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

“
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.
”