They ate dinner at a restaurant where the six-armed tribesmen of the north performed acrobatic dances and traditional wailing-songs until you paid them to go away. For a dollar and fifty-five cents each, Lily, Jasper, and Katie got rice, vegetable medley, and a meat puck. A sign on the wall said in English, ASK ABOUT OUR DELICHIOUS DEEP-FRIED DRGSL MOUNTAIN SQUID! ONE TENTACLE, IT SERVE YOU AND YOUR HONEY-BUNNEY SWEETHEAT!
No one was asking about the deep-fried Drgsl mountain squid. For one thing, they were too busy ducking while the six-armed, tusked dancing girls did high kicks for small change.
At a quiet moment, when Lily could be heard over the nose-harps and tusk-plucked goo-tars, she asked Jasper, “What, um, what are we going to be looking for with Bntno?”
“Vbngoom lies hidden in a mountain range in northern Delaware, where the cruel ice still clings to the slopes. There are four mountains in this hidden range. It was at the base of these four mountains that I, stung by the killer bees and hunted by the counterfeiting ring, passed out beneath a banyan tree. When I woke up, I had been spirited away to Vbngoom, which lies on the top of one of these mountains.”
“Can’t you remember which mountain?” asked Katie.
“No. I was unconscious, Katie, and all I know is that the temple lies atop one of the four peaks. No mortal knows which. And it is said that these mountains, in deep mist, switch places to keep their secret hidden, so that no prying eyes can view the monastery.”
“Well, clearly,” said Katie, “some mortals know about it now.”
“Yes,” said Jasper. “Unfortunately so.”
“The Stare-Eyes team.”
“Exactly.”
“And Bntno. If he really knows anything.”
“Indeed.”
Now village dancers of the six-armed race of the north were performing complicated hurls and spins, all their arms wheeling. Jasper and Katie were seated with their backs to them, but Lily could see their incredible bounding, the swivel of their tusked heads, the clapping and twirling. She was dazzled. She could feel the rhythm in her ankles.
“Hello,” said Katie. “Earth to Lily. Come in, Lills.”
Lily didn’t want to tear her eyes away from all the eight-limbed whirling. “It’s beautiful,” she said.
Katie turned around and looked for a second. She shook her head. “I get motion sickness too easy.”
Pulling herself back from the dance, Lily
asked Jasper, “What can you remember about the mountains?”
“Only what I told you before. That there were four of them: one with a lake, one with a pine forest, one with a huge stone pillar covered in ancient writing, and one with a glacier that never melted.”
“What are they called?” asked Katie. “We can get a map.”
“They have names not pronounceable by mortals.”
“That’s really inconvenient,” said Katie. She took a bite and wiggled her fork around. “Oh, and hey. Explain to us about these secret powers that the Stare-Eyes team got.”
“At the center of Vbngoom are pits where sacred flames burn. No one without special training and great humility is allowed to go near them. Monks who have meditated by these flames acquire special powers. They can levitate and speak with their minds. I fear the boys from the Stare-Eyes team have been exposed illegally to these flames.”
“So they’re kind of becoming a powerful force of supernatural evil?”
“I am afraid so, Katie.”
“That would explain why the bugs in Pelt went crazy when they appeared.”
“I fear for the Stare-Eyes players themselves, as well as for us. It is dangerous to get close to those flames without years of training. I worry they are being pushed by Team Mom and their coach to acquire powers that might destroy them.”
“So why don’t the monks stop them from going to the sacred flames?”
“Most of the monks of Vbngoom have taken an oath of nonviolence. Only a few, like my friend Drgnan Pghlik, have learned the ways of martial arts so that they can protect the monastery. I suspect the art-thieving gang has complete control of Vbngoom at this point.”
Lily heard the discussion, but she was looking past them. She watched the six-armed men and women weave patterns in the air, tapestries of muscle and sinew that had been braided on the looms of ten centuries, and she imagined herself as a little six-armed goat-girl, high in the steppes of the Newark Mountains, playing her Pan-flutes, and her fiddle, and her drum, and her finger-cymbals, all at once. She imagined herself learning these ancient dances, wearing rough clothes of yak’s wool and ogre skin—and maybe there would be a six-armed boy with a knowledge of all the old epics of their kind who would look shyly at her, and she would see him from the hilltop, and wave, and wave, and wave, and wave, and wave, and—
The waiter appeared at their side. “Everything good?” he asked. “Let me to fix the reception.” He adjusted the knife and fork on the fourth placemat. “We can’t hear good what you are saying.” He looked toward the kitchen.
A man in a black suit gave him a thumbs-up.
The waiter nodded and said, “Much better, friends. Speak loud and not too near ashtray. You would like more mixed veg?”