The Search for Truth (22 page)

“Touch it,” Brigid commanded. Slow on the uptake, Jack reached a finger toward it, but she slapped him away with a stern look.

“Oops,” Jack said.

They walked back to the cave, Erec noting the way they had come. Lugh said, “Do not get this Awen at the end of your journey. Now I will not show you where the Path of Wonder ends.” He motioned them to follow him to another cave entrance farther in the woods. This was much smaller, a hole they would have to crawl through.

“Where will this not take us?” Bethany asked.

“It does not go to an ugly island in the South Pacific that has a name,” said Brigid. “Then you will not go to Geirangerfjord in Sunnmøre, Norway, the Great Wall in China, and the Andes mountains, which are not in Peru, and not in that order.”

“Are people happy and content in these places?” Bethany asked. “Do they not speak in opposites?”

Lugh had to consider that question. “The other places each do not have their own problems from the Awen placed there.”

Brigid said, “This is not the order of the Awen.” She ticked off her fingers. “Not the Awen of Harmony, not the Awen of Knowledge, not the Awen of Creation, not the Awen of Sight, and not the Awen of Beauty. They all have the same blessings.”

Lugh pointed at Erec's backpack. “Do not get your crystal out now. When you do not go through the next exit, you will not be affected by the Awen of Knowledge. You will not lose your knowledge. Do not follow your crystal. Do not remember to follow your crystal. Do not tell yourselves to do that now, again and again.” He pointed around the group. “None of you.”

Erec wondered what losing his knowledge meant. But he held his crystal and concentrated.
Follow this. Follow the crystal. Follow the crystal
.

The others stared at the crystal, deep in thought. Then they thanked Lugh and his friends, “No thanks to any of you.” “No thanks.” And they climbed, one by one, through the small tunnel.

 

The tunnel was long and rocky, and it hurt Erec's knees. But even though he was sore, he felt incredibly better. “Hey, everyone!” he called behind him. “All okay now?”

A chorus of yeahs and cheers erupted through the tunnel. Erec thought his own mood was even lighter than usual, probably because of how great it felt to have left the Awen of Harmony behind them. “Remember everyone,” he said, “follow the crystal. I don't know what the next Awen will do to us, but—” Words fell away from his mouth as the tunnel exit approached. The landscape was beautiful.

He stopped and sat in the hole of the tunnel exit, unaware that he was blocking everyone's way. Beautiful smells from bright and pretty flowers filled the air. A waterfall cascaded down a mountainside. Before him spread a sandy beach. The weather was hot so he dropped his parka in the sand.

His friends pushed out behind him, and soon a pile of coats formed on the ground. They all gazed at the beauty around them. A long while later, Erec felt hungry. “I want food.”

“So do I,” a few others agreed. But they all looked around, unsure what to do about it.

“I want a hamburger,” Erec said. Then he smelled a hamburger. The scent made him hungry. It was coming from his backpack. He opened it, and a hamburger sat on a silver tray. He grabbed the hamburger and started eating it.

“I want a hamburger,” Jack said. He looked in Erec's backpack and saw one on a tray and grabbed it.

“I want one too,” Bethany, Melody, and Jam each repeated, and each, in turn, found a burger waiting for them, although they had no idea why.

After eating, Jam said, “I think we're supposed to be doing something.”

All of them agreed, but none could figure out what it was. Their surroundings were beautiful, but Erec could not put a finger on why. He looked in his backpack again and saw the crystal.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Follow the crystal.” He grinned, holding it up.

“Follow the crystal!” There were joyous shouts of agreement, but nobody seemed to know what to do next. Erec concentrated as much as he could, which was difficult. The crystal. Follow it. What did that mean?

As he held the crystal, it made a humming sound. Then he felt it pull him toward the small tunnel opening next to them. He walked forward, holding it, and climbed into the tunnel.

After crawling a little ways in he sat down. What had happened? His usual thoughts crowded into his mind again. The Awen of Knowledge had made them forget the simplest things. They were
lucky that the Serving Tray had given them food, or they might have sat there and starved to death.

He was supposed to follow his crystal to find the Awen on that tropical island, and then the next passage along the Path of Wonder. It seemed impossible. For starters, the crystal had led him back here, where he had come from. It was probably just as attracted to the Awen they had left as the one they would find next. Maybe if he jumped out far from the cave entrance and started walking with it, then it might take him to the next one. It seemed the only way.

But he had to get his friends to follow him and take their coats and backpacks, too. With intense resolve, he put the words in his head. “Get coats and backpacks. Follow me. Get coats and backpacks. Follow me.”

He hurried through the tunnel and took a few steps away from it. “Get coats and backpacks. Follow me. Get coats and backpacks. Follow me. Get coats and backpacks. Follow me.”

He was not sure why he was saying it, but his friends rose to their feet and looked at him in wonder. They picked up the coats and backpacks around them, a few grabbing two, and others taking some from one another. Then they trudged behind Erec.

“Get coats and backpacks. Follow me.” Erec repeated it like a chant, walking, or rather, being pulled by the crystal he was holding. The others behind him continued to trade coats and backpacks and walk after Erec like lemmings.

“Get coats and backpacks. Follow me.” The crystal in his hand hummed, led him forward. They walked across the beach and behind a huge waterfall. The water sparkled as it tumbled down before them, splashing mist on their faces.

“Get coats and backpacks. Follow me.” The crystal pulled him to a pile of pebbles, and it made a clear ringing sound. It pointed at a yellow ball with writing on it, but he did not know how to read.
Should he pick it up? No, nothing was telling him to. He didn't know what to do now. Except keep chanting. “Get coats and backpacks. Follow me.”

Behind the shiny yellow ball was a hole in the wall of rock. Erec had gone into a hole like that before. He held his crystal toward it and felt a tiny tug. “Get coats and backpacks. Follow me.”

His followers traded their coats and backpacks again, then climbed after him into the hole.

A
FTER CRAWLING A
few yards through the rocky tunnel, Erec's head cleared. He stopped, and the others did as well. “We better talk now, in here,” he said. “I don't know what it'll be like the next place we go.”

Everyone tried to sit up as best they could. Jam pulled a notepad from his pocket. “I wrote down the places we're going and the order of the Awen.”

Bethany smiled. “Always prepared. Thanks, Jam.”

“I wasn't prepared for that Awen of Knowledge. Truly sorry, modom.”

“That was pretty powerful magic,” Erec said. “I'd be shocked if you could have done much about that.”

Jack looked down at his stomach. “Did I eat a hamburger?”

Erec bit his lip. Jack must have forgotten he was a vegetarian.

Jam read from his list. “The places—Avalon, where we started. Then an unnamed island in the South Pacific.”

“I know why it doesn't have a name,” Jack said. “Nobody there could think to name it.”

“I don't think anyone could survive there,” Melody said. “They'd forget how to get food and water.”

“I didn't see any animals there,” Bethany agreed.

“Next we will be in Geirangerfjord in Sunnmøre, Norway,” Jam said. “It's cold there. Thank you for making us take our coats, Erec.”

Erec laughed. “After I was back on the island, I didn't even know what I was saying. I guess the trick was to put a phrase in my head and just keep repeating it out loud. You guys did whatever I said.”

“It's funny,” Jack said. “I had no idea what else to do. I was just glad you had a clue.”

“We'll have to remember that trick on the way back,” Melody said.

Erec thought about that. The way back. They would have to pick up the Awen of Knowledge and find their way back to the other cave. How in the world would they do that?

“This is going to be rough,” Bethany said. “Remember Brigid said the Awen would have a much stronger effect on us when we're carrying them.”

There was silence as they each thought how difficult it would be. “Where do we go after Norway?” Erec asked.

Jam read, “The Great Wall of China—I've always wanted to see that—then the Andes Mountains.”

“What are they?” Jack asked.

“The Great Wall runs through China,” Erec said, “a country in Upper Earth. It's supposed to be beautiful, but it's really long. Like a thousand miles or something.”

“Four thousand one hundred and sixty miles,” Bethany recited. “Six thousand five hundred kilometers.” Then she glanced around shyly. “Sorry, I tend to remember numbers.”

“I don't remember why it was built,” Erec said.

“Why, to protect the ancient empire,” Jam said. “And the Andes Mountains run through the west side of South America. We will be in Peru, home of the ancient Incas. A lot of magic still exists there, I heard.”

“Wait a minute.” Bethany frowned. “So there
is
magic on Upper Earth. Avalon is in Upper Earth—because we got there from the Upper Earth map in the Port-O-Door. All the places where the Awen are have magic. At least they have the Awen, and it sounds like they have other magic too.”

Erec remembered the Pro and Contest, the second contest in Alypium last summer. A man in one of the movies thought remote areas in Upper Earth still had magic. Well, he was right.

Erec thought about what they would face next. They had to be prepared this time. “What is the next Awen, Jam?” he asked.

He looked at his list. “Harmony and Knowledge are behind us. Next is Creation, then Sight and Beauty.”

“Creation?” Melody said. “I wonder what that one will do.”

“Doesn't sound good,” Bethany said. “If Harmony caused us to feel the opposite of harmony—”

“Discord,” Jam added.

“Yes, discord,” Bethany said. “And Knowledge made us have the opposite…made us forget everything. Then Creation—”

“Causes destruction,” Erec said.

 

It looked dark when they peered out the hole, so they decided to sleep inside of the tunnel. It seemed safer to approach this next Awen well-rested, and they were unsure what would befall them when they stepped out into the Norwegian fjords. Erec asked the Serving Tray to produce huge marshmallows for each of them to use as pillows, and they managed to get comfortable in their downy parkas on the rock. Jack asked him for another marshmallow pillow after he ended up eating his. “Sorry,” he explained. “I was hungry.”

When light flooded into the tunnel the next morning, they woke one another and sat up.

“Any ideas before we climb out?” Erec asked.

“Well, we shouldn't lose our minds this time,” Bethany said. “And we should be able to get along together. I guess we'll see what destruction does to us.”

When they climbed out of the cave, the group was so overwhelmed with the devastating beauty before them they almost did forget everything else. But this time Erec felt completely himself, just like he had in the tunnel, with all his thoughts focused on what came next. It was a great feeling after being near the last two Awen.

They were standing on a small plateau at the edge of a huge forest that ran up the side of a steep hill. Pines and bare-branched, massive spruce trees grew in scattered stands nearby. The sky was the kind of blue that made Erec's heart sing. On the other side of their path, a stark cliff dropped straight into a fjord, a fat water inlet
that rolled in from the sea. Across the winding Geirangerfjord, more mountains shot high into the air like tall slices of chocolate cake topped with spruce tree sprinkles.

“So this is Norway,” Bethany said in awe.

“Geirangerfjord. In Sunnmøre.” Jam nodded, gazing around, stupefied by his surroundings.

Bethany pointed down to the water. “So that's a fjord?”

“I believe it is, modom. They were carved out by glaciers aeons ago.”

They pulled their parkas around them. It was freezing, but it didn't feel too bad with the scarves and hats that Jam had put in their backpacks.

“Everyone okay so far?” Erec asked.

Everybody felt fine. Erec took out his singing crystal. “Show us the way.” At first the crystal pulled him back toward the tunnel that they had come from, so he walked with it in a new direction. Then he felt another tug, pulling him down a dirt path.

As they trooped in single file, Erec felt a rumbling in the ground. Startled, he looked around. “Do you feel that?”

“Yeah,” Melody said. “Is it a glacier coming?”

They didn't see any glaciers in the fjord. “I hope it's not an earthquake,” Bethany said.

The rumbling soon turned into shaking as they tramped down the path. Large chunks of earth started breaking off from where they were walking and tumbled down the cliff below.

“Aagh!” Melody screamed, clutching at the tall grasses growing by the path. The ground had broken away from under her, leaving her dangling with one foot on the path and the other waving over a gap.

Jam swung his backpack toward her, keeping his arm through one of the straps. “Grab it, modom.”

Melody let go of the grasses with one hand and latched her arm around the other strap. Jam swung her onto the path next to him.

She had tears in her eyes. “Thank you, Jam.”

He was embarrassed. “Of course, modom.”

The farther they ventured down the path, the more rifts appeared in it. Soon the path disappeared completely, leaving only jagged dirt islands hovering on the remains of the slope. They hopped from one to the next, careful of slipping. Erec's singing crystal continued to pull them farther into what was quickly becoming a treacherous passage. Small tables of earth were perched on dirt pedestals high in the air, and none of them seemed stable.

A low rumble grew louder, and the small patch Erec stood on began to shake. “Watch out!” Bethany shouted, pointing up. A huge boulder was bouncing down the steep hill above them. Jam yelped, then leaped over a rift onto the cracked dirt where Erec stood. The boulder smashed right where Jam had been, taking the entire piece of cliff down with it.

Shaken by the near miss, they moved slower, stepping carefully over yawning crevices and chasms. Far below, the fjords washed away all evidence of the destruction from above.

“This was a good place to put the Awen of Creation,” Bethany said. “At least there aren't people out here for it to hurt.”

“'Cept for us,” Jack muttered.

Finally, the singing crystal led Erec to an immense cave that looked like it had been blown out of the side of the cliff. The wide, round cave had a roof and walls, but it had no floor, only the sea channels racing about a mile below them. In the center stood a small round perch, just big enough to support several people. Some kind of bird's nest rested in its center.

The perch was supported only by an arm of earth reaching from the cliff side below. A single, scraggly footpath led from where they
stood to the center perch. It was a thin wedge of dirt atop a narrow ledge.

Erec's crystal pulled him toward the center. “Stay here,” he said. “I don't know if this will support all of us. Let me just make sure the Awen is in there.”

He took a few steps out on the path, then felt something shaking under his feet. He hurried forward, but the dirt under him was turning. He tripped, grabbing the earth to break his fall and straddled it under him. A large chunk fell away behind him. He scrambled onto the center perch and waved at the group facing him across the divide, showing them he was okay.

The singing crystal rang a brilliant note. In a huge abandoned nest rested a black dodecahedron. Sunlight gleamed off its many sides, making the black carved markings on them barely visible.

Taking this thing out of here would not be easy. Erec backed away fast, then carefully trod down the thin dirt path to cross the ravine. As soon as he stepped over a new break in the path, a loud crack sounded, then another. Huge chunks of earth fell away before and behind him. He crawled across what was left of the trail, hopping over the gaps.

When he neared the end, eight hands were reaching for him. He let them drag him onto solid ground. When he looked back, the thin trail of dirt had fallen away, leaving just wedges, like steppingstones.

Erec held the crystal out, ignoring its pull back to where he had come from. After walking awhile he felt a new tug. Soon, before them opened another small stone tunnel.

When they were all safely inside the passageway, they rested against its stone walls. “That was terrible,” Melody said. “I think that was the worst of all.”

“I'm not sure,” Jam said. “The Awen of Knowledge put us in just
as much danger. The only difference is that we were not aware of it at the time.” He drummed his fingers, thinking ahead as always. “We're going to need some rope when we go back there. A lot of rope, I think.”

“What's next?” Jack sounded uncertain, still shaken by all the avalanches. “I can't wait to hear.”

“The Awen of Sight,” Jam said. “At the Great Wall of China.”

“I've always wanted to see the Great Wall of China,” Bethany said, excited. “Even though the last Awen was terrible, the fjords were amazing.”

“I'm not sure you'll get to see the Great Wall,” Erec said. “Considering the Awen of Sight is there. I can imagine we won't see much.”

“Maybe it's just our insight that will be damaged. Or our foresight,” Melody said.

“We'll just have to see,” Jam said. “But I say we take out the Serving Tray and have some lunch before going on.”

They passed the tray around, sharing what amounted to a feast, then put it back into Erec's backpack. After crawling through the tunnel, they stepped out into a dense fog. Mists whirled around them. They unzipped their parkas, feeling too warm. Erec took his off, but the wind quickly chilled him and he put it back on again. It seemed to be under fifty degrees, but much warmer than Norway had been.

A lone ginkgo tree towered over them, but beyond that, all was blurred. Erec took his singing crystal out and let it tug him forward. “Follow me,” he called.

The group wound in a tight trail down a grassy hill. Soon, a huge dark shadow hovered before them. Erec wasn't sure if it was the Great Wall of China itself or some castle or fortress. It might have been a giant storm cloud that reached down to the ground. Hearing
chattering voices, he steered closer and could make out human forms walking through the mist.

He called out to them, “Hello? We're visitors here. Is the Great Wall of China here?”

There was no response. As Erec walked closer to them, the mists closed around him, making it harder to see. Only when he was practically on top of them could he make out who they were.

Three hunched old figures walked slowly, batting long canes against the ground in front of them. Two were women and one was a man who had short gray hair poking from under his cap. They were toothless and wrinkled, and they stood still, peering back and forth in the fog with closed eyes.

One of the women started to speak in hushed tones. Erec could not understand a word of the language she spoke, but he had the feeling she was wondering about the noise he made.

“Hello?” he said quietly, standing at her side.

She jumped back in terror, eyes still shut.

“Do you, by chance, have some rope, modom?” Jam asked her.

The woman gaped around her, eyes shut, confused.

“She's blind,” Bethany said. “They all are.”

“And they can't understand English, it seems,” Jam said. “I think we best leave them alone. We're frightening them.”

Erec let his crystal pull him toward the towering shadow, and his friends followed. “I hope when we get this Awen out of here, they'll be able to see again.”

“I wonder why we can see here and they can't,” Jack said.

“Maybe we'd become like that too, after a while.” Erec said. The singing crystal pulled him farther until the darkness morphed into a humongous stone wall. Wedges of earth and mortar cemented the stones in place. It towered over twenty feet tall, but more impressive, it blended as far as they could see into the mist around them.