United States or Brunei ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Want some?" He offered them to the girls, who smilingly refused. "All right. I do. I'm hungry. Might as well take a blanket, too. It's devilish cold." He was back on the platform in a moment, sitting down with the blanket about his knees and munching contentedly at the bread. "All right, Anina. Start her off." They swung up into the air and began the return flight.
Where is the money? Who handles it?" The questions piled upon me faster than I could voice them, and all the while my tired brain and weary, aching body called only for rest for sleep. I thought of Mercer and Anina. They should be back by now. "We must send home and have them told we are here, Miela. And that slave woman of Baar's she will be there, too. She must be sent here to us also."
A broad doorway, with a sliding door that now stood open, gave ingress. The boat had now almost lost headway. Anina nosed its bow into this doorway, and grasping one of the pilings near at hand, brought it to rest. Mercer, at a signal from her, climbed cautiously to his feet, still holding the little light-ray cylinder in his hand. "What's that in there?" he whispered.
They listened, but only the murmur of the voices from above, and an occasional footstep, broke the stillness. "I tell you I heard something," Mercer persisted. "There's something over there." He rattled a bit of rope incautiously, as if to startle a rat from its hiding place. "Let's tie up, Anina." They made the boat fast, but in such a way that they could cast it loose quickly.
"Let's land and see if we can get up those stairs a ways and hear what they're saying." They stood a moment, undecided, and then from the silence and darkness about them they distinctly heard a low muffled sound. "What's that?" whispered Mercer, startled. "Didn't you hear that, Anina? There's something over there by the bottom of the steps."
"Let us wait." We stood silent, watching. It was indeed a girl, flying over the valley some two or three hundred feet above the ground. As she came closer I saw her wings were blue, not red like Miela's. She came directly toward us. Suddenly Miela gave a little cry. "Anina! Anina!" Without a word to me she spread her wings and flew up to meet the oncoming girl. I stood in awe as I watched them.
"You know which house? Let's go there. Maybe we can hear what they're saying. Can we get under it?" She nodded. "Let's try, Anina," he said eagerly. "You steer us slow right under it, just as if you were going past. If there's nobody in sight you can stop underneath, can't you? Maybe we can hear what they're saying." "I try," the girl said simply. "I'll lay still," encouraged Mercer.
We had decided to live in the castle. "When Mercer and Anina return, we must arrange to go to the Water City. The disturbance there must be quelled. All the cities must be told of our actions here. I must visit them all, Miela." My voice seemed trailing off as though I were talking to myself. A thousand problems rushed in confusion through my mind. I felt I was talking almost incoherently.
"You cold, Ollie," she said accusingly. She lifted an edge of the blanket. "Here you sleep, too." He stretched himself beside her, and she flung a corner of the blanket over him; and thus, like two children lost in the woods and huddled together for warmth under a fallen log, they slept. The news that Mercer and Anina had been left in the Twilight Country completely dumfounded Miela and me.
"Not on your life, I won't wait here," Mercer muttered to himself, and, gripping the light-ray cylinder firmly as though he feared it might get away from him, he joined Anina on the stairway. Slowly, cautiously they made their way upward. The steps were fairly wide, and they went up almost side by side. From near the top they could see a portion of the room above.
Word Of The Day