Chapter 12
The Deal
I was trotting beside Tormran.
We were far out in the country, away from all the pyramids and Tanjas. He had woken me up early that morning, asking me if I was thirsty or hungry. Then, after a quick breakfast, he'd attracted my collar to his magnet, and we'd set off for the country side.
"Keep up with me, wolf, and maybe I'll give you a break," he bared at me in Code.
I tried to keep pace with him, but he was very fast on two legs. We ran in circles, tstraight lines, and zigzags. It was exasperating. I wondered if I would ever get home, but then my attention turned to our exercises.
We went from walking, to trotting, to running for an hour. I tripped about seven times, and Tormran stopped.
"What is your problem, dog?" he growled at me.
I panted beside hm and gasped,"Nothing, Tormran."
"That will be Master, from now on," he commanded.
I growled and barked,"I'll call you no such thing!"
"Want a slam again, do you?" growled Tormran back.
I clenched my teeth and said,"No, actually, I don't."
"Learn respect, dog," barked Tormran.
"No, ssssiiiirrr, I don't," I responded.
He smiled, licked his muzzle, and looked up at the sky. After a moment, he looked back down at me. "There's something else going on with you. You aren't concentrating on training. What's distracting you, dog?"
I turned my head away and refused to answer.
He smacked me on the head with his paw and barked,"Tell me now, dog!"
"It's nothing you would understand, dog!" I responded nastily.
The Tanja lowered to all fours and growled. I watched him brace himself and crouch down. He was going to spring at me. I couldn't move, because my head was now flattened to the ground.
"Alright, just don't bite me!" I yelped.
He immediately straightened up and glared at me, waiting for an answer to his question.
"I have a family, and I miss them very much," I muttered.
He looked me up and down and growled,"I don't think that's all."
"Okay, okay. I have a family that's in trouble. And my friends are all in trouble. I don't know how to solve their problems, and they'll die if I don't get back to them soon."
He stared at me while barking,"That's what you're so distracted about?"
I whimpered and nodded my head, afraid he would smack it again.
"Let's get it taken care of then," he said and yanked his wrist.
I stumbled forward and followed him back to the pyramids. We stayed out of sight of the other Tanjas. They were all hard at work, hunting for food, building fires, gathering wood, and patching holes in the pyramids.
"Stay close," whispered Tormran.
I crouched down and limped beside him. My leg hurt so bad, but I knew I had to continue. The exercise had totally worn me out, but I wanted to help my friends so badly.
"Wait, stop," hissed Tormran.
I stopped and froze, waiting for Tormran to give another command.
"Put your paw on my foot, and we'll find your friends," he whispered.
I looked at him suspiciously, but so great was the urge to help my friends that I did as he said.
"Ieeeyeep!" I yipped as the pyramids and Tanjas disappeared, and we were smothered in darkness.
"So, where exactly are we going, pup?" asked Tormran.
He knelt down, looking in my eyes, and waited for an answer.
"It's a place called Tryn Myaad," I answered.
"Tryn Myaad...I don't believe I've heard that before," he said, clearly rolling the name around in his mind. "Where is it?"
"It's the between world. Between two dimensions is where it can be found," I told him.
He looked at me strangely. A quick warning and we fell out of the darkness. My feet were on solid ground, yet we were falling! It was amazing.
"Don't move," whispered Tormran.
Everything was whipping by quickly. Dimensions swirled around us and disappeared into the sky. It was so strange! We were standing there was entire worlds were seen and gone. They came, swirled around us once, and disappeared within a five second time span. I watched world after world flash by. Suddenly, the name Tryn Myaad wirled around us.
"That's it!" I called.
"Sure it is, I can tell by the name," said Tormran.
He grabbed my collar and jumped toward the name. This time we fell down from the sky and watched huge ice castles and buildings swoop over head. We fell fro thousands of feet. We fell, yet I was still standing on firm ground. Tormran was right beside me as calm as could be.
"Brace yourself," he hissed to me.
I had just enough time to stiffen my legs and brace myself for impact when we hit the ground.
"Ieeeeeeeyyyyeeee!" I yipped as I felt the ground.
Tormran grabbed my collar and hissed into my ear,"You had better behave yourself while we're here. We'll find your friends, get them out, and you'll come back for more training. Understand?"
I whined and yipped, pulling my paws off the freezing cold snow.
Tryn Myaad, which I had never visited before, was a world of snow and ice. There were ice castles all around, and the sky was gray. It looked like it was going to snow soon. AS if it needed to be made colder, it was cold enough already.
I shivered as a gust of wind blew at us.
"Stop your whining and answer me!"
"What are the full conditions to save my friends?" I asked, trying to keep my paws on the cold ground.
"Listen carefully and I'll tell you!" he whispered. "We will do all it takes to save your friends. Once we're finished with them, you must come back to Clondeen and train with me."
I shivered again and asked,"Where's Clondeen?"
"Where I live," he said. "If you break your promise, I'll send all the Tanjas I know after you. You'll never have another peaceful moment in all your life, and I promise, we will find you."
I nodded and whispered,"It's a deal. But why are we whispering?"
Tormran shook his head and sighed, saying,"Because we don't know what we're getting into, yet. Stay quite. We should check this place out before making ourselves known."
I nodded and showed that I agreed with him. He grabbed my collar, pressed the magnet against if for a moment, then pushed me away again. Now that the metal was attracted to the magnet, we could go save my friends.
We snaked around the ice blocks.
They were everywhere! Hug blocks of ice just sitting around. They would be in the middle of, what I gathered to be, streets. We would see them between ice houses and castles, and even in, what looked like, parks.
I was totally distracted when Tormran fell on his stomach. I smashe dmy head into the ice and let out a breath. What was going on?
"Don't make a sound," said Tormran in the tiniest whisper he could manage. "Just follow me."
I waited until he was crouched down slightly. I wasn't sure how we would do this with that stupid magnet o his wrist. If he lost his balance, I knew he would put that paw of his on the ground, which would slam me along with it.
Apparently he'd already thought over that, because he next said,"Come here. We'll get these two separated so we can crawl around better."
I picked myself up and took a few steps over to him. He touched his wrist to my collar, slipped the magnet off, and slid it around so it hung from the bottom end of my collar.
"There, now it won't get lost, and I can just take it off your collar if I need it again," he said.
With a quick wave of his hand, he motioned for me to follow him. We crawled around the block and sat down. I didn't quite know what had scared him, but I had a theory.
"There it is again!" he hissed in my ear.
I peeked around the block and looked down the street that the block was hiding us from. I saw a sentry walking up and down the street and making turns.
He looked like he was nothing but feathers. The sentry was totally covered with feathers, except for his face. When IS aw his face, I knew the feathers must not be a part of him. He looked kind of like a blue human. Only, he looked a bit different. I was too far away to see what made him stand out. Plus, he was mostly covered with feathers. I hoped to see one without the covering one day. I guessed the covering was to keep him warm.
I began to wonder how many sentries there could be. Maybe only one or two, or maybe twenty. How was one to know?
The next time I looked at Tormran, he had scampered off down the street, looking for something. He motioned for me to stay hidden behind the block of ice and hurried down a side street.
[Topaz, it's Mom. Can you hear me? If you can, tell me where you are] I stilently called.
[Mom, it's Topaz. Where are you?] she asked me.
[I'm here with you in Tryn Myaad. Do you have the Werewolves, extra Unicorn, and Lock Ness monster with you?] I asked hurriedly.
[Yeah, they're all here. But why do you want to know that?] she asked.
[Because I accidentally sent them here. Look, dear, tell me where you are. I need to know so I can come rescue you] I told her.
[We're in a place called the Granton Pleyo. I heard the Torino's call it that] she told me.
[Alright, I think we might be able to find our way there on our own] I responded.
[We? Who do you have with you, Mom?] asked Topaz.
[Long story, Topaz. His name's Tormran, and he's a Tanja. Not that any of that information will help you anyway. We'll try to hurry. I'll ask you questions along the way, so be alert] I finished and looked around the block.
Tormran was quickly hurrying toward me in a crouched position.
"What is it?" I hissed out as quietly as I could.
"I found a castle. It looks pretty big. Has the numbers 41^63^11^54^65^55^54^52^32^74^55 on the front of it. Do those numbers mean anything to you?" he asked.
I thought about it for a minute. Why were there numbers on the front of a building? I looked around and searched for the name of the nearest building. Above the doorway in bold gray figures were numbers. I looked at every building I could from behind the block and found they all had numbers.
"I'm supposing the numbers are the names of the buildings. But my daughter, who I just silently talked to, said the place she's at is called the Granton Pleyo. She said she heard one of the Torino's , the creatures who live here, call it that."
Tormran looked at the buildings and also noted the numbers on the front of them. He pondered what I'd just said and asked,"How did you communicate with your daughter?"
"It's a special ability I have, I answered. "My family and adviser can all communicate silently with me."
Tormran nodded and suggest,"Maybe the numbers are the names. You know, not just identification numbers. Maybe that's the way these creatures communicate. Maybe you're right. Let's check out the inside of that building over there."
He pointed to a building around the block and got down on all fours. We dashed to the building and looked up at the doors. Surprisingly, there weren't any. There was an entry way right into the building. We cautiously peeked around the corners of where the doors would have been and stared into an icy palace. IT was hug! There were hundreds of desks lined up against the wall. They had a watery substance on them. Some had more water than others. I crept into the room and sniffed. There wasn't anyone in the room at the moment.
"Come on, let's hurry," whispered Tormran.
His whisper echoed throughout the room, but he paid it no mind. We hurried over to the desks and looked at the water on them. Tormran called me over to his desk.
I trotted over and commented,"There wasn't anything but water on that desk over there."
Tormran put a paw on the desk and whispered,"There's writing on this water. It must be their paper. And look, all of the figures are numbers. I was right!"
I looked down at the water and sure enough, there was writing there. A bunch of numbers were sitting there on top of the water. I poked a paw into the water.
"Ewwwm, ewwwm,"I whined.
It was freezing cold, but solid. It looked wet, but it wasn't. I heard a sound behind us and jumped.
"Grab a slide and follow me," hissed Tormran.
I fumbled with a slide. My paws couldn't grasp things very well. Tormran growled when it shattered on the floor.
"Can't you do anything right?"
He was standing on two legs, holding the watery slide, and hurrying out the door.
"Please hold up," I called to him.
He stopped and growled. I hurried toward him, out of breath.
"Where are we going? The door's back that way!" I hissed in his ear.
"Look, that's where the sound came from," he hissed back.
I looked back and saw two creatures hurrying into the room. We scrambled across the slippery floor and out another door. We were in an unknown street, and just when we thought we couldn't get any more unlucky, the sentry showed up. We both dove for the safety of the building we'd just come from, but the sentry saw us. There were two guards rushing us from behind and a sentry from the front.
"Impossible!" cried Tormran and fell tot he ground.
He wrapped his arm around my neck. Tryn Myaad disappeared, along with the guards and the sentry. We were now in the dark. I growled at Tormran, but he didn't care. He only held onto my neck, and we reappeared in Clondeen.
I had wanted so badly to save my friends. No I felt I would never again get the chance. And Tormran had just broken our deal.
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