Lost Time by Susan Maupin Schmid

Author:Susan Maupin Schmid [Schmid, Susan Maupin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101652299
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2008-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

The entrance to the Chasm of the Ages was concealed in the broken red dunes of Oblivion. Violynne tried to pay attention to landmarks, but she was hopelessly lost by the time they arrived. She was certain this was deliberate on the trader’s part. No doubt the Old One had ordered it so. One didn’t visit the Coil unannounced.

“Use the torch I gave you. Mind your step; the stairs are steep. Stop at the bottom and call out. Don’t go any farther. I repeat, wait at the bottom of the stairs. If the Coil wishes to speak with you, she will. I’ll wait thirty minutes, not a minute longer. Then I leave whether you’re back up here or not.” The trader turned in the skimmer seat and produced a puzzle of interlocking pieces to while away his time.

It was the sort of puzzle Violynne’s mother liked to solve. Violynne swallowed hard and set off. There was no way she would thank the heartless trader for his instructions. She wielded the laser torch like a sword, slicing the darkness with the narrow beam.

She wasn’t sure what she expected—bats, spiders, discarded bones—but the stairs to the chasm were swept clean and the scent of Croon tea lingered in the air. She inched down the stairs. Each step fell away to the next directly below it. The smooth sandstone walls offered little to grasp on to. Her legs trembled, and sweat ran down her face by the time she reached the bottom.

She stood there a moment in the dark and played the torch over the room ahead. The light failed to brush anything but red sand walls and arches sloping farther down into the chasm. She licked her dry lips and swallowed, bracing herself to call out.

“Violynne,” the Coil’s voice whispered. “How nice of you to come.”

The last syllable echoed off the walls—com-om-om.

“It’s kind of you to speak to me,” Violynne said, straining to catch a glimpse of the Coil. She couldn’t see her anywhere. The hairs on the back of her neck rose, and a shiver rippled through her. She wished she knew where the Coil was. She didn’t like the idea of her lurking somewhere close by unseen.

“I hear Madelyn has been detained by the Arbiter. How unfortunate,” the Coil said.

“That’s why I’ve come. I need your help. I need to get Aunt Madelyn released. If you’ll help me, I promise we’ll leave Lindos,” Violynne offered. She figured it would please the Coil to hear that Madelyn-the-troublemaker would be gone. Not that she meant it. She had no intention of leaving without her parents.

The sand walls reverberated with the sibilant laughter of the Coil as she slithered into view. Without her outer skin, the Coil was a slimy coil resting on a tangle of gyrating tentacles. Her shovel-shaped head rode the crest of the tentacles and her amber eyes glistened in the near-darkness.

Violynne’s right knee turned to water, and the bones in her leg rattled against each other like dice in a cup.

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