The Cold Light Fades - Book 1 of the Crystal Chronicles

Chapter Eight - The Way Station Revelation

Linta awoke with a start, for a second, she thought she was at home in her own bed and the whole of the previous night's events had just been a terrible dream. She reached up and rubbed the sleep away from her eyes with her tiny hands. The fuzzy image of her tidy bedroom was replaced by the scruffy sleeping quarters of the way station.

The room was lit by an oily ruddy flame coming from a small fireplace that was made of rough grey chunks of stone. The ceiling was low, and the floor was strewn with straw and wood chippings. The smells in the room made the princess wrinkle her nose; it was a mixture of unwashed bodies and the inside of a barn, which was to be expected as many of their crystal companions were also sleeping inside the room. Razza was in the stables outside because he was far too big to fit inside the small station and Chal, Rakk's flaming bird was roosting up on the roof. Keeping watch for any more of the black monsters. The party had been rushed into the small house almost as soon as they had arrived and most of the exhausted party went straight to the sleeping quarters. Where they collapsed onto their beds and fell fast asleep.

Linta raised herself up off the thin lumpy straw mattress and saw at the end of her bed was Lars. The soft white petals were pulled back away from the bright green snakes' face and his bright yellow eyes were open and watching the princess intently. An image of concern appeared in Linta's mind, showing the young girl tossing and turning in her bed as she slept fitfully.

"Don't worry Lars," she whispered to the small snake, as she concentrated on forming a smiling picture of herself in her head and pushing it out to the coiled snake. Linta swung her legs out of her bed and the snake slithered up her out-stretched arm. The copper haired princess was still dressed in her thick woolly travelling clothes. She sniffed the clothes that she had now slept in twice and discovered that they stank, and in fact, she probably smelt as bad as the clothes did. Linta decided that it was time to get clean; she hopped out of bed and went to her pack to collect a few things. Then she went out of the sleeping quarters and down a short hall to the washroom. She found a large pan of heated water and proceeded to wash herself and her snake thoroughly using some soap and a cloth. The warm water felt great on her pale skin as the dirt and grime was washed away, and somehow the water also managed to peel away the feelings of uncertainty from her mind.

A small stream of light was shining in from a window above the princess. The bright sunlight flew in like a brilliant beam and Linta tried to bathe herself in the sunshine. She hoped the natural luminescence would remove all the black shadows that she had seen the night before. She guessed from the amount of light that it must be about midday and then a loud rumble came from her stomach, and she realised she was ravenous. Linta quickly dressed in fresh clean clothes and went back out into the hall to search for food.

As she walked down the short hall, the smell of food caught her attention, and she followed her nose into another room just slightly bigger than their sleeping quarters. In the middle of the room was a large fireplace with the same dirty flickering red fire, but this time in the fireplace was a large pot of hot steaming soup. Linta skipped impatiently towards the simmering pot and lifted the lid to look at the watery brown soup, it may not have looked too appetising, but it smelt divine.

"Would you like a bowl Your Highness?" said a woman's voice from the far side of the fireplace.

"Yes please," Linta said immediately. The woman known as Narlia came round to the princess with a large wooden bowl and a small basket of bread. The woman was middle aged and slightly plump around her mid region. Her hair was so dark brown that it could easily be mistaken for black, her cheeks and nose were red, and her brown eyes were soft and kindly. Narlia was wearing a pale lilac dress with a thick woolly cardigan over the top and her hair was tied back into a single ponytail that dropped lustrously over her left shoulder.