by Paul Kater
cooperate." He looked at the woman, who grinned. Apparently he knew something about the tricks she had up her sleeve, where Davdruw was without for now. Tricks, as well as a sleeve.
Maurizio reached inside a pocket of his long, red coat and brought out a small piece of yellow metal. He held it in front of his mouth and said: "Everybody calm down!" His words echoed through all the corridors, startling people and making them stop their panicked running around.
Hilda looked at the man who suddenly had assumed his role of captain.
"We need medical supplies, if you have those around here. We also need three people to guide us to where we can get to the other building. Everyone capable of doing something useful like carrying wounded or tending to them, follow us. The rest go to your quarters or carry on with your regular activities." Maurizio put the metal in his pocket again.
"Crappedy crap, that is a handy little thing," Hilda commented.
The captain nodded, put his eye patch over an eye and looked around. Several people had stepped up and said they would be able to help. Maurizio appointed three of them to lead the way. "Rebel, stay close to them and keep them near. Not sure if they are as brave when things get a bit more difficult."
Rebel nodded and with the other three formed the spearhead to the corridor from where they could reach the pyramid in distress. William's magic and Rebel's unnatural powers were needed to forcibly open the door. Inside the corridor they found several people, many of them hurt. The Lycadeans that had joined them started carrying the wounded away.
"I hope their sickbay is still operational," muttered Rebel, "these folks are not very competent without their machinery."
Hilda agreed. "I wonder why they allowed their machine things to take over their entire life. It looks as if they exist to support the machine things. Does anyone know how many people were in this thing? And how many are already brought out?"
Her question remained frightfully unanswered.
"This is going well," the witch muttered. "Rebel, William, can you find people in here?" She bit away another pinch of pain over the loss of her magic. Now would be a great time for that to come back, but clearly magic was not aware of that. Hilda felt helpless, despite pretending to be in control of the search and rescue operation.
William squeezed her hand for a moment, as if he knew what she was thinking at that moment. "I'll throw in some magic," he said calmly.
Rebel just nodded as she spread her hands, fingers pointing up and palms away from her. "At least a few dozen behind that wall," she pointed. "Everyone out of the way, the wizard's going to make a nice hole in there."
William raised an eyebrow for a moment, it was as if she had read his thoughts. Rebel, he decided, was a scary person when she was not busy being weird or strange. Wand in hand, he started removing parts of the wall, making the blocks fall towards them. He made them float through the corridor and dumped them at the end where Lycadeans tried to remove them. They failed, as the blocks were quite large. And heavy.
It did not take very long for the hole to be large enough to step through. Rebel was right: they found over thirty people in the adjacent room. Most of them were well, some had bruises from falling bits of ceiling, A serious bit of falling ceiling had effectively sealed off the way out.
"We're making progress this way," Hilda commented. "Next room." Her last words were out-volumed by a majestic bit of noise coming from further into the pyramid."Crappedy crap," she said after the coughing, courtesy of a large dust cloud, was done. "That was not what I asked for!"
"Honoured Grimhilda!" a well-known voice called.
"How did he get out?" William wondered as Davdruw appeared.
"The palliza started falling apart," the tall man quickly said, "and somehow that made your prison circle disappear."
"And the council?" Maurizio asked, who just came back from carrying off a person.
"They are safe," Davdruw said.
"Good. Now get out of the way," Rebel said, "I have people to find." Again she spread her hands in front of her. Her "uh-oh" did not mean much good.
Everyone looked at where Rebel was looking and everyone saw a large crack appear in the next wall. It was as if two invisible hands started ripping the room apart, starting in the centre of the wall and tearing away at the floor and the ceiling at the same time.
William flashed his wand. The two pieces of floor started to move together again, be it under severe protest. "We have to hurry," he said, "I am not sure how long I can keep this together with the building determined to collapse on us."
As the wizard expanded his magic to keep all parts of the pyramid in place as much as possible, the others moved through it and located sixty-two more people, some of them hurt quite badly.
"Is there nothing you can do to help William?" Hilda almost begged of Rebel.
"No, I am sorry. I can do a lot of stuff, but he outdoes me in this area," Rebel said as the two of them dragged an unconscious woman from the furthest room. Everywhere around them pieces of wall and ceiling were hovering and bobbing around.
When they reached the wizard, Hilda said: "You can start letting the thing fall apart from here on, wizard. We're the last ones."
"Has anyone seen Kerna?" William asked.
"No... now you mention it... Where is she? Kerna!!" Hilda yelled out the name.
Maurizio yelled back from the corridor behind them. "Kerna is here, Hilda, prego. Your cat animals kept her there for some reason."
"Good," William said. In a more or less controlled way, the pyramid now started collapsing. Rebel, using her uncanny and still unclear powers, managed to keep the dust to acceptable levels as the wizard stacked up the immense pieces of wall and ceiling. When finally everything was done, he looked tired. "I had no idea how much work this is. Building such a thing is much easier."
"You should ask the Egyptians about that," Maurizio grinned. Rebel chuckled and Hilda grumbled as she missed the joke.
Kerna had indeed been held back by Grim and Obsi. Hilda was surprised about that, but she was certain that the two had their reasons for that.
20. Going out again
Hilda and William had retreated to their room after making sure the wounded people were taken care of. Rebel had promised she would stay in the sick bay as long as needed. The magical couple had thanked Kerna for her help in keeping the cats safe.
Kerna had told them how they could contact her in case they wanted to see her and then the young woman had left them, the two cats watching closely as she walked away.
"It is amazing how Obsi and Grim have taken to Kerna, isn't it?" William said as he made some tea and cookies.
Hilda, her legs stretched out on the sofa, nodded. "Yes. I'm surprised about that too. They haven't done that before. Not even with Babs."
William made a sound that said more than he could have said.
"True, she did call our cats 'pooches'," Hilda grinned. "Not a cat person, that's for certain."
William put the tea and the plate with cookies on the table and sat down on the sofa, lifting Hilda's legs so they rested on his knees. After this manoeuvre they both could not reach the tea nor the cookies.
A magical movement later, they sipped and nibbled.
"I wonder what we are supposed to do next," Hilda said, staring at a raisin that looked lost inside the cookie she ate. "These people are so weird, with their prophecy and their machines. And they are so inadequate at living, really. I'm surprised that they kept going for so long."
"Their ancestors probably made good machines," William said.
They chatted the evening away, and the next morning their three companions showed up for breakfast again.
"The high council has asked if you can assist in assessing the damage, honoured witch." Kerna, with Obsi in her lap, spoke between bites.
"And why would we do that?" Hilda wanted to know. "Are there not enough of your folks around to do that?"
Kerna looked at the witch. "I think the high council does not trust most of.... our fo
lks."
"Unfortunately I have to agree," William said.
"Right. I think that this damage thing is somewhat of a good idea," Hilda said, "but perhaps we should also have a look at the other pyramids. Maybe there are a few things we can improve, so they don't fall apart like the one yesterday."
"That was because of the earthquake, Hilda," Maurizio reminded her.
"And they somehow manage to make earthquakes, so her suggestion is definitely a good one," William countered.
"And one more thing," said the witch. "I think it is time that Kerna starts calling us Hilda and William. The honoured bit is nice, but somewhat overdone for someone who's around us so much. Can you do that for us, dear?"
Kerna forgot to chew as she heard that. "I think I can, honoured- ehm - Hilda."
"Good. Glad we have that out of the way. Now let's finish up and get to that damage thing. Might as well do something sensible around here."
During that day and the next one, the group made rounds through all the nearby pyramids. Sometimes Davdruw would be there with them for a while, but most of the time Hilda and William managed to scare the man away.
"For some reason he gets on my nerves," the witch said after they had secured another one of the large chambers in a pyramid. "Do you think this will be safe now?" She peered up at the ceiling. They had taken the original one down, which had not taken much. In fact, opening the door to come in had been quite enough: a fast action by Rebel had prevented the old ceiling from falling down on them.
William, on an improvised
