TWO HEADS TWO SPIKES (The Pearl of Wisdom Saga) (28 page)

Ollor stated, “They are not born to Gama Traka, but their blood runs pure I can assure you.”

He still couldn’t see the man, but the gruff voice spoke again, “You must wait outside this door for our decision. If we open this door and you are not here, the children will be eliminated from the reckoning. I cannot tell you how long it will take.”

The door shut in their faces. It had not reached mid-day yet and the heat was already unbearable. Ollor crafted a shade for the children to stay as cool as possible. He used clothes from their bags to construct the makeshift reprieve from the sun. The only thing they couldn’t avoid was the lack of food.

The rest of the sweltering day and night passed and the children were starving. Ollor knew that they were hungry but they weren’t complaining at all. The kids didn’t look happy, yet they kept quiet. Suddenly for the first time since they had arrived at the school, they saw a man walking by.

Ollor spoke in Gaman, “My friend, per chance would you have any food?”

The tall man wore a long white robe and he smiled at the hungry group. He rummaged through his twisted robe and produced a salted perch. The skinny man handed it to Ollor and started reaching around his neck. He pulled out a long skin of water and gave it to Sunny. The welcome stranger reached into the other side of his robe and found what Ollor thought to be dried horse meat. Although forbidden to eat horse in his native kingdom, his choices were limited at the moment. He humbly accepted. Ollor pulled a coin from his pocket and held his hand open.

“What is it I owe you?” he asked.

“Nothing now. You will pay me when the time is right,” the man said as he smiled and closed Ollor’s hand.

I would rather he took the coin than have to fulfill some obligation down the road.

He put it back into his pocket. The mystery man left and another day and night passed. The food had barely got them through the night. They were out of water too.

Ollor thought hard as the sun beat down on him and the children. Unless another miracle man with food stuffed in his robes came strolling by, the kids were going to get very sick soon. He started to pack up their belongings and planned an exit strategy. Just when he had everything in order, the door finally opened.

A dark-skinned man in white and burgundy robes, secured by a gold belt appeared before them. His head and face were completely shaved and he had tattoos on his neck that resembled dragons. His forehead was so severely wrinkled that Ollor believed he must be at least seventy.

His fierce, dark eyes were almost black as he spoke, “Your children have passed the first test. They didn’t complain a single time during the wait. Patience is necessary. More tests must occur to ensure admission into our school. You may enter.”

“Thank you,” said Ollor as he led the kids into the building.

The interior was bare with the exception of a clear tank of fish. The gigantic tank took up almost half of the room. A closer look showed it to be filled with the flesh-eating fish, ramboo. Ollor also noticed that the bottom of the tank was filled with bones, human bones. And they weren’t the skeletons of grown men, they were those of children.

Their host, who still hadn’t revealed his name, broke the short silence, “Bravery. We cannot teach it. A student must have that trait to enter. The boy will be tested, but the girl can leave right now. We have no room for her.”

“No,” Ollor sharply said, “She is here to be tested also.”

“She will die,” the man coldly stated.

“She will not,” Ollor retorted.

The older man looked at the stern look on Muriel’s face and seemed to like her determination.

“Her blood will be on your hands. Mine are clean hereafter. Look at the bottom of that tank. It is filled with little girls whose fathers thought they were ready. The ramboo do not discriminate, they actually prefer young, tender meat. The first test is to walk the plank over the tank,” he informed Ollor.

Ollor walked over to the fourteen foot long tank that was about seven feet deep and saw the tiny wooden plank that stretched over the water. It was barely wide enough for two small feet, side by side. He started to have thoughts of holding Muriel back.

If this is only the second test, it can only get much harder from here
.

He told them in the native tongue of Donegal and Goldenfield about what they had to do. He expected to see instant fear in the eyes of the children, but they surprised him with looks of confidence.

Sunny decided to go first. He walked over to the ladder at one end of the tank and climbed to the top. The ramboo began to get excited and circled around the top of the tank. Ollor felt a knot in his stomach and his heart fluttered. He knew that Sunny could do this, but he wasn’t the one who risked being eaten alive.

Sunny stood atop the wooden board and it started to give. He bent his knees and steadied himself. As he took the first two steps, the plank dipped down and then bounced back up creating an extra variable. Sunny kept his eyes fixed on the narrow board, trying to ignore the frenzied fish below that awaited a fatal mistake. He took several more steps and a ramboo jumped out of the water and bit his exposed calf. Blood spurted out and Sunny lost balance. He stuck his left arm out, but he kept falling.

Ollor’s heart sank into the floor. However a few more leans back and forth helped correct Sunny’s balance. Ollor thought his heart was going to jump out of his body as Sunny reached the half-way point of the plank. It dipped so low that it sat in the water. The ramboo surrounded Sunny, excited from the dripping blood. He hurried to get out of the water and nearly fell again. He slowed down just a bit as he could see the end only a few feet ahead. Sunny reminded himself to keep his head straight down to concentrate on his steps. He saw the end and jumped off the plank, onto the floor.

Relief washed over Ollor but it was tempered with doubt. He felt happy for Sunny but anxious about Muriel who stumbled often even while walking on flat surfaces. This test was the worst possible scenario for a girl without toes. Ollor didn’t know what to do. He looked down at the girl and she peered up and smiled. He immediately felt that his decision to bring her here had been strangely validated.

Ollor’s nerves went haywire as she started to climb the ladder. Muriel looked ahead, down, ahead, and down again. Her first several steps were fine, but then she stumbled. She waved her arms in circles and fell forward. Her momentum carried her toward the middle of the tank. She couldn’t hold her balance and fell into the tank, immediately surrounded by ramboo.

Ollor fell to a knee, head buried in his hands. He didn’t know if they should even continue without the girl.

Her blood is on my soul. I failed to discern the real danger. What did I think? She was only a little girl.

“Ollor,” said Sunny.

He had no clue how to explain this to the boy. He looked over to see Sunny pointing at the tank. Muriel swam around the water with ramboo following her. None of the fish even attempted to bite her. She went over to the end of the tank and slowly got out. Ollor saw a look of bewilderment on the face of their host.

“On to the next test?” Ollor asked the man.

“No more tests. I have seen all I need to,” the man remarked, still stunned.

Ollor couldn’t comprehend why the killer fish hadn’t eaten Muriel. But he did understand that it had just gained them entry into the School of the Learned Warrior.

I knew she had pure blood, but to spit in the face of death is amazing.

The man led them down a winding staircase in silence and near darkness. When they reached the bottom, several huge torches welcomed them. They walked through a small doorway and it opened up into something like an underground town. The long, wide road had men trotting around on horseback. There were enormous rooms on either side of the street.

As they walked down the subterranean road, they passed a library that had students studying. The room on the other side had people sitting on the floor, chanting spells. They had their eyes closed and their hands pressed together, in front of their faces. The majority of the students were men with an occasional female visible here and there.

“A mind, when used properly, can cause more damage than a misdirected body. When practiced in unison, with proper training, the possibilities are endless,” the host said as he led them down the street.

The next set of rooms looked to be set up for strength and conditioning.

“A body must remain sharp, like a blade. Power, quickness and stamina should be a warrior’s closest allies,” the old man said.

The rooms at the end of the long, straight road were for battle training. They prepared the pupils by teaching them to use many different kinds of weapons with various fighting techniques. Ollor thought he counted at least two thousand students roaming the underground facility. That didn’t include the teachers and trainers. Their guide told them there was a floor below that the school used for food and supplies and which led directly to the outside. The sheer size of some of the decorations and training devices made Ollor wonder how they got them down here. He noticed fifteen-foot high dragon sculptures with ruby and emerald eyes. Some were made of jade, but most were made of marble or ebony.

The man spoke again, “In two days’ time, we will swear your children into the school. We need all the help we can get right now. Man, child or woman. Nobody is safe in this world right now. A mammoth danger lurks on the horizon.”

The sea-battered ship finally ran adrift on the ominous-looking island. They had been lost for about a year and only four crew members remained. Captain Wallace hailed from Donegal and the other men from Androsi. They had set out to make a simple run to the Pearl Islands and back, which was generally routine. But an unexpected series of storms rocked the Sea of Green. Nothing the crew did could appease Cleon, God of the seas. Thirty-foot swells pushed the boat into unknown areas. Every time they caught a tantalizing glimpse of coastline, the tides changed and the land vanished before their eyes. Finally Cleon had taken mercy on them and pushed them onto this island. The ground was an ashy gray and there were no trees or grass as far as the Captain could see. There wasn’t even sand on the coast. The boat docked itself against the dark, spongy surface. Captain Wallace and Spurgeon Flack decided to go inspect the island.

They jumped down onto piles of snakes, six-legged salamanders and various other little reptiles. The two men headed for a hill that lay straight ahead. Night had just fallen so they couldn’t see how many reptiles lined their path. Luckily the men wore long pants that kept them from being bitten by the small snakes and lizards. A red glow appeared at the base of the hill. A huge opening about twenty feet wide seemed to invite the men to enter.

They walked blindly up to it in the darkness and heard people speaking in a foreign tongue. There was a giant boulder about fifteen feet ahead, so the men ran stealthily over and hid behind it. A quick peak showed the Captain four men talking with their backs to the sailors.

“We are getting very close, but we still need to wait for the grand signal from Travibero,” claimed a man with a deep, booming voice in an unknown language to the Captain.

“We should attack now, the human race is so weak at the moment,” another man said.

“And that is why you are not in control, Laramar. You act with too much haste most times. I have waited over five hundred years for this. I am not going to rush now in the final moments. If we could only locate that damned Pearl of Wisdom, we could end everything already. But we cannot seem to find it,” uttered the voice the Captain recognized as that of the first man.

Another quick glance showed the Captain that while the other three men looked the same as before, the man talking had transformed into a green demon-like creature. He had a long tail and three ears on top of his head that looked like purple triangles. Red pupils surrounded by big black irises finished the scary look.

The demon spoke again, “Once we erase this bunch of humans from the earth, we can begin to rebuild it for our own purposes. We will finally be worshipped, not all those pretender Gods. Every religion on this earth has it wrong, but we will leave it to their Gods to sort them out after we kill every last one of them. Then we will be free to plunder whatever spoils we want.”

“When will that day come? When can we finally come out of hiding to get our just due? When will the humans realize they should have been worshipping us who fight against the false idols who treat them so cruelly?” a third man asked.

“Patience is something you lack, Snake Bite. Rewards at the end of a great battle are much sweeter than spoils received after surrender without fight. We have to be certain we can win. Failure would set the cause back over a thousand years this time and that is not an option. I will not turn and run this time. My life has culminated in this final battle,” the demon stated.

Suddenly, the two men heard screams coming from their shipmates. They sprinted out of the cave and battled the serpent-laced trail to get back to the ship. The two sailors had jumped off the boat and were running toward them. In a flash that lit up the early-summer sky, their entire ship went up in flames. The Captain stood motionless as he couldn’t believe what he had just witnessed.

A humongous black dragon flew above the ship it had just destroyed and tracked after the men. The dragon caught up with one of Captain Wallace’s men and snatched him from the ground, tossed him into the air, and caught him in its deadly mouth. The man’s screams were terrible, but the Captain still could not move.

His vision, although hampered by darkness, still clearly showed a fire-breathing dragon. This was something the seasoned Captain didn’t think he would ever see.

Dragons disappeared thousands of years ago
, the Captain thought to himself.

This beast was nearly the size of his one-hundred and eighty-man ship. It flew back down with its wings fully extended and blazed his other crew mate to instant ashes. He looked back at the cave and made a dash with Spurgeon Flack a few feet behind him. The Captain could hear the heavy breathing and heat of the dragon as it closed in and tore into Spurgeon. He cursed the Gods for sabotaging him as the dragon stopped to chomp him down. The dragon easily went through the bones like they were porridge. The sound made the Captain feel ill but the delay allowed him time to get into the cave.