The Scrolls of Skava

Return to the Emerald Oracle - Part 2

     “I’m just following them!” protested the nome angrily. “How am I supposed to know where they’re going?”

     “I want ter see them for myself. I’m taking us closer.”

     “They’ll see us!”

     “Only if they really are still ahead of us. I want ter see for myself.” He gave the command and the carpet surged ahead faster than ever.

     “There they are!” exclaimed Dennis a moment later, and the trog gave a grunt of satisfaction when he saw the tiny black speck ahead of them.

     “I suppose an apology is out of the question?” said Teasel in annoyance. The trog just glared at her.

     “Pull us back before they see us,” said Naomi, and the trog gave the command for the carpet to slow again. “There must be something out here,” muttered the black girl to herself. “Something that’s not shown on any map. Something known only to a handful of people.”

     “And perhaps defended against accidental discovery,” suggested Dennis uncomfortably. “I mean, fishing boats must occasionally come out this way. How come none of them’s ever stumbled across this mysterious old sage’s hiding place? Maybe something happens to them. Something bad. After all, fishing boats go missing all the time, blamed on rocks or the weather. Maybe sometimes it’s not rocks or the weather but something else.”

     The suggestion silenced them all, even Naomi, and they flew on in silence until Teasel gave a cry of alarm. “They’re gone!” she exclaimed. “They’ve vanished!”

     “What do you mean?” demanded Arroc. “You’ve lost them?”

     “I can’t see them any more!” cried the nome. “One minute they were there, the next they’d just vanished. They didn’t go away, they just... just stopped being visible.”

     “Stop the carpet,” ordered Dennis.

     The trog glared at him, but then gave the order, bringing the carpet to a halt, hovering three thousand feet above the restless sea. “Now what?” demanded Arroc gruffly.

     “Take us forward very, very slowly,” suggested the soldier. “Slower than walking speed, if you can.”

     “Do you know what it is?” asked Naomi eagerly.

     “I’ve got an idea,” replied Dennis thoughtfully. “If I’m right, we’re very, very close to our sage’s mysterious hideaway. Prepare yourselves for a surprise.”

     The carpet crept slowly forward, so slowly that the four people huddled together on it weren’t able to perceive its forward motion. Arroc began to give the command to speed it up but Dennis advised him not to, counseling patience in the face of unknown and possibly dangerous forces. Several minutes went by and the trog’s impatience grew until he was fidgeting restlessly, jostling the others who were kneeling shoulder to shoulder in the confined space. Just as he was about to order the carpet to speed up, though, they were rewarded by swirl of colours and shapes manifesting itself before them. They gasped in awe and wonder as the island of the Emerald Oracle took shape in front of them, its sheer cliff face looming a mere couple of hundred yards ahead.

     “Incredible!” breathed Naomi, her green eyes wide with jubilation. “See? I told you! This is the place!”

     “A curtain of invisibility,” said Dennis, nodding his head. “I thought so. My team came upon another invisible hideaway a couple of years ago, belonging to a grumpy old wizard. I had an idea this might be the same kind of thing.”

     “Look at those cliffs,” said Arroc, his voice hushed at the narrowness of their escape. “We’d have been splattered all over them like flies on a swatter.” He looked at the soldier with a grudging admiration. “From now on I think before I argue with you, human.”

     “Think nothing of it,” replied Dennis with a shrug. “Well, what do we do now? Do we land on top of the cliffs or at the bottom?”

     “I think the decision’s been taken out of our hands,” said Teasel, a note of alarm in her voice. “We’re going down.”

     She was right, the others saw. Crags and fissures in the cliffs were sliding upwards as they descended gently past them, and the top of the cliffs stretched further and further away. The carpet ignored every command Arroc gave it, no matter how loudly he shouted and cursed, and finally he could only give a growl of frustration and sit back with the others. They were in the power of whoever or whatever lived on this island, and could only wait helplessly to find out what fate it had in store for them.