The Warble (19 page)

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Meanwhile, near the
bottom of the mountain, the gnomes and dwarfs finally defeated the zelbocks in
battle. They had killed or wounded many of them. The ones that were left
standing ended up retreating back to Ramon. When they arrived back to where
Ramon had landed in the thorn bush, they found him sitting on his knees with
his hands cupped together in front of him. “I knew you idiots wouldn’t be able
to defeat them without my leading you,” he said. The zelbocks said nothing in
return. “Well, don’t just stand there like great lumps. Get me my canteen!”

Malodor went to where
Ramon’s horse was now happily grazing on forest ferns that had not yet been
covered by snow. He untied Ramon’s canteen from the saddle and quickly brought
it back to him. “Open it, you brainless fool,” Ramon demanded.

Malodor pulled the cork
out of the canteen and then sniffed what was inside it. The fumes of fermented
fairy blossom juice streamed up to his nostrils. Being very thirsty from
fighting in the battle, he was about to take a sip of it, but Ramon stopped
him.

“Drink that,” Ramon
warned, “and it will be the last drink you’ll ever take.”

Malodor took the
canteen away from his mouth and held it out to Ramon.

“Hold it steady.” Ramon
put his cupped hands over it and dropped something inside it. “Hurry—give me
the cork.” He held his hand over its opening. Malodor handed Ramon the cork and
Ramon quickly plugged the canteen with it, however Malodor could hear the sound
of something fluttering around inside the canteen.

“You may have gotten
away before, little princess, but this time there’s no escaping.” Ramon began
to laugh insanely.

As Werrien and Kristina climbed the
mountain, the fierce winds grew very strong, and it seemed like even the
elements were working against their delivering the Warble. The icy wind even
penetrated the thick, wool cloaks they wore. To add to their problems, the
mountain was growing steeper and steeper, and even though they had just started
their ascent, the horses were having a hard time climbing. Werrien brought
Lisheng to a stop and then jumped off him. “This is as far as the horses can
go. We’ll have to travel on foot the rest of the way.”

Kristina jumped down
from Taysha. Then she untied Raymond’s container from the saddle and peeked
inside it. Raymond lay curled up, sleeping at the bottom of it. Trying not to
wake him, she gently closed the lid, but he heard her and woke up. She peeked
inside again. “How can you possibly sleep in this freezing cold weather?”

“It’s called
hibernation,” Raymond said yawning.

“Oh, that makes sense.
I’ll try not to bother you anymore.”

“Thanks.” Raymond lay
back down to sleep.

She closed the lid once
again, and it made her feel a little better, knowing that Raymond wasn’t
feeling the effect of the cold as she was.

After gathering their
small amount of food supplies, Werrien told Taysha and Lisheng to go back down
the mountain to join the gnomes and dwarfs. They said good-bye, and then
Werrien and Kristina watched as the horses disappeared down the mountain and
into the wind-driven snow.

They turned and began
to climb the mountain on foot. They climbed for what seemed hours, with the
wind blowing the snow into their faces. It made it hard for them to see
anything, except for white and the occasional rock or tree branch sticking up
out of the snow.

“I’m feeling really
weird, not being able to see anything other than whiteness,” Kristina yelled to
Werrien.

“I feel the same, but
we have to keep going. It shouldn’t be too much farther before we reach the
top,” Werrien yelled back.

He really had no idea
how much longer it would take them to actually reach the top, but he felt if he
told Kristina that, she wouldn’t be able to make it.

The mountain grew even
steeper, and the snow got even deeper as they trudged upward on ever-so-tired
legs. “Could we stop and rest for a moment?” Kristina said, feeling out of
breath.

“Let’s go a little
farther,” Werrien suggested, but Kristina’s foot suddenly slipped on some slick
ice below the snow’s surface and she fell. Werrien grabbed hold of her cloak,
but his hands were so cold and numb that it slipped through his fingers, and
she went tumbling down the mountain. Once again, Werrien felt that familiar
ache in the pit of his stomach, as he watched Kristina disappear into the
pure-white atmosphere. He called out to her, but there was no answer, and so he
began to descend the mountain. He soon found out that going down was no easier
than climbing up. Then his foot hit some ice as well, and he slipped and fell,
but he was fortunate not to tumble down the mountain as Kristina had.

“Kristina! Kristina!”
he called again, but there was still no answer.
What am I to do now?
The
mountain was so vast, and with the snow blowing in his face, the odds of
finding her were slim. After descending almost a quarter of the way back down
the mountain, he stopped for a moment to rest, and as he stood in the wind and
snow, contemplating what to do next, he felt the Warble heat up inside his
shirt. Then lightning flashed in the sky above him, followed by a very strong
wind that almost knocked him over. He heard a voice in the wind say, “
Look
up the mountain, to your left.”
He looked up and saw something very small, bounding
toward him over the snow. As it drew nearer, he could see that it was Raymond.
“Raymond! Am I glad to see you.”

“And I to see you.”

“Is Kristina okay?”

“Yes, but for how long,
I can’t be sure. You must come quickly.”

Werrien followed
Raymond a short way back up the mountain to a cliff. Near the edge of it was
Raymond’s container. Werrien quickly went over to the cliff’s edge and saw
Kristina hanging from a tree branch. More than fifty feet lay below her, and
there was only a chunk of rock sticking out of the mountain for her to land on,
if she were to fall.

“Werrien! I don’t think
I can hold on much longer!” Kristina yelled, as a strong wind blew against her,
causing her to sway to and fro.

“Try to stay calm!”
Werrien lay on his stomach and reached his hand down toward her. “Grab hold of
my hand.”

Kristina tried to reach
his hand, but it was too far away from her. “It’s no use! I can’t reach it!”

Once again the wind
blew her away from the cliff. Werrien stood up to take off his cloak. While doing
so he heard a familiar caw in the sky above him, and he looked up to see Roage
soaring on the strong winds. “Roage!” he called out.

Roage began to descend
toward him. Werrien lay at the cliff’s edge again and hung his cloak over it
for Kristina to grab. The wind blew her away from the cloak and then back
toward it. She reached out to grab it, but again, the wind blew the cloak one
way and her the other way. After one more try, she finally grabbed hold of it.
Werrien pulled her up to the cliff’s edge, however just as she made it up, the
gold case slipped out of his shirt and rolled over the edge of the cliff.

Werrien’s face went as
pale as the snow as he watched the gold case tumble away from him. “No-o-o-o!”
he yelled, his voice echoing over the treacherous mountain.

Kristina was safe now,
but the Warble was gone, and this time there was no way either of them could
retrieve it. Kristina felt it was her fault they’d lost it, and she knelt down
beside Werrien. “I’m so sorry, Werrien,” she said.

“Sorry for what?”
Werrien asked.

“If I wouldn’t have
fallen over the cliff, you wouldn’t have had to come and look for me.” She
choked on her tears. “And then you wouldn’t have had to lean over the edge of
the cliff, which caused the Warble to fall out of your shirt. It’s my entire
fault that this happened. I should have never been given the gift from Miss
Hensley. She should have realized that I wasn’t one to whom the Warble could be
entrusted.”

Werrien looked up with
tears in his eyes. He wanted to say something from his heart, but before he
could speak, he saw something at the cliff’s edge. It was Roage, and gripped
tightly in his talons was the gold case. “Roage!” Werrien called out,
enthusiastically.

“I think it’s high time
you two got moving along.” Roage rolled the gold case over to Werrien.

Kristina was happy to
have the Warble back, but at the same time, she felt that Werrien was about to
tell her something important. Now, she’d probably never know what that was. She
quickly pushed the thought out of her mind when Werrien turned to her and said,
“We’d best be moving on. This episode has lost us quite a bit of time.” He
tucked the gold case back in his shirt and turned to the raven. “Thank you,
Roage. I will never forget this.”

Once again, the two
children began their grueling upward climb, but they hadn’t gotten very far
when they heard Roage’s familiar caw behind them again. They turned around to
see that he was still standing at the edge of the cliff.

“What is it, Roage?”
Kristina called out.

“Oh, I was just
wondering if you might have forgotten something.”

Kristina and Werrien
looked at each other, puzzled. Then Kristina suddenly realized what it was.
“Raymond!” She made her way back down again. “How could I be so absent-minded
as to forget Raymond?” She searched all about the area where she had last seen
him, but he was nowhere to be found. “He must have gotten buried!” She began
digging in the snow. Roage cawed, but Kristina ignored him and kept on digging.
He cawed louder again and finally got her attention. She stopped digging and
looked over at him. “Roage, can’t you see that if I don’t find Raymond fast, he
could freeze to death?”

 “If you would
stop digging, maybe I could help you find him.” Kristina stopped digging. “I
suggest you take a look over the cliff’s edge.”

Kristina’s stomach sank
as she thought about looking over the edge of the cliff and possibly finding
Raymond dead. She cautiously went to the edge of the cliff, and even though it
was extremely hard for her to look over it, she knew she had to do it—and be
brave about it. She crept up to the snowy edge and then, with her eyes tightly
shut, she poked her face over it. When she opened her eyes, the biting wind
blew at her face. She looked down, expecting to see Raymond’s dead body, but to
her surprise, she found him sitting on a very small piece of rock that jutted
out of the cliff’s snowy wall. The rock was barely big enough for even
Raymond’s little body.

As the harsh wind and
snow blew at him, he yelled up to Kristina, “It’s about time you came for me!
I’m freezing to death down here!”

“Raymond, hold on, and
we’ll get you back up here.” Kristina pushed herself away from the edge of the
cliff, stood up, and turned around to face Werrien, who was waiting for her a
short way up the mountain. “Werrien, I found Raymond!”

Werrien headed back
down to the cliff’s edge, and Kristina showed him where Raymond was. “I’m glad
that you found him, but how are we going to get him back up here?”

“I was kind of hoping
that you could help me out with that.”

Werrien looked
seriously at Kristina. “He’s too far down.”

“Couldn’t you hang your
cloak over again so that he could climb up it?”

“No―the cloak
isn’t long enough.”

“There must be some
way.”

“Would you like me to
get him?” Roage interrupted.

Werrien and Kristina
stopped talking and turned their attention to Roage.

“You mean, pick Raymond
up with your claws?” Kristina said.

“Well, I could try to
pick him up with my beak, but the taste of rat really appalls me.”

“I think you should let
Roage get him, Kristina, unless you can come up with a better idea, besides, we
really need to get going,” Werrien said.

Kristina looked once
more over the cliff’s edge again and tried to think of another way to get
Raymond, however she just couldn’t come up with anything. “Raymond,” she called
down to him. “Raymond, can you hear me?” There was still no response. She
quickly stood up, turned to Roage, and said, “Be gentle with him; he’s my best
friend.”

“I won’t let you down,
or should I say, I won’t let Raymond down,” Roage said.

The raven flew over the
cliff’s edge, and a few minutes later, came back up. Raymond was gripped in his
talons, and he laid his limp body down in the snow.

When Kristina saw Raymond’s body lying
on the cold, snowy ground, she gasped, ran over to him, and gently lifted him
up. She cradled him in her arms, and then checked his body to see if Roage
might have left any claw marks on him—there were none to be found. “You froze
to death! I’m sorry, Raymond. I shouldn’t have taken so long to make the
decision to let Roage rescue you.” She closed her eyes and began to sob.

Roage, who was standing
beside her, noticed Raymond’s nose twitch. “Your friend is not dead.”

Kristina sniffled and
swiped her long hair out of her face. “Oh, yeah? What do you know?” she said
coldly.

Suddenly, Raymond let
out a loud sneeze, blowing the snow that had fallen in his face into the air.
He shook his little head and looked up at Kristina. “Why do you always have to
wake me? I was having such a wonderful dream. I was flying like a bird, high in
the sky, soaring effortlessly over treacherous mountain peaks.” He had a
relaxed smile on his face. He stretched out his limbs and opened his mouth very
wide in a yawn, revealing his two large front teeth.

“He’s quiet the
exaggerator—flying like a bird, soaring in the air,” Roage said.

Kristina sighed. “Well,
I’m just glad he’s alive.” She gently placed him back in his protective
container.

As she was closing the
lid, she heard Raymond’s echoing voice say, “Do I have to go back inside this
cold contraption? I think I would sleep much better somewhere else.”

Kristina slammed the
container’s lid shut. Then she opened it slightly. “I think you’ll sleep just
fine, Raymond. If you can handle the cold from down the cliff, you can handle
sleeping in this container.” She closed the lid again.

Raymond didn’t seem to
be affected by the bone-chilling cold; he slept soundly in his protective
container. But the harsh winds were almost unbearable for Werrien and Kristina
as they began climbing again. Kristina had never experienced such cold
conditions; she was beginning to have serious doubts that she could hike much
farther. She wouldn’t tell Werrien, of course. She felt that she had caused
enough trouble as it was.
I’ll keep going until I pass out or drop dead,
whichever comes first.

Not long afterward, her
legs gave out, and she fell forward. Werrien tried with all his might to pull
her up, but he had very little strength left, and so she lay there, and the
snow began to cover her.

“Kristina, you’ve got
to get up or you’ll freeze to death,” Werrien said.

“I can’t make it.
You’ll have to leave me and go on your own.” She was very weak.

“I can’t leave you.
You’re the only one who can deliver the Warble to its resting place.” He
wouldn’t have left her, even if it weren’t so, but he couldn’t bring himself to
say it. When she didn’t respond, he sat down beside her. “I guess we’ll both
just sit here and die together.”

All was silent, except
for the sound of the howling wind, and as Werrien sat there, looking at nothing
but the white snow falling, he began to grow extremely tired. He started to
imagine that the snow covering them was a soft down blanket. He even imagined
it to be very warm and cozy. Then his mind began to drift off, and he suddenly
found himself on a warm sandy beach looking over a clear blue sea. It was so
beautiful and inviting that he ran toward the water, but then, when he was just
about to dive in, he heard the strong, voice say,
“Turn around Werrien. You
must go back. You must do what is right, even though it seems impossible to
you.”
Werrien stopped dead in his tracks—he knew he must listen to the
voice, but the water was so inviting, and the air was so warm that he didn’t
want to obey. He just stood still, looking at the beautiful, clear blue sea, as
if hypnotized by it. It provoked him so much that he decided not to obey the
voice. He would dive in, but just before he did so, a tall tower appeared in
the water. The sun was so bright that he had to squint. Suddenly, the clear
blue sky and water began to change. They turned a cold, gray color, and the
water grew rough and turbulent. The warm sand under his feet became cold and
hard, and the air grew ice-cold. He looked toward the top of the tower; through
a window he saw a beautiful woman. Her complexion very pale, and she looked
sad. He knew right away that the woman was his mother, and his heart ached in
his chest. He was deeply saddened to see her sitting in the window, looking so
unhappy, and pale from lack of sunlight, but then the tower faded away, along
with his mother and the cold, cold sky. The rough, turbulent water changed back
to a bright, crystal-clear blue sea. His feet began to sink into the warm, soft
sand, and it wasn’t too long before his feelings of sadness faded away. He
began to feel happy again, and he wanted to go swimming and have fun in the
crystal-clear blue sea. A dolphin jumped up out of the sea and playfully tried
to coax him to come in and play. It did flips and swam backwards, flapping its
front fins together. The dolphin brought a smile to Werrien’s face, and he
wished, more than anything, that he could dive in the water and play with it.
But he knew it was not the right thing to do, so he turned around and began to
walk away from the water. As he did so, the sky began to change back to gray,
and a cold wind blew at him, lifting the sand up and blowing it in his face. It
made it hard for him to see or walk, and he began to run. The wind grew
stronger, as if trying to push him back to the sea, and it took every bit of
his strength to run away from the sea. Then, suddenly, he felt something sharp
pinching the skin on his ankles. He looked down and saw many large, slimy,
rotting crabs, all grabbing at his ankles with their razor-like claws. He
looked up again and noticed that they were coming at him from every direction,
thousands of them circling around, closing in on him; their slimy claws, open
ready to pinch him. It was a terrifying sight, and the smell was horrendous. He
lost his balance and fell backwards, yelling, “No-o-o-o-o!” As he hit the
ground, he suddenly felt so cold that he thought he might be frozen solid, but
he sat up to find himself back on Mount Bernovem, covered in snow.

Werrien realized that
being at the seaside had only been a wild dream, but as for hearing the strong
voice, and seeing his mother in the tower, that had been very real to him. It
impacted him so much that he decided he wouldn’t give up climbing the mountain,
no matter what. And even though he was extremely cold, it was actually a bit of
a relief to be back on Mount Bernovem, compared to being attacked by slimy,
stinking, rotting crabs. Unfortunately, his relief wasn’t long lived, for lying
beside him, looking very pale and almost completely covered in snow, was
Kristina. Guilt overcame him.
What have I done? Have I been so stupid as to
fall asleep and let her freeze to death?
The thought of this made him so
angry with himself that he began to feel the familiar rush of adrenaline pump
through him. It gave him a little bit of strength, enabling him to stand up and
begin to remove the snow that had covered her. Raymond’s container lay on the
slope next to Kristina, and as Werrien was removing the snow from her nearly
lifeless body, its lid popped open. A few seconds later, a very sleepy Raymond
stuck his head out into the frosty air. The icy wind blew at him and chilled
him to the bone. The weather conditions were just too cold and miserable for
him to venture out, and he pulled his head back inside. Before he closed the
container’s lid, a handful of snow came at him and hit his face. He shook his
head, and then peeked outside again. He looked around suspiciously to see where
the snow had come from. He took notice of Werrien, just off to the right of
him, removing the snow from Kristina. “Hey, watch where you’re throwing that
nasty cold stuff,” Raymond said. When Werrien didn’t respond, Raymond finally
took notice of Kristina. He figured that there must be something very wrong, so
he quickly made his way over to Werrien. “What in the world is going on here?”

“Can’t you see?
Kristina is buried in the snow!”

“Yes, of course I can,
but why did you let this happen?”

“Instead of sitting
there asking questions, why don’t you lend me a hand?”

Raymond quickly jumped
on top of Kristina and began helping Werrien to remove the snow from her. When
they had gotten most of it off, Werrien felt her wrist, to see if she still had
a pulse. She did, but it was weak.
At least she is still
alive.

“What are we going to
do?” Raymond asked.

Werrien really didn’t
know what he could do for her. He could barely stand the miserable cold weather
himself. He thought for a brief moment and then said, “Hurry! Get back in your
container.”

Sensing that this was
no time for arguing or questioning, Raymond obeyed and quickly went back
inside, and Werrien closed the lid after him.

Not knowing where he
would get the strength, Werrien picked up Kristina’s limp body and started up
the mountain, taking one strenuous step at a time. The biting wind blew in his
face, and he desperately tried to think of a way to help her, but being so
tired and weary himself, his mind drew a complete blank. To make matters worse,
that familiar spirit of fear began taunting him again, knocking at his mind,
and generously offering him thoughts.
“What are you supposed to do now? You
hardly have any strength left yourself. You think you can carry the girl up to
the top of the mountain? And so what if you get her to the top? You know full
well that the spell can only be broken if she places the Warble in its resting
place. Can’t you see? She’s not going to be able to do that. Stupid boy, all
this hardship you are putting yourself through is really just for nothing.”

The words “for nothing”
repeated in Werrien’s mind. Then his foot gave way on an icy spot beneath the
snow, and with Kristina still clutched in his arms, he fell forward and began
to slide down the mountain. As they went whizzing down, all he could do was
close his eyes and hope not to slide off one of the mountain’s many cliffs.
Finally, his left foot hit against something hard, and it brought him to an
abrupt stop. When he opened his eyes, he saw nothing but the white slope rising
above him. He turned his head very slowly to see a jagged rock protruding out
of the snow. This was what had stopped his fall, but it was what lay beyond the
rock that made his heart jump into his throat. Another steep cliff, with a drop
twice as deep as the one Kristina and Raymond had fallen over, lay just beyond
the rock. Even worse, he was now lying on top of Kristina. He needed to somehow
change his position. He managed to turn onto his side without lifting his foot
off the rock, but after that, there was nothing else he could do. Kristina was
still unconscious, and so he couldn’t use his arms to pull himself up the
slope. If he let go of her, for even a split second, she would most assuredly
slide down, and go over the edge of the cliff. And if he took his foot off the
rock, they’d both slide down over the edge. All he could do was lay very still
on the ice-cold slope and hope for a miracle.