Hilda - Lycadea (9 page)

"Davdruw will come," said the blue-haired
man, Golgofro. The way he said the name told Hilda that Davdruw had
to be a person of some importance.

"Wouldn't it be polite to make this chair let
go of me?" the witch asked. "What will Davdrow say when he sees me
like this?"

"DavDRUW knows," Galgoran said.

"Crappedy crap, what does he know?" Hilda
commented.

"Enough," a new voice said. It was a voice
one had to love. In that one word it held all the things one would
wish for in a voice. Galgoran and Golgofro stepped back in sheer
awe, as a giant of a person stepped from behind a large white
screen with a red frame. "I am Davdruw, and I am aware of your
situation, Grimhilda the Witch."

Hilda felt the capitals as the man spoke and
envied him as he made a movement which released her from the grip
of the floating chair. She hopped out of it and looked up at the
man who was at least seven foot tall. "Where am I, who are you and
when can I go back to that stupid ship?" she asked, entirely
unimpressed by the size of the newcomer.

"You are hungry," Davdruw said, "so please
come with me and we can talk whilst you are replenishing your
strength." Totally unimpressed by Hilda's powerful coming on to
him, he turned and walked off. He did not even check if the witch
was following him. She did, as the promise of food was enticing
enough. As she walked along into the large hall, behind her
Galgoran and Golgofro took the chair away as the wall came down
again.

Davdruw, on his long legs, was no match for
the disabled and broomless witch. She had to run to keep up with
him but did not complain. She'd show him what kind of witch he was
dealing with. By the time the man stopped, near a table loaded with
food and cushions to sit on, Hilda was panting.

"Please, sit down and enjoy the food,"
Davdruw said as he sat down on a cushion. Hilda nodded and waved a
hand as she did her best to catch her breath. "Please, Grimhilda
the Witch, do take your time. The Prophecy has predicted all this,
so we made the food extra hot." Davdruw watched Hilda intently, as
if he was waiting for something.

Hilda straightened herself and looked at the
table. "Suck an-"

"Elf," Davdruw finished her words.

Hilda stared at the man. "Who are you?" She
did not feel one bit at ease now, without her magic, in a place she
couldn't fathom and near this giant of a man who looked like
someone totally not from her world and who knew her lines.

Davdruw, pale-faced and blue-haired as the
others, pointed at a cushion. "Please, sit and eat, while I will
explain."

"About time," Hilda muttered as she went to
sit. She meant both the food and the explanation.

As the witch was stuffing herself, Davdruw
started to talk. The race he was part of called itself the
Lycadeans, a race technically and physically superior to most other
intelligent species in the universe as far as they knew it. And
they knew quite a large part of it, according to the man.

"As to who I am... I am Davdruw. I am
regarded the spiritual leader of the Lycadeans. All my life I have
been preparing for this important meeting."

"Important meeting?" Hilda asked. "With
whom?" Then it dawned on her. "Oh. With me." As she chewed on
something that looked like a chicken leg, she frowned. "Why am I so
important to you? How do you know about me? And the elf?"

"The Prophecy," Davdruw said. He pronounced
the capital. "It was all written down, long ago, that Grimhilda the
Witch would appear here at this time, and it came true."

Hilda dropped the bone on her plate and
reached for the large goblet that was filled with something that
looked and smelled like wine but was no wine, as it did not affect
her in the least. "Prophecy? Some made a prophecy and told you that
it is about me? Someone pulled your leg then, Davdruw."

The spiritual leader peeked down at his leg,
not sure if she was serious. Then he touched a small pad on his
sleeve, which made a monitor appear. Not just any monitor, it was
as if air solidified over the table and an image appeared on it. It
was a young man with blue hair, wearing silvery clothes like all
people in this space pyramid did.

Hilda almost sploshed the contents of the
goblet over herself as she saw it all happen. "What's that? Is that
your version of a magic mirror?"

Davdruw smiled and nodded. "One could call it
that. This is a recording of my predecessor, Garubine, who recorded
this message for this moment." He did something with his sleeve
again and the image started moving. And talking.

"Honoured witch Grimhilda," the man in the
solid-air confines said. "As it is the tradition, I am rerecording
this message for you. The Lycadean world and people have been
waiting for you for a long time." He raised something that looked
like a book. A real one, with a leather cover and paper pages.
Obviously it was very old or expensive, as he handled it with
extreme care.

"What's that?" Hilda asked, but Davdruw just
shook his head, his eyes glued to the image.

The man in the image opened the book, looked
over the page and stared out of his confines again. "This is the
book in which the Lycadean Prophecy is written down. If you, and
only if you, honoured Grimhilda, hear my words, then the New
Beginning is near. I shall now read the first words of the Lycadean
Prophecy."

"William?" a voice asked as there was a knock
on the door. "Are you well?"

The wizard knew it was Rebel, not just from
her voice. "I'm fine. You can come in if you want," he said as he
sat up on the bed. The two cats did not move a whisker.

Rebel entered by opening the door and
stepping inside. She did not want to upset the wizard more by
popping in as he was already so shaken up by the disappearance of
Hilda. "Moro asked me to check on you. The Mimosa is picking up
speed nicely, we're in hot pursuit of the pyramid."

"Oh. I guess that is a good thing." William
did not feel much better after that news.

"We're travelling at roughly four times the
speed of light," Rebel said, "I think you would enjoy the view
outside, on deck."

"On deck??" This was so weird an invitation
that William forgot his sombre train of thoughts. "At that
speed?"

"Uhhuh," Rebel nodded, "looks really cool.
Want me to pop us out?"

The wizard scooped up the two cats, who did
not protest against that treatment. "Let's go." He hoped that he
could also get a glimpse of the pyramid they were following.

Rebel waited until the wizard was standing
before she moved them to the deck.

The wizard, cats over his shoulders, looked
out to the stars. There were none. Instead, there were explosions
of light everywhere around the Mimosa, with long tails of sparkles
spreading out in all directions. "That's not how they pictured it
on television," he remarked.

"They know nothing, wizard," Rebel commented.
"This is the real deal. At least from where we're standing."

It was obvious that this was a very
subjective real deal. William nodded and walked to the side of the
ship, peering out into the distance. "Any idea where the pyramid
is?" he asked.

"Ahead," Rebel said as she joined him. "Far
ahead. But we're catching up."

Somehow William doubted that, but he did not
feel like arguing. Instead he wondered if there was a way that he
could make the ship go faster. He looked at the sails on the masts.
They hung there as if there was no wind at all, very true to life
as there was no wind at all. Then he realised that he had no idea
how fast they were going, so influencing seemed an impossible
chore.

"I can show you something more of the ship,"
Rebel offered. "Moro's in the steering hut, I am sure he won't mind
if you have a look around there."

"Might as well," the wizard said, as he still
pondered the way to speed up something that was already going
faster than he could imagine.

"Come on then, you big lug," Rebel said as
she grabbed the sleeve of his robe and dragged him along.

"What, no popping in and out this time?"
William wondered.

"No. Walking is good for you," Rebel
lectured. She took him into one of the side-doors on the high stern
of the ship.

They entered another very white and sterile
corridor, not as long as the one that led to the cabins. Rebel
showed William a kind of elevator that was nothing but a tube with
air. "Step in after me, and don't grab onto something," she said as
she stepped into the nothing. Some unseen force pushed her up.

William hesitated for a moment, then he put
his hands on the backs of the cats and stepped into the tube also.
As if there was a floor of air under his feet, he was gently pushed
upwards for a while, until a hand suddenly grabbed hold of one of
his arms. The upward movement stopped and he exited the tube. "Holy
Bejeebus," he commented.

"I thought so too, the first time Moro pulled
me from the tube," Rebel grinned. "We're at the main flight deck
here. Only Moro, Xander and I come here. And you now, of course.
The rest of the crew is scared of the place."

"Scared? What's here to be scared of?"
William asked in wonder.

"Nothing, but we don't want folks snooping
around and touching things they ought not, so I planted some
'memories' in their heads. Nothing bad, just adequate."

The wizard frowned at the tactics Rebel and
Moro employed and the ethics behind those, but the woman in leather
did not give him time to let his thoughts roam. She walked to a
wall that suddenly contained a door. She opened it and invited
William in.

"Holy Bejeebus."

The steering hut, as Rebel had called it,
looked like a smoky bar. Maurizio was dressed in white pants and a
yellow shirt that was mostly unbuttoned. He hung over a pool table
that was in the middle of the bar and his face showed extreme
concentration to lay down a good shot. Several men sat and hung
around the pool table and the bar on the far left. Smoke hung in
the air, although William did not smell it. Several ladies,
probably of negotiable affection, were sitting at the bar also,
sipping too brightly coloured drinks. One of them, in a very skimpy
dress, stood near a large Wurlitzer jukebox. She clearly tried to
evoke some music from the thing.

"Who are these people? And where are we?"

Rebel laughed. "Moro has his hang-out show on
again. These people are holograms, as are most of the objects in
this thing. Just the table is real. And we are."

A clank and a curse told everyone that
Maurizio had messed up the shot. He threw the pool queue on the
table and turned to the visitors. "Ah, welcome. Good to see you,
William. How do you like it here?" He waved his hand generously
along the bar, his eyes lingering with the holographic ladies for
quite a while. With a sigh he looked at William again. "The real
steering hut looks so... boring," he said by way of an apology, as
one of the holographic pool players stood shouting at him,
threatening to hit him with a queue.

"It is... different." That was the best thing
William came up with.

As the suddenly silently shouting pool player
swung a queue through the captain, Maurizio moved a few of the
balls on the table and suddenly the scenery changed. The bar and
the ladies changed into a large array of what probably were
computers, complete with blinking lights. The posters that had
shown movie ads of Humphrey Bogart and Marlene Dietrich now were
huge displays that showed scribbles William could not make sense
of. And the table was now a dull grey desk with a kind of computer
terminal totally unfit for human manipulation.

"See what I mean?"

William saw. The bar, he agreed, was
better.

Maurizio and Rebel showed him the bits of the
room they had figured out so far, which was scarily little. William
had the feeling that the Mimosa had a mind of its own and went
where it pleased, and the people on the ship were just on it for
the ride.

Quite soon they were in the lounge again,
where they had had their first proper talk. When Hilda was still
there, William thought wryly. Whatever the two tried, they did not
succeed in cheering him up. Even the drinks that changed colour
faster than a chameleon didn't make him feel better.

"Sorry for being a grouch," the wizard said
as he got up. "I am not in the mood to be cheerful."

Maurizio, wearing his black pants, red coat
and eye patch again, nodded. "I understand. Rebel might also. We
are doing what we can, William."

William nodded. "I'm going back to the deck."
As he went there, the two cats followed him like small shadows, and
just as silent. Out on the deck he summoned his broom and as he got
on it, the two cats shared the spot on the bristle. He flew to the
bow, where the large crystal was. The thing sparkled in the
fireworks of stars they passed.

He sat down on the black floor, the two cats
sitting and looking at him. "So what do you think, guys, can this
wizard make the ship go any faster? Is that a good thing to try
even, I am not sure if anyone has a clue whether we're going in the
right direction or not?"

Obsidian and Grimalkin looked at each other
for a moment, then looked up at William again. "Meowww," they
voiced their shared opinion. Two heads were scratched.

William got up and popped up his wand. Obsi
and Grim slipped away in the many moving shadows. "Let's speed this
stuff up some," the wizard mumbled. Behind him, three sailors
slowly came closer as they were curious what this strangely dressed
man was doing there so close to the crystal.

The wizard reached inside himself, summoning
all the magic he could call upon. A sphere of power appeared around
the speeding sailing ship, and once he had that established he gave
the bubble a push into the direction they were going. Gone were his
doubts about this being possible. The only thing that counted was
his witch, and he was going to get to her one way or the other,
even when the other still had to be thought up.