THE LOYAL LUNATRIX DIDN’T HAVE A CHOICE: WHEREVER his young mistress decided to go and whatever the nature of her decisions, it was his duty to stay by her side. When he’d realized what Oksa intended to do, he’d voiced his disapproval of her foolishness in no uncertain terms, but she was determined. And, most importantly, she was the Gracious.
As soon as she’d returned from her distressing expedition to the Outside, she’d sunk into a deep depression. Tugdual had tried to find out more, but Oksa had glared at him with angry eyes and had retreated behind a wall of silence. She’d spent the entire day lost in thought and had only opened up once, when she’d revealed her insane plan to her Lunatrix during the course of a private conversation.
“I’m telling you that the bottle of elixir was at least half-full when I gave it back to Ocious! I saw it when he stoppered it and put it back in the huge metal cupboard at the back of the room, where we all were. I’ll be able to find it again easily, I’m sure.”
“My Gracious has proceeded to the shattering of her promise,” remarked the Lunatrix.
“What promise?”
“The promise afforded to her parenthood and the Fairyman to perform the evasion of danger,” replied the Lunatrix knowledgeably. “My Gracious encounters the blindness of despair. The planned enterprise is clothed in exorbitant risk.”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” replied Oksa, her cheeks flushed. “The Portal will soon open, as you know, and our battle with the Felons is imminent. There are some difficult times ahead. Very difficult. What if the bottle is destroyed and the Diaphan dies? It’s the only survivor of its tribe, the last one left, don’t forget. If that happened, there would be no chance of saving Gus. Surely you don’t want him to die?”
Her voice cracked as she remembered Gus’s last words: “We’re both going to die and no one can do anything to stop it.” But Gus was wrong: Oksa could do something. And, what’s more, she was going to!
“We don’t have a choice anyway,” she’d concluded, taking her Tumble-Bawler from her small bag. “Let’s go.”
White as a sheet, the Lunatrix had let her lead him onto the balcony where he perched on his young mistress’s back, with his arms around her neck. Overcoming her hatred of insects—even totally harmless, magical ones—Oksa had uttered the special words in a low voice:
By the power of the Granoks,
Think outside the box
And summon the Invisibuls
Which make my form ethereal.
Paradoxically, the first obstacle Oksa had to overcome was her staunchest, and most predictable, allies. Standing in front of the only opening in the Aegis, Oksa had to wait for the verdict from the enthusiastic and discerning Squoracles. She’d promised herself never to use Granoks to force people or creatures in her clan to do anything against their will, but the prevarications of the tiny lie detectors almost made her break this pledge. Even under a thick layer of Invisibuls, Oksa’s heart was still beating and, like any other heart, it had to be examined.
“They can be so annoying sometimes!” groaned Oksa. “I’m leaving Thousandeye City, not coming in, so what does it matter if my intentions are good or bad?”
“My Gracious must not encounter the temptation to disregard orders,” said the Lunatrix, trying to reason with her.
“You’re right, as always,” she sighed. “Everyone must be inspected, on the way in and on the way out. That’s the rule. I just hope they won’t give me away to my father or Abakum. If they tell on me, I think I’ll have my knuckles well and truly rapped.”
“Keep that fear aside from your mind, my Gracious. The Squoracles accomplish the examination of hearts, not the verification of identities. Anyway, they devote obedience to the silence of specialists.”
“You mean they respect professional confidentiality?”
“Exactitude adorns the words of my Gracious,” agreed the Lunatrix. “The Squoracles achieve the development of eccentricity, but their obedience to the rules encounters no gaps in their brain. My Gracious should absorb the certainty of their discretion, no information will suffer divulgation because she alone possesses the capacity to break the silence of specialists.”
“If you say so,” conceded Oksa.
The Squoracles soon let them pass. Chattering non-stop, they opened the doorway and Oksa flew out, intoxicated by the heady feeling of freedom she’d been denied for far too long.
She’d flown through the Peak Ridge Mountains for the first time a few weeks ago on the back of her father’s Ink Dragon, escorted by Ocious and his vile son. She’d been feeling physically and emotionally drained. Zoe had chosen to sacrifice herself, Tugdual had disappeared and she’d been wracked by doubt. She didn’t have so many doubts now, although they still gave her food for thought.
When she saw the first peaks in front, an intense shiver ran down her spine, sending a jolt of adrenaline and fear coursing through her. Magnificent and intimidating, the huge rocky outcrops loomed like teeth in a monster’s maw, gaping open to devour her. The stone, washed clean by the rain, had been restored to its former glory and was sparkling in the slanting rays of the setting sun. It was so bright, in fact, that Oksa had to put on her sunglasses to avoid being blinded by the bright flashes of coloured light. This didn’t stop her from spotting clusters of antagonistic Chiropterans lurking in the pockets of shadow on either side of the cleft which marked the entrance to Firmhand territory. Oksa stiffened.
“Oh, no!” she cried, feeling nauseous. “There’s no way I’m flying through a swarm of those hideous creatures.”
“You can avoid them, my Gracious,” said the Tumble-Bawler perched on her shoulder. “In order to do so, you must veer from your current route by thirty degrees. There’s a crevice that leads into a deserted canyon.”
“A deserted canyon? Anything’s better than that!” exclaimed Oksa with one last glance at the seething multitude of tiny bats.
She suddenly slowed down, looking bewildered.
“But I have no idea what you mean by ‘veer from my current route by thirty degrees’,” she said. “Geometry’s never really been my forte.”
Fluttering its bumble-bee wings, the Tumble-Bawler covered itself with a layer of Invisibuls and positioned itself in front of Oksa.
“Put yourself directly behind me and follow me,” it whispered.
Oksa had to concentrate very hard to do exactly what the little guide was telling her. However, the invisible crew eventually headed straight for two massive outcrops standing side by side like enormous shining molars.
“Are you sure about this?” Oksa couldn’t help asking, since she couldn’t see any opening at all.
The Tumble stopped in mid-air and turned round, its wings beating the empty air. It was about to say something when Oksa hurriedly corrected herself:
“Sorry, sorry—of course you know what you’re doing! Let’s go.”
It was only when they were right in front of the rock that she could appreciate her Tumble-Bawler’s expertise. There was an almost invisible vertical crack, no more than a couple of feet wide, between the two rocky outcrops. However, what made it so hard to see was not its size but the waterfall in front of it. Only the Tumble-Bawler, who missed nothing, had been aware of its existence. Proud of its invaluable contribution to the mission, the creature led Oksa and her Lunatrix to the wall of thundering water, which could be heard for miles around. Only once they’d passed through the cataract did Oksa realize what the Tumble-Bawler had meant by a “deserted canyon”. She flew through the narrow opening and gazed in terror at the hundreds of yards of empty air above and below her. She felt as if she was in a gaping abyss or a bottomless well.
It was as dark as an oven. The fading daylight was a tiny, barely visible patch of orange a long way up. Hovering in the air, Oksa swapped her sunglasses for a Polypharus, which allowed her to examine the overwhelmingly dense black transparent rocks.
“We’re not going to get stuck in here, are we?” whispered the Young Gracious, her voice trembling.
“The width of the canyon is twenty-two inches and my Gracious is only twenty inches across at shoulder level,” said the Tumble-Bawler. “There’s more than enough room.”
Despite her severe reservations about her guide’s estimate of the available space, Oksa didn’t reply.
“My Gracious is very slim,” said the creature reassuringly. “Anyone of average build would run the risk of getting stuck in here. But my Gracious is not likely to have that trouble.”
“Okay,” agreed Oksa.
“We must fly straight ahead for two hundred and seventy-five yards, then the canyon will widen.”
“I won’t be sorry,” admitted Oksa, scanning the rocks around her. “I feel like I’m being walled up alive.”
She flew through the narrow passage with the utmost care. The Invisibuls protected her from the sight of others as well as from Granoks and spells, but not from scrapes and grazes if she strayed even slightly from her path. The transparency of the black rocks didn’t help; Oksa felt as though she were travelling through a dark jewel gleaming with deceptive shimmers. However, after banging into the walls on numerous occasions, she worked out the right technique and flew straight ahead, yard after yard, with her elbows pressed against her sides, her hands stretched out and her head up.
Just as the Tumble-Bawler had promised, the walls of the canyon eventually widened out into a valley lined by sheer cliffs which seemed to go on for ever, both above and below. Looking up, Oksa glimpsed the full moon so high that she felt as though she’d plunged into the bowels of the Earth without realizing. The deep gorge was filled with the milky glow of moonlight and the light shed by the Polypharus. The rocks weren’t uniformly dark any more—there were patches of colour which cast glimmers of blue, red, green and even an incredible amber colour which reminded her of gold glass. Below them a thin, winding watercourse resembled a silver garland. Shoals of flying fish suddenly appeared, their scales glinting like a myriad of tiny sparks. It was such a breathtaking sight that Oksa almost forgot her mission and the dangers it involved, until the sudden appearance of a Felon patrol at the intersection with another valley brought her back to reality with a start.