Amulet: The Chamber of Stolen Hearts

Chapter 3

1

The night was coming to an end. But the sky was still black.

The moon rested behind a high mountain, and a thin veil of clouds hid glimpses of the stars.

The boy's bare feet were carefully stepping on the smooth slabs of the inner courtyard of the mountain monastery of the Chuddies, which was on top of a huge rock. A lean boy with long dreadlocked silver hair, wearing a simple throw-over made of an ordinary potato sack, stopped in front of a silvery thread, barely visible in the darkness, stretched over the floor.

The boy looked about ten years old. But his gray eyes displayed long years of his suffering, and the deep scars lining his face gave him a completely unchildlike severity.

His name was Grey.

Grey has been Morok's slave his whole life.

That night, for the first time in many years, he was taken out of the catacombs of the Dark World and carried hundreds of miles away to this mysterious land.

A group of six Volots led by Grogg, one of Morok's best and the most experienced commanders, went on a mission that Grey had not been told a word about. They rode giant birds – Mogols, whose wingspan reached several meters. Each Mogol carried a Volot, who were six and half feet tall each. These broad-shouldered monsters with black skin had muzzles like those of bats and two short horns on their heads. The wind ruffled their coarse long hair.

Volots, descended from the Mours and Chuddies, were very vicious and strong creatures. They formed the backbone of Morok's army.

Grogg, the squad's commander, flew at the head of the group on a huge blue-billed Mogol, the largest of all. Grey sat with him and had to hold on tightly to the Volot's wide belt. For the whole journey, Grogg did not utter a word, and only when the snow-capped peaks of the Chuddies' land surrounded them on all sides, the commander briefly instructed Grey on what the boy had to do.

The Volot landed him on a small ledge of the mountain, on which the monastery stood, and vanished into the darkness. Grey deftly climbed up the sheer cliff, jumped over the wall, ran along the narrow alleyway and hid in the dense shade beside the watchtower. After waiting for some time, he darted into the inner courtyard of the temple, passed all the guard posts unnoticed and made his way to a square area with a ten feet tall statue of Vitogor in the middle.

After the stale stench of Morok's dungeons, the clean mountain air jollified the boy. He could not even imagine that it could feel so sweet.

It was so quiet that Grey could clearly hear his own breath. Once again he glanced at the silvery thread stretched over the floor, and in one moment dove right into the granite floor. He immediately appeared on the other side of the thread, without its tiniest shaking.

Four warriors guarded the holy place. Tall and strong, wearing short fur jackets over their silver chainmail, with bows at the ready, they vigilantly looked around, protecting the sacred statue with themselves.

Grey took out the clay vessel that Grogg had given him and spilled the magic liquid on himself, becoming invisible in an instant. Holding his breath, he moved towards the statue. The warriors, as if sensing him, began to peer intensely into the darkness.

'Can you hear?' The youngest of them whispered. 'Footsteps!'

"I can't hear anything,' an older one, with a long, down-turned mustache, replied in a low voice. 'But I feel that someone is near.'

'Ludek! Sound the alarm,' the third one shouted up to the young guard.

Ludek reached for the bugle.

'Wait,' the fourth one stopped him.