That was an understatement. If I were a Milago and saw this I’d be downright pissed. Heck, I was getting pissed anyway. And hungry. Those turkeys smelled good.
“Look,” said Loor as she pointed across the kitchen.
Standing in the doorway was a guy who was definitely not from Nova. He was so big that he filled the opening. He wore the same kind of clothes we had on and stood with his hands on his hips, surveying the kitchen. Around his waist was a leather belt from which dangled a nasty-looking club. I could feel Alder tense up.
“It is a Bedoowan knight,” he whispered. “I do not like this. The knights never come to the kitchens. He must be looking for something.”
“You think they know we’re here?” I asked nervously.
“I do not know,” answered Alder. “But if he catches us, we are finished before we even begin.”
The knight stepped into the kitchen and slowly walked around to survey things. The Novans paid no attention to him and he didn’t acknowledge them either. His eyes slowly scanned the room, taking everything in. We were trapped. In a few moments he would certainly enter this closet and find us.
Alder said nervously, “We should go back to the mines. We can wait until he’s gone and then return.”
“There isn’t time,” snapped Loor. “When he enters the door, we will overpower him and throw him into the mine.”
That wasn’t a good idea either. We weren’t about to kill the guy; at least I wasn’t about to. And he’d be sure to wake up and sound some kind of alarm. And who knew what the Novans would do if a knight entered their pantry and never came out? No, beating up on the guy wasn’t the answer. I quickly pulled off my pack and dug into one of the side pouches, looking for a better solution.
“What are you doing?” demanded Loor.
“I’ve got an idea,” I answered. “If it doesn’t work, we’ll do it your way.”
I found what I was looking for and quickly moved back to the door. The knight was only a few yards away. There wasn’t much time. He looked into a large pot of soup and reached in to take a taste, the slob. That’s when I took my shot.
The thing I pulled out was the laser pointer you sent. I clicked it on and aimed the red beam at the pot of soup. From where we were it was easy to see the red laser dot against the black pot. I could only hope that the knight saw it too. He pulled his hand out of the pot and started to suck on his finger to taste the soup, but still he didn’t see the laser. Alder and Loor watched the scene over my shoulder. Of course, they had no idea what this laser thing was, but now wasn’t the time to ask.
I jiggled the beam a little so that the red dot danced on the pot. The knight stood there sucking on his tasty finger. He was just about to reach back into the pot for a double dip…when he saw it. He looked at the jumping dot curiously, without even taking his finger out of his mouth. The idiot. Then I slowly moved the dot off of the pot and let it travel across the stove. The knight, with his finger still in his mouth, followed it. This was like the game I play with Marley and a flashlight. I’d shine the beam on the floor and Marley would jump at it. The poor dog never got the idea that the spot of light wasn’t something she could get her paws on. But that didn’t stop her from trying.
That’s exactly what happened with the knight. I slowly moved the red laser dot over loaves of bread, past bubbling pots, across wooden tables, down along the floor and back up on the wall. The curious knight never took his eye off of it. He followed the magical red light like, well, like a dog following a flashlight beam. What he didn’t realize, is that I was moving him farther and farther away from us.
Once his back was to us, I silently motioned to the others to get moving. They slowly but silently opened the pantry door and crept out into the kitchen. I was right on their tails, while still concentrating on holding the beam steady to keep the dumbfounded knight entertained. We quickly moved across the kitchen to the exit. The Novans didn’t even give us a second look. I was the last one out. My body was already out of the door, but I leaned back in, directing the beam. Then, I turned the laser off and couldn’t resist waiting one last second to see the befuddled knight’s reaction. It was perfect. He stood still for a moment, then started looking around frantically. Sheesh, even Marley wasn’t stupid enough to do that. I wanted to laugh out loud, but I couldn’t stay to enjoy the show. We had to get moving, so I followed the other two into the palace.
We had made it. We were in. The next step was to make our way to the cell where Uncle Press was being kept. Alder was already checking the map. All Loor and I could do was follow him and try to blend in. As it turned out, it wasn’t all that difficult. The palace was busy with Bedoowan people who all more or less looked and dressed like us. Yes, Loor’s skin was a bit darker than most, but not so much that she stood out. If no one recognized us for who we really were, we might just make it. As we made our way through the corridors, what I saw was not only surprising, it made an anger grow inside of me that I never thought possible.
The fortress was nothing like I expected. From the outside it looked like an ancient stone castle like they had in medieval times. I had seen pictures of those castles that still stood in England and the interiors were just as crudely simple as the exteriors. Here I expected to see corridors of stone and tiny cell-like rooms. I expected the floors to be of dirt and the light to come from windows or torches. You know, your basic Robin Hood-style castle. But this is not at all what we found inside the Bedoowan fortress.
The kitchen had been my first hint that all was not going to be what I thought. I’m telling you, Mark and Courtney, this place was beautiful! The walls were smooth and painted with light colors. Near the ceilings were elaborate decorative paintings done right on the walls. Some corridors had paintings of vines and flowers that stretched the whole length of the wall. Other corridors had paintings of people who were probably famous Bedoowans from the past. The ceilings were decorated with colorful chips of glass that were sculpted into beautiful patterns. The floors were all tiled with intricate marble work. And the place was totally clean. Every so often we’d pass one of the Novan servants on his hands and knees scrubbing the floors, or dusting the statues that stood on tables like this was some kind of museum.
Loor and I exchanged glances. We were both thinking the same thing. How could these people live in such elegance at the expense of the Milago people? I saw that Loor’s jaw was clenching. She was angry too.
We heard music coming from a room we were about to pass. As we went by I glanced in to see a small concert going on. Three musicians sat on chairs playing oddball instruments like I had never seen before. They were string instruments, but they were shaped like human forms. It was really bizarro. The music they played was sweet and soothing. Several Bedoowans lounged around listening on big, cushy pillows. Pillows! These people had pillows! And to top it all off, they had Novan servants scrambling around serving them fruit from large platters.
The more of the Bedoowan people I saw, the more I realized that they were a pretty soft bunch…except for the knights, of course. All the others had this kind of baby fat thing going on. The men, the women, even the kids…all looked as if they needed to hit the gym. I guess that’s what happens when you have nothing to do except lie around, eat stuff, and listen to lame music.
And here is the wildest thing. In every corridor along the walls there were thin glass tubes about the diameter of a nickel.
These tubes stretched the whole length of every corridor, and they gave off light! Light! They didn’t have electricity here, but they figured out some way to make artificial light! The bottom line is that these guys were incredibly advanced. By our standards they were still back in the dark ages, but compared to the Milago they were the Jetsons!