NIGHT by I Rin (best books to read .TXT) 📕

to the stairs quietly. And now the riders were speeding toward the Kingdom of Night.

“What’s the hurry?” Angelica asked. “Why have you woken me up so early?!”

“Have you forgotten that I cannot stand the light of the day? So I had to wake you up before dawn.”

“I thought after the ball you would sleep the whole day!”

“If I stayed for another day, our relationship with the Princess would go too far...”

“I am not surprised; you fixed your eyes on her the whole evening!”

“The end justifies the means! Now I know where the Book of Destiny is!”

“Oh, you schemer!” Lica shouted. “So you have arranged that on purpose?”

Swein slowed his horse and grinned:

“I do not like white color, dear Angelica! But I do love dark blue.”

And he spurred his horse again.

Her heart leapt with joy but she didn’t show anything and followed the Prince. After a while they were cloaked by the thick fog again.

“So, now the main thing is – not to lose our way,” the Prince said quietly. “Soon we have to turn left.”

And they went on...

Lica did not notice where they were going. She was automatically following her companion. When the fog lifted they were at the foot of the high mountains, Angelica even was surprised by that.

“Are these the mountains you had seen before?” the Prince asked her.

“Yes, I guess,” she nodded. “Let's stop! Somewhere there must be a move, which the Princess had used to lead us outside the dungeons. It is pretty safe. We just need to remember where it is.”

Swein stopped his horse. And Lica was examining the mountains.

“There must be the main entrance to the cave on the right,” she said. “So, the secret passage is near here. Get down, Prince, we have arrived!”

They dismounted and tied their horses to the tree growing nearby.

“Wait,” Swein said. “I have taken something from the palace.”

And he pulled out of the small bag a coil of rope, oakum and matches.

“Oh, you are very farsighted!” Angelica smiled.

“Of course. How would we look for the Book in the dark? You are unlikely to think about that!” the Prince quipped.

“But you can see in the dark like a cat!”

“But you cannot! And what do I have to do - hold your hand all the time?”

They found two strong sticks and wrapped them with oakum.

“Come on! The secret passage is over there!” Lica pointed.

Swein and the girl were going along the foot of the mountains and saw the narrow cleft. The Prince lit their torches and they climbed inside. As they were walking the cleft was getting wider.

“You have not told me where we should look for the Book of Destiny yet,” Angelica asked Swein.

“According to Princess, the Wizard had a lab with the hiding-place, where he was keeping the Book. But what it looks like, the Princess does not know as well the Wizard didn’t allow her to come inside.”

“Well, at least we have a clue. It is bad that I have never been in the lab.”

“But you said that you had known these dungeons!” the Prince grumbled.

“But not as good as you have your fingertips!” she quipped. “And now you should be as quiet as possible. I don’t want that somebody will hear us.”

Lica pushed Swein aside and went first. It seemed to her that she knew this corridor but sometimes she didn’t. However, she was here a long time ago. Suddenly the hole widened and our heroes came in the small hall with the stream flowing in the center.

  “I know!” Angelica whispered. “Here we had met the Wizard. That wall - right in front of us - it can move. The Princess had come out of it. Henry and I had gone out of the passage on the left. There was no lab of Wizard. So we need to go to the right!”

And she cautiously entered the right corridor leading from the hall.

Everything was different here. The ceilings seemed to hang over their heads. The air was so heavy that they had difficulties breathing. After a few turns Lica and the Prince came to the edge of the deep abyss.

“Well, where are we going now?” the young man asked incredulously.

Angelica stretched her hand with a torch forward and looked around...

She couldn’t see the opposite side of the abyss but she heard some unpleasant splashes below. And then the girl looked at the cliffs hanging over the abyss. The right rock was vertical but the left had a small ledge - just half foot - but they could move on it.

“We are going there!” Lica pointed it.

“You are crazy! We are going to fall down!” the Prince whispered.

But he could not resist not being sarcastic:

“But there are two of us, so we can sacrifice one!”

He gave the girl his torch and set his foot on the dangerous path.

Swein nestled up the wall and slowly began to bend the rock around. A few minutes later he disappeared around the bend. For a while it was completely silent and suddenly she heard his voice:

“Angelica, you were right! Laboratory is here!”

It was silence again but ten minutes later she heard him again:

“Angelica, there is nothing even looks like a hiding-place!”

The girl immediately stuck her torch in the cleft of the rock and followed Swein. Slowly, step by step, she was moving on the narrow ledge. At some point she nearly stumbled and began to balance on her left leg over the abyss. The stone, she was holding on, suddenly broke off and the girl fell in.

She only had time to scream. But the fall was not long. Lica got hurt her legs by the stone floor and sat down. The Prince bended down from the top:

“Angelica!” he cried. “Angelica, are you alive?”

“Yes, I am alive!” Lica said. “Only hurt myself.”

“You scared me! Why have you followed me? You should have waited for me there!”

“Well, would you like to give me a lesson!” she smiled. “By the way, can you see from the top where I have fallen? Because I'm poorly guided in the dark!”

“I think it is ledge! You were very lucky... A little more to the right or to the left - and you would have died! Stay there! I am going down!”

Soon she saw the rope and the young man was sliding down it.

“Stand up!” he gave his hand to Lica.

And then suddenly froze.

“What is it?” he asked quietly, pointing at something behind Angelica.

“Where?”

The girl looked back. But she could not see anything instead of the black wall.

“It is there in the rock, right behind you!”

“I cannot see in the dark, have you forgotten?”

“Oh you are right!” the Prince nodded.

He carefully removed Angelica and came up to the wall. Then he started touching it and suddenly they heard a click. The part of the rock moved to the side.

“The hiding-place!” Lica gasped.

“There are stairs. I’ll go down myself! And you stay here and wait and do not take anything!”

Swein like a cat entered the dark hole. A few minutes later he came back to Angelica, holding a thick folio.

“Here it is! The Book of Destiny!” he said, smiling happily. “Take it! I am going upstairs first and then help you out.”

Lica took the book and the Prince quickly climbed the rope. Then he pulled the girl. They were slowly rounding the rock going along the ledge. Angelica pulled out the torches from the cliff and our heroes entered the dark cave tunnel leading outside.

The deadly fight

Suddenly they heard a boom sweeping through the stone walls and the ground trembled.

“Earthquake!” the girl shouted.

“No that’s worse!” the Prince grinned.

They heard terrible roar over their heads and the Wizard blocked them the way.

“Wow, the guests!” he croaked. “Why had not you told me about your visit? I would have met you!”

“Next time we will!” Swein parried, taking his sword out.

“Have nobody told you, Your Highness, that it’s not good to take other people's things without asking?”

Having said that the Wizard raised his hand and sent a bundle of bright sparks of fire to them. Swein pushed Angelica and turned the fire aside himself.

“That's right!” the Prince said and swung his sword at him.

The Wizard laughed and struck his finger in the air. The stone ceiling above the Prince and the girl began to crumble. Swein grabbed Lica's hand and pushed her into the corridor, which they had come from.

“Run!” he whispered to her. “Do not stop! I'll meet you outside.”

Angelica clung the book was running through the corridors.

The Wizard screamed terribly behind and raised his hands up. Have muttered a spell he pointed at the girl. Suddenly Lica heard as if something was rolling after her. She looked back and saw the stone boulder, which was as big as all space of the corridor. Angelica screamed and ran even faster. But it wasn’t easy because in one hand she had a book and the torch in the other. Running she turned to the right and to the left but it did not stop the stone. The girl reached the hall with the stream, jumped over it and went out of the tunnel, which the Princess had showed her and Henry. Angelica was running like the wind but the stone kept rolling behind her. Lica was getting exhausted.

Taking last strength she pushed her way into the cleft, leading outside, threw the torch away and climbed a little up to the mountain. A few seconds later the stone with the terrible roar, almost blowing up the cleft, rolling ran down the slope.

“God, what a blessing that I have got rid of it at last,” she thought.

Meanwhile, Swein and the Wizard met in mortal duel.

“You never get out of here!” the Wizard hissed. “What about your girl; she is probably already dead; only wet spot left!”

“We’ll see!” Prince grinned.

The Wizard muttered a curse again and huge spiders were crawling towards Swein from everywhere.

“I see you do not like fighting fair!” the young man said.

He rushed to the Wizard and wounded him in his right arm with the sword. The villain screamed in pain but Swein had to retreat almost to the edge of the abyss, as the spiders began surrounding him.

“Say goodbye to your life!” the Wizard shouted.

He started muttering his curse again but the Prince suddenly kneeled down, rolled under the jaws of the biggest spider and jumped at the Wizard. He did not expect such a sharp throw and was taken aback for a moment, Swein, wasted no time, swung his sword and cut him down from his shoulder. The villain fell with a grimace on his face and the cold draught swept around the cave. Then there was a terrible noise. Huge spiders, which had been haunting Swein, suddenly began to shake and paying no attention to the Prince, were quickly crawling away of the abyss. They were racing madly down the corridors, as far away as they could.

The Prince looked around and saw that terrible tentacles were rising from the abyss and extending to the dead body of the Wizard. He did not wait for the outcome and rushed to the corridor, which Lica had run before...

It had passed quite a long time, as she thought, waiting for the Prince but he had not appeared yet.

“Has the Wizard beaten him?” she thought with horror.

At this point, the mountains trembled. Angelica jumped off the stone, she had been sitting on, and ran down. She realized that something terrible was happening in the dungeons. Lica came to the horses and untied them of the tree.

“Prince! Where are you?” she cried desperately.

At this moment she saw the Prince, getting out of the broken cleft.

“Get in the saddle immediately!” he shouted. “We're leaving!”

She quickly put the Book of Destiny in the Prince’s bag, which was tied to his saddle and then climbed on her horse. Swein joined her and pulled the reins.

“Come on!” he cried.

In the end Angelica looked back. What she had seen shocked her. The mountains were crumbling. The huge stones exploded were flying in the air, like the grains of