Akiko in the Castle of Alia Rellapor Read Online Free PDF Page B

me with popped-out eyes and wide-open mouths. I think I’d succeeded in shocking everyone else as much as I’d shocked myself. My heart was beating at incredible speed, and I could feel the blood rushing to my face. There was a weird tingly feeling all over my body, as if I were surrounded by a warm cloak of electricity.
    Throck stopped and turned to face me, looking half amused, half genuinely surprised.
    “You’ve got a lot of nerve, little girl,” he said after a long silence. “I’m
impressed
. It’s a shame old Froptoppit got hold of you before
I
did—”

    “If you know what’s good for you,” I interrupted, still pointing my finger directly at Throck’s eyes, “you’ll let us go.”
    Throck stared at me so intently that it almost seemed as if he
would
let us go. He had a very distant look in his eyes, which gradually turned into an almost
kindly
look. I could nearly imagine that he was quietly smiling behind that black breathing mask of his.
    “Children,” he whispered, seeming to stare
at
me and
through
me at the same time. “They have such a simple way of looking at things.”
    He paused, the kindly look in his eyes slowly twisting itself into a menacing scowl.
    “Isn’t it a shame they all have to grow up and see how
messy
life really is?”
    “You heard the girl, Throck,” Spuckler said, rising to stand right beside me. “Call off your little goon squad here, and then maybe we’ll decide to let you go.”
    “You,”
said Throck, his beady little eyes flying open wide, “will let
me
go?” He tossed his head back and let out a loud cackling laugh that echoed repeatedly off the surrounding mountain walls. Gax rattled uncontrollably, Mr. Beeba moaned, and the Prince scooted as close to me as he possibly could.
    “Perhaps I need to clarify the situation for you,” Throck said, glaring at Spuckler with renewed fury, the volume of his voice growing with every word. “The only reason you are still alive at this moment is because I have
allowed
it to be so! I could do away with the
lot
of you right now if I wanted to, and no one would even—”
    Suddenly Throck stopped himself and stepped back, as if he were afraid he’d crossed some invisible line. He took one or two more steps back and stood motionless in the snow, a strangely tense expression on his face.
    It was Poog.
    Poog had risen, moved past Spuckler’s shoulder, and was now floating forward, slowly and steadily moving in a straight line toward Throck’s face. He came to a stop just a few inches away from the bridge of Throck’s nose. From where I was sitting I couldn’t see Poog’s face. I can only imagine his expression at that moment.
    Throck was terrified. I could see it in his eyes. His forehead was creased with a maze of deep wrinkles. A single drop of sweat rolled down one side of his face and fell noiselessly into the snow. I’ll bet he’d never been so scared before in his entire life. Still, he seemed determined not to back down.

    Poog said something to Throck in a strange language I’d never heard him use before. It was very different from his usual high-pitched warble. This was a deep, throaty sound that rose and fell between two precise notes, like the chanting of monks in some spooky alien monastery.
    There was a long pause. Throck appeared to be considering what Poog had said to him. Then he answered, replying in the very same language, but with many more pauses and muttering sounds, as if he were far less sure of what he wanted to say than Poog was.
    “Beebs,” I heard Spuckler whisper, “you catchin’ any of this?”
    “Not a word,” Mr. Beeba answered. “It’s a language I’ve never encountered before. But it seems to me that they’re”—he paused, searching for the right word—“
negotiating.
”
    Every once in a while Throck would raise his voice, slicing his hands through the air in frustration. Poog kept calm, answering Throck’s outbursts with brief, measured sentences, never even pausing