Arboria

by Anthony Stefano

  “Let us not get carried away,” said Dongo, “we still have to free Antarus from the yoke of the Fire Orpes before we step onto the battlefield. He will be a decisive ally in the final battle. We also have to make a plan of attack and decide who is going with whom. If our plan is to succeed, it is essential that we work together.”

  “What do we do now, then?” asked the gnomes.

  “First, we go to Vulcania to free Antarus. You will wait for us here,” said Dongo.

  “Understood,” said the gnomes, eager to face the Sorceress.

  Alexander went over to Dongo.

  “How are we going to get into Vulcania unseen?” he asked.

  “We are going to climb the volcano.”

  “Climb the volcano?!” cried Silmaril.

  “Yes, it is the only way in. We will take ropes with us and drop in down its throat.”

  “The volcano is not active, I hope,” said Hope with a certain fear.

  “No, it is hyperactive,” Dongo replied. “There are more than five eruptions every day.”

  “Wonderful,” said Hope.

  “We won’t force you to come,” Alexander said to the girls.

  “No, I would love to fall into the lava of an exploding volcano, I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” answered Hope.

  “Ditto,” said Meredith.

  “I’m going to stay here,” said Amy.

  “I warn you that you will only have rocks to eat here, and we will not be back for several days.”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” said Amy. “I’m coming with you.”

  Alexander smiled and Hope winked at him.

  “Then if everyone is agreed, we shall leave tomorrow,” said Dongo.

  The next day the children, Silmaril, Dongo, Geum, Gom and two other gnomes answering to the names Gorom and Gorynth set off in the direction of Vulcania. Alexander and Silmaril, as the strongest in the group, carried the ropes that would help them descend into the throat of the volcano. They travelled via a different route in order to reach the land of fire. They could have crossed through the tunnel but they would not have been able to get over the ravine on the little wooden plane as there was only one of them and that had become damaged during its maiden voyage. They decided to cross through the forest while avoiding all the paths in order not to be spotted.

  “Is it true what Geum and Gom say about you?” asked Gorom and Gorynth.

  “What do they say?” asked Alexander in surprise.

  “They say you went into Avengard and that you saw the Sorceress and that you managed to escape.”

  “It’s true,” said Alexander, “but I had help. I didn’t do it alone.”

  “Incredible!” said the gnomes.

  “Can I ask you a question now?”

  “Of course,” replied the gnomes.

  “Why did Geum and Gom ask you to come with us all the way to Vulcania?”

  “Gom said that you will no doubt need us if there is any danger. We are the best gnome warriors and we love a good bit of mayhem.”

  “I see the volcano in the distance,” said Amy.

  Thick smoke belched out of the mountain and the horrible smell of sulphur clung to their noses. There was not a single tree or plant at the base of the volcano.

  “Nothing grows in the land of fire,” said Dongo.

  “It is a very strange place to live,” Silmaril admitted.

  “I couldn’t live there, it doesn’t smell too good,” said Amy.

  “Life in a volcano... it can’t be very relaxing,” said Alexander.

  “The other races of Orpes fare much better: the Water Orpes in Lake Vallorness and the Air Orpes in the cloud city of Almeroth. Those place must really be much prettier than this scorched earth.”

  “I thought there were only two kinds of Orpes,” said Alexander.

  “No, there are four. Nobody has ever seen the underwater city of Atlantea or Almeroth in the sky, but we know they exist,” said Dongo.

  “Have you ever seen any of these Orpes with your own eyes?” asked Meredith.

  “Never,” Dongo replied, “I cannot breathe underwater and I do not know how to fly either.”

  “Would these Orpes be able to help us against the Sorceress?” asked Alexander.

  “Forget it, they are immaterial. The Water Orpes live only in the water and cannot come onto land. The Air Orpes are formless and can only materialise using objects, by which I mean they gather them up in order to form a sort of golem, but it is very difficult to contact them as they live in the clouds.”

  “What is a golem?” said Amy.

  “Imagine that you collect all the stones around you and that you try to make a human with them. That is a golem,” said Dongo.

  “Quiet now,” said Alexander, “we’re approaching the volcano. We can’t let them discover us.”

  “We will have to climb the wall and cross through that fog. My guess is the air will be more breathable higher up,” said Dongo.

  Climbing the wall took them a good three hours. There was no vegetation anywhere nearby, there was a suffocating heat and the steam erupting from the ground in places was almost certainly toxic. Red and orange lava flowed in rivers too wide to be crossed. Hope wanted to sit down against a stone and rest but it burned her backside as soon as she tried.

  “Are we at the highest point in Arboria?”

  “No, Alexander, the highest point is the rock at High-View,” said Gom, “it is so high that it pierces the clouds.”

  Having arrived at the summit, Silmaril glanced into the throat of the volcano: it was not spitting fire for the moment. He tied the ropes around a large rock near the hole, joining each rope together to make on that was as long as possible. Everyone climbed in one by one, grabbing the rope and beginning their descent into the giant funnel. Dongo clung onto Alexander’s back.

  “I hate heights,” he said.

  “Yes, I remember,” said Alexander, recalling the incident with the cage at Rocaille.

  Suddenly, one of the ropes slipped and the group fell several metres in a single second.

  “What’s happening?” cried Alexander, hanging in the air and looking towards the top of the volcano.

  “I don’t know,” said Dongo.

  “I think we forgot a very important detail when we were fixing the rope,” said Silmaril.

  “Meaning?” asked Meredith.

  “Remember, Hope burned herself when she touched one of the rocks. I think the rope is starting to burn from being wrapped around the rock that I tied it to.”

  Everyone looked up towards the top of the volcano and they saw the upper part of the long rope in flames.

  “Hurry!” shouted Dongo, “down! As quick as you can!”

  They scrambled hurriedly down the wall, hanging clear over the void.

  “I can’t look,” said Dongo, closing his eyes.

  The fire was drawing near quickly; at that moment it was barely a metre from Silmaril’s hands.

  “Jump, the rope is about the break!” he shouted.

  Seeing that nobody was ready to jump and feeling the heat of the flames licking at his finger, Silmaril cut the rope. The whole group plummeted and came to a crash landing a short way further down.

  “Ouch,” said Amy with a moan, “that hurt.”

  “It would have been much worse if he hadn’t had this little platform just beneath our feet,” said Hope.

  “You can open your eyes, Dongo. We’re safe now.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Dongo with surprise. He poked and prodded at various parts of his body to make sure that he wasn’t dreaming.

  “Look over there, a door,” said Silmaril. An old wooden door was set into the wall on the platform they had landed on.

  “We found it, the secret entrance into Vulcania,” said Dongo with visible relief.

  “And it’s open,” said Silmaril.

  They went through the door and entered a tunnel. Empty rooms were set out one after the other and there were various patterns engraved into t
he floor. All around were streams of lava. Everything was in black and red, all of it in exceptional detail. The smallest objects had been carved out of lava. A table, chairs, paintings; the items Alexander had seen when he had been imprisoned by the Fire Orpes were nothing in comparison.

  “Strange, there’s no-one here,” said Meredith.

  “Do you hear that voice?” said Alexander.

  They went towards a window looking out over an immense arena.

  “My dear Orpes of fire, the final victory is at hand,” said a woman’s voice.

  “It’s her, it’s the Sorceress,” said Alexander.

  She was standing in the centre of the arena and the surrounding stands were filled with Fire Orpes listening attentively.

  “Soon, I will open a portal to another world, my former home. We will invade and destroy it, and you may take whatever you wish. None will dare to oppose me or you. I will soon be rid of the dwarfs and all the other creatures which infest our world.”

  A thunder of applause went up and the room trembled.

  “I take with me this Orpe of ice, the last vestige of a civilisation now extinguished,” she said as she pulled on a chain holding Antarus. “He will become a statue in my personal collection of fools who have dared to challenge me.”

  “Antarus!” said the children.

  The Sorceress left the arena with Antarus in chains behind her, accompanied by the applause of the Fire Orpes.

  “What should we do?” said Meredith.

  “I have no idea. It changes everything if she is taking Antarus to Avengard,” said Dongo.

  “All the better for us,” said Alexander, “now we know that Antarus is alive and that he is in the same place as Golmuth.”

  “He is still the prisoner of the Sorceress,” said Hope.

  “I know,” Alexander answered. “You, Amy, Meredith and Silmaril will go back to Kratoa and make sure to recruit as many as you can to join us in the final battle. Dongo, Gom, Geum, Gorom, Gorynth and I will break into Avengard to rescue Antarus and Golmuth.”

  “And that’s it! That’s your plan?” said Hope.

  “Yes. If you don’t hear from us in five days, then either begin the attack or flee back into our world.”

  “He is mad,” said Dongo sarcastically, “this child is mad.”

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing Alexander?” asked Meredith.

  “Yes, I have a plan.”

  “And how are you planning to get to Avengard without being seen?” asked Hope.

  “The same way the Sorceress came here, there must be a magic mirror here. Let’s find it!”

  The children searched each of the rooms and climbed ever lower into the depths of Vulcania. Luckily, they had not been noticed.

  “Here is the mirror,” said Alexander, pointing to it. It sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by flaming monoliths.

  “What is the safest place we can send our friends to?” asked Alexander.

  “There is a mirror of this type at Rocaille,” said Silmaril. “The Sorceress has never used it.”

  “Good, off you go. Hurry, I hear something,” said Alexander.

  The girls and Silmaril walked onto the mirror and disappeared in a flash.

  Geum transformed into Zgard and passed through the mirror to Avengard. “Odd,” he said, “there is no welcoming committee.”

  He came back. “The way is free.”

  The gnomes, the Elwing and Alexander touched the mirror and they too were instantaneously projected to Avengard.

  “This way,” said Alexander, “I know where to go.”

  They ran in the direction of the little trap door which gave access into the underbelly of the castle and climbed down the vast staircase towards the ancient prison.

  “Here is the dungeon, our friends cannot be very far.”

  “We have to wait for the Queen to bring Antarus.”

  They hid behind a rock. Several long minutes later, Zgard brought Antarus and fixed enormous chains to the rocky wall. Antarus tried to engage Zgard in conversation but the gargoyle didn’t respond. The Queen’s warrior cast a final look of disgust at the prisoners and left.

  “Have no fear, you will die soon. Unless the Queen forgets about you and you rot in this dungeon until your death.”

  “Our friends will save us,” said Antarus.

  “Your friends are very far away,” said Zgard. With a laugh, he left the dungeon and abandoned the prisoners.

  “Your friends are closer than you think,” said Alexander, coming out of his hiding place.

  “Alexander!” cried Golmuth.

  “We have come to save you,” said Alexander.

  Golmuth was hanging in the cage that had once kept Silmaril before him. Alexander freed his friends and hugged them.

  “I am really happy that I found you,” Alexander said to Antarus and Golmuth.

  “So are we,” answered the ice giant, tenderly stroking Alexander’s hair.

  “How do we get out of here?” said Golmuth.

  “We have a plan,” said Gorom and Gorynth, and they quickly changed into Antarus and Golmuth.

  “What’s going on? I do not understand,” said Golmuth.

  “We are going to fight the Queen. She cannot know that you have escaped. The dwarfs and what is left of the ice Orpes will join us, as will the gnomes.”

  “There will not be enough of you,” replied Antarus.

  “We know, but we might have a way to defeat the Sorceress. But now we have to go and we have to take Ganarock with us.”

  “Why?” asked Golmuth.

  “If the Queen uses Ganarock during the battle, the gnomes will not be able to transform and they will revert to their natural form.”

  “The gnomes are going to change their appearance?”

  “We’ll explain later,” said Alexander. “Gorom and Gorynth, you two are the bravest gnomes I have ever known. We will come back for you, I promise.”

  “We trust you, Alexander. We will wait for you here.”

  They left the dungeon, leaving Gorom and Gorynth in their prison, and climbed back up the underground stairway. They ran into Zgard in the entrance room, who was probably on his way to regenerate in his sarcophagus, but he did not notice them. They also bumped into Tobias in one of the corridors. He was grumbling about something.

  “Always the same thing. Tobias do this, Tobias do that... Tobias is sick of cleaning that sword and shield, as if I was the castle’s cleaner!”

  “The sword,” said Dongo, “it is here too! We have to take it with us, it could tip the balance of the battle in our favour.”

  The group followed Tobias at a distance and he stopped in front of a locked door. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring filled with keys. He went through the door and closed it behind him. Hidden in the shadow of a wall, Alexander and his friend watched the entrance.

  “Let’s wait for him to come out and then we will jump him,” said Golmuth.

  “I will not be able to hide forever, I am too big,” said Antarus.

  “Shh, here he comes.”

  Tobias came out of the room several minutes later and locked the door with a key that he put into his pocket, grumbling to himself again. Alexander and his friends approached the door. Antarus had no difficulty in breaking it down without making a sound. The sword and shield were inside, resting on a gold-coloured suit of armour.

  “That was the armour of King Oden,” said Antarus.

  “Let’s take the weapons and run,” said Golmuth.

  “No, they will notice that they have disappeared,” said Antarus.

  “Not to worry. Geum and I will transform into Ganarock and Vulcaria and you can take the weapons with you.”

  “That might be very dangerous,” said Dongo.

  “Don’t you worry, we will be able to escape when we wish.”

  Alexander hugged his friends.

  “Go now, if you stay here then Ganarock’s protection will prevent us from being able to transform
.”

  “Take care of yourselves,” said Alexander.

  “We will,” said the gnomes.

  Golmuth, Antarus, Dongo and Alexander left the armoury.

  “What is the next part of the plan?” asked Golmuth.

  “We are going to go to High-View to question the oldest tree in Arboria,” said Dongo.

  “What for?” said Golmuth.

  “It is thanks to the sap from that tree that the sorceress is immortal. We are hoping that it will tell us how to take her immortality away from her.”

  “We risk wasting several days before we reach High-View,” said Antarus.

  “We will be there in less than five minutes,” Alexander explained.

  He signalled for the others to follow him and they dived into the numerous corridors of Avengard.

  “We are going to use the magic mirror that will take us to High-View.”

  “Here it is,” said Dongo.

  They climbed the little step and disappeared immediately. On the other side, a welcome committee was waiting for them.

  “Guards, seize them!” said a voice.

  “I would have preferred a warmer welcome,” said Golmuth.

  “Me too,” Alexander replied.

  Around them, four guards were standing watch before the mirror at High-View. Golmuth and Antarus made short work of them. Antarus sent two of the guards flying backwards and Golmuth pushed the other two off the edge. Alexander moved towards the hole in the wall of the rock which gave onto the void. He stuck his head out, lifted his eyes and saw the point of an immense rock touching the clouds. Dongo put his hand on his shoulder and pulled him back.

  “I didn’t think the rock would be so big.”

  “Impressive, is it not?”

  “We can’t stay here, they will soon discover what happened to the guards when they wake up,” said Antarus.

  Two stairways ran upwards, one which climbed towards the summit of the rock and one which descended towards the town below.

  “I’m starting to get tired,” said Dongo, “how much further do we have to walk?”

  “At least 5000 miles,” said Antarus.

  They stepped out of the rock and discovered a town in a deplorable state. To all appearances, it looked as if nobody had lived there for quite some time. The old castle of King Oden was in ruins. The guards had simply been charged with protecting the mirror.