Читать книгу Sharmuziks: Beyond the Great Glad - Tim Brick - Страница 5

The Sharmuziks decided to go down the stairs to see the room for themselves.

“What’s this place?” asked Archi as soon as he got there. But obviously he did not get an answer.

“Look, there’s some kind of an inscription,” said Nolton and pointed to almost inconspicuous letters above the stone arch that adorned the entrance into a tunnel.

Lumi immediately directed the light of the lantern in that direction. With the artificial lighting, it was possible to see distinct golden letters that formed the inscription: Find two trees and walk through them if you wish to find the way out of the forest.

“What does this mean? Any idea?” Archi asked again, not fully understanding the meaning of the words above the arch.

“The only thing I understand is that we need two find two trees. Walk through them… And… that way get out of the forest,” Barti explained repeating the content of the inscription.

“Thank you, Barti, it’s all clear now,” said Archi jokingly. In return, Barti simply smiled, thinking that he had really helped somehow.

“We have to go into this tunnel,” suddenly said Professor Wisen, who was standing behind all this time.

“Into the tunnel? But why?” Renchi asked, surprised.

“This inscription is located above the entrance into the tunnel, and not on a plate in the forest. That’s why I think that it’s a logical decision to try to find the trees in the tunnel,” explained Professor Wisen, having already taken the first steps to the entrance, but suddenly stopped. It seemed to him some strange sounds were coming from there, in the darkness. For a moment, fear completely took hold of his reason.

“It’s best if the one with the flashlight goes first,” suggested Professor Wisen and stepped aside.

Everyone looked at Lumi, as he was holding the flashlight. Realising what was going on, Lumi was not happy with the role of trailblazer. Nevertheless, he did not argue and began to move slowly through the narrow walls of the tunnel, without a clue about where this path would lead him.

Step by step, the Sharmuziks were going deeper into the darkness. The tunnel was winding. First it was straight, then turned right and then sharply left. Now, it was as dark behind them as it was ahead of them.

“This tunnel appears to be too long,” muttered Barti, who was constantly trying to find any excuse to go back.

“At least, there’s no danger whatsoever in it,” Nolton tried to cheer him up.

“That we have not come across someone or something dangerous on our path in no way indicates that there is no danger farther ahead…” said Archi doubtfully.

Suddenly, Lumi stopped and started to shake the flashlight.

“What is it? What’s happening?” Barti was immediately worried.

“Something’s wrong with the flashlight,” said Lumi and continued to shake it. Looking suspiciously at Lumi, Nolton was about to object.

“Really? I don’t remem…” the flashlight instantly went out and everyone was swallowed by the darkness.

“What’s this? Where’s everybody?” Barti started shouting and tried to fumble for his buddies, almost poking out Nolton’s eye.

There was a commotion. And unexpectedly, especially for Barti, Lumi again switched on the flashlight, illuminating his face and saying: Boo! No one of those present was particularly impressed by this. They only turned with serious faces in the direction of the inappropriate joker. Except for Barti, who out of fright lost his balance. Realising that the idea was not that good, Lumi was about to continue on his way, but after taking one single step, he was caught on a wire. At that very moment, the floor under the Sharmuziks sharply tilted and everybody began to slide off. First, down a stone block, and then they fell into water, and they were carried away somewhere by a rapid current. Lumi and Renchi were shouting loudly, with their arms in the air. Barti was just shouting, with has hands covering his face. Nolton was trying to hold his hat, while Archi and Professor Wisen were floating somewhere behind, lagging behind the others.

At the end of this short way, the Sharmuziks, one after the other, ended up in something that looked like a small pool. With surprisingly warm water for an underground location.

“And you said there’s no danger?” said Archi jokingly as he came out of the pool.

The band found itself in a new puzzling room. It was illuminated by four strange chandeliers in the form of balls hanging in the air right under the ceiling. In any case, this was how it seemed at first glance, as the Sharmuziks might have simply not noticed what they were actually suspended by. There was some kind of an unclear structure in the centre of the room. It looked like two stone compasses, one on top of the other. The needles pointed to different parts of the world and were of two different colours. North was blue, south red, west green and east yellow. In addition to the strange structure in front of the needle that was pointing north, there were three identical doors. Wind was depicted above the first one, fire above the second and a drop of water above the third one. For a while, the Sharmuziks simply walked around the room in silence, carefully examining every corner, while Professor Wisen sat down across from the two compasses and was lost in thought, trying to figure out their meaning.

“What’s all of this?” finally asked Archi, not understanding anything of what he had seen.

“It’s a riddle,” explained Professor Wisen, without moving a muscle.

“A riddle?” asked Archi, as if hearing the word for the first time.

“Yes. We need to solve it. Only then will we be able to get out of this room.”

“Look! There’s also some kind of an inscription here!” said Nolton, noticing a few letters on the circle in the centre of the needles. Wiping off a layer of dust, he was able to make out the inscription, similar to the one that was above the arch at the entrance to the tunnel. With golden letters as well, there were additional inscriptions arranged in a circle, one under the other.

Eternal winter suddenly replaced with warmth,

The sun’s rays have already reached the earth,

Shoots and leaves, bushes and trees,

All in the next moment fell into silence,

The wind dispelled all the remaining ashes,

The desert replaced with green meadows.

“And what is this supposed to mean? Does anybody have an idea?” asked Archi, for whom the contents of the verses remained a mystery.

“That’s one complicated riddle,” muttered Barti and leaned on the needle pointing north. Suddenly it began to move slowly clockwise, simultaneously with the other, which began to move in the opposite direction. From the circle that was in the centre, some metal cylinder began to slide out, stopping midway.

“It seems Barti was able to solve the principle of this mechanism after all,” said Lumi in astonishment.

Carefully re-reading the inscription and looking at the mechanism one more time, Professor Wisen drew the following conclusion: “I think I got it. North replaced with south. It’s in the inscription. “Eternal winter suddenly replaced with warmth!” Now we have to solve the direction in which to push the other two needles.”

“Yes, it looks like you’ve got it! Let’s just push them until they get to the right position!” suggested Archi and was about to go ahead with his idea.

“Stop! What if we push them in the wrong direction?” Nolton stopped his friend, who immediately stepped aside.

Professor Wisen, after wiping his glasses, re-read the passage.

“The end of the inscription reads: “The desert replaced with green meadows.” The sand in the desert is yellow, and green meadows are…”

“Probably green,” interrupted Lumi.

“So we need to turn the yellow needle to the green side?” asked Renchi, as if trying to make sure that he got everything right.

“That’s too easy… we have to read the inscription one more time,” said Nolton suspiciously.

“If we don’t try, we’ll never know,” said Archi and pushed the yellow needle.

“Well… All we have to do now is wait and hope that we’ve done everything right,” said Nolton sarcastically, realizing that there was no turning back now.

As soon as the needle occupied a new place, the metal cylinder came out completely to the surface. The Sharmuziks decided to get closer to the cylinder to better understand its purpose, and at that same instant, one of its walls flew off abruptly and knocked off Nolton’s hat. There was a coin inside the cylinder. Nolton got it out of the cylinder and examined it carefully. The coin was silver in colour and was of average size, like a small pebble. It had no special engravings or images and looked more like a flat piece of metal.

“And what do we do with it?” asked Archi from over Nolton’s shoulder, trying to have a look at the coin.

“It’s best to just throw it away. This piece of metal won’t be of any use to us,” muttered Lumi, leaning against the wall.

Suddenly, the wall began to move forward. At first, Lumi, baffled, was looking at the others and slowly moved forward. When he realized that it was not him who was moving but rather the wall behind him, he wanted to get away. But the wall seemed as if it did not want to let go of Lumi and at the same time grabbed him by the sweater with an almost unnoticeable nail, and began shifting upwards, stopping a metre above the ground. Lumi tried to unhook himself on his own, twitching in the air. Meanwhile all the others were huddled around the coin, trying to understand what it was for. Lumi realized that no one had even noticed what had happened to him and cleared his throat loudly. Everybody looked back in surprise. However, after seeing what had emerged in the place from where the wall had come out, their attention was immediately captured by something else. While Renchi and Archi tried to bring down their buddy, the others were examining the strange device. It was the size of a Sharmuzik, had three holes and a lever on the side. There was an inscription above the holes: Life. And opposite each of them were the words: Gives, Sustains, Ends.

“I wonder why it’s here,” said Nolton, as he went around the device, carefully examining it.

Not responding with anything to Nolton’s question, Professor Wisen looked closely at each of the holes and finally said: “I believe that these holes were made for this coin. It perfectly matches each one of them.”

“That is, as far as I understand, we need to put it inside one of them?” said Nolton.

Upon hearing these words, Archi snatched the coin from Nolton’s hands and threw it inside the lower hole.

“No! At first we had to figure out in which hole to throw it!”

“Well… it no longer makes a difference… Ah! Probably we need to pull the lever,” said Archi and immediately decided to test his theory.

After making the sound of a cash register, the lever clicked into place. Nolton realized that there was no point in getting angry and waited along with everyone else. A minute later, one of the lights hanging from the ceiling began to descend strangely to the ground, as if an invisible being was pulling it carefully down. Touching the ground, the light went out and started to slowly and easily open up, as if it was made from petals. Inside, there was an ordinary key. Archi, who was not in the mood today for waiting and reasoning, immediately grabbed it and ran to the nearest door.

“We’re finally going to be able to get out of here,” he said cheerfully as he put the key in the hole.

As soon as he did that, the key turned into sand and crumbled in his hand.

It seemed that the key was their last hope for getting out of this subterranean world. The Sharmuziks looked at Archi in silence and disappointment, while he, in turn, sadly looked at the remains of the key.

“So what do we do now?” asked Barti, who was the least happy to be stuck in this room.

“Wait…” suddenly said Renchi, pulling out a button from his pocket. “I think I have an idea.”

“What idea?” asked Lumi.

“We can use the button in place of the coin,” cheerfully said Renchi.

“Fine, but how will we know which hole we need? Those inscriptions are there for a reason,” said Nolton.

“I, obviously, cannot be one hundred percent sure, but most likely it has to do with those symbols above the door,” said Professor Wisen.

“That is?” asked Lumi, scratching his head and once again looking at the inscriptions next to each of the holes.

“I’ll try to explain now. Look, we have three symbols above the door: wind, water and fire. Archi threw the coin into the lower hole, which said “Ends”, and used the key with the image of wind. I think that the inscriptions mean the following: “Life Gives” is water, without which there’s no life. “Sustains” is wind, air, or more precisely oxygen. After all, if we don’t breathe, then our existence cannot be sustained. And “Ends” is fire, which can burn anything.”

“Fine… And what does this mean?” asked Archi, not understanding any of the previous words.

“This means that first we need to choose the door through which we want to go,” explained the grey-haired Sharmuzik.

“And how do we choose it?” Archi continued his questioning.

“That’s a more complex matter. There were no clues anywhere to help us figure out which door to choose to get out of the room,” said Professor Wisen and was lost in thought again.

“What do you mean there were no clues? What about “Find two trees and go through them”?” asked Nolton.

“Yes, but what do doors have anything to do with it?” asked Renchi.

“If water gives life, and fire ends it, it would be much more logical to choose the door with the symbol of a drop.”

“Perhaps, but what if it’s not? We won’t have another chance,” said Renchi, glancing at the button.

“Then let’s hope that it is the right choice,” Nolton encouraged them and, taking the button, threw it in the upper hole and pulled the lever.

Somewhere behind the walls, mechanisms were set in motion again. And down came another lamp. After it opened up, Nolton took the key and began to move uncertainly towards the door.

“So… I hope this is not the last key,” said the Sharmuzik, and walking up to the door with the symbol of a drop, he inserted the key into the keyhole.

Everyone held their breath, prepared for the worst turn of events. But, fortunately, this time the key did not crumble. A mechanism was set in motion, and the door slowly opened. A slight breeze blew in, and rays of sun penetrated the dark room.