Later that night, Lankko dragged his steps over the stone floor of the corridor of his dungeons as the effects of the copious amount of wine he had consumed slightly affected his balance. He clung onto Mira when they stepped over the threshold as he almost stumbled to the floor.
"Careful, my sweet, you'll hurt yourself," said Mira, holding Lankko steady.
"I'm fine," said Lankko, steadying himself. "Let me show you the chamber."
They entered a dark chamber used for questioning prisoners and Lankko smiled proudly as he showed Mira around.
"So this is the famous torture chamber!" exclaimed Mira. "Just how many prisoners have you had here?"
"Shh! Don't call it torture chamber. I'd rather call it the questioning room. Makes it less painful to the ears."
Mira looked around the dark room lit only by two torches pinned to the far wall. "So, how many prisoners have you questioned here?" She asked, emphasizing the word 'questioned'.
"Let me tell you a secret," began Lankko. "I don't really do much of the questioning. Most of the time it's Jad Enzir who delights in doing it. On other occasions, I have my soldiers do it."
"Why?" asked Mira. "I thought that's what your red sash means. Isn't that supposed to represent blood? That's why you wear it, don't you?" Mira touched Lankko's sash and pulled it gently.
"Let me tell you another secret," Lankko chuckled, pulling back his sash from Mira's grasp. "Red is my favorite color," he whispered.
"Oh, red is my favorite color too!" exclaimed Mira, her face a mask of excitement as she grabbed Lankko's wrist. Then, she wrinkled her nose in disgust as she smelled something bad. "What's that awful smell?" she asked.
"Sorry about that," said Lankko, breathing the air with disgust. "I told the cleaner to clean in here, but he always finds a reason not to. Sometimes the cat would come in and do some of her nasty stuff." As if on cue, a mouse squeaked loudly and ran under a wooden apparatus at the center of the room pursued by a black cat.
"There goes little Enzir!" said Lankko.
"You call your cat after your master?" asked Mira.
"Oh, no. I wouldn't call her that. The cat's name is Sooty," said Lankko. "Go get Enzir, Sooty! Make him pay for it!" Lankko called to the cat who ran out of the chamber after the mouse. Then, Lankko turned to Mira, his thumb pointing towards the door. "I do hope she gets that mouse. That dirty little Enzir always wreaks havoc when he comes in here." Lankko chuckled at his own joke.
Mira went to the wooden apparatus and seemed to admire it like it was a sculpture. Lankko walked towards her. "Do you like it?"
"This is something else," said Mira as she ran her hand over the apparatus. "Did you make it yourself?" she turned to Lankko.
Lankko blinked his eyes and stuttered, "Y-yes. I designed it."
"Oh, you're so creative, Lankko! Just where do you get your ideas?" asked Mira. "It's like a work of art."
"Wait till you see this." Lankko then pulled some levers and the different parts of the apparatus shifted and transformed. "Can you see what this is?"
Mira looked at the apparatus and held her head at different angles, trying to imagine what Lankko wanted her to see.
Lankko tapped the seat and the wooden beam and said, "It's a caribou! These are the antlers." Lankko touched the thick beam. "And this is the saddle, where the prisoner sits."
Mira looked confused, then simply said, "It's just that I haven't seen a caribou. They must have really large antlers."
"Yes, they do," said Lankko enthusiastically. "And you place a saddle on their backs and you hold the reins like this." He pulled the ropes and pretended to steer the caribou. "I told Jad Enzir about it and he nicknamed it 'Karbo'. You know, shortened form of caribou. Isn't it amazing?" Lankko's eyes glowed.
"You nicknamed your torture device?" Mira asked sarcastically.
"Questioning device!" Lankko raised a finger at Mira who looked away.
Mira saw two bags hanging on a nearby shelf and was surprised that they were moving. Curious, she walked towards it and realized that its contents were alive.
"Those are fire ants, my love. Don't touch them. Their stings are extremely painful. I kept them there to dry." Lankko ran towards Mira who was still looking at the bags. "Have you seen fire ants before? Do you want to see them?"
Mira clasped her hands tightly until her knuckles turned white. She took a step backward and looked away. "No, I've seen them before," she said softly.
"Jad Enzir wants to use them during questioning. His father found them very effective on prisoners." Lankko paused when he saw that Mira was silent. "Let me show you something more interesting. Just wait here." Lankko walked towards a cabinet at the far wall, leaving Mira standing in front of the bags with the fire ants.
Mira looked at Lankko who was still getting something from the cabinet and then she took a wooden rod from the shelf. She then poked the bags, crushing its contents. Mira was still holding the rod when Lankko turned to her direction holding a box woven from bamboo strips. Immediately, she hid the rod behind her.
"Look at these little creatures, my love," said Lankko, showing Mira the open box. "I placed them inside this special box to let the air in."
Mira looked inside and found slug-like creatures squirming inside.
"Slugs?" she asked. "They look like slugs to me."
"But they're more than slugs, my dear. I call them psylugs – one of my latest creations. I named them myself," Lankko said proudly.
The creatures did look larger than normal garden slugs, Mira thought, but she could not understand what it was the Lankko made proud about them.
"They don't look much now, but when they attach to a prisoner, they glow in such beautiful colors. I intend to show this to Jad Enzir tomorrow. These wonderful creatures can make any of the prisoners tell the truth. And what's even more remarkable, the prisoners themselves wouldn't have any memory of what happened, that they had confessed the truth."
"Must be quite a sight when you use them," remarked Mira flatly.
"Yes. You should see them in action. Tomorrow, when they bring a prisoner in, I will let you watch," Lankko said. "But not in this room," he added. Lankko closed the box and went back to the cabinet at the far wall. Mira took out the rod she was still holding and returned it to where she found it.
"Now, come with me," Lankko said when he got back. He and Mira then went out of the chamber and locked the door before going to the adjacent room.
"This is the observation room." Lankko declared as he led Mira inside the smaller room. He sat on one of the comfortable seats next to the wall. "You see these holes on the wall?" He raised a curtain and showed round viewing holes through which he looked.
Mira sat next to Lankko and kneeled on the seats so that she can also look through the round hole. She had a good view of the Karbo and the whole chamber which they had just left.
"Pretty neat, right? This is where you can watch the proceedings and see my psylugs in action." Lankko sat comfortably on the soft cushions and stared at Mira as she looked inside the viewing hole. "Now, my dear, what else should we do tonight?" He touched Mira's hair.
"How did you create those psylugs?" asked Mira, pulling back her hair from Lankko's hand.
Lankko shifted in his seat. "How did I create the psylugs?" Lankko repeated as he looked at Mira's hair.
"You must be a genius to be able to do all these you showed me," Mira rose from her seat. "Oh, I love a creative genius!"
Lankko looked almost embarrassed with Mira's declaration of admiration. "Let me show you something else," he said. "But you must never tell anyone about it."
"What is it?" said Mira. "You're making me so excited." She jumped up and down.
Lankko led Mira through a flight of stairs and several locked doors before finally arriving at an antechamber. Lankko then took out his set of keys and opened the massive doors made of heavy wood. When they got inside, Mira was amazed at what she saw. Her gaze, however, focused on a large circular glass filled with glowing liquid placed on a platform high above the room. She looked closely and saw that the light was coming from a round object immersed within – a blue pearl.
Mira watched the pearl scintillate within the large circular glass in which it was immersed. It emitted flashes of blue light that sailed across the room, leaving mesmerizing ripples behind and casting bluish patterns on the walls and ceiling. It was unlike anything that Mira had seen before. It seemed as if the room was transformed into an ocean of flying stars and undulating waves. She watched in awe as Lankko looked on."Welcome to my laboratory!" said Lankko. "Amazing, isn't it?" He asked Mira who was still entranced by the spectacle before her."So enchantingly beautiful…" Mira murmured. She tried catching one of the sparks that darted across her, but only managed to disturb the undulating light it left in its wake. "It's like looking at living water."Mira's gaze followed the blue spark which moved around the room before it went upwards and encircled the circular vessel containing the blue pearl."What is that?" Mira asked Lankko who was also gazing upwards at the pearl."That, m
Mira raised a finger and poked it at Lankko's shoulder. Slowly, Lankko dropped sidewards among the cushions. Satisfied, Mira rose determinedly and took Lankko's keys. She then ran out of the observation room and retraced her path through the corridors and doorways until she reached Lankko's laboratory. She unlocked the door and opened it, beholding once again the Pearl of Sorrelia. She looked around the room and wondered about the best way to reach the vessel in which the pearl was contained. Seeing no easy way across the tubes and glass vessels on the table leading to the pearl, she climbed the wall like a cat and went across the beams on the ceiling. When she was directly above the pearl, she grabbed the beam with her legs and reached downwards into the circular vessel. The lights that danced around the room were immediately extinguished when Mira took the pearl out of the water and she found herself looking through an almost inky darkness. She felt the pouch that hung around her
The small city of Alnoc lay on the southern tip of the land of Sendorra, bordered by a long stretch of mountain ranges that extended from the north and northwest to the almost impenetrable jungles of Alanca in the east. The treacherous waters of the Corian Sea made up the southern borders, making Alnoc one of the most isolated cities in Sendorra. Nevertheless, Alnoc's location in the warm south, far from the administrative clutches of the imperial government made it a center for merchants trading in the black market. Occasionally, trader ships would sail through the rough waters of the south seas or venture through the dense Alancan jungles to reach Alnoc where they would negotiate and sell to the highest bidder. When the emperor decreed for magic to be prohibited to all citizens and that magical artifacts to be confiscated and brought to the capital, many of the black market merchants flocked to Alnoc, far from the probing eyes of imperial soldiers.Governance of Alnoc, as w
"Would you like to have your breakfast at the dining hall or would you prefer to have it in your room?" the servant asked Enzir with a bow. It was a sunny morning and Enzir wanted to make the most of it, so he followed his servant to the dining hall where the large windows let in the sunlight and the cool morning breeze.There was no one else at the dining hall except for the servants who waited on him, the rest of the household still very much asleep at that time of the morning. Enzir preferred these quiet times over the chaos of lunch and dinner when most of his household would be dining with him. He wanted the silence of the morning to help him think about his affairs and what he would do the rest of the day. He enjoyed the rice porridge that was served him and left the boiled egg in his bowl for last. He observed that it was smaller than what he was expecting and would like to talk to the cook for not boiling a larger egg. He was to be told later by the feisty cook that i
The giant pig snorted and squealed as it ran past surprised servants and guards. The amulet hung from its mouth and sparkled as it dangled in the wind. Enzir ran after it and a breathless Lankko followed. A frightened servant let go of a cart loaded with vegetables and it turned to its side, spilling carrots and cabbages to the ground. The giant pig stopped and sniffed the spilled vegetables, but snorted and jumped over it when it heard Enzir running from behind. Enzir's feisty cook appeared out of her kitchen with hands on her waist, wondering what the commotion was all about when she saw the giant pig jumping over the pile of carrots and running past her towards the open gate."Close the gates!" shouted Enzir to the soldiers guarding the gate, but they were slow to react, shocked to see a giant pig running towards them. When the guards saw Enzir running after the pig, they started to close the gate, but were too late. The pig did not show any sign of slowing down and hurtle
A bright glow suddenly illuminated the green foliage surrounding a clearing in the forest near Alnoc. It started as a small ball of light, but grew into outlines of two people. In a moment, the two outlines grew sharper as the light faded, revealing a man and a woman.Wen gasped as they dropped a few inches from the ground. She expected it, having used the purple pulko stones a few times before, but the feeling of momentary weightlessness still surprised her. The man she held groaned and fluttered his eyelids. Wen gently lay his head on the ground and watched him. He seemed to be breathing normally, she observed.Standing up, Wen looked around her and realized that they were in a forest clearing. Just above the trees, she observed Alnoc Fortress on top of the hill. She sighed in relief as she saw how distant they were from the place where they came from. She wondered if they had really made a clean escape.A butterfly passed in front of Wen and perched on a tree
Wen led Eldion to a house not too far from the clearing where they appeared. It was a small house made of wood and bamboo with a thatch roof that effectively repelled rainwater while insulating the inside of the house from the heat of the sun. There was plenty of firewood stacked neatly at the side of the house, partly hidden by a small dugout canoe that had not been used for a long time. A wheelbarrow with a broken axle stood neglected along with some garden implements that had long rusted and decayed. There were flower pots that lined the small path to the house, but the flowering plants had been overgrown with weeds and failed to bloom with the season. Wen saw that the door was locked, but she only needed to lift the nearest flowerpot to obtain a rusty key from underneath.When they opened the door, they saw that the house was composed of just two rooms, typical of the houses in Alnoc. The main room that served as the living room was larger and could also serve as a dining
Mira slid the door open and came out to the living room. There, he saw a tall, stocky man wearing clothes made of dyed cotton and wool with a hat and belt made of leather. In his hand was a bamboo pole and he was using it to threaten Eldion. Mira recognized the pole as the one she used to prop the window open. On the floor were a few leather bags that Casser had dropped when he saw the stranger sleeping in his living room."Get out of my house!" Casser shouted as he threatened Eldion with the bamboo pole. Eldion stood speechless with his back against the wall."Casser!" Mira shouted. "Stop it! He's with me. We just needed a place to rest. You were not here so I just let ourselves in."Casser lowered the bamboo pole and stared at Mira. "Oh, it's you," he said, his face and posture relaxing as he looked at the flower in Mira's hair. "Sorry, Wen. I didn't know that you were visiting either."Mira realized that she still had the pink flower in her hair.