Coffinia Cryptova. Remarkable grimness, wonderful falsity! Smart girl!

Tanya attentively looked over all the corners in search of the griffin, but the bird with a naked neck was nowhere. True, behind the cabinet she revealed a perch, under which were scattered several dark feathers smeared with sickeningly reeking droppings.

Not daring to approach the table around which powerful black magic spells crackled with small little sparks, Tanya wanted to slip carefully from the office, but here an enormous mirror curtained by a greenish cover caught her eye.

The girl approached and wanted to raise it, but she did not have time. The cover slid down by itself. Simultaneously on the right and left flared up long yellow candles. Tanya glanced into the mirror, expecting to see her own reflection there, but the lustreless surface of the mirror reflected nothing. It remained empty like the smoothness of a lake at night. And only occasionally a vague white fog swirled in the depth. Tanya already wanted to go away, but here from the inside of the mirror several flames flared up simultaneously. Someone approached from the gloom, cracked grey walls emerged. Not those that were in the office of Stinktopp, but entirely different ones — tight, damp, obviously located somewhere very deep underground, even not in the basements of Tibidox. Resonant steps resounded a long way off along empty corridors. Tanya saw a long procession of evil spirits. Small hairy creatures were carrying a massive rock coffin in which lay a disgusting old woman with a bony face. Under the weight of the coffin the evil spirits could make only several dozen steps, then fell without strength and died as semi-dark formless lumps, but immediately new porters came in their stead and persistently dragged it further.

Tanya’s heart was squeezed. The birthmark on the tip of her nose — the trace of an old bite — started to throb with a fiery pain. It seemed to the girl that it first shrunk to the dimensions of a grain, then became large and swollen like a bean.

Unexpectedly the procession stopped. The evil spirits launched the coffin at Tanya. The disgusting old woman sat in the coffin, and her gaze, burning with hatred, was rested directly on the girl’s face. Tanya sensed that she could not even turn away. Without blinking, she watched as the old woman took from the coffin a large hourglass, within which black sand was running down in a thin stream. Already quite a little bit of sand was left, less than half.

“Indeed soon! ” The old woman said, smiling with dead lips. “Wait for me, Baby Grotter! Soon I’ll obtain that which belongs to me! ”

The procession slowly and grandly passed the mirror solemnly and was hidden in a distant corridor. The candles in the hands of the evil spirits faded out, and, there where the coffin was, letters woven from bluish fire flared up: Return what you’re hiding!

When the letters melted away, Tanya sensed that she could move again. Without throwing the cover on the mirror, she darted to the door and, forgetting about Coffinia’s warning, grabbed the handle. The door opened, but a deafening ringing immediately spread along the entire teachers’ floor. In the air hung hundreds of red exclamation marks, which, bending down, formed into the words: Alert! Disturbance of magic protection in Professor Stinktopp’s office! There was no doubt that this ringing was heard in the farthest ends of Tibidox and that soon all the instructors would gather here.

Tanya jumped out into the corridor. Bab-Yagun somehow strangely and even suspiciously stared at her.

“You know what spark came out of your ring when you went in: red! You used a black magic spell! ” He shouted. His voice was lost in the howling of sirens.

“What matters what she used? Run! ” Gripping Tanya by the sleeve, Vanka Valyalkin pulled her to the stairs leading into the Hall of Two Elements.

But they were too late. From that direction was already heard the footfall of feet and the voice, full of zeal, of Slander Slanderych: “Quick, call the cyclopes! Whoever it was, they’re not leaving! I’ll fix them! I’ll put on them such a subordination spell that they’ll even wipe their nose on command to the end of their life! ”

The way was cut off. Now they, even with the best wishes in the world, could not return to their bedrooms. The only possible way of retreat left was the far stairs leading to the basements of Tibidox. The friends stopped in confusion. They did not know which was better or, more precisely, worse: to fall into the hands of the enraged Slander, for long dreaming in opposition to Sardanapal to catch red-handed someone from the white, or to risk and poke their noses into the basements, the entrance into which was strictly forbidden.

But the incensed Slander, sneezing from malice, was already very near, and his proximity forced them to take the desperate step.

“Well, what’s with you? ” Tanya shouted and was the first to rush to the steps of the basement stairs.

They had hardly gone down ten flights when gloom closed in from all sides. The voice of Slander Slanderych, calling onto their heads misfortunes of every kind, melted far away. Finally they heard how he, running as far as the stairs, shouted downward:

“Hey, whoever you might be, you can no longer get back up! I’ll put on the stairs a triple identify spell that Sardanapal himself will not be able to remove! If you poke your nose out — you’ll immediately be sorry! Let the evil spirits devour you or the cyclopes will catch you! ”

In the desperate darkness they continued to go downward, until finally the stairs ended. Tanya had never penetrated so deeply under Tibidox. Diverging in different directions were dozens of straight corridors illuminated only by torches flaring up on their approach and immediately growing dim.

“You heard what Slander said? This way has been cut off. We must find another staircase, which leads to the Big Tower. I indeed know it must be somewhere... It seems, over there, ” Bab-Yagun said.

He decisively directed his steps along one of the corridors, but on their path suddenly grew a crackling obstacle from which sizzling red sparks fell in all directions. Vanka Valyalkin as an experiment thrust a torch through it, one which he removed from the wall, but in that same moment something sparkled, and the part of the torch that had gotten into contact with the obstacle turned into ashes.

“May Slander crack with his own spells! We cannot pass here! ” Bab-Yagun was distressed. “It’s necessary to dodge along the labyrinths, to search whether it is possible to bypass somewhere.”

The way along the labyrinth could not end with anything good. This was clear from the very beginning, but nevertheless Tanya held her tongue, in any case, until they finally understood that they were lost. All the corridors were absolutely similar, and in the offshoots, which could lead to the necessary stairs, magic obstacles compulsorily appeared in their path. Likely, Slander and Dentistikha did a first-rate job.

In the end, finally realizing that they were lost, Tanya and behind her also Vanka and Bab-Yagun stopped and began to hold council.

“Certainly, we can utter the calling spell and then they’ll find us, but I just don’t want to tell him anything... I hate to have to wipe my nose on command, and Slander will precisely subject us to subordination, if he reaches us first, ” said Vanka Valyalkin. “And on the whole, the basements here are strange: suspiciously quiet.”

“Uh-huh, ” agreed Tanya. “We were told that the place is full of evil spirits, but for some reason I don’t see any at all.”

“Shh! They see us, ” Bab-Yagun said in a strained manner, suddenly gripping Tanya by the hand and indicating to her something behind her back. Tanya turned around. From the nearest dark corridor eyes burning with hatred were looking at them.

“ Lightis! ” Vanka Valyalkin shouted and, releasing a spark from his ring, illuminated the corridor.

Tanya made out the rigid fur and familiar yellow horns. Agukh! In his hands the swamp bogey was holding a short tube into which he hurriedly put a needle with a dark drop at the end.

“You di-e! You di-e! In hor-ri-ble tor-ment! ” He hissed.

“Careful! ” Tanya shouted, abruptly darting to the side.

In the next moment the needle struck the stone where her face had been, and it broke. And Agukh, muttering curses, was already hurriedly charging the tube with a new needle.

“ Slopis-galoshis-idiotis! ” Tanya exclaimed in a hurry. Here is when the lessons of Medusa and the exhausting cramming prove useful! Not without reason Medusa said that a real magician must not simply know a spell but to perfect it till automatic.

Dropping the tube, the swamp bogey collapsed full-length, and then jumped up and quickly dashed off somewhere into the interlacing dark corridors.

“Quick! He’ll lead us out! Stop! ” Bab-Yagun shouted and rushed after Agukh.

The frightened creature, leaping on the run and clicking with his curved legs, deftly dodged along the labyrinth, choosing at times the most improbable holes. So, running as far as the magic barrier, he did not rush up to it, which threatened instantaneous death, but abruptly darted straight to the wall and, passing through it, disappeared. This was more striking as swamp bogeys did not possess the ability to pass through solid objects. The speeding Bab-Yagun, understanding that he would not manage to stop, extended his hands in front, hoping at least to somehow soften the impact, but there was none whatsoever. A moment — and he found himself on that side of the wall in a short corridor, which ended in a large hall from where wafted someone’s laughter and the slapping of cards.

Agukh disappeared somewhere, only Bab-Yagun did not need him any more. Bab-Yagun carefully turned and saw, where he recently passed through, a semicircular small arch seemingly covered by a golden curtain. Immediately behind the arch stood Vanka Valyalkin and Tanya who, definitely not seeing him, were looking around.

Bab-Yagun smiled. He already grasped that the golden arch was a concealed passage, which they would never have discovered if not for the bolting bogey, knowing very well all the trapdoors here. Not denying himself the pleasure, Bab-Yagun pushed a hand through the arch and suddenly gripped Vanka by the shoulder. Vanka tensely wheezed from horror when someone’s hand passing through the continuous wall seized him by the collar, and he stopped struggling to break loose only when from the wall leaned out yet the head of his friend.

“Quiet! ” Bab-Yagun whispered. “Make your way to me! ”

“Through the wall? I’m not a ghost, you know! ” Tanya was indignant, suspiciously examining the fat-cheeked head of her friend and his snub nose with holes as nostrils all sticking out from stones.

“And what am I, a ghost? It’s some magic! ” Bab-Yagun was angry.

First Tanya, and then Vanka passed through the wall and, stealing along the corridor, they carefully put their heads out. They were standing at an entrance to a large hall with a sooty arched ceiling. The entire distant wall was occupied by enormous copper gates with handles in the form of lion heads holding a ring in their teeth.

Not far from the gates in front of a burning bonfire sat the hero-bouncers Usynya, Gorynya, and Dubynya and they were playing self-shuffling cards. Usynya just lost, and the cards, bobbing up and down, beat him on the nose under the laughter of his contented brothers. Meanwhile an entire bull threaded on a spit was roasting over the bonfire. Occasionally from the wide side gallery cyclopes showed up marching with poleaxes and bludgeons and, hungry saliva flowing out, threw greedy glances at the bull. Then one of the hero-bouncers would get up and threaten the cyclopes with a huge fist the size of a good hammer. After this international gesture even the somewhat dull cyclopes started to understand that the heroes were not inclined to share dinner with them.

It was known to Tanya, like to the cyclopes, that it was better not to get mixed up with Usynya, Gorynya, and Dubynya without any great need, and she hid her head in a hurry. Bab-Yagun and Vanka did the same.

“Did you see? ” Vanka whispered. “They have little hearts on their chests! Shurasik with his ‘friends’ badges reached here! Here’s a sharp lad! Interesting, how did he manage to do so without them flattening him? Probably he learned all their absurd passwords and replies.”

“And what are they doing here in the basement? ” Tanya asked.

“Really incomprehensible? ” Bab-Yagun was astonished. “You saw what they sit near. Guarding the Sinister Gates! ”

He had hardly uttered “Sinister Gates” when a chill ran down Tanya’s back, and she with already new eyes stared at the lions with the rings in their teeth and at the heavy copper panels. About as high as three men the gate was locked with a huge bolt the size of the trunk of an oak. At this moment the gates suddenly began to shake so that even the walls of the basement began to tremble. Then without any preheating the copper became red-hot, the Gates were pressed in by a powerful force, and from the reverse side distinctly printed in molten copper was a terrible face — no nose, eyeless, with only an open mouth. Simultaneously with this thousands of furious voices from that side began to howl, to moan. Chaos, cloistered in the underground jail, once again tried to break out.

“Well-well! Quiet there! Don’t indulge! ” Without turning around, Usynya bellowed. Evidently, the brother-heroes long ago got used to the uproar of heathen gods and the tricks of the spirits of Chaos howling and beating against the magic barrier.

“There, the second stairs into the Big Tower! Only how will we rush over there? These blockheads will immediately notice us! ” Bab-Yagun poked his finger at the crumbled ancient steps. They began there on the floor where Dubynya was yawning, handing out cards.

Vanka smiled. What a good smile this young fellow has! Tanya literally felt how everything warmed up inside her.

“There’s a trick! I do this trick with Idiotsyudov in order to break his habit of rushing with his fists every five minutes, ” he said quietly. “When I finish counting to three, close your eyes tight and don’t open them until I let you! One... two...”

“Oh, my granny mama! ” Bab-Yagun exclaimed, covering his eyes with his hands.

Tanya closed her eyes. She heard with closed eyes how Vanka said “three” then something cracked loudly and it flared up brightly — it was even noticeable through closed eyelids.

“I see nothing! ” Suddenly Usynya began to bawl.

“And now run! We only have all of a minute, ” Vanka whispered.

Opening her eyes, Tanya saw Usynya, Dubynya, and Gorynya, leaping up, rubbing their eyes with their fists, and above the bonfire, waning, pinkish smoke rising up. Not waiting until the hero-bouncers could see again, the children swiftly ran between them and rushed upstairs. Soon were heard from below cries and dull sounds of blows. It was likely that the cyclopes tried to drag away the brothers’ dinner, and the hero-bouncers, regaining vision, comprehensibly made it clear why it should not be done.

“How did you manage it? ” Tanya was enraptured, understanding that until Usynya, Gorynya, and Dubynya came to an understanding with the cyclopes, there would be no pursuit after them.

“Simple. Root of sundew, a piece of amber, and several sphinx wool strands! Works without a hitch if we throw this into a bonfire, ” explained Vanka Valyalkin.

“Again showing off? From where do you get sphinx fur? It allows no one to approach it! ” Bab-Yagun asked; he could not stand it when Vanka surpassed him in something.

“It’s you it would not allow to approach because it doesn’t like a hotshot. Who removed its splinter? ” Valyalkin answered.

Bab-Yagun’s ears turned crimson from anger.

The stairs with the crumbled steps along which they went up was cut in the thick granite. It looked so old that it was completely obvious that the stairs was here even when there was no Tibidox or when it only began to be constructed. While Tanya was calculating how many millennia for it, the magic ring unexpectedly hopped off her finger and began to jump downward.

“Stop please! I dropped my ring! ” Tanya shouted, dashing after it.

Slipping about ten steps, the ring froze and, suddenly hanging in the air, it released a spark. Tanya leaned over in haste, hurrying to lift it, but here a heavy plate suddenly turned under her feet. Belatedly she noticed a greenish glow above the plate! Again magic! Unsuccessfully grabbing at the air with her hands, Tanya tumbled downward and, gaining speed, dashed into the void, feverishly trying in flight to put on the ring, which she was squeezing in her fist and to shout Oyoyoys smackis thumpis. For several long seconds she flew in a narrow tunnel, until suddenly she realized that the drop already ended. Someone caught her in the air, and in the following moment Tanya understood that she was lying on an enormous calloused palm, and above her hung a monstrous size bearded head.

“Mama! I got to the titans! Must urgently faint! ” Tanya said to herself, but for some reason she did not faint. How annoying!

Looking around, she understood that she was in a tight cave cut out of solid rock, in which stood three titans shoulder to shoulder — Cottus, Briareus, and Gyes. One hundred arms, fifty heads with matted hair growing for many millennia, the titans were so enormous that the hero-bouncers, if they turned up beside the titans now, would look like one-year-old children in comparison. It seemed that the narrow cave was holding such power with difficulty. The eyes of the titans, sharp-sighted, accustomed to the darkness, examined Tanya narrowly.

And then the titan holding her, the oldest of the three, suddenly stretched out to her a finger, thick as a telephone pole. Tanya shielded herself with her arms, ready to be crushed by them. The titan merrily laughed and, having unskilfully stroked her hair, removed the finger.

“Wh-o a-re y-ou? I am Briareus, th-is is Cot-tus and Gy-es, ” with enormous labour delivering human sounds, he said.

“Tanya... Tanya Grotter... I accidentally fell down here, don’t kill me! ”

“Tan-ya GRO...” all fifty throats of Briareus shouted loudly and deafeningly.

Tanya staggered, hardly remaining on her feet from the terrible rumble.

“Leo... Gro... So... Gro... yo-ur par..? Th-ey mad-... this en-tra, ” answered Cottus and Gyes. In their roar was heard tenderness, although they articulated the words with much more difficulty than Briareus.

“Sophia and Leopold Grotter? It’s my mom and dad. So it’s them who dug through this entrance? ” Tanya was amazed, experiencing quite out-of-place comparable relief. If her parents were friends with the titans, it means, nothing would threaten her.

Attempting to distinguish words, the titans turned the overgrown ears to her and began to nod. Now it became clear to Tanya why the ring tore away from her finger and released a spark. It responded to its own magic, which it produced many years ago when it was on the finger of her father — Leopold.

“Wh-o wi-th y-ou? Wh-y th-ey n-ot co-me? ” Briareus enunciated indistinctly.

“They are dead... Plague-del-Cake killed them, ” Tanya said with difficulty.

“Pla-e-Ca... Pla-e-Ca! ” Gyes and Cottus repeated, and hatred distorted their faces.

With terrible force they began to beat the walls with their fists. Granite bits fell. It seemed the entire Tibidox above was trembling. Tanya fell and plugged up her ears with her hands. Noticing this, the titans, recollecting, stopped. Tanya saw that many heads were crying, and large tears became tangled in their tousled beards.

“Yo-ur par-ents wer-e go-od peo-ple! ” Sobbing, the main head of Briareus droned. “Th-ey pi-ied us and wan-ed to hel-p us. Ther-fore a-so ma-de this en-trance. You wer-e a-so qui-te lit-le. Leo-ld tri-ed to gi-ve you sa-fe de-fence in or-der you fear not-hing, and he suc-cee-ded this. You rob-bed Pla-gue all her po-er. But you be car-ful: Plague can re-over it. We all ha-te her. We fe-el: no mor-e cha-os, but Pla-gue some-ere be-side...”

Suddenly some thought came to an outer head of Briareus, it whispered it to the head beside it, that one whispered to the next, and finally the wave reached the main talking head of the titan. Following this several dozen hands began in a hurry to dig in the pockets, until in Tanya’s hands lay an average size clay jug sealed up by sealing wax. The huge palm held it with great care, afraid to crush it.

“Her-e bre-ath of Ear-th, whi-ch gives po-er. Use it wh-en you ha-ve the ne-ed. We wan-ed to gi-ve su-ch phi-al to Leo-pold, but he re-fu-sed. And now go! Far-ell and don’t for-get us! ”

Tanya mechanically pressed the jug to herself. Briareus raised his hand and with effort pushed the hand into the narrow slot through which Tanya came here. Grabbing the plate, the girl with difficulty got outside, and immediately the step with a quiet click got back in the previous place. When Tanya straightened up and Bab-Yagun and Vanka Valyalkin saw her, they were staring at her in such a way as if she had risen from the world of corpses.

“Where were you? We saw how you slipped down, and then suddenly at once! — disappeared somewhere, and then somewhere below began to roar! ” Vanka exclaimed, rushing to her.

“I fell through... fell through there, under the stairs, ” Tanya breathed out, experiencing relief that she escaped from the tight cave.

“You fell through? There? But please, there... Only don’t lie, that you were at the titans’! ” Bab-Yagun demanded, but, looking intently at Tanya’s face, literally slipped down onto the floor. “Oh, no! It’s unbelievable! No one was ever there! ” He groaned.

Tanya understood the disappointment of her friend. Earlier in the whole of Tibidox Bab-Yagun was the only one managing to get caught in an unthinkable quantity of stories. Now she outdid him, on top of that how! Naturally, the proud grandson of Yagge was depressed. Then Vanka, it seemed, was sincerely proud of her success. On his dirty face a happy smile spread widely.

“What are you doing here? Were you at the Sinister Gates? And Sardanapal knows about this? ” Next to them was heard an unpleasant laughter, and Lieutenant Rzhevskii looked out from the wall.

Tanya turned to him and almost screamed. The knives from the back of Lieutenant had disappeared somewhere, and instead of the head he was flaunting a large cast iron cannon ball.

“A small injury. Flew very close by here! Practically a millimetre! ” A very contented Rzhevskiy explained and, neighing at his own joke, flew to demonstrate the shot to Usynya, Gorynya, and Dubynya.

“You think he’ll tell Sardanapal where he saw us? ” Vanka asked.

“Don’t know. Maybe he’ll forget. You see how contented he is that he changed his head somewhere to a shot, ” Vanka shrugged his shoulders. He again looked at Tanya and added merrily: “You, by the way, lost your pin. I imagine how distressed Shurasik will be, if tomorrow he doesn’t see his little friendship heart on you.”

“Yes, a pity... But not to crawl to the titans after it? ” Tanya said and suddenly burst out laughing.

“Why are you trilling? Must be me, perhaps? ” Bab-Yagun asked suspiciously, straightening his villainous overalls. The grandson of Yagge already felt sorry that he wore it. It, of course, was good for disguise, but indeed awfully absurd.

“What’s with you here? I was imagining the titans with Shurasik’s friendship pin on their chests...” Tanya barely said and now everybody already started laughing, including Bab-Yagun.

Getting up along the stairs leading from the basement, they again came to rest against the solid wall.

“Really Slander blocked up this passage? ” Vanka muttered distrustfully, feeling the massive boulders laid together. “It cannot be that he would not at least leave an invisible arch.”

After a ten minute search the invisible arch was found nevertheless, and they went out directly between two marble Atlases, standing at the entrance to the Big Tower. Both marble Atlases were snoring quietly, continuing to hold the arch on their powerful shoulders.

“And I was thinking: why are they hanging around here, likely to keep themselves busy? Turns out, here’s the hidden arch! ” Bab-Yagun whispered and, rushing on tiptoes past them, dived into the Hall of Two Elements. Tanya and Vanka followed him. Soon they satisfactorily got to the residential floor, contriving not to catch the eye of the enraged Slander, who was persistently lying in wait for them by the other stairs. Coffinia was sound asleep on her own bed, her head covered by Black Curtains, which managed after all to slip down from the cornice. The harmful Curtains giggled disgustingly. Must be, they peeked into Coffinia’s dreams in order to, flying around the school the whole day tomorrow, show them to the entire Tibidox.

Tanya wanted to drive them away with the spell Briskus-quickus, but discovered that she was mortally tired. She placed the clay pitcher under the bed, hiding it in the double bass case, collapsed on top of the blanket and fell asleep...