NIGHT by I Rin (top rated books of all time TXT) 📖

you to dinner, it is going to be fun! And now excuse me, but I have to commence my duties.”

He walked away from the sorcerer and Lica to his sailors.

“Tell me, Huron,” said Angelica, “how long we need to sail to the island?”

“Not long. Tomorrow at dawn we'll be there!”

“Great. I do not like dusting!”

The Holy Grail

In the evening, our heroes were in the captain's cabin. He raised his glass of wine and said:

“I have a toast to our meeting!”

Lica took a gulp and asked:

“Where are you going, Captain?”

“I am in trade,” said Julien. “We bought crabs from the villagers and deliver them to the customers. But the purpose of your visit to the island is a mystery to me!”

“There is no mystery,” mumbled Huron. “I and Angelica want to visit this island as tourists. Is it strange?”

“But there are lots of other islands, which are safer and more picturesque places than this island,” said the captain.

“No we are interested in this island!” said the sorcerer cagily.

“But I must warn you,” said Julien, “the ship will wait for you no more than one day. You know, we are very busy!”

“Good!” Huron nodded.

“Captain,” Lica tried to shunt the conversation on another topic, “your dinner is perfect!”

“Oh, yes!” Julien agreed. “I have an excellent cook!”

The second half of the dinner was pretty monotonous. The Captain was profuse in compliments and she tried to keep the conversation going. Huron with glum face was silent.

The next morning, as soon as the sun rose, the sorcerer woke Lica:

“Get up; we are coming to the island!”

The girl dressed up and went to the deck. Julien was there too looking through a telescope.

“Good morning!” Angelica said.

“Oh, Angelica!” said the captain slowly, putting his telescope away. “Good morning! You are so charming!”

He kissed her hand.

“Tell me,” continued Julien, “what are you going to do on this godforsaken piece of land? This place is very dangerous!”

“We have to go through a magic ceremony,” Lica got off the hook. “And it can be done only on this island.”

“But do you know about the wild men there, and if they catch you, they’ll kill you! And even worse, they’ll eat you!”

“I hope everything will be alright!” stuttered the girl.

“You know that…” the captain said “…magic is my weakness! I suppose I will go with you.”

“Thank you!” Angelica was delighted.

Actually, she was relieved to know that she was going there with somebody else, but not with only the old sorcerer.

“The Earth!” shouted the sailor on the pylon. “The island!”

“Go to the lagoon!” the captain gave orders. “Drop the anchor! Prepare boats!”

The sorcerer appeared on the deck. His eyes were flaring.

“At last,” he whispered.

“Huron,” the girl called him. “The captain wishes to go to the island with us!”

“What? Are you crazy?” the sorcerer unexpectedly lost control of his senses. “We're not going for a walk!”

“That's why I want Julien to go with us. It will be safer with him!” Lica retorted.

Huron looked at her, but then said:

“Okay, he will go, but do not let him poke his nose into my business!”

“You’ll tell him!” Angelica dogmatized.

Meanwhile, the ship rounded the island and dropped the anchor in the beautiful blue lagoon. Standing on the desk Lica was staring at the marvelous scenery.

“How beautiful!” she murmured.

“Beauty is but skin deep!” the captain said unexpectedly behind the girl and grinned. “In the nice, green jungle bloodthirsty savage tribes are hiding. God preserve us of meeting with them! I hope your sword is not only a pretty thing for you?”

“I have already used it,” embarrassed the girl.

“Already? Do you think you are ready for this dangerous walk?” Julien chuckled again. “Come on, the boat is waiting for us!”

He offered Angelica his hand and helped her down into the boat. Huron was already there.

“If we don’t come back until the sunset, sail to the customer! In this case the second officer will mind the store,” Julien gave the order. “Row to the island!”

Two sailors were sitting in a boat with oars. They immediately began to row, and pretty soon the boat nuzzled into the sandy shore.

“You will stay here!” the captain turned to the sailors. “And we are walking around the island!”

Huron ran ashore and pointed ahead to the mountain.

“I think we must go there!”

“But there are only bare rocks!” Angelica exclaimed.

“They are just what we need!” said the sorcerer.

And he first went into the shade of the thick trees. The girl and the captain followed him. Julien was armed with a pair of pistols and had a flask of water. Our heroes went into the jungle, and soon trees surrounded them everywhere.

“Huron, we’d better use a compass?” the captain suggested him.

“My nose is better than any of the compasses,” retorted the sorcerer. “I can smell where to go!”

Through thick and thin he was going forward confidently. Suddenly our travelers heard a crack aside. As if someone accidentally stepped on a dry branch. The sorcerer immediately tensed up and raised his hand.

“Be quiet!” he whispered. “It looks like we're not alone here!”

Before he could even pronounce it, a few centimeters from Lica’s head an arrow swept and stuck in a tree.

“Run!” Julien shouted and pushed the girl to the bush.

They ran as fast as they could. Branches lashed their faces, lops scrambled clothes. Suddenly Lica’s foot slid down, and she went heels over head into a ravine, the captain slid down topsy-turvy next.

“Shhh,” he tried to be as quite as he could. “I think we have shaken off them!”

“Yes, but where is Huron?” the frightened girl said. “Without him our mission is ill-omened!”

“Do not worry about him!” Julien said. “He has worked with worse.”

As if to prove his words the sorcerer’s voice came from above:

“My friends, I'm not so young, to chase at you as a deer!”

“Huron!” Angelica exclaimed. “I'm so glad that you're alive!”

“I am gladder!” the sorcerer smiled.

He went down into the ravine and said:

“I have news: bad and very bad!”

“What happened?” asked Lica.

“The first is - in the jungle, we have run into ambush of one of the wild men tribes and now they know that we are on the island! The second one is - running away I have lost the tube with blood of my adopted daughter - Leila, and now without it I cannot perform the ceremony.”

“Why is Leila’s blood?” asked the girl.

“Do you remember I said that the only pure and sinless soul could see in the Subtle World? My daughter is a virgin; I could perform the ceremony with her ​​blood and call you by her name. Then you would have been able to see invisible things!”

“But I'm a virgin, too,” said Lica a little embarrassed.

“Really?!” Huron exclaimed happily. “Then we have chance! We have to hurry! Maybe we can get there before the wild men tribes.”

He grabbed her hand trying to climb up the ravine. Julien barely kept up with them. After a while, our heroes came to the foot of the mountains.

“We are going there!” the sorcerer pointed up.

The travelers immediately began to climb the steep slope. As soon as they disappeared over the stones, they heard peoples’ cries below. Apparently, the wild men were looking for them.

“Don’t stop!” Huron warned them. “They won’t follow us in the mountains. This is forbidden territory for them, something like a "taboo"!”

“Why?” asked Angelica.

“It is believed that the Land of the Dead is in the mountains. So they all are terrified to go there.”

Huron took Julien and Lica on a broad plateau.

“Great place!” he said. “Here, I will do a little magic ritual. Julien, I ask you to take a defensive position behind the stones to make sure that none of the savages had come through here!”

“But you have said that they were terrified this place and wouldn’t follow us...” the captain started to speak.

“Yes, but you can’t be too careful!” said the sorcerer firmly.

Julien agreed and went over the cliff.

In Subtle World

“Well, let's start, time is precious!” exclaimed Huron.

He immediately brought some wood and lit a fire. Then he pulled a sharp dagger out of his belt and began to circle around the fire with it, shouting strange phrases. Soon the sorcerer went into ecstasy and seemed not to notice anything around. He was spinning round and round on the spot and suddenly fell down. Angelica ran to him.

“Huron, what happened?” she murmured. “Are you okay?”

Suddenly Huron up on one elbow and held the dagger to Lica.

“Take it,” he said. “Cut your wrist and lick your own blood. If you are really clean, you will see the unseen!”

The girl took the dagger and gently scratched herself on the wrist. The scarlet blood had come out. Angelica licked it with her tongue feeling the salty taste in the mouth. Suddenly she felt dizzy. The girl closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, couldn’t recognize the surrounding landscape. There were mountains, but they were quite different from those which Lica had seen before.

“Wow!” cried the girl. “What is it?”

“You're in the Subtle World,” she heard Huron’s voice. “Look around! You should see some hints that will help you to find the Holy Grail.”

Angelica saw over all around. At this moment, something had flashed in front of her.

“There!” Lica pointed ahead. “There's something!”

“Come on!” said the sorcerer.

He took her hand and said:

“I will hold you, and you lead me to the Holy Grail!”

Angelica nodded and walked forward. Suddenly she stepped on the path.

“I am on the path,” said Lica.

“Excellent!” Huron said with optimism. “Walk over it!”

The girl went on the path, which began to wind among the rocks. Here and there on the rocks she could see strange signs.

“I can see some signs,” Angelica said. “Crosses and emblems...”

“These are the symbols of the Knights Templar. We are on the right path!”

Lica was turning left then right but... suddenly the path ended.

“The path has ended up!” the girl said. “What am I going to do next?”

“Look around, if there are other signs?”

Angelica looked around but did not see anything unusual.

“No hints anymore!” she turned to Huron.

“Have I been wrong!” exclaimed the sorcerer. “It’s impossible! I have spent years of my life looking for the hidden bowl! Maybe there is some kind of a cave or a hole where you could put a magic bowl?”

“No!” she shook her head.

And then she saw that the sunlight is falling on the earth in an unusual way, as if through a sieve.

“It’s interesting!” she said quietly. “What does it mean?”

Lica looked up and saw a huge rock over her head. Oddly enough, but the sunlight was not detained by this rock, it went through, as if the rock was consisted of a billion small holes.

“How curious!” surprised the girl.

“What, what can you see?” asked her the sorcerer.

“I don’t know yet. This rock is quite strange!”

“Look closely, maybe the Grail was hidden there?”

Angelica pulled her hand out of the sorcerer’s clinging fingers and began to climb to the strange rock. In a moment she was on the edge of the cliff above the abyss.

“Look out!” Huron shouted. “You can fall down!”

But Lica could not hear him anymore. She began to touch the stone. It was absolutely unharmed, without any holes big or small. Moreover, it seemed round if looked closer. Holding on to the rounded edge, she moved around the stone. In a moment she went on a small ledge and saw a spring flowing from the stone. And then she saw a really fascinating scene. The rock was not a rock! It was a huge, giant bowl made of solid stone, as if it was embedded into the rock. And the spring was flowing from this bowl.

“I can see it!” Angelica cried. “I can see the bowl!”

“Where?” exclaimed the sorcerer.

After a couple of minutes he was standing next to her and looked at the stone.

“Where is the Grail? Is it there on the rock?”

“No! The Rock itself is the Holy Grail! We were looking for a small bowl, but in fact the Holy Grail is a giant bowl! The light coming through it