Glory Alley and the Star Riders (The Glory Alley Series) (50 page)

BOOK: Glory Alley and the Star Riders (The Glory Alley Series)
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Due to the Tullahn’s young age, we will give her a opportunity to repent of this madness. Unfortunately, time is of the essence. So if she doesn’t have a change of heart within two turns of Wybb, what we need
shall
be taken forcibly from her via the extraction pools.”

G
asps filled the cathedral
.


Please,
I don’t understand what
’s happening.

Glory
whispered to Needle.
“What’s an extraction?”

“A
torturous
process
,” Lady Gost answered for him. “W
here one

s memories float away
,
along with
the bod
y’s
life giving juices
, leaving behind only a crusty shell.”

A
strangled sound escaped
Glory’s
throat
.
She
looked to Needle
for help
.
He
looked down at his hat, pretending to straighten its green band,
refus
ing
to
look
in her direction.

“You’re gonna
let her
murder me?”
Glory
’s voice went up a notch
.

The three emissaries wring
ed
their hats, but made no reply.


Killing is not murder if justified,” said Lady
Gost
.


Dead
is
dead
,” Glory said quietly. “I don’t see the difference.”


Perhaps a trip to the
Bamboozle will
loosen
your
mouth.”

Lady
Gost
stretched out an arm and pointed over the ocean
.


Star Riders
,
to
the
Bamboozle
with her.”

“In submission
,” the three emissaries bowed. “
We obey.”


On
e more thing,”
Lady
Gost
addressed the
star riders
.
“I command you to i
ndulge whatever questions
the Tullahn asks of you.
Per
c
hance
the more she learns of our ways, the mo
re she’ll appreciate our plight.

The three emissaries gave one another perplexed looks about their orders
,
but didn’t question.


What
are
the
eight
conditions of the binding ritual?

Glory blurted out. Hey, it couldn’t hurt to ask.

Lady
Gost
held up
a slender index
finger
straight up in the air
.

Ah-ah-ah, that’s one cur
iosity that cannot be indulged
.


Now go out
, emissaries,
and do as I’ve commanded
.

She
point
ed
toward the double doors at the back of the cathedral
.
“And may the luck of the Elboni be with y
ou
.”

The emissaries bowed again
.
“In submission we obey.”

Bone and White Feather clamped down on
Glory
’s
wrists
, and led
h
er
off the main floor of the cathedral
, down
a
winding staircase,
through
dusty
halls that twisted this way and that, reminding her
quite a bit
of the tunnels in Queen’s Mesa
.
T
hey
finally
came to a
vestibule
with
a flat patch of
brick
floor
.
A tall set of doors
swung open all on their own
.
A f
light of stairs spiraled down, then
another, and another, until they went through a
second
set of
tall
doors
.
Finally, t
hey escaped the dim
corridors
to step
outside
onto a
deck made of stones
.

A
steep meandering
gravel walkway
led from it toward the beach
.
Violet rolling waves and white ribbons of sea foam slapped the shore
.
T
he
y
followed the path
. A
flagstone runway ran along the beach
.

Glory
s
aw a
yellow
whifferdil
, probably the one she’d seen through the window earlier,
parked at the end of the r
un
way
.
Two sword-carrying guards seemed to be having a spirited conversation with a
Wybbil
wearing
yellow
aviator goggles.
A group of
passengers from
the whifferdil
milled a
bout shielding their eyes to look up at the huge cathedral, complaining about the landing skills of their pilot and the delay in completing their pilgrimage.

A second whifferdil
the color of tomato sauce
hovered in the sky above
.
It looked like a big
slice of
piece of pizza coming in for a landing
.
Rapid popping sounds like water in a rolling boil accompanied the descent.

The three emissaries conversed amongst themselves.


Why did Lady
G
ost
order us to answer
the
Tullah
n’s
annoying questions?

Bone wondered
out loud
, but his friends didn’t come up with any answers.


Strange to see the sky so empty,”
White Feather
said as he lo
oked
out
over the ocean.

“Aye,” replied White Feather
.

P
anic
will ensue
if news
that the
Elboni
has gone missing
goes public
.


O
ur
faithful
pilot
,” Needle said, pointing to
a
dark red
whifferdil
in the horizon
.

Glory
watched
the flying wedge
land on a platform a stone-throw away
.
The craft
reminded her of a paper airplane, but thicker with no crease down the middle.
The front end came to a point and the back end was
slightly
wider than
D
ad
’s truck
bed
.
Golden fringe dangled from its edges. Bubbles hissed from beneath the hull in a mad frenzy and floated up into the
air
.

Where are the dials
?
Where are the other instruments
?
How in the world does it fly
?
Then
s
he remembered. Ah, magic
.

A
Wybbil
wearing ketchup-colored goggles and a matching jumpsuit sat at the front of the aircraft, his legs knotted into a pretzel
.
He shoved a fat sandwich into his mouth
.
Glory
strained h
er
neck to check for any signs of a live rodent wiggling amongst the lettuce
.
The pilot dabbed the edges of his beard with his
silky white neck
scarf
.

“At your service,” he bowed his head at the three emissaries.

“You mean we get to fly on one of these contraptions?”
Glory
asked, eyes wide with excitement
and a little bit of fear
.

“Contraption?

The pilot turned to
Glory
.
Even
with
a full mouth
,
his
annoyance came through
loud an
d
clear
. “It’s called a whifferdil.

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