6. Castle Commands

Didrik stood on a pile of broken arrows. Jacintah ran grumpy circles.

“So, we’re on the other side. Do you see Ismaraldah here? ‘Cause I don’t see her. Do you see her? No, right?”

“You know her, don’t you? She probably followed the opponents to their secret hideout.”

Didrik almost vomited. He was dizzy. His body felt strange, different, like it wasn’t his anymore. The bushes looked like green waterfalls. Jacintah saw it and gave him a little kiss on the cheek; he immediately felt much better.

“Don’t worry. Spacefolding is always crummy the first time. I do it every day. You get used to it.”

Didrik had to recover from the unexpected kiss. What was it with these pandas? She acted like they’d been married for years. He had to keep his wits about him.

He gathered the mess. “Why would they break their own arrows in half? To turn them into spears?”

“Have you ever seen a snake hold a spear?” Jacintah asked, laughing.

“Yes, twice.”

“Seriously?”

“It did look rather silly. Maybe they tie the arrowheads to themselves, like fangs?”

“Don’t give them ideas. Hey, look at this.”

She dove down, tossed arrowheads aside, and shoved her head in the mud. “Thought so! Ismaraldah always draws a little clock in the sand so I know she did something somewhere. I think she broke these arrows. But where is she now?”

“Where have you been hanging out all this time? Ismaraldah was worried.”

She crawled further to study two large footprints, pressed deep in the earth. “She said that?”

“… no. But I saw it in her—uh—face.”

She prowled further across the ground, following the footprints closely. “Thought so. She’s a good girl and a strong demigoddess, but caring for her sister, forget I asked!.”

“Why do you stay together? If there’s so much trouble?”

“We’re magic twins. Demigod sisters. We always have to be together, that’s when we’re strongest. I need her to travel flawlessly to any time; she needs me to travel flawlessly to any place. I feel connected to her, no matter what crazy antics she gets up to. Just another gift from mother, I guess.”

Jacintah ran off. Didrik had to speed walk.

“Can’t you just feel where she is then?”

“No. That makes no sense.”

“Oh, but I thought, you know, if you’re connected, that you’d have that kind of telepathic link, and could read each other’s thoughts, and—”

“We’re sisters, not psychics.”

Didrik didn’t dare ask anything else for the rest of the trip. It was also hard to get past Jacintah’s singing and humming.

They followed the brown, muddy path for a while, until the footprints stopped. They didn’t turn, they didn’t veer off, they just vanished.

“Well. Here we are,” Didrik said. “Middle of the night, in the woods, and predators could be anywhere. Wonderful.”

Didrik always had a plan. A mission. Seventeen solutions to solve any problem unseen. But since those two strange pandas entered his life, it seemed like he was at the precipice of drowning every second.

Had they already broken his brain?

“I can teleport, remember? Besides, all enemies will be asleep by now.”

“Did you just hear yourself shriek—uh—sing?”

“Those were lullabies.” Didrik frowned. “Magical lullabies. Never mind, it would break your brain. Armies are realize more and more that they can use nocturnal creatures to keep fighting through the night. I wanted to stop that.”

Her paw tapped the ground three times. Didrik did the same. Quickly, they found a spot of earth that sounded oddly hollow. As if you weren’t stomping on grass but knocking on a door.

Didrik didn’t think twice. He jumped as high as he could and let himself fall like a bomb.

The ground burst open. Chunks of wood flew every which way.

A few meters underground, he landed on wet stones. Jacintah followed much more carefully.

“I was looking for the handle, but this works too.”

“Sorry, my patience is gone. Unlike you two, I don’t have all the time in the world. So climb on my back, we’ll be faster that way.”

Jacintah readily obeyed. Once on his back, she wrapped her arms around his short, broad neck and closed her eyes.

Didrik ran through the tunnel. He regularly stepped in a puddle, splashing its contents loudly against the walls. Here and there, moonlight forced itself into the passage, which was otherwise as dark as Ismaraldah’s fur.

They reached a steep slope, which lead to a fork with two different openings.

“Any ideas?”

She jumped to her own feet and put her paw to the stone. When she closed her eyes, a red glow appeared.

Didrik was confused. “So you can feel where she is?”

“Gods feel all life nearby. From the vibrations in air and sky. It’s like a connected web to us, beings with the most life force appearing much larger than they truly are. As such, I can feel there are twenty beings in the left passage, but only two in behind the other one.”

“Easy choice then.”

They snuck through the right passage.

Decorated candlesticks lit up the rooms well and soft velvet carpet covered the floor. A cold draft met them. The walls of gray stone often crumbled. Further into the castle, they heard a slicing sound and then a metallic bang, which Didrik registered as a cook cutting ingredients and throwing them in a pan.

Footsteps approached. Jacintah held a paw to her mouth. They rolled past and hid under a small table against the wall, bunched up until they looked like one enormous white cushion.

A group of ferrets walked by.

“Man, what a boring fight day. I just fell asleep halfway through. And then I had the weirdest dream!”

“Dude, if you’re going to tell the story about the moving Sand Beings again, I’m sleeping in another room.”

The voices faded as the ferrets walked on.

Didrik whispered. “Don’t you find it rather … tidy and well-kept in this hideout?”

“Yeah. I just realized I’ve been here before. Quite often, actually.”

A door right next to the table swung open and the same ferrets as before came out. They stopped and chatted. Jacintah held her breath. They stood still even longer. Didrik stroked her head to keep her calm.

She couldn’t take it anymore. The Placefolder just had to move around all the time.

“Aaaah!”

She stormed out from under the table, slapping the front ferret hard in the face.

Ah, Didrik thought. Surprising. More improvising.

Didrik kicked his hind legs at the ferrets. One fell flat on his face, but the other dodged. Didrik slid closer. His tail curled up, ready to deal a blow.

At the final moment, he decided to stay in his hiding spot after all.

The ferret held the squirming Jacintah tightly. “Didn’t the boss offer a reward for catching a white panda?”

The other ferret didn’t react.

“Of course, that dude’s drifted back to dreamland. I’ll take care of it myself.”

Jacintah quickly realized that wriggling loose wasn’t going to happen. She glared at the ferret. “I demand you take me to the castle lord. He’s my friend.”

“That’s unlikely, for we have a castle lady.”

“Stupid timelines, stupid Ismaraldah,” she grumbled.

The ferret took her along. Didrik slid out from under the table, snake-like, and climbed the wall to the ceiling. Upside-down, he followed the ferret.

They walked through many small rooms. In every room, a cozily warm fireplace burned. The sounds of clinking knives and forks multiplied.

The ferret never loosened his grip. He walked too quickly to attack, and besides, Didrik was curious about the mysterious castle lady. He kept a safe distance until they entered a larger room with a gigantic door.

“You only talk if she addresses you,” the ferret said. “You sit still and listen. Understand?”

“Hmpf. I liked the castle lord better. He was nice.”

“Who cares about nice? The apes ruined our world with their Apex Codex, their rules, their power. The castle lady is smart and strong and the only one who dares fight Apra. Our only hope.”

“Nonsense. It was even more unfair before the apes—”

The ferret opened the door. With creaks and squeaks, a narrow opening appeared through which bright light shone.

They walked inside. That other room was much taller, so Didrik couldn’t follow across the ceiling.

He crawled—still upside-down—to a large mirror on the wall. He used it as a hiding place until he could roll to the door. Flat against it, he looked through the narrow crack with his left eye.

By now, Jacintah was tied up with rope and blindfolded. She sat in a chair, but that’s where the comfort ended. Four hyenas stood around her and held her tightly.

Didrik’s eyes slid to the other end of the table.

Ismaraldah?!

There she sat. Not tied up, not blindfolded, not threatened—completely free. She sat there as if she were the boss of this castle, as if she’d been working with the castle lady for years.