Читать книгу The Chronicles of the Elders Malefisterium. Volume 1. The Ordeal of Freya - Andrew Ognev - Страница 7

When observed from the outside, teleportation looks like a person’s disappearance at the place of origin and his immediate reappearance at another place. This process affects people in different ways: Some people get sick to their stomach, some feel dizzy, and others feel like walking up a few steps, being used to teleportation.

Vlad turned out to be quite good at teleportation. At first, he lingered a bit and, instead of grasping Peter’s hand, he gazed perplexedly around. In the very nick of time, when Peter had already lost his footing, he seized Vlad by his finger. That was the only difficulty. Except that Vlad slipped a little to one side and would have fallen when landing, if Peter didn’t catch him with his strong hands.

“Thank you,” Vlad said.

His companion remained silent and only gave him a patronizing look of his dark green eyes.

They found themselves in a strange forest. At first glimpse, the trees looked quite normal with their trunks, branches, and crowns. But there was something weird. Vlad shook his head, looked closer and saw it. The leaves! They were unusually iridescent: In the sunlight, their color ranged from turquoise to ultramarine blue.

“Oh wow!” he emitted a cry of admiration. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“No reason to be happy!” Peter said coldly. “This place is as dangerous as it is beautiful.”

There was a shade of alarm in his voice. Every now and again, he looked around warily as if looking out for someone.

“I thought we were going straight to Malu… Mala…” Vlad tried to get his tongue around the name.

“Ma-le-fis-te-ri-um!” Peter said. “You should know the name of your own school backwards and forwards! As for the place of our destination… You are right, it should have been the Academy.”

“Did anything go wrong?” Vlad took his words in his own way.

“It’s your fault!” Peter suddenly reproached him.

“My fault?” the boy was genuinely surprised. “How so?”

“Your moment’s hesitation was enough to land ourselves in the soup instead of the right place.”

“Can you explain?”

“You’d been dallying way too long before you trusted me,” Peter replied. “I had to spend some of my energy on getting over your stubbornness. As a result, we missed the target.”

“And how are we going to get ourselves out of it?” Peter’s anxiety was contagious. “Are we going to be teleported again?”

“No way!” Peter made a helpless gesture. “I am not powerful enough to hop around the space back and forth! No attempts are available. Now we are going to walk.”

“Is it a long way?”

“A wrong question!” Peter brushed him off. He never stopped looking out for something in the dense forest.

“Stop grumbling!” Vlad said in an apologetic tone. “Explain it to me in a normal way, I will try to understand.”

“We are not far away from the portal to the Academy…”

“What’s the problem? Let’s go!” the boy took the first step with determination.

“…but we are at a very bad place,” Peter said, and Vlad’s ardor was immediately tamed. “We have to get to the hill over there,” Peter pointed to the hill. “Can you see the fog there?”

“Is the Academy there?”

“There is the entrance to the cave there.”

“Is the Academy inside the cave?”

“Stop repeating over and over again: ‘The Academy, the Academy’! ” There is the portal, right over the hill.”

“Got it! We are going to get to the Academy through the portal.”

“Follow me,” Peter said, finding nothing suspicious. “No time to argue!”

Peter walked with quiet, light steps. From time to time, Vlad had to break into a trot to keep up with him.

The forest was old, deep and impenetrable. The path was littered with dead and wind-fallen trees blocking the way. The boys had to crawl under or climb over them, or even walk around. At first sight, the hill was not far, only within a half an hour walk, but they were approaching it very slowly.

“Hold on!” Peter said in a hushed voice and froze.

Vlad stood still and pricked up his ears.

“I can’t see anything,” he whispered.

“We are not alone,” Peter said. “Let’s change the route.”

“You make it sound like we have to split up.”

Vlad began to worry in earnest, but Peter had already stopped listening. He was anxiously peering at every bush, every tree, as if he was looking for something dangerous hiding there. Only when he made sure that nothing posed a threat to them, Peter gave a signal, and they moved on.

Vlad felt the waves of fear and anxiety coming from Peter and was reflexively hiding behind his back. Anyway, Peter was at home, or rather close to his home, in the place he knew, though only by hearsay. As for Vlad, it was his first time in this forest, and he had no experience or knowledge about anything of the kind.

His companion was right: After spending a few minutes in this wondrous forest, the excitement he felt at first oozed away. Now he was in no mood for marveling at splendors of nature: He could savor his memories about the place later. Right now, he had to get out of there, safe and sound.

Vlad was about to ask another question, but Peter hushed him up. He turned his head and put a finger to his lips so slowly, as if the movement could make noise.

It was something like a blast of wind, short and whistling.

The next instant the forest grew gloomy. The sky became dark with clouds; it was suddenly dreary and cold. The forest, dispiritingly silent just a moment ago, was now filled with mysterious sounds and alarming noises. Birds and wild animals were first to sense impending danger, warning out the rest of the forest inhabitants.

“With dangers awaiting you at every turn, I should have stayed at home,” Vlad said to himself.

Peter, as if responding to Vlad’s thoughts, stopped so suddenly that Vlad bumped into him. Vlad wanted to walk him around and took a step to the side, but Peter grabbed him by the arm.

“Stand still, don’t move,” he ordered, and suddenly there was a hint of steel in his voice.

“What’s happened?” Vlad was taken aback.

Peter pushed him down.

“Be quiet!”

They crawled several meters forward and hid behind a big snag.

“What’s going on?..” Vlad tried to peep out, but Peter put his hand over Vlad’s mouth and put a finger to his lips again.

Vlad sensed rather than heard the earth tremble rhythmically, as if it was struck with an enormous hammer. The boys peeped out warily from behind their cover.

Next moment Vlad saw it.

A giant was moving through the trees, towards them. It was of the four-story building height.

“Don’t move and be quiet,” Peter said, sounding quivery and strained.

“How long?” Vlad asked beneath his breath.

“Until it goes away.”

“Are you sure it will go away?” Vlad asked worryingly.

“It is hunting, stalking its prey,” Peter assured him. “It has other things to worry about rather than us.”

He was right, the giant was not strolling leisurely through the forest. It was walking slowly, watching its step closely, and constantly sniffing and blowing heavily through its nostrils.

“What does it prey on?” Vlad asked.

“Everything that runs, crawls, and flies!” the reply wasn’t comforting.

“Does it mean we can also be its prey?” Vlad opened his eyes wide, disconcerted.

“Yes, it does, a big game!”

Suddenly a bird flew up, squawking, from the branch above their heads.

The boys froze.

The giant turned towards the sudden noise, and only then Vlad saw that it had two heads. One head was male, with a shiny bald pate and an underhung lower jaw. The other was female, with greasy long black hair and big hungry eyes. Both faces were disgusting.

The monster took a whiff and took a few uncertain steps towards the boys’ hiding place.

Peter and Vlad pressed themselves to the ground and held their breath. However, their position was untenable: The wind was blowing right into the giant’s faces, and it must have already smelled the prey. Both pairs of its nostrils flared like a blacksmith’s bellows, and its feet smashed bushes and fallen trees.

The giant came up so close that the boys could smell its stinky breath. All it had to do was look behind the snag, pull apart the old roots over the boys’ heads and get them. But the stupid monster didn’t have the wit to do it. What was wrong? The smell of the prey was inches away, tickling both noses and making both mouths water, but there was nothing to be seen!

The giant roared with disappointment, shook its heads and flapped its arms. It was beating its chest and tramping its feet. The earth was quaking. Eventually, it kicked the old snag that was hiding the boys, and went its own way.

A cloud of dust and clods of earth were kicked up. The saving snag landed far away in the forest, as if it was featherlight.

Having no cover, the boys were paralyzed with fear, being aware of their vulnerability, but then they realized that the giant was going away. Their joy didn’t last long though. One of the four eyes of the giant noticed the prey. Both gruesome faces broke into a broad hungry grin of delight, and the giant began to turn back.

“Run!” Peter cried out.

The boys ran as fast as they could.

The earth was trembling underfoot. The monster rushed after them, anticipating a hearty meal. The boys could hear its roar and its breath, heavy of running. It could run them down any time now.

“Let’s break up!” Vlad came up with the idea.

The boys went their own separate ways.

The giant was mechanically running straight for a while. One head was watching Peter, and the other was watching Vlad. But even though the giant had two heads, it had only two legs. Its heads being in disagreement were of little help: One head insisted on turning left and the other wanted to go right. The giant couldn’t be everywhere at once. Neither could it resolve the problem: Which head was right? And that was why the giant stopped in uncertainty, turning a huge pile of dirt upside down with its horned feet.

The male head was looking toward Vlad and smacking lips; the female head was looking toward Peter and drooling over. Not knowing who to choose, the giant was twitching from side to side.

“Let’s get the shorty! He has tender meat!” the male head uttered, gnashing its teeth.

“No! Let’s get the one who’s taller!” the female head objected.

“He’s nothing but skin and bones!” the male head protested. “No meat at all!”

The giant took a few steps in Vlad’s direction but then stopped again.

“We’ll do as I say!” the female head barked out. “I am the boss!”

“Since when are you the boss?” the male head was offended and surprised.

“Since I began to cook for you, glutton.”

“To cook what?”

“Dinner!”

“When was it?”

The female head thought about it for a moment. Shooting from the hip is one thing, and standing by your words is another.

“Do you… do you remember…” the female head rattled on. “That’s it! Do you remember I caught a sysun last week?”

“So what?”

“I was so generous to divide it between the two of us!”

The example clearly displeased the male head.

“You call it generous?” it fastened its tiny eyes on the cocky neighbor.

“I do!” the female head wasn’t in the slightest bit embarrassed.

“I got the skin, rack and hoofs, and you got all the rest!” the male head listed out.

“And you… and you…” the female head changed the subject. “You had a meal yesterday, here you go! And I haven’t had a morsel of food, except for a dead sparrow, for three days!”

“But then, last week you secretly got so stuffed while I was asleep that we couldn’t rise to our feet for two days.”

“But you were asleep!”

“Couldn’t you wake me up?”

“Wake you up? No way!” the female head giggled.

She shouldn’t have said that. It was enough to try the patience of a saint.

“Watch your language, girlie! I don’t care that you are a female!”

The female head realized she had been overdoing and back-pedaled:

“I tell you what! What difference does it make which of us will eat whom? We have only one stomach anyway!”

“Yeah, right!” the male head didn’t mean to give up. “What difference! And no work for my teeth!”

“Do you think I don’t want to taste something nice?”

“In this case, come on, give it all to me. We have only one stomach anyway!”

There was no end to the argument, and meanwhile the prey was getting farther and farther away. The boys were no longer going their separate ways. They had changed their route and were running forward, their shirts flitting among the trees.

“Either we’re getting the tall one or you will feed me for the rest of your life!” the female head set an ultimatum.

Finally, she had her way.

The male head snorted spitefully, yielding ground, and the giant hurried after Peter.

The advantage the boys took during the heads’ argument was quickly dwindling. One giant’s step was equal to ten steps of Peter. To make it worse, the boy had to overcome obstacles, crawl, jump and even make a detour. By contrast, the giant was taking a shortcut. Neither thickets of thorny bushes nor heaps of rotten trees made it change his course.

Vlad saw that the giant got off his back to chase after Peter, but he was not happy at that. Clear as daylight, after it was done with one of them, it would catch the other.

The distance between the giant and Peter shortened to only ten giant’s steps. Half a minute later Peter’s fate would be sealed. He would be lucky if he was swallowed fast.

Something had to be done. But what?

Fitful thoughts, fitful movements.

Vlad noticed a stone under his feet and even though he knew such a weapon was of little help, he picked it up in despair and threw at one of the giant’s heads.

And, just fancy!

The stone flew like a cannonball. Whooshing! Vlad heard the sound of cracking bones of the enormous skull. The giant raised a howl of pain, stumbled against its own foot and crashed to the ground.

“Hey! Hurry up!” Peter was calling Vlad with energetic gestures.

The boys got to the hill. There it was, the entrance to the cave of refuge!

They got inside and were finally able to get their breath back. The cave walls were shaking behind their backs, bouncing off the giant’s roaring. The giant was no longer a threat to them. Wild with rage, it couldn’t control itself and was crawling forward, beating the ground with its fists. Huge and strong as it was, it was unlikely to handle the rock. Moreover, the entrance to the cave was so small that it wouldn’t be able to stick even one of its heads into it, either damaged or intact, let alone two of them together.

The giant stubbornly poked its head into the narrow opening.

It felt like a small earthquake. Rocks were falling from the top of the hill. They rained down on the giant and its heads, and it fell unconscious, blocking the entrance.

Now there was only one way for Vlad and Peter, to go through the rock and come out on the other side.

In the dim light of the cave, the boys tried to regain their breath. Each of them was absorbed in his own thought. Vlad was trying to understand how he had managed to throw the stone with the force enough to knock over a giant. He was clenching and unclenching the fingers of the hand he threw the heaven-sent missile with: Nothing special, the fingers were the same as yesterday, they were neither thicker nor stronger.

Vlad remembered that the stone had burst into silver flame mid-flight and picked up speed. Perhaps, it was this energy that redoubled the power of the blow? Or maybe the stones in the forest were special?

As for Peter, he was quiet and looked gloomy. Not only had he lost the fight that he had provoked, but he also owed his life to a snotty-nosed boy who was not even an Academy student! It hurt Peter’s pride severely. He had to bite the bullet, though. He could not disobey the order. If he did not bring the boy, safe and sound, to Malefisterium, he would have to give up everything that was dear to him.