Chapter 14
The Discovery
"Grab ‘im! We'll take ‘im out for another fight. See if old Roscaal can beat ‘im. Betcha he can, but ya never know, now do ya?"
I heard the cage door being opened and forced myself to look around.
My neck ached badly from the night before, and my paws weren't in good shape at all. I could feel cuts and scratches all over my body. Not only had I bled a little the night before, my muscles had fatigued. I was miserable.
"Let's see the dog in action!" yelped the Tanja again.
I was dragged from the cage. I didn't much care to be dragged around, but I was too sore to resist.
"Get up, dog," commanded a guard Tanja.
I worked my way up to my feet. I was grateful that my legs still worked.
"Come on, pup," called a Tanja from behind me.
I turned my head to look behind me. There was an awful looking scamp of a Tanja following me. Both his ears were torn, his gait was choppy, and he looked like he hadn't had a bath in months.
I looked down at myself to find the collar around my neck. The guard beside me had the magnet on his wrist. I sighed and kept pace with the guard. He brought me out to the place the fight between Tormran and myself had taken place. There was a big group of Tanjas gathered around. I whined and pulled myself as close to the pyramid as I could.
"Dog, here ya go," said the guard.
He attached the magnet high up on the pyramid and wandered off. I stood and tried to get the magnet down, but I couldn't reach it. I gave up after a few minutes and looked around. The Tanjas were busy building something. I knew exactly what it was. They were building a huge cage for fights to take lace. I knew I would be the main attraction and hoped Tormran would save me from the torture. After what I'd done to him the night before, I wasn't too sure Tormran would ever speak to me again, let along save me from something so disastrous as this.
"Getting ready for the next fight. See this, dog? This is a huge cage for you. I hope I get a chance to fight you. That Tormran was such a loser. I know I could give you quite a beating," said a working Tanja, and he fell to the ground in laughter.
Some of the other Tanjas laughed along with him, but most of them kept to their work.
I sat next to the pyramid, sweating in the sun until it was positioned so that there was shade over my head. I sighed and watched the almost finished project still being worked on. IT was late evening, and the workers were tired. A Tanja came in and released them from their work, bringing in a new group of Tanjas to take on the next shift. They had been doing this every two hours, because the Tanjas would get heatstroke and faint if they were out in the sun any longer.
I lay in my cage, totally regretting being so stubborn the day before. Tormran might have done something great, if only I'd cooperated. My hindquarters hurt where I'd been shot with a stun gun after the fight the night before. I had learned that the stun gun was called a ‘Para Ray'. All of the Tanjas had talked about me being shot with a ‘Para Ray' while working.
After a moment of wondering why they called it a Para Ray, I figured it out. ‘Para' was short for ‘paralysis'. Therefore, the full name of the gun was ‘Paralysis Ray'. Quite a clever name, actually, I thought to myself. So I had been shot with a Para Ray. I wondered how often they used those. With a shrug, I stood up and made my way over to a corner of my cage. Time to sleep, I told myself, and closed my eyes.
The pyramid was dark when I awoke. It felt like five in the morning. I yawned and looked around to see what had woken me up. After all, the pyramid's doors were facing away from the sun. Since it wasn't the sun, I stood up and peered into the darkness.
"Get up, dog," came a hoarse voice to my left.
I froze. I knew that voice. It was Tormran! But what was he doing here?! My mind reeled with possibilities.
"Get to the cage door, we're going for a ride," he said.
I was shaking as I softly padded over to the cage door. Tormran let the door open with a slight squeak and yanked me out.
He rubbed the magnet against my collar and whispered,"Let's go."
I tiptoed after him, fearing he would do something awful to me. He hurried along, moving faster than I thought he would be capable of doing, since I'd put quite a beating on him two nights before. The moon shone through the clouds. I looked around, trying to figure out where we were going. He hurried along, keeping close to the ground. I stayed just a foot behind him, making sure I didn't stray too far behind.
"What's up?" I asked him when we reached a tree five miles away from the town.
"There's a midnight hunt going on," whispered Tormran.
I looked at him, cocked my head to the right, and asked,"So?"
"Soooo," he said very sarcastically,"they'll be out hunting for meat. It's the only time the entire village is abandoned.
"But why do we need it abandoned?" I asked.
"If we're going to get your friends back, we'll need to disappear without letting anyone else know it," he said.
I looked at him, incredulous. He was taking me to save my friends? I was a little suspicious, but he was smiling widely. I wondered if this was some kind of trick, but he had me on a magnet. Whether or not it was a trap, I would have to go along.
Tormran put his paw on my front paw and we were traveling to Marana. Unfortunately, it didn't work. We went straight to Tryn Myaad. I yipped as we fell down from the sky and landed on the floor of an ice castle. Torino's rushed at us, and Tormran pulled us out. He tried to take us to Marana, but we just ended up at Clondeen again.
"Nice try anyway," I hissed into his hear when we were back where we'd just come from.
He pounded the ground with his hand/paw and growled,"It wasn't good enough!"
"Why do we keep ending up in Tryn Myaad?" I asked him.
"I'll explain it to you when we get back to your cage," he hissed in my ear.
He started off at an amazingly fast pace. I was out of breath trying to keep up with him, while he moved with ease. I remembered who I was, where I'd come from, and what my mission was for the night. With that, I gained speed easily. Once I'd remembered who I was, I had more energy. I felt the blood of a Dragon Slayer coursing through my veins, and I was stronge once more. Exerting very little energy, I caught up to Tormran and trotted next to him without losing my breath. He looked at me, a little confused I guess, and sped up.
I hurried along beside him, trying to get back to the cage as fast as I could. I knew he could run a lot faster if he was on all fours, but then his magnet would take my collar to the ground. He was very fast for being on only two legs. Almost too fast for me, without my Dragon Slayer speed that is.
We arrived back at the cage a few minutes later. Tormran locked me up and sat next to the cage. I was curled up in my corner, conserving my energy as Tormran told me what was going on in Tryn Myaad.
"This is what I have learned so far," he said to me. His voice echoed through the room, and I was worried someone else would hear.
"Hey, shouldn't we be quite?" I growled.
"Nah, they're all gone hunting. They should be back soon, but they'll all sleep outside with their catches so no one will steal them. Then they'll skin their prey in the morning. No need to whisper tonight."
"So, what's going on in Tryn Myaad?" I asked.
"There's a blockage going on. My people are helping them, though without my previous knowledge. I'm one of the main leaders when it comes to town affairs, but I'd heard nothing about this. The worlds are being confused, and I don't quite know how to fix it. We were right about the numbers on the buildings, however. Every number has a designated set of letters to it. For instance, the number one has the letter ‘A'. The number two has the letters ‘B' and ‘C'. The number three has the letters ‘D', ‘E', and ‘F'. Get it? So that's what's up with that. We'll have to guess on the letters a little, but we've got the basic idea down. I'm not sure what the flash creatures will do with your friends, but we'll find that out in due time.
"Hey, where's that plate you brought back?" I asked.
Tormran looked at me for a moment, then hurried out to get the plate. I took it from him and studied it for a few minutes.
"Can you write down the numbers we saw on that building from memory?" I asked him.
Tormran wrote down the numbers on a piece of paper he'd just gotten and slid it into my cage. I looked carefully at the two pieces.
"I think I've solved the puzzle," I said.
"Really? You know what it says?" asked Tormran.
"Yeah. Okay, my daughter says she's in a place called Granton Pleyo. It appears that the numbers and letters are connected in the way you explained, but we don't have to guess. You see, there is a division between the numbers. Take, for instance, the first numbers right here. The numbers are four and one. This does not make forty-one. This makes the letter ‘G'. You were definitely right about the way the letters are categorized. Now, to figure out the way the numbers fit in with the letters. It appears there are sets of numbers. There's set one, set two, etc... Set two consists of ‘B' and ‘C'. Now, if you want to write the letter ‘B', you would write down the numbers two and one. By doing this, you get ‘B'. To get ‘C', you would write down the numbers two and two. Since there are only two letters in the set of two, ‘D' would be in the set of three. That would start with three and one, which would equal ‘D'. I'm not sure if you're getting this, but let me explain the most difficult part. There's a set of seven, only it doesn't have seven letters in it. In fact, it only has five. To fix this, we just make the last five letters, which are ‘V' ‘W' ‘X' ‘Y' and ‘Z', the set of seven. Now, for the set of seven, you would write a seven and a one for ‘V', a seven and a two for ‘W', etc... Do you see the pattern?" I explained hastily.
"This is quite complicated, but I think I get it. It's so complex though! Those creatures must be very smart."
"I'll bet they are," I responded.
"Oh, and I must commend you on your wonderful acting! Well done!" said Tormran.
I looked at him questioningly and asked,"Acting?"
"Why yes! No one here even had a guess you were female!" he exclaimed.
"I wasn't acting at all," I told him.
"Well, whatever it was, it was quite impressive. Everyone took you to be male! I mean, you were so tough and everything. You didn't yelp and whine as much as most females do. Especially when they did the ‘stick-cage' game. I was quite impressed with your tolerance for pain. But everyone just naturally thought you to e male. It wasn't until today that I put it all together. Your worry for your family and friends. Your concern for your daughter, and the need for her to communicate with you. Even your moping attitude yesterday. Why, it all makes perfect sense why you would act that way. Most males wouldn't care about any of that, and that's why I was so confused when you acted the way you did. At first, I thought maybe it was because you weren't used to being a Worlf or maybe something else. I'm not quite sure what I thought, but I know what you are now."
He seemed so pleased with himself, so I said,"It could have been anything that made you think that. Thank you for the compliments. I try to stay as touch as possible. That's what comes with being a ..."
"Yes, I know, a Dragon Slayer," he finished for me.
"How did you know?"
"Well, I figured you could be nothing less. I've never seen a female act as strongly as you have. And to beat me in a fight! My goodness, that was quite a work out!"
"I am so sorry I had to hurt you, Tormran, but I was having trouble controlling myself. Still, that's no excuse for my actions."
"Hey, I understand. I was being a real jerk anyways, pushing you when you didn't want to be pushed. I should be the one that's sorry. But enough of that. Listen, we've got to stop this world problem. The Torino's, as far as I've gathered, are trying to increase their numbers. They're trying to come up with some way to create new Torino's without actually going through the whole ‘flash' process. It think that's why they've created the ‘break' between worlds. Now we can only get to their world and back to the world we just traveled from.
"Okay, so how are they sealing off the other worlds?" I asked Tormran.
"Well, it looks like they've got a ‘flash guard'," he answered. "According to the data I found, there is a huge guard that stands in a precisely calculated spot between every world. If he stands at an exact angle, he will be able to block all worlds but his own. It also looks like you won't be traveling to any other worlds than this and Tryn Myaad from now on. Dragon Slayer or not, you aren't going to be able to get through. They've situated the guard again, turning him slightly so that he also blocks your passage into other worlds. Ever since my trip back here with you, they've blocked the other worlds off."
"I've been meaning to speak to you about that," I commented. "Why were you waiting for me?"
"It all had to do with Jikson. That stupid wolf was quite interesting. I had come to ambush him, and when he wandered into the woods it was the perfect opportunity. But then, you came along. You jumped worlds, and that was definitely something that set you apart from Jikson. When Jikson crept up on you, I figured I'd let him catch you, which made my job easier. I waited till he had tied you up, and I grabbed you. I had to knock you out, because I didn't know if you would like my way of jumping worlds. Sorry I had to have you come so close to suffocating."
"Yeah, but why were your hands warm, then hot?" I asked.
"Oh, that part. Most of us Tanjas have the ability to become very hot or very cold in a quick amount of time. We can stay at one extreme for an hour, then it wears off. Don't ask me how it happens, but it sure is a neat trick. I didn't burn you too badly, did I?" he asked, seeming a little worried.
"Nah, not really. But Tormran, I don't want to be enemies. Can we be friends? Or at least partners? You can still train me and all, but I don't want to fight anymore. I used to be a Queen, and that's not the way we handled things. I understand it's different here, and I can become accustomed to the way things are done around here. But I don't want to be at odds with you."
"No problem. Friends it is. But look, that's not letting you off the hook of training, deal?"
"Deal. And no one knows, deal?"
"Deal," he responded.
I sighed and looked around. Suddenly, I was hit with a brilliant idea.
"I've got it!" I said, jumping to my feet.
Tormran sat up and looked at me expectantly.
"Tomorrow, bring me a sample of every kind of metal, rock, or grain of sand you can find. I need to know what kind of reflections I can get off them. Aaaand, I need them before noon. Do you think you can do that?"
Tormran looked up a the ceiling for a moment, then lowered his head and nodded.
"Good, because we're going to need some kind of reflection. I'll tell you my plan if I find the right reflection," I told him.
He nodded, stood up, and told me he was heading off to bed. I watched him trot from the room . At the door, he turned around, winked one yellow eye at me, and scampered off into the halls of the pyramid. I curled up in a tight ball and closed my eyes. Nodding off, I dreamed of getting to Marana and finding things alright. But, it was just a dream.
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