The Fiery Crater

Vanka Valyalkin entered the jail sitting on top of a stone idol. In this reality Vanka had barely changed. Still the same yellow soccer shirt with many patches, a mischievous face, and sharp, angular shoulders. The idol, on whose shoulders Vanka sat, continually stopped and turned its entire body. It vaguely sensed that something here was not as it should be. However, an idol’s neck was fixed and the giant could not imagine what was happening on its shoulders. Moreover, Vanka was too light for the giant to feel him.

“Tanya, Yagun! I’m with you! Am I your enemy or not? Enemies become known in misfortune! ” He shouted, holding on the giant’s head the basket with meat cuts for rottenball.

At the sound of his voice those idols in the jail turned. One of them swung hard. It tried to knock Vanka down, but only put a fist into the forehead of its incoming colleague. Crumbs of stone fell.

The newly appeared idol did not like this greeting, and, as a retaliatory attack, it broke off the nose of its enemy.

Not waiting for the one without a nose to swing again, Vanka hurriedly jumped from the shoulders of the idol. The rottenball basket, having flown off from the cracked head of the giant, flopped down beside him.

Tanya dodged the huge paw trying to nail her to the wall and rushed to the basket. Puckering from the loathsome smell, she began to fling the decaying cuts, screaming:

“ Gullis-dullis! Trullis-zapullis! Figus-zatsapus! ”

Most of all Tanya feared that the spells would not work without a magic ring, but residual magic likely remained in the rotten-sick balls. And — it turned out to be enough!

Poor heathen idols! Bloody offerings came hurtling at them. Some, before finding themselves in Tibidox, had lain in the ground for a thousand years. They knew much, very much. But did not have any idea about one of these obsolete subjects: they did not know what a bewitched pass was and why it was necessary to fear it. The pieces of decaying meat flew around the jail with the speed of cannon balls, punishing anyone who attempted to catch them or at least to brush them off.

All the faces of the clumsy fierce giants were immediately covered up, and they started, without investigating, hitting each other. The smell of decaying meat teased them. Noses and ears broke off, fingers flew away. Agukh squealed, greedily gripping with his sharp teeth a piece with bone.

“What was that? What are these spell? ” Yagun was surprised.

“Normal bewitched passes. You mean to say that you play rottenball without bewitched passes? ” Tanya could not believe it.

She already had no time to explain in more detail. Good that Yagun caught everything at once.

“What did you say there? Let’s try! Trullis-zapullis! ” He shouted, throwing the next piece.

The bone in Agukh’s teeth soared up into the air and began to rush along the prison cell. The swamp bogey issued heart-rending cries and jerked its crooked legs.

“I’ll curse everyone! ” He howled. “You don’t know whom you’re dealing with! I’ll tear you...”

The meat slammed into the brick wall.

“... to pieces! ” Agukh slipped down to the floor, smiled in uncertainty, and passed out.

While Yagun satisfactorily contemplated his horned trophy, Tanya and Vanka Valyalkin rushed to Sardanapal and tried to free him from the fetters. But the hoop of Plague-del-Cake held firmly: it merely crackled from the black magic. Only Vanka’s ring alone in no way could manage it.

The beard and both moustaches of Sardanapal decisively pointed to the door.

“Run! Don’t worry about me. Remember what I told you! The Golden Leech! Crush it! ” The academician demanded brokenly.

The walls of Tibidox trembled again. From the bottomless well a vague sigh reached them as if flying from an inconceivable distance. The tortoise was beginning to lose patience. A little more and it would try to shake off from its snout the idols bugging it, and then...

Tanya rushed to the stairs.

The idols, fighting among themselves so that stone foreheads were cracking, did not pursue them. They had enough work even without that.

“Tanya, wait! Not so fast! Or you’ll be the bait! ” Bab-Yagun was puffing.

“What bait? ”

“You’ll see what bait! Be the bait, they tell you, and then I’ll hook! ”

Tanya stopped. The grandson of Yagge held the stunned Agukh by the feet and with effort twirled him overhead, using the swamp bogey to knock down the restored magic barriers.

The crooked horns of Agukh crackled. Lightning flashed between them. Each barrier died out for several seconds and this was sufficient time for the children to rush through.

“How do you like that! And my stone horsie and I also rammed all the lilac barriers! True, I hid behind the head of my little idol, ” Vanka said jealously.

“Listen, but why doesn’t anything happens to the bogey? Well, in terms of his breaking through the lilac curtains and remaining himself? ” Tanya was astonished.

Yagun smiled.

“But what will it do to him? A swamp bogey is a swamp bogey. What else can he be changed into? To be a swamp bogey — it’s already whoa... terminal, ” he said.

Finally, the children got outside, again finding themselves at the guardroom of the cyclopes. The bearded guard on duty, robed in sheepskin, was dreaming away on an oak log. In sleep he was trembling and hugging the poleaxe exactly like a favourite cat.

“Look at this lumbering nitwit! Snoring away! And how does he manage? The idols with their footfall and crash should wake him! ” Tanya was amazed.

“They should. If he were not a cyclops, ” said Vanka.

“What, cyclopes cannot be woken up? ” Tanya could not believe it.

“Cyclopes have iron nerves, outstanding sleep, and very compact brains with one turn, repeating the shape of Drowned Man Avenue. So says my granny, and indeed she knows! It amazes me how clever she is! Totally! ” Yagun remarked.

He quietly approached the snoring cyclops and unceremoniously shoved Agukh by the head into the empty bucket standing nearby. The cyclopes usually filled this bucket with water for themselves, but now it was empty. The swamp bogey, already beginning to come to, angrily began to jerk his feet. The bucket began to jump.

“I’ll kill! H-ho! Get me out or you’ll die in horrible s-spas-sms! I’ll cut off your heads! I’ll boil you in oil! ” The bogey started to hiss.

His voice, intensified by the bucket, sounded like it came from a mouthpiece.

“If I were you I would howl quieter! ” Vanka advised him.

“Aha, you’re afraid, you nobody! S-scared? I’ll yell until s-someone comes and helps me gut you! ” Agukh cheered up, trying to aim at kicking Vanka in the bridge of the nose.

“And you squeal as much as you want! Only, in my opinion, the cyclopes cannot stand evil spirits. If they see you here, they can drop the bucket from a very high altitude. Or, say, on a bet, to flatten it with poleaxes. Nevertheless, can’t drink out of it now: it’s already stinking up with your mucus! ” Vanka said.

“H-ho! These creeps will not laugh! I’m the favourite bogey of the mis-stress! ” Agukh squealed.

“It’s not written on your heels. Put yourself in the place of a cyclops, such a simple mythical fellow... You come out of the guardroom, a splitting headache from a hangover. You want some water to drink! And suddenly you see a bucket screaming here, from which stick out very suspicious legs. ‘Phew, what a stink! ’ You think. ‘What’s that in the pail there? Looks like the crooked walkers of a swamp bogey! Should I push him into the stove! Indeed it’s only a bucket. How would I know what filth lies in it? ’”

The bucket quieted down in fright. Agukh annoyed the Cyclopes too frequently to count on their treating him well.

“Well now: h-ho or not h-ho? ” Vanka mimicked.

The swamp bogey crossly moved his legs with dirty fingers; however, he restrained from further chatter.

“I see, it’s h-ho! Likely, hysterics and beating of dishes are put aside till a better time... Okay, let’s get away from here, guys! I hate bogey odour! ” Vanka said with disgust.

The friends looked around, thinking it would be simpler to get out through the walls.

“In my opinion this is the most unpleasant part in all of Tibidox. Continuous labyrinths all around. Interesting, what was The Ancient One thinking of when he planned the internal corridors of the school? ” Yagun pensively said.

“Why are you asking me? How would I know? The Ancient One, of course, was a genius, but his mind oscillates quite a bit. It’s always so with them, the geniuses. First they sit quietly, little by little making themselves immortal, and then suddenly — bang! — they’ll bite off a piece of soap or rip open a pillow! ” Vanka categorically stated.

“I already heard something similar from someone. From Hugo, it seems. Or he laid the blame on prophecies in verse? Well, not important, ” Tanya said.

Bab-Yagun turned around and flinched. The guard cyclops smacked his lips in a sweet dream and tenderly embraced the poleaxe. Over his head slipped past a little cupid in dark-blue breeches with fringes. A full quiver of arrows hitched up by the cupid’s well-fed thighs.

Baby Grotter looked around pensively. The lower levels of the school hardly inspired tours. The intricate corridors with many offshoots, blind alleys, and sinking ceilings now and then greatly resembled the labyrinths of the Minotaur. They said that The Ancient One, simply and unpretentiously transferred the labyrinth from Crete to Tibidox, having cunningly pasted it with the help of the fifth dimension.

A detailed map of Tibidox never existed and could not exist anyway. At night the restless evil spirits came out of the basements and laid new passageways, blocking up the old ones.

“Aha! Let’s investigate! ” Yagun said, examining the identical corridors. “From here we arrived on a kicking vacuum without vertical takeoff! That means we cannot poke our noses there. There for sure Slander Slanderych with such a nice sledgehammer is on the watch for us. Did I not tell you that he acquired for himself a flying sledgehammer? It was forged from a worthless treasure-sword and a club that knocks the brains out. He would even use this club on the humpbacked horse! How it would cry out! ”

“In your place I would say ‘thanks’ to the horse and not be rude! ” Tanya muttered unhappily.

Yagun behaved extremely foolishly with respect to the horse. It had to do with being a worshipper of flying machines and diving juicers!

“Why are you swearing? How can you say ‘thanks! ’” Vanka was shocked. “Girls don’t use this word! ”

“And what do they use? ”

“They say: ‘The most repulsive specimen, I express my black ingratitude to you! ’ Or anything in this vein! ” Valyalkin said didactically.

“Leave it, Vanka, as if she had bumped into the tortoise, she confuses everything! Either she calls me a ‘friend’ or hurls ‘thanks’ like bricks. I thought she was going to sneer at Sardanapal, but there she tried to be something original! But let’s return to our corridor. Here this leads to the drawbridge. And this to the stairs and to the walls. Well, where are we setting off to? ” Yagun asked.

The grandson of Yagge darted with his nose and wiped it with such a devil-may-care movement of his hand that Tanya involuntarily began to worry: would he rub it off like a piece of modelling clay. The nose, however, survived.

“Listen, Yagun, the guardhouse of The Ancient One is in place? Plague did nothing to it? ” Unexpectedly beginning to worry, Tanya asked.

It suddenly came to her head that in this reality the Golden Leech could have hidden somewhere else. In this case it would be impossible to find it altogether.

“Aha, she did! She sliced the bread and ate... Hey, why are you frightened? Lost your sense of humour perhaps? Who needs them, your ruins? ” Yagun said noncommittally.

“Well, someone needs them! The water-sprites and the wood-goblins? Because of these ruins they’re eternally displacing each other’s cheekbones! And what’s there for them to share? Then Tararakh drags from magic station two weeks of medicine for them! Plague forbids treating evil spirits, ” objected Valyalkin.

Tanya sighed with relief. Bab-Yagun listened, and then suddenly dived around the corner, beckoning the children behind him.

The door of the guardroom slammed. The cauldron-shaped head of a cyclops stuck out.

“Wow, fellows! Look what trash is sticking out of the bucket! Now why don’t we play a little soccer? Ei-eh! ”

A second later the crash of the bucket and the terrible howl of Agukh reported that the match had already begun.

“A hit! GO-AL! Only where exactly is their goal? Pity it cannot be controlled! ” Yagun sighed. The commentator again awoke in him.

Avoiding meeting the cyclopes, the friends slid into the nearest corridor.

“Yagun, is your vacuum far? ” Tanya shouted on the run.

“Far enough: in my room. Only what use is it? Flight blocks are everywhere in Tibidox. Slander and Dentistikha renew them every month, ” said Yagun.

“Uh-huh. And once Stinktopp even took up helping them. Imagine, I leave my room in the morning and the cupids are walking on foot along the corridor. Sobbing, mad! Shooting arrows at whomever they come upon. Gorynya later almost fell in love with Plague-del-Cake. Good though it caught him at the end of flight. The flies, you imagine, cannot fly but crawl along the walls! It was necessary For Tararakh to interfere. Then it turned out that Stinktopp had cast spells that were too strong, ” Vanka informed them.

Imagining to herself the flies not being able to take off and only running along the walls, Tanya smiled. Professor Stinktopp, using dark magic, could never stop in time.

“That’s nothing! Flight blocks are only inside Tibidox. They’re not outside the towers, nor even on the walls, ” said Tanya.

“Where do you know that from? ” Yagun was astonished.

“And as if you don’t know? You remember, once we flew on your vacuum along the main staircase in order to pass the cyclopes? ”

The grandson of Yagge was on guard.

“What cyclopes? They were never on the main stairs. The heroes guard the stairs. Right, Vanka! ” He stated.

“Exactly. The heroes. Usynya below, Dubynya above, and Gorynya walks back and forth. In his annoyance he searches for someone’s foot to stomp on! ” Valyalkin nodded.

“Really? What, have you forgotten? We even wanted to turn up on the Vanishing Floor! ” Tanya repeated already without any hope.

She already grasped that in this bend of time the Vanishing Floor did not appear. And why would it even show itself if there was no need for Plague-del-Cake to hide from anyone? She was the mistress of the situation. The Vanishing Floor and the Black Cube remained in strategic reserve for the time being. In case of any fire.

Vanka Valyalkin squinted.

“In my opinion, Yagun, someone of the letter ‘T’ has too many secrets. I don’t like it! And I’m not moving from here till this someone explains everything to us, ” he said.

“Precisely, soccer shirt! Although you and I fight every week, now I agree with you. To have secrets from cursed enemies is thoroughly despicable! I’m also not moving from the spot! ” Yagun supported him.

Tanya looked seriously at the boys. She thought that her friends remained her friends even in this reality, although heaven knows how the violet sweetheart Coffinia Cryptova wormed her way in among them. Well, so they call themselves enemies, it is already at the expense of the pitiful fantasy of Plague-del-Cake. Plague changed the words, but still could not change the human heart!

“Fine. Somebody of the letter ‘T’ won’t keep silent anymore. If it were not for the Rope inside the fingerboard of the double bass, the spirit and the Leech...” She began.

The narration was conducted far from epic terms. Nestor the chronicler and the legendary Boyan created under more favourable conditions. Tanya was continually looking fearfully around and listening. One could even argue that brevity is the sister of talent, but indeed the fist of an idol is precisely its friend, comrade, and brother. And at the same time also a beloved mother-in-law.

“So, it means that the Tanya Grotter, who plays rottenball excellently, was not you? ” Vanka summed up in disappointment when she finished.

“Yes, I’m Tanya... But not that one... Or the same one, but in other circumstances... The same body, but the soul...” she confusedly explained.

Yagun stared at her mockingly.

“Soul, you say? One must be a complete fruitcake to believe in your story! Well, totally! ” He said.

“But I believe it, ” Vanka said, suffering for some reason.

“And not surprising. You, soccer shirt, were always a clinical crackpot, ” Yagun stated impressively. He paused and with melancholy added: “Another bad thing. Bad that I also believe it! Here we’re such a nutty pair of screwballs, who goes about their business being duped! ”

Vanka encouragingly slapped him on the shoulder.

“Okay, my batty enemy! Forget we’re duped, and let’s go! You hear how the walls shake? The tortoise is pretty tired of everything! I understand it very well. Only it, poor thing, fell asleep, slept for some negligible million years, and now — suddenly! — they woke it! Well, how can you not be mad now? ”

Listening to the lively chatter of Vanka, Tanya felt happy. They were again together, again united. The children were about to set off for the bridge, but at this moment, beyond the turn, someone started to whine squeakily:

“Ze new shoe is again pinching my foot! I vill puff-puff ze one who cursed me viz such a nightmarish corn!

Bab-Yagun sneaked up and fearfully looked out, trying to stay in the shadow.

“You’ll never guess who’s walking here! ” He whispered.

“Professor Stinktopp? ” Tanya smiled. Such asses like Professor Stinktopp remain constant in all realities.

“The same! From where do you know who this is if you’re not our Baby Grotter? ” Yagun asked with suspicion.

“Yes, I am yours, yours! And by the way, if you call me ‘baby’ once more, I’ll rename you ‘mini Yagunchik! ’ Got it? ” Tanya threatened him.

Nodding, Yagun looked around in a business-like manner and rushed to a narrow, curved corridor.

“Here! We can’t cross the drawbridge! Stinktopp is there! So, we move out onto the wall! ” He ordered and, taking away Vanka’s ring, muttered something in a hurry.

“What are you doing? ” Tanya asked.

“Don’t interrupt! I’m trying to summon my vacuum with Hap-tsap! I’ve always had difficulty with three-dimensional spells, ” Bab-Yagun dismissed her.

Damp corridors again stretched out. The infinite stairs of the Big Tower suddenly passed into Gothic galleries. Some went out to the walls, but the majority, by the efforts of Plague-del-Cake and the evil spirits, came abruptly to an end to nowhere and could only convey one to the cemetery.

Tanya hardly recognized Tibidox. What did they do with all the pictures, Herculean chain mails, ancient chests, and Bokharan carpets? Squeaky gallows and executioner’s blocks decorated with dark velvet hardly made the school of magicians more attractive. However, the design fancy of Plague-del-Cake forever buzzed somewhere in the sector of attributes of death.

When the labyrinths finally happily ended and in front, in the narrow bright opening of the exit, battlements and loopholes appeared, Tanya almost yelled with enthusiasm. Yagun’s vacuum was already waiting for them, finding room for itself in a deep pothole of the stone core and with the pipe gleaming invitingly.

On seeing it, Bab-Yagun clutched his head and began to moan so agonizingly, as if all his teeth were aching at once. The numerous corridors and thousands of steps, through which his flying machine had to go for a ride, had quite an effect on it. The hull was on the point of collapse.

The pipe nozzle had fallen off. A thin, rather muddy trace remained from the chrome-plated rim. The pipe sneezed mermaid scales. Only one of the three small wheels survived — but then it was possible to call it a wheel only in the presence of imagination.

“I believe there were more talismans... Or it only seems so to me? ” Vanka was interested.

Issuing a sad howl, Yagun rushed to check the flight talismans.

“Oh, my granny mama! One would think that moronoids cleaned carpets with my vacuum for twenty years! There cannot be anything more insulting to the noble magic machine! Now the three of us really can’t fly away together. It can barely carry one... Tanya, let me fly instead of you? ”

“And you know where to search for the Golden Leech? ”

“Ne-a. I’ll not even be able to tell it from an earthworm.”

“Here’s your answer! Bye, Yagunchik! ”

Tanya climbed onto the vacuum and took the pipe in hand. Earlier she had to fly on the vacuum all of a couple of times. The recollections were not pleasant. Right there and then the girl again felt herself astride a bucket, moreover with a broom in her hands.

Yagun hurriedly checked the talismans and started the vacuum. The engine began to cough. Mermaid scales flew from the pipe. It smelled like fish.

“Everything’s normal. Likely it’ll fly, ” Yagun said without any special confidence.

“Then I’ll not crash. Likely, ” Tanya mimicked, approaching the edge of the wall and looking down. “Well, and heights! You won’t collect the bones! Although why collect them? Indeed I won’t, ” she thought.

“Tanya, listen! ” The voice of Yagun again came forward.

“Yes? ”

“Well... Just for the sake of interest. What was I like in that reality of yours? Better than now? ”

Tanya thought for a bit.

“How to tell you? In that reality you were often offensive. Such a narcissistic character, rather insolent, but nice and gentle. In any case, it wasn’t boring with you, ” she acknowledged.

Yagun snorted.

“No one has been so rude to me for a long time! Simply berated from top to bottom: ‘nice, gentle! ’ You’ll even tell me I’m clever! Okay, away from here quick, Baby Grotter! And try not to drop and break my vacuum once and for all. At least leave a pipe as souvenir! ”

Vanka handed Tanya his magic ring.

“Take it! It’ll be useful for landing! ” He said. His voice trembled. Tanya involuntarily recalled the lines deleted from his letter. But it was already in another reality. In the reality that she still had to fight for. She sighed. To drag herself on a broken vacuum, moreover into a red-hot fire — it could hardly evoke healthy enthusiasm in anyone! The girl let out a spark.

“ Pilotus kamikazes! ”

The pipe began to move like a piston in her hands. The vacuum swiftly broke away from the place. Tanya was carried between the towers of Tibidox and looked around. Bab-Yagun and Vanka were waving at her from behind.

“Good luck! Or what do you say here? Bad luck? ” Tanya shouted.

“Well now, she’s swearing again! Swearing the whole day today, I’m upset! And earlier she was so exemplary! ” Yagun said to Vanka.

The grandson of Yagge expected approval, but Valyalkin did not answer. He was looking at Tanya.

Baby Grotter hung onto the pipe, dodging the awning over the drawbridge. When she turned again, Yagun was already indistinguishable. Only the yellow soccer shirt of Vanka flickered for a moment like a bright comma. Then it also disappeared.

* * *

From the very beginning Tanya had the feeling that the clumsy machine of Bab-Yagun would play a dirty trick on her. And it did. The vacuum, pondering for a while where to stall, stalled when it was flying above the middle of the swampy lake.

After cutting into the water, the vacuum burst open. Scales and small rubbish fell from the tank.

“As if Yagun simply read my mind. The pipe survived. True, now I have to dive for it, ” Tanya thought, succeeding to hang by the shawl-parachute.

Although not as swiftly as the vacuum, she also continued to fall. Thousands of icy sparks burnt her skin. The girl tried to stay afloat, confusedly splashing and frothing the water, but an unknown force pulled her down. The depth pressed on her ears. Occasionally some silvery little fish flashed by in front of her eyes.

“Well, that’s it! I’m drowning! Pity Pipa won’t find out. At least someone would be pleased! ” Tanya thought.

Several moments later her feet softly pressed against the slime. The rocks and the bottom, overgrown with algae like dirty washcloths, spilled a soft greenish radiance. A water-sprite and a mermaid were sitting on the stones and playing checkers. Live snails, crawling from square to square, served as checker pieces.

“Oh, a new drowned woman! Shall we fish her out or leave her as is? ” The water-sprite, similar to a semi-transparent wineskin filled with slime, wondered.

The words jumped out of his mouth as multi-coloured bubbles. The bubbles formed into chains of letters, as normally depicted in caricatures.

“Well! Why must evil spirits worry about magicians this time? They only harm us! Let’s finish playing first! ” The mermaid brushed him off, moving a snail.

“Hey, no! While we finish playing, she’ll choke! And all new drowned women become mermaids.”

“So? ”

“What do you mean so? What do we need one more mermaid for? Here’s already enough of them, ” the water-sprite stated, letting out a new group of bubbles.

“You don’t want to play — so don’t play! All the same, my game! ” The sly mermaid objected.

“WHAT? For shame, the talking herring, again add surplus snails to the board! ” The water-sprite became furious and grabbed the mermaid by the hair.

“Don’t lie! They crawled by themselves! ” The mermaid began to yell, hitting the water-sprite with her tail.

The board overturned. The water-sprite and the mermaid stopped fighting.

“Well now! We didn’t finish playing checkers. At least let’s save the girl, ” proposed the water-sprite.

“Wait! We save her and then it turns out that she’s a spy of She-Who-Is-No-More. Better let her drown! ” The mermaid proposed.

“I’m not a spy! I don’t want to drown! ” Tanya protested.

The girl was certain that no one would hear her, but not so: her bubbles also piled up into words.

“You’ll prove it? What’s your name? ” The water-sprite asked.

“Tanya Grotter.”

“TANYA GROTTER! Favourite student of Plague-del-Cake? Well, what did I say: a spy! Let her drown! ” The mermaid said.

“I hate Plague! I’m the daughter of Leopold Grotter, whom she killed! A friend of Tararakh! Tararakh treats you! Drags medicine from magic station for you! ” Tanya was indignant, looking at her magic ring.

If thus far she had not choked, then only because of the ring. But how long would its magic last?

The water-sprite pensively scratched his stomach with his short fingers. His belly filled with water and slime began to move like a piston. Inside, under the transparent skin, tadpoles began to toss about.

“You heard, mermaid? She’s not a spy! Plague-del-Cake didn’t know about the medicine and about Tararakh. But what’s a magician doing under water? I don’t like it when they bathe in my lake.”

“I wasn’t bathing! I flew and fell from the vacuum! ” The girl was hardly talking. Everything darkened before her eyes. She was choking.

“Very nice! So it’s your vacuum scaring all our frogs? It’s rudeness, darling, and nothing more! Rudeness à la naturel! ” The mermaid stated.

Likely, before she drowned, she spoke French.

“Fell from the vacuum, you say? But where were you flying to? Only don’t lie that you were playing rottenball, ” The water-sprite asked with suspicion.

“I was flying to the guardhouse of The Ancient One! Is that clear, pain in the neck? To the guardhouse! I must crush the Leech! ” Tanya shouted.

The girl no longer thought it was worthwhile for her to hide the truth. She was choking. The shielding magic of the ring was running low. Tanya spent the last reserves of air on her shout. She swayed and fell, sensing the elastic pressure of water on her chest.

“Well, this is it! How absurd! ” It was her last thought

The ground trembled. Somewhere in the evil infinity the tortoise irritatingly moved its head with folds, brushing off several most impudent idols. Tanya opened her eyes. She was lying on the shore next to the guardhouse. Nearby the water-sprite sat picking his ear with a broken reed.

“Recovered? ” He asked. Coughing, Tanya turned over onto her stomach. The water-sprite spat into the pond.

“Recovered. Again I lost to the mermaid, ” he said affirmatively.

“Why did you save me? Perhaps I’m a spy? ”

“You’re not a spy. A spy would not know about the Leech — it’s our main secret. But you knew and didn’t tell Plague. Possible to trust you, ” explained the water-sprite, ripping a new reed. The old one had fallen into his ear and it was impossible to extract it.

“But why is the Leech your secret? You protect it? Why? ”

“Order of The Ancient One... Once very long ago he ordered our ancestors to stand guard over the guardhouse and the stove. However, he ordered the wood-goblins the same. Therefore we fight with them. It had to be: entrust a secret to such louts! And what can they do, these wood-goblins? ”

Tanya half rose on her elbows. The guardhouse of The Ancient One indifferently looked with its blind windows at the lake. Emerald lizards, sagging skin on the chin quivering, sat on the grass.

A wood-goblin, like a squeaky fir log, came jiggling out to the edge of the forest. He also stood with the indifference of an essence born of thicket and wind-fallen wood and looked in their direction. The water-sprite did not like this. He got up and, slapping his fins, made his way to the pond.

“Okay, I’m drifting off. Success to you, girl! Don’t stand upon ceremony with the Leech! And, also, be on guard! They tell us a phantom lives in the guardhouse, ” he said and, tugging in his feet, dived in.

Circles spread out in the water. Frogs began to croak.

It was cold for Tanya to lie on the ground. She was shivering. She got up and, having gone around the guardhouse, approached the window. In spite of expectations, — it was not difficult to get inside. The girl rolled on her stomach over the windowsill and slipped down to the floor already on the other side. Overhead, the frame of the roof showed through the ceiling.

The stove was white like a rock face, powdered with plastering. The closed door was white hot from the heat.

Tanya took a step. Then another step and another... But here was the stunner! She did not get closer to the stove. On the contrary, it was as if she was moving away with each new step. Becoming anxious, the girl ran to it at full speed. She did not even have time to come to her senses, when the stove already loomed like a tiny speck in the distance. The guardhouse of The Ancient One stepped aside from within, expanded, absorbing into itself the secret of the fifth dimension.

Tanya stopped.

“Stop! Last time it was not so... Although last time the Leech only just started to crawl into the fire, ” she recalled.

After thinking it over, Tanya made one more attempt. She turned and went back to the front. It was useless. For a good ten minutes Baby Grotter either moved back, rushed around the room in zigzags, tried to crawl, or, hoping to deceive the spell, stared in a direction opposite the stove. It was useless. No trick helped. As if teasing her, the stove first seemed quite close, then moved away in leaps, appearing in turn in all the corners of the room and smiling hotly with its blazing door.

Tanya dropped onto the floor and propped her head up with her hands. She felt cold and poorly. She had never felt so weak, so useless before! Even when Pipa locked her on the balcony. Has she really lost? Was everything really useless? To try so hard, almost drowning in the pond — and all for what? In order, after finding herself in the guardhouse, to not even know how to approach the stove!

Suddenly an abrupt gust burst through the knocked out frame of the guardhouse. The fire in the stove began to drone. The instant whirlwind flung sand and wet autumn leaves into Tanya’s face.

Tanya jumped and wiped her eyes. A large table appeared not far from the stove. A bronze candlestick stood on the table: a swan holding three water lilies in its beak.

An old man sat at the table and, leaning over a parchment, was writing something with a goose feather, occasionally dipping it into the inkpot. His yellowish beard — considerably longer than the academician Sardanapal’s — flowed down freely and wound loops around the legs of the chair. True, in contrast to Sardanapal’s, the beard was sluggish, lazy, and hardly stirred. The far wall with green scum on damp plaster could be seen vaguely through the old man.

Tanya understood that this could only be The Ancient One. He was so old and wrinkled that Professor Stinktopp in comparison would pass for a desirable young adult male. Tanya hesitantly approached the spectre and gave a cough. The spectre raised his head. Now he was looking directly at the girl, but he was so laid-back that she considered: The Ancient One did not see her. Something more than space separated them, — there were centuries between them.

Tanya leaned over the table. Now their faces — the transparent face of The Ancient One and the face of the girl — were almost touching. She sensed a current coming from the spectre. The hair on her head stirred as from an electrified comb.

“Can you hear? I’m the daughter of Leopold Grotter! It’s I who let out the titans then! And now Tibidox is again on the verge of ruin. I must crush the Leech, do you understand? Or Plague-del-Cake will gain the upper hand and open the Sinister Gates! She’ll destroy Tibidox, Sardanapal — everything! ” She persistently proclaimed.

The face of The Ancient One remained evenly serene. As if he was standing on the edge of eternity, examining its whimsical spirals. The past, present, future — nothing was a secret to him. The spectre lowered his head and again began to scratch with the feather, filling line after line. Tanya was already thinking that he could not hear, when suddenly The Ancient One, not turning to anyone, mysteriously announced:

“Only fire will help approach the fire! ”

The voice of the spectre was very quiet. It could easily be taken for the rustling of paper.

“What fire? What must I do? ” Tanya shouted.

Not answering, the spectre smiled mysteriously and traced with his hand along the candlestick. The instant whirlwind again rushed through the guardhouse. The girl involuntarily shielded her face with her hand. When the wind stopped howling and the flame was dancing in the stove, she saw that the spectre had disappeared.

Tanya looked around. She pictured approximately what she was about to find, only, had she made a mistake? Are there material doubles of spectral things? At that place where the spectre was recently, there was nothing and nobody.

Finally Tanya discovered the rotted through tabletop covered by moist leaves on the outside. She raked aside the leaves and with effort turned the tabletop over. Something flashed dimly. A bronze candlestick! It had turned green and was bent, but the same! Even the stub of the candle was indeed preserved by some quite unimaginable miracle.

Gripping the candlestick, Tanya again took a step to the stove. It mockingly trembled and moved aside.

“Calmly, don’t get psyched out! Don’t make Pipa and Plague-del-Cake happy! Recall precisely what The Ancient One said. Fire will help approach the fire... He spoke precisely about the fire. But what if...”

Noises reached from the direction of Tibidox. Tanya looked out the window and barely had time to bend down. A dazzling spark rushed over her head and, having cut into the wall, shattered several bricks into smithereens.

“Mistress! She’s here! ” Someone shouted. A short-of-breath Slander Slanderych rushed beside Plague-del-Cake, and behind them, lagging by about twenty steps, the idols stomped heavily. Any minute they should be up here, and indeed clearly not to invite her to the birthday of the new world.

“ Panidis scorchus! ” Tanya hurriedly whispered. The ring shot out a green spark.

A timid bluish flame arose at the end of the candle stub.

Raising the candlestick overhead, Tanya rushed to the stove. Every time it simply caustically slipped away, remaining unattainable. The floor shook from the footfall of the stone idols. The roof of the guardhouse of The Ancient One already blazed from Plague’s sparks. In annoyance, Tanya wanted to throw away the useless candlestick, but she suddenly saw the fine string. It was a barely noticeable fiery thread stretching from the candlestick to the stove.

Putting the candlestick down on the floor, the girl touched the thread and, fingering it, walked to the stove. The floor flashed absurdly under her feet, turning like a mischievous carousel in a park. The stone squares jumped and, dancing, changed places. But with each step the stove without a doubt became closer. Finally Tanya could stretch out her hand and, getting burnt, seized the door. It would not yield. Several times the girl pushed with her foot — the door seemed stuck.

“Well, all right? Come on! ”

Tanya was overcome with desperation. Not feeling the pain from the burns, she began to drum on the door with her hands, and then, jumping, also with her feet.

Suddenly the guardhouse shook more than before. The Tortoise of Eternity was stirring impatiently. One of the idols slipped and with a splash fell into the lake. A deep crack ran along the bricks of the stove.

Tanya with new hope set about showering the door with hits. The door finally yielded to strong pressure. It clanked and opened.

The open wide stove was puffing out heat. Tongues of flames impatiently and greedily stretched to Tanya. The girl started back, covering her face. Almost becoming blind from the fire, she managed to examine in the depth of the stove the dish the Golden Leech was luxuriating on. Sensing that the door was open, the Leech stirred unhappily. Tanya was terrified.

“Stop! You’ll burn to death! To step into the stove is certain death! It’s impossible to survive in this fire! ” Plague-del-Cake roared.

The old woman was already beside her. Her dry hand tossed up. A spark from the black ring slowly and unavoidably, like death itself, floated towards the girl.

The faces of her parents flickered in Tanya’s memory. Again, as many years ago, she heard the disgusting gurgling laughter of Plague.

“NO! I’m not afraid! Better to be burnt! ” She shouted and dived into the flame head first.

The girl expected to feel terrible pain, but for some reason she did not. The furious fire in an instant enveloped her entire body, and then it seemingly made room, moving the door aside and not letting the spark of Plague-del-Cake in. Squinting, Tanya crawled forward.

“Stop! I’ll give you everything! Idols, destroy the stove! ” She heard the howl of She-Who-Is-No-More.

Tanya hurriedly stretched out her hand. The Golden Leech, having grown languid in the flame, turned out to be suddenly soft. Tanya precisely felt a plump slug as it burst in her fingers. The crushed Leech spread out on the dish like white hot gold and — Tanya was ready to vow — was baked into a tiny fish scale! The fish scale shuddered and disappeared. Inside the stove remained only the dish with a small indentation, as if intentionally pressed for this one fusion.

Suddenly Tanya turned her head. All around everything was flashing. Her eyelids suddenly became intolerably heavy. Her hands already seemed as if they did not belong to her. She wanted to crawl back, but fell on her chest. The world floated away somewhere and cracked, indeed a shell.

The girl still had time to hear how terribly and at the same time powerlessly Plague-del-Cake roared.

“This fire! Cursed The Ancient One, he foresaw everything! In order for all of you to disappear together with me! ” The old woman howled.

Magic rings fell thick and fast from her fingers crumbling to smithereens...

Somewhere at infinity the Snake of Time leisurely rolled up into a ring, contemplating the gold fish-scale, having appeared on the spot where it was before being shaken off. The scale held firmly.

Now it is already forever.

* * *

Tanya Grotter, number ten, swiftly rushed on the double bass — whole and unharmed. She firmly pressed the immobilize ball against her chest. Making a loop, Tanya saw what was happening behind her back.

Gury Puper, moving away from the collision at the last moment, turned in a hurry in order to rush after her. His broom shone with magic, as if it was not made of branches but of hundreds of Golden Leeches. Tanya reckoned that Puper would try to cut her off from the dragon and recapture the ball.

O-Phe-Li-A and captain Glint already rushed to the aid of Puper. To protect Tanya from below was Bab-Yagun — happy lop-eared Yagun, clearly having no idea about rottenball.

“Aha! So, I nevertheless crushed it! Well, the Invisibles, hold tight! ” Tanya thought and, intercepting the ball, rushed to the dragon of the enemy.

Keng-King was already lashing its tail, preparing to meet her...