Kendra Kandlestar and the Crack in Kazah (10 page)

IF YOU HAVE EVER BEEN STUCK in a car or on a plane for more than a few hours, you’ve probably found yourself asking, “Are we there yet?” If only you had the Kazah stone! By its magic you would reach your destination quicker than an Eenling’s heartbeat. This was certainly the case with Kendra. One moment she had been blinded by the white light and the next everything had returned to normal. In fact, it felt
too
normal. Kendra was still with her friends at the bottom of the staircase in the Elder Stone, as if nothing had happened.

“I don’t think it worked,” Oki squeaked nervously.

“Of course it did,” Gayla said. “Can’t you sense it? The temperature is different. The smell, too. The ring will drop you in the exact same physical place where you start from—it’s just the
time
that’s different.”

“Oh,” Kendra murmured, sniffing at the air. “That’s why we were falling when we first used the stone, Oki. When we went back in time the cloud ship didn’t even exist yet—so we just started tumbling through the sky!”

“
Fuzzlewinkle,
” Oki murmured, clutching his forehead. “We have to be careful!”

“Don’t be such a furry-worry, Eeks,” Gayla chastised. “C’mon, let’s go explore.”

“Wait a minute,” Kendra said. “You promised to give back the ring.”

Gayla turned and looked at Kendra pensively. “Sure,” she said, dropping the ring into Kendra’s palm. “All I ever wanted to do was to escape. And now I have.”

“But what time exactly have we escaped to?” Oki wondered. “When are we
?
”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Gayla declared, marching down the passageway.

Kendra and Oki exchanged a weary look and followed after the impetuous girl. They hadn’t gone very far when they rounded a corner and found themselves before a larger-than-life statue of an old Een wizard.

“Oh dear,” Oki murmured.

“It’s just stone, Freak Eek,” Gayla said.

“I know that—but it wasn’t here before,” Oki said.

“Hmph,” Gayla mused, casting a critical eye upon the statue. “Who is this old geezer, anyway?”

“He’s Leemus Longbraids, one of the first elders of Een,” Oki said. “Surely—”

“BOR-ing,” Gayla muttered. “C’mon; let’s keep moving.”

She continued down the passageway with Oki shaking his head after her. Kendra couldn’t help but linger and gaze upon the statue, with its long, tangled beard and solemn expression. Then she noticed an inscription at the base of the statue:
Fret not the future, nor pine for the past.

Kendra plucked at a braid, only to realize her friends were no longer in sight. She hurried to catch up, pondering the inscription.

It wasn’t long before they neared the council chambers. They could hear footsteps—a lot of them—so Gayla slowed everyone down and together they cautiously peered around a corner of the passageway.

They had arrived at the palatial doors to the council chambers, and here a number of Eens were headed inside. Kendra counted five elders. Two were old Eens, but the rest were all Een animals: a hedgehog, a toad, and an owl.

“This is odd,” Kendra whispered. “In the time Oki and I come from Een animals aren’t even allowed in the Elder Stone, let alone allowed to be Elders.”

“Really?” Gayla snorted. “If we’re not in your time, then just when have we landed?”

A sixth elder now came into view. This was an incredibly ancient woman and she instantly captured Kendra’s curiosity. She was leaning heavily on a twisted stick of Eenwood, so there was no doubt that the woman was an old and powerful sorceress. But there was something that seemed to ail her, something more than old age. Kendra couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

Then the old sorceress turned and stared right at the corner of the passageway where they were hiding. Kendra instinctively shrank back, but noticed that the woman’s eyes were wide and vacant, as if she was staring not at Kendra, but
through
her.

“She’s blind,” Gayla murmured.

The ancient woman put one crooked finger to her lips, as if to make a “shhh” sound. Kendra gave her head a shake. Had she really seen that? The old sorceress merely smiled, then turned her head and hobbled into the council chamber. A tiny ladybug came last (he held a spear, so was clearly the Captain of the Een Guard) and shut the doors behind him.

“We have to listen in on their meeting,” Kendra announced.

“Eek! Why?” Oki squealed.

“There’s something strange about that old woman,” Kendra said. “I think I know her. Besides, it’s not the first time we spied on a meeting.”

“I know,” Oki said. “And the last time we did, we were forced to go on a long, dangerous quest chasing dragons and Ungers, and—don’t forget—I was turned into an onion.”

“You were turned into an onion?” Gayla asked. “Well, now we have to spy.”

“Why?” Oki asked.

“Because, Eeks,” Gayla said. “I want to see what happens to you next.”

It took a bit more urging, but eventually Oki led them back down the passageway and through a series of corridors. He had once worked as a messenger mouse for the elders, so he guided them with confidence until at last they arrived before a plain wooden door.

“Well, here we go again,” he squeaked.

They crept through the door and found themselves in a tiny alcove. At one end was a thick red curtain; it was the only thing separating them from the meeting chamber.

“Be very quiet,” Oki warned in a whisper.

Gayla sneered at the little mouse, but held her tongue. All three of them poked their noses through the curtain and gazed upon the chamber. It was small and rather dimly lit, with seven chairs positioned around a small pool. All the chairs were now filled—save one.

Then the ladybug stepped forward and announced, “Make way for the Eldest of the Elders.”

A small door in the far corner of the room opened, and there appeared a tiny, grizzled creature. It was so bent and frail, its fur so patched and white, that it took a moment for Kendra to recognize it as a mouse. With strenuous labor, the feeble creature shuffled to the final remaining chair where a large trumpet-shaped horn was positioned.

“Fiddle all!” the mouse exclaimed as he put one ear to the horn. “Is this contraption working?”

“It works, old friend,” the blind sorceress said.

“It burps?” the mouse asked. “Who’s burping?”

“No one’s burping,” the sorceress replied. “I said it WORKS. Come closer to the horn.”

“Let me help,” the ladybug declared, skittering over to the trumpet and sliding it closer to the mouse.

“He’s deaf as a stone,” Gayla whispered from behind the curtain. “Quite a council we’ve got here. One of the elders can’t see and one of them can’t hear. This is going to be a long meeting.”

“Fiddle all,” the ancient mouse said. “That’s better. We ought to call in the inventor of this hearing horn and have them make a few adjustments.”

“In that case, old friend, call yourself,” the blind sorceress remarked. “After all, the inventor of the hearing horn is
you.
”

“Ah, yes,” the mouse responded. “How could I forget?”

“Because you’re older than dirt,” Gayla muttered from their hiding place.

“Shhh,” Kendra hissed. “You’ll get us caught.”

But they escaped detection, and the ancient mouse now brought the meeting of the Elders to order. “Welcome, friends,” he greeted, his voice crackling with age. “We have assembled for a grave purpose: to hear the pleas of Shaden Shiverbone and to decide the future of his apprentice.”

A murmur passed through the elders; Kendra could sense anxiety in the chamber. She scavenged her memory for the name Shaden Shiverbone, but she was sure she had never heard of him.

“Captain Ibb, call forth our wizard,” the blind elder said.

The ladybug scurried over to the main chamber doors, swung them open, and escorted a pair of Eens into the circle. The older of the two was dressed in a dark robe and would have seemed quite imposing, if not for the worried expression upon his face. His head was bald, though he had thick sideburns and wild, untamed eyebrows.

“Look how long his staff is,” Gayla whispered to Kendra and Oki. “He’s not that old; he must be powerful to have such a wand.”

The second Een, the apprentice, was a boy barely older than Kendra. He had a thick crop of luxurious, golden hair and he was dressed in a tunic of vivid turquoise, a color that matched his startling blue-green eyes. Kendra might have thought him handsome, but he strutted in a way that made him seem arrogant and spoiled, like a prince. Then the boy turned his head so that Kendra could see him from a different angle, and she caught him curling his lip in a sneer that sent a sudden shiver down her braids. She had seen that sneer only once before—but there was no mistaking it.

“Days of Een!” she murmured. “That boy is Agent Lurk!”