out of the ocean floor. How can I explain it? The oil under the ocean has a powerful energy locked in it; energy that can run machines without the need for batteries. In the Farland, lots of machines run on that kind of oil. I didn’t know you had that kind of oil here. But those creepy things in the white jumpsuits knew about it and they built that machine, as you call it, that oil pump, to extract the oil.” She had the feeling that if she thought on it long enough and hard enough she could figure out what was going on, but so far she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

“If only we could find Mole and have a conversation with him,” Jasper wished.

“How can we do that without getting caught or even killed?” Doshmisi wondered. “If we get caught then we can’t help anyone trapped inside to escape.” Although, even if the creepy creatures captured them, she thought, they might still figure out a way to help the others escape, but it seemed unlikely.

“I wonder if they took Mole to that oil pump to work,” Jasper speculated.

“Watch,” Jack commented.

“Jack’s right,” Jasper said as Doshmisi nodded in agreement.

The three of them spent most of the day on their bellies in the brush, watching the compound. The children came out of the school tents for lunch, then went back in. The women tended the fires, talked with one another, cared for the littlest ones, and prepared food. In the evening, the boats returned from the oil pump and the guards marched the men into the compound at sunset, where they joined the women and children for the night. The guards dispersed. As Doshmisi, Jasper, and Jack observed attentively, the fence burst into glowing orange light.

“A heat boundary,” Jasper said.

“What’s that?” Doshmisi asked.

“Anyone who touches that fence will burn up instantly,” he explained.

“Not a wall,” Jack blurted excitedly. “Not a wall.”

“Not a wall?” Jasper repeated, puzzled.

“He means that you can see through it even though you can’t pass through it,” Doshmisi interpreted.

“Right, so that means?” Jasper scrunched his eyebrows together in concentration as he tried to understand.

“We can talk to them through it even though we can’t touch it. If we can sneak down there,” Doshmisi said, as she pointed toward the heat fence. “Almost all the guards have left. Couldn’t we sneak down there? Like over there?” Doshmisi indicated a spot where the bushes came close to the fence.

“Sneak. Talk,” Jack urged them.

They waited until the sun had set completely and then, under cover of darkness, Jasper led the way down the gentle sloping hillside to the compound and directly to the bushy area that Doshmisi had pointed out. The bushes concealed them where they squatted, close to the glowing fence, which cast a dim eerie light. No one inside the compound was near enough for them to safely call to them, but a group of children clustered around the entrance to a tent not far away. Jack picked up a round stone and threw it deftly between the wires of the fence so that it landed beside the ring of children. Several boys looked up curiously. Jack threw another stone. The boys whispered to each other anxiously. Jack threw a third stone that bounced into the fence and sizzled. Doshmisi glanced furtively along the fence line to see if any guards had noticed the sizzle. No guards saw it, but the cluster of boys did. They approached the fence cautiously.

Jasper whispered loudly, “Over here.”

The faces of the boys glowed with wonder in the orange light of the fence. None of them spoke.

“We’re friends,” Jasper whispered. “We want to help you escape. Do you know Mole? Is he here?”

“Yes, he’s here,” one of the children confirmed.

“Do you think you can bring him to us without attracting attention?”

“We can do it,” another child assured them determinedly.

“Tell him Jasper wants him to come to this spot without attracting notice.”

“We can find him,” the children promised.

“We won’t go anywhere unless the guards come,” Jasper told the boys. “But you mustn’t stand by the fence. If the guards see you, it will cause suspicion. Go back to what you were doing.” The children left the fence and while some of them continued playing as before, others faded into the encampment to find Mole.

They didn’t wait long. Mole appeared soon afterward. He brought a couple of boys with him and they squatted on the ground next to the fence, pretending to play a game with stones in the dirt. Mole focused on the children and did not so much as glance in the direction of Jasper, Doshmisi, and Jack.

“What you be doin’ here?” Mole asked, without looking up from the game.

“We came to find you,” Doshmisi replied.

At the sound of Doshmisi’s voice, Mole laughed softly, his dreadlocks quivering with his laughter. “Doshmisi,” he said softly with delight. “Yah mon, that be a good thing. The Four is come back.”

“It’s just me right now. I mean just me here,” Doshmisi told him.

“That be good enough for me for now,” Mole replied.

“What’s up?” Doshmisi asked. “Tell us quickly.”

“We’ll try to help you escape soon,” Jasper added.

“Escape be tricky,” Mole warned. “We have the children to consider. The Corportons took these women and children hostage…”

“Corportons?” Doshmisi asked.

“The creatures in the white jumpsuits. We call them Corportons. They kidnapped us along with the women and children. Sissrath has an agreement with them, to help them drill for the black oil under the ocean. They needed workers with skill to help them. That be us battery makers. The Corportons be clever. They force us battery makers to work because of the women and children hostages. If we don’t work or we refuse to do what they tell us, they will hurt the hostages.”

“Where did they come from? Why did they come here to drill for oil?” Doshmisi questioned Mole.

“They come from some other land far away where this black oil be extremely valuable. They have sophisticated tools that I have never seen. They sent out a universal search for the oil with one of their tools and it told them to come to Faracadar. So they came. They call the oil drill in the ocean the New Beginnings Well. They have a weapon that shoots a piece of metal and it can kill a person instantly. Terrible device.”

“We have these weapons in the Farland. We call them guns,” Doshmisi interjected.

Mole continued. “We must do as they say because we fear these guns. They plan to transport this oil to their land after they pump it from our ocean. Sometimes I imagine maybe I hear the ocean scream because it be drilled deep by that machine at the well.” Mole tapped his head with his middle finger, “But that scream be in my head. Not real. One thing I tell you for sure, mon, no good can come of this.”

“No good,” Doshmisi echoed.

“Why is Sissrath helping them? What does he get out of it?” Jasper asked.

“Prophecy,” Jack said, in his typically cryptic way. Doshmisi wished that once in a while he’d give a straight answer.

“Sissrath believes the land be destroyed soon. Be gone. The Corportons will take him away with them when they have all the oil they want. They talk about it at the well. They talk as if we battery makers be stones, not people; as if we can’t hear them. They promise Sissrath power in their land because of his talent for enchantment. He will escape with them before Faracadar be destroyed,” Mole informed them.

“Why does he think Faracadar will be destroyed?” Doshmisi demanded in alarm.

“Prophecy,” Jack repeated.

“I don’t know, mon,” Mole replied.

Jasper turned to Jack. “What prophecy, Jack? Did Sissrath hear a prophecy?”

“Prophecy from Khoum,” Jack stated earnestly.

“Yes, well that explains everything,” Jasper announced in exasperation.

“He be what he be, mon,” Mole reminded Jasper. “Don’t be getting angry with Jack. I need to go before the guards notice.”

“We’ll come back tomorrow night. Same time. Be here,” Jasper told Mole.

“I’ll try, mon.” Mole stood and walked back into the compound with the children.

After Mole left, the three renegades returned to the barn under cover of darkness. Doshmisi had picked a few apples earlier in the day and she cut them into pieces and fed them to Dagobaz while she pondered the information Mole had provided. Jack fell asleep instantly in the comfortable hay, exhausted from attempting to communicate his visionary thoughts and from climbing down to the compound and back.

“I keep thinking about this prophecy. Sissrath must have heard a prophecy about the destruction of the land,” Jasper said, his expressive brown eyes filled with worry.

“Possibly. Tell me what you know about this Khoum,” Doshmisi requested.

“They taught us about it in history class in school, but I can’t remember what they said. Something about a prophet and an enchanted book. I guess I should have paid closer attention to that lesson,” Jasper noted regretfully. “When I was in class, my mind wandered to the fields and forests, and the guiding skills I needed to learn.”

“Tomorrow morning I’ll talk to the trees,” Doshmisi promised. “Oil is dangerous stuff. I wish we had Denzel here. He would know more about oil wells and drilling for oil in the ocean. It scares me. I remember times when oil spilled into the water in the Farland and it killed a lot of sea creatures as well as birds. I hope these Corportons know what they’re doing out there at that New Beginnings Well. The Corportons have definitely not earned popularity points with the whales.”

“We’ll find a way to free Mole and the others. If the Corportons don’t have the battery makers to work for them then maybe they will have to stop drilling.” Jasper put his arms around Doshmisi and gave her a hug and then he kissed her lightly on the lips. She kissed him back. The kiss made her feel so good that she forgot about Mole, the New Beginnings Well, the Corportons, and pretty much everything else in the world, for a quick minute. But then Jasper released her. “G’night,” he said self-consciously as he flashed her his smile, that smile that lit up his face like the sun.

“G’night,” she echoed.

Jasper climbed into the hayloft with Jack and bedded down while Doshmisi curled up with Dagobaz in his stall, running her fingers through his beautiful dark mane while she thought about Mole, the Corportons, and the oil well.         

Doshmisi woke early, just as the first glimmer of dawn slipped through the cracks in the barn walls. She collected her belongings and put them quietly up in the hayloft with Jasper and Jack, who slept peacefully. She slipped out to the surrounding forest and proceeded purposefully into the heart of a stand of old trees, where she sat down on the mossy, leafy forest floor.

Safe in the embrace of the trees, she unbuckled the carry case that she wore around her waist and took out the herbal. She held the enchanted book in her lap and it opened to a page. On the page she read:  “Fear of change prevents creative thought. When hope explodes, take me to the water and start again from the beginning.” Doshmisi sighed. The herbal had her pretty worried. It seemed broken. She used to understand what it instructed her to do, but now it made no sense.

She shut the herbal and focused on her mission in the forest. She closed her eyes and visualized her spirit dancing to the tops of the trees, where it intertwined with the tree spirits. She cherished her ability to communicate with the trees in their way as perhaps the greatest gift she had received as the keeper of the Amulet of the Trees. She rejoiced with them in the beauty of the dewy fresh morning. Nothing loves a fresh new morning like a tree.

The trees had helped her solve problems in the past, so she placed a question to them in her heart. She asked them what was wrong with the herbal and if the strange words that appeared in the herbal connected to the New Beginnings Well, the Corportons, and a prophecy. She didn’t ask the question in words, but instead let the images of these things pass through her mind and out to the trees. She felt herself enveloped in the comforting embrace of the trees’ spirits and her amulet glowed warmly, emanating a green light. The image of her grandmother, Clover, came to her as it had at the Garden; and Clover appeared even more unwell than before. The trees still wanted her to go see Clover. She wondered if she had made a poor choice by coming to the North Coast before attending to her grandmother. But the trees did not seem to mind her choice. They were happy to have her among them. They distinctly planted in her mind the thought that everyone was needed for some task that lie ahead. Everyone needed to come together. Then she had the reassuring feeling that the whole confusing puzzle of circumstances and events would work out in the end, that just around the corner a perfectly wonderful resolution awaited, and that she would eventually find it, like finding a star buried under the hay in a barn, uncovering its unspeakable brilliance in a shining moment of unexpected discovery.

She opened her eyes and retreated from the heart of the forest with a welcome sense of calm. Her amulet no longer glowed. She patted the trunks of trees she passed as she walked back to rejoin the others. But her calm shattered as she neared the barn. A group of Corportons had gathered in a corral in front of the barn where they were attempting to control Dagobaz. They had thrown four lassoes around his neck and he rebelled against their efforts to tame him by alternately rearing on his hind legs and then pawing frantically at the ground. He snorted and screamed in outrage.

Doshmisi couldn’t bear to see him mistreated, but she didn’t dare reveal herself. One of the Corportons tried to throw a saddle across the frenzied horse’s back, but Dagobaz sidestepped the saddle and kicked at the Corporton. She wondered how the Corportons communicated with one another from inside the jumpsuits. They didn’t speak aloud so they either talked directly into each other’s brains with telepathy or they used some type of device embedded in their face masks to communicate. She wondered if they had ears.

One of the Corportons touched a metal rod to Dagobaz’s hind leg. The horse shrieked in pain and leapt forward. The Corporton continued to torture Dagobaz with the charge from the metal rod as he forced the horse forward onto a ramp that led into a round vehicle resembling an enormous golf ball on wheels. Every time the Corporton touched Dagobaz with the metal rod, the horse screamed in pain and moved forward. Tears streamed down Doshmisi’s cheeks as she observed helplessly from the shelter of the forest. The Corportons followed Dagobaz into the golf ball and folded up the ramp. Then the wheels folded into the golf ball and it flew into the sky where it soon disappeared over the trees.

Doshmisi sobbed after the Corportons left. Jasper and Jack emerged from the barn and hurried to her side.

“What happened?” Jasper asked as he gently pulled her to her feet and handed her a handkerchief from his pocket. Doshmisi wiped her tear-streaked cheeks and blew her nose.

“They hurt Dagobaz. I think they wanted to ride him, and that they were trying to break him. He fought them. They forced him into a flying machine by torturing him with electric shocks from a metal rod. It was horrible.” Doshmisi shuddered again at the recollection. “They left in the flying thing. Were you hiding in the hayloft? ”

“Yes. We heard them come and we burrowed into the straw. Luckily they didn’t think to search for anyone in the barn. They came for Dagobaz,” Jasper replied. “I bet they took him to the compound by the New Beginnings Well. That’s their base camp. We can try to free him when go to free Mole and the others.”

“That sounds great when you say it,” Doshmisi told him, with a sniffle, “but we don’t have a plan for how to free Mole and the others, let alone Dagobaz.”

Just then, Jack hopped on his skateboard, which instantly became a hoverboard under his feet as he floated above the ground. “Diversion,” Jack pronounced excitedly. “Diversion, diversion.” He swooped up into the air in a loop, kicking the board out from under his feet in a flip and then deftly landing back on it perfectly.

“Someone’s been practicing,” Doshmisi complimented the intuit.

Jack continued to swoop through the air like a large bird until Doshmisi could grab his attention and convince him to stop swooping and listen to her. “They have guns, Jack. Real guns that shoot bullets. They can shoot you out of the air in an instant. You’ll be no help to anybody dead.”

Jack drooped and shook his head from side to side. “Diversion coming,” he said, pointing out toward the ocean. The others ignored him and he shrugged, then popped back into the air to practice his skateboard moves.

“Mole knows the routine and how the Corportons do things at the compound,” Jasper said. “Mole’s resourceful and so are we. If we put our heads together, we can come up with something. We can at least get Mole out of there and then we can go back for the rest of them when we have reinforcements.”

“A nonviolent march won’t work against the Corportons,” Doshmisi pointed out. “They come from outside of Faracadar and they would kill every last one of us within gunshot range in a heartbeat.” The previous year, the Four had led a nonviolent march on Sissrath and had defeated him because the army had joined the people and turned against Sissrath. “I wish I could see what they look like under those jumpsuits,” she added. “If I could see them then I might figure out if they have a weakness that would work in our favor. They seem familiar to me but I can’t put my finger on why.”

“After nightfall, we’ll talk to Mole again. Maybe he has seen them without the jumpsuits and face masks,” Jasper said hopefully.

They spent the day close to the barn. Doshmisi went into the forest searching for food and came back with mannafruit, the apricot-sized lavender globes that tasted like whatever you imagined them to taste like when you took a bite. When you ate mannafruit, you had to feel grateful for the food, or else it tasted like sawdust. The mannafruit stayed good for weeks unopened, but once opened it went bad quickly. Because they filled you up with just a few bites, they made a terrific traveling food.

Doshmisi worried all day about Dagobaz. She wished the proud stallion would bend to the will of the Corportons and allow them to tame him for the time being so that they wouldn’t keep hurting him. Obviously they wanted to ride Dagobaz and he refused to allow them to do it. “They can’t tame you in your heart,” she whispered to Dagobaz, even though he could not hear her.

At twilight, Jasper, Doshmisi, and Jack once again went down to the compound. Doshmisi insisted that Jack wait at the edge of the forest and not come with them to the fence. She worried that he might try to do something crazy that would get him killed. He reluctantly agreed to remain behind while Jasper and Doshmisi crept into the undergrowth near the fence where they had talked to Mole the night before. Orange and pink light from the setting sun lit the clouds drifting over the ocean. The clouds slightly obscured the abundance of bright colorful stars that dotted the night sky. In a few minutes, only the light from the stars would remain visible as the sun’s rays faded completely.

Doshmisi saw Mole playing a jump rope game with a group of children. He and a woman turned a long rope while little girls chanted a rhyme and jumped together in rhythm. A few other children stood nearby and clapped to the rhyme. As she watched, the girls stopped jumping and Mole coiled up the rope. He lit a glow-lamp and walked over to the fence accompanied by a handful of children. They squatted down on the ground and proceeded to set up the game with the stones that they had played the previous evening. Without looking up from the game, ever so quietly, Mole spoke. “You be there, mon?”

“We’re here,” Jasper replied.

“I have hidden a tool I think will open the gate at the entrance,” Mole informed them. “But if I open the gate with all these guards around, they’ll shoot anyone who tries to leave. I wish we had an enchanter up in here. ”

“We could go get one,” Jasper suggested. “But that would take time.”

Suddenly the quiet of the night erupted with the piercing sound of a loud electronic blast in the form of Aretha Franklin singing about riding on the freeway of love in a pink Cadillac. The music emerged from Doshmisi’s backpack. The line from the song repeated in a loop as Doshmisi desperately fumbled with the front flap on her backpack, unbuckled it, and grabbed her cell phone, which she flipped open. The racket stopped instantly, but too late, for it had already alerted the Corportons, who descended rapidly.

“Who is this?” Doshmisi shouted into the phone furiously, while at the same time realizing that the situation was her own stupid fault for forgetting she had the phone in her backpack and forgetting to turn it off. But who would have imagined that the phone would work in Faracadar? It didn’t seem possible.

“Dosh? It’s me! Elena!”

“Why are you calling me? How are you calling me?” Doshmisi demanded.

“I have your number in my phone and we have this crystal thingy that Denzel…”

“Denzel? Are you in Faracadar?”

“Yeah, we’re at Big House City,” Elena informed her.

“Who is with you?” Doshmisi asked quickly as the Corportons closed in. She had to know that much at least from the crazy phone call before it ended.

“Maia, Denzel, and Honeydew.”

“And Sonjay?” Doshmisi asked. Time was short.

“No. We don’t know where he is,” Elena answered cheerfully, sounding thoroughly pleased with herself. “We thought he might be with you.”

Armed Corportons poured toward Doshmisi from all directions.

“I can’t talk right now. Tell Denzel the trees want us to go see Clover. Tell him Jasper and I will try to meet him at Clover’s. Tell him the Corportons have an oil well in the ocean at the North Coast and Mole is with us and…”

“Corportons?” Elena asked, uncertainly. “Jaspo? Clover?”

“This is really, really not a good time. I’m in the middle of something.” Doshmisi turned the phone off and slipped it back into the front of the backpack just as the Corporton guards surrounded her and Jasper.

“Show us your hands,” said a mechanical voice with the distinct tone of an unfriendly police officer. Doshmisi held her empty hands up over her head to show she had no weapons. The voice had come from one of the Corportons and it shocked her that she could understand the words, which were in English. She wondered where these aliens came from, but she thought perhaps she had an idea, insane as it seemed.

 

Changing the Prophecy Chapter Nine

 

Chapter 9 Snared in a Net

After an excellent breakfast at the Wolf Circle, the travelers assembled in front of the community dining room to meet the tigers they would ride. Goldenrod provided four sleek yellow-and-black-striped tigers. “I figure the geebaching can ride with one of you,” Goldenrod noted. Guhblorin looked crestfallen until Elena put her hand on his shoulder and told him, “I want you to ride with me, amigo.” He perked up at her words.

The princess gently stroked a large white wolf as tears stood in her eyes. She was famous throughout the land for her love of animals and this wolf obviously held a special place in her heart. He bumped her with his head and whined softly. “I’ll be back before you know it,” Honeydew promised the wolf.

“They’re splendid,” Denzel declared appreciatively, as he stroked the tiger he had selected to ride. “Thanks a million,” he said to Goldenrod.

Maia produced a jar of powder from her backpack. “I think we should use the color change powder. I wonder if it will work on Elena.”

“Color change powder?” Elena inquired with a note of curiosity in her voice. “Qué es?”

“You see how the people here have a bright color that glows in their skin?” Maia asked her friend. Elena glanced at Goldenrod, who glowed bright yellow. “Well royalty doesn’t have that color glow and it makes us stand out, which is a problem when we want to keep a low profile,” Maia explained. “Anyone can recognize Denzel, Honeydew, and me as royals because we don’t have a bright color in our skin. Grandmomma Clover made this powder for us. One tiny sprinkle and we have color like everyone else so we can blend in better. Watch,” Maia concluded. She sprinkled powder on Denzel, whose skin immediately took on a bright-red glow. Denzel grinned and took a pinch of powder and sprinkled it on Maia, who developed a deep-blue glow. Then he dropped a pinch on Honeydew, who glowed sunflower-yellow.

“Now your turn,” Maia told Elena.

Elena began to protest, but Maia ignored her and quickly sprinkled the powder on her before Elena could mount a full resistance. For a moment, nothing happened, and Maia thought perhaps the powder wouldn’t work on a Latina from the Farland. But then Elena sparkled with a shimmery orange color. She giggled.

“You like it?” Guhblorin asked.

“Kinda weird, but I like it OK,” Elena replied.

Denzel scrutinized her. “I think it looks pretty good.” Elena blushed a deeper shade of orange, but Denzel didn’t notice since he had turned and mounted his tiger. “Let’s get on up outta here,” he called to the others, who each mounted their tigers. The enormous white wolf remained at Honeydew’s heel.

“Stay here,” Honeydew told the wolf, who looked up at her with sorrowful eyes.

The travelers rode out of the circle.

“We go this way.” Honeydew pointed to a path that led through a stand of fir trees. As the travelers started on the path, they heard Honeydew shout, “Biscuit!”

Denzel motioned his tiger to stop and he turned around to see why Honeydew had shouted. The large white wolf had followed them and it stood beside Honeydew.

“Oh no, Bisc, please go back.” Honeydew remembered the year before when her father had foolishly called his white wolves to their aid and Sissrath’s Special Forces had killed many of them.

“It might come in handy to have a white wolf as a traveling companion,” Denzel pointed out, hopefully.

“I don’t want to put his life in danger,” Honeydew responded.

“He looks capable of taking care of himself,” Elena noted. The wolves still made her nervous, even though she understood that the people of the Wolf Circle kept them as pets. “He looks a lot fiercer than we do.”

“Let him come with us,” Maia pleaded. “He wants to. He won’t be in any more danger than we will.”

“That doesn’t set my mind at ease,” Honeydew replied, but she relented. “His name is Biscuit,” she told the others. “But I call him Bisc for short.”

“What kind of a name is that for a wolf?” Denzel asked.

“How would you know the right kind of name for a wolf?” Honeydew demanded indignantly. “I raised him from a pup and when he was little he stole my biscuits off my plate. He would do anything for a biscuit, especially if it has raspberry jam on it. It’s the perfect name for him.”

Denzel shrugged as he headed down the path and into the fir trees. Bisc trotted happily alongside Honeydew. He stood as tall as her tiger and in fact Honeydew could have sat on his back, but no one would dare to insult a white wolf by suggesting that they ride it.

The group of travelers hiked all day over the Amber Mountains, with Honeydew guiding them. They eventually had to dismount from the tigers because of the rocks and rough scrub that filled the landscape. They wound up walking for much of the time and were so weary by nightfall that they ate their dinner quickly with little conversation and went straight to sleep after dividing the night into shifts during which each of them took a spell keeping watch.

They awoke refreshed and anticipated finding Guhblorin’s smelly passage soon. He promised that it would cut a whole day off their overland journey. They chatted cheerily over their breakfast of pears and cheese.

As they set off, Guhblorin pointed the way to the passage, and by late morning they reached the opening leading into the mountain. The travelers peered cautiously inside as they caught a whiff of a scent far worse than just old seaweed. It smelled like a fish left outside in the sun in a paper bag for a week. Elena and Honeydew cast anxious glances at the others to see if anyone else found the smell as offensive as they did. Meanwhile, Denzel produced a canvas bag and withdrew from it a stack of sachets filled with orange peels, cinnamon sticks, and cloves. He handed them out to the others. “Hold this under your nose to help get through the tunnel.” The tigers didn’t seem bothered by the strong fishy smell and Bisc appeared to love it as he ran in joyous circles and yipped. Once they entered the mountain, Bisc stopped every once in a while to roll around on his back, as if trying to absorb the stinky smell into his fur. He poked his nose into every nook and cranny, obviously delighted to sniff the repulsive aroma.

Fortunately, it took less than an hour for the travelers to make their way through the mountain. The foul odor wasn’t unbearable and the scented sachets helped considerably. Denzel couldn’t wait to share the knowledge of the smelly passage with Jasper, who would appreciate the significance of it to shave time off the journey from the Wolf Circle to Big House City. The group emerged amid scrubby brush and large gray boulders in the foothills of the Amber Mountains. They found themselves on the edge of a meadow that melted into rolling hills covered with low brush and heather-like plants bursting with tiny pink flowers. On the other side of the hills lay Big House City and its surrounding fields and forests.

“We’re going home,” Honeydew told Bisc, as she reached over to pat his neck. “This way,” she instructed the others, who followed her as she rode out. She knew the route, having traveled back and forth between Big House City and the Amber Mountains many times. The travelers rode for a couple of hours before stopping to eat the lunch that the people of the Wolf Circle had provided them for the journey. While they ate, a flock of skeeters arrived and circled above their heads. Denzel quickly examined his surroundings for a place to hide, but could find nothing in the landscape large enough to conceal them from the sharp yellow eyes of the birds, those eyes that didn’t miss a single detail. They gazed up at the skeeters in grim silence.

“What are they?” Elena asked, watching the skeeters swoop menacingly.

“A nasty bird with terrific eyesight that does scouting for Compost and Sissrath,” Maia answered.

“What kind of a name is Compost?” Elena asked.

“Definitely not a geebaching,” Guhblorin said.

“Not Latino, either,” Elena added, with a giggle.

“Maybe a used salad,” Guhblorin suggested brightly. Elena laughed out loud.

Denzel glared at the geebaching, who mumbled an apology as he buried his face in his sandwich. “Don’t get him started, Elena,” Denzel cautioned.

“It’s the perfect name for a stinky person,” Maia answered Elena’s question. “Trust me, you don’t want to meet him. He makes the smelly tunnel look like a stroll in a rose garden.”

“Do you think the skeeters will report us?” Honeydew asked the others.

“Yeah, I do, but we can’t do much about it,” Denzel said. “They’ve already seen us. Look around. No boulders or trees or anything we could have hid behind.” The travelers packed up their lunch and rode out. The skeeters had disappeared and Denzel felt relieved that at least the nasty birds hadn’t taken to following them.

Late in the afternoon, as they began to near the outskirts of Big House City, they came upon a puzzling sight. In the distance they saw a large grayish wall blocking their path. They approached with caution. Surrounded by sparse, slender trees and low-growing plants, the landscape still provided nothing behind which to conceal themselves from watchful eyes. They had no choice but to press forward in plain sight.

Guhblorin wrinkled his nose. “What’s that funky smell?” he asked.

“Don’t start,” Denzel warned.

“Seriously,” Guhblorin said, without a hint of humor in his voice.

“He’s right,” Honeydew agreed. “Something smells bad. Not as bad as the smelly tunnel, but icky.” Just as she said it, the others began to smell it too. It smelled like bad broccoli and old milk cartons.

When they drew closer to the grayish wall, Elena gasped.

“What?” Maia asked.

“Basura,” Elena said softly.

“Garbage?” Maia translated, incredulously. She had been studying Spanish in school and she practiced speaking it when she went to Elena’s house, where Elena’s family spoke Spanish to each other. Practicing with Elena’s family had helped her pick up the language quickly. She knew that basura meant garbage, but she wondered why Elena had said it.

Elena pointed at the grayish wall. “That thing’s made out of trash.”

Maia peered more closely at the grayish wall and realized that Elena was correct. The pile of garbage rose before them, twice as tall as a grown man, and extended for quite a distance from left to right across their path. The tigers came up short as the travelers gazed at the wall of garbage. Maia wondered how deep the wall was. Perhaps they were seeing the edge of a huge mound of garbage.

“Maybe it’s a dump,” Maia suggested.

“You mean a landfill? But Big House City doesn’t use a dump,” Denzel informed her. “They don’t put their garbage into a landfill. I can’t imagine how this garbage got here, or why it got here, for that matter.”

As they gazed at the wall of garbage, a huge mass, like a black cloud, rose up over the wall and into their line of vision. The sky darkened as the mass moved in their direction. Denzel did not care to wait around for it to catch up with them. “Run back toward those trees!” he yelled, and the tigers turned swiftly and bounded back in the direction from which they had come. However, even though swift, the tigers could not outrun the approaching mass, which, as it neared, materialized into an inconceivably huge flock of skeeters with glittering black wings. The skeeters appeared strung together by something they carried in their sharp talons.

If the travelers had split up, then perhaps one of them would have escaped, but they remained bunched together as they fled. The skeeters swooped low and Denzel felt a weight drop on him. Crushed between his collapsed tiger, who sprawled beneath him, and the weight on top of him that pressed him down, he could barely breathe. His lungs felt as thin as paper and they refused to fill with air. The tigers howled. With great difficulty, Denzel struggled to dismount his tiger, whose legs had buckled when the large cat had been pinned to the ground. Denzel slid alongside the tiger, which relieved him of some of the weight, and, as he gasped for air, he realized that the army of skeeters had dropped a thick net on them from above.

“Get off your tiger and lie down next to it,” he called to the others. “They dropped a net on us. If you can relieve the pressure of the net, you’ll find it easier to breathe.” A few moments later, he could tell that the others had followed his directions because he heard Guhblorin hollering in terror and Elena crying, which they could not have done if they hadn’t filled their lungs with air.

“Honeydew? Maia?” Denzel shouted over the racket of the howling tigers, screaming geebaching, and Elena’s wails. “Are you there?” Honeydew answered from surprisingly close to him, but Denzel couldn’t see her and he could barely move with the weight of the heavy net holding him in place.

Over the din, he heard Maia pleading with Elena, “Hey, chica, get it together. And make Guhblorin shut up. Calm your tiger. We’re under a net and we have to get out before Sissrath or the Special Forces show up to capture us. I can’t hear Denzel over this racket.”

“How do I calm my tiger?” Elena sobbed.

“Stroke her neck and talk gently in her ear,” Honeydew instructed.

Elena’s sobs became subdued while Guhblorin’s panicked hollering died down to a low whimpering.

“I have a knife in my backpack and I think I can cut through this net with it, but I’m having trouble getting to the knife,” Denzel informed the others. The heavy net pressed down on him so hard that Denzel could barely move. He noticed that the skeeters circled in a giant swarm overhead. They blotted out much of the daylight and caused a darkness that resembled that of an approaching rainstorm.

“I see them coming,” Honeydew called to Denzel.

“Who?” he asked urgently. “Who’s coming?”

“Look to the edge of the garbage wall. Whoever trapped us is coming,” she elaborated with grim resignation. Within moments of Honeydew’s warning, she, Denzel, and Maia figured out who had caught them in the net. Even stronger than the nasty smell of the garbage wall was the familiar decomposing-vegetable-smell of Compost, Sissrath’s second-in-command.

Denzel frantically tried to get his hands on the knife in his backpack, but even as he struggled to reach the knife, he realized that he could not escape Compost, who was nearly upon them, accompanied by a phalanx of Sissrath’s loyal Special Forces, the fierce warriors from the Mountain Downs.

Their captors pulled up short at the edge of the net. Compost was the filthiest character Denzel and Maia had ever met. He had nappy uncombed hair, a film of grime covered his skin, and his fat belly hung over the top of his pants and wiggled when he released his sinister laugh. His brown skin had a yellowish tint to it, like the skin of all the Mountain People, but Compost’s skin was a sickly acid-yellow color that looked nothing like the healthy golden-yellow glow of the people who came from the Wolf Circle in the High Mountain Settlement. Elena and Guhblorin peered out from underneath the net in fascinated horror.

“So nice of you to drop in,” Compost rasped gleefully. “I figured the Four would turn up right about now to save the day. Too bad, not going to happen this time.” A pair of boots clomped over the thick netting and came to a standstill in front of Denzel’s face. Then a gloved hand placed a foul-smelling rag over Denzel’s nose and he slipped into unconsciousness.

Changing the Prophecy Chapter Eight Episode 2

 

Chapter 8 Sense of Direction -- Episode 2

In the morning, before joining the others, Doshmisi remembered that she had marked that page in the herbal. She pulled the book into her lap and opened it to the page cinched by the rubber band. The words from the previous night had disappeared. The only word on the page was adaptability. She had barely read the word when the rubber band broke and the book snapped shut. “Stubborn book,” she muttered in frustration as she placed it back in the carry case, gathered her belongings, and set out to find Jasper.

After a breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and sweet melon, Doshmisi, Jasper, and Jack took their leave of their friends in the Passage Circle and got back on the road. Doshmisi suggested that they ride north along the beach, but Jasper vetoed that idea. He said riding on the beach would leave them too exposed. He took them instead on a route further inland that followed the shoreline while remaining under the cover of trees. The trees whispered to Doshmisi and made her feel optimistic about getting to the bottom of things at the North Coast. The three travelers rode hard all day. By evening, they had arrived well within the boundaries of the North Coast region, but they had no idea where to look for Sissrath and his encampment.

“We need to find shelter for the night,” Jasper said, as he rode alongside Doshmisi.

“Can we camp in this forest?” she asked.

“An enemy could see us here too easily. I want to find a cave or a structure or something that will hide us,” Jasper replied. Suddenly he drew up his tiger abruptly. “Stop,” he ordered. “Stay completely still.”

Doshmisi obeyed. In the distance, through the trees, she saw what Jasper saw. A small group of human-type figures rode between the trees on horses. The sight of the horses made the hair on the back of Doshmisi’s neck stand up because there were no horses in Faracadar, where people rode tigers instead. The sight of the horses, entirely out of place, frightened her. Jack whimpered. Jasper, who had never seen a horse, turned to her wide-eyed.

“Horses,” Doshmisi whispered to Jasper and Jack. “We have them in the Farland.”

The appearance of the riders disturbed Doshmisi even more than the appearance of the horses they rode. The riders resembled people. They had a head, two arms, and two legs, but from head to toe they wore white jumpsuits that hid every part of their real selves. They wore white gloves, helmet-like head coverings, and gray face masks. They carried some type of guns. Doshmisi wondered if the creatures were slimy or perhaps misshapen under their white jumpsuits. Maybe they had no solid substance to them, like light or water, and the jumpsuits contained them. Or maybe the jumpsuits concealed a hideous form that she could not imagine. She thought of them as aliens.

Doshmisi, Jasper, and Jack remained hidden in the undergrowth and as still as stone until the creatures on the horses passed by and disappeared in the distance. Jasper pointed after them. At first Doshmisi didn’t see what Jasper saw; but then, as her eyes adjusted to the rapidly increasing darkness of night falling, she identified a clearing ahead and in it the outlines of a series of large, barn-like structures. The creatures rode past the barns and into the forest beyond without stopping.

The travelers quietly dismounted from their tigers and left them in a thicket on the edge of the clearing where they could graze on greens and pass the night concealed from sight. Watching for the figures-in-white, they cautiously crept inside the first barn they came upon. Large and empty of all activity, it contained heaps of hay, which would make it a comfortable place to bed down for the night. Jasper took a glow-lamp from his bag. He handed it to Doshmisi, who held it up as she wandered to the back of the barn. She opened the door to a stall and found herself face-to-face with a large chestnut stallion. The stallion snorted through his nostrils loudly. Doshmisi heard Jack cry out in alarm. The stallion tossed his midnight-black mane and whinnied.

Doshmisi murmured in awe, “You are the most handsome horse I have ever laid eyes on.”

The stallion emanated a wild energy that made Doshmisi’s breath quicken. She felt around in her bag and found an apple. She bit off a large chunk and spit it out into her palm, then offered it to the stallion as a gift. He sniffed the apple and then picked it up delicately with his large lips and ate it. Doshmisi repeated this again and again until she had fed the whole apple to the stallion. Then she tentatively patted his nose. He nuzzled her. “Such a beauty,” Doshmisi cooed. “Can we be friends?” She stroked his long neck and buried her face in his mane. He smelled like sweet alfalfa. His presence comforted her.

“It’s OK,” Doshmisi called softly to Jack and Jasper. “There’s a horse in here. He’s magnificent. I’ve befriended him. I know all about horses because Aunt Alice has horses at Manzanita Ranch. I’ve taken care of them and ridden them. He won’t hurt you. Come see. In the Farland people ride horses the way you ride tigers here.”

Jack and Jasper peered cautiously into the stall, where Doshmisi continued to stroke the stallion and talk to him. “I don’t know your name,” Doshmisi said to the stallion, “so I’m going to call you Dagobaz if that’s OK with you. I read about a horse named Dagobaz in a book once. The Dagobaz in the book could only be ridden by one who tamed him.” The horse nodded his head and snorted, as if in approval. Doshmisi crooned the name Dagobaz lovingly to the stallion.

She would have stayed with Dagobaz, but Jasper insisted that she come out and have something to eat with him and Jack. They ate sandwiches that Cinnamon had packed for them at the Passage Circle, which seemed years in the past even though it had only been that morning. Then they took out their bedrolls.

“I’m going to sleep in the stall with Dagobaz,” Doshmisi informed the others.

“Is that safe?” Jasper asked worriedly.

“It’s fine. That horse and I have a connection, a sort of understanding,” she attempted to explain. “Kind of like the connection I have with the whales and the trees.”

“If you say so,” Jasper replied, although he still looked a little worried. “If you need us, Jack and I will be in that stall across the way.”

“Sounds good,” Doshmisi said. She took her bedroll into Dagobaz’s stall and rested her cheek against his neck. She stroked his side and his back and ran her hand down the front of each of his front legs. He nuzzled her. Her amulet began to glow green.

“What is it?” she asked him. “Why do I feel like I know you so well?”

Dagobaz tossed his head and folded himself down into the hay. Doshmisi stretched out beside him. She rested her head on his side and pulled her bedroll over her like a blanket. Dagobaz nudged her glowing amulet with his nose and then snorted at the ceiling. She soon fell asleep with a smile on her face.

In the morning, Dagobaz woke Doshmisi at sunrise when he stood up and visited his water trough for a cool drink. Doshmisi, Jasper, and Jack shared half a loaf of bread with cheese and prepared to depart.

“Don’t worry, I’ll come back for you,” Doshmisi promised Dagobaz as she sadly took her leave. She needed that stallion and he needed her. They were meant for each other; she could feel it in her blood.

Jasper found the tigers, well-rested and safe. They decided to leave the tigers where they were and proceeded with caution on foot toward the ocean, which was so near to them that they could smell the salt water on the air. They did not walk far before they reached a vista point from which the ocean spread out before them sparkling like diamonds in the mauve-tinted morning light.

As she took in the panoramic view, Doshmisi’s gaze fell abruptly on the incongruous sight of a frighteningly enormous metal oil derrick pumping up and down less than a half a mile out from the shoreline. Several boats bobbed between the beach and the oil well, coming and going from the site.

Jasper pointed to a place up from the beach and said, “Look there.”

Where he pointed, Doshmisi saw an open area carved out of the trees and the undergrowth, about a quarter of a mile up from the sandy beach. She saw several low buildings and what appeared to be a compound full of people, like a large outdoor pen. Smoke from cooking fires rose in thin ribbons from the compound.

“Let’s investigate,” Jasper said.

“Hostages,” Jack stated.

“Really Jack? That does not sound good,” Doshmisi responded.

“Stay alert. We can’t let ourselves be caught,” Jasper ordered.

Doshmisi knew from painful personal experience that avoiding capture was easier said than done.