Amos Daragon_ The Mask Wearer - Bryan Perro [4]
Without stopping to think, Amos agreed and swore on his life. He took the white stone from the mermaid and put it in one of his pockets.
“Go quickly now. Run and close your ears,” the mermaid said. “A princess of the waters never passes away quietly. May the power of the elements guide you! And take the trident; it will be useful. Go!”
Amos grabbed the trident and hurried out of the grotto. As he covered his ears with his hands, he heard a mournful sound: a languid song, filled with sadness and pain, rang out over the whole bay and shook the ground beneath him. Stones began to fall here and there, and then, with a terrifying noise, the cavern where the mermaid lay dying collapsed violently. When it was over, a deep silence invaded the area.
Amos climbed up the cliff, the ivory trident slung over his shoulder, a bucket filled with crabs in each hand, and turned back to look at the collapsed grotto one last time. He knew that it was unlikely that he would ever see this bay of caverns again. As he gazed out, he saw hundreds of mermaids, their heads raised above the water, looking at the princess’s tomb. And when he was already a good distance away, Amos heard a funeral song carried by the wind. A chorus of mermaids was paying a last tribute to Crivannia.
LORD EDONF, THE STONE SOUP, AND THE HORSES
Amos arrived home in the late afternoon. To his great surprise, Lord Edonf was there, accompanied by two guards. In front of the cottage, Amos’s parents, their heads lowered in submission, were listening to their ruler’s abusive words. The fat man was red with anger and threatened to burn down the house. He was scolding the couple for having worked his land without permission and for having hunted shamelessly on his domain. What was more, he claimed that the family had a donkey that was his. The animal had apparently been stolen from within the walls of his castle.
On this point, Lord Edonf was right. During a short nighttime visit to the castle, Amos had kidnapped the animal to spare it from the bad treatment it endured. He then told his parents that he had found the donkey in the forest and that the animal had followed him to the house. Now Edonf was requesting a large amount of money to forget the wrongdoing, and Amos’s parents, unable to pay, did not know what to say or what to do.
Panic-stricken, Amos crept unnoticed into the cottage. He could no longer bear to see his parents humiliated in this way. Things had to change for him and his family, and it was up to him to do something. He needed to act now. But what should he do? How could he and his parents hope to flee this kingdom that had become like a prison? He looked around, hoping to come up with an idea, a trick that would allow him to get rid of Edonf once and for all.
While waiting for him to return, Amos’s mother had put some water in the pot above the fire. Frilla Daragon had looked forward to making a soup with whatever her son brought home. Amos had an idea, and he plucked up enough courage to act. To avoid burning himself, he wrapped a thick cloth around one of his hands, then grabbed the big pot by its handle. Unobserved, he went out to the garden, not far from Edonf and one of his men. He put the pot on the ground, took a dead twig in his hand, and began a strange ritual. He danced as he whipped the side of the pot with the twig.
“Come to a boil, my soup! Come to a boil!” he repeated with each blow.
Consumed by anger, Edonf did not pay attention to Amos right away. Only after the seventh or eighth “Come to a boil, my soup! Come to a boil!