Quest for the King Read Online Free PDF

runway," she said excitedly.
    "Yes, it takes that long for the sound to reach us," Wesley explained.
    "I know that, Wes! I'm not dumb."
    She turned, and for some minutes began to look in the opposite
direction. Then, with fear in her voice she shouted, "Oh, look!"
    The urgency of her tone made the others turn around.
    Lisa pointed at a funnel that curled down serpentlike from one of
the low-lying clouds. "Surely they don't have twisters here!" she said
in amazement.
    "Uh-huh. Here we go!" Kurt cried. "This is it. They sure don't have
twisters in Hong Kong. There's only one explanation for what's about
to happen. This thing's coming for us!"

    Suddenly, far more suddenly than it takes me to tell it, the writhing
monster swooped at them like something alive.
    "Down!" Wesley shrieked. "Lie flat!"
    They flung themselves on their faces, and with the roar and thunder of a thousand waterfalls the funnel fell upon them. Horrified, they
felt their bodies being sucked from the ground. Light-brilliant, pale
blue light-dazzled them. Their breath seemed to be torn from their
lungs.
    Then came silence.

     

    Mary sat before the computer screen at the Chans', writing a program.
The Chans were out, and she had told them she would walk back to
the Shah Tin Mall and get the train home. She assured them she knew
her way. Kurt had often said, "Mary's amazing. Sometimes she goes
to pieces completely. But the next minute she seems sort of hard and
tough-the toughest person around."
    The Chans had seemed uncertain about Mary being alone in Shah
Tin, but they could hardly stop her if they were not at home. And if,
she thought, if the program worked, it would serve Uncle Fred right
if it did. 'Cos then she'd have disappeared from Shah Tin to join her
Uncle John in Anthropos. And nobody but the other kids would know
where she'd gone.
    Uncle John. She had to win him back, and she would do it! He was
all she had ever longed for, the father she never had. He was better
than all her stepmother's boy-friends put together. She needed more power. Power was real. It tingled deep within her whenever it came
on her. She had never experienced anything like it before-and now
she had a use for it. Even the witch's power in Anthropos was nothing
but the means by which the woman got her to do whatever she wanted.
But the power she had now received was something she could use for
herself. She could manipulate people with it. Control them. She would
now be able to make Uncle John love her as he had before. (It did
not occur to her to ask whether a love that you controlled was what
she was after.)

    She checked her computer program carefully, making sure the
words and symbols of the ancient spell were properly included. It
ought to work. Maybe she was going to be the first person ever to
move across space and time using a witchcraft spell programmed into
a computer! She drew in a breath and struck the ENTER key.
    At first nothing happened. Then the screen went blank and there
was total silence. She stared hard at it. Did it-or was she imagining
it-no, there was a blue tinge ... Yes, it was definitely getting larger.
    Or was she getting smaller? She glanced down at herself, only to
discover that the darkness on the screen was all about her. She could
see nothing anywhere except vaguely swirling pale blue mist. She
could not even feel the stool under her. Was she floating? When she
looked up at the screen, she could no longer see it.
    Yes, it was working. She smiled. "Anthropos, here I come! And by
my own magic. I come when I want, not when you fetch me, Gaal! I'll really
surprise Uncle John!"
    She began to fall, down, down, down ...
    Mary hit the ground hard, and for a few moments the wind was
knocked out of her. When she got her breath back she sat up and
muttered, "Well, I did it anyway! I knew I could, an' now I've really
done it! That'll teach 'em."
    To her surprise, the jeans she had been wearing had been replaced
by a