Chapter Three

The butterflies in my stomach felt more like elephants than those cute fluttering insects. My heart pounded. My mouth was dry. I am quite positive that Vicki and Carl felt the same. We all tried to be so quiet, but that didn’t matter. When we heard the latch click on that rosewood door, we clutched each other’s trembling bodies and held our breath. The light from the banquet room lit up our distorted faces. Our mouths gapped open, although no sound dared to escape. Even when the small female creature fell backwards with a scream, we just remained frozen there. It seemed as though as soon as she had no sooner begun to scream that two more small stature creatures appeared. They were dressed in the army-like uniforms we had seen in the portraits. Seconds after that, two males and a female creature, more commonly dressed, looked in.
“Who and what are you?” the closest soldier demanded.
“Spies, I bet,” spat the other.
One soldier reached in and grasped my arm harshly, jerking me into the banquet room. I thought to myself, how strong this tiny creature was. Vicki and Carl were removed in much the same manner as was I and we were swiftly bound to those worn red velvet seated chairs.
It had seemed to me, after a moment of gathering my thoughts that they were just as frightened as we were, although this didn’t ease my mind much.
All five of them stood behind us. The small creature that had “discovered” us cleaned the mess up and was dismissed. Sweat had begun to form on my forehead. My mind raced thinking; “we could tell what we were but how in the world would we ever explain where we came from?” After all, I didn’t even know, at the time, nor could I even believe it was all happening. When they began walking around us in silence, examining us with their eyes, I could feel them. With an occasional poke as they paced around, just to see what we would do. Of course, we did nothing. After a time they thoroughly searched us. My pouch was yanked from around my neck; Carl’s flashlight was abruptly taken. Luckily, Vicki hadn’t brought anything with her. I had always carried my pouch with me. I kept things in it that might help me when I was stuck. Right then, I couldn’t think of anything in there to help us...
“Who are you?” one of them asked.
After a moment of silence, realizing that Vicki and Carl weren’t going to answer I managed to stammer “R-R-R- Ruffleford.”
“How did you get past the guards?” another one spoke.
I remember looking out of the corner of my eye at Vicki and Carl hoping to see an answer on one of their faces. Instead, all I saw was fear and confusion. I was the one who initially got us into this, accident or not, and now my friends were in danger. I had to think fast, but what.
“Answer me SPY!” the soldier poked my shoulder hard.
I went for the truth; “We entered through the closet, sir.”
“I can see that you are going to give us trouble already,” the soldier said with a hiss.
“Perhaps a visit to the dungeon master would prove effective in extracting the truth.”
The way he said, “Extracting” sent shivers up my spine.
“It was magic,” I begged. “You must believe me, I am not sure the nature of it, but here we are.”
“Witches!” the female shrieked.
The other soldier quickly went around the table and grabbed my pouch. He spilled its contents across the table. A Swiss army’s knife, matches, a bunch of string, a deck of cards, some marbles, and a few of my favorite rocks.
“I don’t believe it,” the soldier said, as he clamored backwards.
The female rushed over and swiped one of my rocks, a piece of white quartz. “How did you acquire this?” she demanded.
I hesitated for a moment, then replied, “Where I come from it is quite common.”
A silence befell the room. What was probably only a couple of minutes felt like an eternity. I didn’t know what that piece of quartz meant to them, but they were sure excited about it. The second soldier simply nodded his head. The first soldier and the other two males came up behind us. I can remember holding my breath, afraid even to swallow. Instinctively, my eyes closed. My thoughts returned briefly to mom, dad, and the safety of my room.
To my surprise, I felt myself being untied. I looked over at Vicki and Carl and they too were being untied. We rubbed the soreness from our wrists as we looked at each other in relief.
“Don’t try anything to try to escape or harm us and we will leave you untied.”
“We won’t!” we all spoke in unison. It was the first words that my friends had spoken since our discovery.
“Can you get more of this ?” the female asked. The tone in her voice had changed, and she smiled pleasantly. I looked at her and realized whatever she was she sure was beautiful.
“It is, like I said, very common where we come from but our problem is, not only do we not know how we got here but we also don’t know how to get back.”
“How can you not know how you got here? You were there, now your here, you have to have some idea.” the soldier asked
“I will tell you how it happened and maybe you can help.” I replied. I told them the whole thing from the beginning. I tried not to stray off the story so as not to confuse them or us any more than we already were. Then we began to investigate. We all pitched in and emptied the closet. We examined the walls, floor, and ceiling. There was not a sign of any type of portal. The cobwebs still donned the corners as if the wall had stood there as it had for the last 50 or so years. All the evidence we found suggested that our arrival never took place, at least not through the closet.
“How can this be,” I questioned. I’m telling you this is where we came in. I banged hard on the walls of the closet. There were no hollow sounds, just the solid thud, thud, thud, under my fist. We all went out and sat around the table.
The tallest of the group said, “I believe we have yet to make introductions, I will start, my name is Meegal.”
Around the table, they went from there, Doogan, Debry, Sentry Palmer, and Sentry Lucas. They called themselves Kwaterdwarves; Meegal, the tallest, only stood about four feet tall. They were slightly out of proportion, their arms being a little bit too long and their legs being a little bit too short, but they much resembled miniature humans with pudgy faces. The Soldiers served in the Kwater sentry, a thing rather like our army, and they served under the King. The other three were merely common folk with special talents that the King found a necessity and asked them to serve in this war they called “The Great Battle.” I wasn’t sure at the time that they quite believed our story, but they remained friendly and open-minded. We chatted for a while about our earth, the United States and our New York State. They had never heard of any of it. They never realized that there were other worlds. Really, we didn’t either, being so young, but we had heard of flying saucers and the like from comics and books so it was much easier for us to grasp. They told us this world was called Dhghem (pronounced “Day-gum”) the country was Tkei (pronounced, “Key”) and that this place was Castle Storm. We asked if they had such things as wizards or magicians, but there weren’t any.
I asked Debry “you referred to us as witches before so you must have some sort of “magicians.”
Debry replied, “There have been tales told of witches by the elders, but I have never seen one. We were all taught that their ways were unnatural, because our powers mostly come from within, with little or no “outside” helps. The witches’ powers, so they had been told, are by using “outside” items to create their power.
“Do you know where they live?”
“We never have been there, but it has been told that they on top of the mountain of Sindt.”
“Is that far from here? Do you think they might help us?”
“It is more than two moons travel, through some very rough terrain. I am not sure whether they would help you or kill you. We have heard some frightening tales.”
“Do you have any maps that would at least be a guide?”
“We have topography maps, but to my knowledge no one has ever been there so there wouldn’t be any marked trails or roads.”
“What about Rumki?” Doogan suggested. “His family of gatekeepers goes way back and I believe that his grandfather was once the gatekeeper at Valley Reudh.” (Pronounced “roud”)
“That happens to be directly on the other side of Mt. Sindt.” “Perhaps he might have a map.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to ask,” replied Meegal.
“We have much more pressing issues here, my comrades,” Sentry dwarf Lucas reminded.
They offered us dinner, which we gladly accepted. Sentry dwarf Palmer walked across the room and pulled on a long cord. Within a few minutes, four small Kwaterdwarves arrived and in no time, they had set up an elegant table setting. They bowed as they left the room. A few more minutes went by and a large group entered. Each was carrying a covered tray. They positioned everything perfectly on the table; it looked beautiful. After we were all seated, they in turn began lifting off each cover one at a time. Wonderful smells wafted through the room. Beautifully garnished dishes were uncovered. We weren’t sure what any of the dishes were, but at that time we didn’t care, we were starving. The food was wonderful. We all ate until we were overfull. During most of the meal, we didn’t talk very much, but as we began to wind down, conversation picked back up.
“We are sorry that we won’t be able to help you more. The King has called each one of us to enter the Great Battle. To not proceed with his wishes would put many lives at stake.”
“Can you tell us about the Great Battle? What is it all about?” Carl asked.
“It is rather a long story in as much as it has a long history, but I think that we have enough time to share a shorter version with you.”
Having finished eating, the staff of kwaterdwarves reentered and had the table cleared in minutes. They were so efficient. Everything they did like clockwork. We were all directed to go to the Big Hall.
The Big Hall was an enormous room. It had at least thirty oversized, overstuffed chairs and couches. Now I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, they weren’t oversized to us. A grown up like myself now, would have found them to be just right. Tables made of finest wood were covered with expensive looking gold knick-knacks, and lamps of all shapes and sizes. Everything matched perfectly, even though it appeared thrown together. We chose a corner of the room that was quiet and all sat in a semi-circle. We were so excited to hear their story. We were hoping that we could help them.
“Sentry dwarf Lucas why don’t you start with a little history,” said Meegal.
He took a moment to gather his thoughts and then he began. “Several centuries ago the people from the country of Nadhermori, the Penkereuds, discovered that the rainwater that washed down from Tkei was contaminating their water. So they…
“What do the Penkereuds look like?” Vicki wondered aloud.
“The Penkereuds are water people. They stand around five feet tall and have reddish skin. They don’t have scales or gills as some of the water creatures do. However, they do breathe through their skin. They have no hair on their bodies or head, except for eyelashes and eyebrows. They can walk on land if necessary, but they can’t stay permanently out of the water. Their legs, well they just hook together when they are in the water. They are quite an attractive race. They live in an underwater city in the center of Nadhermori. Nadhermori (pronounced Nadder-morry) Nadher means under and mori means water, hence the name.”
Meegal was a very smart kwaterdwarf. As he explained about the penkereuds to us, we watched the way Debry was looking at him. I myself wondered if they were together.
“Okay, okay you can get so technical Meegal,” Sentry dwarf Lucas complained. He cleared his throat quite dramatically and continued. “They discovered that this natural chemical in the soil was toxic to them in large doses. So the Penkereuds and the Kwaterdwarves got together and started research. They found out that this strange rare stone acted like a filter. They would pour the toxic water over the stone and the water would loose its toxicity. The two races got together and built a Keliwall. The Keliwall was comprised of tons and tons of this rock called pumice. It has millions of holes in it. All throughout the pumice, they placed this strange filter stone. When the rainmori washed down through the Keliwall, it was purified before it drained into the mori. Soon they discovered though that the filter stones would wear out. The peoples once again got together, and made the Keliwall Treaty. The filter stones had to be mined and thousands of them replaced every six moons. The Kwaterdwarves felt responsible, as it was their soil that had become toxic to the Penkereuds. The treaty was written so that the Kwaterdwarves would do all the mining and half the replacement of the filter stones. The penkereuds couldn’t have done the mining because it required too much time out of the water. Everything went fine for two centuries until the fever came. It wiped out two-thirds of our race. There were no longer enough kwaterdwarves to do all the mining and setting. The penkereuds began to suffer. They began getting sick from their own water. What could we do?”
“So,” Debry interjected “We called a meeting to renegotiate The Keliwall Treaty.”
“The penkereuds would have no part,” Doogan said sadly. “They thought that we were angry because of the Fever and wanted them to suffer as much loss as we had endured.”
“We have tried and tried to communicate with them,” Sentry dwarf Palmer spoke up.
“But we believe that the toxins in the water are affecting their judgment, and that is why they won’t cooperate.”
“Can’t you simply get some mining done and try to fix enough of the Keliwall so they won’t be sick anymore?” I asked.
“They have declared war; they won’t let us near the wall. Furthermore, they are becoming sicker and sicker. On top of that, we don’t think there aren’t enough stones left in the mines. We have been seeking out new places to mine the filter stones. We still haven’t built up our population enough to keep it up. The penkereuds will have to compromise, we need help.” Desperation rang loudly in Meegal’s voice.
“Well what kind of a stone is it?” Carl questioned.
“This kind.” Debry said as she held up my piece of quartz.
A chime sounded, Sentry dwarf Lucas and Palmer got up and said, “The King is ready for us.”
Meegal reached over on the table for a bell, he rang it loudly and shouted, “Attendants” several kwaterdwarves arrived. They ushered us pleasantly to our sleeping quarters and got us settled in for the night. They equipped us with a bell, should we require anything, and they left.
I simply lay there in my bed I couldn’t sleep. Vicki and Carl couldn’t either. So we sat up and talked about their ordeal. We did take into consideration the fact that we hadn’t heard the Penkereuds side. How did we know they were telling the truth? Everything sounded logical. Everything also sounded easily solved. Why wouldn’t the Penkereuds have helped them immediately following the Fever? Before they became ill, before the mori was contaminated. If we could find the way home, and continue to have a way back, we could get all the quartz they needed. Nevertheless, what if there were more to it than that? Heavy questions lay on our minds as we drifted off to sleep.