Gift of Gold (The Year of Churning Bloods) (32 page)

Chapter twelve

That Startling Chapter
with the Inter-dimensional Rooms

I pront a page to write upon,

To twast up some new words,

The page a lovely eewhite shade

as I gackled through the night

I may have caused harumphant men

To dumberbur at my words

but bardly go where no one’s been

and they’ll gawk at your gungurd.

Like a roaring wind, the professor exhaled sharply and forced his arms out. Slowly closing his eyes, he brought his hands to his heart before repeating the process. The omnipotence of the procedure was not dissimilar than that of a well versed librarian quietly reading in another language. His calm collected movements suddenly stopped as he locked his fingers and began to tense very tightly.

A sudden surge of fiery pain shot through my legs as if my shins were being tightly wrapped with sandpaper. I tumbled dramatically to the ground to rub the pain away, but it was no use. My legs were too long and my arms were too short. I muffled a loud groan as I felt bone shift in the bridge of my face. What once was a lower button nose suddenly became a higher placed angular thing. I went to reach for my cheeks but my fumbling fingers somehow couldn’t find them amidst the confusion. Just as I was about to grab my chest, an invisible force splashed something terribly spicy into my eyes, blurring all but the flickering image of Umber as he too wailed in distress. This vision was interrupted by a vivid clenching of my innards. Belching loudly, I quickly rolled to my left and realized the size of my stomach was shrinking just ever so slightly.

I fastened my hand to the nearby dresser and tried to lift myself up, however my skin now wrapped around my hands like a pair of loose fitting leather gloves, making it incredibly difficult to grab anything at all. In a single blink of time, everything simply stopped. Without any build up of anticipation, the large amounts of pain suddenly ended. I took three deep breaths just to make sure the process was truly over before looking up at the professor who had his eyes fastened in perfect concentration. Aside from an occasional flicker behind the eyelids, Professor Wenchenberg showed no signs of life as he sat upright in his chair.

I examined my attire and saw I was wearing a loose fitting set of maroon robes. Standard attire for the elder Grimlars, and exactly identical to what the professor was wearing. “Good thing he decided to mimic his uniform as well.” I thought to myself dryly. I stood up far too quickly and immediately began to wobble beneath my thin towering legs. Carefully putting my entire focus into my movements, I slowly turned around to face the mirror.

“I look just like him,” I said aloud. I cupped a hand to my bearded face and giggled nervously. “I
sound
just like him!” I exclaimed trying to hold back my delight. I did a small jig in front of the mirror that very nearly caused me to choke with laughter. The sight of professor Wenchenberg doing such an immature little dance while jingling his hands around was an image I was not soon to forget. I stuck my tongue out and firmly placed my hands on my hips. I opened my mouth as widely as I could, before shutting it repeatedly. I was having so much fun, I had almost forgotten that Umber hadn’t yet said a word to me.

“Umber?” I asked aloud. “Are you all right?” An eery silence filled my thoughts. “Umber?” I tried for a second time. “Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you,” Umber replied quietly. “In answer to your other question though, I don’t think I’m all right.” He shuddered slightly, before floating lazily into view. “I detest this form. The body feels too reassuringly comfortable.” Umber blinked each eye in succession and frowned a little. “It’s like trying not to fall asleep in a large feather bed.”

I shrugged. “Despite his age, the professor feels quite hardy.” I realized suddenly. “He might not have the physical strength of a tier four Grimlar but I can definitely tell that he has power nonetheless.” Umber scowled at me.

“Are you going to keep wasting our time Mortal? You have an artifact you need to steal.” I sighed heavily and quickly slithered out of the door, only to trip on my oversized feet and stumble dramatically. A nearby elder just outside my door caught my fall. As he did so, I stammered in abhorrence.

“Careful!” he shouted, gently placing me against the wall. “Wenchenberg, you look like you’ve just swallowed a sheep’s testicle! Is everything alright?”

I recoiled a second time. Was this common dialogue between elder Grimlars?

“Are you alright?” He repeated, clicking his fingers repeatedly. I bobbed my head a little too enthusiastically and forced a smile. The elder studied me suspiciously.

“Can’t say I’ve been worse,” I added, trying to sound as methodical as the professor does during his conversations. The other elder nodded.

“You might think about taking a nap,” The elder suggested. “A good sleep is sometimes all one really needs.” He began to reach out for the bedroom door and without thinking I slapped him away. The elder glared at me incredulously.

I coughed nervously and averted my gaze. “Don’t be silly!” I childed while trying to fish for an excuse. “No, no. You don’t understand!”

“Don’t I?” the elder replied, arching a bushy eyebrow.

“Well, you see, I’ve been resting all day,” I said before laughing nervously. “That little episode I had just moments ago was a demonstration of what happens when one rises too quickly.” I smiled a little and tried to place my hands into my pockets, only to find that the elder robes don’t have any pockets. The other elder shook his head in confusion before striding off. Now that I was alone, I was able to observe my surroundings in peace.

The main interior of Castle Lambalitrate was a cylindrical room large enough to encompass more air then I think I had ever breathed in my entire life. A shallow ramp, covered in finely patterned carpet and outlined with a highly polished wooden handrail stretched around the entire perimeter like a tightly coiled spring. Along this stupendous slope were hundreds if not a thousand or so doors leading into other various rooms, each I imagined were just as splendid as Professor Wenchenberg’s.

              Stuck to the ceiling high above were many fragmented mirrors, which gave the illusion that the area stretched on for miles. At the bottom floor, a large group of elder Grimlars stood, either noisily slurping on small articles of food or chatting loudly among themselves. The area was so startlingly colorful, I couldn’t help but blink tears out of my eyes. Bringing a hand to my face in an attempt to shy away the brightness, I stepped down the hallway, simultaneously trying to examine the diagram the professor had given me.

“Caterwaul Lorenzo’s office,” I read silently to myself. “It’s not too far away!” I gave a shuddering sigh of relief as this welcome realization swept over me.

Umber stared intently at the area where I had just pointed, looking less than amused.

              “Tell me mortal, why does this Caterwaul have not one, but
five
offices situated around the castle?”

I reread the diagram of the enclosure once more and found that Umber was correct. In various locations around Castle Lambalatrate, were five Caterwaul offices of exactly the same size.

              “What in the world does this mean for us?” I asked turning the map over in my fingers. Based on Umber’s expression, it appeared that he hadn’t had a clue. “Do you mean to tell me that we’ll just have to go to each office in turn?” I wondered while suddenly feeling very heavy hearted.

              “Whatever it means, it means you’d better do it fast,” Umber growled in response. “You always seem to want to take your time with these sort of things. Do you have a constant craving to tangle with danger? Or is ultimate demise simply something that you mortals overlook?”

I felt my tongue swell at these last words, however after a few seconds it became apparent that I didn’t have a single cohesive thought to spew out.

Umber sneered, taking my silence as his victory call.

I reached the center of the main plaza, and quietly shuffled my way through the large crowd of elders. I looked up from my feet briefly and made accidental eye contact with a ridiculously hairy sort of creature. The thing, if it could be called an elder, nodded politely and quietly began picking food out of his face. I immediately averted my gaze and tried not to feel sick. Just as I was about to duck into a nearby hallway, I heard one of the other elders call out.

              “Ah Wenchenberg, there you are.” An elder even taller than I grabbed me by the shoulder and turned me around. “We’ve been looking for you.”

              “Have you now?” my voice jumped terribly as a number of alarms began to ring in my head. The other elder laughed loudly.

              “Nervous? I suppose that’s good. Any meeting with the Caterwaul would be enough to put even a tier five professor like yourself on edge.”

This time I laughed along with the tall elder, shooting a mortified glance in Umber’s direction. As the elder lead me through another hallway, I desperately tried to preserve the memory of where we were headed. Despite my futile attempts, he ended up leading me much too quickly for me to get any real sense of my surroundings.

“What are you going to say to him anyways?” The elder asked as we waltzed through the various passages of the castle.

I coughed loudly in an attempt to be rid of the nervous lump in my throat. “I... Was planning on just letting the Caterwaul ask the questions,” I replied as vaguely as I could.

The other elder nodded in agreement. “Smart,” The tall elder said approvingly. “But honestly, do you think you know any of the answers yourself?”

I shrugged in a nonchalant fashion. “That depends. What do you believe the answers are?”

The elder leading me abruptly stopped and considered this. “Not even I can tell you that professor. I don’t believe what I have are answers. only more questions.”

“No, no, please,” I asked with a degree of rising desperation. “All I ask for is a fresh perspective on the subject matter.”

The other elder bobbed his head back and forth indecisively. “All right. Let’s start with what we know,” he began slowly. “There once was a boy in the Clog of the concentration camp. For five years, absolutely nothing strange or different happened to this boy. He was expected to die like so many of the other Ickle-Bits, yet he didn’t. In a single given moment, he performed anti-magic unheard of for his age and tier.”

My mouth fell open as I realized suddenly the Caterwaul wanted to talk about me.

“And, you find that suspicious?” I asked, calmly stroking my side.

The elder didn’t respond. Perhaps he too was engrossed in his own thoughts. 

“Why would the Caterwaul care about this boy anyways?”

“Now that is a good question,” the elder said more to himself then he did to me. “It’s said that this boy’s anti-magical capabilities are similar to that of a talented tier three trainee. Perhaps he is a new breed of warlock. One that has not yet been seen before and one that the Caterwaul wants complete control over.”

“But he humiliated the Caterwaul,” I countered, suddenly regaining my ability to speak fluently. “The Caterwaul set up a test that this boy wasn’t supposed to pass.” The other elder nodded thoughtfully.

“I heard about that,” he replied conversationally. “The Caterwaul was suspicious that this boy had cheated during his examinations, and he wanted to set up a decoy test that he knew he would fail. Once the boy had failed, he would be bound in blood to tell the truth, or give up his sovereignty to the Caterwaul.”

“Do you think he cheated though?” I asked warily. The elder sucked air in through his teeth and placed his hands on his hips.

“I admit, the sudden uprising in his power is very suspicious. But this is a small boy who lived most of his life in the Clog. Even if he wanted to cheat, I don’t think it could have been possible. Very few things are known to actually enhance one’s anti-magical abilities and most of the time they can only be found in miniscule quantities. What are the odds that this boy was able to get his hands on such valuable things?”