XIX

(NaNoWriMo - Day 5)

“So it is the spring,” mused Hedegar. I shall have to have another look.

“No tricks,” reminded Akadis. If we find you’re bluffing, or delaying, you’ll pay for it. I’m giving you one more chance, or you’ll be tied up with the others, and we’ll do the search ourselves.

                 

“Fine,” agreed the hedgehog. Susan was taken back to the campfire and her legs tied up again. Hedegar was allowed to return to the pool.

The hedgehog slowly made his way around the pool again, peering in and checking behind every rock. There was something dark and shadowy in the bottom of the pool, but it looked rather like another rock, and he couldn’t make it out because the disturbed surface of the water.

As he was walking, he suddenly felt a small flat stone give way beneath his left hind leg. Curious, he bent over, and felt it with his front paws. The weight of his body, pushed it in further, and when he stood up again, the stone remained indented. At the same time, the continuous bubbling noise of the spring ceased, and has he looked up, the fountain jet had stopped too. As he watched, the surface of the water in the pool, began very slowly to lower, as though the water were draining away into the ground. He called Loopel over to see.

The two stood there, watching the pool slowly drain. As the level decreased, the dark object he had seen in the bottom, became a little clearer. It was not irregularly shaped as he had supposed, but was a regular rectangular box. As the last of the water drained away, Loopel hopped into the now empty bowl of the pool and snatched up the box before Hedegar could make a move towards it.

“It’s just like the first box,” Akadis remarked, when the hare showed it to him (he had replaced Loopel as the guard for the prisoners when Loopel had gone to the pool).

“Do we have a key for it?” remarked the hare.

Hedegar hesitated. He was sure the key he had would work as it had on the second small box that they found in the Weeping Butterfly cave, but he didn’t need to tell that to the conspirators.

Unfortunately, Loopel remembered the key from the first box and instructed Hedegar to produce it to test. It fitted and turned perfectly. Everyone sat or stood, watching in anticipation, as the hare opened the casket. Would it contain the seed itself or another clue?

The hare carefully took out a small scroll and unravelled it. Another clue then.

He squinted for some time at the characters on the page. He had not been patient or disciplined enough to learn the script properly during their lesson. He couldn’t make anything out. He handed it to Akadis who fared no better.

At last, he brought it before the restrained girl and demanded she read it to them. Susan briefly wondered whether she should make something up, rather than give out the real clue. She hadn’t much time to think of something believable and didn’t have the knowledge of the country to give something that would lead them to a real believable place. If she made something up, they would figure it out sooner or later, and there would be trouble. Besides, the captors were bound to remember some of the letters she had taught them, and might work out from that that she was lying. So reluctantly, Susan read out the next clue:

…..

…..

…..

…..

Susan worried about what would happen next. Now that they had the next clue, there was nothing keeping them alive. Would the captors take them with or leave them behind? Or dispose of them? She tried not to think of the latter option. They might need her again if there were another clue or more writing at the next place.

It seemed that Akadis and Loopel were a little uncertain how to proceed themselves. They stood off to one side deliberating quietly, though Akadis’ eyes were on the prisoners the whole time, lest they try to escape.

At last they seemed to have reached some conclusion. Loopel ordered Akadis to untie the prisoners’ legs, and he was about to do so, when there was a sudden commotion from the direction of the steps into the enclave.

There was a shout and a voice called out across the clearing.

“Release my friends at once or I’ll set the bees on you.”

Susan recognised the voice and her heart jumped uncertainly. It was David.